Nightwalker
Authors: Connie Hall
“Tempt you? I didn'tâ”
Her words were cut off by his kiss. His lips devoured hers and his forceful domination roused her. This wasn't like the tepid kisses from before. She was getting a taste of his unchecked desire.
Striker's fingers moved up and over her breasts to linger at her throat. He laid a finger on her jugular vein and left it there, feeling her heartbeat.
“You are too much of a temptation,” he whispered against her lips.
When she opened her eyes, she saw his fangs, extended and gleaming. The look in his eyes should have frightened her, sent her running from the hungry vampire who held her in his arms. But the only emotion she felt was all-encompassing passionâ¦.
Award-winning author Connie Hall is a full-time writer. Her writing credits include six historical novels and two novellas written under the pen name Constance Hall. She is thrilled to now be writing for Harlequin Nocturne.
An avid hiker, conservationist, bird-watcher, painter of watercolors and oil portraits, she dreams of one day trying her hand at skydiving.
She lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband, two sons and Keeper, a lovable Lab-mix who rules the house with her big brown eyes. For more information, visit her website or email her at [email protected].
CONNIE HALL
Dear Reader,
We all share fantasies of meeting one on a dark nightâam I right? But be carefulâyou may get what you wish for. And the vampire may not be the nice
True Blood
's Bill Compton type. You may meet up with the Nightwalker.
That's what happens to Takala Rainwater. And let me tell you, Striker Dark isn't named Nightwalker because he's a pleasant sort of undead. He was formed before Christianity. Envision the transformations he must have witnessed, the wars and destruction on which he fed. He could have whispered in Nostradamus's ear, chatted with Einstein, orchestrated civilization to suit his whims and his hunger for blood. Now imagine putting your life in the hands of such perpetual evilâ¦.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to tell you about Takala's sisters, Fala and Nina. You can read their stories in
The Guardian
and
The Beholder.
Happy reading!
Connie Hall
Buckingham Palace
T
he call came at a most inopportune moment. Striker Dark reached for his phone while keeping his gaze on the queen of England. She cut her eyes at him for a split second, and, without missing a beat, she continued to address the dignitaries with stiff royal aplomb.
After a quick look around, he astral projected out the banquet room's closest exit. He would take the call and get back before the humans present even realized he'd left his seat.
Two of the queen's MI10 agents, a vampire and a leopard shifter, noticed. They were the only Supes (supernaturals) in the room who could follow his departure. They eyed him with distaste. MI10 was a highly classified counterintelligence agency within Great Britain, the counterpart to Striker's own United
States Bureau of Supernatural Phenomena. They both dealt with anything supernatural and kept it hidden from humans, and duties sometimes included protecting royalty and government officials. Two of Striker's own agents were safeguarding the President of the United States right now. But MI10 agents thought themselves a cut above their Yank cousins, and for that reason Striker ignored them completely as he paused in the hallway.
His phone wasn't your typical landline. A crystal, developed especially for him by the tech-support staff at B.O.S.P., drove the gizmo. His clairvoyant powers absorbed the energy it released, and it amplified them. It was like having an omnipresent stalker exploding in his head. Even before he opened the lid he knew something was dreadfully wrong.
His gut flinched, and he couldn't believe the image appearing before his eyes. Hover demons floated and circled five of his agents.
Hover demons could be easily summoned; they killed for pleasure, unlike doom demons, who tortured their victims and demanded payment for their enjoyment. There were as many types of demons as there were types of angels. Angels and demons had their many uses, but Striker refused to summon hovers for anything. They were unpredictable, and in his line of work unpredictability was a detriment.
Black hooded robes covered the demons' bodies and faces, but the flamethrowers and scythes in their hands were clearly visible. His agents were near them, on their knees, execution style. Silver chains crisscrossed their vampire bodies and held them immobile. Striker knew every one of the agents by name. He had trained them
himself. They were the elite at B.O.S.P. How could this happen?
In the moonlit background, Striker noticed a wharf. Warehouse lights cast eerie shadows over their faded fronts. Boats rocked against the pier, and he saw the Suter's Marina sign. He knew that place. New Orleans.
A hover paused, the edge of his robe rippling as he lowered the blowtorch and fired. Aquarius, a two-hundred-year-old vamp and one of Striker's OIC's, screamed. A rictus of pain and helplessness distorted his face.
