Reaper's Dark Kiss (6 page)

“Montana?”

“I don’t like leaving you here,” he said. “I don’t like men following you around. I don’t like you being out at night alone.”

From nowhere Sky was on the edge of tears. This was how the falling apart always started.

“Hey,” Julian said softly. He reached for her, caressed her face. “I’m coming back for you.” He tilted her chin up until their eyes met. “No serial-killer interviews while I’m gone.” It was the closest Julian ever came to a joke.

She managed a smile. “I’ll hold off till you get back.”

“I
have
to go. It’s part of the family business. I’d stay if I could.”

“I know.”

“I’ll call,” Julian told her. “Promise.”

In almost two months, Julian had never broken his word. “I know.”

He leaned over and kissed Sky’s cheek like a man from another age, a different time. It was more a sign of what it meant to be with Julian than anything else he could have done.

“When I get back, I’ll show you some new tunnels,” he said, and as if he could read her mind, he added, “and give you a real kiss.”

Looking right into Julian’s eyes, Sky asked, “Tunnel or back alley?”

“Both,” he said. “Maybe more than once.” And then with a slow smile that made warmth pool between Sky’s legs, he whispered, “Maybe naked.”

The night Julian left, the eighth body was found in the park.

Chapter Nine

In a brownstone on the edge of Washington Square Park, in a parlor decorated more than a century ago, stood the Fang Killer. Standing before his window, Vandar was barely shielded by UV glass from a world he could never enter.

The council imposed what mortals would call a fulfillment quota on how many vampires the Dominion could create in one revolution around the planet’s star. Each year’s crop was Kraeyl’s special undertaking. To delve into the histories of those he brought to Vandar as fledglings was a great source of pleasure to Kraeyl.

Vandar had created Margaret, the vampire behind him, sometime last year. This morning, Kraeyl had given him her history.

When taken from the mortal world at a mere twenty-two years of age, she had lived a sheltered and protected past. That she’d found her way to the Dominion at all was odd. When she was eighteen, a submission of her artwork had won her entry to a place called the Art Institute of New York. Then her father died of a sudden heart attack. She never entered the art school. She’d supported herself by working in places where mortals had themselves drawn on with ink markings.

“It won’t happen again, sir,” the vampire was saying, her voice a terrified murmur.

Vandar was tired. He was thirsty. He flexed his hands into fists powerful enough to pulverize stone.

The vampire swallowed loudly and went on. “I didn’t know.” There was a hitch in her voice. “I mean I did, but—”

He could bear no more. “Cease your prattling,” he said. The young were difficult to work with, but their unquestioning obedience was useful. He turned away from the window to face her. “You were found in Creed territory where I have expressly forbidden younglings to go.”

“I didn’t go armed, sir,” she said.

Of course she didn’t. At perhaps a little over a hundred pounds, she was hardly a warrior.

“You were hunting in Creed territory. Questions were asked.” But not nearly as many questions as were being asked about the latest drained corpse. “You are to hunt in Dominion territory. There are maps given to younglings. Make use of them.”

The girl, who was still more mortal than vampire, nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Seated in a black leather armchair, she shrank to one side when Vandar approached. Not daring to look up, the fledgling vampire said, “If you don’t kill me, I’ll—”

The rumors of Vandar’s harsh enforcement of his rules were exaggerated. He’d never killed a youngling for hunting outside Dominion territory. But her offer intrigued him. “You would what?” he asked, standing over her. It had been too long since he’d bedded a female. He couldn’t help noticing she was naked under her thin T-shirt. Her shockingly pink hair, cropped to fall just below her ears, showed her small round face to advantage. She wore black lipstick. He ran a delicate finger over her nipple piercings and watched her shiver. Her full lips trembled, whether with fear or desire, he didn’t know. Typically, he didn’t care.

“What do the younglings call you?”

“Maggie, sir,” she whispered.

Vandar crouched before Maggie, looking up at her, genuinely curious about what a vampire so low in the ranks could dream up. “And what do you have to offer me for not executing you?”

With a nervous glance between Vandar’s legs, Maggie said, “I’d be yours.”

