Chasing Midnight

But he wouldn’t give in. Not this time. Not while he had the safety of the civilized world around him.

Griffin caught Fritz’s arm on its downward swing, applied a little pressure and neatly snapped the hoodlum’s wrist. Fritz’s shriek filled the alley like a siren. Griffin kicked his knife away and gently sidestepped Joe’s charge. He slipped up behind Joe before the mugger could catch his balance, seized his waistband and collar and tossed him into a thick heap of refuse piled in the corner.

“I’ll kill her!”

Griffin looked up. Fritz was standing with one arm hanging limp at his side and the other wrapped around the young woman’s throat, the edge of a switchblade pressed against her delicate skin.

The victimwas none other than Miss Louise Moreau.

She met Griffin’s gaze, her eyes brave and calm in spite of her precarious situation. Griffin nodded slightly and returned his attention to Fritz.

“Let her go,” he said softly, “and I may let you live.”

Fritz tried to laugh and only managed a squeak. “Make one move,” he growled, “and I’ll slit her throat.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Griffin said. “You see, you’re much too slow to stop me, Fritz. I’ll reach you before you can so much as twitch your little finger.”

“You’re crazy.” Fritz licked his lips. “I’ve got—”

He never finished his sentence. Griffin crossed the space between them in one leap, wrenched the switchblade from Fritz’s hand and flung him against the brick wall. Fritz slumped to the ground. Griffin grabbed Miss Moreau just as she began to fall and guided her to one of the empty crates.

“Sit down, Miss Moreau,” he said. “I’ll make sure these men are incapable of any further mischief.”

Miss Moreau took a deep breath. “Thank you so much, Mr. Durant.”

He squeezed her arm and walked back into the shadows, his legs shaking with reaction from the fight and the memories it had evoked. Joe still lay unconscious in the refuse heap; Griffin found a bit of rope and tied his hands behind his back. A moaning Fritz lay where he’d fallen, nursing his wrist. He wouldn’t be molesting anyone soon.

Just as he finished tying Fritz’s ankles together, Griffin sensed a sudden, unexpected motion behind him. He jumped to his feet and found himself staring into the concealed face of awoman, her head and body swathed in dark veils and a black velvet coat that fell to her ankles. Her tantalizing scent seeped into Griffin’s skin and raced through his blood like a dangerous drug.

“Lou,” the woman said, crouching to take Miss Moreau’s hands, “are you all right?”

Miss Moreau passed a shaking hand over her hair. “I’m fine, Allie. Thanks to this gentleman.”

The woman—Allie—scrutinized Miss Moreau’s face and touched the narrow line of blood at the base of her neck. “They hurt you.”

“It’s nothing. I’d just like to go home.”

“Of course. Just give me a minute.” Allie rose, glanced toward the hobbled men and then fixed her attention on Griffin. “I owe you one, mister,” she said in a voice half silk and half steel, “but I can handle it from here.”

Griffin shook himself—hard. “I beg your pardon, Miss—”

“You don’t have to beg anything. Just leave the rest to me.”

His equilibrium somewhat restored, Griffin turned back to Miss Moreau. “Is this the employer of whom you spoke?”

“Yes.” She began to rise. “Mr. Durant, may I present Miss Allegra Chase. Allegra—”

“Sit down, Lou, before you fall down,” Miss Allegra Chase said sharply. She faced Griffin again. “What’s your name?”

He tipped his hat, not without a touch of irony. “Griffin Durant.”

“Oh, yes…the morally upright multimillionaire.” Her mockery belied her terse thanks. “Well, Mr. Durant, if you’d like to keep playing the gentleman, you could do me a favor and escort Lou out to the street until I’ve finished here.”

Griffin’s bemusement turned to foreboding. “Finished with what, Miss Chase?”

“Merely what you started. Making sure these hoodlums don’t try this kind of thing again.”

Griffin stood very still, studying Miss Chase with astonishment. Such a casual reference to confronting a pair of street toughs would ordinarily have seemed absurd coming from a female swathed in a trailing black coat and tottering on high-heeled pumps. She was petite, her head hardly reaching his shoulder, yet the swiftness of her appearance and the way she’d taken him by surprise spoke volumes; he’d been caught off guard thatway only a few times in his life, and never by an ordinary woman.

