47Moonlight: Darkness
Book 2 of the Moonlight Chronicles
Chapter 1
Everything Changes
Author's note: Here we go – the first chapter of book 2 of 3, Moonlight: Darkness continuing the Moonlight story. If you haven't read the just completed Book 1, Moonlight: The Next Chapter, much of this won't make sense as there are new storylines & new characters to go along with our much-loved original characters from Moonlight, the TV series. I hope you'll read along and review so I know if I'm on the right track for readers. Enjoy!
Intro song: The Times, They Are A-Changing, Bob Dylan
Beth Turner sat at her desk, chin propped on one hand as her blue eyes studied the clock, her forehead creased in a frown. Two o'clock? How could it possibly be only two o'clock!? It didn't help that her one true friend in the office, Jamie Sommers, was out this week with what had been described as a family emergency.
What if it's about that missing family member? This had been nagging at Beth all week. She'd dropped the ball on that after promising to connect Jamie with Mick. Of course, all hell had broken loose shortly after that, but still…
With a sigh, she turned back to the computer screen in front of her, irritably flipping her long blond hair back from her face as she scanned yet another incomplete report from a detective who appeared not to give a crap. If they don't want to be doing this job, why don't they go flip burgers or something, she thought peevishly. As the only civilian investigator in ADA Ben Talbot's office, she was used to being out in the L.A. community, interviewing people, checking crime scenes, chasing down leads...
Not this week, though.
Ever since her return on Monday from the emergency leave she'd taken when Mick had been shot, Beth had been chained - unhappily - to this desk. "Every. Friggin'. Minute." she muttered aloud, then shot a glance around her cubicle to make sure that no one had overheard her talking to herself. Again.
She couldn't prove it, but Beth felt certain that her boss was punishing her for having been unreachable for over two weeks. Ben Talbot had been acquainted with her since her days as an online reporter for BuzzWire, a web-based news and tabloid service. He knew how much she abhorred being tied to a desk. It just wasn't in her high-energy, insanely curious nature to sit on the sidelines. When he'd hired her, he'd assured her she wouldn't be a glorified admin. He'd said he wanted someone who looked at things differently, saw what more conventional investigators might miss.
That was then. Now… Her relationship with Talbot had been strained ever since she'd returned to work. If she were being completely honest with herself, however, much of that tension came from her. Why had she let Josef talk her into coming back to work here instead of quitting? She sighed. Because he was right.
Kostan had appealed to her sense of outrage over Talbot's role in Mick's ill-fated trip to San Diego. He'd convinced her that there was cause for suspicion. That someone needed to be a mole in the ADA's office and keep an eye on what was happening, in case there was something going on that could spell more trouble for vampires.
Beth had agreed because she had not been able to shake the feeling that Talbot had somehow had something to do with the near-fatal ambush of Mick St. John and Carl Davis in the San Ysidro Desert. To be honest, however, she had no proof, nothing concrete on which to base this theory. Talbot's only apparent connection to the near-tragedy had been that he had been the one who sent the two men on the fact-finding trip to San Diego. Still...
The bottom line was, she didn't trust Talbot - which meant that she needed to be in the ADA's office to help protect Mick, Josef and their friends. The young woman had hesitantly mentioned her misgivings to Carl Davis when he had called her to arrange a time to visit the still-recovering St. John – leaving out the part about vampires, of course. The detective had heard her out, then countered her with his own view of the situation.
"Look, Beth, there is certainly no love lost between Talbot and me. I damn near punched his lights out the night Mick was-" The detective had paused, the nightmare images of that terrible evening still disturbing to him even then, several weeks later. There had been a long silence before he was able to compose himself enough to finish awkwardly, "Anyway, that night..."
When Beth had remained silent, he had continued, "Talbot was as shocked as any of us over what happened - and as puzzled about why. He may be a jerk and a dickhead, but he's not a murderer." He'd snorted, then added, "Let me amend that. He is a jerk and a dickhead - but not a murderer."
They had both laughed.
