A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1) Read online

  A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT

  Shawna Reppert

  Copyright Shawna Reppert 2013-2016

  Cover art by Lisa Colgrove, using images © Unholyvault | Dreamstime.com (Vintage Street at Night) and © Mikael Males | Dreamstime.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Dedication:

  To all the people who believed in me even at those times when I didn’t believe in myself. These are as much your books as they are mine.

  Acknowledgements

  With much gratitude to all those who supported me with financial or in-kind assistance, most especially Dale and Mary Jo Mosby, Julie and Mike Zamudio, Graeme Skinner, Buff and Lisa Oliphant Brown, Lisa Colgrove, Ebon Morse, Seonaid Welch, and many others. This book would not have been possible without all of your support! Thanks also to editor Mary Rosenblum for applying the right combination of patience, encouragement and tough love. Much gratitude to Alanna, whose enthusiasm for my writing kept me going when I was ready to quit.

  Praise for some of my other books:

  On Ravensblood: “The setting, the magical rules, and the world building are impeccable, the plot is clever and suspenseful, and all the characters are well-drawn and interesting. . . .” The reader is dumped right into the middle of the action and expected to keep up, and that gives the book a sense of immediacy. The stakes are high and very personal. . .

  Carrie S., Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

  Ravensblood: “Ms. Reppert is an expert at creating damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situations that tax relationships and personalities to the exploding point. Complication piles on complication, with the freedom of the nation’s population at stake. We become involved with characters with believable goals and ideals, placed in dire but believable circumstances where we really care whether they win (survive) or not. The suspense is palpable.

  The whole thing piles up to an ending that, despite all the author’s careful hints and preparation, still knocks our socks off.” . . .

  On Raven’s Wing: “As one learns to expect from Ms. Reppert, this book abounds with entertaining characters, tight suspense, and enough steam to satisfy diehard Romance readers.”

  And on Raven’s Heart: “As usual in a Reppert story, the personal, interpersonal, and external conflicts are tightly woven together. Thus when any one of them gets out of balance, the whole thing begins to unravel, providing great conflict and suspense.”

  Review by book blogger Gordon A. Long, Airborn Press

  On Ravensblood: “I am a sucker for urban fantasy, for elegant, sarcastic heroes struggling against their indiscretions on the wrong side of the moral spectrum (especially when they’re powerful mages). . . Therefore, Ravensblood hit the spot quite nicely for me. Corwyn Ravenscroft is the sort of character I adore: cold, passionate, highly intelligent, and believing that he’s not worthy of the things he wants due to the mistakes he’s made in his past. . . the ending was edge-of-the-seat suspenseful. . .”

  On Raven’s Wing: “I enjoyed the story a great deal. Reppert is a skilled writer with a great feel for dialog, emotional interactions . . . and worldbuilding. The world of the Three Communities and its people felt real for me, and I was disappointed when I had to leave it at the end of the book. I’m looking forward to the next one, which promises, based on the end of this one, to be big indeed. That, and I want to see more of Raven.”

  And on Raven’s Heart: “Raven's power, ingenuity, and loyalty to his friends are all tested to their utmost as he heads toward a showdown with his old master, a man he hates passionately, but still feels an odd kinship with.

  All the bits I liked in the previous two books are here: Raven is his cool and charming self, his relationship with Cassandra is strong as ever, and he continues to learn to trust and accept others who care about him. It's got heartbreak (seriously–I got pretty misty at one character's death), moments of humor, and the emotional connections I come to expect from this series.”

  Review by R. L. King, Amazon best-selling author of The Alastair Stone Chronicles

  “While the Ravensblood is the device that powers each plot, both books’ greatest strength lies in the complex characters of their two protagonists. . .If you like a dark, character-driven fantasy with a strong romantic theme, this series is for you.”

  Review by author Barb Taub

  On The Stolen Luck:

  “This is a well written piece full of adventure, tension, and a slow-burn romance. It full of twists, turns, and surprises. . . . If I were to judge by this debut novel, I would say that Shawna Reppert is an author to keep your eyes on.”

  Review by book blogger Crissy, JoyfullyJay.com

  On Where Light Meets Shadow:

  “Healing magic. Bardic magic. Intrigue. Strife. Two nations that should have been united by love, instead driven apart by hate. And at the center of it, an unexpected friendship and a reluctant love might just hold the key to everything...

  AND it's well-written, to boot? Jackpot!”

  Review by Amazon customer

  One

  Inspector Royston Jones straightened up from his examination of the mutilated body of the shop girl. The night patrol had found her in the narrow alley between the butcher’s shop and the chandler’s and had immediately sent for him despite the hour.

  Parker, the constable who had led him to the scene, looked about nervously. “They say it’s the Ladykiller, come back.”

  “Nonsense.” Royston kept his tone firm, matter-of-fact. “Blackpoole is dead. I saw the body myself.”

  “They say he’s come back,” the constable whispered.