He found himself amused by Maggie’s offer. Vandar had a reputation for being a brutal lover who took his pleasure from inflicting pain, but on most days it wasn’t true. She must have been truly desperate, an emotion he’d come to know too well these past few weeks. “You don’t think I could make you mine now?”

Defeated, Maggie said, “I know you can have anything you want, sir.”

If his life were that easy, Vandar wouldn’t be awake in the middle of the day, nor would he be taking out his frustration on a defenseless female barely two decades old. “You understand why we have laws about the hunting grounds?”

Sensing that she might not wake up burned to ashes after all, the girl said, “Yes, sir. The Creed doesn’t want us in their territory.”

Vandar said nothing. Maggie apparently took this to mean her answer fell short. “If younglings cause trouble,” she went on, “Lord Marek could take away hunting ground from the vampires.” That wasn’t precisely true, but it kept younglings safely inside Dominion lands.

Enough games. “I know your name now, Maggie. If my counselor speaks of you to me again, I will give you many reasons to regret it. Am I understood?”

She murmured a barely audible, “Won’t see me again, sir.”

Something about the way she said it gave Vandar pause. Was that disappointment in her voice? Mortal emotions were an unruly tangle that irritated him to madness. He rose to his full height, towering over the seated vampire. “Go,” he said, sending the girl away before his patience ran out entirely.

A look of hurt crossed Maggie’s face. She bolted from the chair and fled, barely stopping to open the door. After she left, Vandar returned to the window and stood utterly still, abandoning the charade of breathing.

Two days had stretched into more than two moons. Marek was using ancient scrolls buried so deeply in Shadow World law, they were nearly folklore. He didn’t know how long he stood like that before he turned to Kraeyl and said, “You promised two nights. More than eight weeks have passed.”

“Marek has gone before the council and spoken of the dead mortals surfacing in the park. He has called for a careful consideration of granting you the territory,” Kraeyl said, repeating what Vandar already knew. “That is his right as Lord of the Creed.”

Careful consideration
meant that each of the nine warriors on the council were asked to write their opinion on a scroll, defending their vote. It was up to Marek to read the scrolls, and if he chose, to further question individual council members. He could drag this on for months, and all the time the reaper would be on Vandar’s trail. Only luck had saved him thus far.

“Go to Marek,” Vandar said. “End this.” He was seething with rage. Utterly useless. He couldn’t very well rip out his counselor’s throat.

“We must go about this using the law,” Kraeyl said. “The female with red gold in her veins is being courted by a Shade in his haeze.”

Vandar conceded the point. Julian would give new meaning to
war and mayhem
if the female were wrongfully taken from him. “Who is leaving the bodies to be found?” Vandar had been asking the same question for weeks.

Time and again he had considered simply destroying the drained bodies, burning them, or dismembering them and tossing them into a sea. But the risk was too great. The penalty for such acts was slow death by starvation, locked within a sealed coffin. It could take decades to die. No eyewitness testimony was required. Mere suspicion was enough.

“The cause of the appearance of the bodies in the park remains unknown at this time,” Kraeyl said. His perfectly neutral tone told Vandar his counselor had tried every means—including torture—to find the traitor.

Vandar felt the hunger rising. The draining was too unpredictable for him to risk a hunt until near starvation drove him into the night. It had been nearly two weeks since he last fed. He could have had Kraeyl hunt with him as a preventive measure. But Vandar couldn’t bear for his counselor to witness him at his weakest, thus giving him the power to swear out a death scroll. Kraeyl’s loyalty was unquestioning, but he was subject to temptation.

“Go to Marek,” Vandar said. “Get the contract moved through the council. Promise havoc. Threaten murder. Make him smell the stench of his empire awash in blood.”

Chapter Ten

“It’s barely been two months. CJ’s acting like I’m shopping for a wedding dress.” Sky handed Alvina the box with the laughing jade Buddha she called Mr. Way Too Happy.

She’d been Sky’s first friend when she moved to New York all those years ago. Alvina was a practicing Buddhist who owned Awakened Heart, what CJ called a crystal ‘n’ bead store, in the Village.

Sky loved the peaceful feel of Awakened Heart. From inside, the hurrying world beyond the glass window seemed far away, ghostly. She’d come to see Alvina because when Sky was drowning in her storms of uncertainty, she could always count on her best friend to show her the smooth waters ahead.

