Dark Bites

Rafael bit back a foul curse. One more second and he would have had her. "House is fine."

  "No. No, it's not. Do you even have an evacuation plan for what to do if it were to catch fire during the daylight? You know you could roast and die quite easily, then you'd be a soulless Shade and screwed for eternity."

  That went over him like a cold shower. Now there was something he'd never thought about before, and he was pretty good at putting together disaster plans.

  "It happens a lot with these older homes," she continued. "What with their faulty wiring and all. I heard of one Dark-Hunter who died like that just last year."

  "Who?"

  "I can't remember the name, but it was one of the Dark-Hunters in England. Total barbecue. You can check it on the Web site."

  He'd really rather not. No Dark-Hunter liked to read about the death of another one. It brought home that even though they were technically immortal, there were still things out there that could kill them. And having died already, it wasn't something Rafael wanted to experience again.

  Still, she didn't relent. "You should contact a friend of mine. He specializes in fireproofing underground bunkers for Dark-Hunters. He can put in a sprinkler system and - "

  "You're rambling."

  "No, I'm not. Dark-Hunter safety is a Squire's number one priority. In fact, I'll call Leonard first thing in the morning and see when he can come out for an estimate. We should also make sure that you have a roll bar in your car in case you flip over in a wreck. Oh, and a steel bar shield on the driver's side in the event you run up under something, so that you can't be decapitated."

  Without conscious thought, Rafael's hand went to his throat. Damn, the woman gave paranoia a whole new meaning.

  "We should also look into the history of this house and make sure that it was never used as a bed-and-breakfast."

  "Why?"

  "If property has ever been used as a community place such as a boardinghouse, restaurant, or anything open to the public, then the Daimons can enter without an invitation. You don't want them barging in on you and killing you, now do you?"

  "Not really."

  "Then we need to do a property search. Unless your last Squire did that."

  "No."

  She tsked. "I need a piece of paper. This is going to take a while."

  And by the time she fished that paper out of her backpack and started making a list, Rafael felt ill. The woman should work as a Codes Inspector. Jeez. She thought of dangers that had never occurred to him.

  She even went outside and inspected the grade of his basement, which wasn't high enough, in her estimation. After all, according to her, a foundation shift could cause a crack that could theoretically expose him to daylight.

  Not bloody likely, but she seemed determined to ferret out any possible - heavy emphasis on the "possible" - threat.

  By the time ten o'clock rolled around, he was more than ready to begin his patrol. He came up from the basement to find an arsenal on the table.

  Two daggers, three stakes because two could break in a fight, a Daimon tracker that he'd always profaned using, a Kevlar jacket, his cell phone, and a watch were all laid out for him.

  When she lifted the Kevlar to help him into it, he merely stared at her. "Bullets can't kill me."

  "No, but they do hurt. The Daimons could, in theory, shoot you until you're too weakened to fight them and then behead you."

  He shook his head at her as he again declined to put on the jacket. She was perturbed as she set it aside while he hid the daggers in his boots.

  "Want to put a cone around my head like a dog to make sure that they can't decapitate me while we're at it?" he asked sarcastically.

  "I would," she said to his instant incredulous dismay, "but Ephani got really angry when I tried that with her, so I learned that it's more important for you to blend in than protect the neck. But I do have this." She pulled a thick black steel collar from her pocket. "If you wear it under a turtleneck, it's not so obvious. Kind of medievally looking."

  He had no response to that. It was the most ludicrous thing he'd ever heard. In fact, as he tucked the stakes away, he had to force himself not to use them, on his latest menace...

  Her.

  She handed him the watch. "I double-checked the sunrise on weather .com and cross-checked it with the meteorological society and my friend who's an astronomer to be sure it was accurate. It's at six fifty-nine a.m. sharp. I've already set the alarm to give you a twenty-minute warning." Next, she held out a piece of paper. "Here's a list of how long it will take you from various parts of the tri-city area to get back here. I'll keep an eye on your tracers to make sure that you have adequate time to make it back home without threat or harm."

