Touch of Evil Read online

  Touch of Evil

  Lisa Marie

  Published 2005

  ISBN 1-59578-132-3

  Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2005, Lisa Marie. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Liquid Silver Books

  http://lsbooks.com

  Email:

  [email protected]

  Editor

  Ansley Velarde

  Cover Art

  by Laura Givens

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To all the loves of my life. Without you, I am nothing.

  Prologue

  Laurel, Maryland 1990

  Ash walked down the quiet street, noting the absence of people and voices on this mild spring night. Everyone must still be inside, eating dinner before commencing with their evening activities. Really, it was better for him that way.

  Shutting out the rest of the neighborhood, he turned each one of his senses on the house on the corner, with its pristine white siding and pretty blue trim. It had only been a few years since the last time he’d been inside. He could almost convince himself no time had passed at all.

  Too bad it would just be an illusion.

  As he drew nearer, Ash hoped his arrival wouldn’t be too upsetting. The people inside had done a lot to try to forget the past, a past Ash himself had been a very large part of. That stung, but he reminded himself that this visit wasn’t about him. Hell, it wasn’t really even about the people inside. Not entirely anyway. It was more about an old man, who desperately missed his daughter and was too proud to do anything about it himself.

  He slowed his pace the closer he got to the house. An all too familiar smell reached him, and fear blossomed in his chest. He moved faster, his mind screaming in silent denial. For once, his nose had to be off. Only Ash’s nose was never off.

  His heart pounded furiously as he bolted up the home’s front porch steps. Then halted.

  The unmistakable smell of death overwhelmed him as he stared at the slightly ajar door. Hand trembling, he pushed it in and searched the dark living room. His vision quickly adjusted to the lighting, and he could see the ruins of a party that looked more appropriate for Halloween than a birthday. A papier-mâché spider was crushed and spilling its innards of candy all over the floor. Punch slowly stained the beige carpet a brilliant, sweet smelling red. It reminded Ash too much of blood and sent a chill racing down his spine. Posters of vampires, mummies and werewolves covered the walls; something he would have found ironic under any other circumstances.

  “Wanda?” he called, stepping across the threshold. He shut the door behind him before moving further into the house. He felt a bit silly for that small bit of propriety, but he needed the false privacy the closed door offered. The silence pressed in on him, doubling the trepidation that throbbed in his chest. “John?”

  No one answered, not that he had really expected them to. The further he moved into the house, the stronger the thick, coppery smell became. If he found someone alive, he’d be surprised.

  With a sigh of resignation, Ash moved through the living room to the dining room and beyond to the kitchen. It didn’t take him long to find Wanda. She lay amidst the overturned kitchen table, among the broken crockery and strewn about pots. Tears came to his eyes at the grisly sight of her small body sprawled on the floor, her clothes ripped and bloody. Her eyes were closed, giving the illusion of sleep. The vicious punctures on her throat told another story.

  “Oh, God.” He knelt next to her and placed a hand on her forehead. He started to speak quietly, praying to the Lord to protect her soul. “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.”

  He was thanking the Lord that his heart had stopped nearly a century before when Wanda’s hand closed around his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. He looked down at her, eyes wide with shock, and found her staring back at him, her own eyes clouded with pain and impending death.

  “Ash?” she gasped.

  “Yes, Wanda, it’s Ash. Hush now. We need to get you some help.”

  “T-too late for that.” Her voice was strained, her breathing labored as fresh blood gushed from the wound in her neck. She shivered, and he could sense the cold fingers of death skating across her spine. “M-mark. Y-you h-h-have to f-f-f-find Mark.” Tears leaked from her eyes and mingled with the splattered blood on her face to streak crimson trails on her skin. “Please.”

  “All right, I’ll find him. But please, be quiet now.” The smell of her blood was threatening to choke him, the scent heavy and sweet. He struggled to ignore it, his baser nature screaming at him to take notice.

  “P-p-promise me.” Her fingers tightened around his wrist. Her shaking was becoming violent now, and they both knew it wouldn’t be long.

  “I promise.”

  “T-t-t-take h-him to my f-f-father. Tell h-him…” The shudders overtook her, making it impossible to speak.

  “Wanda…”

  “T-tell m-my f-f-father I’m s-s-s-sorry.” Almost as soon as the last word was out of her mouth, she stiffened and her hand fell away from Ash’s wrist to land heavily on the floor.

  He reached up and shut her eyes, crying openly at the loss of a woman he had watched grow from a child. He’d been there almost from her birth, and now he was here at her death.

  “Rest easy, Wanda Elizabeth. Peace be with you.” After a few seconds, he wiped his eyes and rose to his feet, stretching out his senses to the rest of the house. He didn’t hold much hope of finding anyone alive. To his amazement, he caught the faint sound of a heartbeat on the second floor. “Mark!”

  He moved quickly up the steps, pausing only once to look into the bathroom to see where John Lynch must have been caught taking his shower. The water still ran over his nude form hunched in the corner of the tub, blood seeping slowly from the deep gashes marring his chest, arms and legs. His eyes were wide and unseeing.

