Dates From Hell (26 page)

2

T
he shot was muffled—
silencer,
I thought—yet
the sound still bounced off the walls and echoed down the alleyway. Tensing in expectation of the blood splatter, my eyes slammed closed.

Nothing happened.

When I opened them again, I was alone.

No Eric. No stranger. No blood. What the hell?

I stepped onto the street. No one appeared to have heard the gunshot, or if they had, they didn’t care, continuing on their way with the typical zombielike trance of lifetime New Yorkers. The tourists were too busy staring upward, either dazzled by the neon or trying to find their way to their hotels by way of the skyscrapers—a method similar to using the stars in places where stars could actually be seen.

I was dizzy with the adrenaline, both confused and frightened, so I wandered back into the alley, and I saw him.

Just a shadow, a slip of darkness against the light as he moved onto the street one block over.

I didn’t think; I ran. If he vanished into the crowd, what would I do? How would I prove anything that had happened tonight? I didn’t consider why I thought I needed to prove anything.

I burst out of the alley, and someone grabbed me around the waist. The force of my forward motion, and the sudden end to it, swung me about so fast, my feet lifted off the ground. A choked sound came from my throat, but I didn’t have the air left to scream.

Even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered since he slapped his hand over my mouth and dragged me backward. I just couldn’t win tonight.

“Why are you following me?” he asked.

“Why do you think?”

My lips moved, but the words were garbled. His body, rock-hard against mine, tensed.

“If I lift my hand, do you promise not to scream?”

Since screaming hadn’t worked very well for me so far, I nodded, and the hand went away.

“You shot my date in the head!”

“What date?”

I blinked. “The guy in the alley.”

“What guy?”

“Eric Leaventhall. Slim, blond, handsome.”

He snorted.

“What does that mean?”

He didn’t bother to answer, continuing to hold me aloft, my feet dangling near his knees. He was so much taller, so much broader, so much stronger, I felt helpless. And while that should have unnerved me, instead I got kind of annoyed.

“You mind?”

I swung my feet, almost cracking him in the shin, and he set me down but kept his arm around my waist. I could neither see him nor run away.

“There wasn’t any man,” he said.

“Of course there was. He bought me a drink. He—he—”

I ran my tongue across my lip, felt the telltale ridge where my teeth had ravaged the skin when Eric kissed me. I wasn’t crazy.

But this guy was.

“Let me go,” I ordered.

Amazingly, he did, and I scampered out of his reach and spun around.

My first thought: What a shame. He was too gorgeous to be insane. As if beauty and lunacy were mutually exclusive.

As dark as Eric had been light, bulky where Eric had been slim, this man was large, hard, his hair shaggy, his face shadowed by at least two days’ growth of beard. The clothes had obviously been slept in, a lot, though even before that, they’d been years away from new.

His blue work shirt had faded nearly to white from repeated washings. With it unbuttoned to his sternum, I saw the hint of a tattoo, though I couldn’t tell what the shape was. The jeans were ancient, too, the boots scuffed and dusty, his black leather jacket a relic.

His eyes were as dark as mine, but he had longer lashes. Isn’t that always the way? High cheekbones, a fine blade of a nose. I wasn’t certain, but I thought I saw the sparkle of an earring. Nothing fancy or swingy, just a shiny silver stud piercing one lobe.

He was so different from anyone I’d ever encountered—exotic and wild—I had to remind myself he’d just murdered my date in cold blood. Except…

Where was the blood?

According to him, there hadn’t even been a date.

I was back to the eternal question—was he crazy, or was I?

“There was a man with me,” I said, “and you killed him.”

“If I had, you shouldn’t be troubling your pretty little head.”

My eyes narrowed, but he ignored me.

“That’s the quickest way to getting it shot off,” he continued.

“In other words, Eric troubled his pretty little head? About what?”

“I don’t know any Eric. I walked through the alley. You were leaning against the wall. Figured you were high on something.”

“I was—”

I broke off as I remembered what I’d been doing. Suddenly I was mortified. Why had I been making out with a stranger? Why had I been bringing him back to my apartment? Both behaviors were completely out of character.

With Eric no longer attached at the lip, I couldn’t figure out why I’d been so enthralled by him.

