Shadow Keepers: Midnight

  Shadow Keepers: Midnight is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Bantam Books eBook Original

  Copyright © 2011 by Julie Kenner

  Excerpt from When Passion Lies copyright © 2010 by Julie Kenner

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-0-440-42368-3

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming novel When Passion Lies. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  www.bantamdell.com

  Cover art and design: Scott Biel

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from When Passion Lies

  “Do it, then,” the werewolf taunted. “You think you can kill me? You think your powers are greater? That you have well and truly defeated me?”

  The vampire held the beast against the wall, his arm as strong and sure as stone pressed against the wolven bastard’s neck. He should have broken it already. Should have ripped the weren in two. “Where?” he growled, his face so close to his prey that the foul scent of the weren filled the space between them, turning his stomach. “Where is the conte’s son?”

  “You see? You cannot kill me.” Baloch’s voice was smug, his expression more so, and Tiberius pressed in harder, cutting off the weren’s air, making his mouth open and his eyes water as he gasped for breath. But the beast was right. The one thing Tiberius couldn’t do was kill him. He needed the wolf alive—at least until he found the boy.

  With one violent motion he pushed back, releasing the pressure of his arm against the werewolf’s throat, replacing it with the tip of the knife he pulled from the sheath at his thigh. There was no full moon tonight, and Baloch had not called upon the change. He stood before Tiberius now as a man. But all Tiberius saw was the monster.

  “Do you think the point of a knife scares me more than the death you can bring at your hand? It doesn’t,” Baloch said, and the bastard had the temerity to smile. “Perhaps it is true,” he continued, stepping closer so that the point of the knife cut into his leathery flesh. “Perhaps I cannot best you as an equal. Perhaps your strength is greater than mine. Perhaps if it were only the two of us in this room, with no baggage or obligation between us, then I would be dead by now.”

  “You damn well would,” Tiberius said, unable to resist the temptation to speak.

  “How ironic that it is the boy himself who protects me.”

  “Irony?” Tiberius retorted. “You hide behind the life of a child. It is not irony that guides your hand today, but cowardice.”

  Anger flashed in those deep gray eyes. “I am no coward, vampire. The boy is mine. A debt rightfully paid, and I will not bow to you or to any man who claims otherwise.” He lifted his hands, then placed them flat on either side of Tiberius’s blade. Tiberius could feel the pressure of the weren’s touch and knew that he could fight it. That he could match the wolf’s power. That he could subsume it. One quick thrust and the knife would slide through those hands and slice open that neck. The coppery scent of warm blood would fill this small, dank room, and Tiberius would watch the coward fall, his lifeblood staining the stone floor as much as his bloodthirsty depravity now stained his heart.

  “Kill me now,” Baloch taunted. “I see the desire in your eyes. Do it. Do it, and then feed. Lay me out and suck me dry. Do your worst, vampire. But know that once you have, you will never find the boy.”

  The muscles in Tiberius’s arm quivered with the desire to kill. And not just because this arrogant bastard had taken an innocent human, but because of what he was—a werewolf. A filthy, stinking, common werewolf. Within Tiberius, his daemon growled, a familiar rage fueling the hunger—the urge to rip and rend and kill. To get revenge. Against this werewolf, and those like him that had once maimed and tortured a boy who had been not much older than the conte’s son himself.

  No.

  Memory closed around him, a red, pulsing wall, but he fought it back, fought back the daemon and the desire, and focused only on where he was and what he was doing. He’d conquered his past. And now he would preserve the boy’s future.

  With one flick of his wrist the knife jerked upward, leaving a clean, thin slice on Baloch’s jaw. The weren howled as the blood flowed. Sweet, tempting blood. But it raised no desire in the vampire. Never would Tiberius lower himself to feed off weren blood. He would rather starve than stoop so low.

  The weren’s lip curled up, but he held himself still with visible effort. “You’re going to regret that.”