  With a small prayer, Ash closed the door and followed the sound of the heartbeat to a room at the end of the hall. “Mark?”

  He pushed open the door and peered into the darkness. His sharp vision picked out the trappings of a teenage boy’s room. He stepped inside and walked over to the dresser, immediately seeing the dark-haired boy who huddled between it and the wall. “Mark?”

  It took a few seconds, but the boy tilted his head up to look at him. The eyes that settled on Ash were huge and frightened.

  “It’s okay,” Ash murmured. “I’m here to help.” He kneeled down to Mark’s level, making sure to keep his movements slow and his voice soft. The broken end of a stick was gripped tightly in the boy’s hand and the fine sheen of dust covered him and the floor.

  Good for him, Ash thought. It looked like the boy had taken out the creature that had killed his parents. “I need you to come with me. I’m going to take you somewhere safe. Okay?”

  Ash held out a hand, keeping one eye on the stick. He nearly smiled when the boy reached out and took his hand, the small fingers wrapping around his cold ones. He stood and pulled Mark to his feet, then tugged gently to get him out of the house and into the cool night air.

  * * * *

  “‘S that him?”

  Ash looked at the man who’d asked the question. Cyrus Tanner stood inside the doorway of a modest, single st
ory, brick house. Grief painted his features as he looked down at where Mark stood next to Ash. The boy stared blankly at the ground, his slim shoulders slumped.

  “Yes. Cy, I’m…” Ash paused to take a breath, fighting the tears that stung his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Cy ran a hand over his military short, gray hair and sighed. “Thanks, Ash. You’d better bring him inside.”

  As soon as they were through the door, Cy shut it and turned to study the last link he had to his daughter. The boy was tall for his age, the top of his head coming to Ash’s shoulder, and Ash stood a good six feet. Mark’s dark hair brushed his shoulders, the inky locks dulled by the dust coating it. He was thin, but his face showed the signs of baby fat still to be shed. Mark had yet to look at him, and Cy had a feeling that when his gaze did finally settle on him, he’d be looking into the near black eyes of Wanda.

  “I called the police,” Ash said. “They’ll probably be contacting you tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t know what you want to tell them about how he got here.”

  “I’ll figure something out,” Cyrus told him with a wave of his hand. He couldn’t take his eyes off the boy. His old heart squeezed painfully in his chest. Mark was a perfect mix of his father and mother, from the top of his dark head to the bottom of his Chuck Taylor shoes. Cy would have given anything to have seen this child grow from a baby, but his pride and his daughter’s stubbornness had prevented it.

  Ash looked at Cy, his heart full of sympathy for the family splintered by time and death. He could see the longing in the old man’s eyes, feel the grief that etched new lines into his face. He suddenly felt like a voyeur to their pain and decided it was time for him to leave.

  “I’ll leave you two alone. I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do.” He felt like an idiot for the lameness of that statement.

  Cy’s gaze shot to him for a brief second and he nodded. “Thanks, Ash, for bringing him here.”

  “Of course.” Ash turned to go, pausing when Cyrus called his name.

  “There’s a nest on 20th, inside the old movie house. I was going to go down there tonight, but…”

  Ash gave a tight, sympathetic smile and nodded. “I’ll check it out,” he assured, before quietly opening the door and leaving.

  Cyrus stood for a long time, staring at the boy who sat quietly on his beat up old couch. A multitude of emotions writhed around inside of him, not the least of which was regret. Regret that he couldn’t have made things right with Wanda. Regret that he hadn’t been there when she needed him. Most of all, regret for the fight that had driven her out of his life forever.

  And now he had this child to take care of. He knew he was the only next of kin. Wanda might have written him off, but he had never stopped watching over her. John Lynch had been an orphan, raised in various foster homes before finally being adopted by a family practitioner and his wife at the age of ten, both of whom were dead. There was no one for the boy but Cyrus, his grandfather. A man that was no better than a stranger to him.

  With a sigh, Cyrus walked over to the couch and kneeled down in front of Mark, drinking in the lines of his face like a man dying of thirst. All that was left of his baby girl was wrapped up in this boy and he vowed to finally do right by her. He would take care of her son in a way that he had never taken care of her.

  “Mark,” he started in a rough whisper. The boy showed no indication of hearing him outside of the brief flicker of his eyelids. “I don’t suppose you know who I am. I’m your grandfather.” Again, no real sign of the boy hearing him. Cyrus could only imagine what was going through his mind. He didn’t know how much of the carnage Mark had witnessed at his house, or how the violent death of his parents would affect him in the long-term.

  According to Ash, there was evidence that the boy had taken out the vampire that had torn his life apart. He hoped that would give the child at least a sliver of peace.

  “I need to know if you’re hurt. Can you tell me?”

  Mark just sat, his eyes unseeing, his mind completely wiped out. He didn’t want to think. If he didn’t think, he wouldn’t have to admit that all of this was real. That his parents were dead. Tears burned the back of his eyes, and he struggled to keep them at bay. He wanted to curl up and pretend that none of this had ever happened. He couldn’t do that if this man, who said he was his grandfather, kept trying to make him remember.

