Nocturnal Part 34

"But I'm too tired," we both said simultaneously.

We barely managed to crawl under the covers before we both fell asleep.

The next morning we were awakened by an insistent tap on the door.

"Did you order anything?" I grumbled.

"How could I?" he answered. "I was asleep."

He stumbled to the door, still in the dirty jeans and T-shirt he'd worn the night before. A hotel employee was waiting with a plate under a silver dome and a pot of delicious-smelling coffee.

"That smells awfully good," Derek said, "but I didn't order it. Besides, there's two of us here."

"Oh!" The young man looked chagrined as he checked the ticket. "This is for the room next door. Please accept my apologies, and if you would like breakfast today, of course it will be on the house."

Derek shut the door on his retreating back and turned to me. "Do you want breakfast?"

I lifted a corner of the duvet. "Maybe later."

Derek didn't immediately climb into bed. Instead he treated me to a slow striptease as he removed the clothes he'd been too tired to take off the night before. We had forgotten to close the curtains, and the sun gleamed through puffy c.u.mulus clouds, surrounding Derek with a honey-colored halo. When the T-shirt came off my gaze lingered on his taut chest muscles and chiseled abdomen. He turned slightly, revealing the tattoo of the Celtic cross on his bicep that I'd first seen at the hospital. Then I'd tried to avoid looking at his sinewy back and high, round b.u.t.tocks, but now I was free to feast my eyes. My mouth went dry as he unb.u.t.toned his jeans, tantalizing me with their slow progress down his jutting hipbones. Finally he revealed his manhood in all its glory.

"That is a beautiful picture," I said.

"Do you want me to stay like this?" He flexed a bicep and struck a pose, turning his head so that the sun burnished the long waves of his hair.

"h.e.l.l, no, I want you to come here."

He slid between the sheets. After a bit of scrambling I was divested of my own clothes, down to my bra and panties. Derek kissed me so deeply I felt it all the way down to my curling toes, which he trapped between his own feet as he flipped me onto my back. He held my hands down, rendering me immobile. I could do nothing but gasp as he slid up and down, pressing himself into the cleft between my legs, the silk of my panties generating a delicious friction between us.

"Oh, yes," I moaned, as he stripped the panties off my legs. "Come inside."

"No, not yet." He freed my hands so that he could slide down the length of my body, kissing and licking all the way. "I'm going to make sure this gets done right."

I tossed the duvet aside so that I could look at him. His hair fell in a curtain around his face, and the ends swept my skin, causing a tickling pleasure that was so exquisite it made me laugh out loud. Digging my fingers deep into his curly hair as he dove between my legs, I started to guide him with my hands, but quickly realized he needed no a.s.sistance. He found the spot where I wanted him to go and worked it expertly with tongue and teeth until shooting stars appeared behind my eyelids. My world contracted until nothing was left but that tiny k.n.o.b of flesh and the sensation pulsing through it. Then everything exploded. The world expanded again, and I felt it all, in every part of me. I sobbed with the pure joy of it, of being alive and having Derek with me, wholly and entirely himself.

"Are you okay?" he asked, lifting his head. "You're crying."

"No, I'm not," I said. I hauled him up, locking my ankles around his thighs and pulling him in hard, so that he had no choice but to slip inside me.

He gasped as he went in. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Move with me, Derek."

He did. We rocked together in flawless rhythm and perfect harmony, performing a duet that was timeless, ageless, shared by all humans and yet entirely unique to us. It was our song of love.

Epilogue.

Six months later The music seemed to be coming from inside my head.

For a moment this sensation frightened me, until I realized I'd fallen asleep with the iPod headphones on, listening to the latest track of Derek's new alb.u.m. It seemed I was falling asleep all the time now, but that was understandable, since I was six months pregnant. I stood up slowly, to avoid the dizziness that hit me every time I moved from horizontal to vertical. Being pregnant had slowed me down considerably. Or maybe it was being back in New Orleans. Something about the thick, magnolia-scented air seemed to cause everything and everybody to move at a more leisurely pace.