Abruptly, the scythe chopped down on his neck.
His head rolled like a ball and settled near his knees. One blink of recognition from his eyes, and then the life left Aquarius's face forever.
Another demon closed in on the next agent in line. Fizz! Chop! Fizz! Chop! Another shriek. Chop!
Striker wanted to feel sympathy or empathy, but there was nothing left inside to let him feel. He had lived too long on the earth, and it had killed his human sensitivity. It was as if the world had lost all its color and he observed it from an objective, sterile black-and-white environment now. Still, he couldn't look at his own agents, the ones whom he directed and had sent to their deaths, without feeling the injustice. A tiny snarl lifted one corner of his lip, and he felt his fangs extend.
Suddenly the phone's camera turned upward, and a female face he recognized spun into view. Real name: Skye Rainwater, aka Simone Poindexter, aka Lilly Smith. Code name: Culler. She stared back him. Her vibrant blue eyes filled up the screen, the dark, sooty
lashes caked with mascara. Eyes so deeply entrenched in his mind that he'd see them the rest of his life.
“Hello, Nightwalker,” she said. “Enjoying this little show?”
Striker heard another yell, and it cut the back of his neck like the teeth of a chain saw. “Culler,” Striker said. “What the hell are you doing? Help them!”
“I have. Can't you see that?”
So it was real. “How did you set up this bloodbath?”
“Just called Aquarius and told him Raithe was receiving a shipment of girls.”
Aquarius should have known better, followed protocol and called Striker. It wasn't the first time Aquarius had broken rank, only this time he'd paid dearlyâwith his life. “What has happened to you?”
“I'm tired of being out in the field, risking my life and doing your dirty work for the measly pennies you drop my way.”
“We invested half a million in your cover. That is a lot of pennies.” Striker's voice turned low, soft and quite deadly. He envisioned wrapping his hands around her neck and squeezingâ¦. “How could you betray B.O.S.P. like this?”
“I don't live and breathe the agency like you. I'm a free spirit. And who are we kidding? This is your vendetta, not B.O.S.P.'s. Raithe just helped me see I was on the wrong side.”
“I will find you.”
“You can try.” She cackled, her eyes gleaming bright blue with malice. Then the screen went blank.
Striker thought of headquarters, and Mimi's small
angular face appeared in the screen. Anyone looking at her reflection could tell she was a dwarf. What her looks didn't reveal was her penchant for voodoo. She looked bored until she noticed who it was. A grin spread across her face, and she batted her false eyelashes as she fluffed her curly blond hair. “Anything I can get you, boss?”
Striker knew she was referring to something other than work, but he always ignored her advances. And this was no different. He went directly to the point. “I need the dossier on Culler. Send it right away, and see what aliases you can find that are not in our files. And use the psychics. I do not want one stone unturned.”
“You got it, boss.”
“Any sightings of Raithe?” Striker had recently upped the bounty on Raithe in the paranormal community, but as of yet no one was brave enough to collect the three million dollars.
“No, sorry,” she said forlornly. She knew Raithe was on Striker's top-ten wanted list.
“All right, then. Waiting on the dossier.”
He closed the device and shoved it in his pocket. He would apologize later to the queen. He didn't have time for niceties or foreign diplomatic dinner parties. He had to find Culler.
She had been his only hope. What had happened to make her turn? They had been so close to catching Raithe. Striker's lip lifted in a tiny snarl as he thought of his nemesis. Raithe controlled much of the underbelly of the human and vampire races. He dealt in everything from drugs to prostitution to providing living victims for vampires to drain and kill. A real nice upstanding vampire was Raithe.
Striker had been hunting Raithe for hundreds of years, and not once had he been able to get this close to him. It had taken ten years of undercover work, but Culler had finally gained Raithe's trust. Striker didn't want to think about the evils Culler must have endured and participated in to prove her fealty to Raithe. Culler kept assuring Striker that she was okay and didn't need a psychological evaluation. She promised Striker she could locate Raithe's den, but she needed more time. Through the years, she'd given Striker several leads on child-pornography rings and snuff-film makers, mostly throughout Europe, even a bordello filled with werepanthers Raithe tortured for his own amusement, but not the one thing Striker wanted: Raithe.