  There was a dull throb in the back of his head, at the place where he had been hit when he’d let the creature into his room. He’d been ignoring the memory of it so far, pushing it away like he had pushed away the image of his mother on the kitchen floor, the blood draining out of her as the thing went after his father. He didn’t understand why he was still alive. Why the man he had known as his father’s partner in business had left him alive to go after Mark’s parents first. He should be dead. It was his fault, so why was he still alive?

  “Mark, I’m going to touch you now. I need to check for broken bones.”

  There was an apologetic quality to the gruff voice penetrating Mark’s haze of blankness. He blinked when he heard it, and finally brought his attention to the man.

  Cyrus met the boy’s gaze, never flinching at the penetrating black orbs trained on him. He could see confusion, pain and grief swirling in their depths and wanted nothing more than to ease the boy’s suffering. But he had been out of practice for a long time at soothing hurts and giving comfort. He’d have to wait for the boy’s lead, and hope that they both came out of this okay.

  “If you’re my grandfather, how come I’ve never met you?”

  The question surprised Cyrus, since it was so far off what he thought the boy might say. He struggled a moment with what to say, deciding to keep it as basic as possible. “Me and your mama … well, let’s just say we didn’t exactly see eye to eye on things.”

  “Why?” Mark’s gaze never wavered.

  Cyrus sighed and scrubbed a hand over his head. He didn’t want to hurt the boy further by admitting what had broken him and Wanda apart. But he didn’t want to lie, either. After several seconds, he leveled his own world weary gaze on Mark, allowing his anguish to show.

  “You’re grandma … she was killed by a vampire when your mama was a girl. Wanda didn’t think that I should be going out every night hunting the bastards.” She had been afraid, deathly afraid, that she would lose him, too. Instead of waiting for the day that Ash would bring his lifeless body home, she had left, taking Cyrus’ battered heart with her.

  “You kill vampires?” The question was barely a whisper

  “Yes,” Cyrus answered carefully. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t like the sound of that question. He knew he didn’t like it when the boy’s gaze sharpened, the depths of his eyes glittering with a hatred that a child his age should never know.

  “Show me,” he said simply.

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  In the time it took the vampires to scent the danger in their lair, it was already too late. The only sounds that permeated the old abandoned warehouse were the surprised cries of the night creatures as the hunters became the hunted. All they saw in the split-second before they became just another layer of dust on the floor was the flash of black leather. One by one, they were picked off in their nest, until there was only one left standing. His red, glowing eyes looked around the vast space in confusion.

  “Dudes? Where’d you go?” he asked the air. “Augh!” he grunted, looking down at his chest to see the bloody point of a stake protruding from it. “Oh shit,” were the last words he ever said before he exploded into a fine spray of bone and powder.

  As the remains settled, Mark Lynch stepped out into the dim light. He was tall, lean and as lethal as those he hunted—a far cry from the boy that had been deposited at his grandfather’s house twelve years ago.

  Mark moved soundlessly through the building, collecting crossbow bolts and discarded stakes. He was soundless save for the whisper of his black, lea
ther duster as it swirled around his legs. The fact that it made him look both dangerous and sexy—at least according to the women he occasionally spent time with—was of no matter to him. Its use as a defense mechanism was far more important. The thick material protected his vulnerable flesh from claws and teeth, the length helping to protect his legs. Thick, dark denim encased his legs, furthering the protection the leather afforded. Soft, soled boots adorned his feet, muffling his footsteps. A simple, black T-shirt was worn more for camouflage than anything else. Everything he wore had a use, everything was chosen for exactly that purpose.

  In fact, the only thing about his appearance that could be considered in anyway vain was his hair. So black it was almost blue and straight with the slightest of wave to it, the locks cascaded down his back past his shoulders in a midnight waterfall. Cyrus was forever nagging him to get it cut, and it remained the one thing that Mark refused to do for the old man.

  Mark couldn’t honestly say why he was so adamant about not cutting his hair. He knew it was frivolous and potentially dangerous. But every time he thought about it, his stomach would clench and a picture of his mother, with her miles of glorious hair, would pass through his mind.

  “He told me I could find you here.”

  With a precision born of years of practice, Mark whirled around, his crossbow appearing as if from nowhere in his hand. It was aimed, his finger prepared to shoot, even as the tension drained out of him with the recognition of the voice. To his credit, Ash didn’t even flinch. He merely kept his gaze locked on Mark, an amused smile curving his mouth.

  “You know, one of these days you’re going to sneak up on me like that, and I’m not going to be able to stop from shooting you. Then your name really will fit you,” Mark told him with a grin. He replaced the crossbow in its hiding place in the lining of his coat and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

  “Yeah, well, if I gotta go, I would prefer it to be you.”

  Mark smoked thoughtfully for a moment before nodding. He took the hand Ash held out and clasped it firmly. “Good to see you,” he told the one vampire he called friend, before letting go to retrieve the rest of his equipment. He could have just said screw it and left the few stakes behind, but the idea of hours spent whittling new ones made him cringe.