I checked the clock and was startled to realize I'd been asleep for an hour. I was seeing a client at two o'clock, a half hour from now, but since my commute was only about sixty steps I had plenty of time. I went to the bathroom, combed my hair, and touched up my lipstick. Standing sideways, I checked out my belly in the full-length mirror. As always, I was awestruck at the miracle that was occurring inside me. The baby had started kicking a month ago, and since then he or she had kept up an almost constant marathon of calisthenics that made my belly ripple and pucker like Eva's bag of snakes.

When I first found out I was pregnant, three weeks after the exorcism in the forest, I was worried that I would conflate the experience of being pregnant with being occupied by Edgar's ghost. After all, the only experience I'd ever had of having another soul inside my body was a profoundly distressing one. But after the first sonogram, when the tiny, ghostly white apparition of our baby appeared on the screen and its rapid heartbeat echoed out of the sonogram machine, and Derek and I cried together, I knew that I would welcome this soul, and nurture it happily inside my body until it was ready to make its own way in the world. This baby, and Derek, had given me my life back and allowed me to shape it into just the right life for me.

After locking the apartment I crossed the balcony, running my fingers along the ornate eighteenth-century iron-work, and waddled downstairs. Derek's music studio was on the first floor of our carriage house, which was behind a brick-lined courtyard containing a burbling fountain and several overarching oak trees. I didn't bother to knock, since I knew he'd have headphones on, and I was able to watch him undetected as he sat at the recording console, adjusting dials and sliders while his head bobbed in time to the music.

I snuck up behind him and put one hand on his chest. He startled, and then relaxed, leaning back into his chair. I slid my fingers under his T-shirt, cupping his hard pectoral muscle. Even six months after Edgar had left Derek's body, it was still rea.s.suring to feel his steady heartbeat under my hand. I pinched his nipple lightly and it tightened at my touch.

"Can't you see I'm working?" he groaned. "You pregnant women are insatiable."

"Don't flatter yourself," I said. "I have a client in twenty minutes."

He pulled my hand until I bent over him, and then he grabbed the back of my head. He kissed me, long and deep, until the fluttering in my belly made me wonder if he was right-if I was, in fact, insatiable.

He stood up so abruptly the headphones pulled off his ears and fell onto the console. He put both arms around me and grabbed my behind, pulling me tightly against him, fitting himself expertly around the swell in my belly. All the while he kept kissing me, his tongue alternately swirling and probing, first soft, then hard and insistent. I stumbled backward until I hit the wall, and still he was grinding against me, ma.s.saging my flesh, pulling my skirt up my legs...

"Derek, Eva's waiting for me in the store. Maybe if I hadn't fallen asleep, or if you'd woken me up, but I don't have time to go back home."

"Who said anything about going back?" His hand slipped insistently down my abdomen. He lifted the upper edge of my panties and then paused, his lips on my neck, hot breath blowing down my collar.

"What are you waiting for?" I moaned.

"For you to say yes." His fingertips tickled my hair, skimmed my outer lips.

I waited, torturing myself with the pleasure of antic.i.p.ation. He bit my neck, just fiercely enough for me to cry out. There was a yes in the cry, and his fingers plunged downward. I came instantly, and he supported my weight with his other arm as my legs gave way underneath me. He held me tenderly, whispering how much he loved me into the cup of my ear, until I stopped shuddering. Then he straightened up and adjusted his jeans to accommodate the extra bulk at the front. There was a wicked smile on his face.

"What about you?" I said, reaching for his belt buckle.

"Oh no." He spun toward the console and picked up his headphones. "Let it be known that I did not make Dr. Maggie Fielding late for her appointment." He turned back and kissed me once, lightly. "I'll see you tonight."

I eyed him like he was a plate of the French Market beignets I'd recently rediscovered.

"You're evil, Derek Fielding. But in a good way."

The water in the fountain sparkled in the shafts of bright summer sunlight that found their way through the shelter of the oak trees. I dipped my hand in the water and splashed it onto my hot face, drying it with the sleeve of my shirt. We allowed customers to sit in the courtyard, so there was a sign on both the front and back doors.

Two Sisters House of Spiritual Counseling I had voted against the drippy gothic lettering, but both Derek and Eva liked it, so I'd been outvoted. And now that I'd lived with it for a few months, I realized that it did fit the French Quarter milieu better than the sterile sans serif font I had wanted to use. I was still getting used to my new ident.i.ty as the ghost-whispering psychiatrist, whose a.r.s.enal included everything from Prozac to pentacles, but as each day pa.s.sed I became more comfortable and more accepting that this was my true calling.