Davis had reiterated over and over that Mick had saved him from certain death. "If I thought for an instant that Ben had anything to do with what happened, you'd have to pull me off him - after I pounded him to a bloody pulp! I just think Mick and I were in a really bad place at the worst possible time. And I owe him my life. I'll never forget what he did for me."
Beth couldn't help wondering if Carl would still feel gratitude if he knew Mick was a vampire. Would you feel the same then?
That was unfair, of course. No one could possibly be prepared for the idea that there really were such things as vampires. She wasn't proud of how she, herself, had handled the revelation when she'd walked in on Mick, hurt and sick from being hit multiple times with silver buckshot from the gun of the ex-convict, Lee Jay Spalding. While he was rescuing your friend, Julia, from that psychopath. The memory still filled her with guilt.
"Please don't look at me."
She still remembered how horrified and frightened he'd sounded when she'd barged in on him in his penthouse, his pain-wracked body huddled over bags of blood. The look of anguish - and shame - on his face that night was etched into her brain forever.
At that stage in their relationship, she had had no idea that he was the man who had saved her as a child when she was kidnapped, but he'd already rescued her from a psycho graduate student hell-bent on killing her to protect his mentor. Yet, when she'd seen him - the eyes, the fangs, the blood - she'd asked him that terrible question, the one that still haunted her.
"What are you?"
Not "Who are you?" or "What's wrong with you?", but "What are you?" as if he were, truly, the monster she later learned he believed himself to be.
His answer had been simple - yet unbelievable. "I'm a vampire."
And how had she repaid her rescuer when his secret was uncovered? She'd turned tail and run, that's how. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, she'd panicked and fled, backing out the wide-open front door without taking her eyes off the injured man, afraid that if she turned to run, he might come after her. Without saying another word, she'd left him to cope with his injuries as best he could.
True, she had gone back later and confronted him - and her fears. But it had taken days... and several sleepless nights. Looking back on it and knowing what she knew now about vampires - but, more importantly, what she now knew about Mick and the kind of man he was - it was one of the most shameful moments of her life. He had been gracious and forgiving of her abandonment of him, which had made her actions worse in her mind.
No, the detective could not be faulted for being unprepared for the idea - and reality - of vampires.
With a start, Beth realized that a half-hour had flown by while she was deep in thought. She wanted to leave the office and this interminable work week behind her, and spend a quiet weekend with Mick. Not too quiet, it's been a week, you know, and that means… She blushed at the thoughts that filled her head and glanced around quickly, as if afraid that someone in the office might have somehow heard what she was thinking.
A week's recuperation meant that some of Dr. Spector's restrictions on Mick's activities would be lifted. Including sex. Initially, being back in his penthouse alone together hadn't been too difficult as the injured vampire was still weak and slept most of the time while his body healed from his horrendous injuries.
As the days went by, however, and he began to regain his strength, it had gotten increasingly difficult to be in such close proximity without being able to be physical. Accidentally brushing against one another, hands touching, catching glimpses of nakedness… It was becoming torture for them both.
Mentally shaking herself, she turned back to the task at hand. The sooner her work was done, the sooner this interminable Friday would be over. And tomorrow night...
Her lips curved into a smile as she contemplated the weekend ahead, a weekend with all of Mick's restrictions lifted. Yes, this Friday couldn't end soon enough...
Mick St. John pushed himself away from the computer with a frown, leaning his tall frame back until the swivel chair he was sitting in, groaned alarmingly. Hands braced behind his head, he stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, as if the answer he sought might be written there.
The forced isolation and inactivity was wearing on him, making him jumpy and irritable. He longed to be back in his normal routine - if drinking blood and sleeping in a freezer could ever be called normal - but he didn't need Josef's constant, irritating lectures to know that he had to continue to play the role of a convalescing human.
The injuries he'd sustained in the ambush in the desert, when he'd jumped in front of the bullets meant for Carl Davis, had damn near killed him, despite being a vampire. A human would have had a long period of recovery from such horrendous injuries, perhaps many months. There was no way he could lie low for that long, but at least a few weeks of playing the invalid was necessary to protect his identity.
