A VAMPIRE FOR CHRISTMAS.

by Sedonia Guillone.

Chapter One.

New York, December 23

"If you want to see your sister alive, you'll bring me St. Cyr's head." Noiret took a drag on his cigarette, his smug gaze never leaving Jesse's face. The vampire exhaled, grinning through the cloud of smoke. "On a silver platter would be nice." He continued watching Jesse, eyes glittering and took a sip of dark crimson blood from the winegla.s.s before him. Around him, the flashing lights of his dance club reflected off his pale skin and hair.

Jesse stared at him, hatred simmering in his very being. G.o.d only knew what the f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d had done to Hannah. Through the psychic link Jesse had with his sister, she constantly rea.s.sured him that Noiret hadn't touched her, but Jesse knew Noiret was toying with both of them, the typical cat and mouse game the s.a.d.i.s.tic brand of vampires liked to play when manipulating their victims.

Hannah was strong, with the iron physical strength all immortals possessed, but she wasn't strong enough to get away from a pod of vampires alone.

In the background, the sinuous, driving beat of dance music vibrated through his chest, aggravating his already pounding heart. "Why me, Noiret? There are scores of vampire slayers out there. I haven't slain for centuries." Not since a Coeur Eternel, vampires whose heart still beat and only fed in the act of mercy killing, humanely put Sondra out of her misery during the American Revolution.

The beautiful woman he'd loved with his heart and soul was bleeding slowly and painfully to death when the CE found her. Instead, her last moments of life were pleasurable and she was able to pa.s.s on without all the agony that accompanied a bayonet wound in the gut. Jesse had seen the dark figure hulking over Sondra's dying form and had raised his stake with both hands about to plunge it into the vampire's back, right where the heart was. However, Sondra's sighs of pleasure and the blissful expression that replaced her agony had caused Jesse to freeze. In that moment, when he'd understood the mercy the CE had imparted to Sondra, he'd never touched another vampire, Coeur Eternel, eternal heart, or Sans Ame, without a soul. Not with the intent to murder, anyway.

"The answer is simple, Harmon." Noiret set down his gla.s.s and took another leisurely puff on his cigarette. "Because you were once the best."

Jesse gritted his teeth. Noiret did not possess one redeeming quality, something even the worst of vampires had. This f.u.c.ker came the closest to pure evil Jesse had ever met. And he'd met some bad ones, as was inevitable when you were an immortal who'd inhabited this G.o.dforsaken planet since theRoman Empire .

A lock of Noiret's platinum hair came loose from its tie. The woman fawning over him from behind his chair reached forward with a long red fingernail and pushed it back for him. Noiret grasped her hand and sc.r.a.ped one fang across her palm. She cried out and tried to yank her hand back, but Noiret held her wrist hard and swiped his tongue across the broken skin. He spent a moment feasting on the cut and finally looked back up at Jesse, his pupils dilated and glowing with bloodl.u.s.t. Jesse was glad not to have the heightened senses of a vampire, for he would have had to smell the scent of blood that no doubt filled the s.p.a.ce around Noiret's corner table. Being empathic was bad enough most of the time. The woman's pain and distress already echoed through him. She'd thought getting involved with Noiret would be o.r.g.a.s.mic and life-enhancing. She was about to learn otherwise, the poor creature.

"Why do you want St. Cyr dead?" Jesse didn't know St. Cyr and didn't care to. He also hated taking this time for questions while Hannah was in Noiret's clutches, but the more he knew about the situation, the better chance he had of, perhaps, finding Noiret's weak spots. Every vampire, like every human and every immortal, had at least one. If he was going to get Hannah away from Noiret, he needed all the help he could get.

Noiret's eyes narrowed, the glow of l.u.s.t in the fathomless irises intensifying. "Not that it's any of your f.u.c.king business, but he once killed someone very special to me. Murdered her. Drank every drop of her blood, until she was gone." The vampire stared at him as if to drive his pa.s.sionate hatred straight into Jesse's soul.

Vengeance.Great . Hannah's life was in Noiret's filthy hands because of a vendetta. Vampire vendettas were always hideous.

Jesse studied Noiret's expression another moment before his empathic senses kicked in.