Nevertheless…

“I would prefer not to leave you alone, Miss Chase,” he said firmly.

The blue-green eyes behind her veil glinted red. “Are your kind always so protective of people they’ve never met?”

Your kind. So she knew, as she must realize that he recognized her inhuman nature.

“I don’t regard a situation like this as a matter of species,” he said. “I wouldn’t leave any woman with men such as these…not even one of your kind.”

Miss Chase feigned surprise. “My kind, huh? What do you suppose he means by that, Lou?” She took Griffin’s elbow, sending an almost electric current through his arm, and drew him aside.

“Come on, Mr. Durant,” she said, purring his name. “Do you really think I can’t put a scare into a couple of humans?”

Griffin shivered as he felt the stirrings of physical sensations he usually kept under strict control. He remembered when his father had told him howleeches attracted their prey: something in their smell had an overwhelmingly erotic effect on humans, enticing them as certain carnivorous plants lured hapless insects into their gullets. Griffin had never had occasion to witness the phenomenon himself, but now it was all too evident that what worked on humans could also affect loups-garous.

His mind, however, was still clear enough to recognize that Miss Chase’s seductiveness was a pretense. She couldn’t help herself, any more than she could help preying on hapless humans. As little as Griffin knew about the female of the vampire species, he presumed they were driven by the same instincts as their male counterparts.

Oh, this one could definitely put a scare into Joe and his companion. But she might not stop at that. Miss Chase undoubtedly possessed ten times the strength of the strongest human, quite possibly greater than Griffin’s own. And she was surely more than capable of the casual violence that lurked beneath the handsome appearance and elegant demeanor with which so many of her breed deceived the world.

Unless, of course, she was discouraged from proceeding any further.

Griffin carefully freed his arm. “Better leave justice to the authorities, Miss Chase.”

Her easy manner vanished. “Sure,” she snapped. “That will work. Because if these guys work for a boss, they’ll get off in no time.”

“I have a contact in the police department. He can see to it that they don’t escape so easily.”

“A cop who isn’t corrupt? That I’ve gotta see.”

He held her gaze through the netting of the veil. “You’re too young for cynicism, Miss Chase. Your soul won’t profit by it.”

“How do you know how young I am? And what makes you think I have a soul?”

“A hunch, Miss Chase.”

“And how did you come to be so wise?”

“When you’ve lived a few more years—”

“Until I become a doddering old graybeard, like you?”

“I trust you’ll never grow a beard, Miss Chase. It would not be an improvement.” He tested the steadiness of his hand and extended it to her. “Come along…”

She slapped his hand aside. Her coat flew open to reveal long legs in flesh-colored silk stockings, exposed from ankle to knee by her short dress. He was momentarily distracted by the brazenness of her garments and the flash of bare skin at her upper thigh.

“Enjoying the view?” she taunted. “Want a better look?”

With one slender hand she lifted the veil from her face, and he finally saw the mysteries he had only guessed at before.

She was beautiful. Fair skin, so pale that it rivaled the moon at its whitest. Full lips enhanced with dark lip-rouge, contrasting vividly with the rest of her face. Aqua eyes, large and expressive, rimmed with kohl. Dark brows beneath the bangs of sleek black hair cut in a Louise Brooks bob just at the level of her stubborn, dimpled chin.

Griffin’s breath stopped. He knew the leeches tended to be handsome creatures, their appearances enhanced by transformation and the power of their natural magnetism. But in his rare dealings with them, he’d never met one quite so magnificent.

“Seen enough?” Allegra Chase demanded.

“More than enough.” He turned and offered his hand to Miss Moreau, helping her to her feet. “You and your mistress are leaving now.”

Allegra detached Miss Moreau from Griffin’s light hold and put her arm possessively around the other woman’s shoulders. “This isn’t over, Durant.”

“It is for you, Miss Chase.”

“You…you son of a—”

“You may regale me with every curse in your vocabulary, but it won’t do you any good. Even if you believe yourself capable of harming these men, which I seriously doubt, I won’t permit you to follow your less admirable proclivities.”

“Permit?” She laughed again. “You think I want your permission, much less admiration?”

“No. Nor do I require yours.” He caught her eyes. “Trust me. I’ll see that these men are sent to jail.”

