Was he her protector? Or a predator…

It was the final glimpse Erin Ramsey would have of her sister: Megan’s body, drained of blood, lying lifeless in a New York alley. Tormented by the fact that she hadn’t been there when her sister needed her, Erin promises herself that she’ll find Megan’s killer.

Detective Nicholas Slade tells Erin to go home, back to California. He says he doesn’t want her to be the murderer’s next victim. But his warning comes too late. Erin is already in danger, in thrall to a man who cloaks himself in shadows and haunts her nightmares.

Erin is desperate to find her sister’s murderer—and desperate to avoid becoming his prey—but she feels her own life spinning out of control as the silver-eyed specter from her dreams lures her deeper into his world. Nick may be the only one who can help her, but she’s afraid to trust him. Her deep attraction to the secretive detective is tinged with fear. He only works the night shift. He wears sunglasses in the dark. And he may have been the last person to see Megan alive…

Previously published.

“I can take care of myself,” Erin assured Nick.

“Can you?” he asked.

There was something in his tone—a faint challenge—that made Erin grow even more uneasy. She glanced around the darkened hallway. There was no one about. She was completely alone with a man who made her tremble, a man who made her think of moonlight and madness. Of secrets and whispers and promises that could only be told in the dead of the night.

She looked at him, telling herself that she couldn’t be feeling this pull, this strange attraction for a man who seemed to embody her deepest fears. Her darkest nightmares.

What kind of woman would be drawn to the thing that frightened her most?

Amanda Stevens knew at an early age that she wanted to be a writer, and began her first novel at the age of thirteen. While majoring in English at Houston Community College and the University of Houston, she was encouraged to write a romance novel by one of her instructors, who was himself writing a historical. Her first romance was sold to Silhouette Intimate Moments in 1985. Amanda lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband of sixteen years and their five-year-old twins.

Dark Obsession

Amanda Stevens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

PROLOGUE

Drake D’Angelo woke up suddenly, the realization that it was almost dark and he was starving coming upon him. Soon, he comforted himself. Soon he would taste again the sweet red nectar that he had been deprived of for too many years.

He licked his lips in anticipation as he got up and strolled out to his balcony. The soft twilight fell around him, blanketing him with the cool comfort of the approaching night. This was his favorite time, this tenuous moment right after sunset when the world came alive with the darkness, when the night stretched before him like an endless dream. How he had missed it during those eight years when he had lain deep underground, sleeping the sleep of the dead while the wounds that had nearly destroyed him healed.

He hated the dawn. Hated being trapped by the prison of daylight, but he wouldn’t think about that now. Not when the darkness was calling to him so strongly. Not when he had been waiting so impatiently for the night.

Not when revenge finally lay within his grasp.

Visions raced before his eyes, and he let himself remember that night eight years ago—a mere moment in time for one such as he. The heat had been suffocating, stinging his eyes and searing his skin as the inferno raged around him. The flames had licked at the tattered drapery and rotting floors of his mansion as the fire consumed everything in its path.

He closed his eyes at the remembered terror. The agony! The excruciating pain as the fire caught at his clothing and ate at his flesh. He could still hear Simone’s screams as her long, silken hair blazed like a halo around her glorious face. Within seconds she had been gone, destroyed, her loveliness nothing but a memory.

And all because of one man.

His enemy.

An unworthy rival who had thought to destroy him, but like the legendary phoenix, Drake had risen from the ashes of death. He had survived the torment. He had lived to seek his vengeance against the man who had taken away the one woman who would have been Drake’s mate through eternity. His one great love. He had waited centuries for her, and now she was gone.

“Simone.” He whispered her name agonizingly in the gathering darkness. There was only one way to ease the pain of her memory. Only one way to avenge her loss.

Death.

Each one would make him feel stronger. Would take the edge off his loneliness. Would give him a sense of justice in an unjust world.

They would give him a little something to look forward to night after night, he thought, smiling. Each death, each “kill,” would torment his nemesis as once the pain had tormented Drake. The kills would take everything away from his rival as Simone had been taken away from Drake. And he had found the perfect way to once and for all destroy his enemy. Nicholas Slade’s pathetic little crusade was about to come to an end.

And so he would go out again tonight, in his new identity, to a club where others like him met. A place where he could see but not be seen. A place where the unsuspecting were so easily seduced by the darkness. He would go there because that was where Slade would be.

Tonight his revenge would begin in earnest.

Drake smiled as his hunger sharpened. He could hardly wait. “I’ll see you in hell, Slade,” he whispered.

CHAPTER ONE

Detective Nicholas Slade knelt and touched the dead woman’s chin. With his fingertip, he tilted her head, glanced at the bruise marring an otherwise flawless cheek, then let his gaze move downward to her neck.

He studied her perfect features in the dim glow cast by a distant street lamp. She was a beautiful woman. Or had been, he corrected himself. Early twenties. Tall. Slender. Long black hair. And even though her eyes were closed, Slade knew they were blue. Deep, dark, soul-piercing blue.

Megan Ramsey had been a knockout. A real heart-breaker.

Abruptly Slade stood. From behind his sunglasses, he gazed down at the corpse, never taking his eyes off the body even when the other detective on the scene came up beside him.

“Orders came down from the top, Slade. We had to call you.” There was a trace of resentment in Gabriel Abrams’s voice, but Slade ignored it. His involvement over the last eight years with a special task force set up by Commissioner Thomas Delaney had ruffled a lot of feathers within the New York City Police Department, due in large part to the veil of secrecy from under which the group operated.

Code-named the Mission, the task force’s primary function was to investigate and eliminate the dark, evil elements that stalked the city’s streets—elements that most people thought only existed in their nightmares.

Each member of the Mission had been carefully recruited over the years by Commissioner Delaney because of a special trait, ability or background that made him or her uniquely qualified to serve in the secret organization. The Mission’s ranks expanded far beyond the New York City Police Department, though. Slade had no idea who all the members were or where they had come from. He only knew what his own particular area of expertise was. And why.

“You did the right thing,” he told Gabe. “Anyone else know about this?”

“Just the two blues who were on the scene first.” Gabe’s breath frosted in the night air as he gazed down at the body. “Her name’s Megan Ramsey. An actress. We got a positive ID from her sister.”

It would have been the perfect time to mention he already knew the victim’s name. It would have been the logical time to admit that he had seen Megan Ramsey just last night, that he had warned her to stay away from a club that attracted the dark side of the city, but he didn’t. Like so many others, she had refused to listen to him, and now she lay dead at his feet.

Slade shoved his hands deep inside the pockets of his long black coat. “Any witnesses?”

“None that bothered to stick around.”

Thank God for small favors, Slade thought. If the citizens of this city had even an inkling as to the real terrors out there in the darkness—

He cut off his own thoughts as he nodded toward a stooped figure in a tan overcoat hovering around the fringes of the cordoned-off area. “Who’s the old guy?”

“Name’s Traymore. Dr. Leonard Traymore. He’s a retired archaeologist doing some kind of research at NYU. He was a little vague on exactly what, though,” Gabe said dryly. “Says he heard a commotion and came out to investigate. He’s the one who called the station, but he claims he didn’t see a thing.” Gabe hesitated, then said in a low, anxious tone, “What the hell’s going on here, Slade?”