Something was off here. Vampires never hired out for vengeance killings, preferring to do the work themselves. Jesse knew he risked Noiret's wrath by asking the question hovering on his lips, but his intuition told him the information could be valuable. He crossed his arms in front of him.

His body was warm in its black leather jacket, but he didn't care. He wasn't going to be in this h.e.l.lhole of a club much longer. He was going to be out hunting down St. Cyr. "Why not kill him yourself?"

A frisson of anger slithered through Noiret's eyes, the irises returned to their ice blue color. His unshaven upper lip curled. "You think to humiliate me, Harmon. ButI'm the one holding your sister'

s lush body for myself."

Jesse's hands curled into fists. He wanted nothing more than to drive the knife in his belt through the vile creature's heart, but to even try was suicide. And would cost Hannah her life.

"If you must know, I want him humiliated. If I or another vampire were to kill him, it's a fair fight.

However, if he were to die at the hands of an immortal, well, there's no honor inthat ."

Jesse watched Noiret's face, waiting for the reverberations from the vampire's being to give him the truth of Noiret's essence. Even the soulless ones could be read.

For several moments, nothing happened. Jesse's chest tightened for fear that his empathy was failing him. But no. In the next moment, the curls of heat penetrated his mind. The knowledge rose. He struggled to keep a straight face.

Noiret feared St. Cyr.

Hmm ...

Jesse sighed, realizing it didn't matter. Fear or not, Hannah was Noiret's prisoner. Jesse's beautiful sister was all he had left in the world. Immortals were scattered across the globe. They weren't clannish by nature like vamps. Immortals mistrusted each other and remained isolated.

They weren't like the immortals portrayed in that popular film in the sense they had to kill each other off. It was more like the reality that immortality was d.a.m.ned painful and immortals couldn't bear the sight of one another, agonizing reminders of their never ending fate. Miraculously,Hannah was different. She adored her brother. It was mutual. They cherished each other, kept each other company. Losing her would leave him completely alone for eternity. Not to mention that her death at Noiret's hands would make medieval torture a desirable alternative.

"Where will I find St. Cyr?"

Noiret grinned, his eyes lighting with his obvious hunger for St. Cyr's head. "Boston.Beacon Hill ."

"How will I know him?"

"Tall, blond, with a nice deep scar on one cheek. A gift from me a few hundred years ago."

Strange. Vampires didn't scar. At least not the Sans Ame. Christ! Was St. Cyr a Coeur Eternel?

d.a.m.nit, the very kind he'd especially sworn never to kill. He thought of Hannah, of what she could suffer at Noiret's hands. And fangs. Resolve pounded through him. f.u.c.k it. For Hannah, he'd kill anyone. He nodded.

"I want him by New Year's, Harmon. Or ... well ... you know."

Jesse's blood chilled. "f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he muttered.

Noiret's grin deepened. "Yes, I am, aren't I?"

Before Jesse lost it completely, he turned. The sooner he left this club, the better.

"Oh, Harmon."

Jesse stopped, gritted his teeth again. But he didn't turn around.

Noiret chuckled. "Merry Christmas."

Chapter Two.

Boston, December 24

Christian smelled death as soon as he entered his patient's hospital room. The heart of the man in the bed still beat, but the asphyxia he'd suffered in his suicide attempt had killed his brain.

A nurse entered the room behind Christian, the soft whoosh of her scrubs crashing in his ears.

After nearly a thousand years of life, he'd never quite gotten used to the heightened senses of a vampire. Perhaps that came with wishing you could get your soul back.

The craving to feed rose from deep within his belly. He glanced at the nurse, a Coeur Eternel named Bettina, who'd been placed in Ma.s.s General by Darelle Mimieux, the priestess of the CE's sect headquartered inParis .

Bettina nodded to him, silently giving him the go ahead. Her own desire to feed showed in the soft glow in her eyes, but the CE's warned against conspicuous behavior. Two of them in one hospital room, feeding, could attract too much attention should someone walk in unexpectedly. "Call me if you need a.s.sistance, Dr. Cullen," she said, using his a.s.sumed name, the name he'd adopted back in medical school.

"Thank you, Bettina." She nodded and slipped from the room, leaving him to feed.