“Ha.” She brooded for a moment, and then her posture loosened like that of a cat pretending disinterest in a careless bird. “Isn’t it a shame, Lou, that the world won’t know of our savior’s admirable chivalry?”

Miss Moreau glanced from Allegra to Griffin, frowning. “I doubt that Mr. Durant requires the world’s approbation.”

“True,” Allie purred. “He’s known as a recluse, isn’t he? Not the sort to seek publicity.” She leaned close to Griffin. “The gossip columns love to speculate as to who you really are under that straitlaced reputation. Wouldn’t they just love to know what you are?”

Griffin clung to his patience. “They’d be highly unlikely to believe such a story, Miss Chase.”

“Bet it would cut down on the list of scheming gold diggers hot on your trail.”

“I haven’t met these gold diggers. They must be chasing another man.”

“No fiancée? No lover?”

“That’s really none of your concern.”

Her expression softened. “You’re truly alone, aren’t you?”

“Miss Chase, this is hardly—”

“Is that why you spend your time rescuing damsels in distress?”

Griffin looked pointedly toward the street. “I suggest that you see a doctor at once, Miss Moreau,” he said. “If you and Miss Chase will—”

“Your hands are shaking,” Allegra interrupted. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

Cold sweat trickled under Griffin’s collar. “I’m perfectly well.”

“Could have fooled me. Still, it doesn’t seem—”

The sound of an engine drowned out her words. Griffin glanced up to see a battered delivery truck backing into the alley. Instinctively he placed himself between the ladies and the vehicle.

“What is it?” Miss Moreau asked.

“Bootleggers,” he said. “No doubt here to make a delivery.”

Allegra Chase moved up to stand beside him, her body tense and alert. “What perfect timing,” she murmured.

No sooner had she finished speaking than a pair of hatchet men jumped from the back of the truck, took up positions facing the street and stoodwatch while several other men began to unload crates into the alley. A door near the mouth of the alley opened to receive the shipment.

The last of the crates had just been passed into the building when another man, dressed from head to toe in black wool and leather, emerged from the truck and spoke to someone inside the door. After a moment the door shut, and the man turned to look at Griffin. His upper face was completely covered by his black fedora and sunglasses.

Griffin advanced a dozen paces, his hands loose at his sides, and stopped a few yards from the man in black. He felt the leech’s eyes on him, eyes as keen in the dark as his own.

The leech’s lips curled. He signaled to a pair of henchmen armed with tommy guns.

“You shouldn’t be here, dog,” he said.

“It wasn’t intentional, I assure you.” Griffin spread his hands. “We have no interest in your business.”

“You are pack—”

“My name is Griffin Durant. I don’t belong to the pack.”

The leech made a sound of disbelief and glanced toward Miss Chase. He hissed through his teeth.

“Allegra.”

The lady in question strolled past Griffin and assumed an insolent pose, pushing her coat away from her dress to expose her shapely legs, one hip thrust out, her hand perched at the curve of her waist.

“Bendik. How nice to see you.”

Griffin stepped in front of her again. “A friend of yours, Miss Chase?”

“A friend? That’s a laugh.” She returned her attention to her fellow vampire. “Quit your glaring, Bendik. No one here’s going to cause any trouble, so why don’t you just wander on home?”

The leech looked Miss Chase up and down with scarcely less hostility than he’d shown Griffin. “What are you doing with a dog?”

“He’s woman’s best friend. Or hadn’t you heard?”

“Raoul…”

“Worried he might not approve? Too bad he can’t decide who I spend my time with.”

“You’ll go too far, Allegra. I look forward to the day Raoul puts you in your place.”

She yawned, stretching her body sensuously. “I’ll see you at the funeral, Bendik. Send him my best wishes.”

Bendik lingered a moment longer, looking as if he would have dearly loved to spray the alley with bullets, then retreated with an audible snarl. His henchmen jumped back into the truck, and the vehicle pulled out of the alley.

Griffin faced Allegra, his palms slick with perspiration. “That was very foolish, Miss Chase,” he said.

“Why? Did you think I was in danger?”

Anger choked him. “That…man was clearly not well disposed toward you.”

“He’s one of Raoul’s lieutenants, and Raoul isn’t happy with me these days.”

