Masters of the Night (2 page)

In which case, he would go to bed hungry in the morning.

Henri glanced down through the branches at the young man who had
finished cramming food into his mouth. Something about him disturbed the
vampyre’s
instincts. The large hands were tensing, the eyes
staring down hard at the cement table top as though he was dissecting every
grainy crevice.

Henri sat up straight. Her young fool was not dumb.

He was deadly.

Eight hundred years on earth had taught Henri how to sense and
recognize the spoiled wine in humanity.

He had brought her to this isolated park to kill her.

2.

Slipping
noiselessly from his branch, Henri began moving down through the tree swiftly,
a mamba through the jungle vines—

He stopped. In a pretense of anger, Barbell Muscle Maniac was stomping
away toward the heavier, thicker park foliage.

Where he could hide.
And wait.

The mystic was rubbing little wet tears from her cheeks.

She is probably wondering why she ever left California,
Henri thought.

“I could run and catch him, I suppose,” she murmured to herself. “Beg
him to take me back while I agree to be his little grease monkey.” She pursed
her lower lip and straightened her back. “I think not.”

But she slid despondently from the tabletop. The night had lost its
flavor.

Her shoe strap caught on the bench corner and broke. “What a lousy
week!” she said dejectedly as, taking off her shoes, she began walking barefoot
on the soft, cool grass down to the pond.

The park was nearly deserted now.
An occasional
jogger, a bicycle now and then, a couple of kids on skateboards.
A few
ducks calling it a day as they flew in low toward the pond.
Nothing
else.

Maybe she’s thinking a stroll along the water will lift her spirits,
Henri thought as a
touch of sympathy rippled through him. After trailing her for weeks he knew her
life was not easy. She was working at a dead end job. She was twenty-four and
by herself, and her life had taken a turn for the worse since she left her home
state to “make it on her own.”

First a flat tire. Not a blowout, just a weary, gradual collapse. Like
her life. Her car was sitting at her apartment useless until payday. And her
Internet prince had turned into a website frog.

A frog
who
was waiting to zap her like a fly.

The prescient mystic glanced uneasily at the path woven with deepening
shadows. An impending night was filled with foreboding, and she perceived its
dark smile.

She just didn’t know the danger was to
herself
.

Would Angie try to dismiss the electricity on her skin, Henri wondered,
deny the
Jekyl
night becoming a hellish Hyde, tell
herself it was just her nerves, she was just imagining things—too much TV, too
much eleven o-clock news, too many shows about paranormals? Was she wishing she
was safe at home—home with a safe, warm bed, late-night TV and a sandwich?
Would she deny her gift tonight and pay for it with her life?

She should be running, fleeing.

Still barefoot, she did quicken her steps somewhat as she left the
pond. But she was not hurrying excessively. She was remaining poised. She did
not want to appear the fool to a passerby, and have to admit she was terrified
when there appeared to be nothing, basically, to be terrified of. But her eyes
were wide. She knew something, somewhere, was frighteningly out of kilter, out
of sync. And frighteningly close. Her mystic synapses were firing.

A sensation began to grip Henri, one he did not expect.

He wanted to save her.

“Something wicked waits in the darkness,
Anjanette
Carter.”

Henri’s whisper of warning whipped along the paths and bolted toward
her ears like thunder on the wind.

Finally, her sad little form began to run barefoot across the park, her
sandal straps dangling from her fingertips.

Gasping, Henri doubled over as a heartbeat
spasmed
through him, gouging him like a needle.

He fought the unwanted human emotion.

I am a Royal. What should I care that she is about to die? I will kill
him too, drink every drop,
then
make the Disney
princess a minion princess.

The unpleasant sensation left.

She slowed her pace as she reached the walk, fumbling pitifully through
her handbag.

To see if she had money for a cab?

Pity eroded his veins again. Damn. He was going to save her life. He
could feel it. He was going to have Barbell Bobby’s double patty, sesame seed
blood for breakfast instead of the luscious sugar cookie he wanted.

“If I were that young man, I think I would have liked hockey,” Henri
said softly, gliding to her side.

Looking up to find the man from the museum no more than a foot from
her, Angie gasped and dropped her handbag.

The contents spilled across the sidewalk and into the grass.

Apologizing for startling her, Henri began helping her pick up
lipsticks, keys, wrinkled receipts, a few pennies. Then he moved closer to her.

She instinctively recoiled.

She was now clearly nervous and frightened. He could hear her heart
pounding like a hammer on an anvil.

“Do you sneak around the park often, eavesdropping on every couple you
see?” she spouted as she jammed things into her bag. She was trying to sound
angry, trying to sound—unafraid.

But she was trembling.

“I was walking my bird, Mademoiselle. And I am sorry, but I could not
help but overhear the—discourse? I apologize if I appear to have intruded on
your privacy.” He kept his voice gentle, and hoped the husky French accent he
usually used to entrap female victims would intrigue her, draw her toward his
voice and away from her trepid heart.

