Much later Riley wondered if anyone but she had ever greeted the moment that changed their life forever with intense irritation but at the time, she didn’t recognize her moment for what it was.
Sabrina tapped on Riley’s open bedroom door with her knuckles, down low, like she’d done a hundred times before. “Guy at the door for ya.”
Riley dropped her pen on her notepad and sat back, stretching the small of her back with her hands planted on her hips. “God, not now,” she begged. Unfortunately, guys rocking up unannounced at their apartment door asking for her was a way of life. Everyone in the apartment had developed a routine for dealing with men following Riley. Even new women—they couldn’t risk guys as roommates—only took a week to adapt to the reality.
Riley pushed her bottom lip out and opened her eyes wide, staring at Sabrina. “Please?” she begged. “I’ve got an exam tomorrow.”
Sabrina’s pretty Latina features, so unlike Riley’s—so exotic—creased into a smile. “I’d take this one.”
Riley hung her head for a moment. “Are you ever going to get it through your head that I have no interest in finding the perfect guy, Sabrina?”
“Nope.”
Riley stood up. “We’ve talked about this, remember? Men are all stoopid.” She pushed her hands through her hair automatically and smoothed it down. “How do I look?”
Sabrina grinned. “Like Vivian fucking Leigh with green eyes and I hate your guts.” She stepped away from the door. “Want me to come with you and run interference so you can toss the bastard after thirty seconds?”
Riley looked back at her desk and sighed. “You’d better,” she said. “I really do have to study.”
Sabrina snorted. “You’ve got an IQ of one fifty-two and you’re pulling in better than ninety percent on everything. What the hell are you worried about?”
Riley bit her lip as she headed for the front door where her mystery guest was waiting. Sabrina wouldn’t understand a concept that Riley was only just starting to formulate herself, so she didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure she could put it into words yet, anyway, but lately she had begun to wonder if this was all that life was really about.
The business degree she was so close to finally getting after years of struggle and crappy part-time jobs, mountainous student debt she was going to spend even more years paying off just to earn the degree in the first place, a career she would earn with that degree, just to work even harder in the trenches to earn a corner office, where she would work even harder to hold her tenuous position while younger, up-and-coming turks would try to climb up her back…was this really what she had spent years working her butt off for? She had worked so hard for so long that now the goal was rolling into view, she was finally lifting her head up and looking at it and going…eeeewww!
Riley had laid awake nights trying to remember why she had got into this gig in the first place and kept coming up empty on an answer. That was the scary part. Had she wasted five years of her life on a quest for a piece of paper that would push her into a position she didn’t want in the first place?
All the soul-searching had made study harder and exams a genuine struggle. It was difficult to score in the high nineties when a voice in the back of your mind was constantly whispering “why bother?”
Sabrina trailed after her into the main room as Riley opened the door Sabrina had closed on her visitor.
The guy turned his head to look as the door swung open, alerted. He’d been standing patiently in the corridor, hands shoved in his coat pockets. Her first impression of him was height. He was easily over six feet. It was still early spring and Pittsburgh could be miserable in April, so the light-weight charcoal coat he was wearing hid details and emphasized his shoulders.
Riley was used to rapidly scanning and sizing up a guy in one sweep. She’d learned at an early age that most of their clothing and possessions said things about men that their mouths and words and hands didn’t, and that the only way to protect herself was to read the clothing. Riley did it now.
He was wearing patent leather shoes, expensive ones. There was barely any slush on them, which meant he hadn’t walked far. That said he’d either used a cab, or his own car. He didn’t look like a cab kind of guy, not with the rest of the clothing added in. The trousers were dark—too hard to tell in this light exactly what sort of material but she bet they weren’t chain store, not over the top of those shoes. The shirt, what she could see of it from between the coat, was a good quality collarless button-up shirt, but it was creased around the middle from long sitting.
