Chasing Midnight

Chasing Midnight
Susan Krinard

Manhattan, 1924 – the Charleston, clandestine cocktails…and a seriously sinister secret lurking beneath the streets… By day, Allegra lives among the artists of 1920s Greenwich Village, in search of adventure. By night, she haunts New York’s back alleys and seedy speak-easies, driven by a more primal hunger. And amidst the glitz and glamour of the jazz age, even a vampire can fall prey to the temptations of the flesh, especially when those temptations take the shape of golden-eyed Griffin – half-man, half-wolf and altogether forbidden.Yet as a powerful vampire master’s jealousy condemns their new-found desire, can Griffin and Allegra’s dream of an eternity of passion withstand the threat of an on-coming war?

He wrapped his fingers behind her neck, pulled her against him and kissed her, hard.

She gave him exactly what he wanted, melting into him with a little gasp of admiration.

“There’s more where that came from,” he said, rising from his chair. “You stay right where you are.”

He strutted off like a peacock, all broad shoulders and jutting chin. He thought he’d won the prize with his natural charm and good looks. Men like him always assumed that any girl, even the most sophisticated flapper, would fall for them if they so much as crooked their fingers…

Dear Reader,

What is it about the nineteen twenties?

For me, the fascination began with my first viewing of the movie Chicago, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. Before then, I’d never given the decade much thought. I knew about Prohibition, of course, and flappers, but it all came alive when Ms Zeta-Jones performed “All That Jazz.” I was hooked.

The Roaring Twenties was a remarkable period. It was the time when the old rules of Victorian America gave way to the new rules of the twentieth century. It was the age when women first began to vote, when the “working girl” came into her own, when music and art were undergoing startling transformations. The West was still recovering from the trauma of the Great War, finding its way into a strange new world. In New York and Chicago and the other great cities, mobsters made fortunes from bootlegging. There was a flourishing underworld of clubs and speakeasies where the daring and fashionable could quench their thirst for alcohol and excitement.

What better place to set a story about werewolves and vampires in conflict but Prohibition-era New York, where the mobs of three very different races compete for dominance? The first image that immediately sprang into my head was one of a vampire flapper with a Louise Brooks bob, dressed in a short skirt and highheel pumps…a young woman who couldn’t be bothered with the restrictions of either human society or her own vampire clan. And who should her romantic interest be but a rather old-fashioned and chivalrous werewolf who has his own issues with the loups-garous of New York…and who finds himself falling for a girl who seems to be doing everything possible to drive him crazy?

With those characters and situations firmly in my mind, Chasing Midnight was born. I’ve seldom had so much fun writing a book. I hope you’ll give the Roaring Twenties a try; I’ll be revisiting them in my next paranormal romance novel for Mills & Boon

Super Nocturne™, which will be arriving on book shop shelves in December 2009.

Susan Krinard

CHASING

MIDNIGHT

BY SUSAN KRINARD

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)

Prologue

New York City, 1924

SHE WOKE TO THE SOUNDS of the street: the honking of horns as taxicabs, sedans and roadsters jockeyed for position; the rattle and rumble of trucks bearing cargo both legitimate and illicit; the shouts of the newsboy on the corner, trumpeting the scandalous details of the latest police raid on Joe Bocelli’s Club Desirée.

She lay quietly for a moment, eyes closed, trying to decide what was different. It wasn’t only that the sounds were so distinct, falling on her ears like drumbeats, or that she could feel the shift of every current of air as it brushed against her skin. It wasn’t only that, for the first time in so many years, her body didn’t hurt.

With a groan of pleasure she extended her arms over her head, feeling muscles stretch and bones pop. Her toes tingled. She wiggled them, delighting in the touch of the satin sheets against her skin.

And then she froze as the realization struck her so hard and fast that it stole her breath.

She had moved. Not with stiff, painful jerks, her limbs refusing to obey her simplest commands. Not with withered muscles wasting away, prisoners in a cage of flesh. She had moved easily, smoothly, strength flowing through her like cascades of fresh cool water.

Slowly she opened her eyes. The room should have been dark; no lamps were on, and the shades and curtains were drawn over the windows. But she saw everything with crystal clarity, as if the entireworld were bathed in light. Every detail of the Persian carpet stood out in elegant relief. The pattern of the wallpaper seemed to dance a geometric ballet. And the man in the chair…

Alice sat up, her heart bounding beneath her ribs. The man in the chair gazed at her with a faint smile, his pale eyes reflecting a dim red glow.

“Alice,” he said, “do you remember?”

