Eternally

Five long months he’d spent in that miserable hellhole. He’d tracked the demon relentlessly—not an easy task since the damned thing had changed bodies too damned often. But Kieran had finally caught the vicious bastard. Just like he would this time.

Turning abruptly, Kieran started down Hollywood Boulevard. Even late at night, the sidewalks were crowded. Not so much with the tourists, who usually had enough sense to keep to their hotels, but with the local denizens who reclaimed the street every night.

Teenage runaways, caution in their eyes, grouping together for whatever protection they could find. Homeless men digging for food in trash cans, and the ever present hookers, masking their own fatigue with brittle smiles and halfhearted come-ons.

Here on the streets, no one expected anything from him. No one knew he was actually Kieran MacIntyre, wealthy man with a mysterious background. Here, he was simply known as “Mac.” A solitary man with a hard eye and little patience. Kieran blended into the background, becoming a part of those who wandered in the darkness. Women watched him as he passed and, mostly, other men steered a wide path around him.

“Hey, Mac.”

He stopped, looked to the right and nodded at Howie Jenkins. A Gulf War vet, he kept his Purple Heart proudly attached to a stained gray overcoat he wore religiously, winter and summer. His salt-and-pepper beard hung to his narrow chest, and his blue eyes were filmy with an alcoholic haze.

But despite what his life had come to, Howie still had a soldier’s soul. Making him an excellent fount of information from time to time.

“Howie. How is everything tonight?”

“You know,” the man said, keeping one fist tight on the shopping cart loaded with his worldly belongings. “Same ol’, same ol’.”

“Have you seen anyone new lately?”

Howie laughed, a raw, grating sound that rattled in his chest until he coughed hard enough to hack up a lung. When he finally caught his breath, twin flags of bright red shone on his sunken cheeks. “That’s a good one, Mac. Hell, there’s always somebody new around here. Don’t always last, but they always come.”

“True enough,” Kieran muttered, letting his narrowed gaze sweep the street again before shifting back to Howie. “This one would be different, though. He’d stick to the shadows. Watching women.”

There was no way to know what this demon would look like now. It could manifest in this dimension, but mostly, it chose to inhabit the body of a willing mortal. And God knew there were plenty of evil souls in L.A. for the demon to choose from. As in Whitechapel, the demon could slide from body to body, always changing its shape and appearance in an attempt to elude the Guardian assigned to track it.

One thing would not change, however—this demon’s lust for blood and its preference for killing women.

Howie laughed again until he wheezed. “Well, we all watch the women, man.”

“Not like him.”

Something quick and intelligent flashed in Howie’s rheumy eyes briefly. Lips tight, he asked, “He the one got that little girl early this morning?”

“That’s him.”

“We know what he looks like?”

“No.” Damn it. The demon could be anyone. It took on and cast off identities with every kill. That’s why there’d been so many different “eye witness” reports on Jack the Ripper. Some had seen an older man, tall. Others swore he was a short man of not more than thirty. Scotland Yard had discounted all of them. Only Kieran had known that every witness was telling the absolute truth.

Idly pushing and pulling his shopping cart, Howie turned a look on the street and frowned when one of the hookers draped herself over the opened window of an SUV. He nodded in her direction. “Girls like Heather there, ought to be warned.”

“You can try,” Kieran muttered, knowing that warnings were never taken seriously. Even those who should know better were always convinced that nothing would happen to them. Hell, he’d done his best to convince Julie Carpenter that she might be in danger and all he’d accomplished was making her scared of him.

Not that he gave a good damn, he assured himself.

Still, thoughts of her brought a buzz to his veins and an ache to his groin. In those few stolen moments, she’d gotten to him. A couple of kisses, a quick grope, and those big green eyes and she’d infiltrated his mind.

“Nah,” Howie was saying now as Heather climbed into the car with her latest customer. “They won’t listen.”

“Probably not.”

“You’re huntin’ this guy?”

“Yeah,” Kieran said softly. “I am.”

“Then you’ll get ’im.”

He would. But in Whitechapel, five women had had to die miserable deaths before Kieran had caught up to the demon. And if it hadn’t enjoyed itself so much with its last victim, Mary Kelly, giving Kieran enough time to track the scent of blood and fear…

“Keep your eyes open for me,” he said abruptly and reached into his pocket for the wad of bills he kept ready. Peeling off a fifty, he handed it over and watched it disappear in a wink into Howie’s coat pocket. “If you see something, contact me.”

“Always do, Mac,” the older man said, already starting down the street, looking for cans and bottles, “always do.”

Kieran watched him go, thinking briefly of all the old soldiers he’d known over the centuries. No matter their circumstance, there was always a core of steel to be counted on. And for this hunt, he would need all the steel he could find.

It felt the Guardian’s frustration. His anger. And it smiled.

A dark, gleeful joy rose up inside it and the demon held it close, savoring the rush of anticipation. The world had changed much in the last century. Though some things remained the same. It lifted its hands and idly studied them. This mortal it inhabited was young. Strong. The man’s soul had been as dark as any it had ever encountered and the demon smiled. It was always so easy to find a willing partner.

Swallowing the mortal’s will was simple enough. And so would learning anew how to become a part of humanity. Mortals had advanced much in the last century, but the hungers were still there. And it would feed on those hungers until the city itself wept for mercy.

The beast would slide into the shadows that reached out for the unwary. Become a part of that darkness. It would learn. And kill. And this time, it would not be stopped.

This time, it would defeat the Guardian sent to cage it once more.

Wondrous, to be matching wits with its enemy again. Satisfying to know it had already outmaneuvered MacIntyre. It had left the party earlier, just long enough to lead the Guardian away from the selected prey.

And while MacIntyre roamed the streets, the demon returned to the bright lights and the pulsing music.

To the woman who would die before sunrise.

Julie sat up all night.

Kieran MacIntyre, rich, gorgeous…crazy wouldn’t leave her mind. Thoughts of him kept stirring up feelings she really didn’t want to examine too closely even while her brain kept trying to warn her off. A gazillionaire recluse who came with his own sword?

Just didn’t make sense. A few months ago, she’d dug into MacIntyre’s life, learning as much about him as she could before beginning her efforts at gaining an interview with him. And nowhere in any of her research had anyone mentioned that the great man himself might just be a real wacko.

“You’d think that would have been worthy of at least a footnote or two,” she muttered, gaze darting around her room—every light she had was on and blazing, chasing off any hint of a shadow. “But apparently not.”

No mention of craziness. She frowned, remembering that in all her research there really hadn’t been much of anything mentioned. No one seemed to know much about the man who lived in a veritable fortress high in the Hollywood Hills. Oh, there was plenty of information about the charities he’d supported over the years. About the endowments he’d made to inner city foundations and women’s shelters.

But there’d been nothing on his background. Who he really was. Where he’d come from. He’d only been in L.A. for ten years, and yet, nowhere was there a note of where he’d been before coming to California.

Why?

Had all previous reporters been too afraid of him to dig too deeply?

Remembering the flash of something dangerous in his icy-blue eyes, Julie could understand that. But at the same time, she had to wonder how Kieran MacIntyre had managed to intimidate all the press. Frowning, she thought of the sword he kept at his side and realized that maybe it wasn’t all intimidation. Maybe he just dispensed with reporters who got too close or weren’t scared enough to back off.