Kissed by Darkness (8 page)

The weirdest thing of all was that he felt familiar. I didn’t recognize him, so I knew I’d never seen him before. I never forgot a face. But it felt like I knew him, or that I
should
know him.

“OK.” I straightened my shoulders. No way was I letting this …
Sunwalker
get to me. “So, Mr. Sunwalker, have you got a name?”

He glanced up, startled, and then gave me a grin, flashing a pair of canines that were slightly longer than strictly necessary, but nothing in the realm of vampire. “Jackson. Jackson Keel. You can call me Jack.”

Jack? A Sunwalker named Jack? That was almost as bad as Bob. “Morgan Bailey. Nice to, uh, meet you.” Right. Let’s go with that. “OK, Jack, why don’t you sit down and explain to me why you found it necessary to scare the shit out of me. And while you’re at it, you might as well tell me why you stole my client’s property.”

I tried to give him a severe look
a la
Kabita, but it wasn’t working. It was that mouth. Sweet baby Jesus, he had such a mouth. It made me want to do very bad things. There really should have been a law.

I cleared my throat and stiffened my spine, dragging on my professional vampire hunting aura with all the willpower I could muster. I folded my hands primly in front of me and waited. This was a Kabita trick. Unfortunately, she was a lot better at it than I was.

He just smirked at me, the big fat jerk. “First off,” he said in that voice that also should have been outlawed, “I wanted to make sure you understood just how difficult killing me would be.” Score one for him. I was seriously rethinking this whole dusting thing. Hell, I hadn’t even been able to find him, never mind kill him.

“Uh, yeah. I get that. And secondly?”

“Secondly, I didn’t steal the amulet from Darroch. He stole it from me.”

I blinked. Well, that was a turn of events. “Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “Likely story. Let me guess. You inherited it from your grandmother.”

His eyes darkened. “It was entrusted to me by a friend a long time ago.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “I swore to protect it. I failed. I’ve been tracking Darroch ever since.”

I honestly couldn’t imagine this guy, this Sunwalker, failing at anything. My mind was reeling with questions. If I was honest, very few of them at that moment had anything at all to do with the amulet and everything to do with the sexy piece of man standing in front of me.

I sucked in a breath. The strong aroma of roasted coffee beans grounded me somewhat. I felt a little more solid, but still embarrassingly gooey around the edges. I took a sip of my latte, and then tightened my fingers around the ceramic coffee mug, letting the heat seep into my hands. My silver ring cut into my finger just a bit. This was all feeling a little surreal.

I tried desperately not to focus on his mouth. Honestly, he must have some weird voodoo Sunwalker powers or something. His mouth truly couldn’t be that sexy. It just wasn’t right. Every time I looked at him I wanted to nibble on his lower lip. It was embarrassing. I was a Hunter, for crying out loud.

I gave myself another mental head slap. I was going to have a psychic bruise if I wasn’t careful.

I curled one leg under me and sank back into the comfy couch, mug clutched to my chest. “So, this amulet, why would Darroch claim you stole it and hire me to get it back from you if he’s the one that has it?” Good. Logic was good. When in doubt, attempt logic.

“I would have thought that was obvious.” His voice dripped disdain. I wasn’t sure if it was for me or for Darroch.

OK, right. Obvious. Now, normally I was reasonably good at obvious, but unfortunately in this case my brain had long ago turned to mush. I flashed his backside another look as he strode by me again. Oh, gods, I was in trouble.

“He wants me dead.” Jack’s voice was completely flat. No anger, no fear, no nothing. Just the facts, ma’am.

“Why would he care?” Honestly, what was one Sunwalker in the world of Brent Darroch?

He shrugged. “Perhaps he’s afraid I’ll get the amulet back. That I’m all that stands between him and absolute power.”

“Absolute power. Seriously? Melodramatic much?”

He paused to give me a glare before continuing his long strides back and forth across the dark tiles of the coffee shop. I caught the barista drooling again. “He probably also thinks he has a score to settle, taking the amulet from me wasn’t enough.” He raked his fingers through his dark hair.

I shook my head. Men and their macho bullshit. “OK, fine, whatever. So he wants you dead. That still doesn’t prove the amulet belongs to you.”

