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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  2932 Ross Clark Circle, #384

  Dothan, AL 36301

  Midnight Sun

  Copyright © 2006 by Rene Lyons

  Cover by Scott Carpenter

  ISBN: 1-59998-067-3

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: July 2006

  Midnight Sun

  Rene Lyons

  Dedication

  My Jesse, you are the miracle of my life.

  Frankie, I still get butterflies every time I look at you.

  Crissy, the bringer of dreams, thank you for letting me be part of your “family”.

  Angie, without you I’d still be wondering “when”. I hope I never let you down.

  Brother, I’m sorry through you I learned how fragile and short life is. I’ll love you forever and

  miss you until I see you again. This one is for you.

  Chapter One

  Pennsylvania: Summer 2005

  If vampires suffered headaches, Sebastian of Rydon was sure he’d have a blinding migraine by now. Though he loved his brother-in-arms, the idea of shoving a gag into Raphael’s mouth was damn appealing. After hearing Rogue go on and on about Allison Parker, it was all he could think to do to shut him up.

  Enough was enough already.

  It was months since they came here to Damascus and took on the ragtag redhead. You’d think Raphael would get the hint and leave him alone when it came to her by now. Did he believe if he went on endlessly about the woman, Sebastian would change his mind about her nosing around Randall Manor?

  The last thing any of them needed was that woman poking around their house. It was ludicrous to so much as entertain the idea. Yet here was Raphael, trying his hardest to convince him she was “harmless”. Especially since Sebastian knew Allie was many things, but harmless was not one of them.

  What surprised him the most was that Constantine happened to be as enamored with her as Raphael. Something about her having “brass balls”, as he liked to put it, appealed to the Dragon.

  None of what they said was going to sway Sebastian. He had no intention of allowing them to open the manor to Wayne County’s notorious ghost hunter. For all he knew, she wouldn’t uphold her promise to keep her findings secret, but slap Randall Manor on the front page of The Specter. It didn’t make sense , why he was the only one to see the idea was a disaster waiting to happen.

  Even Lucian didn’t seem to mind the idea of Allie invading their home. No wonder Sebastian was known as The Sage. Lately, it seemed he was the only one with any brains among the bunch.

  Something about the woman got under his skin. Whenever he was around her, which he made sure wasn’t all that often, he found himself getting all kinds of hungry. Hungry for her body, for her blood, and for the promise of warmth found in the strength of her lifeforce. Bad enough her occasional visits to Seacrest left her scent behind, he didn’t need his home tainted by the blasted scent of gardenia. Randall Manor was his only sanctuary, and he’d not have it overrun by her.

  Sitting at a table in the back of McHenry’s Tavern, Sebastian and Raphael waited for Constantine. He was bringing with him a human who supposedly had a lead about the Daystar. Whether or not there was any truth to the claim remained to be seen.

  Sebastian was not the type to sit idly by, which was why six long months of waiting for a sign of the Daystar was slowly driving him mad. When Constantine chanced to overhear Kenny Buckman make mention of a tattoo he wanted, which sounded remarkably like the symbol of the Daystar, it put an end to the maddening waiting game.

  Since the Daystar wasn’t something the average human would know about, it was definitely a good place to start to track the Druid relic down and destroy it. God forbid it fall into any other vampire’s hands. They could use it to gain the ability to walk in the light and become nearly indestructible.

  Not that Sebastian was in a rush to return to England. He liked it here, lost in the mountains of farm-country Pennsylvania. After nearly seven hundred years it was nice to have a change of scenery. Though most of the Wayne County countryside looked much like Northumberland, the subtle changes and different feel of the place gave him a peace he hadn’t known since before he went off to Crusade.

  “Do you think this is a waste of our time? Do you think he knows where it is?”

  The sudden change of subject caught Sebastian off-guard. Only a moment ago Raphael was still going on about Allie, which was why Sebastian tuned him out.

  Shrugging carelessly, Sebastian took a sip of his beer. By now he barely flinched when the liquid slid down his throat like broken glass.

  He hated times like now, when a vampire was forced to perform basic human activities. When among humans, eating and drinking were the two main pretenses, though it caused intense pain to their dead bodies.

  “Does it matter at this point? Be glad we’ve finally heard something.”

  “I know it. It seems too easy, that’s all.”

  “He’d be a bloody fool if he lied to Constantine.”

  Though Templars made an oath to God in exchange for the chance at redemption, nothing in the rules said they couldn’t beat a human near to death—the key words being near to death. As long as they left the poor bastard alive, their oath would be upheld.

  Which was why lying to them would be a foolish mistake on Kenny’s part.

  Constantine Draegon was not someone Kenny wanted to piss off. Hell, none of them were, but the Dragon was given more to violence than the rest of them.

  One thing they learned quickly after being turned was that living beings were terribly fragile. It would take nothing for a vampire to end them. It said much about the Templars that they used restraint and respect when dealing with their victims, especially when caught in the throes of bloodlust. It would be all too easy to step over the line and take life, which once done would damn the Templars straight to Hell.

