Seize the Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

He'll laugh his ass off."
    "Yeah, well, in the meantime, take Valerius back to my place and give me Otto's number so that I can keep trying to call him."
    "And you want to tell me how I'm going to get him to your place since Bourbon Street is closed off to traffic after dark?"
    She gave him a droll stare.
    He growled at her. "Fine, but you owe me big-time."
    "Yeah, yeah. Get cracking, Squire."
    He mumbled something under his breath that she was sure was less than complimentary before he walked to the other side of his car and got in.
    Since his car was a two-seater, Tabitha headed out on foot to rendezvous with him at her store. As she walked into the crowd on Bourbon Street, she felt something evil brush up against her psychically.
    Spinning around, she scanned the crowd, but didn't see anything.
    Still, she felt it deep inside.
    "Something wicked this way comes…" She breathed the title of her favorite Ray Bradbury book.
    And something inside told her it was far more evil than anything she had faced before.

Chapter 2

     
    Valerius came awake slowly to the sound of someone humming nearby.
    Humming?
    He blinked open his eyes expecting to find himself in his own bed in his own house. Instead, he was on a queen-size antique tester bed with an ornate wooden canopy that was padded in burgundy velvet.
    The voice he heard was coming from a rocking chair on his left. He turned his head and was floored by what he found.
    It was…
    Well, at first glance it looked like a very large woman. She had long blond hair and was wearing a short-sleeved, pink furry sweater and a pair of khaki pants. Only the "woman" had shoulders every bit as broad as Valerius did and a pronounced Adam's apple.
    She sat in the chair, flipping through the fall issue of Vogue with glossy, blood-red fingernails that could double for claws. She looked up and paused in her humming.
    "Oh! You're awake!" she said excitedly, getting up immediately and fluttering around his bed. She awkwardly grabbed what appeared to be a walkie-talkie from the nightstand and pressed the button while making sure she didn't break a nail. "Tabby, Mr. Sexy is awake."
    "Okay, Marla, thanks."
    Valerius had a faint memory of that voice, but it wasn't clear as he tried to remember what had happened to him. "Where am I?" he asked.
    "Hell" seemed the most apropos answer. But the pain in his body and the dimmed room that was a peculiar mixture of modern and antique said that not even hell would be this bad or tacky.
    "Don't move, sweetie," the unknown woman said as she continued to gesture and hover around the bed. "Tabby will be right here. She said that I wasn't to let you go anywhere at all. So don't."
    Before he could ask who Tabby was, another woman burst into the room.
    She too was tall. But unlike the first one, she was slender, almost waif-like, except that her body was well defined, as if she lifted weights. Her long auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she had a vicious scar over her left cheekbone.
    Valerius froze at the sight of the warrior he'd seen the night before. Memories flooded him. Including the one where she had stabbed him straight in the chest-which was helped by the fact that she still held a large butcher knife in her right hand.
    "You!" he accused, pushing himself to the furthest edge of the bed.
    The woman visibly cringed before she turned to the first one and urged her toward the door. "Thanks, Marla, I appreciate your watching over him."
    "Oh, anytime, hon. You just ring-a-ding if you need anything."
    "I will." She pushed the larger woman out the door and slammed it shut. "Hi," she said to Valerius.
    He stared at the knife in her hand, then looked down at the healing wound on his chest. "What? Are you back to finish me off?"
    She frowned at him. "Wha…?" Then her gaze went to the knife in her hand. "Oh, this. No, last night was a complete accident."
    Tabitha placed the knife on the dresser, then turned to face him. She had to admit that Valerius looked