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  Kissof

  Midnight

  M I D N I G H T B R E E D S E R I E S

  B O O K O N E

  W

  L A R A A D R I A N

  A D E L L B O O K

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  KISS OF MIDNIGHT

  A Dell Book / May 2007

  Published by Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

  are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any

  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely

  coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2007 by Lara Adrian

  Cover photos © Samantha Messens/Getty Images and

  Mark Tomalty/Masterfile

  Cover design by Jae Song

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this

  book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the

  publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any

  payment for this “stripped book.”

  Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a

  trademark of Random House, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-553-58937-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  www.bantamdell.com

  OPM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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  For John,

  whose faith in me has never faltered,

  and whose love, I hope, will never fade.

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  With much gratitude to my agent, Karen Solem, for

  helping chart the course, and for brilliant navigation under

  all manner of conditions.

  My wonderful editor, Shauna Summers, rightly deserves

  her own page of acknowledgments for all of her support

  and encouragement, not to mention the superb editorial

  vision that always finds the heart of every story and helps

  bring it into focus.

  Thanks also to Debbie Graves for enthusiastic critiques,

  and to Jessica Bird, whose talent is surpassed only by her

  amazing generosity of spirit.

  Lastly, a special nod of appreciation to my audial muses

  during much of the creation of this book: Lacuna Coil,

  Evanescence, and Col ide, whose stirring lyrics and amaz-

  ing music never failed to inspire.

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  Kissof

  Midnight

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  Prologue

  TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO

  Her baby wouldn’t stop crying. She’d started fussing at

  the last station, when the Greyhound bus out of Bangor

  stopped in Portland to pick up more passengers. Now, at a

  little after 1 A.M., they were almost to the Boston terminal,

  and the two-plus hours of trying to soothe her infant

  daughter were, as her friends back in school would say, get-

  ting on her last nerve.

  The man beside her in the next seat probably wasn’t

  thrilled, either.

  “I’m real sorry about this,” she said, turning to speak to

  him for the first time since he’d gotten on. “She’s usually

  not this cranky. It’s our first trip together. I guess she’s just

  ready to get where we’re going.”

  The man blinked at her slowly, smiled without showing

  his teeth. “Where you headed?”

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  “New York City.”

  “Ah. The Big Apple,” he murmured. His voice was dry,

  airless. “You got family there or something?”

  She shook her head. The only family she had was in a

  backwoods town near Rangeley, and they’d made it clear

  that she was on her own now. “I’m going there for a job. I

  mean, I hope to find a job. I want to be a dancer. On

  Broadway maybe, or one of them Rockettes.”

  “Well, you sure are pretty enough.” The man was star-

  ing at her now. It was dark in the bus, but she thought there

  was something kind of weird about his eyes. Again the

  tight smile. “With a body like yours, you ought to be a big

  star.”

  Blushing, she glanced down at her complaining baby.

  Her boyfriend back in Maine used to say stuff like that,

  too. He used to say a lot of things to get her into the back-

  seat of his car. And he wasn’t her boyfriend anymore, ei-

  ther. Not since her junior year of high school when she

  started swelling up with his kid.

  If she hadn’t quit to have the baby, she would have

  graduated this summer.

  “Have you had anything to eat yet today?” the man

  asked, as the bus slowed down and turned into the Boston

  station.

  “Not really.” She gently bounced her baby girl in her

  arms, for all the good it did. She was red in the face,

  her tiny fists pumping, still crying like there was no to-

  morrow.

  “What a coincidence,” the stranger said. “I haven’t

  eaten, either. I could do with a bite, if you’re game to

  join me?”

  “Nah. I’m okay. I’ve got some saltines in my bag. And

  anyway, I think this is the last bus to New York tonight, so I

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  won’t have time to do much more than change the baby

  and get right back on. Thanks, though.”

  He didn’t say anything else, just watched her gather her

  few things once the bus was parked in its bay, then moved

  out of his seat to let her pass on her way to the station’s

  facilities.

  When she came out of the restroom, the man was wait-

  ing for her.

