Unholy Night (6 page)

Chapter 7

November 7th

Shadows hung under Marissa’s eyes, her long hair bundled up into a ponytail, and her skin pale.

She stared at herself in the glass while she waited for the door to be answered. She looked ill, like she hadn’t been eating. And she hadn’t. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see him.

But not as the man she’d met or slept with. She saw him as the monster, as the werewolf that he was, and it frightened her.

The howl he’d bellowed still pierced her heart, for she could feel the sorrow in the sound, and she knew he felt it as much as she did.

Still, he’d run away.

No different than anyone else.

Marissa touched her sunken cheek.
He did this to me
, she thought.
Neil
.

The wooden door behind the glass one opened, ruining her reflection, and Kristy stood on the other side. “Marissa,” she said, smiling. Then she looked at her. “Oh God.” Like she knew everything. And something about that was even more upsetting.

Kristy escorted her in. Where Halloween decorations had been a week ago now hung garlands of golden leaves and other things for Thanksgiving, including a paper turkey on the fireplace mantel.

She sat on the older couch, Kristy bringing her a glass of water and offering her some food, but she hadn’t been able to eat for days. Everything around her had taken on a bizarre stain, a sheen of unbelievability.

Nothing seemed real.

Even food.

Kristy sat down, chattering about how much fun the party was, telling her about other hook-ups and such that had occurred at the party, and something about the punch bowl being spilled later in the evening, and her having to scrub for an hour to get all the red out of the carpet.

“Oh, and I thought you might like to know.” Kristy brought her glass up to her lips to take a sip before going on. “Kirk’s been, uh, arrested.”

“I didn’t want anyone to press charges.”

“Not for what he did to you. He confessed to those slayings that have been going on. He’s, uh, being detained now.”

“Those SWAT guys have him?”

“Who, the Knights? Yeah,” she said, smiling. “He’s being questioned about a few other things before sentencing is passed.”

“I can’t believe Kirk would do that kind of stuff. He could be rough, but I can’t imagine him…”

“Well, you’d be surprised.”

Kristy certainly had a point—after what she’d seen with Neil, she pretty much was ready to believe anything. Maybe not believe, but comprehend. Though even that seemed like a farce—believing that monsters walked the earth? That all those fairy tales really could exist?

Even that Neil had saved her from Kirk.

A monster had saved her.

It wasn’t the first time in recent history. She seemed to be saved a lot by animals. Whether they looked human or not didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, did it?

Marissa’s mind whirled, and she felt herself sliding down into the same abyss she’d been in for the last week.

Instead of letting the abyss take her, she concentrated on the glass of water Kristy had given her, the way the ice danced around, moving just a tiny bit every time her hand shifted. She hadn’t been to work all week, using up a good chunk of her vacation. She couldn’t deal with what she’d seen.

She’d unplugged her phone and turned off her cellphone, barricading herself in her house. She’d showered seven times after Neil left, trying to get the smell of him off her, but even now, days later, she could still smell him.

The monster.

Who had saved her from the man.

Which was worse?

She didn’t even know why she’d come to Kristy’s house. She probably could have called, but she’d needed to see her face.

She needed to know this wasn’t a dream.

“Have you talked to Neil?” Kristy asked, the sentence breaking through the fog of her brain.

“No.”

“You should call him. I’ve never seen him like that over anyone before. I’m surprised he hasn’t called you,” Kristy said, her tone casual. Kristy did that—spoke casually, let conversation ramble, until the other person was ready to speak. She supposed it was to ease the person’s confidence.

Right now, it only irritated her.

“Do you know what Neil is?” she asked pointblank, studying the blonde’s response.

Kristy froze for a moment, her face paling in the light from the window. But it lasted a mere moment. Kristy let out a sigh and bowed her head, running her fingers through her short spiky hair.

“Yes.”

“How could you?” Marissa asked, her voice hoarse. “How could you let him take me home?”

“Because I know Neil, and I know he’d never hurt you.”

“No, a monster wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Neil is not a monster!” Kristy countered. “A werewolf is not a monster!”