Then Culler had turned on him and joined Raithe. At the thought of his nemesis, Striker felt his fangs jut out more and scrape his lower lip. He tasted his own blood and realized he and Raithe were more similar than he cared to admit. They were both ruthless in their own way, both unable to stop until the other was eradicated.
T
akala Rainwater stuffed the last bite of a ham and cheese croissant in her mouth as she saw the road sign for the Woodlawn Terrace subdivision. A cemetery name if she ever saw one. Right up there with Pleasant Green and Quiet Acres.
She made an uneasy face as she turned right, finished off a can of Pepsi, and drove her MINI Cooper down the road. The streets of Fredericksburg looked like any other quiet residential neighborhood in February. Neatly groomed houses lined the block. Rows of dormant flower gardens waited for winter to end and spring to begin. Evidence of a recent snow still painted the lawns in a sheen of white. The pockmarked bodies of melting snowmen waved to her from some of the yards. The only evidence of death here was the name of the road.
She grabbed the note lying beside her and looked at the address Blake had given her. Blake Green worked
for the FBI's Data and Statistics Department. A friend since high school. He gleaned information for Takala's private investigating agency, and in return Takala sprung for his dinner at a four-star restaurant once a month.
Blake had been searching for evidence of Takala's mother for four years, since joining the FBI. Blake was a bloodhound when it came to finding information, and Skye Rainwater had become one of his obsessions. Finally he'd got a hit this morning. He had flagged the name, and someone must have been researching it, because the flag popped up. He had followed the electronic trail and called Takala all excited, telling her that he'd discovered information in the State Department database on Skye Rainwater. She had two aliases, Simone Poindexter and Lilly Smith. He also gave Takala Lilly Smith's LKA (last known address) here in the States. Surprisingly, it was in Fredericksburg, Virginia, not seventy miles from the Patomani Indian reservation where Takala lived. He also added the usual caveat he did with all the leads he gave her: that the information might be bogus. In this case it could have been planted by the State Department to throw people off Skye's trail. But it was a lead.
Takala wondered how her mother was connected to the State Department, but that was still a mystery to her and Blake. She vowed to worship Blake for the rest of his life and buy his dinner every day for the next twenty years. Blake's ego had seemed worthily pandered to and satisfied, and they had left it at that.
Now Takala felt her heart pounding as she read the numbers. Forty-five was a couple of blocks away. This could be the moment for which she'd been waiting her
whole life. Finally, she might meet her mother. Face-to-face. Up close and personal. No room to run.
She had a lot of questions for her, and they were the kind you had to look a woman in the eye while she answered them, like how does a mother just drop three daughters on the doorstep of her mother's home and leave? Even though it was forbidden to speak of anyone who had been abjured from her tribe, Meikoda, Takala's grandmother, had felt Takala and her sisters wouldn't stop asking about their mother until they heard the explanation of why and how they came to live with her. After warning them that she could only tell them once, she had gone on to explain that Skye had left them because she'd refused to marry the man predestined to be her husbandâthat's how it was for Guardians. They married whomever the Maiden Bear chose for them. But Skye had refused, spit in the face of the creator of her tribe's white magic. Skye had abandoned her family, her preordained station as the Guardian, and her standing in the tribe to marry for love. It had ended badly, and her husband, Takala's father, had died prematurely of lung cancer.
Meikoda said his death was Skye's reprimand from Maiden Bear. And Skye wallowed in her grief, turning to drugs for solace, until she could no longer care for her own daughters. That excuse didn't mesh if Skye had gone to work for the State Department. No, Takala wanted the truth, to hear it from her mother's own lips. That was if she was still alive. This Lilly Smith could be a dead end.
But Takala couldn't dampen the hope stirring in her, or the dread. What if she found Skye, and it didn't go
well? What if she offered no explanation and resented Takala looking for her? Takala decided she'd cross that bridge when and if she ever reached it.
She rounded a corner and slowed. Number forty-five was a modest two-story with a white picket fence. Even a Christmas wreath still graced the door. Real homey. Fit right in the burb-style neighborhood. Maybe Lilly Smith had a family of her own.
