Autumn Moon (2 page)

Her dark eyes riveted to him
.
“I never said it would be easy
.
He will most likely want to kill you.”

“I’m already dead, a vampire
.
Or what did you call me—a chiang-shih?”

She chuckled with no mirth
.
“I do hate the newly dead,” she mumbled
.
“No moron
.
He will perform a ritual
,
sending your sorry ass to hell
.”
She rose from her seat and walked over to her bookcase
. She moved books aside and shuffled through the
magazines,
finally pulling an issue
out
.
She opened it up and ripped out a page
.
“Here,” she said handing it to him
.
“This is
a picture of
Dr. Lei
.
A few years ago a magazine did an article about his herbal remedies.”

****

Two days ago, Jairec would have laughed at The Seer’s eerie premonition and her ill-gotten advice. Now he was living proof that creatures of the night existed, walking among the living in wait of an opportunity to strike. 

Chinatown held an annual Autumn Moon Festival, which so happened to be this weekend. If he went by what The Seer told him, this gave him three days to convince Dr. Lei to help him. He would use any means he could. He wouldn’t succumb to his fate so readily.

When Dr. Lei never showed up to work, he began to give up hope. He jogged across the street. Since his unnatural demise, his hearing had improved, so much so that he had the urge to put earplugs in his ears. Today it would come in handy to eavesdrop and hopefully find out when the employees expected Dr. Lei.

“
Don’t forget to deliver the package your grandmother left you,” the young female employee told the woman who had opened the shop. “She said it’s a matter of life and death.”

The woman who opened the shop shook her head. “Yes, of course it is.”

Her voice was smooth, silky like a caress. She wore her straight, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, letting the long strands cascade down her back. She looked worried as she chewed on her lower lip. Then she sighed. “I might as well take care of the delivery now. Get it off my hands before it’s too late.”

Jairec smiled. This could be it. Maybe he wouldn’t need Dr. Lei after all. He turned away as the woman left the shop.
Life and death, a need to get it off her hands
—
he’d follow her and see where she led him. Maybe he should just steal the package. One small woman wouldn’t be a challenge to subdue.

Chapter Two

Autumn headed for Sying’s Tea Shop. The package her grandmother entrusted to her was in the white bag she carried. Chinatown buzzed with activity as the shop owners prepared for the annual Autumn Moon Festival, the festival she’d been named for since she’d been born during the festivities twenty-four years ago. She smiled with anticipation for what the weekend would bring.

She looked forward to hearing The Tamaka Golden Sun Chinese Opera Group play. They were scheduled to perform on Saturday at the Commercial Alley stage. Grant Ave. held another stage and would host Chinese Music throughout the day. Vendors lined the streets for the tourists to sample authentic Chinese food and bubble tea drinks, while they enjoyed the dances, parades and the dim sum demonstrations. With all the small family owned businesses, Chinatown relied on tourism to make ends meet. The Autumn Moon Festival drew in large crowds. She would have her own booth where she offered her art of acupuncture. For a small fee, the tourists would be amazed how quickly a few well-placed needles would soothe their tired feet. Her grandparents had set up a booth, too.

They ran
Sinfully Sweet Bakery
, known for their custard-filled creations and sugary lotus seed moon cakes. They had a booth not far from where hers was set up. Autumn learned how to bake at her grandmother’s side while being immersed into the Chinese world of history and tradition. She loved her grandparents, but missed her parents.

Her mother, Lillian Lei hated the strict rules of her life. She’d wanted more than to work day in and day out in Chinatown. She ran away from home at seventeen and married Quinn Moon, a singer in a mediocre band visiting from Ireland. Nine months later, Autumn had been born. She inherited her mother’s thick straight hair, and her father’s Irish green eyes. For all her mother’s rashness, she and her father had been happy for the seven years they were married. They stayed a family, traveling where her father’s band played. They were never apart. Except for that night, the night her parents were taken from her.

Autumn had a bad cold and her parents left her with a babysitter. A car accident took them away and Autumn came to live with her mother’s parents since her father’s family was long gone.

In those first horrible years without them, Autumn used to pretend her father was one of the immortals and he’d been summoned back to the heavens and her mother had followed him there. Autumn knew it was a silly story, but as a child it made her feel better believing her parents were still alive and looking after her.

Autumn crossed the street, avoiding the trolley that was probably on its way to one of the other scenic neighborhoods of San Francisco.

She headed down the alleyway, planning to enter through the back door of the teashop. She raised her hand to knock, but someone grabbed her from behind and slammed her into the wall, knocking the wind out of her. Her attacker locked the thickness of his arm against her neck while his muscular body leaned against her, pinning her against the hard stone.

“Give me the package and we won’t have any problems.”

Autumn’s eyes widened as she stared into two sea-smoked colored eyes. She lifted the package that she was to deliver to Mr. Sying.

He yanked it out of her hand. “Now don’t follow me or I’ll be forced to do something you’ll regret.”

Autumn could only manage to nod her head.

“Hey, are you okay down there?” someone yelled from the street, probably a tourist since she didn’t recognize him. He was tall and blond definitely not from Chinatown.

It was nice to know that there were people who’d stop to help. Before she could choke out her plea, the man holding her hostage covered her mouth with his lips. She should have stopped him, bit him, did something other than let the bastard kiss her. Man, could he kiss, ravishing her lips, teeth and tongue as unapologetic as it was seductive. Logic fled and she moaned into his mouth stunned by the force, the need to have more. She kissed him back.