Even though it was shaded, the courtyard was blisteringly hot, so I was happy for the cool blast of air conditioning as I entered the store. I breathed in the heady aroma of incense, herbs, and candles. Carmel, the clerk I'd spoken to from California, was at the counter unpacking a box of jewelry. I picked up a necklace of a.s.sorted semiprecious stones and worked it through my fingers like a rosary, happy to find I could recount the healing and spiritual properties of each of the stones. I was wearing a necklace of carnelian and citrine. Carnelian was a.s.sociated with reproduction, rebirth, and reincarnation, and citrine was useful in helping people find their way along the path of life. Eva favored malachite because it was a money attractor, and Carmel was into moss agate because she was on the hunt for a decent boyfriend.

"Rashad Simpkins called," Carmel said, as she draped a necklace over a riser in the black velvet display case.

"Oh, really?" Rashad had been given the staff position at the hospital after I made it clear to Dr. Kay that after graduation I was taking my career in a different direction. "What did he want?"

"He wants to consult with you about a patient."

I couldn't help but smile. Only three months out and I was already getting consultations from mainstream pract.i.tioners? Maybe this new gig was going to work out even better than I had hoped.

The bell over the front door jingled, and a woman stepped inside. She looked to be in her sixties. Her long, thick hair, secured at the back of her head in a messy bun, was mostly gray, but had probably been red or auburn. She had sparkly green eyes and beautiful ivory skin with hardly any wrinkles. She was what I imagined Mama might have looked like as an older lady.

She wasn't the first woman who'd given me that impression. Derek and I occasionally went to Ma.s.s on Sundays, and there was always at least one lady there who made my heart lurch with yearning because something about her-the tilt of her head, the way she held her hymn book, a throaty laugh-reminded me of Mama. I didn't shy away from these feelings; in fact I welcomed them. For too long I had packed my emotions away while I tried to solve everyone else's problems, wrongly a.s.suming that by chasing other people's demons I could keep my own at bay. No, the only way a demon would be vanquished was by facing him head-on. I'd learned that from Edgar Templeton, and for that I was thankful to him.

"I have an appointment with Dr. Fielding," the woman said.

"That's me," I said, shaking the woman's hand. "But you can call me Maggie."

Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of Jacquelyn Frank's DRINK OF ME,.

coming in November 2010!

Sorrow.

It beat at him like a relentless drum, throbbing through his mind and vibrating into his soul until he felt it burning in his body as though it were his own. Stunned by the intensity of the intrusion, Reule actually hesitated several moments, distracting himself at the worst possible time. He felt the purity of the devastating emotion shuddering through him. Too pure, and too disturbing, Reule realized very quickly as he flung up well-practiced and powerful mental barricades, the imposing walls blotting out most of the wild despair that had stained his concentration.

Careless of him to let something like that intrude on such a crucial moment. Lines of disconcertion etched themselves into his forehead and around his mouth. The source of that unsettling intrusion was a mystery. It tempted him. But that, he realized, might very well be the point. It could be intentional bait.

Reule dismissed the idea straightaway, confident he could tell the difference between deception and honesty. Though he'd never felt such overwhelming sadness before in his life, it had been brutally honest. Pushing it all away to focus back on his goal of the moment, he lifted his head and sought the scents of the others, marking their positions in silence as they kept their mental communication minimalized. Their prey would sense their approach if they picked up on the power of their pursuers' thoughts flying back and forth along the telepathic channels between them.

Reule marked the identifications and locations of the other males of the Pack. Rye, to the north along the stone wall in the underbrush. Darcio, to his rear by several yards, low against the trunk of a thick and ancient oak. Delano, of course, on point ahead of them and moving slowly along the perimeter of the hostile territory they sought to enter. Reule focused next on the house hidden deep in the darkness, concentrating until his vision altered to pierce the veil of the brick walls, picking up the greenish-white blobs of movement that indicated life in one form or another. It was easy to differentiate their target, seated centrally and surrounded by others like bees buzzing over their precious queen. All of this activity took place on the second floor.