  “Constantine will beat the shit out of him if he’s lying,” Raphael remarked, idly toying with the label of his Budweiser. When a waitress passed close to them, giving him a seductive glance, Raphael threw her a wink.

  Women couldn’t resist Raphael’s blond good looks, and he, living up to the name of Rogue, welcomed their attention wholeheartedly.

  “Hell, if he’s lying I’ll beat the shit out of the kid for making me come here.”

  Sebastian may be the more levelheaded of the bunch, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t up for giving a good beat down if the occasion called for it—and being forced to stomach this place definitely called for Kenny to be beaten senseless. Noting heads turning in the direction of the door, Sebastian knew Constantine finally joined the party.

  Dragon had a tendency to draw notice to himself everywhere he went. His look said don’t fuck with me at the same time it screamed for attention.

  There he was, all six-foot-three of him, dressed in a classic Goth getup of baggy black pants teeming with dangling metal chains and a black tee shirt that read Sarcasm: It beats killing people. His long, straight black hair was a mess of black spikes, falling in wild disarray around his deathly pale face. Even from a dist
ance Sebastian saw he was wearing the silver hoop nose ring in his left nostril. Sometimes he wore it, sometimes he didn’t. With C, everything he did, he had to be in the right mood to do, and tonight he looked like he wanted to do bodily harm to someone. Along with Constantine, was a grubby kid with beady brown eyes and a slop of brown curls—clearly terrified and obviously strung out.

  “Come on,” Constantine order as he dragged the kid by the sleeve.

  The kid, or rather, Kenny Buckman, scurried to keep up with Constantine’s long strides. The surly vamp all but hurled him at one of the two empty chairs surrounding the table Sebastian and Raphael occupied.

  Kenny’s eyes bugged out of their sockets as he took them both in, but it was when Raphael threw Kenny a wink that the kid looked as if he would be sick.

  His frantic gaze darted to Sebastian, who cocked a brow at him, waiting to see if the kid had balls or if he would try to make a run for it. God, he hoped Kenny wasn’t that stupid.

  With his hair buzzed down to nothing but stubble and dressed all in black, Sebastian looked like a hit man On his right hand he wore a brand of the seal of the Knight Templars. The mark was of a circle, in the center of which were two knights on a single mount, arcing around it the Latin words Sigillum Militum Cristi de Templo. Translated it read, Seal of the Soldiers of Christ from the Temple.

  All Templars bore the brand. It marked them for the warriors of Christ they were in life and the damned creatures they were now in death.

  “Talk,” Constantine ordered Kenny, dropping down in the empty chair next to the kid. He leaned back arrogantly, crossing his arms over his wide chest.

  Kenny reached into his pants pocket. His hand shook as he passed a folded piece of paper to Raphael, the least threatening-looking of the bunch. “I found this in the attic of my grandmother’s house.”

  The scrap of paper was in fact a torn piece of parchment, on it a drawing of what looked like an “S” with a dot above and below it.

  All three Templars recognized it as the symbol of the Daystar.

  Raphael gave the paper to Sebastian, who took one look at it before narrowing his gaze dangerously on Kenny. “You didn’t find this in your grandmother’s attic.” Pushing aside the black duster that concealed the sword he wore strapped to his back, he tucked the paper into the inner pocket.

  “Yes I did!” Kenny nearly shouted, his voice taking on a hysterical edge. “It’s like I told him, I was up in my grandmother’s attic looking for something and found it in some old trunk.”

  “He’s not lying, Sage. He and a friend were looking for shit to sell for a fix,” Constantine added harshly.

  “What did you tell your friend about this?” Sebastian demanded.

  “Nothing, I swear. I don’t even know what the hell it is.”

  “Does your grandmother know you found this?” Raphael questioned.

  “Are you kidding?” Kenny looked away, his shame clear. “If I told her I found it, she’d know what I was doing there.”

  The look on Constantine’s face told Sebastian he was poking into the kid’s mind again, searching for the truth.

  Once Dragon discerned if Kenny was telling the truth leaned forward in his chair and give him a threatening glare. “If you breathe a word of this to anyone, we’ll hunt you down and hurt you. Do you understand, Kenny?”

  Seeing the threat in Constantine’s eyes, the kid turned white. “I won’t. I swear it.”

  Constantine leaned back in his chair, a satisfied and humorless grin tugging at his lips, allowing a hint of his fangs to show. “Good. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Kenny did exactly that, nearly overturning the chair when he shot off it. He ran out of the bar as if the devil himself was at his heels.

  “Do you think he’ll talk?” Raphael questioned once Kenny made a mad dash out of the bar.

  Constantine watched the kid disappear through the grimy glass door. He gave them a curt shake of his head. “He’d never risk me coming after him.”

  Sebastian felt as if the parchment burnt a hole clean through the thick fabric of his duster. What a hell of a thing that even the symbol on a piece of parchment carried enough power to give off supernatural heat. It left no doubt in Sebastian’s mind that they had to find the Daystar and find it fast. They couldn’t risk any other creature finding it.