“He was here,” I repeated, “and you shot him.”

The man cursed under his breath, a long stream of indecipherable Spanish that brought Ricky Ricardo to mind.

“Come along,” he snapped, and stalked back in the direction I’d come.

On the opposite end of the alley he paused, knelt, peered at the ground. “No blood, no body.” He lifted his gaze. “No shooting and no guy.”

Joining him, I stared at the stained, but not with blood, asphalt.

“You want me to take you somewhere?” he asked.

I didn’t answer as I inched closer to the wall. I’d been leaning here. Eric had been standing there. Crazy man with a gun had been there, so…

I peered more closely at the brick and found the bullet hole.

“Aha!” I stuck my finger into it and glared at the guy triumphantly.

“Aha, what?”

“A bullet hole. You shot him.” I frowned, remembering the no blood, no body problem. “Or at least
at
him. You missed.”

He joined me, then poked his finger into one, two, three other holes. “So did a lot of people.”

I yanked my hand away, more miffed than scared. “I know what happened.”

“Listen,
chica,
I didn’t see any guy.”

“I am not crazy. And I don’t do drugs.”

“Maybe you should.”

At my glare, he lifted his hands in surrender. “I meant prescription ones. You need help.”

Maybe I did.
Definitely
I did if I’d not only imagined Eric but also his murder. Did I miss my dad even more than I thought?

Frustrated, I shoved my hand into the pocket of my dress. My fingers brushed paper and I remembered. I’d printed out the last e-mail from Eric.

Withdrawing the sheet, I thrust it at the man. “I’m not nuts, and here’s the proof.”

The guy narrowed his eyes, read the words, scowled. Then he pulled out his gun and pointed it at me.

Why had I never learned to leave well enough alone?

“Let’s go.” He flicked the barrel of the gun toward the street.

“Wh-where?”

“Your place.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t get to think.”

“You’re kidnapping me?”

“What was your first clue?”

If I wasn’t so scared, I might have found him funny.

He lost patience and grabbed me by the arm. “Either take me to your place, or I’ll take you to mine.”

I doubted I’d care for his place. At least in my own I’d be surrounded by the familiar and have a hope in hell of escape.

“Mine,” I murmured. “On West Twenty-fourth.”

His eyebrows lifted. He obviously knew the neighborhood. Swell. Now he’d want money in addition to…whatever else he wanted.

My kidnapper set his left arm over my shoulders and I tensed, trying to inch away, but he wouldn’t let me. Instead, he drew me close, then slid his right hand beneath his jacket and pressed the gun to my ribs. I guess there’d be no shouting for help. He’d obviously done this before.

“Who are you?” I asked as we stepped onto the street.

“Chavez.”

“Is that your first name or your last?”

“Both.”

“Right.”

He shrugged, the movement rubbing his side against mine, making the gun skitter across my skin. I flinched, and he tightened his hold.

“
Relaje,
” he murmured in that voice that would have been seductive if he hadn’t been kidnapping me at gunpoint. “I don’t want to hurt you,
chica.
”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“You’ll be safer with me. I promise.”

I snorted my opinion of that, and I could have sworn he laughed. The sound became a cough as I glanced up.

As the neon lights spilled over us, his face resembled something carved on a western mountainside. Not a hint of emotion—no humor, definitely no compassion. How could I possibly be safer with him? Right now the most frightening thing in my world
was
him.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

I debated ignoring the question, but since he was dragging me home, he’d find out anyway. And did I really want him to continue calling me
chica
in a voice that reminded me of tequila on a scalding summer night?

“Kit,” I said, though not very nicely.

“What kind of name is Kit?”

“Nickname. My whole name is longer than your—” I paused and he stared down at me from on high.

“Arm,” I finished, and his lips twitched.

“What is Kit short for?”

“My father called me—”

My voice broke suddenly, embarrassingly. My father’s death was too new, too painful, too private to talk about with a kidnapper.

“Kitten,” Chavez blurted.

I stopped walking. “How did you know that?”

“Fits.”

No one but my father had ever thought I resembled a kitten. Strange, and disturbing, that this stranger saw it, too.