  A niggle of unease shot through her to see him stand-

  ing there. He hadn’t seemed so big when he was sitting

  next to her. And now that she was looking at him again,

  she could see that there was definitely something freaky

  about his eyes. Was he some kind of stoner?

  “What’s going on?”

  He chuckled under his breath. “I told you. I need to

  feed.”

  That was an odd way of putting it.

  She couldn’t help noticing that there were only a few

  other people around in the station at this late hour. A light

  rain had begun, wetting the pavement, sending stragglers

  in for cover. Her bus was idling in its bay, already reload-

  ing. But in order to get to it, she f
irst had to get past him.

  She shrugged, too tired and anxious to deal with this

  crap. “So, if you’re hungry, go tell it to McDonald’s. I’m

  late for my bus—”

  “Listen, bitch—” He moved so fast, she didn’t know

  what hit her. One second he was standing three feet away

  from her, the next he had his hand around her throat, cut-

  ting off her air. He pushed her back into the shadows near

  the terminal building. Back where nobody was going to

  notice if she got mugged. Or worse. His mouth was so

  close to her face, she could smell his foul breath. She

  saw his sharp teeth as he curled his lips back and hissed a

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  terrible threat. “Say another word, move another muscle,

  and you’ll be watching me eat your brat’s juicy little heart.”

  Her baby was wailing in her arms now, but she didn’t

  say a word.

  She didn’t so much as think about moving.

  All that mattered was her baby. Keeping her safe. And

  so she didn’t dare do a thing, not even when those sharp

  teeth lunged toward her and bit down hard into her neck.

  She stood utterly frozen with terror, clutching her baby

  close while her attacker drew hard at the bleeding gash

  he’d made in her throat. His fingers elongated where he

  gripped her head and shoulder, the tips cutting into her

  like a demon’s claws. He grunted and pulled deeper at her

  with his mouth and sharp teeth. Although her eyes were

  wide open in horror, her vision was going dark, her

  thoughts beginning to tumble, splintering into pieces.

  Everything around her was growing murky.

  He was killing her. The monster was killing her. And

  then he would kill her baby, too.

  “No.” She gulped in air, but tasted only blood.

  “Goddamn you—No!”

  With a desperate burst of will, she snapped her head

  into his, cracking the side of her skull into her attacker’s

  face. When he snarled and reared back in surprise, she tore

  out of his grasp. She stumbled, nearly falling to her knees

  before she righted herself. One arm wrapped around her

  howling child, the other coming up to feel the slick, burn-

  ing wound at her neck, she edged backward, away from

  the creature that lifted his head and sneered at her with

  glowing yellow eyes and bloodstained lips.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned, sick at the sight.

  She took another step back. Pivoted, prepared to bolt,

  even if it was pointless.

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  And that’s when she saw the other one.

  Fierce amber eyes looked right through her, but the hiss

  that sounded from between his huge, gleaming fangs

  promised death. She thought he would lace into her and

  finish what the first one had started, but he didn’t. Guttural

  words were spat between the two of them, then the new-

  comer strode past her, a long silver blade in his hand.

  Take the child, and go.

  The command seemed to come out of nowhere, cut-

  ting through the fog of her mind. It came again, sharper

  now, spurring her into action. She ran.

  Blind with panic, her mind numb with fear and con-

  fusion, she ran away from the terminal and down a nearby

  street. Deeper and deeper, she fled into the unfamiliar city,

  into the night. Hysteria clawed at her, making every

  noise—even the sound of her own running feet—seem

  monstrous and deadly.

  And her baby wouldn’t stop crying.

  They were going to be found out if she didn’t get the

  baby to quiet down. She had to put her to bed, nice and

  warm in her crib. Then her little girl would be happy.

  Then she’d be safe. Yes, that’s what she had to do. Put the

  baby to bed, where the monsters couldn’t find her.

  She was tired herself, but she couldn’t rest. Too danger-

  ous. She had to get home before her mom realized she had

  missed curfew again. She was numb, disoriented, but she

  had to run. And so she did. She ran until she dropped, ex-

  hausted and unable to take another step.

  When she woke sometime later, it was to feel her mind

  coming unhinged, cracking apart like an eggshell. Sanity

  was peeling away from her, reality warping into something

  black and slippery, something that was dancing farther and

  farther out of her reach.

