A Touch of Midnight (Midnight Breed 0.5)

She followed him, pausing in the unfamiliar place, uncertain. Still shaken from what happened at the bus station. "It's so dark in here."

"Stay where you are." His deep voice with its soothing accent was a low rumble beside her, his blunt fingertips warm where he stroked the side of her face. "I'll find you some light."

She waited while he ably crossed the room and turned on a small lamp several feet away from her.

The soft illumination revealed a nearly vacant living space. One lone chair--a rough-hewn relic from the turn of the previous century, at least--sat beside the simple wooden table where the lamp now glowed. On the other side of the room, the cold, black mouth of a fireplace seemingly long out of use laced the stale air with the acrid tinge of old wood smoke.

Savannah cautiously trailed Gideon as he left the main living area to enter an adjacent room. She crossed her arms in front of her, tucking her bare fingers in to her sides to avoid the inadvertent touch that would wake her extrasensory ability. She suspected this house had never been filled with family or laughter. She didn't need to rouse her gift and confirm it.

No, she'd had enough darkness to last her a good long while.

"We'll be safe here, Savannah." Gideon turned on another lamp in the space where he stood now. He removed his black leather trench coat and laid it on the bed. Fastened around the hips of his black combat fatigues, he wore a thick belt studded with all manner of weapons--a pair of pistols, an array of knives, including the savage blade that he'd wielded back at the station. He took off the belt and placed it on top of his coat. "Savannah, I give you my word, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You know you can trust me on that, yeah?"

She nodded and stepped into the modest bedroom, noting immediately the lack of decoration or personal effects. The bed was made, but fitted in plain sheets and a single pillow.

The kind of bed one might expect to see in a soldier's barracks, more so than a home.

There was a sadness in this place.

A deep, mournful sorrow.

And rage.

Black, raw...consuming.

Savannah shuddered under the weight of it. But it was the memory of what she witnessed earlier that night that threatened to take her legs out from under her.

"Gideon, what happened back there?" God, just speaking of it now made her head reel all over again. She had so many questions. They spilled out of her in a rush. "How did you know to look for me? How could you have known where I was--that I was in trouble behind that closed door of the restroom? How were you able to do what you did to that...that monster? I saw what happened. You stabbed him, and he--" She exhaled a shaky breath, wanting to deny what she witnessed, yet certain it was real. "You stabbed him and he disintegrated. You killed him as if it was no big thing. As if you'd seen that kind of monster a hundred times before."

"More times than that, Savannah." Gideon strode over to her, his handsome face sober, alarmingly so. "I've killed hundreds like him."

"Hundreds," she murmured, swallowing past the staggering word. "Gideon, that man...that creature...it wasn't human."

"No."

Savannah stared at him, struggling to process his calm reply. She had hoped he'd offer some kind of logical explanation for what was going on, some kind of reasonable denial that would soothe the panic rising inside her.

But the quick wit and reassuring confidence that usually glinted in his blue eyes was nowhere to be found. His expression was filled with a quiet gravity that made him seem both tender and lethal at the same time. Two qualities she had seen firsthand in him during the short time she'd known him.

She drew in breath, tried to tamp down the hysteria that threatened to climb up her throat and choke off her air. "That same kind of monster killed Rachel. And those little boys I saw when I touched that old sword in the Art History collection--they were slaughtered by a group of that same kind of monster. I tried to tell you that when you came to check in on me at my apartment last night. I didn't want to believe it then. I still don't.">But for how long?

She had her answer a second later.

While she stood there, trembling between the toilet and the door, the lock started to jiggle loose all on its own.

South Station was packed with passengers from a newly arrived train when Gideon skidded to a halt inside the terminal. Weaving between the sea of incoming humans, some striding with impatient purpose, others wandering aimlessly, Gideon searched out the schedule board and scanned the departures for Savannah's train to New Orleans.

Delayed.

Which would have been excellent news, except the board was showing the train had left the station. Departed just two minutes ago.

Gideon could hardly curb the need to put his fist through something. "Damn it."

He considered running after the train. If he didn't catch up to it en route, odds were good that he'd find it at its first stop along the way. Then what? Hop on board and search Savannah out among the other passengers?

What would be the better tack once he found her: Trance her and carry her off the train while attempting to avoid the notice of a few hundred witnesses? Or plop his ass into the seat next to her and give her a quick rundown on Breedmates, Rogues and other alien-spawned vampires right there on the Amtrak Number 59 to New Orleans?

Christ, what a disaster.