Amanda Ashley - [Children of the Night 02]

by Night's Touch

  mutilated bodies drained of blood.

  A chilling M.O. that puts ex–vampire hunter

  Reagan Delaney on the case,

  her gun clip packed with silver bullets,

  her instincts edgy.

  But the victims are both human and Undead,

  and the clues are as confusing as the

  vampire who may her best ally—she hopes…

  They called it You Bet Your Life Park, because that’s what you were doing if you lingered inside the park after sundown, betting your life that you’d get out again. It had been a nice quiet neighborhood once upon a time, and it still was, during the day. Modern, high-rise condos enclosed the park on three sides. Visitors to the city often remarked on the fact that most of the buildings didn’t have any windows. A large outdoor pool was located in the middle of the park. The local kids went swimming there in the summertime. There was also a pizza parlor, a video game arcade, and a couple of small stores that sold groceries, ice, and gas to those who had need of such things.

  Large signs were posted at regular intervals throughout the park warning visitors to vacate the premises well before sunset. Smart people paid attention to the signs. Dumb ones were rarely heard from again, because the condos and apartments that encompassed You Bet Your Life Park were a sanctuary for the Undead. A supernaturally charged force field surrounded the outer perimeter of the apartment complex and the park, thereby preventing the vampires from leaving the area and wandering through the city.

  Regan Delaney didn’t have any idea how the force field worked or what it was made of. All she knew was that it kept the vamps inside but had no negative effect on humans. It was against the law to destroy vampires these days, unless you found one outside the park, but the force field made that impossible. Any vampire who wished to leave the park and move to a protected area in another part of the country had to apply for a permit and be transported, by day, by a company equipped to handle that kind of thing. What Regan found the hardest to accept was that vampires were now considered an endangered species, like tigers, elephants, and marine turtles, and as such, they had to be protected from human predators. The very thought was ludicrous!

  It hadn’t always been so, of course. In her grandfather’s day, vampires had been looked upon as vermin, the scum of the earth. Bounties had been placed on them and they had been hunted ruthlessly. Many of the known vampires had been destroyed. Then, about five years ago, the bleeding hearts had started crying about how sad it was to kill all those poor misunderstood creatures of the night. After all, the bleeding hearts argued, even vampires had rights. Besides, they were also human beings and deserved to be treated with respect. To Regan’s astonishment, sympathy for the vampires had grown and vampires had been given immunity, of a sort, and put into protective custody in places like You Bet Your Life Park. And since the Undead could no longer hunt in the city, the law had decided to put the vampires to good use. For a brief period of time, criminals sentenced to death had been given to the vampires.

  The thought still made Regan cringe. Though she had no love for murderers, rapists, or child molesters, she couldn’t, in good conscience, condone throwing them to the vamps. She didn’t have to worry for long. In less than a year, the same bleeding-heart liberals who had felt sorry for the poor, misunderstood vampires began feeling sorry for the poor unfortunate criminals who had become their prey, and so a new law had been passed and criminals were again disposed of more humanely, by lethal injection.

  Unfortunately, the new law had left the Undead with no ready food supply. In order to appease their hunger and keep them from killing each other, blood banks had agreed to donate whole blood to the vampire community until synthetic plasma could be developed. In a few months, Locke Pharmaceuticals invented something called Synthetic Type O that was reported to taste and smell the same as the real thing. A variety of blood types soon followed, though Type O remained the most popular.

  Taking a deep breath, Regan shook off thoughts of the past and stared at the lifeless body sprawled at her feet. Apparently, one of the vampires had tired of surviving on Synthetic Type O. She felt a wave of pity for the dead man. In life, he had been a middle-aged man with sandy brown hair and a trim mustache. He might even have been handsome. Now his face was set in a rictus of horror. His heart, throat, and liver had been savagely ripped away, and there wasn’t enough blood left in his body to fill an eyedropper. The corpse had been found under a bush by a couple who had been leaving the Park just before sunset. From the looks of it, the victim had been killed the night before.

  “Hey, Reggie.”

  Regan looked away from the body and into the deep gray eyes of Sergeant Michael Flynn. Flynn was a good cop, honest, hardworking, and straightforward, a rarity in this day and age. He was a handsome man in his mid-thirties, with a shock of dark red hair and a dimple in his left cheek. She had gone out on a number of dates with Mike in the last few months. He was fun to be with and she enjoyed his company. She knew Mike was eager to take their relationship to the next level, but she wasn’t ready for that, not yet. She cared for him. She admired him. She loved him, but she wasn’t in love with him. It was because he was the best friend she had in the city that she didn’t want to complicate their friendship, or worse, jeopardize it, by going to bed with him. She had seen it happen all too often, a perfectly good friendship ruined when two people decided to sleep together.

  “So,” Flynn said, “definitely a vampire kill, right?”

  “Looks that way,” Regan agreed, but she wasn’t sure. She had seen vampire kills before. The complete lack of blood pointed to a vampire, but the fact that the victim’s heart, throat, and liver had been ripped out disturbed her. She had never known a vampire to take anything but blood from its prey.

  “So, you about through here?” Flynn asked.

