Fear the Darkness Read online

  Part i:

  FEAR THE DARKNESS

  4

  FEAR THE DARKNESS AUDIOBOOK

  19

  Part ii:

  A LETTER FROM SHERRILYN KENYON 20

  Part iii:

  SNEAK PEEK: THE DREAM-HUNTER

  23

  Part iv :

  BITE A FRIEND

  38

  2

  S t. M a r t i n ’s P r e s s

  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. ALL OF THE CHARACTERS, ORGANIZATIONS, AND

  EVENTS PORTRAYED IN THIS STORY ARE EITHER PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHORʼS

  IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY.

  “Fear the Darkness”

  Copyright © 2007 by Sherrilyn Kenyon.

  Excerpt from The Dream-Hunter copyright © 2007 by Sherrilyn Kenyon.

  Cover photo © age fotostock

  All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in

  any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of

  brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information

  address St. Martinʼs Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  St. Martinʼs Paperbacks are published by St. Martinʼs Press, 175 Fifth

  Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  Pa r t i :

  FEAR THE DARKNESS

  New Orleans, 2007

  Nick Gautier was home.

  And he was pissed. As the taxi wended its way from the airport in the

  mid-morning hour toward his Bourbon Street home, and he saw the scars

  that were still left by Hurritcane Katrina, his blood literally boiled.

  How could this have happened? Closing his eyes, he tried to blot out the

  boarded-up windows and fallen signs. The white FEMA trailers. But those

  images were replaced by the news feeds he’d seen of victims stranded on roof-

  tops, of fires burning, of rioting in the streets...

  Nick couldn’t breathe. New Orleans was his home. His touchstone. This

  city had birthed him. She was his lifeblood. And in one heartbeat, she’d been

  torn asunder. Crippled. Never in his life had he seen anything like this.

  Growing up here, he’d lived through numerous hurricanes over the years.

  They hadn’t had the money to evacuate for the worst storms so he and his

  mom would get into her broken-down red Yugo and drive up to Hattiesburg,

  Mississippi, where they would camp out in a grocery store parking lot, eating

  deviled ham sandwiches made with stale bread and mustard packets, until it

  was safe to return. Somehow his mother had always made those days fun and

  adventurous, even when they were hunkered down in the car during tornado

  warnings.

  Then they’d come home to a sight similar to what he saw now, but within

  a few weeks’ time, everything would be back to normal.

  It was now going on two years after the hurricane and still there were

  closed businesses—businesses that had been there for years and, in some

  cases, centuries. There were entire areas of the city that looked as if the hur-

  ricane had just blown through.

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  Most of his friends were either dead or relocated. People he’d known for

  decades.

  In one heartbeat everything had changed.

  Nick gave a bitter laugh at the thought. He’d changed more than anything

  else. No longer human, he wasn’t even sure what he was anymore.

  The only thing that kept him going was his furious need for vengeance on

  the ones he blamed for this catastrophe.

  He moved his hand to scratch his neck, then froze as he felt the bite mark

  there. By taking a blood exchange, Stryker had made Nick his agent. If Nick

  obeyed the Daimon lord, then Stryker would give him the means to destroy

  the man who’d ruined Nick’s life... and his town.

  Acheron Parthenopaus. At one time, they had been best friends. Broth-

  ers to the end. Then Nick had made the mistake of sleeping with a woman he

  hadn’t known was Ash’s daughter. Ash had torn him apart over it.

  That he could handle. What had made them enemies was the night Nick’s

  mother had died and Ash had allowed it. Unlike the other immortal beings

  who made New Orleans home, Nick knew the secrets that Ash carried. He

  wasn’t just the Dark-Hunter leader, an immortal warrior who served the god-

  dess, Artemis, and protected mankind from the vampiric Daimons who ate

  their souls.

  Ash was a god. He had the power to do anything he wanted. He could

  have saved Nick’s mom or at least brought her back from the dead the way

  he’d saved Kyrian Hunter and his wife Amanda. But Ash hadn’t done that.

  He’d turned his back on Nick and left Cherise Gautier dead.

  Nor had Ash saved this city from the storm. Up until the night Nick had

  slept with Simi, Ash had loved this city more than anything. Ash wouldn’t

  have allowed New Orleans to suffer.

  But that was before they’d become enemies. Now Ash hated him so much

  that he’d taken everything from Nick.

  Everything.

  “Nice house.”

