The Mortal Touch Read online

  The Mortal Touch (Georgia Jackson 1) by Naomi Clark

  Published by Naomi Clark

  www. http://naomiclarkwrites.blogspot.com/

  © 2021 Naomi Clark

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For queries and help, contact:

  [email protected]

  Cover by Ravenborn Book Cover Designs

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  The Mortal Touch | Naomi Clark | Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Thank you!

  More Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance from Naomi!

  About the Author

  Further Reading: Hand of Fate

  Thanks to Nero and Olivia for reading the first draft and helping me make Georgia and Ridderport come to life.

  Thanks also to Paula, Margaret, and Olivia again for helping with the blurb. Love you all x

  The Mortal Touch

  Naomi Clark

  Chapter One

  There are three sensations I will never forget. The touch of my lover’s lips on mine. The pain of a wooden stake puncturing my flesh. And the reek of spilled vampire blood.

  When I stepped out of the Ridderport Maritime Museum that sticky summer evening, I caught the scent immediately. It was vibrantly ugly, hitting me like a physical assault, and it triggered a tense, angry reaction in me. I stiffened, one hand still on the museum door, the other frozen in the act of locking it. My spine prickled, countless memories of bloody fights, dark nights, and punctured skin crashing over me. I dropped the keys, reaching to my hip for a gun I hadn’t carried for years.

  Cursing, I knelt to retrieve the keys, scanning the street as I did. Humid twilight hung heavily over the city, and this quaint old quarter of Ridderport didn’t hold much to lure people in. The cobbled grey streets were empty, nearby stores already closed for the night. Most people would be down on the beach, soaking up the dying sunlight or cooling off in the sea. If you were going to stab someone – human or vampire – the Historic Quarter was probably the best place to do it.

  Not that I thought about these things. Much. These days.

  I stood and locked the museum doors, heart in my throat. The blood was freshly spilled, that much I was certain of, and that meant the vampire was nearby. The Historic Quarter was a maze of twisting, narrow alleys, easy to get lost in if you didn’t know the city. But I did know it.

  Fuck. I was going to have to check it out.

  I dropped the museum keys into my bag and dug around for the pocketknife I kept in there. It was a pathetic thing, barely two inches long and just about sharp enough to pare an apple, but it was better than nothing. I’d given up bounty hunting seven years ago. I’d never given up carrying weapons, even useless ones. Next, I dug out a hair tie and pulled my long, dark hair back into a tight, severe ponytail. Never have loose hair in a fight. It’s asking for trouble.

  A crow cawed somewhere overhead and I looked up to see him peering at me from on top of a streetlight, his glossy black body almost lost in the shadows. I pressed a finger to my lip to hush him and inhaled deeply. The blood scent hit me again, coppery and tainted. I set off down the museum steps and took the first right turn, down an alley way that lead to the city’s market square. It was a long, dark passageway, overshadowed by tall buildings on either side. The gray stone walls were tagged with graffiti, and the smell of saltwater and fresh fish was embedded into the concrete.

  It was not a passage to walk after dark. There were no streetlights down here and more than one Ridderport resident had been mugged or assaulted by a junkie or a dealer over the years. I wasn’t worried about that. I’d never needed to be. I was hard to hurt, for humans. Of course, it wasn’t just humans lurking in Ridderport’s shadowy corners.

  It didn’t take me long to find the vampire. And I realized immediately he wasn’t going to be hurting me tonight.

  He was on his knees, forehead pressed to the mossy wall, arms wrapped around his middle. The wall and pavement around him were splattered with blood, violent, crimson streaks of it, as if someone had hurled a bucket of paint there. His slender body shook as he dry-heaved and moaned piteously, sounding like a dying animal. Now I was closer, the stench of the blood was nastier, more malignant than I’d first noticed. Vampire blood always smelled bad to me, but this...this smelt...diseased.

  I suddenly felt incredibly awkward. He was completely oblivious to me, puking blood and looking as pathetic as I’d ever seen an immortal look. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone, at least not in the next ten minutes, I’d bet. Did I walk away, or did I unbury the instincts I’d packed away years ago and try to kill him before he recovered?

  He hissed, drawing in a ragged breath that sounded painful, and turned his head to look at me. I stepped back, alarmed. His face was a crimson mask, his eyes burning like hot coals, and his skin was stretched and thin, as if his skull might explode any second. I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my time. This was right up there.

  “Help me,” he said. His voice was a hoarse whisper and he spat blood and phlegm with each word. I couldn’t help recoiling. He reached out for me with one trembling hand, looking like he barely had the strength to lift his arm. “Help me.”

  I took another step back, lips dry. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, squeezing my knife handle. I couldn’t help him. I knew that. But I was transfixed, rooted to the spot by his suffering. I’d never seen a vampire look like this, shriveled up and withering away in front of my eyes. It was horrifically compelling.

  “It burns,” he said, dropping his arm. He slowly slid to the ground, curling in on himself like a slug in salt. “It burns so bad...Kill me...Please kill me...”