  “He had his throat torn out by a werewolf. A man doesn’t come back from that.”

  “They’re saying maybe Blackpoole wasn’t a man, sir.” Parker glanced over his shoulder as if expecting Blackpoole’s shade to creep up on him as he spoke. “They’re saying he was something else.”

  Royston put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, Parker, but you’ll never make inspector if you keep spouting superstitious nonsense like that. Truth is, people don’t want to think that one of their own, a human just like them, could be capable of such things. They especially don’t want to think that there could be more than one such human predator. It was one of the reasons Blackpoole was able to misdirect suspicion onto werewolves, despite the evidence.”

  There was a distant sound of hooves on the cobblestones. Too light and quick to be the first of the morning delivery carts. It might be the last of the night’s theater-goers or gambling hell rakes heading home.

  He nodded toward the dead girl. “She bled out, but not here. The cuts were clean, made with a sharp knife. Killer had some knowledge of anatomy, but the unevenness of some of the cuts show that the victim was alive through at least some of it.” His throat tightened on the last bit.

  Pale beneath his high, rounded helmet, the constable looked ready to vomit then, but he had already emptied the entire contents of his stomach behind some empty crates at the back entrance to the chandler’s shop. Parker was a solid man with a few years’ experience, but these killings would make anyone sick, and Parker had a wife at home and two little girls that would someday be young women out in the world. Royston, even with his longer service, held his composure only because he’d been working late at
the Yard and had missed his supper.

  Think like the criminal, his mentor, Jacob Godwin, always told him. But who knew why this madman killed. Because it’s a day that ends in a ‘y’? The only one who could understand would be another madman. Should he apply to Bedlam for help?

  “Just like the others,” Parker said unnecessarily.

  Royston couldn’t fault his desire to break the eerie silence. The infamous London fog wrapped the night in a funeral shroud and dimmed the yellow haze of the gaslight street lamp in the adjoining a cobblestoned street. Anything could be hiding in the shadows.

  His eyes were drawn back to the girl. Neat-trimmed, clean nails, good skin. She had been pretty in life.

  “May as well cover the poor thing,” Royston said. “We’re not going to get more from the body until the coroner has a look.”

  And he wasn’t any closer to catching the killer than he had been after the first murder, or the third. Big Ben chimed five times. Soon his London would be up and about its business, watching over its shoulder for the monster that lurked somewhere in its midst.

  ***

  By that afternoon, Royston had a name for the victim. Her flatmate had run up to the constable on their beat in tears. Kitty hadn’t come home that night, and it wasn’t like her, Kitty was such a good girl, and with these murders, well. . .

  The constable had already heard of the latest victim found and escorted the flatmate to the morgue, where, according to the attendant, she collapsed into a dead faint on seeing the victim’s face. Upon being revived with smelling salts, she had provided a name. Kitty Harper, nineteen years old, come from her family’s failing farm to seek her fortune.

  She’d had better luck than many such girls, having secured a respectable job at a dry-goods shop. Better luck, that is, until her luck ran out. Royston had tea brought into the interview room. Tea was a comforting ritual even when there was no comfort to be had. It gave the interview subject something to focus on when the words tumbling out of her mouth were too horrible to bear without distraction.

  He gave her a moment to settle in and take his measure. Royston knew himself to be one of the Yard’s less impressive physical specimens. His hair was a nondescript, mousy brownish-blonde and he was among the shortest men ever to be accepted onto the force. But in interviews, his appearance worked in his favor, and he accentuated it with a deliberately mild manner that put witnesses and sometimes even suspects at ease, made them feel as though it was safe to speak freely.

  The flatmate, pale blonde and blue-eyed, had the sort of complexion that betrayed emotion in a range of color. At the moment, her bloodless-white face carried blotches of pink high on her cheeks. The look of high fever, or great distress. Royston wanted to comfort her, to change the topic to a more agreeable one, to suggest that she go home and rest and have a friend bring her tea in bed.

  Instead, he asked question after question about the dead girl, knowing all the while that the flatmate couldn’t speak her friend’s name without seeing her dead on the slab, couldn’t think of her without imagining what horrible wounds the coroner’s stark white sheet had hidden.

  “It were him, weren’t it?” she asked. “The one the papers are calling Doctor Death?”

  Why did the papers have to sensationalize everything? This case was bad enough without screaming headlines and clever monikers.

  “That is one avenue we’re exploring.”

  She narrowed her eyes. To hell with proper form. He’d get nothing from her if she didn’t trust him, and she wouldn’t trust him if he remained all proper and procedural. “Probably, yes,” He softened his tone, but nothing could soften the words.

  She gave a choked cry, stifled it with the handkerchief he had loaned her. It was one thing to suspect, another to have one’s suspicions confirmed. He gave her a moment.

  She continued in a high, tight voice. “What the papers said, about how those other girls died?”

