Dark Obsession (22 page)

Erin’s hand crawled to her throat. She could hardly breathe. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

“It’s true. He killed Megan just as he did Simone. He tore out her heart, Erin.”

Erin’s head reeled. She felt sick. She didn’t want to listen to Gerard anymore, but she had no choice. His voice kept her captive, made her listen. Made her believe… “Why?” she cried out.

“To destroy her chance for eternal life.” Gerard was edging closer to her. Erin wanted to run. She sensed his power, and it terrified her, but she could do nothing to save herself. She couldn’t move,
couldn’t scream. Could only stand there held by his eyes and hypnotized by that satiny voice.

“Racine,” she pleaded, “please help me.”

“She can’t help you,” Gerard said. “She’s under my power. When I’ve finished with you, I’ll take care of her. And then Slade will take the blame.”

“Why do you hate him so?”

The fire flashed in his eyes. “He took from me the one thing I loved most in this world,” he roared. “He took Simone. And now I’ll take from him. I’ll take and take and take until he has nothing left.” In the blink of an eye, one hand whipped out and he seized the back of Erin’s neck. Effortlessly he drew her to him, forcing her gaze upward to his eyes. “See me,” he commanded. “Know my power.”

“No!” But the treacherous lethargy had slipped over her again. No matter how hard she tried, Erin couldn’t look away. She stared deep into those glowing depths and a thousand images rushed through her mind. She saw Megan and Desiree standing together, calling to her, beckoning her to join them. She would never have to be alone again.

“I can give you that, Erin.” The beguiling voice slid over her, shattering her defenses. “I can give you your darkest fantasies. Your deepest desires. Close your eyes and see it all.”

Erin struggled to keep her eyes open, but her lids were suddenly so heavy she couldn’t fight the languor. Her eyes drifted closed as Gerard’s mouth
moved toward her neck. “Nick!” she cried, in a last bid for sanity. “Help me!”

“No one can help you now,” Gerard said.

Erin felt little more than a sting at first, then the pain at her neck deepened. She screamed and tried to push him away, but his arms were like steel. He held her against him, sinking his fangs into her throat, drinking her blood until she grew so weak that the pain began ebbing and the pleasure surged.

“Erin!” She was dimly aware of a voice calling to her through the darkness.

“Nick.” She murmured his name but she had neither the will nor the strength to resist Gerard’s kiss. The pleasure deepened and she strained toward him craving more.

“Erin, no!”

Gerard’s mouth lifted from her neck and the pleasure began to fade. Erin became aware of the pain again. She reached for Gerard, trying to draw him back, but he released her and Erin crumpled to the ground.

Slade had never known such fear as he did the moment he saw Erin fall. With the last vestige of control he could muster, he willed himself not to rush to her. He had to be smart. He couldn’t let down his guard, even for a second.

“Is she dead?” He tried to keep his voice even, emotionless, giving D’Angelo no hint of his true feelings.

D’Angelo smiled. “There’s dead and then there’s
dead
.” His fangs gleamed in the moonlight. There was blood on his mouth. Erin’s blood. Slade’s insides twisted at the sight. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t care about her, Slade. I’ve seen you with her. I’ve heard the way she calls your name.”

“She means nothing to me.”

“Then you won’t mind if I finish what I started.” D’Angelo moved toward Erin. In a flash, Slade moved between them. D’Angelo’s eyes glowed. “You move quickly for a mortal, Slade. I must give you credit. But you’re no match for me. You never have been. You took Simone from me, and now you will have to pay.”

“You’re the one who destroyed Simone,” Slade said. “You turned her into a monster as vile as you are.”

D’Angelo threw back his head and roared with laughter. The sound echoed in the night like thunder. “You still don’t understand, do you?
She
came to
me.
She
wanted
what I could give her. She craved the darkness.”

“You’re lying. You seduced her. You put her under a spell—”

“Simone was worthy of so much more than you could possibly imagine. You could never appreciate someone like her.”