His hair looked like it was intended to be short, but he’d not got around to getting it trimmed for a few weeks. It was shaggy and agreeably rumpled in a way that made Riley want to push her hand through it. Black hair. European black with very European white skin. If she had to give him an age, she’d say mid to late thirties, but she would be guessing wildly.
Not a businessman. Not an official of any sort. Not a student. Plus, he had been sitting a long time.
She put it together. Car. Long sitting. Travel. “You’ve come a long way to see me,” she told him, and looked up at his face.
He was staring at her and for a second, she wondered if he’d even heard her. He had eyes the same sort of blue as they put on maps for oceans. Depthless. She let him stare and lifted her brow. “Hi,” she coaxed. “You came to see me.”
He blinked and refocused. “You look so much like your mother.”
“Holy sweet Mary, mother of Christ,” Sabrina whispered.
Riley reached out to Sabrina for help, to steady herself as her legs abruptly weakened. There was a roaring sound in her head. Dizziness swept over her.
But it wasn’t Sabrina who helped her. The man was suddenly there. She sagged as he lifted her up like one does a child, with both hands under her arms, and deposited her in the one comfortable armchair in the room. Riley clutched at her arms, cold and shivering, staring at him as he stood back.
“Jesus fucking Christ, who are you?” Sabrina demanded, stepping between him and Riley.
“I am an old friend of Riley’s parents. Have no fear. Do you have any soda? She needs sugar to combat the shock.”
Sabrina glanced at Riley. She licked her lips, indecision plain on her face.
“Get the soda,” the man said.
Sabrina pursed her lips and headed for the kitchen.
Riley looked at him. “Who are you?”
“A friend.” He stripped his coat and tossed it over the back of her chair, moving quickly as if his time was limited. He pulled the old vinyl kitchen chair up close and sat in it. Beneath the coat, the shirt cuffs had been folded up and shoved back almost to his elbows, revealing strong wrists and forearms. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a pocket watch and looked at the time.
Riley’s mental jaw dropped open, although she managed to keep her face smooth and polite. A pocket watch.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve asked another friend to meet me here,” he said. “Someone who also knew your parents.”
Sabrina hurried back into the room, a soda can in her hand. She thrust it at the man. He handed it to Riley. “Drink it all,” he told her. “The sugar will restore you.”
She grimaced, but popped the lid and began to drink.
The man looked at Sabrina. “I would ask you to leave us. I need to speak to Riley alone.”
Sabrina crossed her arms and shook her head. “Nuh-uh. You think we’re stupid, mister? We have no fucking idea who you are.”
He rolled his eyes. “You just left me alone with her to get the soda. I didn’t kill her then. I’m just asking you to step out of the room, not the apartment. Riley can scream for you if I so much as cross my eyes at her inappropriately.”
“Fuck you, mister, I ain’t movin’.” Sabrina cocked her hip with a make me attitude.
Riley felt a warm glow.
The man sat back. “If you don’t leave, I can’t tell Riley about her parents.”
Riley drew in a shaky breath. “Sabrina…”
Sabrina dropped her arms. “That’s blackmail!” she protested.
“I’ll risk it,” Riley said. She stared at Sabrina, hoping that the stare would remind Sabrina that she wasn’t completely helpless. After so many years of fighting off besotted men, she’d learned a trick or two.
Sabrina took a deep breath. “Well…” she said reluctantly. “If you’re sure.”
“I’ll screech my head off if I need you,” Riley promised.
“If you hurt her…” she told the man.
He looked her in the eye. “I can assure you that Riley is safer with me in the room than anywhere on this little planet of ours at the moment.”
It was the weirdest thing anyone had ever said. But once Sabrina had processed it, she nodded. “Okay then,” she said, clearly trying to hold her pride in place. She stepped out and shut the door.
The man turned back to her. “You have loyal friends.”
“Just the one.”
There was a tap on the apartment door.
“Finally,” the man said. “My friend.” He stood up. “May I let him in?”
“I suppose,” Riley said reluctantly, her heart a runaway train.
He looked down at her from his great height. “I meant what I said. You are quite safe with me, Riley Carson Connors.”
