Vigil
| Vigil | |
| The Hours Trilogy [2] | |
| Z. A. Maxfield | |
| MLR Press (2010) | |
| Rating: | **** |
| Tags: | Fiction, Gay, MLR Press; ISBN 978-1-60820-172-3 |
Donte won't be happy until his fragile human lover is immortal. Adin won't be happy until Donte accepts that immortality isn't for him. After a case of mistaken identity leads Adin to what appears to be the sale of an underage boy named Bran, Adin decides to rescue him and turn him over to the police. Soon it becomes clear that Bran is no ordinary boy. Unless Adin can find out who wants him and why, someone else's plan for Bran will get them both killed. Adin is confident -- but he's not stupid -- and it doesn't take him long to realize that he'll need Donte by his side every step of the way, if only to answer the one question he asks himself more and more: What else is out there? ( This is the Sequel To Notturno)
Vigil
Z.A. MAxfield
mlr
press
MlR PRess AuthoRs
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Z.A. Maxfield
Patric Michael
AKM Miles
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Richard Stevenson
Clare Thompson
Marshall Thornton
Lex Valentine
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Check out titles, both available and forthcoming, at
Vigil
Z.A. MAxfield
mlr
press
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2010 by Z.A. Maxfield
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole
or in part in any form.
Published by
MLR Press, LLC
3052 Gaines Waterport Rd.
Albion, NY 14411
Visit ManLoveRomance Press, LLC on the Internet:
Cover Art by Deana Jamroz
Editing by Kris Jacen
ISBN# 978-1-60820-172-3
Issued 2010
To Carol P., Donte’s superfan, with love and gratitude,
and to Elisa Rolle and Antonella Piazza, for language
help when I needed it, thank you very, very much.
Clearly, it was time to kill Ned Harwiche III. Adin checked his
watches yet again and decided he’d waited long enough. Everyone
had their rituals, but Ned’s had to be the stupidest of all, and the
most macabre. As it would be getting dark before long, Adin
began the lengthy walk back to the street.
Adin had always loved Père-Lachaise cemetery. He’d spent
many a fond hour there getting drunk and emotional with his
friend Edward, who had always been prone to such things, when
they’d been silly and young and given to excess and guyliner. But
even though they bore the same first name, Ned Harwiche and
Edward Sheffield were two entirely different people.
Only Ned—in a bid to make what was probably a pretty
lackluster day in his boring life seem more exciting—would
have mysteriously requested that Adin meet him at
The Wall
at
Père-Lachaise to discuss a business proposition. Adin had come
willingly enough, even if the location was a little bizarre. He
doubted Harwiche chose it for either its personal or its historical
significance.
Adin had decided to twit Harwiche and his fastidious, button-
down, nelly ass that day by dressing, in what he liked to think
of as full vampire boyfriend mode, complete with leather pants,
a black silk T-shirt, enough jewelry, chains, and studs to open a
hardware store, and eye makeup. A dramatic long silk coat swept
the gravestones when the wind whipped it around his calves. A
paisley scarf lent the entire ensemble a touch of class. A sure sign
that Adin’s vampire lover Donte’s sartorial splendor was rubbing
off on him.
All in all, Ned Harwiche didn’t deserve the care he’d taken,
but Adin missed Donte—badly—and felt like making trouble.
Adin could swear one of the guards still remembered him from
when he was a kid. But maybe he’d looked at Adin with vague
distrust when he’d passed through the gates earlier that afternoon
2 Z.A. Maxfield
because of his clothes. The guards probably had their hands full
with kids who looked just like he did right then.
Ned Harwiche, however, would find it appalling and appealing
at the same time, and he’d spend their entire meeting at war with
himself. Since Adin and Ned were minor adversaries at book
auctions, Adin was ready for a little passive revenge. He still
wondered why Ned had asked to meet him. It looked like his
curiosity would go unsatisfied for the moment, because Harwiche,
even after all the annoying phone calls and rescheduling he’d
done, had failed to show up.
As Adin turned from saying a final good-bye to the wall, two
dour-looking men in business suits approached him.
“Will you please come with us Monsieur Harwiche?” one of
them asked politely in French.
