The Keepers: Christmas in Salem: Do You Fear What I Fear?The Fright Before ChristmasUnholy NightStalking in a Winter Wonderland (Harlequin Nocturne) Read online

  This holiday season, armed with love and passion, can the Keepers stop the reign of Darkness?

  Christmas is coming to Salem, but so is an evil force that threatens all mankind. In this memorable collection led by New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham, four powerful Keepers must save their community as a strange, eternal night creeps over the town. Forced to choose between their time-honored responsibilities or the lovers their hearts desire, these four extraordinary women must risk their own happiness to save the holiday. But Christmas is a time for miracles, and as each Keeper’s greatest longing is met, the Season of Light returns. Don’t miss this magical holiday collection from Heather Graham, Deborah LeBlanc, Kathleen Pickering and Beth Ciotta.

  Praise for New York Times bestselling author

  Heather Graham

  “An incredible storyteller.”

  —Los Angeles Daily News

  “This delightfully offbeat yet sometimes unexpected story whips up its own brand of holiday magic.”

  —Library Journal on Home in Time for Christmas

  Praise for Deborah LeBlance

  “The Wolven seamlessly weaves a remarkably well-detailed mythology into the recent history of

  New Orleans. LeBlanc’s dialogue sparkles and the sexual chemistry between Shauna

  and Danyon is delicious.”

  —RT Book Reviews on The Wolven

  Praise for Kathleen Pickering

  “A novel story line, excellent description, and lots of sexual tension make this an irresistible story readers won’t want to put down.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Where It Began

  Praise for Beth Ciotta

  “Well-drawn characters...sparks fly. A well-plotted raunchy adventure.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Out of Eden

  HEATHER GRAHAM

  New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham has written more than one hundred novels. An avid scuba diver, ballroom dancer and a mother of five, she still enjoys her south Florida home, but loves to travel, as well. Check out her website, theoriginalheathergraham.com.

  DEBORAH LeBLANC

  This award-winning author is the creator of the LeBlanc Literacy Challenge, an annual campaign designed to encourage people to read, and Literacy Inc., a nonprofit organization that fights illiteracy in America’s teens. For more information go to www.deborahleblanc.com and www.literacyinc.com.

  KATHLEEN PICKERING

  Believing that stories are excellent tools for teaching life lessons while entertaining, Kathleen wants her characters to overcome their life challenges with dignity, grace and a good dose of humor to deserve that special “happily-ever-after” ending.

  BETH CIOTTA

  Dubbed “fun and sexy” by Publisher’s Weekly, Beth specializes in writing romantic comedy with a twist of suspense. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, two zany dogs and a crazy cat. To learn more about her colorful life, visit her website at www.bethciotta.com.

  THE KEEPERS: CHRISTMAS IN SALEM

  Heather Graham,

  Deborah LeBlanc,

  Kathleen Pickering

  and Beth Ciotta

  CONTENTS

  Do You Fear What I Fear? by Heather Graham

  The Fright Before Christmas by Deborah LeBlanc

  Unholy Night by Kathleen Pickering

  Stalking in a Winter Wonderland by Beth Ciotta

  Excerpt

  DO YOU FEAR WHAT I FEAR?

  Heather Graham

  Dear Reader,

  People come in all shapes and sizes. They have different backgrounds, different homes and different beliefs. But the message of the holiday season transcends all those differences. The season speaks to us in the language of peace and love.

  No matter what we believe, this is inherently true; our time on earth is short, and the greatest gifts we can focus on are health, peace and happiness. Our Keepers are certainly different. Their charges are extremely different. But in all ways, we hope that they’ll bring the same message: may you have a wonderful holiday season; may all remember those who need our help; and to whomever we pray, may we pray for peace to all men and find it within ourselves.

  Not, of course, that our Keepers won’t have a little trouble getting there…. Then again, sometimes, don’t we all?

  We hope you enjoy, that your trials and tribulations will be small, and that you’ll have the best holiday season ever!