  Then she handed him a folded-up black body bag. "And in the event you can't make it back, zip yourself up in this and press the panic alarm I added to your key chain. Then I can come get you home before the daylight makes you burst into flames."

  Again, he was speechless.

  She picked up his cell phone. "I preprogrammed my number in on the speed dial under one and Acheron under two. Did you know you didn't have any numbers listed as 'ICE'? You should always have an In Case of Emergency contact number. So I put mine in for that, too."

  "What about Jeff?"

  "Since he won't be with us much longer, I didn't bother."

  This was madness. No wonder Ephani hadn't fought him on having Celena replaced for a week. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the woman was insane.

  "Anything else, Mom?" he asked.

  "Yes. Play nice with the other kids and don't let the Daimons get the drop on you. Use the tracer so that you know where they are at all times."

  Raphael couldn't get out of his house fast enough. So much for his thoughts about trying to seduce her. He'd rather face the Daimon horde blindfolded and with both hands tied behind his back.

  More than that, he'd rather go babysit Jeff. If anyone had ever told him that he'd prefer the lazy, lackadaisical boy to the hot Caribbean sex goddess, he'd have laughed in their face.

  Now he could appreciate Jeff's laid-back nature.

  Maybe it's just a ploy of hers...

  He paused at that thought. Maybe she was just doing this to drive him away. It was possible.

  Very possible.

  Oh yeah, he was on to her now. It made total sense.

  Fine then. Two could play this game.

  Getting into his car, he smiled. "En garde, ma petite." They were about to go to war, and at the end of this, he was going to win.

  3

  Rafael wasn't winning his war. He was losing it miserably and not even with style. No matter what he tried, Celena circumvented his best efforts. The woman was a machine, and after forty-eight hours of having her in his house, he'd had enough.

  Sitting on his couch in the basement an hour after sunset - because, quite frankly, if he went upstairs, he might kill her - he called Ephani, who answered on the third ring.

  "Come get your Squire," he said without preamble.

  Her tone was dry and snide. "Hi to you, too, Rafael. Nice to hear from you."

  "Cut the crap, Eph, and come get her before I kill her."

  "She's making you crazy?" He could hear the humor in her voice.

  "You think? How do you stand it night in and night out, and not lose your mind?"

  "She's a little obsessive, but - "

  "A little?" he asked incredulously. "The woman makes a serial stalker look like a Boy Scout."

  Ephani snorted. "She's not that bad."

  "Oh yes, she is. Trust me. I almost lost my head to a Daimon the first night she was here."

  "How so?"

  He clenched his teeth at the memory. "Picture this. There I am in the alleyway, sneaking up on a group of Daimons who have this college kid trapped between them. Just as I go to make my move to save the kid, the phone rings with Ms. I-have-no-purpose-save-to-make-you-crazy calling to tell me that according to the tracer she has on me it's time for me to head home so that I
won't get caught out in daylight."

  Ephani was laughing so hard that he wanted to reach through the phone and choke her.

  "It's not funny."

  She kept laughing.

  Rafael let out a disgusted sigh. "Did she reorganize your kitchen and fill it up with wheat germ and shit? I tried to explain the whole I'm-immortal-I-live-forever to her, but she doesn't get it. She said that even immortals need to eat healthy foods."

  Still Ephani was laughing.

  And still Rafael wanted to kill the Amazon as well as Celena. "This really isn't funny, Eph."

  "Oh yeah, it is. Gah, Rafe. You're such a man."

  "And I'm going to take that as a compliment."

  Clearing her throat, Ephani finally sobered. "There's a few things you need to understand about Celena."

  "You mean something other than she's nuts?"

  Ephani tsked at him over the phone. "She's not nuts."

  He glanced up to the ceiling. No doubt Celena was up there right now doing something extremely odd in order to protect him, the immortal warrior. "I think I'll reserve my opinion."

  "Trust me, Blackbeard. She's not nuts."

  "Then what is she?"

  "Scared." The word surprised him. Celena certainly didn't act that way. "Have you tried to ask her anything about her family?"