  “I sincerely doubt it,” Tiberius said, even as a war cry burst from Baloch’s mouth. Suddenly the cramped room filled with the echo of pounding feet. A dozen weren burst through the dark passages leading to the stone chamber, their knives drawn and their faces held tight. It was three days until the moon was full, and the wolf was high in Baloch’s men. None had fully called forth the beast, but Tiberius could see the wildness in their eyes and he could smell the animal on their skin.

  Tiberius pulled away, his knife held ready, as Baloch caught a dagger tossed by one of his underlings and grinned a black-toothed grin.

  “Looks like I win,” Baloch said.

  Tiberius said nothing, cursing his own miscalculation. He’d been watching the werewolf, but obviously not long enough. The beast was cagey. It was clear now that he’d known all along that Tiberius had spotted him in the densely packed Roman alleys and that the beast had led him into a trap. Tiberius had seen the werewolf only as the vilest and most base of creatures; he had forgotten how clever the wretched could be. He’d underestimated Baloch, and now he would pay the price. He only hoped that payment wouldn’t be taken out of the boy’s flesh.

  He looked around the crumbling room, so dank and dark, and knew that for every werewolf he saw snarling at him, at least two more were hidden in the shadows. “You win nothing,” he said, his eyes burning into Baloch’s. He moved toward the alpha, and that was all it took. Baloch gave a tight jerk of his head, and the room came to life, like vermin scattering from a flame.

  They were on him in a second, and as Tiberius thrust out, blocking the sword of a stalwart beast with pockmarked face, he felt the euphoria of the fight rise within him. But there was danger, and he needed to keep the boy at the forefront of his thoughts. He needed to leave and regroup.

  He would go—yes. But before he did, he couldn’t resist taking a few of the vile creatures down.

  The sword withdrew before being thrust out again, its wielder holding a stake in his shield hand. Tiberius moved with speed born of almost two millennia upon this earth, and in the blink of an eye, he stood with his knife bloodied and the werewolf’s sword arm lying useless on the dirt floor. The creature’s howl of pain echoed in the chamber, but it was nothing to Baloch’s sharp cry of “Enough.”

  The fighting ceased. Even Tiberius, who held another weren’s back to his chest, with his blade pressed up against the foul creature’s neck, froze in the motion of decapitating the creature.

  Baloch approached him, fury rising off him like steam as he passed the wounded man, who now lay whimpering and bleeding beside his detached li
mb. “Harm another of my men, and even if you do find the boy, you shall not find him whole.”

  “Touch even a hair on that boy’s head, and you shall find that you suffer the same injury tenfold. You,” he said, drawing the knife slowly across his captive’s neck so that it raised only the finest line of blood, “and those you hold dear.”

  He didn’t wait for Baloch’s reaction—he’d been reckless to remain after the weren soldiers had arrived, and he would be a fool to stay now that they were angered and injured. He thrust his captive forward, sending him toppling into Baloch, and then Tiberius was gone, a black raven soaring high above the weren, to perch atop the stone walls where the decaying roof had collapsed years earlier. He transformed back, and stood now as a man, looking down at the weren who stared up at him, hate shining in their eyes.

  “This is far from over, Baloch,” Tiberius said, speaking only to the leader. “You should have left the boy alone, and you could have lived out your days in peace. Now there is only fear to fill them, and the knowledge that I will return; and when I do, you will come to a bloody, painful end.”

  “You are a fool, Tiberius,” Baloch said. “And you spin a clever tale. But there is no fear in my heart. I am the victor here, and you are the one who is retreating.”

  And so he was, Tiberius thought. But as he lifted his arms and transformed into the sentient mist that would carry him to the conte’s nearby palazzo, he saw fear crease Baloch’s stalwart features, and right then, that was enough.