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  She heard muffled crying somewhere in the distance.

  Such a tiny sound. She put her hands up to cover her ears,

  but she could still hear that helpless little mewl.

  “Hush,” she murmured to no one in particular, rocking

  back and forth. “Be quiet now, the baby’s sleeping. Be

  quiet be quiet be quiet. . . .”

  But the crying kept on. It didn’t stop, and didn’t stop. It

  tore at her heart as she sat in the filthy street and stared,

  unseeing, into the coming dawn.

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  C H A P T E R

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  One

  PRESENT DAY

  Remarkable. Just look at the use of light and shadow....”

  “You see how this image hints at the sorrow of the

  place, yet manages to convey a promise of hope?”

  “. . . one of the youngest photographers to be included

  in the museum’s new modern art collection.”

  Gabrielle Maxwell stood back from the group of ex-

  hibit attendees, nursing a flute of warm champagne as yet

  another crowd of faceless, nameless, Very Important

  People enthused over the two dozen black-and-white pho-

  tographs displayed on the gallery walls. She glanced at the

  images from across the room, somewhat bemused. They

  were good photographs—a bit edgy, their subject matter

  being abandoned mills and desolate dockyards outside

  Boston—but she didn’t quite get what everyone else was

  seeing in them.

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  Then again, she never did. Gabrielle merely took the

  photographs; she left their interpretation, and ultimately,

  their appreciation, up to others. An introvert by nature, it

  made her uncomfortable to be on the receiving end of this

  much praise and attention . . . but it did pay the bills. Quite

  nicely, at that. Tonight, it was also paying the bills for her

  friend Jamie, the owner of the funky little art gallery on

  Newbury Street, which, at ten minutes to closing, was still

  packed with prospective buyers.

  Numb with the whole process of meeting and greeting,

  of smiling politely as everyone from moneyed Back Bay

  wives to multipierced, tattooed Goths tried to im
press one

  another—and her—with analyses of her work, Gabrielle

  couldn’t wait for the exhibit to end. She had been hiding in

  the shadows for the past hour, contemplating a stealth es-

  cape to the comfort of a warm shower and a soft pillow,

  both waiting at her apartment on the city’s east side.

  But she had promised a few of her friends—Jamie,

  Kendra, and Megan—that she would join them for dinner

  and drinks after the showing. As the last couple of strag-

  glers made their purchases and left, Gabrielle found her-

  self gathered up and swept into a cab before she had a

  chance to so much as think of begging off.

  “What an awesome night!” Jamie’s androgynous blond

  hair swung around his face as he leaned across the other

  two women to clutch Gabrielle’s hand. “I’ve never had so

  much weekend traffic in the gallery—and tonight’s sales

  receipts were amazing! Thank you so much for letting me

  host you.”

  Gabrielle smiled at her friend’s excitement. “Of course.

  No need to thank me.”

  “You weren’t too miserable, were you?”

  “How could she be, with half of Boston falling at her

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  feet?” gushed Kendra, before Gabrielle could answer for

  herself. “Was that the governor I saw you talking with over

  the canapés?”

  Gabrielle nodded. “He’s offered to commission some

  original works for his cottage on the Vineyard.”

  “Sweet!”

  “Yeah,” Gabrielle replied without much enthusiasm.

  She had a stack of business cards in her pocketbook—at

  least a year of steady work, if she wanted it—so why was

  she tempted to open the taxi window and scatter them all

  to the wind?

  She let her gaze drift to the night outside the car, watch-

  ing in queer detachment as lights and lives flickered past.

  The streets teemed with people: couples strolling hand in

  hand, groups of friends laughing and talking, all of them

  having a great time. They dined at café tables outside

  trendy bistros and paused to browse store window displays.

  Everywhere she looked, the city pulsed with color and life.

  Gabrielle absorbed it all with her artist’s eye and, yet, felt

  nothing. This bustle of life—her life as well—seemed to be

  speeding by without her. More and more lately, she felt as if

  she were caught on a wheel that wouldn’t stop spinning

  her around, trapping her in an endless cycle of passing