She rubbed her eyes, caught by a wave of dizziness that made the bed roll and heave beneath her. An hour, a week, a year ago, she had been lying in this same bed, her limbs like dead weights among the sheets, her mouth filled with words she could barely speak. He had been there, looking down at her with an expression both kindly and grim, and she had been afraid.

“There is always a risk,” he’d said back then. “Especially to one in your condition. But the rewards…” He’d gestured at her twisted body. “The rewards are beyond calculation.You will walk again, Alice.You will be free.”

And alive. If she should awaken from the long sleep he had told her about, she would no longer be facing imminent death at the age of twenty-four. Shewouldn’t spend another year in bed, her legs no longer able to support her body, her hands too weak to hold a book, listening to the sounds of life passing by her window. There would be a new existence awaiting her, one she could scarcely imagine. She would be better than before, even better than if she’d grown up without the disease that had stolen her friends, her family, her hope.

“You will have a new family,” he’d told her. “The old loyalties will fall away, the old rules by which you lived. You will never be able to go back.”

She’d shivered. “I have…nothing to lose,” she’d said, pushing the sounds past the thickness in her throat.

He’d nodded, as if he had expected no less from her. “Make no mistake,” he’d said, “you will die.You will no longer breathe. Your heart will cease to beat. If a doctor were to enter this room, he would pronounce you deceased.”

Tears had leaked from the corners of Alice’s eyes. “I understand.”

“I doubt that you do,” he’d said sadly, “but there is no other way for your body to undergo the change. Either you will wake in this bed, or…”

Or she would not wake at all. But she would have died knowing that she had taken the ultimate gamble and spat in the eyes of all the pitying, privileged “friends” who had deserted her to the slowdescent into hell.

Mother won’t even know I’m gone, she’d thought. And if she ever comes looking for me…

Alice had smiled, her mouth too stiff for laughter. “I’m ready.”

He’d taken the chair beside the bed and looked into her eyes. “There will be no pain. You will become very sleepy. Don’t fight it, my dear. Let it take you.” He’d bent close, his not-unpleasant breath drifting over her cheek. “Close your eyes and dream of paradise…”

Alice snapped back to the present, her hands shaking on the bedsheets. She clenched her fists and listened to the steady, strong beat of her heart…her heart, still doing what hearts were supposed to do. Her lungs still took in air. Except for the easy movements of her limbs and throat and face, she seemed to be the same as before.

“To most humans you will seem normal,” Cato said. “Despite certain fairy tales to the contrary, you are not ‘undead.’” He rose from the chair, came to her bedside and took her hand in his, checking her pulse like a kindly physician. “You may eat and drink in moderation, so long as you do not neglect your most essential needs. You may walk in daylight so long as you wear tinted glasses and cover your skin. Even brief exposure will result in serious burns. That is why most of us prefer to conduct our public business after sunset.”

Alice stared at the window. Only the tiniest sliver of light entered past the heavy curtains. “How—” she cleared her throat, startled by the smooth, musical sound of her own voice “—how long was I…”

“Dead?” He patted her hand. “Two weeks. I was not entirely certain that you would wake. But now…” He stood back. “Rise and walk, AliceCharles.”

Her mouth as dry as cotton, Alice began to move. She slid her legs along the mattress and cautiously let them drop over the side of the bed. The ground seemed very far away. She flexed her feet on the carpet.

“Your body has the strength,” Cato said. “Far more strength than you need to walk across this room.” His words took on a strange hum, like some powerful generator crackling with energy. “Prove that you are worthy of this gift. Walk!”

Compelled by a force far stronger than fear, Alice pressed her weight down, felt her muscles tighten and grow firm at her command. She stood, swayed, straightened. She took one step, and then another. Her legs carried her to the opposite wall and back again without a single stumble.

I can walk, Alice sang silently. I can walk, I can walk, I can walk…

“Yes,” Cato said, a distant look in his eyes. “I need no further proof.” He took her shoulders and steered her toward the huge mirror that dominated the wall above the dressing table. “Look,” he urged. “See what you have become.”

She looked, though she had not viewed her own reflection in many years. The face that stared back at her was almost unrecognizable, as if some skilled and prudent sculptor had taken her features and rearranged them into something that was partly AliceCharles and partly something…other. Something beautiful. The lines of her features were clean and regular, her skin smooth, her brow unlined over vivid aqua eyes. Her hair, black and shining, hung downher back like ebony silk. Andher body, clearly outlined by the sheer drape of her night robe, was both strong and intensely—unmistakably—female.