Even though Christian wasn't completely one of them, the CE's had shown only sympathy to his plight and allotted him a fair share of mercy feedings. Darelle had warned him that mercy feedings would not get him his soul back as he wished, but she understood that his conscience ached and tried to help him. She'd shown great forgiveness to Christian St. Cyr, whose mixed ancestry of Coeur Eternel and Sans Ame had caused him to feed for pleasure so often that the repentant side of his being was tormented nearly beyond repair. Not even the absence of a heart beating in his chest had dampened their compa.s.sion for and acceptance of him.

With the door safely closed, Christian turned to the dying man. He reached out, pushing back a lock of the young man's blond hair. He'd been handsome and Christian wondered what had made him so unhappy as to want to end his own life. This wasn't the first botched suicide attempt that Christian had needed to put to rest, but the fact that a living being had felt such depth of despair rocked Christian deep inside, as if it were the first.

Even though the young man's brain was already dead, the CE's felt that a mercy killing for such a soul could still help them. The soul was bigger than the body, they said, a reality Christian already knew. Dying from an act of compa.s.sion could still help the soul when it took its next embodiment, hopefully one that would find a better life and more happiness than the last.

The scent of blood moving through the man's veins stirred Christian's hunger again. The desire churned, radiating through his entire body, bringing with it a s.e.xual rush he needed to satisfy. He leaned over, driven by the pale supple flesh of the man's throat, the tiny pulse moving underneath, weak yet throbbing with just enough life to entice him.

Christian tenderly swiped his tongue across the spot he was to bite. The drag of his taste buds across the sweet flesh caused his fangs to ache. Curling back his lips, he pushed, piercing the flesh with as little force as possible.

The man made no sound, but inside, where his soul was trapped, Christian could almost hear the sigh of pleasure, the o.r.g.a.s.mic tightening throughout his body that he himself had experienced centuries ago under his sire's fangs.

Slipping his fangs out, Christian closed his lips over the puncture marks and suckled, drawing the coppery liquid into his mouth. It pooled deliciously on his tongue and slipped down his throat, the muscle contracting with each swallow.

Sip by sip, he drank, until the sound of the man's beating heart ceased and Christian felt him at peace. Taking a deep breath, Christian stood up, licking the residue of blood off his lips. He pulled a tissue out of the box on the bedside table and wiped his mouth, stuffing the tissue into the pocket of his white coat.

Leaving the room he pa.s.sed the nurses' station and nodded to Bettina. She nodded back, the signal that she would take the necessary steps to ensure that the man's pa.s.sing did not look at all suspicious. The CE's understood all too well that even though the suffering they eased was appreciated by those who were suffering, the rest of the world wouldn't see it that way and their existence would be threatened.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. His shift was over. He was free to go home. Heaviness settled over him as it did each night. What was he going home to? An empty brownstone whose loneliness echoed off the hardwood floors and white walls? The Christmas tree blinking multi-colored lights in the corner of the vast living room only reminded him that he was alone. Yet, he could never resist putting one up every year. Hope, perhaps.

Christian changed out of his doctor's coat and bundled up to go outside. It was two in themorning and the trains weren't running at this hour, so he chose to walk the distance from Ma.s.s General toBeacon Hill where he lived.

What the h.e.l.l. What else did he have to do? When one was alone for eternity, a solitary walk on a winter's night before Christmas Eve could do a body good. Even if the body didn't have a soul.

Alone on the empty street corner, Jesse rubbed his gloved hands together, then chafed them up his arms, stomping around to keep warm. One more s.h.i.tty thing about being immortal. Unlike vamps whose sense of heat and cold was muted, immortals felt the changes of temperature almost like any normal human. He should have dressed for the season, but he'd been in too big a rush to concern himself with warmth.

His breath puffed into the winter air, illumined by the streetlamp. He checked his watch. Almost three in the morning. Where the h.e.l.l was St. Cyr? According to the reconnaissance Jesse had done since getting toBoston , the vampire was working as a physician in Ma.s.s General and finished his shift at two a.m.

He double-checked his information, scribbled on a piece of paper. Yeah, this was the right address, a high-end neighborhood, one of the oldest and fanciest inBoston , with beautiful brownstone houses in quiet rows. A sw.a.n.ky neighborhood such as this one befitted a vampire who'd had G.o.d knows how many centuries to gather wealth. So why was St. Cyr working as an M.D.? Certainly not for the cash.