  “What? Oh, sure.” She wasn’t a cop and she had no real authority on the scene, but in the past, whenever the department received a call about a suspected vampire killing, they had asked her to come out and take a look. She had been a vampire hunter in those days, and a darn good one, but that had been back in the good old days, before vampires became “protected” and put her out of a job. Fortunately, she had a tidy little inheritance from her grandfather, though it wouldn’t last much longer if she didn’t find another job soon.

  “I’ll call you next week,” Flynn said with a wink.

  Regan nodded, then moved away from the scene so the forensic boys could get to work. It gave her an edgy feeling, being in the park after the sun went down, though she supposed there were enough cops in the area to keep her reasonably safe from the monsters. At any rate, it felt good to be part of a criminal investigation again, good to feel needed. Still, she couldn’t help feeling guilty that she would be out of work in a heartbeat as soon as they caught the killer.

  She remembered the first time the department had requested her expertise. Even now, years later, the thought made her wince with embarrassment. After all the classes she had taken at the Police Academy, she had been convinced she was prepared for anything, but no amount of training could have prepared her for the reality of seeing that first fresh vampire kill. At the Academy, the bodies had been dummies and, while they had been realistic, they hadn’t come close to the real thing. Regan had turned away and covered her mouth, trying in vain to keep her dinner down. It had been Michael who had come to her aid, who had offered her a handkerchief and assured her that it happened to everyone sooner or later. They had been friends from that night forward.

  Now, she stood in the shadows, watching two men wearing masks and gloves slip the body into a black plastic bag for the trip to the morgue while the forensic team tagged and bagged possible evidence from the scene. Maybe they would get lucky downtown, but she didn’t think so. She had a hunch that whoever had perpetrated the crime knew exactly what he was doing and that whatever evidence he had left behind, if any, would be useless.

  Regan watched the ambulance pull away from the curb.
Once the body had been thoroughly examined, the medical examiner would take the necessary steps to ensure that the corpse didn’t rise as a new vampire tomorrow night. She didn’t envy him the job, but if there was one thing the city didn’t need, it was another vampire.

  Regan was jotting down a few notes when she felt a shiver run down her spine. Not the “gee, it’s cold outside” kind of shiver but the “you’d better be careful, there’s a monster close by” kind.

  Making a slow turn, she peered into the darkness as every instinct for self-preservation that she possessed screamed a warning.

  If he hadn’t moved, she never would have seen him.

  He emerged from the shadowy darkness on cat-silent feet. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “I mean you no harm.”

  His voice was like thick molasses covered in dark chocolate, so deep and sinfully rich, she could feel herself gaining weight just listening to him speak.

  “Right.” She slipped her hand into the pocket of her jacket, her fingers curling around the trigger of a snub-nosed pistol. She never left home without it. The gun was loaded with five silver bullets that had been dipped in holy water. The hammer rested on an empty chamber. “That’s why you’re sneaking up on me.”

  The corner of his sensual mouth lifted in a lazy half-smile. “If I wanted you dead, my lovely one, you would be dead.”

  Regan believed him. He spoke with the kind of calm assurance that left no room for doubt.

  DESIRE AFTER DARK

  Cursed to an eternity of darkness,

  Antonio Battista has wandered the earth,

  satisfying his hunger with countless women,

  letting none find a place in his heart.

  But Victoria Cavendish is different.

  “You wish something?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. Good night.”

  She started past him only to be stayed by the light touch of his hand on her shoulder. She could have walked on by. He wasn’t holding her, but she stopped, her heart rate accelerating when she looked up and met his gaze.

  Time slowed, could have ceased to exist for all she knew or cared. She was aware of nothing but the man standing beside her. His dark blue gaze melded with hers, igniting a flame that started deep within her and spread with all the rapidity of a wildfire fanned by a high wind.

  Heart pounding, she looked at him, and waited.

  He didn’t make her wait too long.

  He murmured to her softly in a language she didn’t understand, then swept her into his arms and kissed her, a long searing kiss that burned away the memory of every other man she had ever known, until she knew only him, saw only him. Wanted only him.

  He deepened the kiss, his tongue teasing her lips, sending flames along every nerve, igniting a need so primal, so volatile, she thought she might explode. She pressed her body to his, hating the layers of cloth that separated his flesh from hers. She had never reacted to a man’s kisses like this before, never felt such an overwhelming need to touch and be touched. A distant part of her mind questioned her ill-conceived desire for a man she hardly knew, but she paid no heed. Nothing mattered now but his arms holding her close, his mouth on hers.

  Battista groaned low in his throat. He had to stop this now, while he could, before his lust for blood overcame his desire for her sweet flesh. The two were closely interwoven, the one fueling the other. He knew he should let her go before it was too late, before his hunger overcame his good sense, before he succumbed to the need burning through him. He could scarcely remember the last time he had embraced a woman he had not regarded as prey. But this woman was more than mere sustenance. Her body fit his perfectly, her voice sang to his soul, her gaze warmed the cold dark places in his heart, shone like the sun in the depths of his hell-bound spirit.

  He felt his fangs lengthen, his body tense as the hunger surged through him, a relentless thirst that would not long be denied.

