Out of the Night

by Robin T. Popp

  Sharp, clawlike nails raked across Dirk’s hand, and he winced at the pain. It hurt like a son of a bitch, and he felt his anger rise but didn’t loosen his grip. Instead, he let his lips curl back in a snarl.

  For a moment, the creature’s eyes widened in surprise as it looked at him, then renewed its struggles. Dirk hesitated to do what had to be done, hoping to get some useful bit of information while there was a modicum of coherent thought left in his captive. “Where are Harris and Patterson? Where is the lair?”

  “Go to hell,” it spit back.

  “Right.” Dirk pulled a small dagger from its sheath beneath his duster and drove it into the vampire’s heart. “Save me a seat.”

  Bethany anxiously glanced up and, seeing the familiar shape of the Van Horne Technologies Building ahead, breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t a large building, only four stories in height, but it was home—more so than her apartment, lately. She’d worked there as a research biochemist for almost five years and enjoyed what she did. There was an inherent order to doing research that appealed to her. She liked her life neat, organized and, most important, uneventful.

  She reached the door of the building and swiped her ID tag. The doors immediately opened and she crossed the lobby to the security desk, her footsteps ringing loudly in the silence. Bethany found it curious that the guard was not at his post, but assumed he was making his rounds. She signed the after-hours register, noticing her assistant’s signature on the line above, and couldn’t help worrying what havoc Stuart was wreaking in her absence. The thought sent her hurrying for the elevators.

  Stepping inside, she pushed the button to the fourth floor and as the elevator began its ascent, she thought about her latest project. It had her baffled, but she was determined to rise to the challenge, even if it meant running a battery of timed tests that dragged her into the lab at all hours of the night.

  She’d questioned Miles Van Horne about who had commissioned the project to analyze the plant extract, but he’d remained stubbornly closemouthed. It wasn’t that she expected the CEO to divulge that information to just anyone, but she was not only the researcher in charge of the project, she was his . . . fiancée.

  The word rolled around awkwardly in her mind, and she tried to view the very recent change in their status from a strictly analytical perspective. She had been dating Miles for almost a year now, and although she’d considered it unwise to date the boss, he had been charmingly persistent.

  Miles was quite a bit older than she, and their physical relationship was more PG-13 than R, but that seemed to suit them both. They never mixed business with their personal lives, and she thought it unlikely that she’d find anyone else as supportive of her research and the crazy work schedule she kept. Add to the equation Miles’s wealth and status, and the end result was that she could do a whole lot worse.

  She’d made the right decision in accepting his proposal, she told herself, running her thumb over the band of the two-carat, emerald-cut diamond solitaire perched on her ring finger. All in all, theirs was the perfect relationship. So when he’d suggested they get married, why had she hesitated?

  A soft voice whispered the answer in the back of her head, and she silently scoffed at herself. Love? Please. She was far too realistic to believe in that fairy tale. A score of disastrous relationships before Miles flickered through her mind. No, this was a good practical match.

  As the elevator stopped on the fourth floor, Bethany forced herself to mentally switch gears and glanced at her watch. Damn. She was running late, and knowing Stuart, he’d started without her. She wondered, not for the first time, if she should talk to Miles about the man. Maybe if Miles understood just how incompetent Stuart was, he’d . . . he’d what? Fire Stuart? Bethany sighed. She didn’t want to be responsible for someone losing their job.

  Resigned to working with the man for now, she opened the door to her office and saw the light on in the lab beyond—Stuart hard at work, no doubt. Yeah, that was a laugh. Please don’t let him have started the next phase of the experiment, she silently prayed.

  She stashed her purse in her desk drawer, grabbed her lab coat off the nearby rack and, shrugging into it, hurried through the connecting doorway.

  “Stuart—?” She came to an abrupt halt and felt her heart lurch. Her lab resembled the aftermath of a tornado.

  Beakers lay shattered about the room; reagents ran across countertops and dripped on the floor where puddles already formed. Stands that had held flasks and tubing in place now lay strewn about in broken pieces. Everything was ruined—all of her hard work, flushed down the proverbial toilet.

  And Stuart was conspicuously absent.

  She felt anger burning inside and fought to control it. Had he done this? There was no question that the man hated her. He’d practically accused her of sleeping her way to the department manager position. Maybe this destruction was yet another childish act of professional jealousy. Well, this time, he’d gone too far.

  Hurrying back into her office, she grabbed the phone and called the front desk. There was no answer and she hung up, her irritation growing to include the absent guard as she next punched in Miles’s cell number. He picked up on the second ring, but she didn’t give him time to say a word, launching immediately into her tirade.