Jesse shook himself. It did no good to speculate about St. Cyr. Doing so only made him more ... human, for lack of a better word. Harder to kill that way. Even in Jesse's heyday as an eager vampire slayer, he'd had to not think of the personal lives of his targets, even those of the vilest characters. Maybe that characteristic of his had pointed to the fact that all along he hadn't really had the heart of a killer.

That didn't matter now. Heart or no heart, Hannah's life was in his hands.

The worst part was he couldn't possibly know if this plan would work. He had to be cautious.

Vampires were by nature intelligent and suspicious. They also had a high degree of empathic ability. Granted it was limited to the ones with whom they'd established a link through feeding, not free-for-all like Jesse's, but the ability was still there.

Feeling restless, Jesse went halfway down the block, making sure the hit he'd hired was all set.

The guy in the car waved to him. Jesse signaled for him to wait a bit longer. He could only pray his plan worked. As soon as he saw St. Cyr, he'd signal to the driver of the car, the guy would pa.s.s, put a couple of bullets into Jesse, and when St. Cyr went to a.s.sist him, Jesse would pull his knife out and plunge it into St. Cyr's chest. It wasn't a stake, but an immortal's slaying knife, if placed in just the right spot, would serve to incapacitate the vampire enough to let Jesse finish him off and get his head. Jesse couldn't help feeling his plan was half-a.s.sed, but he didn't have the luxury of time.

The sound of footsteps caused him to turn. Someone was coming down the sidewalk. Jesse made his way back up to the spot where he'd been waiting and pretended to be a pa.s.serby. He glanced at the figure drawing closer. Tall. Broad-shouldered. So far fitting the description. A little closer and Jesse caught the glint of golden hair, soft and full, like a lion's mane, under the street lamp. The kind of hair he'd always found s.e.xy ...

A little closer and the man's face came into view. There it was, the gash-like scar on the cheek.

Noiret's "gift." Jesse was face to face with his quarry.

St. Cyr. Jesse's gaze connected with the vampire's. He couldn't see the color of St. Cyr's eyes in the dim lamplight, but he noticed their fathomless depth of emotion. He gave the signal to his hired hit before he lost his nerve.

The engine, which had been idling, gunned to life and pealed away from the curb. Jesse kept walking as the tires squealed past him and the shots rang out, pumping lead into his body.

It had been centuries since he'd had bullets pound through his flesh and he was unprepared for the impact. His body spun out of control as the bullets sprayed his body, embedding themselves deep inside him. The pain was unlike any he'd ever known.

The last thing he felt was the hard strike of his buckled knees. .h.i.tting the pavement. He keeled over, utterly powerless. Then the world went black.

Chapter Three.

Christian spun around, the sound of screeching tires and the acrid smell of gunpowder a.s.saulting his senses. The echoes of the shots reverberated through the freezing still air, punctuated by a dog's barking and lights going on in windows facing the street.

He bounded to the fallen man, who, just a moment before, had caught Christian's eye with his Roman good looks.

Christian knelt down and peered into the man's face. Surprisingly, the dark eyes were still open, though mostly the whites showed, the irises rolled back. His lips were parted, breath panting. By all accounts, he should be dead. No one survived such a shower of lead.

The man let out a couple of choked coughs. His eyelids closed, his breath rasped. Strong as he was to still be at all alive, he was certainly dying.

A siren rang in the distance. Christian looked around. Lights in apartment windows were flicking on and in another moment, the street would no longer be quiet. He needed to move quickly.

Sliding his gloved hands under the man's body, Christian lifted him up carefully, turned and sprang, gliding, weightless, to the roof of his building. Here, he could have privacy to put the man out of his misery.

Christian set the dying man gently onto his back on the graveled roof. He pulled off his gloves, his heightened sight distinguishing the dark stains of crimson on the sleeves of his coat. He put his fingertips to the pulse on the man's neck. The tiny beat throbbed slowly, at the same sluggish rate as the pulse of the man in the hospital earlier. He sensed this man's life ebbing away.

The siren drew closer, coming to a stop by the spot where the shooting had been. Christian ignored it, giving his complete attention to the man lying before him. The metallic scent of blood curled into his nostrils, teasing, rousing his hunger even though he'd just fed. He pulled open the man's coat and gently tugged down the turtleneck collar of his black shirt.