  "A couple of times, but she won't talk about them."

  "That's right and do you know why?"

  "She's nuts?" This time he said it with a little less enthusiasm.

  "No... she's scared."

  But that didn't make sense to him. "Of what?"

  "Of losing the people she loves, so she tries to keep up walls to protect herself. If she doesn't talk about people, then they can't be close to her. But it's a crock. I know this because when her father died a year ago, it almost killed her. She still cries about him in the middle of the day when she thinks I'm sleeping."

  The news floored him. That was so opposite of the hard-nosed woman upstairs. There was nothing vulnerable about her, and honestly, he couldn't imagine her crying about anything. "Celena?"

  "Yes, Celena. And do you know why she's so anal about her duties?"

  "She's nuts?" He was back to being convinced. Anyone who executed their duties to such an nth degree wasn't normal.

  "No," Ephani said in an irritated tone. "Like Jeff, she's from a Squire family. The Dark-Hunter she grew up with was killed eight years ago because he was cornered by a group of Daimons and executed. If that wasn't bad enough, the first Dark-Hunter she was assigned to died because she couldn't make it back before sunup. Celena tried to get to her in time, but there was no place for her to hide, so she turned into toast minutes before Celena got there. The Council warned me when they sent her over that she was a bit... traumatized by the event. Hell, if you think she's bad now, you should have seen her when she first came to work for me."

  If she was worse, then he was grateful he hadn't met her then. But all that actually explained a great deal about her psychosis.

  "And she must really like you to be so paranoid that she's calling you all the time to make sure you get back home in time. She's not that bad even with me." Then she added under her breath, "Then again, I always follow her patrol plans and get back before she freaks."

  Rafael was quiet for a second as he considered Ephani's words. "That puts a lot of perspective on her, doesn't it?"

  "Yeah."

  "Okay," he said with a sigh, "I won't kill her tonight."

  "Please don't. All in all, I'm rather fond of her, and I have to say I much prefer her to the one I'm dealing with right now. This one's kind of lazy. She even balked at making my scrambled eggs with cheese and onions in them."

  Rafael laughed at that. "I guess it's what you're used to."

  "I guess. But send Celena home soon. I miss her."

  He shook his head. "By the way, thanks, Eph."

  "No prob. Just take care of my girl."

  "Will do." Rafael hung up the phone and tucked it back in his pants pocket. His mind whirling with what he'd learned, he headed upstairs to find his "breakfast" waiting.

  Grabbing a piece of bacon, he had to admit that this was the one thing he liked about having Celena around. Unlike Jeff, she was up all night with him and made sure that he had plenty of food prepared. She even packed him a snack bag to take with him. Of course it was full of wholesome foods that he poked at like an alien life-form, but it was a nice thought.

  "Hi."

  He swallowed his bacon as she brought him a glass of orange juice. "Hi."

  After he took the glass, she lifted a notebook up from the table. "I've made notes on your patrolling patterns. I've noticed that you tend to stay here in Columbus around campus until about midnight and then you head over to Starkville. I was thinking that - "

  He took the pad from her hand and set it aside. "I like my pattern, Celena."

  "But it would be safer for you to patrol Starkville first and then head back this way."

  "And I was a pirate who laughed as he died and spat in the face of my killer. Safety's not my concern."

  "It should be," she insisted.

  "Why?"

  Her brow creased by worry, her face held a very faint hysterical note in it. "Because you could die and become a Shade, wandering the earth with no body and no soul, in constant pain and misery. Wanting food. Wanting someone to hear you. Wanting someone to just touch you and having no one able to see you. To - "

  He stopped her words by laying his fingers on her lips. Personally, he didn't like the gruesome image she painted with her words. "It's okay, Celena. I'm not going to die."

  But he could see the pain and fear in her eyes. "That's why you should rethink your pattern."

  Moving his fingers from her soft lips, Rafael dipped his head down to capture her mouth only to have her retreat from him again.

  He let out a tired breath. "Don't you ever date?"