“What do you mean?”

Gabe stamped his feet, trying to keep warm as the wind sharpened. “Look at those marks on her neck. They look like some kind of a bite, but there’s no blood anywhere. No sign of a struggle.”

Slade stared at Gabe from behind his sunglasses. “So what are you saying, Abrams? That we’ve got a crazed vampire on the loose?”

“Hell, no. I’m saying we may have some crazed psycho on the loose who thinks he’s a vampire. Eighty-seventh had a werewolf last year, remember? Four bodies ripped apart in the park before the perp was apprehended. And the year before that, it was human sacrifices down by the river. The world is full of crazies, Slade. This guy’s a real Looney Tunes.”

“What makes you so sure it’s a man?” Slade asked quietly.

Gabe looked startled, then grinned irreverently. “I’ve met some bloodsucking women in my time—my ex-wife included—but nothing like this. No. This is a man’s job. Some crazy bastard getting his jollies. And by the looks of her, she didn’t put up much of a fuss.”

Slade stared down at Megan Ramsey, seeing again the perfect, flawless creature at his feet. She wore a black beaded evening dress and silk stockings. One of her shoes had come off and lay several inches from the body. Leaves dotted her dark hair as artfully as if she’d arranged them there herself. The black lashes showed starkly against her white cheekbones, and her full red lips curved upward in a tiny secretive smile. If possible, she looked even more beautiful in death.

A shudder ripped through Slade. He could almost hear the echo of Megan Ramsey’s laughter in the wind. Or was that Simone’s? “Kiss me, Nick. Just one last kiss…”

“Has anyone else said anything about the marks on her neck?” he abruptly asked Gabe.

“I don’t think so. The blues were too busy admiring her body. They’re used to winos and druggies who, shall we say, have already passed their prime when the Grim Reaper comes to call. They don’t get to see too many corpses that look like her.”

“What a shame,” Slade remarked sarcastically. He raked his fingers through his short crop of hair, then looked around, uneasy. It was getting colder. Colder and foggier. In the distance, a siren sounded, but the tiny plot of backyard where they stood remained eerily silent. Deadly calm. Mist swirled over the beautiful corpse like a gossamer shroud.

“The sister’s still hanging around if you want to talk to her,” Gabe suggested, nodding toward the steps of the apartment building. “She’s been here the whole time.”

Slade had noticed the woman sitting on the back steps the moment he’d arrived. She wore jeans and some sort of flimsy-looking sweater, and he could see her shivering from cold and shock. She looked fragile, like a crystal figurine that could too easily be shattered.

He tried to look away, but his gaze kept going back to her. The way she sat there, with her shoulders slumped and her hand clutching something to her chest, she looked so forlorn. So lost. Even from the distance across the yard, he could sense her grief, could almost touch it in the air between them. Like a dark and heavy cloak, it settled over them both, drawing them closer, binding them together against his will.

“Her name’s Erin,” Gabe was saying. “Erin Ramsey.”

Slade glanced up sharply. “The horror writer?”

“Apparently. She’s the one who discovered the body. Just got in about an hour ago from L.A. Came looking for her sister and found her out here, like this. Some welcome party, huh?”

“Have you talked to her?”

“Briefly. She wasn’t in much shape to answer questions.”

“Yeah, well, unfortunately, she doesn’t have a choice.”

“Why don’t you do it?” Gabe suggested, eyeing him slyly. “You always have such a charming bedside manner, Slade. I’ll talk to the old guy.”

Slade nodded, then glanced around, letting his shielded gaze roam over the backyard. The two officers were still hanging around, shuffling their feet and trying not to stare at the body. The medical examiner would be here soon, the CSU team, someone from the D.A.’s office. The yard would become a circus, and what he and Gabe had found wouldn’t be a secret for long.

Then what?

He could already feel the heat coming down from the commissioner’s office. “This is your province, Nick. Your specialty. Hunt him down, quickly, before questions begin to surface. We can’t have a vampire preying on innocent young women. Do what you have to do, but get him off the streets.”

Yeah, this was his province, all right, and Slade had every intention of doing what he had to do to stop the killing. After all, as the commissioner liked to remind him, vampires were his specialty.

He glanced at the sky and saw that the darkness had lightened almost imperceptibly. Behind the sunglasses, his eyes burned slightly with warning. It would be daybreak in a few hours. So much to do and so little time.

With an inward sigh, he headed across the yard toward Erin Ramsey.

* * *

He came toward her out of the mist, moving like a shadow, gliding with the darkness as though he were somehow a part of it. A breeze caught the hem of his long black coat and blew it back, so that it trailed behind him like wings made of leather. He looked huge—tall and broad shouldered, with dark hair cut very short, in blatant disregard for the latest fashion.

But what caught Erin’s attention, what held her gaze in fascination was the fact that he wore sun-glasses—at night. The yard was dark and misty, but he hadn’t once removed his sunglasses since he’d arrived.

A chill of apprehension crept up Erin’s spine as he stopped before her. She’d seen the way the other police officers had deferred to him, subtly keeping their distance as they filled him in on the details of the crime.

Now she understood why.

Erin could feel his stare, as keen as a razor, but because she couldn’t see his eyes, the sensation unnerved her even more, made her want to run and hide from this man who looked very much like a phantom from her imagination—or her nightmares.

“I’m Detective Slade.” His voice was like liquid—not warm and comforting, but cold and smooth, like an icy stream in the dead of winter. Erin shivered, wishing she had her coat. “I’m very sorry about your sister. I understand you were the one who found the body.”

He propped a booted foot on the bottom step and leaned forward so she didn’t have to look up very far to see him. Strangely, his features stood out prominently in the darkness. She could see him clearly, the well-defined angles of his handsome face, the nose that was a little broad but well shaped, lips that were full and sensuous but unsmiling. His cheeks were roughened with stubble, giving him a dangerous, almost sinister quality. He looked pale in the moonlight, but somehow undiminished, somehow vitally alive.

Erin shivered again and looked away, clutching the silver cross more tightly in her hand. Too late, her mind screamed over and over. Too late, too late, too late. Why hadn’t she come sooner? Why hadn’t she been here when Megan had needed her the most? Why hadn’t she sensed something was terribly, terribly wrong?

She had. She had sensed it. She just hadn’t wanted to believe it. Hadn’t wanted to be lured back here, to this city, to this very apartment, where her nightmares had first begun.

Erin felt something touch her shoulders, wrap around her gently, like an embrace. He’d removed his leather coat and tucked it around her, and she thought how strange that he would be the one to perform such an act of kindness. He seemed so distant, so emotionless, but perhaps that was the way he handled his job. He probably saw bodies every day.

But not her sister’s body. He didn’t see her sister’s body every day.

Trembling, Erin wrapped the coat more tightly around her shoulders. Detective Slade stared down at her with his protected gaze and said, “Would you like to go inside? We can talk there.”

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t leave her.”

“You can’t help her now,” he said, not unkindly. “You’ll only make yourself sick if you stay out here.”

“When will they take her away?”

