Moonlight, The Next Chapter: Darkness

Chapter 11

Searching

Intro Song: Searching, The Coasters

"So, what do you think?"

"About what?" Ryder England looked quizzically at his fellow geek over the rim of the glass of blood he was slurping. The two were taking what they would defend as a well-deserved break from their endless on-line sleuthing.

"About the fact that we can't come up with a single clue about where this McGowan guy went or what happened to him! Jeez, Ryder, what did you think I was talking about, who won the Miss America pageant?!" Logan Griffen frowned, his bushy thatch of curly brown hair even more disheveled than usual after many frustrating hours spent in front of the computer screen.

Since Josef Kostan had put Griffen on a retainer to help with various ongoing investigations, he'd been venturing out of his basement lair more often, opting for the company of England and the state-of-the-art equipment Kostan maintained, over his more primitive digs.

Ryder shrugged. "Lots of people disappear. Lots of vamps too," he added cynically.

"But how many disappear so completely that you can't find them when you put your mind to it? Nobody," Logan insisted. "Dude's dead, Ryder. Bet his body's out in the desert somewhere with the vultures picking at it." He took a drink of blood to emphasize his point.

"Nice image."

Now it was Griffen's turn to shrug. "I calls 'em like I sees 'em. Josef doesn't want to hear it and I'm not fond of him breathing down my neck, trying to find something that doesn't exist. I just think we could be spending our time doing something more productive. "

"Like…?"

"I dunno – something other than looking for a dead guy?"

"Alleged dead guy," Ryder quipped with a toothy grin. "Didn't you hear that jackass P.I. Josef hired? I almost lost it when he said that - thought for a minute that Josef was going to drain him! Can you imagine Mick saying something like that?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Look, you may be right about McGowan. But I know Josef. He won't rest until he has his revenge on the guy for what he did to Mick – even if it means picking over that guy's bones with the damn vultures. So, if you're sure the guy's dead, you'd better- "

"Come up with a body," Logan filled in gloomily.

"Yup."

Beth's hand drifted across the bed, coming to rest on the pillow next to her.

"Mick?"

She came more fully awake, her eyes flying open as she sat up with a start. The bedroom was dark and quiet...and she was alone. She peered groggily at the clock on the nightstand and groaned. Five A.M. It had been after two when she had drifted off in Mick's arms. No wonder she could barely open her eyes.

"Crap," she muttered. One of the problems with sleeping with a vampire lover was that he didn't – sleep, that is. She wasn't used to an empty bed when she awakened. And I definitely don't like it.

Grabbing the t-shirt Mick had flung carelessly on the floor when they made their way to the bedroom, she pulled it on over her naked body. Its soft cotton had retained his unique scent and she pulled the hem up to her face and inhaled. How was it that just his smell was enough to cause butterflies in her stomach?

"You've got it bad," Beth told her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror that concealed a huge master closet. Smiling, she dropped the cloth and went searching. She found Mick in his office, studying something on the computer screen intently. When she walked in, he looked up almost guiltily and shut the monitor down. Her curiosity was immediately aroused. "Hey, what's up?"

Mick swiveled in his chair as she walked around the desk to him. Smiling, he looked her up and down, his eyes glittering with their minute threads of silver. "Don't you already have one of my shirts?" He was referring to the brown-stripe, button-down shirt he'd dressed her in the night she'd come on to him after ingesting powdered vampire blood.

He'd been forced to douse her in the shower, clothes and all, to cool her ardor, and her insistence that he turn her. His emergency actions had necessitated dressing her in his shirt while her clothing dried. Since coming to stay with him, that article of clothing had taken on a new life as a frequent nightshirt.

Not that he minded.

Seeing her in it reminded him of that crazy night. How she'd kept pressing herself on him, begging to be turned, refusing to cover up when he'd stripped off her wet clothes, How he'd tried - and failed – to keep himself from looking at her beautiful body, imagining himself stroking her...

"Mick?" Beth slid onto his lap, bringing him back to the present with a start - and a raging hard-on.

"What? Sorry, guess I was daydreaming." Oh boy was I...

"About what?" Beth shifted her weight on his lap, glancing meaningfully at the bulge in his jeans. "Or maybe, I should ask, about whom?" She smiled mischievously up at him.

Mick ignored the teasing and took her hand to kiss the palm, trying his best to distract her. The last thing he wanted right now was to have to explain to Beth what he was searching for. "I think you can guess. Were you looking for me?"

It worked.

"I woke up and you were gone," she said plaintively.

"I'm sorry, Beth." Mick pulled her to him and kissed the tip of her nose. "One of the hazards of sleeping with vampires is that we don't. Sleep in a bed, that is." he added, unknowingly echoing her thoughts in the bedroom. "I tried not to wake you when I got up. You seemed pretty...exhausted," he quipped wickedly.

"Very funny," Beth retorted, shaking her head back to get the hair out of her eyes. "I don't know about exhausted, but I certainly was relaxed."

Mick rubbed his hand up and down her spine, feeling the fragile bones shift under his fingertips. "I like your nightgown," he whispered into her ear.

