Table of Contents
Midnight Poison
Additional Books by A&E kirk
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Dedicated to:
Acknowledgements:
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
CHAPTER 95
CHAPTER 96
CHAPTER 97
CHAPTER 98
CHAPTER 99
CHAPTER 100
CHAPTER 101
CHAPTER 102
CHAPTER 103
CHAPTER 104
CHAPTER 105
CHAPTER 106
CHAPTER 107
CHAPTER 108
CHAPTER 109
CHAPTER 110
CHAPTER 111
CHAPTER 112
CHAPTER 113
CHAPTER 114
CHAPTER 115
Excerpt from DEMONS AT DEADNIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
Author Bio:
Midnight Poison
By
A&E Kirk
Paranormal Poisons Saga:
Book 1
Copyright 2017 by A&E Kirk
Book layout by Cheryl Perez; www.yourepublished.com
ISBN 978-1-946285-01-0
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, or the facilitation thereof, including storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarities between the characters, places or events that take place in this book are strictly coincidental.
Visit us online at: www.aekirk.com
Additional Books by A&E kirk
THE DIVINICUS NEX SERIES
Demons at Deadnight
Drop Dead Demons
Demons in Disguise
Hello Reader!
Thanks for being here! We are soooooo excited for you to start MIDNIGHT POISON!
But first,
AN IMPORTANT NOTE especially to our wonderful fans who adore our best selling DIVINICUS NEX CHRONICLES.
In comparison to DNC which is suitable for all teens, MIDNIGHT POISON is geared for older teens and above. It has language (swearing), violence and gore, and a level of sexuality that would make Blake say, "Yeah, baby!" but cause Logan to faint. Literally.
We think you will have a blast with this exciting new story and crazy fun characters, but we want you to BE WARNED because MIDNIGHT POISON may not be for all DNC fans.
So back away now, or strap in and go for it. Either way, we love you!
Hugs and Kisses All Around,
A & E
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Dedicated to:
Our editor, The Sage
Wise. Patient. Indispensable. Snarky.
You weren’t sure you were going to like this book. Well, like it or not, it’s dedicated to you.
Boom.
After all of your hard work, we hope you don’t think it sucks.
Acknowledgements:
A huge thanks to all our incredible fans. Thanks for coming with us into Kiara’s world. Your loyalty will be rewarded with the hexiest of novels!
A special thanks to the man, the myth, the legend: The Sage. Thanks for staying with us as we explored this new adventure. Midnight Poison would not be what it is without you. Thank you so much for your dedication and hard work.
We are so grateful to Cheryl for putting up with our timeline. You are a machine! And we love you!
Oh my God, wow! Elena Dudina created an incredible cover. This woman deserves a round of applause!
Thank you Izzy, Cierra, Claudia, and Katrin for managing the Divinicus Nex Nest and Kirk Clan. They are a huge success thanks to you. We couldn’t do it without you! Your unwavering support goes above and beyond. We are so grateful for all you do!! You ladies rock!
Thought we forgot about you, Mark? Ha! Never! You’re a super husband/dad. Thanks for sneaking in food with ninja stealth when we forgot to eat and acting like we weren’t crazy in our sleep deprived state after working through the night several days in a row!
CHAPTER 1
A violent crescendo of screams slashed through the gentle harmonies of Mozart’s haunting melody. Bright crimson sprayed the white ceiling of the massive party tent, the glowing chandeliers swayed upon impact. The scarlet liquid dripped off the thousands of glittering crystals. Leontes stared at the droplets on the back of his hand, rested his cane against the round table, and then licked away the blood.
Silence hushed through the space around him. The
large crowd of rich, beautiful, powerful—and soon-to-be-dead—people attending the charity ball looked around with curiosity. Many of those sitting at the tables rose to their feet. Dancers paused their steps.
A rumble from above brought all eyes upward. The center-most chandelier trembled as shadows snaked over the white ceiling. Black vines serrated with sharp thorns ripped through the fabric. Twisting like serpents, the thick vines hissed against the material before they coiled around the chandelier. As the crystals trembled and clinked, deep red flower petals fluttered down over the crowd.