“In a little while. The CSU guys have to get here, and someone from the M.E.’s office—” At her blank look he stopped and clarified. “Crime Scene Unit and someone from the medical examiner’s office. You don’t want to be here for that.”

“I’m not leaving.” Erin knew she sounded obstinate, but she couldn’t help it. There was no way she could leave Megan again. Not until she absolutely had to. “Where will they take her?”

“The morgue.”

“Will there be an autopsy?”

Slade hesitated, as if weighing how much more she needed to know. Then he nodded and said, “Yeah” in that same cold, expressionless tone.

Their eyes met in the dark—hers exposed, vulnerable; his hidden, masked. But Erin had no doubt that he was looking at her. She could feel the power of his gaze all the way through her, and it made her shiver all the more deeply.

The wind picked up and tossed a dead leaf across the sidewalk in front of them. Erin stared at it, saw it swirl across the yard toward her sister’s body and settle against the silent form. For just an instant, the leaf clung to Megan’s stilled body. Then, on a fresh gust of wind, it blew away, lost in the darkness like her sister’s soul.

I want to cry, Erin thought. I want to cry so that I’ll know I can still feel. But the tears wouldn’t come. The tears had all been used up long, long ago on cold, dark, terrifying nights such as this one.

She tried to tell herself that at least now Megan was finally at peace, but when Erin thought of death, she could only think of darkness, eternal night. That was what hell was, she thought. Not fire and brimstone. Just cold, mind-numbing blackness.

Detective Slade settled his long frame on the step beside her. He wore jeans, she noticed. Very faded and very tight. His dark sweater blended with the night and his black boots were trimmed with silver. The dark glasses made him appear aloof and mysterious. Dangerous.

He didn’t look like a cop at all. He looked more like a demon. A demon lover she’d conjured up from the deepest recesses of her black imagination.

Erin realized she was verging on hysteria, focusing on the man beside her so she wouldn’t have to think or feel or remember. She wanted to forget, even for just a second, that her sister was dead.

With something of a shock, Erin felt the cold moisture streaming down her face. So there were tears left, after all. She put her hands to her cheeks, trying to stem the flow, but more and more came, like backwater seeping through floodgates.

“Let’s go inside.” The deep voice spoke beside her. She felt his hand on her elbow, felt herself being propelled upward as if by sheer force of will. Suddenly she had no strength to resist. More people had arrived on the scene. They were all standing around or kneeling beside Megan’s body, and Erin couldn’t stand it. She wanted to scream at them to go away, to leave her sister alone as she had done years ago when the monsters had threatened them both.

But it was too late, she thought sadly. Too late now for anything but remorse.

Without looking back, Erin turned and allowed Detective Slade to lead her up the steps and into the gloomy hallway of her sister’s apartment building.

CHAPTER TWO

The apartment was dark. Erin reached inside the and flipped on the switch. Bright light spilled into the hallway, and she saw Detective Slade flinch.

“When did you first get here?” he asked with a grim edge to his voice.

“About two hours ago.”

He strode past her, and Erin felt the hair at the back of her neck rise as his arm brushed against hers. There was something so unsettling about his touch, something so daunting about his presence in her sister’s apartment.

He walked slowly around the room, not touching anything, but Erin had the distinct impression that nothing missed his scrutiny. He paused beside a vase of wilted roses. One fingertip stroked a shriveled petal as he frowned pensively. Then his gaze returned to her, and Erin’s heart began to thump inside her chest.

“How’d you get in?” His voice—that deep, cold, spine-tingling voice—shattered the illusion of calm in Megan’s apartment.

“I have a key,” she told him. “I let myself in. Megan wasn’t here. I thought perhaps she’d gotten bored waiting for me and gone out for a while. I was supposed to have been here hours ago, you see, but the flight was late leaving Los Angeles. It was after midnight when we landed at La Guardia. Then I had to get my luggage and find a taxi, and even at that time of night, traffic was horrendous. It took forever to get here….” She trailed off, glancing away as if realizing she’d revealed more than she’d meant to.

So the guilt had already set in. Slade pitied her for that. He’d lived with that same emotion for eight long years, knew how deadly and destructive it could be. He took her arm and steered her toward the couch.

“How did you happen to go out into the yard?” he asked her as they sat down.

“I heard voices. I think I must have dozed here on the couch for a little while. I thought I was dreaming at first. Then I opened my eyes and realized I was awake and the voices were coming from below. The window was open.”

She tilted her head toward the French doors that flanked one side of the fireplace. Her black hair, pulled smoothly back and knotted, rippled with iridescence in the light. Her skin was as pale and soft as moonlight, her features delicate, almost fragile.

But her eyes…her eyes were the contradiction. In their violet blue depths, he glimpsed the soul of a woman who could write novels so terrifying that they sent shivers along his spine.

She might be in shock now, but Slade knew she wouldn’t accept a simple explanation for her sister’s murder and then allow herself to go quietly away. Instinctively he could tell that she would want it all. Every last detail. Her guilt would demand it. He just hoped to God she’d be able to live with the facts when she learned them. If she learned them. He would do his damnedest to see that she didn’t. That was his job.

Abruptly he got up and walked over to the window. He knelt and examined the latch. “Did you leave the door open?”

“No. It must have been that way when I came in. The latch on that door sometimes sticks. You think it’s fastened, but it’s not. It’s always been that way.”

Slade glanced up. “You’ve been here before then?”

Something flickered in her eyes and then disappeared, but Slade thought again of the horrifying stories she so aptly created. “I lived here as a child,” she explained quietly. “My sister and I own this apartment. We grew up here. Megan probably didn’t get the lock fixed because…she wanted to prove she wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore.”

“Lots of things in the dark to be afraid of,” Slade murmured. He stepped out onto the balcony and looked down at the yard. The body had already been placed in a bag, but there were still several people milling around in the yard. One of the officers laughed. The sound carried easily to the balcony. Slade glanced back inside, glad suddenly that he’d persuaded Erin to leave the scene below.

“So you heard voices,” he said, walking back into the apartment and closing the door to block the sounds from the yard. “Did you recognize them?”

Erin looked up at him. “I thought I heard Megan’s voice. I thought I heard her…laughing.”

A chill seeped through Slade’s skin, accompanied by a cold, dark suspicion. “Did you recognize anyone else?”

Erin shook her head, wrapping his leather coat more tightly around her shoulders. “I think I heard a man’s voice, but I’m not sure. It was more like a…like a whisper, and yet I could hear it all the way up here. When I looked out the window, all I could see were shadows. I called to Megan, and I heard her laugh again. That’s when I went down to the yard to find her.”

“What did you see when you got there?”

She gazed at him reproachfully as if to say, the same thing you saw, Detective. But he hoped she hadn’t. He hoped to hell she hadn’t seen the same thing he had.

Her bottom lip trembled with emotion and she bit it. Slade could almost taste the blood on her tongue. He took a few steps toward her. “What did you see, Erin?”

The sound of her name seemed to startle her. She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. He moved to the couch and sat down beside her again. The warmth of her presence filled the emptiness inside his soul, and for the first time in eight years, Slade felt a yearning deep inside him. She looked so vulnerable, so…innocent, but he suspected in reality she was neither. And somehow that notion excited him even more.