“Then maybe this will.” He strode across the floor and leaned over, right in my face. I wasn’t sure whether I should hold my ground or run like hell. What I did know was that, despite everything, I suddenly had the irresistible urge to plant a big, sloppy kiss right on that mouth of his.
Down girl!

From the looks of things, a very similar thought had just crossed his mind. Oh, man, was I in trouble. He shook his head slightly then slapped his palm on the scarred wooden table. In his hand was a photograph.

Now, I’d seen nineteenth and early twentieth century photographs. In fact, I used to collect them as a kid. I’d look at them for hours on end, imagining the lives of the people in them, making up stories about their adventures. What could I say? I’d always been a little weird.

The Sunwalker’s photo was definitely nineteenth century, late nineteenth century, from the looks of it. I could tell by the style of clothing. Only instead of some random long-lost relative staring back at me, the face was an exact replica of Jack’s.

I gaped from the Sunwalker to the photo and back again. It didn’t just look like Jack, it
was
Jack. Right down to the tiny scar on his chin. I wondered vaguely what could cause a scar on a Sunwalker. Did they have the same healing abilities as vampires? Or did Jack get the scar before he was turned? Something I should probably find out.

Then my attention was caught by something else in the old sepia toned photo. Around Jack’s neck on a thin chain hung an amulet. The same amulet Darroch had shown me a picture of a few days before. The supposedly worthless one he claimed the Sunwalker had stolen only recently. Yet here Jack was wearing it in a photograph taken over one hundred years ago.

A lot could happen in a hundred years, sure. He could have lost the amulet in a card game, sold it, anything. But I strongly doubted it with that same sixth sense that had saved my ass on more than one occasion. Darroch had claimed his family had owned the amulet for generations. Granted, one hundred years was a lot of generations, but still.

“Nice pic.” I handed it back to him. “Ever hear of Photoshop?”

He smiled. “I thought you might say that.” He handed me another photo. It was a Polaroid. An old one. Circa the 1970s.

Jack was lounging against the side of a hippie van wearing a pair of bellbottoms and a ridiculous vest thing covered in beadwork. Around his neck was the amulet from the previous photo.

I glanced up at Jack. As far as I knew, Polaroids couldn’t be faked. Damn.

Something about the Sunwalker, Jack, made me
want
to believe him. Trust him. I knew it was crazy and probably
really
stupid, but part of me honestly believed he was telling the truth. The other part wondered if my anti-vamp mojo was on the fritz and I’d finally fallen for some weird vampire glamour that nobody knew about.

“Listen, you gotta stop that if you want me to believe you.” I put on my stern Kabita-voice. It usually worked.

“Stop what?” His voice was getting dangerously loud and this time he ran his hands through his dark hair so vigorously I was afraid he would pull it right out. Instead, it just ended up spiking out in every direction as though he’d had a run in with a light socket. And dammit, it made him even sexier. I groaned. This just wasn’t fair.

“That.” I waved an arm around, nearly upsetting my coffee cup. “Just stop.”

“Woman!” His voice held an edge of warning like he expected me to obey him. I didn’t respond well to being ordered around.

“Don’t you ‘woman’ me, mister. This is the twenty-first century. Not the, the … um. When were you, um …?” I trailed off. I had no idea how old he was and it seemed somewhat indelicate to ask ‘Oh, by the way, how old are you anyway?’

“Turned?” he offered with some irritation.

That worked. “Sure, yeah, turned.”

He smiled a little. I seemed to amuse him an awful lot. “Not long before the Second Crusade.”

I blinked. “Second Crusade? As in the Christian Crusades?”

He gave me a “duh” look.

Good grief. That made him over 900 years old. Talk about having the hots for an older man. This was just ridiculous.

“The Crusades. Right. Anyway, you’re not allowed to treat women like that anymore.”

He looked about ready to throttle me, which was fine. He was causing me a great deal of discomfort. I figured he deserved a bit of the same.

I’d like to point out that I was not really as hormonal as I sounded. I mean, OK, yeah, I sort of had the hots for Inigo, but on a general level, you know. Like, come on, he’s hot. And he’s such a flirt, I just couldn’t help it. It’s like having the hots for … Gerard Butler. He’s extremely yummy, but you knew nothing would ever happen because, well, Gerard Butler was famous and frankly I was not. Same thing with Inigo, except for the famous part. He was Kabita’s cousin and Kabita would seriously kill me.