An image of Simone flashed through Slade’s mind. He saw her beautiful face, saw her beguiling smile,
but he realized now that there had always been something else in her eyes. A coldness that he had tried to ignore. For the first time since she’d died, Slade let himself see Simone for the woman she really was. A woman who had chosen darkness over light. A woman who had chosen death over life. A woman he couldn’t have saved no matter what he might have done.

The guilt he had lived with for so many years began to lift from his shoulders. Slade stared at D’Angelo, knowing he could defeat him now. No longer chained to the past, he had faith in himself once more.

“You killed Simone,” D’Angelo said again. “And for that I shall rip out your heart. But first, I want you to see what I’ve done to your precious Erin.” He knelt and tilted Erin’s head. In the moonlight, Slade saw two thin trickles of blood oozing down her neck. “She’s mine now,” D’Angelo taunted. “For eternity.”

“I’ll see you in hell first,” Slade snarled. He had a stake in his pocket and he reached for it as D’Angelo began to circle him. “Erin,” Slade called tersely, willing her to open her eyes, to get up and run to safety. But she lay on the ground motionless, while the blood continued to run down her neck.

“I can make this painless,” D’Angelo taunted, “or excruciating. Guess which one I’ve chosen for you.” He moved in then, anxious for the kill. Slade drew
back his stake, but D’Angelo reached out, and in a heartbeat, snatched it and flung it to the ground, laughing. “What’s a vampire hunter without his stake? Let’s see what you can do against me now.”

His movements were no more than a blur as he flung out his hand. Slade felt the breath leave him in a rush as he flew through the darkness and landed against the side of the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the backyard. Every bone in his body seemed to be snapping as he lay where he’d fallen, stunned. He got up and faced D’Angelo again. And again the vampire sent him sailing. Time after time, Slade got up only to have D’Angelo knock him away, as if he were no more harmless than a fly.

He was going about this all wrong, Slade thought groggily. Shaking his head to clear it, he ignored the cold smile D’Angelo directed toward him as he patiently waited to knock him senseless again. Slade was playing by D’Angelo’s rules. He had to be smarter, think faster. He had to put the knowledge he had gained over the past eight years to use. He had to be cunning, diabolical, evil. He had to think like D’Angelo.

D’Angelo stood over him, grinning, his fangs dripping. “I could finish you off just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “But what pleasure would there be in that? So much more satisfying to let you know what I have planned for the charming Erin. I’ll drink from her again, Slade. I’ll drink my fill while you lie
there and watch helplessly. She’s mine now, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

He had to find a weapon, Slade thought desperately, and almost immediately he saw it. One of the metal spikes in the fence had come loose and lay several feet away. If he could reach it before D’Angelo saw him, he might have a chance. Erin might have a chance.

He stretched out his arm, reaching for the spike. It was just out of his reach. If he tried to get up, D’Angelo would see him, stop him. Then there would be no hope for Erin.

He struggled again to reach the spike. D’Angelo was standing over Erin now, gazing down at her. His eyes were glowing, eager for more blood.

Slade moved an inch, but he still couldn’t reach the spike. Desperation filled him. Then something moved in the shadows just beyond where Slade lay. Racine, her face pale in the moonlight, her hair blazing like fire, slowly bent down and reached for the spike. For a moment, Slade thought this was the end. There was no hope left. Then miraculously, she tossed the spike toward Slade and he caught it, rolling to his feet in one quick motion.

D’Angelo looked up. His eyes widened. But it was too late.

With all his might, Slade hurled the spike through the darkness, straight toward D’Angelo’s heart. The vampire flew backward from the force as the spike
drove through him. He struggled to his knees and looked first at the stake through his heart, then at Slade. His expression was one of cold black fury, of disbelief. Blood poured out of the wound and stained his chest in ever-widening circles. Though his hands struggled with the iron spike, his strength had already diminished far too much to allow him to remove it.

“You fool,” he said, looking up, eyes blazing with a mad gleam. “You can’t defeat me.” But already the skin that had been flooded with his blood was decaying, turning to ashes before Slade’s eyes.

Disgusted and sickened, Slade turned from the sight and hurried to Erin, taking her in his arms. She lay limp, pale and lifeless, unresponsive to his touch. “Erin! Can you hear me?” Dear God, it couldn’t be over. He couldn’t be too late to save her….