“Last time I checked,” Marissa said, “they rank right there with vampires. All are monsters, haunt little children in their sleep, eat humans, and all are not supposed to exist. And he does!” A tear pooled in her eye.

“So do all the mythicals,” Kristy said. “And we live in harmony with them, and have for centuries. So what?”

This was not what she expected. She hadn’t expected such nonchalance to the concept.
Damnit, doesn’t anyone around here find it weird or freaky or scary that monsters walk the streets next to us, every day?
“He’s a monster.”

“There are monsters and monsters.” Kristy took her hand and squeezed. “Nothing in this world is as we expect. We’ve lived for centuries, millennia, with creatures of the night in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and we don’t have to fear them.”

She glanced up at Kristy’s face. Her friend, who she’d pretty much considered a casual acquaintance for the most part, made sense in a surreal way. There was nothing she could do about the existence of monsters. It wasn’t like she could hunt them down; she’d never know where to begin.

And this went well beyond the realm of just believing in them. This was bigger—so much bigger—than that.

“If I believe you, then everything I’ve ever known is wrong.” She buried her face in her hands. She didn’t want to see her face, because Kristy might bring her to the breaking point with whatever she said.

She thought of Neil, of the way he protected her from Kirk; of the passion he had, of the heat of his stare, and her heart lurched. How could she? How could she even consider such a monster a friend?

Yet in the back of her mind, she knew if she ever needed him, Neil would come running, and that very thought was what kept her up at night.

Not that he was a monster.

That he was
her
monster, and he would always save her.

“It’s not wrong,” Kristy said. “It’s just more than we ever thought possible.” Kristy’s eyes slipped to her and Dale’s wedding picture, framed in a black lacquer frame.

Her words struck a chord, and for a brief second of clarity, she knew Kristy spoke from experience. Her mind traveled backward in time, and she realized every time Dale had ever been “away for a business trip” it was right on the full moon.

The joke had been that the only normal thing to happen on the full moon was Dale’s scheduled trips.

Her eyes widened.

Kristy seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. “It’s not all bad,” Kristy said. “Once a month, I have the house to myself to do whatever I want, have a girl’s night, whatever. I get a lot of deep cleaning done that day.”

“And where does he go?”

“The compound,” she said. “The Brothers constructed a compound on some land outside of town, and he goes there. They have some kind of cell or something that he stays in for the night. Everything’s really well organized. I hear they play poker until it’s time to lock up.”

“I really want to believe you, I do, it’s just so…”

“So crazy?” Kristy said. “It’s a bizarre world out there. I agree. I’m just glad I have Dale on my side, you know?”

She finally asked what she really wanted to know. “Weren’t you scared?”

Kristy’s eyebrow went up. “We’d had sex by then, so I wasn’t really that scared. Shocked a bit, but not scared. I thought I’d dreamed it.”

The change. She’d seen the way Neil had shifted slightly when he’d climaxed, his animal side coming out. But that hadn’t been the first time, had it? She’d seen the same thing just before he broke Kirk’s nose. She’d thought she’d dreamed it too.

“So what do I do?” Marissa asked.

“Up to you. But let me tell you one thing. When a werewolf chooses a mate, it’s for life. Neil will never cheat on you, he’ll never hurt you, and he’ll never leave you.”

The last words stung, because that’s exactly what he’d done. He’d left.

*

Marissa barely made it home when someone started pounding on her front door.

“Go away,” she muttered, but couldn’t help herself from going over to the door. Deanna’s persistence knew no bounds—even when she’d ignored her friend’s calls, it hadn’t stopped Deanna.

Maybe she should have, because then she wouldn’t have Deanna standing on her porch now.

She yanked open the door, ready to berate Deanna, but stopped cold.

Standing outside were the two SWAT guys from the party. Though this time, they didn’t look as much like SWAT team members—they had on typical clothing. Typical enough, anyway. Tee-shirts and jeans.

Both of their dark gray tee-shirts had the same red iron crosses on the upper left shoulder.

“Yeah?”

Neither waited on pretense, and walked right into her house. The blond went past her and the other, his hair dark and very short, shut the door.