  Carissa de Soranzo tightened her knees and gave Valiant a light kick, urging the horse faster and faster. She wanted to fly across the field. To flee her father’s house, to race from Velletri, from Rome, from her very life. She wanted to soar as far as the horse would carry her. By the Virgin, she wanted to race all the way to the sea and never stop until she lost herself in some far-off land where she could throw off the mantle of her life and hide from her family—and from her fears.

  Antonio.

  She tugged at the reins, pulling her horse to a stop, then bent over and pressed her face against the beast’s neck, already damp with exertion and now doubly so with her tears. She was living in a world gone mad, and her father forbade her to even speak of it. Her brother—the baby of the family—kidnapped. Her father gathering his men, not to rescue his own flesh and blood, but to join the papal forces fighting against the Spanish encroachment. Her famous anger rose hot within her, and she heard the echo of her nurse’s voice telling her to calm herself. That such fits of temper were not becoming a lady of her station. The books she read, the rapiers she secretly trained with, even the horses she rode astride the way her two older brothers had taught her. None reflected the woman she was supposed to be, and most of the time she bowed her head in modest agreement and retired to her needlework. Not this time. This time she wanted the anger to boil over. The anger and the fear.

  It was the fear that fueled her. That made her spur her horse and turn it around. It was the fear that made her race, not away from her home, but toward it. Toward home and toward her father. And toward the slim, faint hope that he wouldn’t abandon Antonio to fate. Or, worse, to the whim of Baloch de Fioro, a terrifying nobleman about whom nobody spoke outright but everyone whispered. Dark words, spoken in shadows. About how Baloch called upon demons. About how he spilled blood not just in battle but for pleasure and for nourishment. About how he placed the heads of his enemies on pikes, how he communed with demons, and how he called upon the power of dark forces to keep the walls surrounding his palazzo impenetrable. She knew not which whispers were rumors and which were true, but she didn’t care. He’d taken her brother—and that was sufficient to fuel her hate, and her fear.

  She paid little attention as her stallion carried her toward home. She’d been so lost in her worries that she hadn’t realized just how far she had traveled—and that alone was enough to incur the wrath of her father. Night was falling as she approached the western gate of Velletri, and she sat up straighter, pushing her worries aside as she took stock of her surroundings, one hand resting on the hilt of the dagger she had hidden within the folds of her skirt. She’d stitched the garment herself, the folds carefully designed to allow sufficient room to permit her to sit astride her beast, and with enough pockets and pouches to hide any number of weapons. She might have ventured farther outside the gates than was wise, but in the main she was no fool. And despite her father’s disapproval, she knew how to protect herself.

  “Child!” Agnes cried as Carissa dismounted, then tossed the reins to a stable boy.

  “I’m not a child,” Carissa retorted automatically.

  “As to that, you are much mistaken,” her nurse said, her expression formidable.

  “I am three-and-twenty, twice betrothed, twice widowed before my wedding day, and I’ll not be treated as if I were still a babe in the nursery.” She neglected to mention that she was once again betrothed, this time to an elderly Roman nobleman who walked with a stick and smelled of dead fish. That was a fact that she tried to think upon as little as possible. But with two fiancés dead, young men would no longer vie for her, and her father had arranged the marriage despite her objections. Giancarlo, he’d said, was the only man for a hundred miles who didn’t believe that betrothal to her was a heinous curse.

  “Riding off outside the city gates and telling no one where you’ve gone! I’ve been frantic, fearing you were taken just the same as your brother.”

  Carissa closed her eyes. “Forgive me,” she said with genuine regret. “I never meant for you to worry.”

  “You never mean it, girl. And yet I worry anyway.”

  The weight of guilt settled upon her, and she crossed to Agnes’s side, then pressed her head against the older woman’s shoulder. “I am truly sorry,” she said. “I understand now the fear that must plague you whenever I do something foolhardy.” The tears threatened again, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Courage. You will see your brother again.”

  She pulled away enough to peer into Agnes’s face. “Do you truly believe that?”