  Battista tore his mouth from hers. Turning his head away, he took several slow, deep breaths until he had regained control of the beast that dwelled within him.

  “Antonio?” Vicki asked breathlessly. “Is something wrong?”

  He took another deep breath before he replied, “No, my sweet.” Summoning every ounce of willpower he possessed, he put her away from him. “It has been a long night. You should get some sleep.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes filled with confusion. He expected her to sleep, now?

  He forced a smile. “Go to bed, my sweet one.”

  Vicki stared at him a moment; then, with a nod, she left the room. That was the second time he had kissed her and then backed away. Was there something wrong with the way she kissed? But no, he had been as caught up in the moment as she. She couldn’t have been mistaken about that.

  She closed the bedroom door behind her, then stood there, trying to sort out her feelings. She knew very little about Mr. Antonio Battista. She had no idea where he came from, who he was, if he had a family or friends, or what he did for a living. But one thing she did know: no other man had ever affected her the way he did, intrigued her the way he did, made her want him the way he did.

  Tomorrow morning, she thought. Tomorrow morning she would find out more about the mysterious Mr. Battista.

  NIGHT’S KISS

  The Dark Gift has brought Roshan DeLongpre

  a lifetime of bitter loneliness—

  until, by chance,

  he comes across a

  picture of Brenna Flanagan.

  After awhile, Brenna lost interest in the images she was watching. Instead, she found herself sliding glances at Roshan. He had a strong profile, rugged, and masculine.

  She wondered if he liked being a vampire. He had told her he had no vampire friends. It seemed unlikely that he would have mortal friends. Did he then spend all his time alone?

  She knew little of what that was like, could not imagine living without friends or family for hundreds of years. Such a lonely existence. She wondered why anyone would want to live like that.

  “Brenna?” His voice scattered her thoughts and she realized she had been staring at him. “Is something wrong?”

  “Everything,” she replied. “I do not belong in this time or this place.” She stroked the cat’s head. “I do not think I will ever belong.”

  “Sure you will. It might take a little while for you to get used to it, but you’re young. You’ll learn.”

  A single tear slid down her cheek and dripped onto the cat’s head.

  “Ah, Brenna.” Reaching for her, he drew her into his arms. At first, she held herself away from him but then, with a sigh, she collapsed against his chest. With a low hiss, Morgana slipped out from between them and curled up in front of the hearth.

  Brenna’s tears dampened his shirt. Her scent filled his nostrils, not the scent of her blood, but the scent of her skin, and her sorrow. He stroked her hair, ran his hand down her spine, felt her shiver in response to his touch.

  Placing one finger under her chin, he tilted her head back, his gaze meeting hers.

  Though a maiden innocent in the ways of men, her eyes revealed that she recognized the heat in his.

  She shook her head as he leaned toward her. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Kissing,” she said with a grimace. “I like it not.”

  “Indeed?” He cupped her head in his hands. “Perhaps I can change your mind,” he murmured, and claimed her lips with his own.

  Eyes wide open, Brenna braced her hands against his shoulders, prepared to push him away, but at the first touch of his mouth on hers, all thought of pushing him away fled her mind. His lips were cool yet heat flooded her being, arousing a fluttering in her stomach she had never felt before, making her press herself against him.

  Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms around his waist, wanting to hold him closer, tighter. She melted against him, hoping the kiss would never end, a distant part of her mind trying to determine why John Linder’s kiss had not filled her with liquid fire t
he way Roshan’s did. But it was only a vague thought, quickly gone, as Roshan deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping over her lower lip. She gasped at the thrill of pleasure that engulfed her, moaned softly as he repeated the gesture.

  She was breathless when he took his lips from her. Lost in a world of sensation, her head still reeling, she stared up at him.

  “More,” she whispered.

  “I thought you didn’t like kissing.”

  “I was never kissed like this.” Feeling suddenly bold, she slid her hand around his nape. “Kiss me again.”

  A WHISPER OF ETERNITY

  When artist Tracy Warner purchases

  the rambling seaside house

  built above Dominic St. John’s hidden lair,

  he recognizes in her spirit the woman he has

  loved countless times over the centuries.

  She wasn’t surprised when Dominic appeared in the doorway. He wore a long black cloak over a black shirt and black trousers. His feet were encased in soft black leather boots. Though she had refused to admit it, she had known, on some deep level of awareness, that this was his house.

  He inclined his head in her direction. “Good evening. I trust you found everything you needed.”

  “Yes.” Her fingers clenched around the brush. It was hard to speak past the lump of fear in her throat. “Thank you.” Though why she should thank him was beyond her. He had brought her here without her consent, after all.

  He took a step into the room.

  She took a step back.

  He lifted one brow. “Are you afraid of me now?

  “How did I get here? Why am I here?”

  “I brought you here because I wanted you here.”

  “Why didn’t I wake up?”

  “Because I did not wish you to.”

  The fear in her throat moved downward and congealed in her stomach. She started to ask another question, but before she could form the words, he was standing in front of her, only inches away. She gasped, startled. She hadn’t seen him move.