We continued on silently. Every once in a while I couldn’t stop myself from looking at him. He was everything foreign to me; I should be frightened. Instead that foreignness had turned my fear toward fascination. Especially when his hair shifted, a streetlight blared, and his earring sparkled.

A tiny silver cross. How strange.

I lowered my gaze, saw where we were, and paused, indicating the building on the other side of the street with a dip of my chin. “This is it.”

He scowled. “You’ve got a doorman.”

“So?”

“Don’t even think about tipping him off. Say I’m your boyfriend.”

“Right. Out of the blue I come home with a boyfriend like you.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Besides the gun? The leather? The earring and the—”

I stopped short of mentioning his tattoo. I wasn’t sure it was there, and I didn’t want him thinking I’d been staring at his chest.

“The killing,” I finished.

“I didn’t kill anyone.” His eyes narrowed. “Yet. If we’re both lucky, I’ll get what I want and be out of your hair in a few days.”

“A few days?” I shouted, managing to startle several passersby.

“Shh!” He jerked me more tightly against him. “I won’t hurt you as long as you help me out.”

“That’s what all the psycho kidnappers say right before they kill someone.”

“You have a lot of experience with psycho kidnappers?”

“I think I’m going to.”

His lips tightened. “I’m not crazy.”

“Which is what all the crazy people say.”

He glanced at the sky, as if asking for guidance. For some reason, that calmed me. If he believed in the divine, he couldn’t be all bad.

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” Chavez lowered his gaze from the heavens to my face. “Inside.”

Since I didn’t have much choice, and he had the gun, I let him lead me across the street.

3

I
’d always been able to relax inside my home,
protected by two deadbolts and an ace security system, not to mention that I lived on the tenth floor.

With Chavez taking up too much space in my winter white living room, I doubted I’d calm down anytime soon.

“You want a drink?” I blurted.

His dark brows lifted, and I wanted to take the question back. This wasn’t a social occasion.

“I don’t drink,” he said.

It was my turn to look surprised. Chavez definitely seemed the drinking type. Of course, appearances were never reliable.

Eric had seemed like a gentleman, but he’d taken off and left me in an alley with a gun-wielding maniac. Guess he hadn’t been “the one” after all.

You think?
asked my increasingly sarcastic inner critic.

My eyes, scratchy from wearing contacts, ached. I only wore the lenses on dates—in other words, once in a blue moon—preferring my glasses for everyday use.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” I announced, pausing when he followed me. “I haven’t needed help since I was two.”

“Tough. I don’t plan to let you disappear.”

“There’s only one way out.”

“What about these?” He indicated the French doors that led to my balcony. I had another set in the bedroom.

“Ten floors down. Spider Woman, I’m not.”

He almost smiled, caught himself, and scowled. “I’ll be right here.”

“I just bet you will,” I muttered, and slammed the bathroom door.

While I was at it, I washed my face, changed into my sweats, then grabbed my glasses. I might as well be comfortable and kidnapped.

When I stepped into the front room, Chavez contemplated me for several ticks of the clock. I hated being stared at. Probably went back to those days in junior high, when being stared at was never a good thing.

“What?” I snapped.

“You wear glasses.”

“I’m a short, dumpy, plain girl who reads books for a living. Of course I wear glasses.”

He tilted his head. “You read books for a living?”

Of all the things he could have focused on in my statement he chose that one? I rolled my eyes. “Never mind. You said you’d answer my questions.”

“Sure. But first, show me all the e-mails you got from this guy.”

“So you admit he was there? I’m not nuts.”

Chavez slid his weapon into a holster tucked under one arm. “He was there.”

I’d known that, but I felt better having him say it. I also felt better now that he’d put away the gun.

“It wasn’t very nice of you to try and make me think I was crazy.”

“I’m not nice.” He flicked a finger at the computer in the corner of my dining room. “The e-mails?”

He’d kidnapped me to look at e-mails? Who was this guy? And who was Eric? I started to concoct all kinds of conspiracy theories.

“Huh,” he said when he’d read all of the messages. “Nothing weird.”

“Should there be?”

“Considering what this guy is, yeah.”

“Is Eric some sort of secret agent?”

And if so, what did he want with me? Besides the obvious.

“Agent of the devil,” Chavez murmured, still staring at the computer screen. “Not much of a secret.”

