Kissed by Darkness(3)

“All right, Mr. … Brent. I’ll see what I can do. Have you any idea where the Sunwalker is now? How I can find him?”

He wrote something on a sticky note and handed it to me. It was a name: Cordelia Nightwing. “You can find this woman in a night club called Fringe. Maybe she can help you. Go carefully, Ms. Bailey.” He leaned back gracefully, his leather chair creaking slightly, and steepled his fingers together again. Boy, he had the Doctor Evil thing down pat.

“I always do.” I glanced down at the name on the note. Please don’t let her be another nutter.







Since nightclubs in Portland didn’t open until late, I decided to call it a day and head home for some much deserved sleep. First, I wanted to drop in on Kabita’s cousin, Inigo Jones.

Inigo was a clairvoyant, or something of that nature, and into all kinds of weird stuff. Well, I was sure it wasn’t because of his clairvoyance that he was into weird stuff, but more because he was just, well, weird. Not to mention hot. But I tried not to think about that. After all, he was Kabita’s cousin and I was pretty sure there was something in the Best Friend Rules that stated that best friends couldn’t date each other’s cousins. Even if there wasn’t, the guy was like twenty or something. Practically a kid. A really hot kid, but a kid none the less.

Granted, twenty was only a few years younger than my own twenty-nine, but I felt a lot older than my years most of the time. The job sort of did that to you.

“Get your hormones under control, girl,” I muttered under my breath before pressing the button for the doorbell. It had obviously been way too long since I’d had a boyfriend.

Three rings later, Inigo stood in the open doorway wearing a pair of red silk pajama bottoms and nothing else. His shoulder length gold and taffy hair was artfully tousled (damn him) and his usually brilliant blue eyes were heavy lidded with sleep.

He bared his teeth at me, and not in a nice way. “Whaddya want?” came out more a growl than a question. The growl did things to my libido that I’d rather not think about. I barely refrained from clenching my thighs together.

“Sorry to wake you, Sleeping Beauty.” I stepped past him into the dim living room which was just a touch too warm for my taste. “But I need your help with a little project.”

“At,” he hesitated and squinted at the wall clock hanging above the television, its arms glowing faintly in the darkness, “ten in the morning?”

“Sorry, but Kabita’s got me working for this new client. He wants me to kill a Sunwalker.”

Inigo blinked. “Uh-huh.”

“You see anything?” I didn’t mean in the physical sense.

He shook his head. “Nah. Not before coffee. And I’m not drinking any ‘cause I’m going back to bed the minute you leave. Which will be … ?”

“Soon,” I assured him. I crossed my arms under my chest and gave my already impressive cleavage a subtle boost. Oh, I was such a bad girl. “I just need your help tonight. There’s this woman, Cordelia Nightwing. She works at some club called Fringe. You know it?”

He grinned, his eyes on my chest. He knew exactly what I was doing. “Yeah, I know it.”

“I take it that this is one of those weirdo clubs with mermaids swimming in fish tanks or something like that.”

He tilted his head as he laughed and the sun streaming through the open door picked out the gold in his hair. “Yeah, something like that.”

Down, libido, down. “Well, this Cordelia is supposed to know something. Something that will help me track the Sunwalker I’m hunting. So, can you help me out? Go to the club with me, find this Cordelia chick and find out what she knows?”

“Yeah, sure, if you promise to leave me in peace and let me sleep. Unless you want to join me?” His grin was pure naughtiness.

I rolled my eyes at him. “As if. OK, I’ll pick you up at ten tonight. I’ve got another hunt. I’ll try and get it done before then.” I headed for the door.

“Make it midnight,” he called. “The weirdos never come out before then.”

I tossed him a look over my shoulder. “Obviously.”





Chapter Two





I found rather perverse enjoyment in slaying. I sometimes wondered if that didn’t make me just a little bit sick and twisted. Or maybe a lot sick and twisted, but it wasn’t like I went around killing animals and taking candy from children. That would just be … wrong. I only enjoyed killing nasty things that went bump in the night.

Terrance was one hell of a nasty bump in the night. With a name like Terrance, you’d expect leather patches on elbows and smoke billowing from a pipe. You didn’t expect one of the meanest, nastiest vampires in the city. It wasn’t that he was particularly powerful, just psychotic. I mean, the guy was a serious piece of work. His latest foray into the “real” world was prowling for an after dinner snack in a sorority house.