Back off, he warned himself. She’s not for you. But at the moment, all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her slender shoulders, draw her close to him and protect her from the evil that lurked in the darkness.

The evil that was part of himself.

Erin’s eyes widened as if she recognized the danger. Her fingers wrapped around the silver cross that hung around her neck. “I saw Megan lying on the ground,” she said. “And I saw…something in the darkness.”

Slade’s heart jumped into his throat as he stared at her. “Are you saying you saw the murderer?”

“I’m not sure what I saw. I didn’t see a face, no definite form, but there were these…eyes. Silver eyes. And they were…glowing in the dark….” Her words trailed away as she met Slade’s stare. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his dark glasses. For endless seconds, their gazes clung. Slade’s pulse quickened as he recognized something in Erin Ramsey that scraped along his nerves and left him oddly shaken.

Then the doorbell sounded, breaking the spell, and Erin started to get up. Slade’s hand shot out and touched her arm briefly. Her gaze dropped to his hand as if she’d felt the same tiny jolt he had. He heard her gasp softly when she saw the scars. Her gaze flew back up to meet his, and he let his hand fall away from her.

“What else did you see?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “That was all.”

But that was enough, Slade thought grimly. In fact, too damned much.

Erin Ramsey had seen silver eyes glowing in the dark.

* * *

Erin’s hands trembled as she crossed the room to answer the door. She didn’t like to admit that Detective Slade had left her so shaken, so uncertain of her own emotions. She’d never met a man quite like him before.

But, of course, she’d just found her sister—her only family—dead in the backyard. Erin suspected she was still in shock. No doubt that was why Detective Slade had affected her so strangely.

Trying to summon the last vestiges of her courage, she drew open the front door. A woman she had never seen before stood on the other side.

“You must be Erin,” the woman said. “I came just as soon as I heard.” She was tall, towering over Erin by several inches, and she had the most extraordinary red hair Erin had ever seen. It flowed down her back, almost to her waist, and even in the dim hallway light, the thick ringlets blazed with fire. She was dressed all in black—tight leggings, a loose knit sweater and high leather boots. She hovered on the threshold as if waiting for Erin to invite her inside.

Erin said, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”

“My name is Racine DiMeneci,” the redhead said. “I live downstairs. I saw Dr. Traymore in the hallway. He told me what happened.” Tears filled the woman’s green eyes. “I talked to Megan just a few hours ago and now…I can’t believe…she’s gone….”

“Won’t you come in?” Erin said, opening the door wider so the woman could enter.

“I won’t stay long,” Racine promised, unobtrusively blotting the corners of her eyes with a lace hankie as she stepped inside. “I just had to tell you how sorry I am. If there’s anything at all I can do—” She broke off when she saw Detective Slade.

He was standing near the fireplace, watching them with the same shuttered scrutiny that had unsettled Erin earlier. He was holding one of the pictures Megan had kept displayed on the mantel, but as Racine and Erin entered the room, he turned and set it down with hardly more than a glance.

Racine looked back at Erin. “I don’t mean to intrude. I probably should have called first, but I hated to think of you being up here all alone. It must have been such a horrible shock. I still can’t believe it myself….” Her words trailed away again as she glanced back at Detective Slade.

Erin wondered what his reaction would be to such an overtly beautiful woman, but she could tell nothing by his expression. Slowly he walked toward them, and even Racine seemed intimidated by his formidable appearance.

“I’m Detective Slade,” he said.

Racine’s gaze flickered with uncertainty as if she didn’t quite believe him. “Do…I know you from somewhere?” she asked almost reluctantly, almost fearfully.

“Not likely,” he said tonelessly. “How well did you know Megan Ramsey?”

“We were friends.” Racine’s green eyes filled with tears again. She dropped down onto the couch, her legs crumpling. Erin sat beside her, and Racine reached for her hand, clutching it in her own. The intimacy of the action startled Erin. She wanted to draw her hand back. She wasn’t used to closeness, to this easy familiarity. She wasn’t used to friendships of any kind, but Racine seemed oblivious to Erin’s discomfort.

Detective Slade remained standing, gazing down at them from behind those mysterious glasses. “When was the last time you saw her alive?”

“Last night. Megan had the lead role in a play at the Alucard Theater, and the director, Roman Gerard, had been spending a lot of extra time, you know, coaching her. But there wasn’t a rehearsal last night so she came home early, around nine, I think. We spoke for a few minutes, then she said she was going to change her clothes and go back out to meet a friend.”

“Do you know who?”

Racine shrugged. “She didn’t say, but I assumed it was someone from the play. There’s this nightclub down by the river where a lot of actresses and actors hang out. I don’t recall the name of it, but the outside is painted black and the windows are all boarded up, you know, as if it’s deserted or something.”

“I know the one you mean,” Slade said. “Did you ever go there with her?”

“A couple of times.” Racine hesitated. A strange darkness passed across her features, a mere flicker, but it left Erin with a vague feeling of unease, a nagging little worry that there were more things in this room left unspoken than were being revealed.

Racine’s gaze met Erin’s, then she glanced away. She took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “Lately, Megan seemed to go there quite a lot. At first she said it helped her to understand the character she was portraying in the play. Then later, I think…I think she became obsessed with that club and with things that were, you know…not quite normal….”

“What do you mean?” Erin asked quickly.

“The supernatural,” Racine said, avoiding Erin’s gaze. “People go to that club pretending to be…vampires.”

An eerie chill stole up Erin’s spine. “Are you saying that Megan went there because she believed in vampires?” A memory of the last conversation she’d had with her sister flashed through Erin’s mind. Megan had seemed fascinated by Demon Lover, Erin’s latest novel. She’d asked Erin countless questions about her research for the book, but at the time Erin had given it little thought. It wasn’t until later, when she’d begun to suspect her sister was in trouble, that Erin had thought back on their conversation. She could hear Megan’s voice now, as clearly as if she stood in the room with her.

“Do you believe in vampires, Erin?”

Erin’s own response had been automatic. “Of course not. Demon Lover came from my imagination, Megan. He doesn’t exist.”

“But what if he does?” Megan had insisted.

As the dialogue floated through her mind, Erin’s gaze moved upward, almost against her will, to Detective Slade. Even though she couldn’t see his eyes, she knew his gaze was on her, as well, and she felt an almost physical jolt.

His mouth had tightened into a grim line, giving his face an even harsher, more formidable appearance. Abruptly he reached past her and picked up his coat. His hand skimmed her arm, and a dangerous shiver sliced through Erin.

“Someone will be talking to you again later today,” he said. “We’ll need statements, but I won’t trouble you anymore tonight. In the meantime, I advise you both to exercise caution. Don’t go out alone after dark. Don’t open your door to strangers and don’t invite anyone inside. We’re dealing with a murderer here. A vicious monster who is still out there somewhere. Until he’s caught, no one is safe. And I mean no one.”