  “You don’t want to know about those things, Miss.” And, oh, God, he didn’t want to talk about them. Certainly not with someone who had known the victim in life.

  She sobbed into the handkerchief. He waited out the storm. Crying women always made him feel helpless.

  “Can you think of a reason someone might want to have hurt your friend?”

  “Why? Papers say it’s random, say anyone could be next.”

  “We haven’t found a connection yet. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.” And if there isn’t one, finding the killer will be as hard as finding a drunken sailor in Church on Sunday. “Besides, we have to rule out the possibility of someone using these killings as a cover.” When totally at a loss, the only thing to do was to fall back on the standard questions. “We must be thorough. We owe that much to Miss Harper, don’t we?”

  She nodded, and sipped at her tea, making a clear effort to compose herself. “There was no one. This may sound impossible, but I can’t think of a single person who disliked Kitty. She was the sweetest—“

  He waited patiently for her to get herself back under control. “Was there any beau? A special young man she was walking out with?”

  “No. She had her share of admirers, sir. ‘Course she did, pretty as she is. Was. She was friendly with all of them,”

  No strong suspects, not even a weak one.

  “Oh, not like that, sir,” she said, catching and misinterpreting his frown. “Just, she came from the country, see? Everyone was a friend to her, she hadn’t learned London ways. She was just. . .friendly. Never saw the bad in people.”

  All the easier for a charming stranger to chat her up and lead her off. From the lowliest schoolyard bully to the worst of the men who killed for amusement or for the few coins in the victim’s purse, predators looked for weakness. Unfortunately, in the streets of London, being too kind, too friendly, too willing to help a stranger in need constituted weakness, especially for a vulnerable unmarried woman.

  Royston drank his tea, bitter in his mouth despite milk and extra sugar, hoping it would somehow stave off the headache building near the front of his skull, the combined result of a lack of sleep and a lack of hope.

  “Kitty was the best friend I could ever hope for,” the girl said. “I just can’t believe something like this could happen. It’s just like with the Ladykiller, except the ’wolf got him. Would figure that it’d be the rich girl he saved, that’s just how the world works, innit? Except I can’t figure why a werewolf would side with the hoity-toity; they’re kept even lower than us working folk.”

  That was just one on the unsolved mysteries around that supposedly closed case. Royston was just glad it hadn’t been his case, though the Inspector in charge had brought him in to assist. He'd been newly promoted and enthusiastic and had that really been just over a year ago?

  “I’m so scared, Inspector. All us girls are so scared." Her eyes pleaded, full of fear. "Please catch him, sir. Please catch him before he gets another one of us.”

  Royston saw her out with a solemn oath to do his very best to see justice done for Kitty Harper. That much he could swear to. He’d do his best, he’d been doing his best, but right now his best felt utterly inadequate.

  Royston forced himself to choke down a cold sandwich at his desk before his next interview. The headache would only be worse if he didn’t eat. The food sat in a lump in his stomach as he left to interview Miss Harper’s employer.

  The Commissioner and his daughter were coming into the Yard just as he was leaving. Adela Chatham was a vision indeed. An intricate twist held her hair up under her peacock-plumed hat, but a few rich chestnut curls artfully escaped to frame the sweet oval of her face. The rich emerald of her dress complimented her coloring perfectly.

  She had consented to walk out with him a time or two. Royston had dared to hope, but it had come to naught. He suspected that her father’s disapproval had something to do with that, but she was too well-bred to embarrass him by explaining the cause in detail. He supposed it had no future to begin with. Though the gentry w
ould consider a police commissioner barely above a tradesman, the commissioner thought much more of himself, and Miss Chatham had been brought up as gently as any lady, untouched by the darker realities of her father’s world and as untouchable as an angel in a dream.

  “Inspector Jones, how do you do?” The sincerity of her smiled warmed him through.

  “Well, thank you. You are a vision as always, Miss Chatham.”

  She blushed prettily. “And you are still the consummate gentleman.”

  “Adela, could you wait for me just inside? There’s a lamb.” When she was out of earshot, the Commissioner turned to Jones. “A word, if you will, Jones.”

  He had already started on his way. He stopped and turned, one step down from the Commissioner and feeling that much shorter for their relative positions.

  “Any progress on these new killings?”

  Royston looked down for a moment, then made himself meet his superior’s eyes. “No, sir, not yet. We have an identity for the girl found last night. Her flatmate wasn’t able to tell me anything of use. I’m on my way to talk to her employer.”

  “Honestly, Jones, if I’d know from the outset how big this case was going to be, I’d have assigned it to someone more seasoned.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He wouldn’t point out that of the more seasoned inspectors, two had retired, three had been fired for graft, and the remaining couldn’t come close to Royston’s success rate.

  “I’m keeping you on the case because of your work in the Dalton case and because Godwin seems to see something in you. This case could make your career, Jones. I’m giving you a chance to rise above your background. Not many men get that. It’ll be on my reputation as well as yours if you fail. Don’t let me down.”