“You know, this is my house. I get to say who comes in,” she spat at them. “Don’t you all have to have permission to come in?”

“That is a vampire,” Liam said. “Though more human folklore than truth.”

The blond glanced at her, his brow arched, and took a seat on her couch. “We could do this on the porch if you want, but I doubt you wanna share this with your neighbors.”

The dark-haired one stood up against the door, his arms over his chest, as if daring her to try and bolt past him.

“Fine, let’s get this over with,” she said, dropping on the couch. “What do you want to know?”

The men glanced at each other. “My name is Sir Adrian, and this is my partner, Sir Liam. Formalities were missed at Dale’s party.”

“Marissa,” she muttered. “And you guys are the SWAT guys who hauled off Kirk. Is he going to jail?”

“What was your relationship to Kirk?” Adrian asked.

“Dated him a few months ago. We’d been together a while, but he was a jerk, messed around and stuff. So we broke up.”

“And you hadn’t seen him around since your breakup?”

“No, not that I remember.”

“Had he tried to contact you since the breakup?” Liam asked.

“Sure, a little bit. Kirk’s a control freak. Didn’t like that I’d broken up with him. So he did pursue for a while, calling every few days, but then he stopped. Didn’t hear for him for a couple of months. I figured he’d given up, at least until the other night.”

Adrian nodded. “You were attacked outside a bar a little over a month ago.”

“You guys are good, I didn’t bother telling anyone about that.”

“We were the ones who found you,” Adrian replied.

“How do you think you got home?” the second one asked, making her jump. She’d practically forgotten he was there.

She ran her hands through her hair. She didn’t like this, not one bit—after all, these guys were the ones who found her? After everything she’d been through, this was almost too much to handle. “Who in the hell are you guys? Police or something?”

“That’s what we’re here to talk to you about,” Adrian replied. “We are the Knights Templar, and we police the activities of mythicals in this area.”

“Mythicals?”

“Vampires, werewolves, and about any other mythical creature you can think of. We protect humans from the mythicals.”

“Well, you’ve just done a bang-up job in my case,” she snapped at him. “Seems like I’m frigging surrounded by them.”

The two men exchanged glances. “So Neil told you,” Liam said, coming across the room to sit in the large recliner in the corner, though he didn’t really sit back in it, more on the edge of the thing.

“He told me what he was,” she replied. “And I haven’t seen him since.”

Liam ground out some kind of curse, though it wasn’t anything she’d ever heard.

“Do you plan on seeing him again?” Adrian asked, his eyes warm with compassion.

“I don’t know yet. This is really hard for me to take in, ya’ know?”

“This type of situation isn’t how we like to see humans introduced to the mythical world. However, there’s not much we can do about it.”

“What…are there, like, classes or something to introduce a human to these monsters that walk among us?”

“No, though that’s probably not a bad idea. There are protocols, however, and usually, a mythical, when he or she wants to tell a human about what they are, there are special steps that are required.”

“Like watching ‘Underworld’ or something before they can tell the human?”

“Not exactly. But usually, we try to speak to the human, to determine how they will handle the information before they know,” Adrian said.

“Though it doesn’t always work that way,” Liam added.

“So what do I do? I mean, I’ve slept with Neil. Do I have to get special shots or something?”

“Did you use protection?” Liam asked.

She nodded.

“Then you’re fine.”

“Well, good to know I can’t get rabies,” Marissa replied.

Adrian glanced at Liam, and for the briefest of seconds, it looked as if Liam might have actually smirked.

“Listen, we can’t tell you how to live your life. And we can’t tell you if you should or should not have anything to do with Neil. That’s up to you.” Adrian shifted on his seat. “But know this. We have vowed to protect humans from mythicals, and if, for any reason, you feel as though you’re in danger, you need to contact us immediately. Mythicals aren’t like humans. They’re stronger, they’re faster, and far more dangerous. It’s not your job to protect yourself. That’s our job.” He stood up and handed her two business cards, both identical, instructing her to put one by her phone and the other in her purse in case she needed it.