She drew in a shaky breath as he walked to the door. He moved smoothly and gracefully, which was unusual for such a large man. She wondered if he came by his grace naturally, or if it was the product of training. Then she realized she was trying to distract herself with trivial thoughts. She didn’t want to deal with the fact that there was someone else in the world who knew her full name. She didn’t give her second name out to anyone voluntarily. Not even Sabrina knew what the “C” stood for.
The man opened the door. “You’re late.” He whirled and came back to his chair.
The second man to step into her lounge room was simply gorgeous. He was over six feet, too, but an inch or two shorter than the first. Olive skin, black eyes and black hair falling in tangles around his shoulders. A strong nose and jaw. Long fingers that pushed his hair back impatiently as he stood up from dropping a heavy duffel bag on the floor next to the door. The duffel bag had United Airlines tags on it. Surplus army boots, pants and navy coat. Underneath he wore a black singlet.
“Fifteen minutes late, considering the distance I’ve travelled, is hardly—” He looked at her and stopped. His expression changed. His face was so mixed with emotions, Riley could barely read them all. Grief. Guilt. Shock. Horror. Even love. “Tally,” he murmured.
“Damian,” the other snapped.
He jumped, then glanced at the first, then at Riley. “Forgive me,” he said and she realized he had a slight accent. “You look so much like your mother, it was a shock.” He bent his head forward, like a formal nod. “I am Damian.”
“Riley,” she murmured. She looked at the other one. “And you?”
“Nicholas.”
She put the can of soda on the side table. It was dripping condensation beads into her lap. “So, now you’ve both come all this way, you’ve told me your names, you’ve both got over the shock of how much I apparently look like my mother. I’ve been polite. Now it’s your turn to tell me what this is all about.”
“You sound angry, Riley,” Nicholas said.
“That’s because I am.” She clenched her hands between her knees. “My mother died when I was barely a year old. So that was just over twenty-seven years ago. I grew up in the foster care system and no one—no one—has ever been able to tell me squat about my parents, my family, nothing. Now suddenly, you two guys pop up and start raving about how much I look like my mother. It’s clear you knew her well enough to get all misty-eyed about it. But no offence, you’re…what? Maybe forty at the outside, and that’s pushing it. That means you were ten at the most when you knew my parents. What the hell could you possibly know about them and how they died? You were kids back then.”
She clenched her fingers, as she felt the sweat between them. “If you think I don’t know a guy trying to pull a con job on me by now, you’re not nearly as smart as I took you for, and that disappoints me.”
Damian and Nicholas looked at each other. Damian shrugged. “You tell her. You’ll end up taking over the conversation anyway.” He dropped onto the piano stool as if he were weary.
Nicholas leaned toward her. “We don’t have time to be delicate and hedge around your human sensibilities, Riley. So I’m going to give this to you straight. I want you to just deal with it and move on. You are your mother’s daughter. You can handle it.”
She pushed herself up against the back of the armchair, alarmed. “What?”
“Nicholas…” Damian said warningly, from his perch on the stool.
Nicholas was staring at her, his blue eyes unwavering. He shot out his hand toward his “friend,” palm out. Halt. His eyes did not move from hers. She felt like he was measuring her. Testing her.
“Your mother, Riley, was one of the greatest demon hunters this world has ever seen. The gifts and expertise she had for hunting runs in her blood. She met and married another great demon hunter, Carson Connors, and their love for each other was the stuff of legend in the underworld.”
Riley could feel the questions bubbling up like a geyser, but Nicholas was not going to give her the luxury of questions. We don’t have time. She thrust them aside and opened herself up to absorb what he was saying.
“Your father, Riley, was killed on the day you were born by a gargoyle called Lirgon, the leader of a rogue clan of gargoyles your mother had been hunting down. Lirgon was the last of the clan left, and the strongest. Your father perished. Your mother spent the next fourteen months hunting down Lirgon and when she found him, she killed him. But Lirgon was too strong even for the great Natalia Connors and she died from the wounds Lirgon gave her.”