I frowned. “Is that code for terrorist?”

“Terrorist?” He glanced at me, amusement in his eyes, though nothing so lighthearted showed on his face. “You think I’m Homeland Security? FBI? CIA?”

“You’re something.”

“Got that right.”

Considering his accent, his appearance, his innate foreignness, maybe
he
was the terrorist. Except we hadn’t been at war—even a cold one—with any Hispanic countries for a long, long time. Of course, pretty much everyone hated us lately.

“DEA?” I blurted.

“You think the guy was a drug dealer? You’ve got quite an imagination, but you’re way off base.”

“Get me on base then.”

“He’s a demon, and for some reason he wants you.”

“He’s a
what
?”

“Fallen angel. Spawn of Satan. Minion of hell. Soulless, evil, creepy thing.”

For the first time tonight, I was speechless.

I’d started to believe that maybe Chavez wasn’t crazy. Maybe he was just a gung-ho member of one of the many law enforcement agencies in a country that had gone a little overboard on security after September eleventh. Who could blame us?

But demons?

“If Eric’s a demon,” I said slowly, “that makes you a—”

“Rogue demon hunter.”

I blinked. “Lost in the Buffyverse, are we?”

“That show was a real pain in my ass,” he muttered.

I was
not
having this conversation. Except I was.

“Not sure what kind of demon he is,” Chavez continued, as if he hadn’t just said something weirder than weird. “Salt didn’t work. Neither did a silver bullet.”

“Maybe because there’s no such thing as demons?”

He turned a dark, placid stare in my direction. “Then what do you call your date?”

“A jerk. But that doesn’t mean he’s the devil in disguise.”

“You didn’t think he was such a jerk when you were letting him stick his tongue down your throat.”

I stiffened, even as my face flooded with heat. “You shouldn’t have been watching.”

“If I hadn’t, you’d be dead now.” He tilted his head. “You don’t seem the kind of girl who’d let a guy screw her against the wall of an alley.”

“Gee, thanks. I think.” I took a deep breath and admitted the truth, though I’m not sure why. “I don’t know what got into me.”

“It was almost Eric.”

I ignored that. “I don’t sleep with men on a first date. I just felt—”

“What?” He leaned forward, face intense.

I searched for the word to describe my bizarre lapse of character.

“Consumed,” I said. “I couldn’t seem to stop what was happening. I didn’t want to.”

Chavez jumped to his feet and began to pace. “He’s some kind of incubus.”

“Which is?”

He paused, surprised. “You’ve never heard of an incubus?”

“Of course. I’m just a little rusty on my demonology. Haven’t had to use it in, oh…my entire life.”

A slight narrowing of his eyes was the only indication that he didn’t find me half as funny as I found myself. “An incubus uses sex the way the rest of us use hamburger.”

I got some bizarre images on that one and made a face.

“I meant an incubus feeds on sex,” Chavez muttered. “If he goes too long without it, he dies.”

“So actually he’s
just
like a regular guy?”

“Ha, ha. An incubus can also compel people to do what they normally wouldn’t. Hence your humping him in the alley.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were going to.”

Yeah, I was. That Eric had been a demon capable of influencing me to have sex with him explained a lot. If I could only get past the demon part.

But I couldn’t.

“I don’t believe any of this.”

“You’d rather believe you were so overcome with lust for a guy you’d just met that you were not only going to bring him back to your apartment after an hour in his company, but you were perfectly willing to do him in an alley with me watching?”

When he put it like that…

I still didn’t believe Eric was an incubus.

“Why did
you
?” I blurted.

“Excuse me?”

“Why did you think Eric was a demon? He seemed normal to me. Does he have a tail I’m not aware of?”

“That’s a myth. Tails on demons. Some have them, true. But not all. And not Eric.”

“Then why him?”

He turned away. “Trade secret.”

I stared at his back as he studied my collection of books on ancient civilizations. Most guys took one look at them and headed for the door. I hoped he’d do the same, but no such luck.

“Trade secret?” I repeated. “That’s convincing. Shouldn’t there be nice men in white coats searching for you somewhere?”

He faced me again. “Are you a librarian?”

My back stiffened as if I’d been slapped on the butt. “What?”