Reule turned his attention to Delano, watching the sleek speed the male used to breech the property line. In concert, the rest of the pack moved forward, their senses sharply attuned to the rhythm it would take to succeed at their task. He could have closed his eyes and still known that Rye leapt the stone wall with ease, and that Darcio kept every step timed to match perfectly with his own as Reule advanced.

Each member of the pack neared the structure with caution. Reule crouched low on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, sharply alert, and he became as still and invisible as a shadow. His stillness was timed perfectly. His target came through the near door, so close he nearly tripped over Reule. When the unfortunate crossed in front of him, Reule struck with the speed of a cobra. His fangs exploded into full, glorious length as he attacked, but they wouldn't taste of this repugnant creature. He could control the impulse, sparing himself the disgust of such an experience.

Instead, it was his extending claws that struck, and even that attack was conservative. Reule grabbed his victim over his mouth, jerking his head back and puncturing his shoulder with needle-sharp nails right through his shirt, the cotton fabric no protection from the invasion. Reule's muscles flexed as his prey struggled and fought, but they both knew it was a futile effort. Once the paralytic tipping his nails broke beyond the skin, it was only a matter of time. Still, Reule held him to keep him quiet until the drug took effect, using his mental power to stifle his victim so he could raise no alarms. When the male finally became deadweight in his hold, he released him. The body of his enemy dropped to the ground like a sack of rocks, thudding sickly as bone impacted earth. Reule kicked him away in contempt. The toxin wouldn't kill him, but if Reule didn't like what he found when he entered the house, he'd be back to finish the job.

Reule straightened and eased toward the door. He was vigilant for other stragglers as he sought the heat and motion of others. They were all upstairs in that central room, and now Reule understood why. He heard shouts of laughter and cajoling, cheering and jeering, and he suddenly realized why there were insufficient guards staged to protect the place. He snarled low in loathing and the sound was echoed by his Shadow, Darcio. The others didn't respond, but they felt Reule's rage and he felt their agreeing emotion.

And that opened him up to the sorrow once more.

It slammed into him, stronger than before-a devastating sadness that stole his breath away and nearly stopped his heart. Chills rushed up under his flesh until it crawled with agonizing emotional response. Never, in all his many years, had he felt anything like it. He'd shared thoughts and emotions with his Pack for all of his existence, and never had they, his family, his family, been able to project such powerful emotion into him. If he couldn't feel such things from his family, who could force it upon him? More, what caused such agony? He was the most powerful, the most sensitive when it came to sensing these things, but surely one of his caste had felt deep, abiding pain before! What made this so incredibly intense to him? How did it invade him so easily in spite of his skill and power to resist such things? been able to project such powerful emotion into him. If he couldn't feel such things from his family, who could force it upon him? More, what caused such agony? He was the most powerful, the most sensitive when it came to sensing these things, but surely one of his caste had felt deep, abiding pain before! What made this so incredibly intense to him? How did it invade him so easily in spite of his skill and power to resist such things?

Reule tried to shake off the sensations even as he fell back unsteadily against a near wall. Darcio leapt forward, instantly at his side when he sensed his distress. Reule quickly fended off his friend's concern, recovering and pushing the alien anguish hard away from himself so he could project confidence and strength to the Pack. They were being distracted in dangerous territory and he'd be responsible if any of them was injured because of it. Reule silently realigned their attention with a powerful emanation and he felt them draw back into formation swiftly. Only Darcio, who had seen him falter physically, hesitated. Reule ignored his concern and reached for the door.

Entering from three different portals, Reule felt Rye and Delano both engage hostiles, swiftly taking them out and discarding them so they could move rapidly to the stairs leading to the next floor. Reule scanned the first floor to be sure they wouldn't leave anyone at their backs and sent Darcio after a stray with silent command. Then he and the rest of the Pack moved upward.

As soon as they reached the second floor, Reule felt a ripple of awareness go through half of the crowd in the central room. Now they were close enough that emotions, projected or not, gave their presence away. Reule moved like lightning, as did the others, knowing that surprise, such as it was, was key.