He’d addressed the warning to both of them, but Erin sensed that he was staring at her. How disconcerting, how very frustrating not be able to see his eyes. What was he thinking? Was this just another routine case to him? Would he walk out that door and forget all about Megan? Would he forget Erin? Somehow the notion left her feeling bereft. His presence dominated the room, and now that he was making preparations to leave, the apartment seemed empty already. Lonely. Forbidding. Frightening.

The nightmares were closing in again.

Erin followed him to the door as he shrugged into his coat. The collar was turned up, shading the lower part of his face. The dark glasses hid the rest. She might have been looking at a mask.

She reached for the knob just as he did. Briefly his fingers closed over hers. His hands were huge and strong-looking—not cool and smooth like Racine’s, but warm, vital, competent hands. Even the scars—those horrible scars—seemed to give him an air of permanence, of immortality. He had been burned, she thought. Badly. But he had managed to survive.

And now Erin had a sudden, chilling premonition that her life had been placed in those battered hands. The feeling was oddly comforting. And frightening.

As if reading her thoughts, he said in his dark, liquid voice, “I’ll be in touch.”

And somehow Erin knew he would be.

* * *

“Detective Slade? May I have a word with you?”

Slade slowed his steps as the old man appeared out of the shadows in the backyard. “Dr. Traymore, isn’t it?”

“At your service,” he said with a slight inclination of his head. There was something old-worldly about the way the man dressed, the way he talked. Slade had a strange feeling of foreboding as he stared at him. “I take it you’ve questioned Miss Ramsey?”

Slade nodded absently. Yes, he’d questioned her. He’d lingered far longer than he should have. The moment he’d set eyes on Erin Ramsey, Slade had known she was going to be trouble. She would want answers, and Slade suspected she wouldn’t rest until she had them. And what would she do when she found out he’d known her sister? Where would she take the information?

He’d been through an investigation once, years ago. He didn’t care to repeat the process. One way or another Erin Ramsey would have to be satisfied, before her suspicions could be aroused.

With an effort, Slade shrugged off his growing dread of the days to come, letting his gaze roam the backyard, automatically focusing on the crime scene. The CSU team had finished their preliminary work, and the body was en route to the morgue. The only thing to indicate the violence that had taken place earlier was the yellow ribbon that still cordoned off the area. By morning, it would most likely be gone, as well. He returned his gaze to Dr. Traymore. “I presume Detective Abrams has spoken with you already?”

“Oh, yes. He questioned me thoroughly. I’m to come down to your station later today to make an official statement. I’ll tell you everything, Detective Slade, no need to be concerned about that. But I’d like to ask you a question now, if I may.”

“What is it?”

“Who did this?” Traymore made a vague gesture with his hand toward the yard. “Or should I say ‘what’?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you, now would I?”

“I think you have clues,” the old man insisted. He took a pipe from his overcoat pocket and busied himself filling the bowl. “I think you know exactly what you are dealing with here. This is not the work of a psychopath, a ‘Looney Tunes’ as your colleague so eloquently put it. Something far more dangerous is at work here. An animal who hunts the night. A predator who is voraciously hungry. A creature who is diabolically evil. You and I both know there will be more killings before this is over, Detective Slade.”

A gust of wind swept through the trees overhead and blew down Slade’s collar. A chill crawled through him as he stared at the old man’s careworn face. The hazel eyes returned his regard without wavering. Dr. Traymore seemed to be looking through the dark lenses of Slade’s glasses, straight through his eyes into his soul. Slade suppressed a shudder. “Who are you?” he asked coldly. “What do you want?”

“I’m many things,” the old man evaded. “A scholar. An archaeologist. A man who has traveled the world searching for answers. I think you can give me those answers, Detective Slade.”

“I’m just a cop,” Slade said, “and if anyone’s going to be asking questions around here, it’s me.”

“You’re more than a cop, as we both know.”

“And you’re wasting my time. I’ve got an investigation to conduct, so if you’ll excuse me…” Slade brushed past Dr. Traymore and started across the yard.

“Does the word nosferatu mean anything to you, Detective Slade?”

Slade stopped. The whole world seemed to stop. He could feel his heart pounding inside his chest as he turned slowly to face Dr. Traymore. Fog curled around the old man’s head like a misty blue halo.

He smiled. “I thought that would get your attention.” He walked through the light drizzle toward Slade. “You see, I’ve known of the existence of these creatures for a long time.”

“You’ve been reading too many Stephen King novels,” Slade said. “Or Erin Ramsey novels,” he added with irony.

The old man chuckled as he shoved one hand into the pocket of his heavy overcoat. “I assure you, the books I’ve been reading are not modern-day fiction. They are hundreds of years old, written in German and Russian, as well as Latin and ancient Greek. I’ve even seen hieroglyphs in the Valley of the Kings that depict the rising of the undead to feast on human blood. For years I’ve studied the mysteries of the un-dead. I’ve learned their habits. I know what they must have in order to survive. I know their needs and their strengths and their weaknesses. I even know what it takes to kill them.”

“Go home,” Slade ordered, frustrated that yet a new problem had presented itself to him. It was another worry that would have to be taken care of. “Obviously you need your rest.”

Traymore shook his head. “You don’t fool me, Detective. I know you’re worried. We both are, because if I’m right and certain precautions aren’t taken, Megan Ramsey could come back. And if that happens, her sister will be in a great deal of danger.”

Almost reluctantly, Slade’s gaze lifted to the window of Megan Ramsey’s apartment. Framed by the light, Erin stood there, her eyes—those deep, blue eyes—reflecting, not shock any longer, but fear, as if she somehow knew. As if she was standing there, watching and waiting for what was to come.

A finger of dread slid down Slade’s spine. When would it all end? he thought. How many more people would have to die before the evil could be stopped?

* * *

Erin stood looking out the window, gazing down at the exact spot where Megan’s body had lain. She saw Detective Slade talking to the old gentleman who had called the police for her earlier, and as she stood looking down at them, Slade’s head lifted and he seemed to be gazing directly at her.

Erin gripped the cross hanging from her neck, automatically seeking protection as she felt fear stirring within her. For the first time since she’d found Megan’s body, it hit her just how alone she was now. Deeply alone. Terrifyingly alone. There was no one she could turn to for help.

Dr. Traymore walked away, and for what seemed like an eternity, Erin stood staring down at Detective Slade, their gazes locked in a silent communication that seemed fostered by the darkness. Then suddenly, almost angrily, he turned and melted into the darkness.

Shaken, Erin turned from the window and began to pace the apartment. She should have felt better, knowing Detective Slade was out there in the darkness, but somehow she didn’t. Somehow his presence disturbed her more than she cared to admit. What was it about him that drew her, in spite of her grief? What was it about him that intrigued her, in spite of her distrust?

What was it about him that made her want what she had always feared the most?

Erin clung to her cross as her pacing accelerated. It was late, nearly dawn, and she knew she should try to get some sleep as the coming days and nights would be trying enough. But in spite of her exhausted state, sleep was the last thing she wanted.

After all these years it was hard enough just being back here in this apartment. More difficult still to think about going into her sister’s bedroom, lying in her sister’s bed, falling asleep perhaps to dream her sister’s dreams.

Dreams that were also Erin’s. Nightmares that had belonged to both her and Megan since they’d been abandoned all those years ago.