“Did you have your bird in the museum?” she asked, surprised, though
her breathing was fast, shallow.

He smiled. “She was leashed to a small tree outside. She is quite
tame.”

She closed her bag without checking to make sure she had everything.
She wanted to end the conversation, get away as quickly as possible. Beads of
perspiration formed on her forehead, her face, her neck.

His violent blue eyes followed the tiny beads of salty wet, mesmerized
by them as they trailed down her throat and disappeared into her low neckline
between her breasts.

If he had been able to breathe, he would have been breathing hard and
fast himself.

He handed her a lipstick, careful not to let their fingertips touch—if
they touched, he was certain she would feel the
vampyre
essence and flee like a frightened fawn.

He averted his gaze to his bird, pretended to adjust the leash.

A couple of bicyclists stopped near them to rest for moment and take a
drink from their water bottles. When they demonstrated an interest in the bird
preening its glistening black wings, Henri invited them to pet her. Angie
seemed to relax a little, even brighten.

Henri appraised the intruders. They looked to be in their late teens or
so. And were naïve to the difference within him that the mystic could sense so
acutely, but not identify.

Their young, strong hearts beat heavily from the invigorating ride, and
he could hear the blood pulsing through their veins.

He looked away quickly. Before the mystic could “see” the intense
excitement within him created by the scintillating closeness of full, young
veins. Or sense the empty heart exploding with want, and clawing at his chest,
demanding replenishment. His shriveled veins throbbed, expanding in painful
pulses, demanding he exchange life for life and end their misery.

Where the hell was Barbell Boy?

“Does it have a name?” the young girl asked amicably as she reached out
her hand to pet the bird.

Her pulsing wrist smelling of sweet perfume passed so close to Henri’s
lips that he almost swooned at the scent, almost bared his fangs.

The girl had a pleasing smile.
Innocent.

Would she be difficult to seduce into his world of darkness?
he
wondered.
As a minion, perhaps?

He shook himself inwardly, reminding himself it was the mystic he
wanted. He was resolved that one night soon, when she had warmed to
him,
he would taste power and pleasure he had only imagined
in his dead dreams. An ecstasy of power! And she would join him, relishing the dark
power of the Realm. They would celebrate with golden bowls of wine that he
would spill lusciously across her breasts while he urged her legs apart and
thrust his body against hers, over and over, delighting in her, and she in him.

And yet … He smiled delightfully at the girl.

“Her name is Eleanor,” Henri answered pleasantly. “And mine is Henri.
Spelled H-e-n-r-
i
, but
pronounced,
awn-REE. It is French.”

“Awn-REE.
Works for me,
Frenchie
,” the girl teased flirtatiously, laughing, seduced
by the moist eyes that briefly brushed hers.

Angie was watching him closely now. “You take your bird for walks
often?”

Her cherry-glossed smile, though cautious, was dazzling, and made him
ache to be human again. Shimmering, luscious, her lips wreaked havoc with his
desires. Not to mention the low neckline barely covering the “other” assets he
wanted to have and to hold.

“
Oui
, Mademoiselle. She enjoys the walks,” he
answered, averting his eyes to the bird.

“And it doesn’t offer to fly away?”

“But of course. That is why I have the leash.”

The bicyclists complimented him on the pretty black bird, then pedaled
away to resume their ride.

“Did your young man leave you without transportation, Mademoiselle?”
Henri asked carefully, in a concerned voice.

Her heartbeat quickened again in spite of his attempts to keep her
calm.

“I have a way home.”

He admired her honesty. She had avoided telling him a lie. One’s own
feet were, of course, an acceptable mode of transportation.

“If I may be so bold,” he said, “your dinner date was a fool to abandon
such a beautiful young woman.”

Unaffected by the flattery, she looked straight into his eyes to
admonish him, but faltered under his fiery blue gaze. “Have a nice walk with
your bird.”

She began walking rapidly away.

Refusing to acquiesce, he was instantly beside her again. “You should
not walk alone, Mademoiselle. The night is an uncertain traveling companion.
And not trustworthy.
The night, like the promise of romantic
love, can deceive and beguile.”

He walked her to a phone booth, and gave her money for the call and the
cab. Then he lingered until the taxi drove up.

The bird’s leash suddenly broke at the harness, and the bird, feeling
the loosened bindings and its new-found freedom, flew from Henri’s shoulders.

“Oh!” Angie cried
,
ducking into the cab as the
bird swooped close in its flight toward the low branches of a nearby tree.

“Take her straight home,” Henri commanded the driver as he closed her
door.

Then he turned, shaking his fist in the air and crying
,
“Nasty bird!” as a pair of disobedient wings could be seen
flitting down a side path. A string of French curses followed.

“Miscreant!
Impudent
bird!”

He began chasing after the night bird, not knowing Angie had climbed
from the taxi, bewildered, but wanting to help—

Without considering the consequences.