Before the Jakals became fully aware of the danger approaching, half of them staggered back from paralyzing puncture wounds and debilitating hand-to-hand combat. Reule moved so fast that he went through three victims before he met with his first resistance. With about a half dozen Jakals on the floor, or slipping numbly toward it, the Pack faced the remaining enemy, which was now fully on guard. It wouldn't be so easy to incapacitate them. Six Jakals were standing alert and in perfect fighting form. Reule took only a moment to survey the room with quick, accurate eyes, and what he saw seared his brain with wrath.

Besides the Jakals, in the center of the room was a metal chair, bolted to the floor and made of gleaming steel that had to feel as cold as it looked. The sight of it alone chilled Reule's spine. However, it was nothing compared to what he felt when he saw the figure slumped forward in it as far as his bound wrists and feet would allow; the former manacled to the flat metal arms and the latter to the legs. Blood drained in a steady stream from his mouth and nose, both of which had been battered to a pulpy mess. Steel spikes had been driven through his forearms and calves, as if the manacles wouldn't be enough to hold him. The Jakals were right. Manacles alone would never have held their prisoner. Although now, with the pool of blood growing in an ever-widening circle beneath that sterile chair of metal, the prisoner within was not even strong enough to lift his head, never mind escape. The Jakals had been taking their pleasure torturing him, and they'd made a spectator sport of it.

This time the snarl that vibrated out of Reule was violent enough to reverberate against the four walls of the room. His eyes turned from their normal hazel to a reflective green as he lowered into a crouch and bared his fangs. His Pack, including Darcio, who had caught up to them, imitated both the sound and the predatory motion in perfect synchronicity. Reule almost smiled when he heard a fifth growl join weakly with them from the chair in the center of the room.

Jakals on the defensive, however, were no easy targets. The Jakals' slender forms were made for speed, their skin smooth to the point of slickness. They were impossible to grapple with. The wily creatures could twist and strike before you even saw them. Discordant hisses and taunting laughter radiated from their midst as venom dripped from fangs. They were prepared to strike or spit the acidic compound at their attackers, and unlike Reule's people's paralytic, Jakal poison was mortal if the skin was punctured; and a more brutal death to suffer had yet to be invented.

Reule wasn't overly concerned about that. What concerned him was that they were between his Packmates and the prisoner in the chair. If he hadn't already been envenomated, the enemy might take the opportunity to do so before they could be stopped. Since there was no known cure for envenomation, this was Reule's primary worry. He could tell by the look in the eyes of the Jakal facing him that his enemy was well aware of it.

As a rule, Jakals were the more powerful empaths of all the known species of the wilderness, only Reule's breed strong enough to block them. However, as a man of significant ability, he had learned that with strong powers of the mind came strong sensitivities. That had been proven just this evening as he himself had been bombarded by a stranger's overwhelming grief and been caught unaware by it. Surely these empaths before him had heard those cries of anguish from whoever it was projected them? He knew it was no Jakal feeling those emotions, for though they could sense every feeling any creature was capable of, they didn't have the ability to generate such deep feeling themselves. They certainly didn't understand its true value. It was a terrible irony, and it was what made them such vicious little monsters; monsters who found glee in glutting themselves on the intense emotions of others. Like the emotions generated by torture, rape, or any number of things Reule refused to imagine lest he give way to a rage that would blot his focus and potentially feed his avaricious enemies.

This information did allow Reule an advantage. He was the most powerful sensor of his kind, one without measure in the history of his people. He was willing to bet these lowly gypsy Jakals had never seen his type before and would never be expecting him. That would be his advantage, and that would save the Packmate who had fallen prey to these depraved beasts.

And to think, others considered his his people were the lowest of breeds, Reule thought with disgust. people were the lowest of breeds, Reule thought with disgust.

Reule sent an emanation to his Packmates, steadying them and preparing them silently, including a rea.s.surance to the barely conscious one in the center of the room. Then he slowly unfolded the layers of protection over his mind so he could release his concealed power.