Erin crossed the room to examine one of the pictures on the mantel—the one Detective Slade had been holding earlier. She tried to imagine what he’d seen when he’d looked at the faces of the two little girls. Innocence? A lovely thought, but Erin saw beyond the ribbons and lace, the white gloves and straw hats. She saw sad smiles and haunted eyes. Terrified hearts and agonized souls.

Kneeling behind the two little girls was their mother, a beautiful young woman who had had cold blue eyes and an even colder heart. Desiree, she’d called herself. It wasn’t until years later that Erin had learned her mother’s real name was Doris. Doris Ramsey, a sometime actress, who had discarded her name as easily as she’d discarded her children.

If Erin closed her eyes, if she concentrated hard enough, she could still conjure up her mother’s made-up face, could almost smell her cloying perfume as she bent to place cool lips against her daughters’ cheeks. Erin could hear the whispery voice that still raised chill bumps along her spine, even in memory.

“Erin, I’m counting on you to take care of your sister. Don’t open the door to any strangers. And whatever you do, don’t let anyone inside, no matter what they say. It could be one of the monsters, tricking you. Remember that.”

Night after night, after Desiree had gone out, the two little girls had sat all alone in the apartment, watching the shadows on the walls, listening to the wind outside and waiting for the monsters to come and get them.

Erin had been four years older than Megan, and Megan had depended on her to chase away the nightmares, to stare down the unseen terrors, to scream at the demons to go away.

Now it was too late. Too late for Erin to chase away Megan’s monsters. The only thing she could ever do for her sister now was to find the one who had killed her. Somehow that thought comforted Erin, gave her a purpose that made her feel stronger. She gazed around the apartment, the place where the nightmares had started. After all these years, maybe this was the place to finally put them to rest. To face down those monsters once and for all and make them go away.

But in spite of her resolve, when Erin finally fell asleep on the couch, her rest was plagued with distorted visions of dark creatures and laughing demons and Megan calling to her for help. Wearing her black beaded dress, Megan stood outside the French doors in the living room, her face pale and drawn, her eyes rimmed with darkness as her long, inky hair streamed back from her face. She lifted her hand and beckoned to Erin. “I’m so alone and frightened,” she whispered. “So cold. Open the door and let me come in, sissy.”

And then an ominous voice whispered in Erin’s ear, “Whatever you do, don’t invite anyone inside.” Erin whirled and saw Detective Slade appear out of the darkness. His black leather coat trailed behind him as he moved through the mist toward her.

“But she’s my sister!” Erin cried.

Detective Slade smiled, but his eyes were completely hidden by his dark glasses. “Trust me, Erin. You must trust me.”

“I can’t! I can’t trust anyone!”

“Then you’ll never be free of the monsters.” He retreated into the blackness and vanished before her very eyes. She spun back to the window, but Megan had already disappeared, too.

And Erin was all alone.

She woke up crying. Shivering violently, she lay huddled on the couch, watching the patterns on the ceiling shift and change like stones in a giant kaleidoscope. Just images, she told herself. Just nightmares.

We’ve been waiting for you, Erin, the wind moaned outside.

“You won’t get me,” Erin whispered. “You don’t exist.” But her hands were trembling as she clutched the silver cross to her heart.

CHAPTER THREE

Erin was amazed at how quickly the autopsy was performed and the body released to her for burial. She saw no reason to delay. After all, there was no other family to be considered, just her. With Detective Slade’s help and encouragement, the simple memorial services were hastily arranged and conducted late that afternoon.

It was a perfect day for a funeral, overcast and cold, with sharp gusts of wind, which tugged at the hem of Erin’s white wool coat. By the time the small procession arrived at the cemetery, the rain had come. The sky grew ever blacker, more threatening, flapping the black canvas awning covering the grave like the wings of a giant bat.

Erin stood at the edge of the open grave and wished she was anywhere but here. She’d written about funerals. Dozens. Usually it was the heroine’s mother she had buried in her books. But never the sister. Never had Erin imagined what it would be like to bury her own sister.

Cold and shivering, she watched as Father Grady said the final prayer, then tossed a handful of dirt into the grave. He motioned to Erin, and she stepped forward. Unfastening her necklace, she dropped it into the grave.

The silver cross seemed to glow with an ethereal light as it lay atop the ebony coffin. It was the last thing—the only thing—Erin could give to her sister to thwart the darkness that had tormented them both for years. Megan needed it more than Erin did now, but as Erin stood at the edge of the grave, an almost overwhelming sense of foreboding stole over her.

As if drawn by a magnet, she turned her head and glanced over her shoulder. Through the misty veil of rain, she saw a male figure dressed all in black standing at the edge of the cemetery as if hovering on the threshold of a room he was forbidden to enter.

The form seemed to waver in the drizzle while the mist swirled around him with an unnatural movement. Erin couldn’t see a face, but somehow his dark gaze penetrated the layers of fog as easily as a beam of concentrated light. There was something familiar about the apparition, she thought. Something…dangerous.

Something evil.

Erin began to shake. She struggled to look away, but his dark gaze held her imprisoned. A strange lethargy crept over her. She tried to fight it, but slowly Erin felt herself drifting away, floating on a mystical cloud that seemed to carry her to this menacing stranger. She heard a voice, a dark, persuasive voice borne by the wind. We’ve been waiting for you, it whispered. Your sister’s here, Erin. I can take you to her. Don’t let her down this time.

A wave of dizziness washed over Erin, and a blackness so cold and so swift it seemed as if icy waters were closing over her head. She felt herself sway, and then her knees began to buckle. She was falling, plunging toward Megan’s open grave, descending toward that yawning abyss, that dark place from which there would be no return….

Erin! Help me!

Was that Megan’s voice that called to her? Was that Megan’s cry she heard?

Suddenly Erin no longer had the will to fight. She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.

A gasp rose from the crowd. Just as she was about to pitch forward into the grave, someone grabbed her and pulled her back, with a hand that seemed capable and comforting, yet cold and dangerous. A hand that was scarred and battered, yet beautiful and strong. Erin opened her eyes and felt Detective Slade’s grip tighten on her arm.

“Are you all right?”

“I…felt faint,” she said weakly. His hand was still on her arm, and beneath the fabric of her coat, Erin imagined that she could feel the warmth of his hand seeping through her. Her skin tingled with awareness, with warning. Her heart began to thud against her chest as he guided her away from the grave.

He’d turned up the collar on his black leather coat, but he didn’t have an umbrella, and his dark hair glistened with droplets of water. She’d forgotten how tall he was, how formidable he appeared. He was still wearing the dark glasses she found so daunting, but even guarded, his stare was powerful, mesmerizing, as he gazed down at her. Suddenly Erin remembered last night and how his gaze had seemed to trap her.

“Rough day” was all he said, guiding her out of the cemetery toward the street. But somehow those two simple words conveyed everything Erin was experiencing at that moment. She wanted to cry and gave silent thanks for the mask of rain on her face.

At the edge of the graveyard, she stopped and looked back. The tombstones blurred in the rain, creating an eerie, almost mystical illusion. Someone was watching her, she thought. Someone was watching her again, and she shuddered, a dark portent creeping over her. She looked up and found Detective Slade gazing down at her with hidden eyes.