  “Everything is ruined, absolutely ruined. I’m going to have to start all over again. I can’t believe he’d do such a thing—”

  “Who?”

  “Stuart! He destroyed everything. All of my work on this project is now strewn across the floor. I still have my notes, of course, but really! Is this his idea of working together? How could he—?”

  “Bethany!” Miles’s raised voice stemmed the flow of angry words. “Slow down and tell me what’s going on. Are you all right?”

  She took a deep breath, trying to bring herself under control and then, speaking more slowly, told him what she’d found.

  “Okay,” he said when she finished. “I’m on my way. Don’t touch anything. I’ll be there shortly, and then we’ll decide if we need to call the authorities or not. If Stuart is responsible, I’ll deal with him. Just in case he’s still around, though, I’d feel better if you called Frank to come wait with you.”

  She felt another stab of annoyance at the mention of the missing guard. “I tried. He’s not at his desk.”

  “He’s probably making his rounds. Go down to the lobby and see if he’s back, but first call me back on your cell phone. I want to be in touch with you the entire time.”

  Bethany hung up, grabbed her cell phone from her purse, and headed for the elevator. She knew the phone wouldn’t work once the doors closed, so she waited until after she reached the ground floor to place the call. Though she’d grown accustomed to the silence of the office after hours, now the quiet took on an ominous quality.

  “Okay, I’m downstairs,” she told Miles when he answered. She crossed to the front desk and looked around. “Frank’s still not here. Let me check the monitors to see if I can find out where he is.”

  She walked behind the desk and sat in the chair, studying the images from the various security cameras throughout the building. “No, I don’t—wait, I think I see something.” She studied the controls, finding the ones that would change the angle and zoom of the lens. Adjusting the camera’s view, she took a closer look. “Oh, God.”

  “Bethany, what is it?”

  “I found Frank.”

  “Good. Tell him to get his ass back to the desk where it belongs.”

  “I can’t. He’s dead.”

  Dirk hauled the body of the dead vampire from the back of his SUV and slung it over his shoulder. He didn’t have to carry it far, only about ten yards to the “dump” pile. He threw it on top of the bodies already there and then studied the sight. Six vampire-corpses—and he’d been responsible for bringing in four of them. The numbers bothered him because he knew that tomorrow, there’d be more. It almost seemed like lately, Harris and Patterson, the two Primes, had been engaging
in some orgiastic feed-fest.

  Dirk gritted his teeth and searched the pockets of the latest victim, looking for some form of ID to hand over to Detective Boehler. Their ally in the police force was getting good at making up stories to cover the inexplicable deaths that seemed to be growing in number.

  Dirk’s hand closed around the vampire’s wallet and pulled it out. In with the credit cards and driver’s license was a photo of the man beside an attractive young woman and a little girl. Closing the wallet, he shoved it into the pocket of his duster and glanced toward the back of the mansion he called home. The admiral would need to know so that another anonymous donation could be made to a grieving family.

  With one final task remaining, Dirk returned to the SUV and retrieved the rolled blanket in the backseat. He took it out, holding it carefully, and placed his hand against one end. There was a brief hum of energy and then a warm pommel hit the palm of his hand. He wrapped his fingers around it, and pulled the long, gleaming sword from the scabbard inside the blanket. He placed the blanket and scabbard back in the car and held the sword up, admiring how the blade glinted in the moonlight. It was the Death Rider sword, used to slay vampires, and only a changeling—half vampire, half human—could wield it and command its full power. There were only two changelings in the entire D.C. area, hell, in the entire United States. Dirk was one of them. As he held it, the pommel grew warm in his hand and the ruby eyes of the vampire’s head, etched in the side gleamed a bright red.

  He went to stand before the pile of bodies and not for the first time, wondered what would happen if he pulled the dagger out of a vampire’s heart. Would the body rise again? His cell phone picked that moment to start buzzing, and he glanced at the caller ID before answering it. “Yes, Admiral?”

  “John Boehler called. There’s been another killing. He thought we’d want to take a look. I saw you drive by the house—are you almost done?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be right there.” Dirk put away the phone and stared at the sight before him. Tomorrow, the sun would turn the pile of corpses into a stone mass that the first stiff wind would then reduce to dust. Only one last task to perform.

  Raising the sword high, he brought it down in one swift, smooth stroke. There was no blood as the head hit the ground with the muted thud that Dirk had grown accustomed to. With a grim countenance, he tossed the head back on the pile and cleaned the blade of his sword on the dead man’s clothes.

  There were moments when he liked being a Death Rider—this was not one of them.