  Nick paused as the driver’s voice interrupted his thoughts. He looked at

  the Bourbon Street mansion that had been his home since he’d started work-

  ing for Kyrian.

  “Yeah,” he said under his breath. “It is.”

  Or at least it had been when he’d shared this place with his mother. Nick

  got out and paid the fee, then pulled his suitcase from the seat. Slamming the

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  door shut, he looked up at his house and gripped the handle so tight that his

  fingers ached in protest.

  He’d bought this house as a birthday present for his mother when he’d

  been twenty. He could still hear her squeal of joy as he handed her the key. See

  her standing beside him as she stared at him in disbelief.

  “Happy Birthday, Mom.”

  “Oh Nicky, what have you done now? You didn’t go and kill someone,

  did you?”

  Her question had appalled him. “Mom!”

  Still, she’d been relentless as she narrowed her blue eyes on him and stood

  arms akimbo. “You ain’t doing none of that drug dealing either? ‘Cause if you

  are, boy, love or no love, I’ll beat you blue.”

  He’d scoffed at her warning. “Mom, you know me better than that. I would

  never do anything to embarrass you in front of your church friends.”

  “Then how you get all this money, chere? How you able to buy a house

  this fancy at your age? You still a baby and I couldn’t afford two bricks off this

  place.”

  “I told you, I’m the personal assistant for a broker down in the Garden Dis-

  trict. He put the house in my name, but technically he owns it. He’s letting me

  rent it from him.” It’d been a partial lie. Part of being Kyrian’s Squire back when

  Kyrian had been a Dark-Hunter had meant that all of Kyrian’s properties were

  owned by Nick—at least on paper. This house, though, really was Nick’s. His

  salary was such that he could have eas
ily bought three houses like this, but his

  mother would never have believed that he could make that kind of money with-

  out breaking the law.

  “Broker, hmmm. That sounds like one of those euphemisms for drug dealer

  to me.”

  “Ah, Mom, c’mon inside and see the book room. I’ve already got your chair

  there so you can read those novels you love so much.”

  “Baby, you spoil me. You know I don’t need nothing this big and fancy.”

  Yeah, but as a kid, he’d heard her crying enough times in the late night hours

  that she couldn’t do better for him than their rundown rented room—that the

  only job she could find was stripping. “My baby deserves so much better than

  this.” Meanwhile her parents had lived in a nice home in Kenner and had money

  to burn. But they’d disowned her the minute she’d become pregnant with him.

  His mother had sacrificed everything to keep her son—her dignity and her future.

  And though she cried at night that she couldn’t give him the things she thought a

  boy should have, by day, she was the best mom anyone could have hoped for.

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  Since the day he was born, it had been the two of them against the world.

  “You’ve always taken care of me, Mom. It’s my turn to take care of you. I got

  a big house ‘cause one day I’m going to give you enough grandkids to fill it full.”

  Nick winced as he swore he heard her laughter on the wind before she’d

  dashed into the house to inspect it. And as he stood there, rain began pouring

  down on him, soaking him to the bone.

  He’d found his mother dead in that chair in the library...

  Unrelenting pain and grief tore through him with talons made of steel.

  They shredded every part of him.

  How could she be gone and by such vicious means? Her throat had been

  ripped out and her body drained of blood. She was all he’d ever had.

  “I can give you vengeance.”

  It was Stryker’s promise to him. The Daimon lord had told him that if

  Nick gave him information against Acheron and the other Dark-Hunters

  and the Squires who served them, then Stryker would give him the power he

  needed to kill Ash.

  It was all Nick wanted.

  Then he heard Ash’s voice in his head. “You know, Nick, I envy you your

  mother. She’s one hell of a lady. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”

  “Why did you let her die, Ash?” he snarled under his breath. “God damn

  you!” But in his heart, he knew who was really to blame for all of this and that

  hurt even more. If only he’d been a better son. A better friend. None of this

  would have happened.

  He’d been the one who had signed on to this world where danger was an

  intrinsic part. Had he just told his mother the truth, then she wouldn’t have

  gone home that night with a Daimon. She would be safe. She was killed because

  of him and that was a truth that hurt to the deepest part of his being.

  Unable to stand it, he forced himself to walk to the keypad on the gate and

  press the code. He half-expected it not to work, but it did.

  He paused by the petunias his mother had planted in a large vase next to

  the backdoor and moved it over so that he could get the spare key.

  Everything was just as it’d been when he’d been human... Only now

  everything was different. His stomach churning, he opened the door and

  stepped into his house.