“What is it?” His voice held an edge, as if he knew—or sensed—what she was feeling.

But Erin didn’t want to admit even to herself that she was suddenly, desperately afraid. She hugged her arms to her chest, then shrugged. What could she say? That her imagination was running away with her? That she was seeing monsters now, even in daylight?

As if sensing her reluctance, Slade let the matter drop. Without another word, they began walking again. After a few moments, Erin said, “How is the investigation progressing?”

It was his turn to shrug. “As well as can be expected.”

“What did the autopsy report show?”

Slade hesitated. “We can talk about that later.”

“I want to hear it now,” Erin said, mustering her courage. She braced her shoulders as if to prove to Slade she could handle whatever he had to say. “What was the exact cause of Megan’s death, Detective? I want to know.”

Again that odd hesitation. “There were marks on her neck.”

“Marks? You mean she was strangled?” That would explain why there was no blood that night, Erin thought.

Detective Slade stared straight ahead as they continued to walk. “Your sister wasn’t strangled,” he said.

“But I thought you said—”

“There were marks on her neck. Two puncture wounds. Almost all of Megan’s blood was drained from her body.”

Erin staggered to a stop. A wave of horror washed over her. Slade’s hand shot out and steadied her once more, but Erin was hardly aware of it. Instead, in her mind she saw an image of Megan’s body on the ground, the smile on her lips. Erin put a hand to her mouth as her stomach churned sickeningly. “My God,” she said. “What kind of person could do that? Especially to Megan. She was so young, so beautiful….” And now she was dead. Dear God, Erin wrote about this kind of stuff. It didn’t happen in real life. Not to Megan. Please not to Megan.

“How did he do it?’ she asked weakly.

“We don’t know for sure.”

“Why did he do it? What kind of monster would do such a thing?”

Slade said nothing, but Erin barely noticed. Her mind was racing with the implications. “What if it was because of me?” she whispered. “What if this happened because of my book?”

Slade was still holding her arm, and now his grip tightened. “You had nothing to do with this.”

Erin lifted her agonized gaze. “How can you be so sure? There are a lot of people out there who read my books. What if one of them decided to…”

“There are a lot of people out there,” Slade said evenly, “who have never read your books. And they kill, anyway.”

“But do they drain their victim’s blood?” Erin’s heart was beating so fast she felt light-headed. She swayed again, and Slade steadied her once more.

His mouth tightened as he gazed down at her. “We’ll get him, Erin. I promise you that. He won’t get away with this.”

“No, he won’t,” she agreed, the horror inside her turning to rage. “He won’t get away with this. I’ll see to that.”

“What do you mean?”

They stared at each other in silence. Mist shrouded them in an illusion of privacy, and once again Erin became conscious of how tall he was, how immense he looked in that long black coat. She hadn’t been aware of how far their walk had taken them, but as she looked around now, she realized the cemetery was long behind them. They stood in the gray afternoon, a myriad of desolate buildings surrounding them, and all Erin could think was how quiet everything seemed. How alone they were.

Behind his dark glasses, Slade continued to hold her gaze. Erin’s fingers began to tremble, so she forced her hands deep into the pockets of her coat.

“What did you mean you’ll see to it?” he repeated suspiciously. His voice was low and rough. She could see the hint of anger in the rigid set of his mouth, a mouth she knew could look at once cruel and sensuous….

Erin tilted her chin, denying her thoughts. “I mean I can help you find him. I knew my sister better than anyone else. If anyone can trace the last few days of her life, it would be me.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

He drew her up so close the frost of their breath mingled in the cold air. Their bodies were almost, but not quite, touching, yet Erin had no difficulty at all imagining the warmth of his skin next to hers. The hardness of his body against hers…

Dear God, she thought. What am I doing? What am I thinking?

Megan was gone, dead and buried. She was never coming back. How could Erin be having these feelings for a man she knew absolutely nothing about? A man who seemed to embody her deepest fears?

Guilt, as sharp as a dagger, stabbed through her.

“Think about it,” she insisted, willing the beat of her heart to slow. She tried to swallow away the sudden dryness in her throat. “Her friends would be more likely to talk to me than they would to the police. There’s no telling what I might learn. At any rate, I want to talk to them. I want to find out everything I can about my sister. I have to,” she finished, her voice giving away the desperation she felt. “I have to know why she died the way she did.”

“Listen to me,” he said, his voice deep and dark and full of warning. “You have no idea what we’re dealing with here. You have no idea how much danger you could be in if you start talking to the wrong people, going to the wrong places. Stay out of it, Erin. Let me do my job.”

“How can I be sure you’ll do your job?” Erin challenged, feeling her anger flare. His fingers warmed her arm through the fabric of her coat, made her skin burn with awareness, but she wouldn’t pull away. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply his touch affected her.

Slade smiled a thin, humorless smile. “So that’s it. You think you can do a better job than the police. You think you can find clues we wouldn’t uncover. You think you can play amateur detective and not get burned. Think again, Erin. Think long and hard before you do something you and I both might regret.”

His hand fell away from her arm, but Erin’s skin still flamed from his touch. He gazed down at her for a moment longer, then he turned and headed back toward the cemetery, his long coat flapping in the wind.

Erin took a deep breath, trying to quell the rapid throb of the pulse in her throat. She watched him disappear into the mist. The dark glasses, the scars, the grim facade. She wished she could see him just once, on her own terms, in broad daylight, with the sun pouring down on them and the shadows and mist that seemed to envelop him nothing more than a memory.

He’s a policeman, she reminded herself. A cop. That alone explained her wariness. Erin could still remember clearly the detective who had investigated her mother’s disappearance. Cold, impersonal, with a rumpled demeanor and a bad disposition, he had looked at Erin and Megan as distastefully as if they’d been something he’d scraped off his shoe.

Within days he’d stopped taking their aunt’s calls. He’d never called them back, never come by the apartment to give them any news. Erin remembered how helpless she’d felt, how at the mercy of that indifferent detective she’d been. What could an eight-year-old kid do about it, though?

But Erin was no longer a child. She was twenty-six years old, and she knew better than to depend on anyone but herself for the answers she needed. What if her book had caused Megan’s death? What if some psycho had believed himself to be her demon lover? How could Erin live with the guilt, with not knowing for sure?

No matter what Detective Slade said, Erin knew she couldn’t rest until Megan’s murderer had been brought to justice. It was the last thing, the only thing she could do for her sister. And for herself.

Squaring her shoulders, Erin turned and started walking. She knew the limo that had driven her from the church still waited for her at the cemetery, but she couldn’t go back there now. She didn’t want to face Detective Slade, but more than that, she didn’t want to have to say goodbye to Megan again. Not after what she’d learned.

* * *

Someone called to Slade as he unlocked his car at the curb, and he paused, glancing over his shoulder. Dr. Traymore walked toward him, his face shielded by the brim of the felt hat he was wearing.

“A lovely ceremony,” he commented, nodding his head toward the cemetery.

“If you like funerals,” Slade said.

