Desire After Dark. Amanda Ashley

kid. I’ll dispose of all this carrion, trust me.” His gesture had included the twisted bodies.

      “Not that,” Marisa said.

      “Just tell me what you want,” Duncan had said. “And consider it done.”

      “Ramsey needs to feed.”

      Duncan had stared at her. “What?”

      “He needs blood to replace what he’s giving Kelly. He’s not strong enough to hunt.”

      “You want me to…” Duncan had looked at Ramsey, then back at Marisa. “This is carrying friendship a little too far, don’t you think?”

      “No,” Marisa had said, her voice calm.

      “Why can’t you do it?” Duncan had glanced at Grigori. “You’re used to it.”

      “Yes,” she had agreed calmly. “I am. But Grigori needs to feed, too. You have no idea what it cost him to hold Khira at bay until I could…could…”

      “Okay, okay, you convinced me,” Duncan had grumbled. He had picked up a vial of holy water as he moved toward the couch.

      Ramsey had opened his eyes as Duncan approached. Edward’s eyes had darkened with alarm and Grigori had tensed, ready to spring to Edward’s defense if necessary.

      “Relax,” Duncan had said. “A little insurance, that’s all. Friend or no friend, you aren’t turning me into a damned bloodsucker.”

      Looking back, he remembered sitting down on the sofa and wondering if he was making the worst mistake of his life. In spite of all they had shared, in spite of the years they had hunted together, it made Duncan a little sad to realize there would always be that little part of himself that no longer trusted his best friend.

      A few weeks after they had dispatched Khira, Edward and Kelly had approached him. Duncan had listened to their plan with wry amusement. Incredible as it seemed, Edward had decided to open a school to train vampire hunters and he wanted Duncan to be in charge. Duncan had given it some serious consideration but, in the end, he had turned the offer down. He didn’t want to teach a bunch of green kids how to hunt vampires, he wanted to hunt them himself. He had helped Edward find another hunter, one who had been thinking about retiring from the hunt. John Randolph was a good man and Duncan knew he’d do a good job. Randolph had told Duncan that when he tired of the hunt, he would be welcome at the school.

      With a sigh, Duncan went back to the hotel and packed his gear, then checked out of the hotel. Opening the trunk, he took a quick inventory of his kit: hammer and stakes, a mirror, a few strings of garlic, a half a dozen bottles of holy water, a saw and a crowbar, a flashlight, and a snub-nosed .38. He closed the trunk, then unlocked the door of his beat-up old Chevy Camaro and slid behind the wheel.

      “Heigh-ho, Silver, away,” he muttered with a wry grin. The bad guy, or bad gal in this case, had been defeated and destroyed. Good had once again triumphed over evil.

      It was time to move on.

      Chapter 2

      Pear Blossom Creek was just a small Midwestern town, hardly more than a wide spot in the road. No one famous had ever been born there, or even spent the night. They had one fire truck and four policemen, two for the day shift and two who worked nights. Most of the residents were farmers, and everybody in town knew everybody else. It was a place where nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Nothing, that is, until the stranger came to town.

      He arrived on a dark and decidedly stormy Friday night in early-October. The storm was a real gully washer, the old-timers were quick to say, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in more than a hundred years. A bad omen, some predicted.

      Victoria Lynn Cavendish didn’t put much stock in anything the over-seventy-five crowd had to say but she had to admit that in all her twenty-two years, she had never seen or heard a storm like the one pounding on the hammered tin roof of Ozzie’s Diner. Nor had she ever seen a man quite like the one sitting at the booth in the far corner, she thought as she approached him.

      He was dark, he was, and it wasn’t just his clothing or his coloring. It was like he was a part of the darkness itself, a feeling that was reinforced when she looked into his eyes. Deep blue eyes that seemed as fathomless as Hellfire Hollow, as endless as eternity. His hair was long and straight and black as a raven’s wing, the perfect complement to his straight black brows and long, thick eyelashes that would have looked feminine on any other man. But not on this man. His countenance was darkly beautiful and without blemish, in the way that Satan might appear beautiful as he carefully seduced you down the paths of sin. Looking at the stranger, she thought it might be worth the journey, perilous though it would undoubtedly be to both body and soul.

      He remained unmoving under her perusal, a knowing smile curving his perfectly sculpted, sensuous lips.

      With an effort, Vicki drew her gaze from his. “What can I get you, mister?” she asked, her pencil poised over her pad.

      “What would you recommend?” His voice was low, almost mesmerizing, and strangely intimate, as if he knew her innermost secrets. As if he alone possessed the power to grant her every wish, fulfill her every desire.

      She shook off her fanciful notions. He wasn’t the devil. He was just a man. “The meat loaf’s not bad.” It wasn’t really good, either, but she couldn’t tell a customer that.

      “Very well, I will have the meat loaf.”

      “You want mashed potatoes and gravy with that, or French fries?”

      “Either one will be fine.”

      “And to drink?”

      “Would you by chance have any red wine?”

      Victoria stared at him. She had worked at the diner for almost four years and in all that time, no one had ever asked for wine, red or white or any other kind. “No, I’m sorry.”

      “No matter.”

      “So, what would you like to drink?”

      His fathomless gaze rested on the hollow of her throat for a moment before he said, “Just coffee.”

      “Gotcha.”

      She could feel those wintry blue eyes on her back as she turned and walked away. Knowing he was watching her sent a shiver down her spine.

      “That guy at booth six is…” Bobbie Sue Banks, one of the diner’s other waitresses, shook her head. “I don’t know who he is, but he’s kind of spooky, don’t you think?”

      Spooky was just the right word. There was something just the slightest bit off about him. If she didn’t know better, she might have thought he was some kind of alien. She remembered an old Twilight Zone episode in which the aliens had looked just like everyone else, except one hid a third eye under his hat and the other one hid the fact that he had more than two arms under his coat.

      “Well, let’s hope he’s a big tipper.” Vicki glanced over her shoulder at the booth in the back only to find that the mysterious stranger was no longer sitting there.

      Frowning, she looked around the diner and then she saw him through the front window, walking down the rain-swept street with Sharlene Tilden, who had been sitting at table two. Sharlene was a cashier at Perry’s Market. She came in for dinner every night at the same time. Sharlene was divorced and it was rumored that, since her divorce, she slept around, but that was none of Vicki’s business. Anyway, she didn’t believe it for a minute. Sharlene had never been the type to indulge in casual sex.

      With a shrug, Vicki tore up the stranger’s order and went to clear Sharlene’s table.

      The stranger was back again the following night, sitting at the same booth in the back corner of the diner, one arm flung over the back. Once again, he wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a long black coat. Once again, it was as if all the darkness in the world had gathered around him.

      Taking