In an ankle-length burgundy dress, Alvina looked vaguely like a nun whose order practiced secret sex rites on full moons. She settled the Buddha on a corner shelf. “Two months,” she said, “and from what you tell me, you’ve been on the phone with him almost every day. And not just quick five-minute hello-good-byes.”

Sky thought about Julian. “He doesn’t do anything quick,” she said.

“Am I old enough for this conversation?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Sky said, laughing.

Alvina pushed back her mop of frizzy black hair. She was tall and slender and had clear amber eyes that cut right to the heart of things. “What’s got CJ’s hackles up?”

Sky told the rest of the phone call with her brother.

“Really?” Alvina said, arranging a set of mala beads, Buddhist prayer beads, beside Mr. Happy. “You don’t know his last name?”

“Why are you and CJ so stuck on that?” Sky realized she was taking out her frustration on Alvina and made herself take a breath.

“Because he could call himself Smith or Jones or whatever—but he doesn’t. And CJ, a guy whose breakfast is probably classified, can’t find him.” Alvina turned around on the wooden step stool she’d used to reach the corner shelf and faced Sky. “You don’t think that’s a little this side of weird?”

“I’m not his kid sister anymore, Allie.” Sky felt her face growing hot. She hadn’t realized how much the whole text-before-bedtime thing had gotten under her skin. “Why doesn’t he just leave it alone?”

“Did you tell CJ where you met this Julian guy? Did you tell him you were in Central Park at two in the morning by yourself in the spot where a serial killer’s dropping off his empties?”

Sky stared down at her fidgeting fingers. “He doesn’t have to know everything.”

“That’s beyond reckless, Sky. I’m not saying CJ should threaten you like he did when you disappeared in Palm Beach, but maybe he’s got reason to be paranoid about you. Did you ever think about that?”

“Reckless? Nobody’s dying in the park. The killer’s just dumping the bodies there.” Alvina gave her a look as if Sky had missed something. “What?”

Adjusting the Buddha so he glowed in the soft lights, Alvina said, “When you get mad at your brother, remember something. CJ would do anything for you. You’re all the family he has. He can’t stand thinking he’d lose you too.”

“You’re always on his side,” Sky muttered.

“I’m not on anyone’s side.” Alvina stepped down, went up to Sky, and kissed her forehead. “I’m just telling you how he sees the world.” She pulled a set of fragrant sandalwood mala beads from a box. “For CJ there’s no I-don’t-know category. It’s either threat or not-threat.”

When Sky’s temper didn’t obliterate her common sense, she knew CJ did the best he could. The deaths of their parents had made him into who he was. But still. “Doesn’t mean he has to act like—”

A knock came at the door. Sky went to get it, paid the delivery guy, and set the pizza on the counter near the cash register.

Alvina laid out a faded Persian rug on the floor and turned over the Awakened sign in the window so it said ASLEEP. Sky doused the lights, lit candles, and thought about Julian. In the last couple months, she’d hardly thought of anything else when she wasn’t working.

When they talked, it felt like he was right beside her, not hundreds of miles away in Montana. He made her feel like everything was right with her world.

The really scary part, the part that made her damn herself for believing in fairy tales, was that in every word Julian said, even the smallest things, he sounded like he’d be there for Sky forever. She couldn’t put her finger on it. There was a feeling she got when she talked to him, like the way she’d feel when she looked up at the stars on a clear night. Even though they moved, they never left the heavens. They were up there for the long haul.
Not going anywhere, here to stay, here forever
, their sparkling lights said to her. Julian’s voice was like those twinkling stars—
here forever.

Sitting on the floor in candlelight, sharing pizza with green peppers, mushrooms, and black olives, Sky tried to tell Alvina all of this. But she felt like nothing she could say came close to telling her best friend how Julian made her feel.

After Sky stopped talking, they ate in silence, sipping red wine from chipped porcelain cups.

“Wow,” Alvina said in a voice soft with awe. “You’ve got it bad for this guy.”

“He’s different, Allie,” Sky said. “I don’t know. It’s like, when I’m with him, I don’t believe anything could go wrong ever again in my whole life.” She dropped her gaze to the rug, waiting for Alvina to tell her how stupid that was, and how that never happened, and what the hell was she thinking.