  Elsewhere in the city, Kent Patterson wiped the blood from his mouth as his meal slumped to the ground, already forgotten. Patterson had fed until he could consume no more, yet the hunger would not abate. It clawed at him until anger and irritation rode him relentlessly. He considered tasting one of the other humans chained to the wall, their fear a cloying scent in the otherwise rancid atmosphere of his lair, but a sound from the outer chamber distracted him.

  His converts had returned and Patterson was eager for the prize they’d brought him. Patterson, ever resourceful, had a plan—one that included personal wealth and power. The success of his plan, however, depended on the biochemist they’d kidnapped for him, and with whose help—given willingly or coerced—Patterson would become a major player in the lucrative underground world of drug trafficking.

  Immortality did not come cheap, but it could be bought.

  Now that he had all the time in the world, Patterson intended to enjoy every minute of it.

  He stepped through the door and gazed upon the frightened young man in a white lab coat, held suspended by his arms between the two underlings. Patterson suspected they retained their grip on the young man more to support him than to keep him from bolting. The irony here was that it was not the young man who should be the most frightened.

  “What the hell is this?” Patterson bellowed, causing the two lesser vampires to stumble back.

  “It . . . it’s the biochemist you wanted,” the braver of the two responded.

  “No,” Patterson said, his voice sounding deceptively calm. “This is not the biochemist I wanted. This biochemist is a man.” He raised an eyebrow as he looked first at one underling and then the other, as if daring them to refute the obvious truth. “Where is the woman?” If it were possible for the two vampires to grow paler, they did.

  “We went to the lab as instructed, but he was the only one there.”

  “Then. You. Failed.” Patterson spit out the words, making sure the disciples fully appreciated the extent of his displeasure. Their hold on the prisoner grew tentative, as if they would leave him there and return immediately to the lab. Imbeciles. “You can’t go back now. Your incompetence has put me in a difficult situation. I’ll have to find another way to get what I want.” He turned to go back into his chamber.

  “What do we do with this one?”

  Without turning, Patterson waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I don’t care. Drain him if you like.”

  “Wait!”

  Patterson stopped and looked back at the young man who was either braver, or more foolish, than Patterson had expected. “You wish to say something?”

  The young man swallowed visibly and took a deep breath. “You want Bethany Stavinoski, right? I can help you get her.”

  THE EDITOR’S DIARY

  Dear Reader,

  Whether it's a deliciously naughty rogue or a creature that only comes out at night, a little danger never hurt anyone. So jump right into our two Warner Forever titles this September and feel your heart race.

  Once a rake, always a rake, according to Miss Meredith Merriweather in A LADY’S GUIDE TO RAKES by Kathryn Caskie. That’s precisely why Meredith is engaged to a very nice but dull man. But to save other women from heartbreak, she’s devised a plan to tempt the most notorious reformed rake in all of London, the devilishly handsome Alexander Lamont, by using herself as bait. Her goal: to teach him a lesson and document her findings. But when they are caught in a rather scandalous situation in a very public park, Meredith’s plan backfires and Alexander’s father demands that Alexander marry her. So this reformed rake must come out of retirement and seduce the lovely temptress with every roguish trick he knows. But can he win her heart? New York Times bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries raves “this delightful confection will charm and beguile you—don’t miss it!” so grab yourself a copy today.

  I’d like to introduce an irresistible new voice to Warner Forever, Robin T. Popp. In her exhilarating novel OUT OF THE NIGHT, the author offers a twist on the paranormal with a combination of vampires, changelings, and an action-adventure romance. Feisty heroine Lanie Weber isn’t afraid of danger. As a volunteer fire fighter, she knows she can survive anything and come out on top. So when her father suddenly goes missing, she flies to the heart of the Amazon jungle to find him. But nothing can prepare her for what’s to come. Strong and sexy Mac Knight has agreed to help Lanie find her scientist father. But when they arrive at the research lab, Mac and Lanie find five dead bodies and a bloodsucking creature only believed to live in legends. When the creature attacks Mac, leaving bite marks on his neck, Lanie fights to keep him alive. Though he’s exhibiting more vampire characteristics as time passes, Lanie can’t disguise her own hunger for him. But can she save both Mac and her father before it’s too late?

  To find out more about Warner Forever, these titles and the authors, visit us at www.warnerforever.com.

  With warmest wishes,

  Karen Kosztolnyik, Senior Editor

  P.S. Fate takes a hand in these two irresistible novels: Wendy Markham delivers the touching and charming story of the quintessential bachelor who avoids marriage at any cost and the beautiful bride-to-be who’s out of time—and a groom—in BRIDE NEEDS GROOM; plus Diane Perkins tells the heart wrenching story of woman who’s duty-bound to the gravely ill man who saved her from an undesirable marriage then abandoned her in THE MARRIAGE BARGAIN.

  t of the Night