Griffin had heard the name Raoul more than once. The leech ruled the city’s vampire clan, but the authorities naturally assumed him to be human.

“Raoul is your patron,” he said.

“No!” Allie’s vehemence made it evident that she was telling the truth. “My patron…he’s nothing like Raoul.”

Griffin almost asked her to explain but stopped himself. He had no desire to become involved in vampire politics.

“A pity your patron isn’t here to caution you against your habit of imprudence,” he said.

“Ha. You don’t know anything about my habits. I—” She paused, regarding him through narrowed eyes. “Hey.You’re as white as a sheet.” She lay a hand against Griffin’s cheek. “Your heart’s beating like a jackhammer.”

Her touch wasn’t cold, as he’d expected a vampire’s would be. He moved away. “I didn’t savor the prospect of further violence, Miss Chase.”

“Don’t tell me you were scared. Bendik and his men would as soon have shot you as looked at you, but you were ready to take them on single-handedly.”

He stepped away. “Only if every other method failed.”

She shook her hair beneath the veil. Silky skeins settled about her face like black feathers. “So modest, isn’t he?” she said to Miss Moreau. “A paragon of virtue.”

Refusing to dignify Allegra’s provocation with a reply, Griffin gathered up his and Miss Moreau’s packages and asked the ladies to wait while he hunted down a policeman. Much to his surprise, Allegra and Miss Moreau were still in the alley when he returned with an officer of the law.

After the patrolman had briefly questioned Miss Moreau and taken the hoodlums into custody, Griffin flagged down a taxi and handed the ladies into the backseat. Allegra gave the cabbie an address that made Griffin raise his brows. It was one of the finest apartment buildings on Fifth Avenue, directly across from Central Park.

Miss Chase leaned out of the cab, her eyes unreadable behind the veil. “Thank you, Mr. Durant,” she said coolly, “for Lou’s sake.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Chase.” She began to close the door, but he locked his fingers around the handle, holding it open.

She lifted the veil and gazed up at him, dark brows high. “Well?”

“May I telephone you? At your convenience, of course.”

She grasped the card he offered between two slender, red-nailed fingers. “Why?”

“To inquire after Miss Moreau’s recovery.”

“Ah. Of course.” She smiled slyly. “Do you like me, Mr. Durant?”

Her blunt question left him mute. There was no sensible answer, no response that was more than witless babble. They’d only just met. They were of different breeds, races that had been enemies far more often than not. All the prejudices of his species should make Griffin regard her with suspicion and loathing.

But Allegra Chase had a subtle charisma that was something more than the glamour others of her kind possessed…something complex and passionate beneath the brash, seemingly careless exterior. She was fiercely protective of her employee, a quality that must be rare among creatures who viewed humans as servile inferiors. She was brave…and dangerously reckless.

The fact that she belonged—quite literally—to another man had oddly little impact on Griffin’s heart. He hadn’t felt such an instinctive attraction to any woman in nine long years. It was utterly mad. And undeniable.

“It isn’t real, you know,” Allegra said softly. “It’s just what we do.” Abruptly her features changed, taunting him with an air of casual indifference. “It’s a good thing for you that I have obligations that can’t be broken. You don’t want to know me, Griffin Durant.” She let his card fall into the gutter. “You must have a nice, quiet life. Don’t let anyone complicate it for you.”

He backed away from the cab, his throat tight under the knot of his tie. “I should certainly not wish to interfere with yours.”

“You already have. I hope you’re far away next time I want to have a little fun.”

She closed the cab door, and he caught only a brief glimpse of her face before the automobile drove away.

Deeply shaken by the fight and what had come after, Griffin walked aimlessly until well past sunset. Only then did he remember that Gemma would be wondering where he was. He stared at the slightly dented box in his hands and thought of the sweet, pristine dress inside it.

Gemma would never know a woman like Allegra Chase. And that was just the way Griffin wanted it. Miss Chase had done him a tremendous favor by reminding him just how untouchable she truly was.

Chapter Two

THE CEREMONY wasn’t anything a human would have recognized as a funeral. There were no clergymen, no pallbearers, no weeping relations. There would be no eulogies, no flowers thrown on the grave. The members of the clan stood in silent rows, sinister in their stillness, and draped in dark clothing that made them indistinguishable from the night sky and the black silhouettes of oak and chestnut trees.

