Читать книгу Night's Pleasure - Amanda Ashley - Страница 12

William Gentry sat in the backyard, a blanket spread over his useless legs, a glass of strong whiskey cradled in his hands. There were times, like now, when sleep eluded him. When that happened, he came out here to try to forget.

He drained the glass and then refilled it from the bottle on the table beside him. He drank to forget old hurts, old wounds, and usually it worked, but tonight not even whiskey could drive away the ghosts of the past.

He remembered the day he had met Barbara. He had taken one look at her and known she was the woman he would marry. They had been dating only a few months when he proposed. He had been surprised when she not only refused to marry him, but refused to tell him why. Not one to give up easily, he had sent her flowers and candy every day, called her every night, until she admitted that she loved him, too, but that marriage was out of the question. It had taken another month before she’d told him why.

“I’m a Vampire hunter, Will,” she’d said. “I can’t marry anyone.”

He had looked at her in disbelief. “You’re a what?”

“You heard me.”

“But how…why?”

“It’s in my blood, Will. It’s what I was born to do.”

He had listened as she explained what she did and how she did it, his stomach churning as she explained, in vivid detail, how one went about staking a Vampire and taking its head. It was a brutal business. She had showed him the kit she carried in the trunk of her car, explained why she always wore a silver cross and carried a small bottle of holy water in her pocket, why she could never have children. He had assured her that none of it mattered. He loved her.

They were married two months later. In his mind’s eye, he saw her as she had been on the day they wed—a beautiful, vivacious woman filled with the joy of life. They had been happy together, happier than any other couple he knew. He had hated what she did, but it was a part of her, a part she felt strongly about. They never talked about it. He never questioned her on those nights when she went hunting, never let her know how he worried, always afraid that she wouldn’t come home.

A year passed and then another and another, and their joy in each other grew, spilling over into every aspect of their lives together. Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, Barbara lamented the fact that as much as she wanted a child, she would never have one. She had explained to him that few hunters ever married. Spouses and children could all too easily become pawns in the deadly game of cat and mouse that hunter and hunted played. At those times, William had held her and consoled her, but secretly, he had been glad they remained childless. He didn’t want to share her life with anyone, not even his own child. And then, after five years of wedded bliss, Barbara had announced that, despite all their precautions, she was pregnant. In spite of her determination not to have a child, she had been overjoyed with the news.

William had pretended to be as happy as she, pretended until the doctor placed a tiny, squirming bundle in his arms and announced that he had a daughter. William had feared that a baby would ruin their lives, but Savanah had drawn them even closer together. Barb had quit the hunt when she learned she was pregnant. Will had never said anything about it—it was her decision, but he had been relieved. He had been busy with his career, but always, in the back of his mind, had lingered the fear that one night Barb wouldn’t come home. But Savanah had changed all that. He recalled how happy he and Barb had been at each new milestone in Savanah’s life—her first smile, her first tooth, her first step, her first word.

He had been content, certain that the future would hold the same joy as the present. And then the unthinkable had happened. The Vampires and the Werewolves came out of the shadows and went to war. He had prayed that Barb wouldn’t become involved, but he should have known better.

“I can’t just sit at home, Will,” she’d said. “I can’t just do nothing while people are being killed. I couldn’t live with myself if someone died because I wasn’t there to save them.”

He had been at the newspaper office, working late on a story for the morning edition, when he got a frantic phone call from the baby-sitter telling him to get to the hospital as fast as he could; Barbara had been in an accident. It was the call he had been dreading their whole married life.

He didn’t remember leaving the office, didn’t remember getting into his car and driving to the hospital, didn’t remember anything until he reached Barb’s bedside. At first, he had been afraid he was too late, that she was already gone. Her skin had been fish-belly white, her lips blue; she didn’t appear to be breathing.

“Barb?” He had taken her hand in his, felt the icy coldness of her skin seep into his own. “Barbara!”

Her eyelids had fluttered open and she had stared up at him out of the eyes of a stranger. “Will?”

“Barb! Thank God!”

“Kill me.”

“What?” He had stared at her, certain he had misunderstood her.

“I want you…to kill me.”

“What are you saying?”

“My neck…”

He frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with your neck.”

“Look…” A single tear trickled down her cheek as she turned her head to the side. “Look.”

Somehow, he had known what he would see. Two small red puncture wounds, hardly noticeable.

She was looking at him again, her eyes haunted. “Do it, Will. You have to do it.”

“I can’t.”

“If you don’t do it, the sun will do it in the morning.”

“No! We can handle this somehow.”

She squeezed his hand. He had been surprised by the strength of her grip. “I don’t want to burn, Will. I don’t want to become what I’ve spent a lifetime hunting….”

“Dammit, Barb, I can’t…I don’t care what you are.” He swallowed hard. “You can feed off me.”

“No, Will. I won’t live like that. And what about Savanah? I can’t take a chance of hurting her. Don’t let me burn, Will. Please. In the morning, I’ll succumb to the Dark Sleep and when I wake again, I’ll be a Vampire. You must destroy me before the sun sets. Promise me.”

“I can’t,” he said miserably.

“Will, I don’t know if I’ll be able to control the hunger when I rise. New Vampires sometimes go mad with the lust for blood. I don’t want to be a monster. I won’t put your life, or Savanah’s, in danger. I won’t live half a life. I don’t ever want Savanah to know….”

In the end, he had agreed to do as she asked. Against the advice and wishes of the hospital staff, he had taken her home that evening. He had covered the bedroom window with a heavy quilt to ensure no light could find her. Holding back his tears, he had washed her, dressed her in her favorite lavender-and-white dress, brushed her hair until it gleamed, and then he had sat beside their bed, holding her hand.

As the sun came up, she had whispered that she loved him, and then she had fallen into the deep, deathlike sleep of the Undead.

Early the next morning, a doctor had pronounced her dead and signed the necessary papers. William had called in a few favors and arranged to have her buried that afternoon.

He had sat at her graveside the rest of the day, slowly consuming a bottle of Irish whiskey. Just before sunset, with tears streaming down his cheeks, he had dug up the coffin and looked on the face of his beloved one last time. And then, using Barb’s stake and mallet, he had taken the grisly steps required to assure that when the sun set, she would not rise as a newly made Vampire.

William swallowed the hot bitter bile that rose in his throat as he remembered that horrible night, a night forever imprinted on his heart and soul as he had destroyed the woman who had been his wife. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never understand how the gentle woman who had shared his bed and borne their daughter could have spent her adult life doing what he had done that night—not just once, but dozens of times in her career as a hunter.

In spite of his revulsion, he had become a Vampire hunter that night, though his kills had been few. The war between the Vampires and the Werewolves had ended soon after Barbara’s death and his life had returned to normal until a hit-and-run driver put him in a wheelchair. The police had never found the man who hit him, but Will was pretty sure he knew who had been behind the wheel, or at least who had ordered the hit. He had been working on a story about government corruption in the city, and had taken the accident as a sign that he was getting too close to the man behind the money. He knew he was supposed to die that night. By the time he recovered enough to get back to work, the money trail had dried up. All things considered, he supposed someone in the Vampire community might have been behind the attempt on his life, but hit-and-runs really weren’t their style.

Will had never been able to prove who had been driving the car that hit him, nor had he ever learned who had attacked Barbara, but he hadn’t given up. Hopefully, he would live long enough to solve both mysteries.

Sipping his drink, Will stared up at the stars wheeling across the midnight sky. “I’ll find him, Barb,” he murmured. “I’ll find him, and I’ll make him pay if it’s the last thing I do, I promise.”