Read Vigil Online

Authors: Z. A. Maxfield

Tags: #Fiction, #Gay, #MLR Press; ISBN 978-1-60820-172-3

Vigil

Vigil
The Hours Trilogy [2]
Z. A. Maxfield
MLR Press (2010)
Rating:
****
Tags:
Fiction, Gay, MLR Press; ISBN 978-1-60820-172-3

Donte won't be happy until his fragile human lover is immortal. Adin won't be happy until Donte accepts that immortality isn't for him. After a case of mistaken identity leads Adin to what appears to be the sale of an underage boy named Bran, Adin decides to rescue him and turn him over to the police. Soon it becomes clear that Bran is no ordinary boy. Unless Adin can find out who wants him and why, someone else's plan for Bran will get them both killed. Adin is confident -- but he's not stupid -- and it doesn't take him long to realize that he'll need Donte by his side every step of the way, if only to answer the one question he asks himself more and more: What else is out there? ( This is the Sequel To Notturno)

Vigil

Z.A. MAxfield

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press

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MlR PRess AuthoRs

Featuring a roll call of some of the best writers of gay erotica

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Kirby Crow

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Z.A. Maxfield

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Vigil

Z.A. MAxfield

mlr
press

www.mlrpress.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are

used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or

persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Z.A. Maxfield

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole

or in part in any form.

Published by

MLR Press, LLC

3052 Gaines Waterport Rd.

Albion, NY 14411

Visit ManLoveRomance Press, LLC on the Internet:

www.mlrpress.com

Cover Art by Deana Jamroz

Editing by Kris Jacen

ISBN# 978-1-60820-172-3

Issued 2010

To Carol P., Donte’s superfan, with love and gratitude,

and to Elisa Rolle and Antonella Piazza, for language

help when I needed it, thank you very, very much.

ChAPteR one

Clearly, it was time to kill Ned Harwiche III. Adin checked his

watches yet again and decided he’d waited long enough. Everyone

had their rituals, but Ned’s had to be the stupidest of all, and the

most macabre. As it would be getting dark before long, Adin

began the lengthy walk back to the street.

Adin had always loved Père-Lachaise cemetery. He’d spent

many a fond hour there getting drunk and emotional with his

friend Edward, who had always been prone to such things, when

they’d been silly and young and given to excess and guyliner. But

even though they bore the same first name, Ned Harwiche and

Edward Sheffield were two entirely different people.

Only Ned—in a bid to make what was probably a pretty

lackluster day in his boring life seem more exciting—would

have mysteriously requested that Adin meet him at
The Wall
at

Père-Lachaise to discuss a business proposition. Adin had come

willingly enough, even if the location was a little bizarre. He

doubted Harwiche chose it for either its personal or its historical

significance.

Adin had decided to twit Harwiche and his fastidious, button-

down, nelly ass that day by dressing, in what he liked to think

of as full vampire boyfriend mode, complete with leather pants,

a black silk T-shirt, enough jewelry, chains, and studs to open a

hardware store, and eye makeup. A dramatic long silk coat swept

the gravestones when the wind whipped it around his calves. A

paisley scarf lent the entire ensemble a touch of class. A sure sign

that Adin’s vampire lover Donte’s sartorial splendor was rubbing

off on him.

All in all, Ned Harwiche didn’t deserve the care he’d taken,

but Adin missed Donte—badly—and felt like making trouble.

Adin could swear one of the guards still remembered him from

when he was a kid. But maybe he’d looked at Adin with vague

distrust when he’d passed through the gates earlier that afternoon

2 Z.A. Maxfield

because of his clothes. The guards probably had their hands full

with kids who looked just like he did right then.

Ned Harwiche, however, would find it appalling and appealing

at the same time, and he’d spend their entire meeting at war with

himself. Since Adin and Ned were minor adversaries at book

auctions, Adin was ready for a little passive revenge. He still

wondered why Ned had asked to meet him. It looked like his

curiosity would go unsatisfied for the moment, because Harwiche,

even after all the annoying phone calls and rescheduling he’d

done, had failed to show up.

As Adin turned from saying a final good-bye to the wall, two

dour-looking men in business suits approached him.