  He shrieked and another gush of blood left his mouth, thick now with sickly, pinkish lumps of stomach lining. I gagged at the vile smell, scrambling desperately for something to do. Before I could decide, the sound of fast-approaching footsteps had me back on guard. I tore myself away from the dying vampire to see another one racing toward us.

  A man, with long, lank hair and grungy clothes. He looked, and felt, young, and my immediate impression was that he looked more like a smack addict than a vampire. He hurled himself to the ground beside the first vampire, skidding on his knees to his fellow’s side.

  “Beckett! Beckett!” He grabbed at Beckett’s arm, desperation making his voice crack. “Goddammit, what did you do to him?” He turned blood-red eyes on me, a sign of waning control that made me step back, knife raised.

  “Hey, he was like this when I got here,” I snapped. “I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with him.”

  The kid snarled at me, baring
fangs, but then Beckett shrieked in pain, twisting out of the kid’s grip and slumping to the floor. He curled in on himself, fetal position, bashing his head off the concrete.

  “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop...”

  His piteous cries tugged at my heart despite all my natural instincts. I’d killed plenty of vampires, sure. But I’d never made them suffer. “Do something,” I said to the kid.

  He gave me a bleak look and tried to get Beckett to his feet, murmuring soft and low to him the whole time.

  “We’ll get you to Mr. Cold,” he said, one hand on Beckett’s chest, the other round his shaking shoulders. “He’ll know what to do, he always –”

  Beckett ripped free of his grip and lunged at me, screaming bloody murder. Instinct and training kicked in and I kicked out, booting him hard in the chest. He recoiled, then came at me again, eyes empty and wild. I thrust out with the knife, a fraction of a second faster than him. Sometimes that fraction was all you had, and sometimes it was all you needed.

  The pocketknife wasn’t designed for vampire slaying, true, but with my unnatural strength behind it, I was still able to drive the blade through his chest. I couldn’t possibly have hit his heart, but he collapsed as if I had, convulsing and gagging at my feet.

  Heart racing, I waited, ready to strike again if he did, but it only took a second to realize he was done. He gave one last, shuddering gasp, and died, as surely as if I’d take his head off.

  Both the kid and I gaped, shock fizzing in the air between us. I’d seen vampires die a lot of ways, but never like this. Not even close.

  “What the fuck?” I started.

  The kid turned on me. “You bitch!”

  He leapt. I dodged. He smashed into the wall, bounced off and came at me again, howling in grief and rage. With my only weapon jammed in Beckett’s chest, I had no choice but to drop to the ground, letting the kid shoot past me. I scrambled to Becket’s side and yanked the knife free, then whirled around. My attacker lunged as I did, and I dragged the blade across his cheek at the same time he sliced his nails across mine.

  Actually being hit seemed to stun him. He rocked back on his heels, crouching a foot away from me. His dark eyes were lit with pain, and I held the knife up defensively, ready for him to come again.

  But he didn’t. He spoke, slowly and calmly, as if I was the lunatic here. “I’m going to stand up,” he said. “I’m going to take Beckett, and I’m going to leave. If you try to follow us –”

  “Go,” I said. My thighs were already aching from my own crouched position, and I really didn’t want to lose my balance in front of him. Shit, I was out of shape. “I didn’t do this.”

  I don’t know why it mattered to me that he knew. Maybe it was the raw sorrow in his eyes. I understood that, the utter misery of knowing a loved one was beyond your help. It was the shittiest feeling in the world.

  The kid didn’t answer. He stood, slowly, and slid round me to Beckett’s body. Only when he was walking back down the alley with Beckett cradled in his arms did I dare stand. I winced, my muscles cramping. Even that brief fight had taken it out of me. I suddenly felt very tired and very human, two things witnessing death was bound to make me feel.

  I watched until the kid had vanished into the darkness, until I couldn’t sense him anymore, and then I let my guard down. I slumped against the wall, staring at the sticky puddle of puke and blood Beckett had left behind. More disturbed than I cared to admit, I straightened up and walked away.

  As I left the alley and walked past the museum, the crow found me. He’d been waiting on the archway over the doors, perched between the two stone sea serpents coiled there. He cawed a greeting, swooping down to land on my shoulder, where he began grooming my hair, pulling dark locks free of the ponytail.

  “Elijah,” I muttered, the old, familiar ache settling over my heart. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  Chapter Two

  I sat on the beach with a cone of triple-cooked chips smothered in chili mayo and told myself I was I was retired. Dead vampires weren’t my problem.

  The summer sunset splashed across sea and sky in an extravagant blaze. Hot pink and cerulean blue dazzled the eye. Kids splashed in and out of the retreating tide, shrieking joyfully. Sun worshippers sprawled on the sand, soaking up the fading rays of light, knowing days like this were the exception, not the rule. Ridderport was not known for its sultry summer nights.