Allie wore red. Cato would have appreciated her choice. She stood apart from the others, as befitted the one who’d been closest to the old scientist; she would scatter the ashes and speak the final words. And when it was over, not a single strigoi in the city could tell her what to do or how to do it.

She let her gaze wander away from her fellow mourners and drift to the buildings with their hundreds of windows glittering like stars. If any of the people in those buildings should wander into Central Park tonight, they would be in for a bit of a shock. Not that they would be killed; there were less drastic ways of dealing with inquisitive or thoughtless humans. Of course, Boucher didn’t have to conduct his cremation ceremonies in Central Park; he did it because it was his way of claiming his part of the city. At night, the park belonged to the clan.

A cool breeze ruffled the fringed hem of Allie’s dress. Her skin prickled, and she looked up to meet Raoul’s stare. He held the vessel out to her. She took it, careful not to touch his skin, and hugged it to her chest.

So this is all that’s left of a lifetime, Cato. How many hundreds of years, reduced to ashes.

How did you die, my friend? Raoul says it was the weakness left by the influenza that killed so many of us after the War. I don’t believe it. You would never tell me what you were working on, that secret research for Raoul. But you gave me a great gift, and I still wonder if that had anything to do with your passing…

She remembered the moment when she’d felt his death…the terrible, devastating shock that had washed through her like molten lava, a monster that ripped her heart from her chest with jagged steel claws. The blood-bond had been severed, yet the ghost of it had lingered, leaving her helpless while her world shattered and slowly reassembled itself again.

Cato is dead.

Grief made a hard knot in her chest, but she didn’t weep. She’d learned not long after her rebirth that vampires didn’t—couldn’t—cry, another one of those “anatomical changes” Cato had warned her about. But that was all right. The last thing she wanted was for Raoul to see her weak.

She nodded to the Master, reached into the vessel and gathered a handful of ashes. They felt dry and cool in her palm. She withdrew her hand, spread her fingers and scattered the ashes on the breeze, letting them fall where they might. No one made a sound. The others were here because Raoul demanded it, not because they cared that Cato was gone. They didn’t like being reminded that even strigoi could die.

Allie emptied the vessel quickly and let it fall. She faced the clan members with a raw-edged smile.

“Catowasmy patron,” she said. “But hewas also my friend. I know that doesn’t mean much to most of you. The funny thing about Cato was that he hadn’t forgotten that there are a fewgood parts about being human.”

Someone hissed, a sound of derision and contempt. Raoul’s head snapped around, seeking the source of the comment. The ensuing silence was deafening.

Allie laughed. “I always did enjoy a good argument.” She grabbed her wrap from the tree branch where she’d hung it and threw it over her shoulders. “Rest in peace, Cato Petrovic.”

She’d walked halfway to Fifth Avenue when a man stepped out from among the trees along the path and gestured to her frantically. She paused as she recognized his face, pursed her lips and went to join him.

“Elisha Hatch,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”

The human looked right and left, his nervousness palpable. “I watched,” he said. “Cato was my friend, too.”

Friend? Perhaps, Allie reflected. But Elisha had primarily been Cato’s laboratory assistant, the one human her mentor had trusted to help him in his mysterious work. He remindedAllie too much of a mouse…or more likely a rat, with his beady eyes and furtive movements. Not every human could live comfortably among vampires.

“What is it?” she asked, eager to be gone.

He rubbed his arms repeatedly, though the night was warm. The tattoos on the back of his right hand jumped and quivered. “Did Cato…did he give you anything before he died?”

The question caught her unawares. “What do you mean?”

“There was something…something he was supposed to leave to me if anything happened to him. It’s missing. I thought you might have it.”

Allie narrowed her eyes. “If something happened to him?”

Elisha risked a glance at her face. “The old weakness, you know.”

Just as Raoul had claimed, but Allie was far from satisfied. “Was he in some kind of danger?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.”

“And what was he supposed to give you?”

Once again Elisha looked carefully about them. “Papers,” he said. “Notes from his research. He didn’t want them to be misplaced if he…if he couldn’t work on them anymore. He knew I was the only one who could understand them.”