Corin & Angelique (After the Fall of Night) (25 page)

Corin watched as the sheriff drove away
, then reentering the house, he met up with Tomes who was coming through the lanai door.

“When did you get here?”
He’d been so involved with the sheriff he hadn’t sensed him.

Corin had grown accustomed to Tomes coming and going. Having him in the
house during the day while he rested beneath the mansion, gave him an ease he hadn’t had in quite some time. The company was also nice, someone to break the cycle of loneliness associated with his dark existence.

“Oh, about an hour ago, give or take. I’m parked out back. I wanted to do a
little target practice with the staker. I wouldn’t want to miss my mark when the time comes. Anyway, when I started inside and realized the sheriff was here, I decided to lay low until he left.”

“It’s a good thing you did. He’s suspicious enough.”

“I couldn’t hear much, but it looked intense.”

“They found a watch last night at
the hospital murder site, where the woman was found dead in the parking lot.”

“What’s that got to do with you?”

“The watch they found is mine—the gold pocket watch Boldor stole from me. The miscreant either lost it during his attack, or he planted it, trying to incriminate me.”

“How did the sheriff find out that it belongs to you?”

“He can’t prove it does, and I denied it was mine, but there’s an inscription on the back signed with the name, Miralanya, and they discovered that a woman by that name resided here, at von Vadim Estate, many years ago. He knows he’s right, but there’s not enough proof.”

“If I were in his shoes, I’d be suspicious too,” Tomes said. “It doesn’t look
good. You were already on his suspect list due to Purcell giving you the realtor’s business card.”

“Something else he mentioned
.”

“Jail isn’t an option for you. Come sunup, you’d have to escape or poof,
become dust of the earth.”

Corin
groaned, but Tomes’s words rang true. Being arrested was not an option.

“The kil
ling won’t stop until we find Boldor’s hideout and rid ourselves of him once and for all,” Corin talked as he headed for the basement door, “something the sheriff might have just unknowingly helped us with.”

Tomes followed.
“What do you know?”

“
When he was leaving, he took a call, and I overheard him mention a vacant ranch house over on Hillman Road. Something about noises in the basement. He was concerned it might be vagrants, and I think he probably right, except something tells me that the nomad lying low there won’t be of the human kind.”

* * * *

Boldor gave Louisa a packet of blood and stepped back while she fed. He knew she hungered for fresh blood, and with his attempt to satisfy that craving, he hoped to also gain her trust in the process. Now able to approach her, he reached out and stroked her hair without fear of losing a limb.

“You’re
all but impossible to handle, my little firecat, but you are a beauty.” He talked to her, even though he knew she didn’t fully comprehend what he was saying. “I’m going to leave you again, but I won’t be gone long. If you call, I will hear. With our mental connection, I will know if you need me, and I won’t go beyond a distance of detecting you.”

She grunted, paying him no mind, ripping apart the bag with her razor-sharp
teeth, determined to lick up every drop.

Boldor felt more confident about leaving Louisa alone now that her hunger
had been temporarily satisfied, and he figured he’d better go out to feed and save the bags of blood for her, knowing she would need more soon. Furthermore, it was time to put a plan he had contrived into action. So, locking the basement door, he exited the house and shape-shifted into a raven, expelling a menacing caw as he leaped into the darkness of the night.

Chapter Seventeen

The Darkness Below

Jordon Black sat at a corner table waiting for his order. He’d been eating at
the Black River Falls Diner on a daily basis since his arrival in Jackson County. The food wasn’t half-bad and the servers were easy on the eyes. When the waitress approached with his meal, she remarked on a partially concealed tattoo marking his right forearm—a half-skull, half-human design with a moon replacing the eye of the skull, and the sun replacing the eye of the man.

“Strange looking tattoo you have there.”

“Just something I got when I was younger…and wilder.” He casually repositioned his arm to cover the mark he generally kept hidden, along with a second seal—the circle of the Morpar Kingdom—a much larger design centered on his chest.

“What does it mean?” she asked curiously. “Or is it just something you picked
out because it was cool?”

“It depicts the eternal struggle between day and night, and how, despite their
continual battle to overtake each another, they are forever bound together. There is no day without night, and no night without day.”

“
Very deep…and true. You could be a poet. Maybe you should consider taking up the pen.”

“I don’t think so
,” he laughed. “I have trouble writing my own name.”

“Well, it’s something to think about. Now, is there anything else I can get for
you?”

“No. Everything looks fine.”

“I’ll let you get to your meal, before it gets cold.” She rushed away in the busy manner of all the waitresses in the diner. The establishment was small, but the booths were always full.

Jordon reached for his fork and the symbol showed again. He placed his left
hand on the mark, allowing his thoughts to carry him to another time and place—to another world—his world. Not from Earth, or even human, Jordon, an Indith immortal from the Eleventh Dimension, was a diurnal immortal—a daywalker. He differed from nightwalkers in several ways, one being he did not require blood to survive. However, there were many similarities between the two species, both were shape-shifters, and each possessed the ability to sense the presence of other immortals.

Indith immortals were a cross between humans and nightwalkers, only unlike
humans, they didn’t grow ill or old. From birth until their fifteenth year, they aged as mortals, and then the aging process slowed to a crawl—one year to forty human years—until they reached adulthood, when it stopped altogether. Fully matured around four hundred and fifteen human years, Jordon was still considered a youth by his kind’s standards at just a little over two hundred years old.