When he released her, they stared into each other’s heavily lidded eyes. The air shimmered around them taunt, waiting to pull them under again. The intensity of the immediate attraction mystified her and yet she felt as if she’d been waiting for him all her life. Obviously, the sensation, the connection hadn’t gone unnoticed by him. He raked his fingers through his hair; uncertainty lit his eyes as his gaze held hers. She teetered on her feet ready to step toward him, but she drew in a rugged breath and sanity slapped her in the face. She didn’t know what crazy notion had come over her, but whatever it was, she had no intentions of repeating it. She glanced to see if her would-be-rescuer was still at the end of the alleyway. No such luck. The guy obviously thought they were lovers, sneaking away for a late afternoon tryst.

Her attacker backed away from her further. She thought he’d say something. Threaten her more or kiss her. She’d much rather he’d kiss her. She shook her head. What in the world was she thinking? She should scream, but before she could react, he turned on his heels, fled down the shadowed alleyway and disappeared around the corner.

Autumn stood there wondering what had just happened, but what mystified her even more was why had the stranger been so bent on stealing her grandmother’s moon cakes?

Chapter Three

Jairec kept his hood down over his head, keeping his pace so not to be caught. He expected the woman to yell for help, but she didn’t. He could feel her heated gaze watching him as he made his escape. He held on tight to the package. It was his salvation. The Seer said Dr. Jin Lei kept the cure at Moon’s Acupuncture, but it would not be given easily. Once he heard the women talk about the package, he knew it had to be important. “Life or death, she said.” He tried convincing himself he had no other choice than to steal the package, but did he need to kiss the woman?

He hadn’t meant to, but when the pedestrian asked if she was okay, he knew she’d scream and kissing her seemed the best course of action at the time. He didn’t expect the jolt the kiss gave him. He thought her attractive with her slim figure, dark hair and unusual forest green eyes, but the kiss sparked something in him he’d not felt in a long time.

“Forget it Connelly, you don’t need that kind of distraction right now.” If he was going to pull through this, he had to stay focused. Besides, if she knew his diet consisted of pig’s blood, while he fought off the desire to suck the blood from the nearest human ... He shook his head. Yeah, it would be a sure turn off.

He opened the door to his hotel room and locked it behind him. He tore open the bag and lifted the lid to the white box. He stared at the pastry for half a second. “This is the cure?”

He shrugged. Who was he to argue? He grabbed the pastry and shoved it into his mouth. Normally, he loved sweets, but since he’d been cursed all earthly food made him gag. This was no different, but he forced it down anyway.

He stood waiting for something to happen, some kind of miraculous transformation. Then he felt something, a churning in his stomach. He felt sweaty, shaky and … “Shit!”  He ran to the bathroom. Grabbing the sides of the toilet, he threw up.

This wasn’t the cure.

He flushed the toilet and grabbed one the towels on the rack to wipe his face. He went back into the room and picked up the box with the sweets. “Sinfully Sweet Bakery.” He read off the label. The woman hadn’t been sneaking out Jin’s secret cure for the undead. She’d been delivering bakery goods. She tricked him, but he wouldn’t let her get away with it.

Chapter Four

With her latte in one hand, Autumn unlocked the door to Moon’s Acupuncture, the shop she took over from her Great Uncle Jin. Jin Lei, her grandfather’s brother never had children and he treated Autumn like a daughter, teaching her the ancient Chinese rituals to go along with her school training when she became a licensed practitioner.

Jin’s naming the shop Moon’s Acupuncture after her last name was purely a coincidence.

Autumn’s grandmother insisted there was no such thing as a coincidence. Jin must have foreseen Autumn’s roll in running the shop after he no longer could. Perhaps, but then maybe her uncle just had a thing for the moon. She looked around her shop at her uncle’s chosen artwork. Photos of the moon phases, prints of the full moon and oils depicting the moon as the main focus. Her grandmother also believed Autumn had contracted a cold so she’d be spared from her parents’ fate. Autumn didn’t buy into the superstitious nonsense.

Autumn placed her purse behind the counter where her glass jars of herbs decorated the long wall. The phone rang and she picked it up, leaning against the counter. “Hello Grandmother. Yes, yes I’m fine. Yes, I stopped at the coffee shop this morning and no one accosted me.” Autumn wished she could have kept her strange encounter with the moon-cake-thief to herself, but she’d been left with no choice since she had to tell Mr. Sying why she didn’t have the package. Of course, she left out the part about the mind-shattering kiss.
“
I guess the guy only liked your pastries.” She chuckled then cleared her throat. “Sorry Grandmother, I know, I know. That wasn’t funny. Don’t worry. I’m fine. I need to gather a few things for my booth and I’ll be locking up. I love you, too.” She hung up the phone.

“Close family.”

Autumn jumped at the sound of the man’s voice. She knew it was him even before she turned around, but seeing the tall brooding man with hair, thick like the devil’s dark velvet still made her heart skip a beat. “How did you get in here?”

“I have my ways.” He gave her a careless shrug.

He had a slight accent, betraying his Irish heritage. She missed that yesterday, but he’d been more intent on shoving his tongue down her throat than talking. “Working on a criminal record are we?” She backed away, feeling beneath the counter for the button that would summon the police.

“Don’t do it.”

She froze. “What?”

“Call the police. Hear me out and then I’ll leave.”

“Okay,” she said carefully.

He grinned, but the smile didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I just want the package.
”

“You took the moon cakes yesterday. If you want more, you’ll have to buy them like everyone else—at the bakery.”

“You know that isn’t what I mean. You’re a real corker, lady. I bet you had a real good laugh.”