A voice spoke in the darkness, and instinctively Slade’s arms tightened around Erin. “Get her inside,” Traymore said urgently. “Hurry. It’s almost dawn. The sunlight could kill her. I’ll take care of Racine. She’s merely hypnotized, I think.”

Gently Slade picked Erin up, cradling her in his arms as he carried her into the building and up the stairs to her apartment. For a moment, his gaze lit on the roses she’d bought a few days ago. Already they had wilted, and now he understood.

D’Angelo could have taken her at any time. She didn’t have to invite him inside. He’d already been in. The withered roses he’d seen the night Megan had
died should have told him that. But he hadn’t known then who he was dealing with.

D’Angelo could easily have taken Erin at any time, but instead he’d waited. Waited until Slade had fallen in love with her. Waited until the pain of her loss would be unbearable. And now, even in death, D’Angelo was still exacting his revenge.

“Put her down on the bed,” Traymore said behind him. Slade did as he was told, and the old man bent over her, examining the puncture marks on her neck. “Downstairs in my apartment,” he said over his shoulder, “there’s a book on my desk. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Can you save her?” Slade questioned hoarsely. “Is it too late?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Traymore said. “Go get the book. Quickly!”

Slade rushed out, then came back, carrying the book gingerly. It was so old some of the pages were hardly more than dust. Dr. Traymore carefully took it from him.

“There are certain incantations in here. Prayers that we can try.”

“No amount of hocus-pocus will help Erin now,” Slade said angrily. “I thought you had a medicine. A cure, you said.”

“This is all we’ve got,” Dr. Traymore said. “You better muster up a little faith, Detective, if we’re to have any chance at all. If anyone can help her, it’s
you. Talk to her. Let her know she has a choice. Let her know that there is a way out of the darkness. It’s called love, Detective. Show her the way.”

* * *

The darkness was complete, but Erin wasn’t afraid. The night welcomed her. She heard Megan’s voice and knew she wasn’t alone anymore. But she couldn’t find her sister in the darkness. There seemed to be two paths ahead of her, and Erin didn’t know which way to go. One was dark and one was light. Megan spoke to her out of the shadows.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Erin. Now we can be together forever. You want that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” More than anything she wanted to see her sister again.

“Then come to me,” Megan whispered. “Make the choice, Erin.”

Without thinking, Erin started toward her sister’s voice. But another voice was speaking to her now, speaking to her from the path with the light. “Come back to me, Erin. I need you. I…love you. Please, Erin. Can you hear me?”

“Nick?” Her heart surged with joy. “You love me?”

“Yes. More than anything. Come back to me, Erin.”

Erin turned back to the dark path. She could still see her sister in the shadows, but Megan’s form was wavering now, dissolving like mist. “You’ve found
your way and I’ve found mine,” she said. “Goodbye, Erin.”

“Goodbye, Megan,” she breathed sadly.

She opened her eyes and saw Nick.

He was sitting on the edge of her bed, clutching her hand in his. He was no longer wearing the dark glasses, and his eyes—so light and clear and beautiful—were staring down at her with so much love, so much faith that Erin could have wept.

“You came back,” he whispered.

“I heard you calling to me,” she said softly, lifting his scarred hand to her face. “I heard you say that—”

“I love you? I do,” he said. “More than anything.”

Erin had never known such joy. Her smile was radiant, full of light. “I love you, too, Nick. I have from the moment I first saw you.” It wasn’t his darkness that had drawn her, Erin realized now. It wasn’t her fear of him that had so intrigued her. It was his strength. It was his faith that good could triumph over evil.

Deep inside, she had always known that he was the one man who could rescue her from the nightmares. He was the one man who could lead her out of the darkness of her past. And he had.

He lifted her up and carried her to the window. It was still dark outside, but in the distance the sky had lightened.

“What about your eyes?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you cover them?”

“In a minute,” he said. But Erin didn’t want to take any more chances. Tenderly, she slipped his glasses on him.

And then he kissed her as dawn burst upon the horizon.

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AMANDA STEVENS

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