I wasn’t even sure why I was insulted, except that I’d spent the better part of my afternoon off getting ready for the date from hell.

Literally, according to Chavez.

“You said you read books for a living.”

“I’m an agent. I sell books to publishers.”

“Oh.”

Yeah, I kind of felt that way about it, too.

“I don’t suppose you have any books on demons?”

“What do you need a book for?”

“Unless I know exactly what’s necessary to kill a particular type of demon, they won’t die.”

A convenient excuse to explain why his methods didn’t produce results. I recalled reading somewhere that the insane often constructed elaborate delusions with rules that actually made sense to the not so crazy.

“You’re the demon hunter, why don’t you have a book?”

“There are way too many demons to fit in a single book, and I can’t exactly carry twenty or thirty books with me everywhere I go, nor memorize all the types and the methods.”

“What are the chances that the demon you’re searching for would be listed in a book I might have?”

“Good point.”

“You kidnapped me because you thought I was a librarian?”

“I kidnapped you because you had info from the demon.”

“Now that you’ve seen it, you can leave.”

“The book?” He gestured at the case.

“I don’t have anything on demons. Never studied them. Wasn’t interested.”

Disappointment trickled over his face like water down a windowpane. “You can’t help me then.”

“You need a different kind of help than I can give you.”

“You think I’m insane.”

“Big time.”

His smile was as sad as his eyes. “I hope you never have a reason to change your mind.

He left without any further attempt to convince me that there were demons in the world. He also left without a good-bye, going straight to the front door, then closing it quietly behind him.

After that, the night got boring.

I certainly couldn’t sleep. So I made myself some tea and settled down to work. I had a stack of manuscripts with my name on them. I always did.

Reading was how I spent my free time, and that wasn’t so bad. I loved books; I just hated selling them.

I’d been an agent for two years, and I was beginning to get the drift that I wasn’t any good at it. Another depressing tidbit to add to a long list of them. What was I going to do if I didn’t do this?

I’d come to believe that selling books was like selling a sunset or a lake or the bluest blue sky. How do you put a price on perfection?

Whenever I found a really great story, all I wanted to do was share it with the world—at any price. Which made me a shitty agent.

I was no good at my chosen profession. I felt as if I were letting my mother down. The only time I was happy was when I lost myself in another reality, one of adventure and romance, a life I craved but would never have.

I turned to the stack of manuscripts I’d brought home from work. Unfortunately, the first one was more boring than peeling paint with my fingernails and did nothing to get my mind off Chavez. Interesting that I found myself unable to stop thinking about him instead of Eric.

“Tattooed homicidal maniacs are always more fascinating than slim, blond surgeons,” I muttered.

And why was that?

I forced myself back to the book. One good thing, it made me sleepy. Just after midnight I gave up and went to bed.

All the excitement had revved me up, and now I was crashing hard. Everything went black not more than an instant after my head hit the pillow.

I had a doozy of a dream.

The French doors opened. A breeze fluttered the curtains. The quilt waved like wind across water as it slithered off my bed. The sheets soon followed.

My body was hot, almost feverish. I yanked off my sweat suit and lay naked to the night.

A shadow slid from the balcony and into my room; like a spreading stain the gray darkness crept across the carpet, up the side of the bed, and spilled over me.

I was no longer hot, but pleasantly cool, the rapidly chilling sweat causing goose bumps to rise on my skin.

My sigh was arousal, desperation, need. Writhing, I cried out, and the shadow took the shape of a man. No more than a shade really, impossible to see who he was, or even
if
he was.

The wind was a whisper all around me, a language I didn’t understand, yet words that encouraged me nonetheless. The air touched me everywhere, a caress that I welcomed.

I’d been waiting for this all of my life. Did I mention that I was a virgin?

The feather-light stroke of lips to the pulse at my throat, a tongue trailing over one breast, then the other, teeth grazing my nipple, then my stomach, then my thigh. Heated breath brushed the curls between my legs as a clever tongue did things that made me both limp and tense, tantalized and tortured.

I came awake, panting and gasping, my dream orgasm still rocketing through my body. I glanced around my room and stifled a scream.

The balcony doors were open, and a man stood on the other side.