  Best,

  Heather Graham

  For families everywhere, in every sense of the word family. Sometimes we’re bonded by blood, and sometimes by friendship and caring.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Prologue

  Winters came with a vengeance to Salem, Massachusetts. When settlers had first come to the shores of the then colony, many had not survived. Those who had settled Salem and her environs had been devout Puritans, and they had seen the Devil in the darkness, in the forests that surrounded the land they worked so hard to cultivate. They were, in fact, so convinced that the Devil was in the forest that they believed he also somehow entered their homes—and from this belief came the terror of the witch trials. But people learned the bitter lesson of the cruelty they had perpetuated. Salem’s name became famous in history, the city itself a place dedicated to the awareness of man’s inhumanity to man, where people could learn from the past so that they never again allowed such cruelty and injustice to occur.

  By the twenty-first century, the city welcomed any and all, embracing those of different ethnicities and becoming a place where every religion was welcome, from Wicca to Buddhism to the more traditional forms of worship.

  Even now, it was easy to understand how people without electric lights, without communication, could play on old grievances, look around the woods where natives they didn’t understand were lurking, where God only knew what might emerge from the never-ending forests and the land beyond, and fear what they didn’t comprehend. When winter came, the wind howled and ice formed on houses. They sat huddled before their fires and feared what lay beyond.

  When winter was at its height, darkness came by late afternoon, and they shivered in their homes and prayed for dawn. Then.

  But this was now.

  And the darkness had never been anything like this.

  At first the darkness had seemed to come normally. October arrived, and with it Halloween, Salem’s favorite holiday. November followed, and daylight savings time was gone. Then winter came, and with it, shorter days.

  And that was when the darkness began to extend its reign.

  People would get to work, stare at the sky and say, “Wow. It’s not light yet.”

  Children would get out of school in the afternoon and say, “Wow. It’s dark already.”

  The mayor called the governor; the governor called the president.

  The president called the experts at NASA.

  But they were all completely stymied. Because the darkness had settled only over Salem, Massachusetts.

  For the most part, the citizens of that fair and historic city lived with it. But each day they grew a little more concerned, a little edgier. They became prone to rudeness, to attacking one another. They behaved the way people had a way of behaving whenever they were...
r />   Afraid.

  With winter came the holiday season. For the city’s Wiccan community, the winter solstice was the day of highest importance, and while they tried to make it a time of celebration, many were short-tempered, their moods as dark as the sky. Hanukkah was not much better. Now as the community moved to welcome Christmas, their shared but unspoken fear was that Christmas Day would dawn with complete darkness, and rather than being the celebration of rebirth it was meant to be, Christmas would bring something evil leaking from the stygian darkness that enveloped the city.

  And even in this enlightened day, they began to wonder.

  Was the Devil more than a myth, and was he running loose in the world?

  Was he back wreaking havoc in the Salem woods—this time for real?

  Chapter 1

  The bulb Samantha Mycroft was trying to replace was just above her reach. She swore softly—and then felt guilty.

  It was Christmas Eve. One was not supposed to swear on Christmas Eve. In the front yard, next to the tall and beautiful pine she was trying to decorate, the motion-activated Santa was singing in Bing Crosby’s voice, cheerfully telling the story of the Little Drummer Boy.

  She should not be cursing on Christmas Eve, she thought again.

  But, she thought, pausing to look at the sky, this was a most unusual Christmas Eve.

  It was dark. Darkness was to be expected at night, of course.

  But the darkness had started coming earlier and earlier. At first it had been natural, as fall had come to Salem. But four in the afternoon had become two. And where at first the sun had come out at six in the morning, six had become seven. Then eight. Then nine.

  Finally there had been just an hour of light at midafternoon, and today, Christmas Eve, she wondered if even that hour would come, because it had gone from being one hour to fifty minutes, then forty, then thirty....

  They kept the Christmas lights on 24/7, which, Samantha was convinced, was why her Never Burn Out! Christmas lights were burning out.

  She managed to reach the offending bulb and change it, and then, from her perch atop the ladder, looked up at the sky again.

  The news, of course, was filled with the phenomenon. It was centered on Salem, but it had begun spreading—though to a lesser degree—south toward Boston and north toward the Gloucester area. None of the rest of the country was any darker than it normally was at this time of year. Naturally, scientists and meteorologists were having a field day with the situation. They all had theories that explained what was going on, from the extremely esoteric to a strange type of sun flare. How a flare could cause such darkness, Sam didn’t know.