“Will you please come with us Monsieur Harwiche?” one of

them asked politely in French.

Adin gave the man a disinterested smile in return and prepared

himself to say they had the wrong man. But before he could

open his mouth the man who had not spoken lifted his jacket,

showing off a gun in a shoulder holster, neatly clearing Adin’s

mind of all coherent thought.

“Let’s just say it’s not a request M. Harwiche.” You had to

hand it to the French
H aspiré
. Often one got
une grande
whiff

of whatever had been consumed for lunch. The man grabbed

him with a hand attached to an arm so rock solid that it could

probably lift him off the ground.

Adin frowned and refused to move. “I believe you’re making

a mistake.”

The man who spoke first, whose glasses covered a nervous

expression completely at odds with how well he wore his suit,

caught Adin’s arm in an unrelenting grip.

“Don’t make us shut you up in a painful way,” he murmured

in English. “Just come quietly.

“But—” Adin tried again, getting only the one word out

before the first man shoved him forward and the second head-

butted his forehead brutally.

Vigil
3

Together, the two suits dragged him to the car and pushed

him in, but not before he caught a glimpse of Ned Harwiche

crouched behind a tall memorial.

That prick.

On the car ride Adin kept his mouth shut and his ears open.

He was vaguely aware of heading toward the river and the area

known as the Marais. If he chanced a glance at the man who’d

gotten into the back with him, the armed man, he got nothing for

his trouble. The man stared passively ahead, virtually immobile,

and said nothing at all for the entire ride. The car came to a halt

on the narrow street in front of what had—by its sign—at one

time been a bakery in the historically protected neighborhood,

but now housed what seemed to be a curio shop. The driver got

out, and then opened the door on Adin’s side to pull him from

the car. The other man emerged behind Adin, unfolding his long

legs and taking his time.

“Wouldn’t it be better—?” Adin began but the man with the

gun shoved him roughly forward.

“What would be best is if we could all just go inside and do

what we came here to do.”

Adin complied. There didn’t seem to be anything for it but to

imagine just exactly what he was going to do to Ned Harwiche

when he caught up with the little weasel. They opened the door

into the shop, causing the jangling of wall-mounted brass bells.

An odd-looking man ushered the three of them inside. He closed

and locked the door behind them, pulling the blinds to the street

shut.

Since meeting Donte, Adin often found himself in surreal

situations, but this one was shaping up to be at the top of the

list. Everywhere he looked, shelves jammed with books and

trinkets lined the walls from the floor to the ceiling. The place

was an obstacle course of tables on which rocks and crystals sat

in haphazard jumbles. Behind the counter with its ancient cash

register, there were apothecary jars filled with various organic

things, twigs and leaves and balls of fluff he thought might be

the exploded remains of thistle or clumps of down feathers.

4 Z.A. Maxfield

There were things suspended in acrid-looking fluids he didn’t

care to speculate about.

The place looked to be the perfect hokey
magick
shop; one

he thought better suited to Los Angeles and its Buffy wannabes

than Paris. But if it had to be here it made sense for it to be in the

Marais. It stood only blocks from the Auberge Nicolas Flamel,

where the famed fourteenth century alchemist once lived and

supposedly turned lead into gold.

The odd man spoke. “I’m Thierry.” His accent was thick and

elegant. “You are a not an easy man to pin down, M. Harwiche. I

beg you not to insult our intelligence again. The item you asked

us to procure will be difficult to conceal for long, and I assume

you intend no further delays.”

Adin’s ears burned at the mention of something Harwiche

wanted to buy. Ned had given him fits by routinely bidding against

him for manuscripts Adin knew for a fact he had no interest

in. Harwiche collected erotica, certainly, and that had led them

to square off more than once over a particularly good piece.

Between Adin’s friends in the business, and the university’s faith

in him he’d more than once come out the victor. But this had the

effect of turning Harwiche into an even more determined and

implacable foe, and he rarely passed up the chance to drive up the

price of something Adin wanted—to spite him—whether it was

something he collected for his own pleasure or not.

Adin couldn’t begin to imagine how they could be confused

for each other. There were photos of both him and Harwiche

on the Web. A quick glance into the reflecting surface of a thick

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