  God help them all if a renegade got his hands on it before a Templar. To give a renegade, a vampire of the lowest order, the power to walk in the sun would be to unleash Hell on earth.

  “What’s our next move?” Raphael threw the question out.

  A slow smile spread across Sebastian’s face. “I say we pay a visit to Grandma Buckman.”

  Chapter Two

  Whoever said drowning sorrows at the bottom of a bottle of beer was a good idea, was an idiot.

  Actually, Allison Parker was the idiot for attempting it knowing full well how much she despised the stuff. Drinking, drugging, hanging out and raising hell, they were never her things. She was more the “hang out in a graveyard and wait for the spirits to rise” sort of person, which was why ghost hunting was the perfect profession for her.

  It also made her the town weirdo, but by now it was a reputation she could live with.

  Of course, it left her friendless and dateless most of the time, but again, those were things she could live without if it meant doing what she loved. Ghost hunting was a passion of hers, made even more so after the death of her brother two years ago. It pushed her to find any evidence of life after death. Unfortunately, she found it when three vampires thought to make a meal of her five months ago.

  The only good to come of that incident was it caused her to cross paths with the Templars, who descended on the scene like two avenging warriors. With a few swipes of their swords—yes swords—they reduced the vampires to ash.

  If they would have come only a few seconds earlier they might have saved her from having been bitten and fed from, something she knew Constantine and Raphael still felt guilty about.

  Pushing aside her opened, but not even sipped at bottle of Budweiser, Allie felt her stomach twist as Jude’s cruel words came back to her. She’d have gone straight home instead of making a pit stop at McHenry’s Tavern, but the thought of returning to her empty house only added to her melancholy.

  The entire day was a total disaster. Jude ending their relationship wasn’t what bothered her so much,

  It was his spiteful admission of cheating with Denise Tanner that pierced her pride. It reinforced her reasoning for why she made a point to steer clear of “normal” people.

  Jude, as ordinary as they came—barring his multi-million dollar bank account of course—was Damascus’ darling. Everyone loved the Golden Boy, who’d taken a small construction business and turned it into thriving company.

  If people only knew what Allie learned about him in the ten months they were together, she wondered if they’d still adore him.

  A coward and a mama’s boy, there wasn’t any justification for his arrogance. She had to wonder if the break-up had anything to do with the fact that she called five tremendous men, all whom looked every bit the medieval warriors they were, friends. Knowing him, it had to be a blow to his fragile pride.

  Guess that’s why he thought to even the score by cheating on me.

  Jude picked a real winner with Denise, who was known as the town bike. Everyone got a chance to ride her, didn’t matter to her if the guy was old or young, ugly or hot. All it took to have a go at her was a penis and a beer.

  Sometimes, not even the beer.

  It was a swift kick to Allie’s pride. It made her want to give Jude a good hard kick back. Only instead of to his pride, nail it right to the balls.

  Staring at the beer, she admitted defeat and hopped off the uncomfortable barstool. Slapping a ten-dollar bill on the bar, she turned to leave. All her misery was replaced with overwhelming relief when she spotted Raphael and Constantine walking in.

  Thank God for those two. Her night finally to
ok a turn for the better.

  They saw her too, or rather they smelled her, since she saw them detect her scent and follow it until they spotted her at the bar. With a guarded grin, Raphael motioned her over to the table they were about to occupy. She rushed over and threw her arms around his waist. His brows shot up at her unexpected show of affection.

  “Does this mean I finally have a chance at you, Red?” he teased, wrapping his arms tightly around her.

  “Not a chance, pal.” She laughed, knowing he wasn’t serious, though even if he was, she wasn’t about to hook up with him.

  His being a vampire had nothing to do with her resolve to keep herself from falling victim to his surfer-boy looks. Her friendship with him was way too valuable to throw away on a night of good—okay, great—sex no matter how tempting it may be.

  Oh, and she knew it would be good. The kind of good a woman never forgot. Good enough to knock all thoughts of Jude and Denise right out of her head. The old expression about a slippery slope came to mind.

  “I needed a hug, that’s all,”

  When Constantine pinned her with a knowing look, Allie felt her cheeks flame hotly. She didn’t appreciate the subtle pinch on her brain, knowing Constantine found a way into her thoughts.

  “He’s a bloody asshole. If you want, I can pull his spleen out through his nostrils.”

  Untangling herself from Raphael, Allie flopped down on the chair next to Constantine. “Tempting, but no thanks, C. I appreciate the offer though.”

  He shrugged indifferently. “Suit yourself.”

  Raphael sat next to Allie. “Let me guess, Jude’s the asshole as usual?”

  “Who else? He broke it off with me.”

  Constantine snorted. “Like that’s what’s bothering you.”

  She shot him a nasty look. “It’s not and you know it. And I would appreciate it if you got the hell out of my head.”

  “Since some of us can’t read minds—and I don’t even want to know how Constantine can read yours right now—how about letting me in here.”

  “Just to be spiteful, Jude made the wonderful announcement he’s been cheating on me with Denise Tanner,” she explained to Raphael.