Stake (Dark Midnight 2)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

This street looked just like any other in suburbia. 

Perfectly catered lawns gave way to quaint houses with neat picket fences and white lines.  Nice people lived here, the perfect houses claimed, complete with their signature two kids, a dog, and a gold fish.

This was certainly no place for monsters that went bump in the night…

But when you looked a little closer, peered a little deeper...all those lies seemed to melt away, revealing the true chaos lying underneath.

Raven had never seen so much temptation packed into one place.

Aura, danger, excitement; the place oozed it all.  Despite the neat trappings and normie façade, the truth seeped out as obvious as a blurry smear on a clean mirror. It was a loud, buzzing hub of energy—but so perfectly hidden that even the most curious normie wouldn’t have sensed anything out of the ordinary.    

Unless…they happened to be a vampire. 

Raven could see through the lie with crystal clear accuracy, as every magic-crafted spell came into focus in a blur of colored lines.   Her heightened senses allowed her to peer past the spells and shields to the real scene underneath. 

It looked like a party.

Music spilled through the walls of the house she was watching, and beat through her skin in a way her heart never again could.  

It was way too dark and exotic to have been played on the radio stations of this town.  In deep, unnerving tones, it slid beneath the masking spell to reach her ears in taunting waves. 

Even the teenagers dancing on the lawn in plain—but magically hidden—sight were much too odd to be found walking the streets in a place like this.

They glowed.  They sparkled—whatever you called it when people seemed so obviously different that there was no other way to explain it.  

Some were too tall, other too short.  Some, like her, had skin the color of ice over ivory, while others were blacker than the purest obsidian; but there was no denying what they were. 

Each and every one of them belonged to a world that converged on this mortal place like a pimple on clean skin.

The Shadowrealms; home to the paranormal, the forgotten—freaks.  Whatever you wanted to call them. 

Nothing like the mortals that called this place home, blissfully unaware of the neighbor’s unnatural secrets.

Raven knew the truth all too well; the blistering, honest truth that normies liked to ignore...

They were all real—those stories that people told under the protective cover of nightfall, maybe in front of a campfire of behind the glow of a flashlight.  Those stories about the creatures that went bump in the night and dark monsters ripped right from a child’s nightmares…

The Boogeyman had a real address—surprisingly close to the White House.  And Dracula often vacationed in the Hamptons, where the night life was just as tantalizing as the people.

The only things Raven had found held no truth in, were Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  

But, even the smartest mortals these days had a hard time believing it, no matter how obvious the truth became as these two odd worlds collided more and more—not that Raven couldn’t blame them.

She hadn’t wanted to believe it either…at least not until it was too late. 

But enough of that.  Shaking her head to clear the bad thoughts, she focused trying to pin-point the exact type of raw energy that had drawn her here in the first place.  

The party surged with the lure of too many bodies packed into one place, and was like a flaming beacon for any creature with a blood lust.

Slather this place in honey, slap a bow on it and call it a predator’s paradise, she thought as she surveyed the plain mortal street, where magic energy practically sizzled through the walls. 

But it wasn’t the potential feeding that had lured her here, far from her hidey hole under the Havell bridge in the nearby town.

Something big was happening. 

The whole street was a magical smoothie, but there was one thread—one dark twisted thread of blackness that had led her to it like a fish on a hook.

She leaned close, spreading out over the branches of the tree she crouched in, and let her senses drip and sample each different aura.

Laughter and mindless chatter battled for supremacy in her sensitive ears and without meaning too she caught bits of scattered conversations:

  “..the meeting.”

 “…called us here for a reason.”

“Prophecy…”

The what?

Each bit adding to a confusing puzzle that didn’t seem to make any sense.  Furrowing her brow, Raven listened harder, straining against the magic that fought to hide everything.

 “…said to keep an eye out for the vampire.”

Wait. 

Her head snapped in the voice’s direction and she caught sight of a figure leaning against a car in the driveway.

 That presence didn’t belong.

 Even from her position nearly twenty feet or more away, Raven saw his face as clearly as if he’d been standing under a spotlight; curling brown hair, and brown eyes that were far too alert. 

 Even at a gathering for abnormal creatures, he wasn’t like the others.

Cautiously, she sensed his aura and the truth blared through her mind like an alarm.   

Shadow Hunter! 

She tensed, and spread out along the sturdy branch she crouched on to widen her stance. 

If one shadow hunter was here, there had to be more, and the pompous ‘authorities’ didn’t take too kindly to rogues, like her.

She didn’t like drawing attention to herself, especially not so close to a normie suburban hive—but she would if she had to. 

 A Shadow Hunter wouldn’t take her alive without a fight, and if she had to mentally scar a few mortals in the process, then so be it. 

But he didn’t glance her way, and his next words eased her nerves somewhat.

 “Must be inside…”

So it wasn’t her he was after, then.  With a careful glance at the boy, she allowed her muscles to relax and went back to her tight crouch on the tree branch.  It barely wavered under her weight. 

Being dead also meant being weightless, after all.

  Options, options, she thought, taking in the scene with a sigh.  

She couldn’t stay for long—not with the immortal authorities on the prowl.  

Besides, it wasn’t like she came here to feed. 

  Still…

  She was curious, and that itch was just as impatient to be satisfied as any hunger. 

Something pulled at her—practically called her name in a luring whisper. 

Power.  Raw demon energy that encased this place like saran wrap…

Way to strong to ignore. 

Something big was definitely going down.  

Very big if shadowhunter had come to stake it out…

Curiosity was enough to draw Raven to the surface, at least for a little while.

But then, there was always that infamous saying about curiosity and the cat…