Beautiful Danger

Domingos held in the yowl clawing inside his throat until he dashed across the threshold to his home and plunged against the wall. Alone in the cool, quiet darkness of his sanctuary, he released the scream that had been building.

His fingers clawed into the wall painted a calming slate-gray. He banged his forehead against it to redirect the icy pain. He smelled burned flesh. The sun had flashed across his bare back, searing the already scarred tissue. He could see whiffs of smoke from over his shoulder, and he beat a fist against the wall, which had begun to crack, the thick layers of paint flaking off.

Tugging off the goggles he tossed them aside and then dropped to his knees. Rocking forward, he assumed the all-too-familiar rhythm, back and forth, arms clasped across his chest, to distract his mind from the pain.

He’d given his only protection to the hunter. “Lark,” he whispered.

The sacrifice had been worth it.

Chapter 4

Lark picked through the remnants of her life in the living room. The smell of rank wolf seemed to linger on everything. Actually, it wasn’t so much a smell as a feeling. They’d touched her things, violated her sanctity. In the bedroom, she fit the back door into the frame as best she could. Under her bed, she located the violin she’d owned since she was thirteen, still in its case, safe.

The plan was to take away only what was important and leave as quickly as possible. She couldn’t trust the wolves wouldn’t return. And this place was no longer livable. It needed to be physically cleaned and warded.

Gathering her valuables was easy. She pulled a manila envelope from the safe at the bottom of the linen closet. Inside were bank numbers and some credit cards and stock certificates. She should have put them in a security box at the bank, but she didn’t trust banks.

The violin was too large to carry around with any stealth, so she had to trust leaving it behind and, again, tucked it under the bed. Everything else was expendable. Save the picture in her bureau drawer. She retrieved the folded photograph and tucked it in the envelope without looking at it. She remembered his face. But the face she remembered was much different from that on the glossy photo paper. The image in her memory had hardened and grown thinner, desperate.

“Stolen,” she whispered as she tucked the envelope into a backpack. A soul stolen in a slow and methodical way that tortured her to consider what he must have endured.

The vampire LaRoque was living, breathing evidence of such torture. She hated looking at him. And at the same time she couldn’t turn away from Domingos’s crazy gyrations and manic actions. That bedraggled soul needed some tender attention.

In a way, coming en garde with the vampire might prove her penance. She deserved to pay for the suffering she had not been able to stop. And what better way than to stand up to it and face it in all its horrid and terrifying glory?

Changing into a pair of leather pants, gray T-shirt, the Kevlar vest and her cleric’s coat, she then gathered her weapons. Half a dozen stakes, some blades, brass knuckles and a retractable garrote that hooked at her belt. A vial of holy water also fit in a loop on her belt.

Pausing in the kitchen, she picked up the black shirt Domingos had given her and, without thinking, pressed it to her nose. Smoke was the only scent she could get off it, and yet the soft fabric tempted her to hold it pressed against her cheek longer than any sane woman should.

How many times had she done the same with one of Todd’s shirts after he’d been away a few nights on a job? Her husband’s leather-and-pepper scent had always made her smile.

The vampire didn’t have a scent, beyond smoke, and that disturbed her only because she wanted him to have a telltale odor. Something to remind her…

Lark shoved the shirt away from her face and dropped it as if it were suddenly on fire.

“Don’t think like that. You are not attracted to a vampire.”

Even one who would offer the shirt off his back with the sun glinting on the horizon?

“Even so,” she chided her thoughts.

Grabbing the gear she’d stuffed into a black nylon backpack, she locked her front door because it felt right—even though the back door was off its hinges—and shuffled down to street level. She dialed Rook as she hailed a cab and slid into the backseat, telling the driver to “Drive until I know where I’m going.”

The phone clicked and a gruff French voice answered. The second-in-command to the Order’s leader went only by the single moniker, which Lark suspected was a code name and not his real one.

“Rook, I need a safe house for a few days.”

“You are having trouble with the assignment?” he asked in thick French. He never used English, though she knew he spoke it. He looked down on Americans, of which, she was an expatriate.

“No, I stumbled onto some werewolves last night. Pissed them off. To thank me, they trashed my place.”

“I’ll send a cleaning crew and ward master immediately.”

“Thanks.” The ward master would provide the plastic seal, so to speak, over her newly cleaned apartment. Should make it safe to return without fear of intruders.

“Were they Levallois?”

“I don’t think so.” She hadn’t a physical ID on the entire pack, but noted that Domingos had not killed any of them, which led her to believe they had not been his target wolves. “So the safe house?”

“I can manage one for a couple days, which is all you’ll need. It’s located in the fifth arrondissement, tucked along the Jardin des Plantes. But tell me your progress with Domingos LaRoque. He has been eliminated? You haven’t reported in, which is very unlike you. Are you sure you’re not having trouble with this one?”

Lark sighed and tapped her fingers upon her knee. It had begun to rain, darkening the morning sky through the water-streaked cab windows. Somewhere out there a vampire who needed to wear goggles to protect his eyes against the UV rays must be rejoicing over this weather.

“I ran across him, but the situation with the wolves aggravated it, and I wasn’t able to make the kill.”

She heard Rook’s soft yet admonishing tut on the other end.

Always an astute student, no matter what the study, Lark had taken to the Order’s training program with zeal and a determination that had surprised even herself. She’d always been a girly girl who liked fashion and partying, and, well, the idea of exercise and martial arts, and honing her muscles and fighting skills had never been on her radar. But tragedy had altered that girl, changed her into something adamant. Something Lark still didn’t recognize in the mirror.

After being knighted into the Order of the Stake, she’d proven herself a ruthless hunter. When she went after a vamp, it was dead less than twenty-four hours later. Nothing could dissuade her from her quest.

“I’ve got the situation under control,” she said.

Oh yeah? What was that stupid “one day to live” deal you made with LaRoque? A vampire! You don’t deal with them. You slay them.

Every hour she allowed the vampire to breathe, she let Todd down a little more.

“Expect to hear from me tonight,” she said. “What’s the address?”

Rook gave her the address to a safe house, along with a digital entry code, and after hanging up, she gave the cabdriver directions.

The safe house was clean, the walls bare of decoration, and the modern furniture a plain beige leather accented with uninspired black pillows. Lark didn’t like it. She needed personal things around her to make her feel…

Admit it, Lark. You don’t feel safe here.

It was called a freakin’ safe house for a reason. But nothing she looked at reminded her of home. Of him. Yet would anything ever bring back that feeling of safety, of feeling loved and cherished?

Had it ever been love? Or simply her clinging to the idea of love, marriage and happily ever after?

Shoving away doubt, she sighed. She wouldn’t be doing this if it hadn’t been love.

“Only a few days,” she said, and dropped her backpack on the floor by the beige sofa.

Even the rug was uninspired, no texture or color. At home she’d liked to dig her bare toes into the thick, soft pile of the sapphire rug before the gray leather sofa. More than a few times she and Todd had made love on that rug.

Shaking her head rattled at the intrusive memories. Looking over the rug, she decided flat and no color was best for her now.

At that moment a knock on the door startled her hand to her hip, fingers glancing over the stake. Perhaps it was Rook come to check on her? Made little sense. The man oversaw the Order from his office and the training facility; he didn’t often go out in the field. If contact was required with a knight, the knight went to Rook. And forget ever casually running across King, the leader of the Order. It never happened.