Something hit the table with a wet slap, toppling the floral centerpiece with a crash and speckling moisture onto Leontes’ cheek. The human heart, so recently removed from its owner, gave one final pathetic pump and then lay limp. Black blood oozed like foul-smelling wine over the white tablecloth. The woman sitting beside Leontes gasped and clutched his hand. The others at the table choked on screams of shock.
When a slow laugh wound through the air like wind chimes on an ocean breeze, chills erupted down Leontes’ spine.
“No,” he whispered.
The vines strangling the chandelier burst with blooms of large black flowers.
Several partygoers shrieked in horror. “Oleander!”
A group of men ran, tossing aside tables, chairs, and each other. Anything standing between themselves and escape. More blossoms burst to life. They overflowed around the remaining chandeliers and smothered the glowing bulbs. Light faded into darkness and fueled the rising terror.
Snatching his cane, Leontes rose and took the hand of the woman sitting beside him. The stench of soured blood and eviscerated organs surged through the air. His feet slipped on something wet as he backed toward the exit. He looked down at the dark pool growing larger by the second. The woman screamed and pointed over his shoulder.
Leontes turned. He barely registered the flash of metal before his head fell from his shoulders. It hit the ground with a wet thud. A moment later the cane clattered beside it as the vicious sounds of the massacre echoed to nothing.
CHAPTER 2
For Leontes, everything became startlingly black. No emotion or power in the abyss of nothingness. He could not remember a time death had not ended like this. He took a deep breath and slipped from the void. Faint light called to him. Shapes pushed through and took on substance and color. He rubbed his neck, head still firmly attached.
Always a comfort.
He shook his head and broke free from the vision of the past. With another deep breath, he focused on the world around him. The present.
Police officers and technicians hurried about in a professionally panicked manner through the wreckage. Overturned furniture. Broken china. Scattered food. The remnants of what had been a four-foot-tall swan ice sculpture now lay melted on the ground. White curtains, ripped and bloody, draped in elegant arcs around the open-air tent big enough to house a circus.
Or in this case, a slaughter.
The wood dance floor gleamed slick with smeared blood, like a macabre modern art piece. Strings of miniature lights hung in a broken, haphazard mess. Several spit sparks.
Outside the tent, floodlights illuminated the expansive green lawn rolling up to a stately mansion. Littered with dozens of misshapen forms hidden beneath body sheets, the grass looked like a blizzard had dropped masses of snow in its wake.
Leontes flexed his fingers around the cane in his hand. He could still feel the pull of the memories attached to it. The endless loop of someone else’s pain and fear yearned to yank him in to relive it all, again and again, but his centuries of experience made him more than able to resist. He knelt and set the cane on the blood-soaked sheet that covered what remained of the cane’s owner.
He pulled a pair of black leather gloves from his coat and slipped them on. He had touched enough of the various victims’ items to piece together what had happened here.
A middle-aged, mustached detective in a cheap sports coat and latex gloves entered the tent and gazed around.
“Looks like one hell of a party. Get it? Hell of a party.” He chuckled.
Leontes did not laugh.
He stood tall, lean, and muscular, an imposing figure in a black trench coat over an expertly tailored Italian three-piece suit. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, with handsome, aristocratic features finely formed from generations of good breeding. But there was nothing soft about him.
Under high cheekbones, a perpetual five o’clock shadow covered his square jaw and surrounded full lips which were currently tipped into a frown. His cobalt blue eyes held a hard look that demanded respect. Against dark waves of hair that curled softly at the ends, his skin had always been pale, but more so now, which made the thin scar across his neck stand out even in this dim light.
From his vest, he removed a gold pocket watch hanging on a chain and opened it briefly. Dawn was several hours away, but with a mess of this magnitude they would still have to move fast. Leontes scanned the room, rolling his shoulders to shake off the shadows of the recent past and concentrate on the present.
He spoke with a strong British accent, his noble heritage evident in the tone and cadence. “Have you any relevant information as of yet?”