And now I was having the hots for a Sunwalker. But honestly, could you blame me? I didn’t think so.
Hot
didn’t even begin to cover it. His extreme hotness was so totally overwhelming I was about to go into serious meltdown any minute. I had to refrain from fanning myself.

I really didn’t want him to know his pheromones or whatever were getting to me. “Listen. Forget it, OK? I’m really tired and I want to go home.” And I needed to think about this whole weird plot twist. “What is it you want from me?”

He leaned in really slowly until he was staring straight in my eyes and I could feel his breath warm on my face. For a minute, I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead he said, “I want you to get my amulet back.”

I sucked in a breath. “OK, right and Darroch?”

The grin on his face scared me a little. “Oh, once you find my amulet, I’ll take care of Darroch.” The way he said it sent shivers down my spine, and not the good kind of shivers, either.

Great. Just great. My client had turned out to possibly be the bad guy and now the former bad guy wanted to wring the current possible bad guy’s neck. Kabita was so not going to be pleased with this turn of events.

“OK, sure. I’ll get back to you on that.”

He gave me a look and I knew defying him would be a really bad idea. “See that you do.” He spun on his heel and strode for the door.

“Um, excuse me!” I called after him.

“What?” he snapped. His ocean eyes were fierce. I had no doubt that this man, this Sunwalker, was still every bit the warrior he’d been 900 years ago.

“Exactly how do you propose I contact you? It’s not like you’re listed in the phone book under ‘Sunwalker.’”

He stalked back to the table and slapped a business card down before spinning and stalking back to the door. I glanced at the card. My eyes widened a little. “You’re kidding right?” I called after him. He stopped and half turned. “You teach piano lessons?” I’m pretty sure he blushed before he slammed out, the bell above the door jangling crazily behind him.

I twirled his business card through my fingers and grinned happily to myself. Beautiful. Suddenly, I was feeling incredibly perky. That big, tough, macho ex-Crusader turned Sunwalker taught piano to little kids for a living. Beyond brilliant. Sometimes life was just way too weird.

Chapter Seven

Sometimes life so totally sucked. I mean, big time.

I’d had the brilliant idea to confront my client, possibly former client, about the Sunwalker’s claims and the photograph. It made sense at the time. Barge in. Demand the truth. Blah, blah.

Unfortunately, things didn’t always turn out quite the way I pictured them in my head. This was definitely one of those times.

After Jack left, I’d gone over to Brent Darroch’s house. I’d knocked on the door, really I had. Nice and loud, too. Rang the doorbell, even. No answer. So I tromped around the house peeking in windows and trying doors. Just in case. I mean, he could be lying wounded or something.

All the doors were locked, the windows mostly curtained. And then I found it, a small window high up in what appeared to be the pantry. It was open just a crack and I honestly didn’t think I’d fit. Kabita would have fit, but me, I had hips. Hips that were not designed to squeeze through tiny pantry windows. So imagine my surprise when I was actually able to wiggle through with only a couple of minor hiccups.

I hauled myself up onto the sill and swung my legs through the open window. I didn’t know why I sucked my stomach in. My stomach wasn’t the problem. As I suspected, my hips were just a tad too wide to fit through the window horizontally. I wriggled myself around to the right a bit so my body was slanted and my hips slipped right through.

Unfortunately, my ribs got a bit of a banging as my side scraped along the window frame on the way in. It left a lovely little welt from waist to armpit. That was going to sting.

I hit the pantry floor with a rather audible thud and managed to stagger to my feet without crashing into anything. The pantry was dim; the only light came from the security lights outside filtering in through the small window I’d just crawled through. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with shelves filled with every imaginable food item. He even had half a dozen jars of marshmallow fluff. I was seriously tempted to steal a couple. Or at the very least, open one and gobble about half of it down. I resisted. Barely.

I knew I was breaking every rule in the book and Kabita would no doubt kill me. You just didn’t go breaking into your own client’s house searching for clues. It’s rude. But I had to do it. Darroch had given me the creeps from the start and I was determined to find the truth one way or the other.