In truth, for the first few days, it had been a welcome excuse to spend the majority of his time in the freezer. The hypersensitivity to the sun that he'd experienced since he was shot had been unexplained, painful and worrisome - all reasons for him to keep it from Beth and Josef. He didn't want Beth worrying any more than she already was, and he certainly didn't want to give Kostan yet another reason to lecture him.
Over the past two days, however, he had finally noticed a difference. While he was still definitely more sensitive to the sun's rays, exposure was no longer as acutely painful as it had been, and each day saw small, steady improvement.
Enough improvement to make him antsy.
Intellectually, the restless vampire understood the need to continue to act the part of a slowly-recovering human - but adhering to the plan was another story. The only thing that made it palatable was the time he'd been able to spend with Beth. Even so, if he weren't allowed out soon... I may rip somebody's head off!
Reaching a decision, he straightened in his chair and bounced lithely to his feet. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Mick punched a number and listened for the ring, beginning to pace as he waited. When a sleepy voice answered, he couldn't help smiling.
"Did I get you out of bed, Miss Sinclair?"
"Fuck you, you know you did! What part of Eastern Time Zone do you West Coast vampires not get?!" The tiny Asian woman on the other end of the line retorted witheringly.
"Geez, I'm sorry! Did you have a late night or something?!"
"As if I'd tell you!" she scoffed.
"Well, I could hazard a guess, but that'd probably end up embarrassing both of us."
Gabrielle Sinclair snorted.
Cranky as she was, it was hard for her to stay mad at her West Coast counterpart for long. Since the day they had met in New York, when Mick had arrived with Josef Kostan to investigate the mysterious death of Sarah Whitley, she'd felt an unexplained but immediate connection to him. They quickly fell into a comfortable relationship and she thought of him as the brother she'd never had.
Except when his sheet fell off in the freezer room in Temecula and you saw him naked. You didn't think of him as a brother then, did you?!
She shook off the thought. Mick had a very real, very human, girlfriend - one he was crazy about. And, she had to admit to herself, she liked Beth Turner. A lot. The young woman was, by all signs, very good for Mick - and, there was no question in Gabby's mind that Beth had saved Mick's life in Temecula when she'd unhesitatingly sliced her wrist open so he could drink from her.
With a sigh, Gabby came back to the conversation at hand and started again, this time in a milder tone. "You have five minutes before I climb back in my freezer, St. John. And, if you were anyone else, you wouldn't get that long. What do you need?"
What I need and what I want are two different things... To Gabby, Mick said, "I just wanted to check in and see if anything came of that last lead Ryder sent you."
"Which one? The silver purchase, or the car in Chicago, or…"
"What's Ryder doing, calling you every day with something?" Mick's mind conjured up the image of England at the party in Temecula. After much prodding from his friends, the vampire geek, who'd had a schoolboy crush on Gabby ever since he laid eyes on her, had approached her. While the beautiful Asian vampire had treated him kindly, Mick knew England was not likely to get the girl in this case.
The sigh that emitted from the phone's speaker spread a grin across Mick's face.
"Pretty much every day, yeah. I like Ryder, Mick, I really do. But..."
"But, you're going to break his heart anyway."
"Thanks a lot. Like I didn't already feel guilty enough!" Gabby was exasperated. Some things hadn't changed much since her days as a human. The guys you didn't care for were all over you, whereas the guys you lusted after...have blond girlfriends.
"That's okay. He has an eternity to get over you." Mick couldn't contain his snicker.
"Bastard." Gabrielle's cheery tone belied the derogatory term. Talking with Mick had bolstered her spirits - no mean trick as she had, indeed, had a late night. Not a terribly successful one, either. The brief sexual encounter she'd engaged in had done little to make her feel better.