“Look, kid.” The officer puffed out his chest. “I’m Detective Cage. This is a crime scene. Authorized personnel only. You can’t be here. I’m going to have to ask you to leave immediately.” He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.
Leontes held up his credentials.
“Holy shit,” the detective muttered.
Not bothering to look at the man, Leontes strode past and spoke in a lecturing tone, “Language, detective. Language.”
Cage’s chest deflated. “Oh, yeah. I mean, uh, yes, sir. Sorry, um, Ambassador Rittenhause, sir. I didn’t mean to…I didn’t recognize you. Sir.”
Leontes looked the man up and down. “I do not recall us having met.”
Detective Cage bobbed his head. “No, sir, we haven’t, but—”
“Then, detective, how would you expect to recognize me?”
The man squirmed. “I guess I wouldn’t. But I know your reputation. Sir. Sorry you have to see this.”
See this? If he only knew. “I am sorry anyone has to see this.”
“Yeah, but sorry about all the blood and bodies and stuff. Messy. I know you don’t like that kind of thing.”
Leontes lifted a brow. “Do you now?”
“Well, uh, that’s the word.” Cage swallowed. “You being a diplomat and all. Like I said, I know your reputa—”
“Indeed. Whoever was in charge previously, go inform them this scene is now mine.”
Leontes lifted the nearest sheet, beneath lay what used to be a torso. Someone had shattered the sternum and hinged the chest open at the spine. Ribs hung with wet strings of flesh. The lungs and ropes of intestines sat inside like the tongue of a clam. The neck was a pulpy stump. With the hips ripped off, there was no confirmation of the gender, but the size of the shoulders tended toward male.
“If they sent you, it must be true.” The detective’s voice lowered. “Oleander is back.”
Leontes dropped the sheet. “Oleander died centuries ago.”
Detective Cage smirked. “So did we.”
Leontes shot him an annoyed glance that stuttered the smirk into submission, then he flicked the tail of his coat back and knelt to lift up a new sheet. Heavily muscled arm. Deep, oozing lacerations. The round tip of the humorous bone jutted out, ready to be popped back into a shoulder that was likely scattered under another sheet. In the midst of all this, finding that shoulder could prove difficult.
“How many victims?” Leontes asked.
“We don’t know. A hundred, two hundred? Can’t be sure until we piece bodies back together. You were alive back when Oleander was loose, right?”
Leontes stood. “Have you not found the guest list?”
“Guest list?”
“Security was excruciatingly tight. You had to be on a list to be allowed en
trance.”
“You would know,” Detective Cage said with not-so-subtle envy. “I’ll have someone look for that.”
Idiot. Leontes pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Start your search with the dead security guards out front.”
Detective Cage started to turn away, but stopped. “They say Oleander is feral. A machine with one goal. Destroy everything. How did you stay alive? How do we all stay alive?”
Before he could answer, a female voice said, “By not jumping to conclusions, you fopdoodle.”
CHAPTER 3
Leontes smiled.
All four-feet-eight-inches of Dr. Victoria Frankenstein stomped in wearing dainty boots that glistened with blood and dew. Revered for her brilliant scientific mind, she had been utilized by vampire masters for centuries. Many considered sunscreen to be among her greatest inventions. It poured billions in revenue into their coffers when sold to the humans and allowed vampires to live ‘outside the box,’ as the in-house marketing slogan stated. Most importantly, it solidified her spot in the vampire hierarchy.
“Good evening, Frankie,” Leontes said evenly.
With a fierce glare on her face, Frankie tugged a hot pink cardigan over her small shoulders and smoothed her hands over the slim skirt of her black dress. She wore bright green, cat’s-eye glasses on a face full of rounded features, her thin lips currently set in a frown. She tucked back a few blonde strands of hair that had dared to escape the tightly wrapped bun at the nape of her head.
Normally, Leontes was happy to see her. Normally, she was not shooting him dirty looks. So he was grateful when her ferocious fawn-brown eyes turned on the detective. Leontes may have intimidated him, but the detective visibly withered as he stared down the wrath of the tiny woman’s bespectacled glare.