He recalled an Indith warlord named Gaun who had almost led the Indithians
to their ruin. Endowed with the Clyth—a charm forged by a dark angel from solid black diamond and granted to the warlord as a gift of his favor—Gaun had embarked on a quest to banish all but his own species from the face of their world.

Jordon’s own father, Denlor Day Morrain, and his half-brother,
Lake, had served Gaun. They stood behind their commander, savagely attacking unsuspecting human villages in the night and slaughtering every living thing in their path. But in the end, in their devout loyalty to him, they had fallen to their deaths, beheaded in the final battle at Kenijor.

Along with humans, nightwalkers had also been plagued by these savage
attacks, caught unaware during the daylight hours with entire covens infiltrated and destroyed. Gaun’s Indithian forces left nothing but death and despair in their treacherous wake.

With every species in danger of extinction, the need for survival became the
tie binding human and nightwalker. Side by side, they’d been able to thwart the Indith attacks. The nightwalkers protected humans from incursions at night, and humans guarded against raids on the nightwalkers during the day. United, and with the aid of a powerful wizard, they’d finally managed to take the warlord’s head.

Jordon slid his sleeve back down covering the design that represented this
epic battle of survival—the joining of night and day. Now a sentry, he wore the symbol with pride and honor, but it was imperative he kept it hidden, should he meet up with any fugitives from his world.

Thinking of his family, Jordon tried not to dwell on his dishonorable heritage.
But the memories were there, forever lodged in his mind. He knew he wasn’t responsible for the barbaric actions of his father and Lake, but left to bear their disgrace, he couldn’t help feeling the need to make amends for all their past evils. This personal shame was what had led him to become a sentry—dedicating his life to hunting down criminals—and the driving force behind his many successful captures.

“Is everything all right? You look a million miles away. You haven’t touched a
thing on your plate.” The waitress’s voice brought Jordon back to the present.

“I’ve just been struck with a headache. If you wouldn’t mind bringing a box,
I’ll take this with me. I don’t have much of an appetite at the moment.”

“I can sympathize. I’ll get one for you.” She hustled
off, returning a moment later with a box and check in hand.

Jordon transferred his meal, paid the bill, and headed out of the diner.
Thinking of his past had depressed him, but he had to shake it off and stay focused on his present mission. He had a rotter to catch, a nightwalker who didn’t have an inkling of the ultimate power the charm he’d stolen truly possessed.

Jackson
County was the closest he’d come to capturing the miscreant since they’d started their cat and mouse chase two years earlier. The nightwalker had broken his pattern. Something in this tiresome little county had allured him, and Jordon knew the key to catching him lay in finding out just what the attraction was.

* * * *

Corin fed before he and Tomes headed to the ranch on Hillman Road. Arriving close to ten thirty, they found Boldor’s dusty-blue Camaro hidden behind the house.

“This is it.” Corin recognized the car.

Tomes broke a glass pane on a French door at the rear of the house. “Shall we?”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Corin led the way.

Although pitch-dark inside, Corin had no trouble finding his way with his phenomenal night vision. A well-armed Tomes followed closely, carrying a flashlight in one hand and the staker in the other. A strap ran from his right shoulder diagonally across his chest, keeping his supply of blackthorn nails within easy reach. Additionally, his machete hung at his mid-back by a second strap and sheath, with the handle accessible by reaching back and over his shoulder.

Corin stopped
. “This is the basement door.”

“
There’s a slide bolt. Aren’t they usually installed on the inside of rooms…for safety?” Tomes’s flashlight beam settled on the lock.

“Yes
, they are,” Corin replied in a hushed voice, sniffing the air.

“Strange. If they wanted to keep people out, wouldn’t they have used a
padlock instead?”

“Shhh.” Corin reached for the bolt, slid it back, and eased the door open.
Listening with his acute hearing, he looked down into the dark recess.

“I don’t hear anything,” Tomes whispered. “Do you think he’s down there?”

“He’s not here. The door wouldn’t have been locked from the outside if he were. He’s most likely out feeding.”

“That makes sense. So I guess we won’t find Louisa here either. If she’s a
nightwalker, she’d have to feed too.”

“
She will have to feed.” Corin exercised caution as he descended the stairs into the unknown territory below.

Tomes followed, his flashlight beam bouncing chaotically as he went.
Stopping on the bottom step next to Corin, he shivered with gooseflesh. “It’s cold, damp, and stale. It feels like a tomb. And what is that horrific smell? It reeks down here.” Tomes pressed the top of his hand beneath his nose. “The smell in your basement isn’t nearly this offensive.” He sniffed Corin.

“Knock it off! It’s not me
, it’s his scent.” Corin kept his voice low, knowing they weren’t alone. “Although,” he paused to smell the air again, noticing the odor of death in the mix, “there’s decay—rotting flesh.”

“Oh man, you mean he’s left corpses down here?” Tomes scanned the room.

“I’d say it’s the decomposing remains of animals—rodents. But I do detect human blood, only, not the smell of their decaying bodies…strange.”

“I think I can solve that mystery for you,” Tomes
’s flashlight beam revealed an empty blood bag.

“Of course.” Corin recognized the hospital bags.

Tomes ran the beam over the room, holding his aim when the light fell on a pile of rodent carcasses in the far corner. “Man. This just keeps getting better and better.”

“With this nightwalker, I think your term of
reference ‘filth’ is more than befitting. I can’t stand the stench down here.”