Damian muttered something and it wasn’t English. A prayer?
Nicholas rolled his eyes at Damian. “The reason I know this is because I was there, Riley. I was your mother’s partner and I helped her hunt down Lirgon after your father died.”
Riley swallowed. The math wasn’t adding up. She knew it and from the expression on his face, he knew it, too.
Nicholas nodded gently. “I know,” he said softly. “Brace yourself, Riley.” He reached for the soda can and handed it to her. Then he opened his mouth a little wider and two long white pointed teeth descended a half inch below the others. “We are vampire, Damian and I. A matter of thirty years is a blink of an eye for us, considering the centuries we have already seen.”
The teeth withdrew again.
Riley gripped the can, her breath coming in short, wheezy exhalations. Only Nicholas’s earlier assurances that she was safe with him kept her in her seat. That and the pure unreality of what he was saying. Except that she had seen his teeth descend.
Deal with it, he had said. There is no time.
“Why are you telling me now?” she said. “Why seek me out?” Her voice was bodiless. Weak.
He nodded. “There has been a series of murders in New York City. Have you been following them?”
She shook her head. “I work, I study. That’s my life.”
“You like roast chicken, Riley?”
“I’m a vegetarian,” she said stiffly.
Damian laughed.
Nicholas smiled. “Very well. You know all those advertisements on TV for roast chicken. When they show someone tucking into a nice juicy chicken leg? They always bite into the rounded part first, hmmm?”
She nodded.
“Lirgon had a signature.” Nicholas sat back, watching her, forcing her to work it out.
“Chicken legs?” she asked blankly.
“He liked…human legs.”
The soda can crumpled under her fist. She moaned.
Nicholas lifted the can to her mouth. “Drink,” he encouraged softly.
She drank.
That was when it hit her. She had been sitting in this room with two men for five minutes and neither of them were drooling over her, or slobbering over her.
Well, they weren’t human in the proper sense of the term. But they were male. Could they even have sex with women? Human women? If the erotic literature was to be believed, they could. But this was reality, not fiction, so…
She brought herself up short again. She was thinking about sex? Now?
Riley looked up at Nicholas as she took another sip. He was waiting for her, trying not to show impatience, but that was the only emotion evident in his features.
She glanced at Damian. God damn, but that was one beautiful man. He sat like Nicholas, his forearms on his knees, leaning forward, fingers laced together. There were thin bands of leather around one strong wrist.
“If Nicholas was my mother’s partner, how did you know her?” she asked him.
“I was Nicholas’ lover then,” Damian said. He spoke flatly, without embarrassment, and in the past tense.
“Oh,” Riley said. She couldn’t think what else to say. “How long had you been together?” It felt like the polite thing to ask.
“Four hundred and thirty-two years.” Damian straightened and sat back, shoving his hands in his pockets. End of subject.
“Four…” Riley felt her eyes widening. She turned to Nicholas. “When did you break up?” she demanded, suddenly suspicious.
Nicholas’ face was like marble. “Damian left for Europe a week after your mother died. This is the first time he’s been back. I wasn’t sure he’d come.”
“You weren’t sure?” Damian stood up. “We swore an oath, Nick! I’m as bound as you!”
“We don’t have time for this,” Nicholas said coldly. He sat up straighter and looked at Riley. “You have your mother’s genes. You inherited her gifts. You are a demon hunter, Riley, though you have yet to learn this truth. Time will determine whether you are as great a hunter as Natalia Connors.” He got to his feet. “Something is killing people in New York City. I know it is Lirgon, for the thing is eating their legs, just as Lirgon once did. He has been resurrected, as your mother once feared he might be. Damian and I swore that if this day ever arrived we would protect you and do what we could to kill Lirgon once and for all.”
Riley stared at the two men ranged before her.
“We need you to come to New York City with us,” Damian told her. “And there we can show you more about your mother and father’s lives.”
“And while you are there I will train you to kill Lirgon,” Nicholas added.