  “Of course I do,” Agnes said, but Carissa saw the lie in her nurse’s eyes.

  She swallowed, then forced a smile. “I must speak to Father.”

  Something close to fear flashed across Agnes’s face. “You mustn’t disturb your father. Does he not have enough worry with the Pope demanding more men, and his youngest-born taken?”

  Carissa lifted her chin high, her most innocent expression painted on her face. “You think his only daughter cannot bring him comfort? I shall not disturb him. I only wish to bid him good night.”

  “You think me a fool, child,” Agnes said, her stern expression ruined slightly by the small twitch at the corner of her mouth. “Go if you must, but be wary. A guest has just arrived and speaks to your father in the salon. Pray you don’t interrupt their counsel.”

  A guest? Carissa tilted her head in acknowledgment, then hurried from the room, her curiosity speeding her pace. Had he taken her pleas to heart? Had he engaged a mercenary to find Antonio—and to bring him back?

  She crossed the courtyard, her mind whirling, and as she climbed the stairs to her father’s apartments, her heart was beating so loudly it drowned out the sound of her own thoughts. All she could feel was hope. All she wanted was for her father to hold her in his arms and tell her that everything was not lost. That her fourteen-year-old brother—the light of the family—would soon be restored. A mercenary. That had to be it. His own troops were committed to fighting on behalf of the papacy, but he had taken matters into his own hands. He wouldn’t sacrifice Antonio to fate, and she felt ashamed that she had ever feared as much.

  “You will do no such thing!” Her father’s voice boomed from behind the solid oak door. Carissa froze, then edged along the wall until she stood just beside it. The door hung slightly open, and she eased closer, afraid of being caught while her father was in a temper, and yet too wound up by her own hopes to back away and wait for the morrow.

&
nbsp; “I ask only for your assistance in that endeavor. Baloch’s walls are well-fortified, particularly against my kind. Let me leave here with ten able men, and your son will soon be returned to you.”

  Carissa’s heart swelled—he was a mercenary. And he was going to rescue Antonio!

  But her joy dried up at her father’s sharp “Never.”

  “You are a fool, Albertus.” The voice was low and steady and full of assured authority. Carissa’s jaw dropped in wonder. In all her years she had never heard her father spoken to thus.

  “You dare,” her father snarled. “You dare to walk into my home and insult me?”

  “I dare much, sir, but today I speak only the truth. I have come to you on my own, with no ulterior motive, bearing an offer to bring your child home.”

  “No ulterior motive? Your kind?”

  “I go in payment of a debt, sir, not out of any affection I feel toward you.”

  “You owe me no debt,” Albertus growled. Carissa frowned, confused. This man was offering to help; why the devil was her father insulting him?

  “It is an obligation owed to your family,” the stranger continued, still in that calm, forceful voice. “And I will fulfill my bond. If not for you, then for the boy.”

  “And in doing so, you will incur Baloch’s wrath. I will never be safe. My family will never be safe.”

  “You think that I will let him live?”

  “I think that you are as much a devil as he is. We don’t need your help—” And here her father’s voice trembled, not with the shame of abandoning his son, but with fear. “I’ll have nothing to do with the likes of your kind.”

  “You know what Baloch intends when the moon is full. You would stand here now and condemn your son to such a horror?”

  “And you offer something better?”

  “I offer life. I offer to return him to you.”

  “You think I trust you—you who are as vile as the creature that stole my son?”

  There was a scuffle, and then a thud accompanied by her father’s muffled cry, so filled with terror that Carissa couldn’t help herself. She pressed herself against the door and peered around its edge, only to clap her hand tightly over her mouth to stifle her own startled cry. Her father was flat against the wall, his eyes wide with terror, his feet dangling inches above the wooden floor. He was held there by the stranger’s hand at his throat, and Carissa could see her father’s face in the candlelight, glowing even more red as he tried to catch his breath.