At the thought, Takala grimaced and spotted the taxi sitting out front. Plumes of hot exhaust billowed from the muffler, condensing as soon as they hit the cold air. Someone was on their way out.
Takala slowed, about to pull over, when a woman appeared at the door, carrying a suitcase. Takala compared the woman's features to the old photo she'd found hidden in Meikoda's hope chest. Her grandmother had said she'd destroyed every picture of Skye when the tribe renounced her, but Takala knew Meikoda couldn't wipe out all the pictures of her only daughter. She had to have kept one, and Takala hadn't given up until she discovered it. Since finding it, she'd only looked at it a thousand times.
The woman on the porch appeared about fifty, tall, with short jet-black hair. She wore sleek brown slacks and a matching cashmere jacket. Her makeup looked flawless on her square face. Lilly Smith glanced nervously up at the taxi driver, and the classic Rainwater bright blue eyes beamed. Yep. Give or take twenty years and about two feet of long, thick braid, this woman was a dead ringer for the image in the photo.
Takala felt her chest swell and a lump form in her throat. Could this really be her mother? She was about
to pull over and discover the truth when all hell broke loose.
A woman popped out from behind a hedge in the next yard. The taxi driver leaped out of the car and ran toward the front steps. A black mist appeared, swirled; then the dark mass congealed into the tall form of a guy. Definitely not human travel arrangements. By his pale skin, he looked undead. A zombie maybe. But zombies weren't capable of doing the human-fog-Houdini thing.
Lilly Smith had already seen her pursuers and was leaping over the porch railing. When she spotted Houdini, real fear filled her face.
Houdini must have had the ability to teleport, because he disappeared. Takala couldn't track him until he reappeared at Lilly's back and grabbed her.
Takala jumped into the action. She laid on the horn and stomped on the gas. The car hopped the curb, heading directly for the struggling Lilly. The other two thugs were in her path, and she barreled straight for them.
Seconds before her bumper reached them, they leaped aside.
A fist came out of nowhere and slammed through the driver's side window.
Glass flew and rained down on Takala. A gust of wind picked up the photo and address and blew it out the busted window before Takala could catch it.
She cursed, whipped around and stared into the pink, lizardlike eyes of the person who'd broken her window. The creature looked female, but not all human. Her hair was whitish green, stubbly. A green, sticky
ooze covered lips that were so wide they looked like a distorted image in a funhouse mirror. She wore a black jumpsuit designed so that the sticky proboscis that jutted from her belly could pop out unencumbered. It looked like a third hand but with suction cups for fingers. She clung to the car by it, her supple body crouched there like a fly on flypaper. The creature smiled; then her long, grotesque tongue flicked out.
Takala's cheek stung as the creature's hands grabbed her neck.
Takala slammed on the brakes, gasping, “Back off, Freakzilla.”
The shifter's sticky fingers stretched like rubber bands, her sharp nails digging into Takala's neck. “Who you calling a freak?” The woman's long tongue flipped out and burned Takala's forehead this time.
Takala could take a lot of two-skins, but gecko shifters just plain grossed her out; so did the little talking green guy on the insurance commercials. But this one was real and had broken her car window and was trying to strangle her.
“Okay, I warned you,” Takala gasped past the pressure on her neck. Then she elbowed the shifter in the face.
The blow sent the freak rocketing from the car window. The gecko two-skin hit a cement birdbath with a loud high-pitched squeal.
If Takala had been a normal woman, she felt certain the gecko shifter's gluey body wouldn't have budged. But Takala had the strength of twenty men. Unfortunately, she hadn't been fast enough, and the shifter had raked her reptilian claws across Takala's neck.
“Oooh! Gross.” Takala grabbed the bottom of her
T-shirt and wiped the sticky green saliva from her burning cheek, then moved to the bloody claw marks on her neck. That's when she saw Lilly struggling with Houdini.
Abruptly, Lilly's body vibrated into a yellow throbbing orb. She spun out of his grasp and leaped straight through his body like a ghost. When she passed through and out on the other side, Houdini staggered and collapsed.
The atoms of Lilly's body expanded like a rubber balloon, stretching her features into a grotesque ball. Then she blew a cloud of black mist from her mouth, and her body shrunk to normal size again. The dark energy funneled into a small tornado above her head. Then it headed back for Houdini's body.