"Thank you, I do too. It has a certain..."

"Cachet?" he finished hopefully.

"Yeah, that's the word I was looking for," Beth said with a laugh. Never one who could be sidetracked for long, she returned to the topic of Mick's computer research. "So, working on anything interesting?" She nodded toward the now-dark screen.

With a sigh, he released her. Distracting Beth was a fool's errand. "No, I was just looking at some of the stuff Ryder and Logan sent me. Silver purchases, stolen ordinance - you know, fun stuff." He laughed cynically.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don't think so. If there were anything to follow up on, those two guys would find it. There's just a lot to review and they've been slogging through it all. I've got them trying to look forward and backward at the same time, because if there is some organized terrorist group out there, who knows how long they've been planning things. I-"

Mick stopped when he caught sight of the look on Beth's face.

Hearing him talk about these things was causing her anxiety to bubble back up to the surface, choking her. This nameless, faceless threat to vampires must still be out there. She could feel it in her bones...in her heart...

"Beth, it's going to be okay. I promise you."

"You don't know that! Please don't make promises you can't keep."

"It will be okay," he insisted. "The reason Logan and Ryder haven't found anything is because there's nothing to find."

"You really believe that? I just have a terrible feeling that they're still out there. Waiting." She nodded toward the tall windows behind his desk. With the computer monitor off, the only illumination came from the moonlight streaming in through those windows, bathing Beth in a cold, white light. Hope and fear warred for a place on her face.

"I understand why you feel that way after what you've been through. But I do believe it will be okay. I just have to deal with Josef's paranoia that keeps feeding this."

"Well that - and he wants revenge for what happened to you. He wants that bastard." Beth thought back to a dark night in Temecula and the way Josef's eyes had glittered dangerously as he'd talked about how he would cope if Mick were to die from his injuries. "If I can't live for love... I'll live for revenge."

"Yeah, well, he needs to get in line on that one because I have first dibs on the guy."

"I want to get in line too," Beth said in a small, but determined, voice.

He looked down at her, his eyes inscrutable. "I'm afraid Josef and I have corrupted you."

Beth tilted her face up toward the tall vampire. "You watched me all those years, and you don't know how vindictive I can be?" Her tone was teasing.

"I don't want to think about it."

Taking the comment as a joke, Beth laughed and nestled her cheek against his bare chest.

She didn't see the expression of sorrow that crossed his features. What am I doing to you, Beth? What are we all doing to you? He tightened his grip around her and tucked his chin on her hair, inhaling her scent. Finally, he stirred at the feel of her yawning against his chest. "You should be asleep. Don't you have lunch with your friends today?"

"Uh-hmm," she murmured, sliding her hand down between his belt and abdomen.

"That doesn't feel like sleeping."

"Nope, it sure doesn't!" Beth smiled delightedly up at him. "It feels more like you're happy to see me..."

"I was thinking about my shirts," he said with a grin. Well, you in them, that is...

"I'm not keeping this one." Beth indicated the old v-neck shirt with a wave of her hand. "Although," she added thoughtfully, glancing up at her lover from under her eyelashes, "it is awfully soft..."

"Oh no you don't - I've been breaking this shirt in for years!" Too fast for human eyes to follow, he had the shirt off over her head and safely tucked behind him.

"Hey, it's cold!" she protested.

"And you're naked," Mick leered. He relented when he felt her begin to shiver, running his hands up and down her arms to warm her. "Come on, I'll loan it to you while I take you back to bed." Standing her on her feet, he sprang up and pulled the shirt back down over her head as if she were a small child, before guiding her out of the room.

Reaching the stairs, Mick pushed Beth gently in front of him. "Hey... why don't you go on up and get comfortable? I'll bring us up a couple of drinks as soon as I shut everything off." He patted her on the rear for emphasis, enjoying her wiggle as she scooted up the staircase.

Hungrily, he watched her move up the stairs, fascinated by her pale skin, rounded rear, the delicate arch across the bottom of her foot... He shook his head at himself. You've got it bad. Well, who wouldn't? Beth was beautiful, smart, independent, loving - and she had watched over him, guarding him fiercely when he was injured. He'd have died without her. There had to be a way to spend the rest of their lives together. As humans, not in this complicated hybrid relationship. There has to be a way! I did it once.

As she disappeared at the head of the stairs, Mick pivoted and headed back into the office to check his desk. Scooping up a neatly organized pile of folders, he deposited them in his upright file cabinet, intending to sort them out later. He started to stack the books scattered on his desktop, then stopped himself.

What the hell are you doing?

Beth was upstairs. A human, loving woman, waiting for him in bed - and he was doing housework. Sometimes his OCD tendencies were a real pain. With a sigh, he dropped the books back on the desk and headed for the kitchen to make drinks to take to his bedroom. Our bedroom, he amended as he turned out the light.

Forgotten behind him, the top sheet on a stack of paper lodged in the printer by the desk was illuminated in the moonlight, the title visible in blood-red ink. The History and Lore of Vampires.

End Song: Vampire Blues, Neil Young