Gabby had been edgy and out-of-sorts ever since she'd returned from Temecula with John Spector, the New York vampire clan's human physician. By rights, she should have been in good spirits - Mick was recovering, the attacks on the vampire community in New York appeared to have stopped, at least for the time being...and Durin Scanlin, her sire and nemesis, had left the city. Yes, life should be good.
It should be...but it wasn't.
She blamed Mick and Beth.
Not that either of them had done anything to her deliberately. It was just seeing them with one another, so much in love, so happy just to be together... Gabby had never thought of herself as lonely before, hadn't particularly looked for a relationship, especially not with a human. But now... I want it. She wanted what the two of them had. She didn't want Mick himself though. Not really.
Of course she felt some stirrings when she looked at him. I may be undead, but I'm not dead. The man was not only sexy and gorgeous, but a warm, caring person. She would never try to get in between he and Beth, though.
Unlike Victoria.
Her mentor saw Mick's human relationship as a personal challenge, a test of her own undeniable attractiveness and sex appeal and she'd been relentless in her pursuit of him.
That was not in Gabby's nature. She certainly found Mick devastatingly attractive, and she didn't deny that she'd fantasized about him. But she really hoped that he and Beth made a go of it. If anyone deserved it, they did.
Where does that leave me? Gabby didn't know, but the answer was, most certainly, not one-night stands with humans like the experience she'd just had last night. She twirled one long strand of black hair as she stared at her naked reflection in the antique full-length mirror leaning against the wall in her bedroom. One of her favorite possessions, it had been a gift from Victoria many Christmases ago.
"Earth to Gabby."
"What?!" she asked with a start, grabbing the soft worn t-shirt she'd carelessly thrown on the bed when she headed for her freezer.
"I don't know, you tell me." Mick's voice was amused. "You called me a bastard - and then I couldn't get another word out of you! That must have been some date you had last night if you're still dreaming about it. Care to share the details?"
Gabby groaned, her voice muffled as she struggled into the shirt. "Please don't make me. I'd rather talk about killers and silver."
"Oh... 'buyer's remorse' eh? I get it."
"Right now, I have remorse that I didn't stake you when I had the chance!" she responded testily. "Now, back to killers and silver..."
"I get it. You don't want to talk about your personal life. But if you ever do, Gabby - I'm here, okay?"
"Okay," she said softly, touched by his caring. "Thank you. I mean that." He really is my brother.
"So, killers and silver..."
Gabrielle snapped back into professional mode. "The silver purchases are real, but seemed to be done as an investment. I interviewed the broker for the deal and he said the organization wanted something that wouldn't lose value...and that could be easily liquified."
Hearing Mick's amused grunt, she added, "I know, it was all I could do not to laugh out loud at that comment. He wouldn't give me the name of the company that bought it, but I imagine Ryder and Logan could dig that up for us if we want to go that far. It seemed legit, though. I talked to V about it and she said a lot of investors have been turning to gold and silver because of the uncertainty in the stock market."
When her L.A. counterpart didn't respond, she added, "It's your call. Do you want them to follow up on it?"
The P.I. frowned. He knew that Logan and Ryder each had a lengthy list of projects they were working on for Josef - so much that the billionaire had put Griffen on a personal retainer. At first, the geek had been ecstatic, but as he discovered how much like a real job working for Josef Kostan was - and how much it cut into his World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero time - the curly-haired geek had been less happy. No, they had a lot to do.
Yet, there was a small, inner voice nagging at him about this, telling him not to let it go...
"I'll have them put it on their list, but tell them it's not a priority. I'll let you know if, and when, they come up with a company name."
"Works for me. I also followed back up with Renaissance Healthcare. Judy Albert was a little less than thrilled to see me."
That was the understatement of the year.
Gabrielle's thoughts flashed back to her recent unpleasant experience with Judy Albert. She had bullied her way back into the director's office and confronted her about her now-long-missing employee. The response had been anything but helpful.
"Look, Miss Sinclair, I have no idea where Rebecca went. As I told you and your companion when you first came to my office, she took some time off because she was so distraught over what had happened to Paula."
"And...?"