Takala had overheard forbidden whispered snippets of conversation among her aunts and her grandmother where they had spoken about her mother's power. Skye was a spirit eater, capable of draining the energy from supernatural beings and temporarily paralyzing them. Takala's tribe, the Patomani Indians, had a name for the power:
egtonha.
The power would have been invaluable to an agent. Was this truly her mother?
Takala floored the accelerator, crashed over a pretty picket fence, and skidded to a stop near Lilly, barely missing the downed Houdini. She motioned for Lilly to hop in.
The energy reentered Houdini, and he staggered to his feet. In seconds, he'd gain his full power back.
Lilly seemed to realize this, her gaze shifting between the two Supes coming for her, Houdini, and Takala. Then she leaped inside Takala's carâthe least of the three evils.
Takala heard Houdini's icy warning. “You're helping a killer. You'll regretâ”
Lilly slammed the door, cutting off his words. She looked over at Takala and yelled, “Drive.”
Takala floored it, taking out the other side of the fence and a flower bed. They hopped the curve and sped down the street.
Lilly said, “He set me up and wants me dead. Do you?”
“Nope. I'm riding the white horse at the moment.” Honestly, she didn't know whom to trust. Houdini or the woman sitting beside her. Was Lilly a killer as he'd said?
“Thanks.” Lilly straightened the lapels of her cashmere jacket in a fussy manner. “Such a mess, isn't it?”
Takala smelled the acrid scent of sulfur and magic on Lilly Smith as she said, “That's an under statement.”
Â
Striker felt the power forging a path through his body. He writhed and shook, knowing how it felt to be burned at the stake. He rarely if ever found himself vulnerable, but this was one of those moments. If it had been night, he would have been too strong for Culler to absorb his power. But it was morning, and the sun had drained some of his strength. Not even the tech-support guys at B.O.S.P. could come up with a solution to block that phenomenon. But he still had half of his powers. Culler and her friend would not get away. Not if he could help it.
When he could speak and move again, he rose and sniffed the air. He scented blood, human blood. The
predatory side of him could detect the scent of blood from miles away. Not your typical brand, either. This was an enticing smell, different. Too aromatic and potent. The newcomer's blood. He felt his bloodlust stirringâa craving he was certain he had mastered, until a second ago. He felt his world shifting a little out of kilter, and he clenched his jaw in irritation.
He barked at the two B.O.S.P. agents, “Bring in the cleaners, then dispose of this mess.” He motioned to the broken fence pickets and tire tracks running through the yards and the next-door neighbors peeking out the window. Cleaners erased the memories of humans and put the world back together in their ordered little universe. There were many types of cleaners in the supernatural world. Those who utilized dark magic caused adverse effects like strokes and Alzheimer's. B.O.S.P. employed cleaners who were trained to use crystal erasers, the only safe type, that actually altered the atomic particles that made up human memory. “And find out who that woman helping her is,” he added, narrowing his eyes at the street they had disappeared down.
Tongue looked over at Vaughn, a new recruit. He was so new, no one but Striker knew his code name. “You get the license?” she asked.
Vaughn looked lost and shrugged.
Tongue rolled her lizard eyes. “That's a fallen angel for you.”
“D-e-t-e-c-t 1,” Striker said, his tone turning soft and menacing, a sure sign he was losing patience with incompetence. His gaze raked both the agents, and that was enough of a reprimand.
They instantly snapped to attention.
Striker looked at them, but his mind was on the license plate, clear in his memory as the image of the driver. Long wavy ginger hair with streaks of golden blond running through it. One green eye and one blue. Dangly hoop earrings. Too much eye makeup and lipstick. Arrogant saucy expression. Didn't seem to show an ounce of fear. Something about her seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't place her. One thing was certain: if she got in his way again, she'd become a casualty. Striker smelled the enticing aroma of her blood emanating from Tongue's fingernails, and he clenched his fists.
“She ain't all human, boss,” Tongue said, licking the green sheen off her plump lips as if tasting the woman.
“Thank you for pointing out the obvious.” Striker found himself unpleasantly annoyed that Tongue could taste the woman. “Find out who she is and if she's working for Raithe, while I track them.” He turned, and his body morphed into a sheet of black mist. When his essence disappeared, a loud clap of thunder followed.