  I normally loved the ocean whether it was sunny or stormy, but this evening I wouldn’t have noticed either way. My mind was still in the dirty, narrow alley, watching a vampire die in a way I’d never seen before. Up until seven years ago, making vampires die had been my job. I was uniquely qualified for it, and exceptionally good at it.

  There weren’t that many ways to do it. Fire, immersion in saltwater, and beheading were pretty much it. You could hurt a vampire with bullets and blades, but to really, completely kill one, those three methods were the only guarantees. At least, so I always I thought.

  So what had killed Beckett?

  “I’m retired,” I told the sunset.

  It had to be sorcery of some kind. I was no magic-user, but I’d brushed up against it enough times in my bounty-hunting days. A skilled witch or warlock could do a lot of things I’d say were impossible. That, I knew to bitter, personal cost.

  “I’m retired,” I told my cone of chips.

  Elijah swooped down to hop about on the sand, picking up polished pieces of sea glass and dropping them at my feet. He chattered to himself busily, sorting his treasures into piles by color.

  Sorcery was a great and terrible thing, and the men and women who wielded it could be good or bad, the same as anyone else. I threw Elijah a chip and wondered if it mattered if a magic-user was killing vampires. Vampires killed all the time. They were parasites that needed to be contained. If someone had found a novel way of doing that, it was none of my business, right?

  After all, I was retired.

  Elijah hopped onto my knee, a rounded piece of cobalt blue glass in his peak. He gave me an inquisitive look, and I swapped him the glass for another chip. He cackled and flew off with his prize, dodging a seagull looking to snatch it from him.

  I pocketed the sea glass and watched the crow dip and swerve, silhouetted against the hot glow of the sun. I tried to smile, but all I saw was a vampire dying in agony, his friend grieving for him.

  “I’m retired,” I told myself firmly, and tossed out the rest of my chips onto the sand for the bickering seagulls. I stood and dusted off my jeans, and pushed Beckett out of my mind. I had a date to keep.

  ONCE UPON A TIME, NOT so long ago, a date with Beatriz Gaspar would have been an actual date. She was a beautiful, funny, smart nurse with a knack for making me smile even when I didn’t want to – which was often. We’d met almost two years ago when she came to an exhibition on maritime folklore at the museum. I was not looking to date, but Bea was captivating, our chemistry was irresistible, and we’d had a white-hot fling that gradually sizzled out into a warm, comforting friendship.

  Now Bea was happily engaged to a woman who adored her, and I...was still not looking to date. I had so much baggage that I could spend the rest of my life unpacking it, and, to be frank, I wasn’t interested in unpacking it. There was no fixing my kind of broken. I’d tried.

  But I didn’t regret my short-lived fling with Bea, because it had given me a best friend, someone who didn’t mind that I was a moody introvert, someone who gave me space when I wanted it, pulled me into the light when I needed it, and someone who made the best bacon chocolate brownies in the western hemisphere.

  What Bea got out of the relationship, I had no idea. But regardless, we met as often as we could for drinks at the Alice Rose, a seafront bar ten minutes’ walk from here. This was a rare Friday night off for Bea, and I’d been surprised she hadn’t wanted to spend it with her fiancée, Hayden. On the other hand, after the unsettling vampire encounter, I wasn’t going to argue about a bottle of wine with
my best friend.

  The Alice Rose had been a brothel once, if you believed the stories. The verging-on-tacky red and gold décor, sparkling chandeliers, and heady scent of roses that filled the bar certainly lent themselves more to a brothel. And if you asked Dinah, the owner, she’d tell you stories to make even the most seasoned sailor blush. But whatever it had been, nowadays, the Alice Rose housed the best gin collection in Ridderport, and a solid selection of Johnny Cash songs on the jukebox. Bea and I had been coming here since we first met.

  She was waiting for me at our usual table by the jukebox, a bottle of white wine and two glasses in front of her. As usual, she was casually gorgeous, her jet-black hair pulled into a messy bun that had probably taken her an hour to style, her make-up light. She wore a black tank top with a stylized white moon design on it, and a pair of denim cut-offs. Her huge smile lit up the bar as she waved me over.

  “You’re late,” she said as I sat down. “I was starting to think you bailed on me.”

  Her accent was a captivating mix of Puerto Rico and Brooklyn, one I still found attractive even now we were purely on platonic terms. I sat down and started pouring us each a glass of wine.

  “I got held up at the museum,” I said, which was only technically a lie. “I’m surprised you aren’t with Hayden, to be honest. You know she could have come, right?”

  I liked Bea’s fiancée. Hayden was a food writer, and between her and Bea, I never wanted for exciting leftovers.

  Bea waved me off, her engagement ring throwing little rainbows across the table. “She has a deadline to meet. Something about hyper-local foods, which in the case of Ridderport can only mean fish and seaweed.” She pulled a face.

  I laughed, and just like that, reality shifted into something simpler and more pleasant. Bea didn’t know about vampires. She didn’t know about warlocks or curses, or birds that shouldn’t be birds. I loved that about Bea. She was an anchor to an ordinary world I sometimes still struggled to belong in.