"And, nothing!" the older woman had snapped, her blue eyes flashing behind her stylish reading glasses. "She sent me an e-mail to tell me she'd decided not to return, that the experience had caused her to re-evaluate her life and she was going to take some time to do things that were important to her." Judy had frowned down at her hands, her silver hair gleaming as she fidgeted with some paper clips on her desk.
"How did you respond?" Gabrielle had leaned forward in her seat, studying the older woman intently.
"How should I have responded?" Judy had retorted. "I sent her a message back and told her I understood - because I do. I also told her that she had a job with us anytime she wanted to come back. She was an excellent employee. Now is that all?"
"Would you mind forwarding her e-mail to me?" The vampire knew that was a mistake as soon as the words left her mouth.
"I most certainly would mind!" The director's tone had been irate; her face flushed beneath her elegantly-styled hair as she stood up. "I'm going to ask you to leave, Miss Sinclair - and please don't come back. If you do, I'm warning you, I'll be forced to call the police! You have no jurisdiction here and I don't like your prying into my employees' lives. It's disturbing and suspicious, to say the least."
Gabrielle had sighed to herself, knowing the visit had been a long shot. She'd picked up no sense that Judy Albert was lying, so it was just another dead end...
"Sooo...anything we can follow up on?" Mick's voice broke into her reverie.
"No, I really don't think Renaissance has anything to do with it. And, to be honest, I'm pretty sure I burned our last bridge there."
Mick snorted. "Went that well, huh?"
"Yep." There was silence for a moment, then Gabby continued. "I went to the medical supply company too."
"Did you talk to the owner again? The weasel?"
"No, actually, that's kind of a sad story." Gabrielle's tone was mournful. "I talked to Giles' admin. Apparently, he's been out for several weeks because his wife died very unexpectedly. She didn't seem to know the details, just that it was sudden. She said that they were very close and that Giles was devastated. Not sure when he'll be back, he hasn't even been in touch with anyone there for a couple of weeks. The employees are keeping everything going for him. Sad, huh? Here you have all these assholes running around, happy as clams. Then, you get good people like this..."
"Life isn't fair, Gabby." He thought back to his brief sojourn as a human after his ex-wife administered a temporary cure. Time as a human that he'd had to cut short in order to save Beth's life. If life were fair, I'd still be human and Beth and I would be building a real life together...
There was a heartfelt sigh at the other end of the call. "Don't I know it! Speaking of unfair, about Sara... Ryder's information about her killer going to Chicago? I can't find anything at this end and with all the stuff V has had me working on here, I honestly can't hop on a plane and go there right now. I talked to her about it and she suggested you have Josef ask his buddies to look into it. Apparently, he has some old friends in Chicago. Did you know that?"
"Of course not," Mick groused. "Josef never tells me anything that I don't drag out of him. I'll talk to him about it."
"Good. Now, if that's all, I'm going back to my freezer to try to forget last night ever happened."
"You do know that you're going to have to tell me about it over drinks sometime, right?"
"Maybe," she responded noncommittally.
"How are you really doing, Gabby?" Mick's voice was filled with concern. "Have those Council assholes given you any more trouble?" It couldn't be easy for her to be there, knowing that many of those influential vampires wanted her head on a silver platter. If the situation in L.A. were different, he'd hop a plane out to the East Coast himself. That would be all he'd need, though - some reporter spotting him strolling through an airport when he was supposed to be a recovering invalid... He shook his head. No, his friend was, unfortunately, on her own for the time being. The thought troubled him.
"I'm fine, Mick. Really. I've kept my distance from all of them. V is running interference for me. Thank god I have her - and you."
"Are you telling me the truth?"
"Yes," she answered in a small voice.
"Okay, well, keep me posted. If I need to get involved, I will. Or I'll get Josef engaged again." He paused. "Take care of yourself. I mean it."
"You too, St. John. Don't take any more silver bullets." Gabrielle disconnected the call with a sigh. He really was the nicest man. Were there any more like him out there? God, I hope so.
End song: Never Say Never, The Fray