This time he was better prepared for the anguish that struck him, but still it was bordering on all-consuming. It was just the kind of emotional inundation that a Jakal would take gluttonous pleasure in. He could easily amplify the already overwhelming feeling and overload his enemies with the rawness of it, but Reule dismissed the idea instantly. There was something far too personal and innocent innocent about the stark grief. To feed it to the Jakals somehow felt as though it would be a betrayal. Reule didn't understand his reluctance, but he didn't have time to do any soul-searching. about the stark grief. To feed it to the Jakals somehow felt as though it would be a betrayal. Reule didn't understand his reluctance, but he didn't have time to do any soul-searching.

With a mere glance he commanded Rye, who nodded his head and slid closer to one of the paralyzed Jakals. The enemy lay helpless but conscious, staring up as the hunter contemplated him with a wicked little smile that bared a fine set of fangs. Loosing an intimidating vocalization, Rye reached over to the sheath attached to his bicep on the right and withdrew the blade slowly. The blue metal gleam of the rubkar' rubkar's blade caught the overhead lighting and made it look even more menacing as Rye lowered himself into a crouch next to the helpless male.

There. That moment. That fear and terror in one of their own, that that was what Reule caught hold of, magnified, and used to net the sensitive enemy before him. His fingers curled into fists, his chin dipping down as he focused ferociously on manipulating all of them at once. He couldn't allow a single one to escape the bombardment, giving them a chance to further harm his kinsman. was what Reule caught hold of, magnified, and used to net the sensitive enemy before him. His fingers curled into fists, his chin dipping down as he focused ferociously on manipulating all of them at once. He couldn't allow a single one to escape the bombardment, giving them a chance to further harm his kinsman.

The effect was more than he would have expected or even hoped for. The Jakals standing in the center of the room suddenly recoiled in horror and began to scream. They clapped bony fingers over their skulls as males and females alike wailed to a pitch high enough to shatter gla.s.s. Reule ignored it, pushing and pushing, refusing to let go lest they try to push back and incapacitate him, which they could do just by virtue of his being fiercely outnumbered.

As he drilled into them their compatriot's horror of impending death, and his helplessness to do anything about it, he felt as though he were stronger than he ever had been before. He was an awesome force to contend with under any circ.u.mstances, but there was no mistaking the surge of vitalizing strength sliding into the well within him that he drew his ability out of.

Reule kept the conduit open; from victim Jakal, to amplification within himself, and back to the small crowd of compatriot Jakals in the center of the room, pouring it out as Rye's knife lowered to a mark. His Packmate closed both his hands around the haft of the blade in a ritualistic manner. Reule prepared for the death strike, knowing that he could put these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in a comatose state for the rest of their lives, even though there was a good deal of jeopardy to himself as well if he channeled the imminent death throes. But he felt supremely confident that he would remain only the messenger, untouched by what was about to happen.

Rye looked straight into the eyes of the Jakal whose throat lay under the tip of his razor-sharp, dual-edged blade. With the scent of battle and impending bloodletting on him, Rye's eyes were nearly glowing with green-yellow antic.i.p.ation and his fangs pushed out both his upper and lower lips so they could be seen even without his purposeful sneer.

"Abak tu mefritt," he hissed. he hissed.

Death to my enemy. Rye spat the battle cry just before plunging deep and with so much rage-filled power that the blade went clean through and was imbedded in the wood of the floor. He left it like that and leapt to his feet before the Jakal's blood could touch him. He spat on his victim in obvious contempt.

Reule felt every moment of both the death and the victory, but it was the last minutes of suffering that he pa.s.sed on. He broke out in a drenching sweat, every last muscle in his taut, powerful body shuddering as he closed himself off from being dragged into the dark of oblivion along with the dying Jakal. Instead he forced himself to magnify the last pulses, the last breaths, and the last horrified thoughts of the Jakals' kin as he drilled it all into the entire group of them. The effect was so potent that Reule was aware of even his mentally guarded Packmates staggering back from his onslaught. But he couldn't gear back the intensity of it. They would be all right, he rea.s.sured himself, so long as they weren't his direct targets.

His direct targets, however, were not so fortunate. Reule strove for total incapacitation, but he got much more. All six Jakals tumbled to the floor, some landing on their knees, others flat on their backs or faces. They all began to seize violently, clawing at their throats as though a wicked blue blade had pinned them to the floor. Some coughed up blood; others gasped out strangled breaths.

Then, with a communal, convulsive sigh, each exhaled one last breath.