Adin gave the man a disinterested smile in return and prepared
himself to say they had the wrong man. But before he could
open his mouth the man who had not spoken lifted his jacket,
showing off a gun in a shoulder holster, neatly clearing Adin’s
mind of all coherent thought.
“Let’s just say it’s not a request M. Harwiche.” You had to
hand it to the French
H aspiré
. Often one got
une grande
whiff
of whatever had been consumed for lunch. The man grabbed
him with a hand attached to an arm so rock solid that it could
probably lift him off the ground.
Adin frowned and refused to move. “I believe you’re making
a mistake.”
The man who spoke first, whose glasses covered a nervous
expression completely at odds with how well he wore his suit,
caught Adin’s arm in an unrelenting grip.
“Don’t make us shut you up in a painful way,” he murmured
in English. “Just come quietly.
“But—” Adin tried again, getting only the one word out
before the first man shoved him forward and the second head-
butted his forehead brutally.
Vigil
3
Together, the two suits dragged him to the car and pushed
him in, but not before he caught a glimpse of Ned Harwiche
crouched behind a tall memorial.
That prick.
On the car ride Adin kept his mouth shut and his ears open.
He was vaguely aware of heading toward the river and the area
known as the Marais. If he chanced a glance at the man who’d
gotten into the back with him, the armed man, he got nothing for
his trouble. The man stared passively ahead, virtually immobile,
and said nothing at all for the entire ride. The car came to a halt
on the narrow street in front of what had—by its sign—at one
time been a bakery in the historically protected neighborhood,
but now housed what seemed to be a curio shop. The driver got
out, and then opened the door on Adin’s side to pull him from
the car. The other man emerged behind Adin, unfolding his long
legs and taking his time.
“Wouldn’t it be better—?” Adin began but the man with the
gun shoved him roughly forward.
“What would be best is if we could all just go inside and do
what we came here to do.”
Adin complied. There didn’t seem to be anything for it but to
imagine just exactly what he was going to do to Ned Harwiche
when he caught up with the little weasel. They opened the door
into the shop, causing the jangling of wall-mounted brass bells.
An odd-looking man ushered the three of them inside. He closed
and locked the door behind them, pulling the blinds to the street
shut.
Since meeting Donte, Adin often found himself in surreal
situations, but this one was shaping up to be at the top of the
list. Everywhere he looked, shelves jammed with books and
trinkets lined the walls from the floor to the ceiling. The place
was an obstacle course of tables on which rocks and crystals sat
in haphazard jumbles. Behind the counter with its ancient cash
register, there were apothecary jars filled with various organic
things, twigs and leaves and balls of fluff he thought might be
the exploded remains of thistle or clumps of down feathers.
4 Z.A. Maxfield
There were things suspended in acrid-looking fluids he didn’t
care to speculate about.
The place looked to be the perfect hokey
magick
shop; one
he thought better suited to Los Angeles and its Buffy wannabes
than Paris. But if it had to be here it made sense for it to be in the
Marais. It stood only blocks from the Auberge Nicolas Flamel,
where the famed fourteenth century alchemist once lived and
supposedly turned lead into gold.
The odd man spoke. “I’m Thierry.” His accent was thick and
elegant. “You are a not an easy man to pin down, M. Harwiche. I
beg you not to insult our intelligence again. The item you asked
us to procure will be difficult to conceal for long, and I assume
you intend no further delays.”
Adin’s ears burned at the mention of something Harwiche
wanted to buy. Ned had given him fits by routinely bidding against
him for manuscripts Adin knew for a fact he had no interest
in. Harwiche collected erotica, certainly, and that had led them
to square off more than once over a particularly good piece.
Between Adin’s friends in the business, and the university’s faith
in him he’d more than once come out the victor. But this had the
effect of turning Harwiche into an even more determined and
implacable foe, and he rarely passed up the chance to drive up the
price of something Adin wanted—to spite him—whether it was
something he collected for his own pleasure or not.
Adin couldn’t begin to imagine how they could be confused
for each other. There were photos of both him and Harwiche
on the Web. A quick glance into the reflecting surface of a thick