  His friend Kyl had told him that there had been some damage to the place

  during Katrina, but that the house had been restored. Nick had to give them

  credit, it was pristine. Nothing, other than the absence of his mother, was out

  of place.

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  “Oh, Nicky, look! It has one of them garbage disposals! I never thought I’d own

  something so fancy and look at them tiles on the wall. Is that Italian marble?”

  He glanced to the right where the Italian marble bake center was. “Only

  the best for you, Mom.”

  “Oh you spoil me, baby. You’re the only thing right I’ve ever done in my life. I

  don’t know why God was so good to me that He sent you down from heaven, but

  I’m glad He did.”

  But Nick Gautier wasn’t heaven-sent. Like the worthless bastard who’d

  fathered him and then run off, he was hell-born.

  He set the suitcase down by the door and laid the key on the countertop.

  The last time he’d been here, he’d been calling out for his mother. Screaming

  her name as he ran through the house, trying to locate her.

  He’d found her upstairs.

  Against his will, his feet took him right to the spot. He stood in the door-

  way, looking at his mother’s favorite chair. In his mind, he could see her life-

  less body still there. But in reality, there was no trace of her death...

  Or his own. Just before where he now stood, he’d called out to the Greek

  goddess Artemis to make him a Dark-Hunter. When she refused and told him

  he’d have to be dead first, he’d blown his brains out right in front of her.

  Afraid of how Acheron would react to his death, Artemis had made him

  immortal and marked him with the Dark-Hunter bow-and-arrow brand on

  his face, but he wasn’t one of her army who protected mankind. He had pow-

  ers greater than the others. He could walk in daylight.

  And now he shared powers with Stryker...

  Nick frowned as he saw a half-empty Coke bottle on the sidetable. His

  mother had never touched regular Coke, only Diet, and he would never have

  dared left a drink in her secret sanctum.

  Someone else had been in the house, and since there was an opened paper

  from today, he would say that someone had moved in and made themselves

  at home.

  In his house.

  Anger tore through him. Who would dare?

  Wanting blood, he stormed through the rooms, but found each one empty

  with no sign of who had dared trespass here. “Fine,” he snarled. “I’ll deal with

  you later.”

  First he wanted to visit his mom. He winced at the thought. He hadn’t

  been to the cemetery since his worthless father had died. Even though he’d

  passed the St. Louis cemetery almost every day, it just hadn’t been a place

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  where he’d ever spent much time. It reminded him of his father and of the

  gang he once ran with. A gang that used to rob tourists who dared to enter the

  cemetery alone.

  But he would go now to visit his mother. He hadn’t been there for the

  funeral. The least he could do now was let her know he still missed her.

  His heart heavy, he walked the few blocks that separated his house from

  Basin Street and walked through the stone entrance of the St. Louis Cemetery.

  The rains had already moved on as they often did in New Orleans. Now it was

  sticky and hot.

  Since it was morning, the wrought-iron gates were open and chained back.

  As a Daimon and a Dark-Hunter, Nick shouldn’t have been allowed to walk

  in daylight, but a higher power had spared him that curse. Like Ash, he could

  walk in daylight, and unlik
e other Dark-Hunters, he could walk in a cemetery

  and not be possessed by the wandering souls that were trapped there.

  Without pausing, he walked toward the Gautier family mausoleum. As he

  passed the raised tombs that had caused New Orleans cemeteries to be called

  the cities of the dead, he noted how many of them still bore traces of hurri-

  cane damage. Even Marie Laveau’s tomb wasn’t as colorful as it’d been before.

  Many of the tombs were missing names and stones.

  Fear crept into him at what he’d find waiting for him at his mother’s rest-

  ing place. But as he turned the corner toward his mother’s grave, he froze.

  Menyara Chartier, a tiny, frail African American woman was sitting in

  front of the grave, talking in a whisper to his mother while she arranged bou-

  quets of white lilies. The Voodoo High Priestess paused mid-sentence and

  turned her head as if she knew who would be there.

  “Ni...” she frowned, catching herself from saying the rest of his name.

  “Aunt Mennie,” he said, his voice catching as he closed the distance

  between them. She’d been the tenant in the room next to theirs where he’d

  grown up and she’d been the woman who had delivered him since his mother

  hadn’t been able to afford a hospital stay. Menyara had been the closest thing

  to family he and Cherise had known. “You’re still here.”