“At my age they can be a very moving experience,” Traymore remarked. “However, this one was particularly disturbing to me. I hope the necessary precautions were taken with the body, Detective. The burial was quite hasty.”

“Do you want a blow-by-blow account of the autopsy?” Slade returned angrily, remembering Erin’s questions. Had he told her too much? He was walking a fine line, he knew. He’d hoped that by revealing the nature of Megan’s death to Erin, it might frighten her into taking the first plane back to L.A., before it was too late. Unfortunately, he’d seen no indication of that from her earlier.

Damn, now the old man was beginning to worry him, too. Slade suspected Traymore knew just enough to be dangerous. If he started poking his nose in the wrong places, started asking more questions…

Dr. Traymore’s eyes grew even more grim as his gaze drifted back to the cemetery. “I pray you did the right thing, Detective,” he said slowly. “I pray you are who and what I think you are. Because if you’re not, there’s a very good chance that at midnight tonight Megan Ramsey will rise from her grave, starving for blood.”

* * *

Erin walked for hours in the rain and mist until finally exhaustion drove her toward home. A lighted window in a bookstore on the corner near the apartment caught her eye, and she stopped for a moment, staring at a display featuring her books. Almost ten years’ worth of work. A decade of her life dedicated to exorcising the demons from her past, and what had it gotten her?

Not much, she reflected. Money, success, a small measure of satisfaction, to be sure. But she was still alone, still haunted by memories. The one serious relationship she’d ever had had begun for all the wrong reasons and had ended badly. Never again would she put herself in the position of needing someone, of depending on anyone other than herself. Never again would she freely give her trust.

After all, Erin thought, grimacing, if you couldn’t trust your own mother, who could you trust?

She glanced back at her books in the window. The cover of Demon Lover leapt out at her. The picture of the vampire seemed just a little too realistic tonight, perhaps because of what she’d learned about Megan’s death. The long white fangs gleamed in the subdued light from the window, and his eyes—dark, mesmerizing, soul-stealing eyes—held her in thrall. And for some reason, Erin thought of the dark figure she’d seen at the cemetery.

Had he been real?

Or had the same imagination that had created the vampire she was looking at now conjured up the dark, menacing figure that had beckoned to her, that had whispered to her soul?

What kind of mind would give birth to such a creature? she thought in disgust. What kind of person would be obsessed by such darkness? What kind of woman would be drawn to the thing that frightened her the most?

Erin tried to shake off the gloom her thoughts brought on, but the wind blowing through the trees carried a faint whisper to her ears, making her wonder again if she could truly distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Erin. We’ve been waiting for you, Erin.

Water puddled on the streets and reflected long, wavering beams of light against the pavement. Dead leaves rattled along the sidewalk in front of her, and as Erin hurried toward the apartment, she pulled her coat more tightly around her, trying to protect herself from the coming night.

But the darkness seeped through the woolen fabric. It oozed through her skin and slivered into her soul. It made her wonder if she would ever be warm again.

The hair at the back of her neck prickled as she glanced over her shoulder. How deserted the streets seemed suddenly. It was barely twilight, but the rain made it seem much later. Gloom hung over the city like a London fog. Erin could feel its oppressive weight bearing down on her shoulders as if invisible hands were holding her back. She hurried her steps, but the apartment seemed to get farther and farther away.

Someone was watching her. She couldn’t shake the feeling. Someone was watching her from the darkness, waiting for the chance to—

A dark figure stepped from a doorway and blocked her path. Erin gasped, tried to move around him, but he moved with her. Don’t panic, she cautioned herself. Don’t make any sudden moves.

She’d lived in the city all her life. It wasn’t the first time she’d been accosted on the street, but there was something particularly frightening about the way this man stood in front of her, smiling down at her as if he knew her deepest, darkest secrets. And for one impossible, irrational moment, she thought the cover of Demon Lover had come to life before her very eyes.

We’ve been waiting for you, Erin.

He hadn’t spoken aloud, but Erin could have sworn she heard his exact thoughts. He was tall, impossibly thin, with long black hair pulled back into a ponytail. His skin was dark and swarthy, with the look of the Mediterranean, and his eyes were jet black.

As her heart pounded inside her chest, Erin thought briefly that he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. It wasn’t…human to be so perfect, and suddenly an image of Detective Slade’s scarred hands swept into her mind.

The man in front of her frowned. He made a low growling sound in his throat that sent shivers of dread racing up and down Erin’s spine. He no longer looked handsome or perfect or even like a man, for that matter. He looked cold. Evil. Bestial. Like a vampire. Erin reached for her cross, then discovered it was no longer there.

The black gaze followed her hand to her throat as if anticipating the emptiness she would find there. Then slowly his eyes moved back up to her face, lingering on her lips. He smiled, his white teeth gleaming in the reflected light. No fangs, she noticed in fleeting relief, but in the next moment, Erin thought of the man at the cemetery. The menacing figure that had beckoned her to follow him into darkness. The man who would have seen her drop the silver cross into Megan’s grave.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“Don’t you know?” he said.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“Don’t you know?”

His voice seemed to echo from a deep, dark well. His smile deepened when he saw her shiver. His eyes taunted her as he reached out and caressed her barren neck with one fingertip, tracing the invisible line of the cross. Erin shrank from his icy touch. Her stomach recoiled from the feel of his flesh against hers, and she thought her heart would thrash its way out of her chest.

She took a faltering step back from him. When he made no move toward her, she kept backing away until she felt the curb against her feet. Then she turned and dashed into the street.

A car screamed to a halt just inches from hitting her, and a horn blasted in her ears, but Erin didn’t stop. She raced across the street and only then, safely on the other side, did she dare to look back.

The man was gone, dissolved like smoke into the night. Had he been real?

She could still feel his icy finger on her skin. He’d been real, all right. The streets of New York were filled with crazies like him. He’d wanted nothing more than to frighten her. Erin supposed she should feel lucky. At least she still had her purse. And her life.

Another breeze gusted through the trees overhead, and for a moment, she thought she heard the sound of male laughter in the wind. She ran through the twilight, her heels clicking against the pavement.

Erin took the steps of the apartment building two at a time, dragged open the door and fled inside. At the top of the stairs, her numb fingers fumbled with the key to Megan’s apartment. With a muttered, “Damn,” she tugged off her glove with her teeth and tried the key again. Downstairs, she heard the front door open and close softly, then someone stepped into the corridor.

Erin’s heart jumped into her throat. Dear God, he had followed her home. Frantically she jiggled the key in the lock. “Come on,” she urged, casting a terrified glance over her shoulder. She could hear his footsteps on the stairs now, heard the telltale squeak as he reached the middle of the steps. Then the steps moved upward, toward the landing, where Erin stood trapped.

Her hands were shaking so badly she dropped the key. She heard it thump against the worn carpet, but in the murky light, she couldn’t see it. With a gasping oath, she dropped to her knees and ran her palms along the dirty floor until she felt the cool metal against her flesh. She jumped up and jammed the key into the lock so brutally she thought for a moment she might have bent it.

Then the key turned smoothly, and she could have wept with relief. But just as she pushed the door open, a cold hand closed over hers.

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