  "Not anymore. To bring an outsider in could threaten the safety of Ephani. What if I were on a date and she needed me?"

  "What if a meteorite fell through the house right now and flattened us both?"

  She actually glanced up at the ceiling.

  If it wasn't so serious, he'd laugh. "Celena, you can't go through your entire life worrying about what might happen." He closed the distance between them. "Any more than you can go through life alone. Trust me on this one. It's lonely as hell."

  "You live that way."

  "Not always. I do reach out to someone from time to time."

  Instead of comforting her, those words brought out her anger. "And I'm not your one-night stand. We both have duties to attend to. Oaths to uphold."

  "I would kiss you anyway, but I have a feeling that if I tried - "

  "I'd kick you in the nuts and tear your ear off." There was no mistaking the sincerity of her angry tone.

  "That would hurt."

  "That's the idea."

  Rafael shook his head at her. She was saucy, and as she walked away from him he couldn't help the heat that flooded his body. Everything about her appealed to him on a primal level.

  Honestly, he was losing his mind being this close to something that tempted him while unable to touch it. No wonder the Council preferred to assign only Squires who were the opposite sex of what a Dark-Hunter lusted for.

  I can't take it. He needed some distance from her.

  "I'm going to kill Daimons now."

  "But it's early."

  "I know. But I have a feeling they're out already and I need to patrol." Or stay here with the hard-on from hell until he lost what little sanity he had left. As Oscar Wilde once said, he could resist anything except temptation.

  Before Rafael could make it to the door, his phone rang. Without looking at the ID, he answered it.

  "Rafe?" It was Jeff whispering in a panicked tone.

  "Yeah?"

  "There's a group of Daimons here at the marina."

  "It's too early for them to be out."

  "Tell them
that!"

  "Calm down and tell me what's going on."

  "It's spooky as hell. There's some kind of party going on at the houseboat next door that started at sundown and I just saw six of them heading for it."

  "All right. Lie low and I'll be there in a few minutes."

  Celena frowned at the concern in Rafael's voice. "Is there a problem?"

  "Major Daimon alert."

  Before she could ask anything else, he was gone, but his words rang in her ears. Major Daimon alert...

  This could be bad.

  You're a Squire. Her place was at home, especially after dark. And then she saw Eamon's face in her mind. His smiling face as he teased her about not eating peas.

  "Did ya do yer homework, lass?"

  God, how she'd loved that man. He was like an older brother, a best friend, and a father all rolled into one. And in one heartbeat, the Daimons had killed him.

  Let's face it, with the exception of Ephani, you've had a bad run with Dark-Hunters. The more she cared for them, the more horrible their deaths.

  And she loved Rafael. She'd loved him since the first moment she'd met him after she moved to West Point, Mississippi. He was intelligent, smart, and he had a wicked sense of humor.

  Now he was going to fight the Daimons. Alone.

  A thousand scenarios went through her head, with all of them coming to one single conclusion.

  Rafael dead. Panic set her heart to beating furiously as she looked about his home. She couldn't pack up another Dark-Hunter's home. She couldn't hold another vigil service to pay respect to someone she loved.

  She couldn't.

  And before she could stop herself, she grabbed the tracer off the table and her keys.

  4

  When Jeff had said that there was a group of Daimons heading for a party, Rafael had taken that to mean that there were only six Daimons at a human party. You know - a regular party with teenaged or college-aged humans groping each other while drinking heavily. The kind of party that he normally crashed so that he could protect the humans from the Daimons who wanted to feast on their souls.

  What the rocket scientist had failed to mention to Rafael was the small fact that the Daimons were headed into an Apollite wedding reception. Something he, himself, hadn't realized until he'd walked onto the boat that was filled with tall, gorgeous pale blond preternatural people.

  Oh yeah, the six-foot-six bald black man dressed all in black leather really didn't blend into the overdressed crowd of Nordic vampires. And Rafael had to admit that right now, looking at the Apollites and Daimons who were staring angrily at him, made him feel like the last steak in the Kennel Club.