  It didn’t matter.

  Their theories were all wrong; she knew that much. Whatever was going on in Salem was being caused by a miscreant in the Otherworld.

  “Hey! Pretty lights!”

  She heard the deep voice and for a moment, she froze. She knew that voice, though she hadn’t heard it in years. It was rich and fluid; it had made her laugh.

  And its absence from her life had, once upon a time, made her cry.

  She turned quickly, then remembered that she was on a ladder and grasped hold of it, absolutely determined that she wouldn’t humiliate herself by falling off and landing at his feet.

  With all the control she could muster, she turned regally to look down.

  Maybe she was imagining that it was him.... He had disappeared on a Christmas Eve, exactly two years ago now.

  She’d imagined nothing.

  There he was. Daniel Riverton in the flesh.

  As if on cue, the stupid Santa began singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

  Daniel was tall and appeared lean, but she knew from experience that his shoulders were broad, his chest and arms muscled and honed, and he could move with incredible grace, speed and agility. He was the epitome of “tall, dark and handsome.”

  Naturally.

  Because Daniel was a vampire. And an exceptional one.

  He was striking as only a vampire could be; his hair was coal dark and his eyes were that burning, intense hazel often seen among his kind. When he was passionate or angry, the hazel burned with a golden light that seemed more intense than the sun. He looked up at her now, those eyes of his enigmatic, a slight smile curving his lips.

  Leave it to Daniel to come back smiling. She wanted to smack him—smack that smile from his face.

  And she also wanted to touch him, feel his arms around her again, look up at him and smile and laugh because they were a duo, soul mates.

  Yeah, so much for that.

  “How are you, Sam?” he asked softly.

  “Fine. What are you doing back in Salem?” she demanded curtly.

  It would have been nice if he’d said something like I tried to survive without you but I couldn’t. I had to come back to Salem. I don’t care about rules or regulations or if we’re damned for all time. I can’t live without you.

  He didn’t.

  “I was called back,” he told her.

  “Oh?” she demanded. She was the Salem Keeper of the Vampires. If anyone had been called back, she should have known about it.

  “My father,” he explained.

  His father. Great. His father, who hadn’t approved of a vampire dating a vampire Keeper. Her parents hadn’t approved, either, of course. But they had kept their disapproval fairly quiet, telling her that she had to make her own decisions about life.

  She shouldn’t have had to take on the Keeper role for years, but the International Council had been formed and her parents—having managed the area exceptionally well since their arrival in response to the insanity of the witch trials—had been called to be part of that council. That left her generation, the younger generation, to take on their responsibilities far too soon.

  Justin Riverton, Daniel’s father, was a pillar of the community. Or had been. Like her parents, he was now serving on the International Council. Everything, all those departures, had happened at around the same time. Daniel, fresh out of law school, had been swept up in the whole council thing, and now, while he didn’t sit on the council, he worked for it, going from place to place to settle vampire affairs whenever trouble arose and no local Keeper was at hand.

  But the real issue was the age-old taboo against Keepers having relationships with their charges.

  That was changing now in many places—newer places than Salem, where the old ways died very slowly.

  She knew that everyone had considered what she and Daniel shared to be nothing but a fling—a silly school thing that would end. They were both excellent students, bright and responsible from an early age. When it was time for them to end it, they would end it.

  Despite that prevailing belief, Sam was pretty sure that both her parents and Daniel’s had conspired to keep them apart. And, she was forced to admit, her attitude might have had something to do with it. Maybe she’d pushed too hard in her desire for some kind of passionate declaration from him. She’d wanted him to tell her that what they had was too unique, too incredible...too passionate...for him to turn his back on her and leave.

  Hadn’t happened.

  So the fact that he was here now was doubly galling. Not only was she embarrassed not to know he was on the way, his presence meant that the council believed she couldn’t keep her affairs, her responsibilities as a Keeper—her charges—in order. That what was happening here was somehow her fault.

  Which was ridiculous. Vampires might be exceptionally fond of darkness, but they were not known to have any special powers to create it.

  “Well. Nice to see you,” she said. There was no reason for her to remain on the ladder—she’d changed the bulb. If she didn’t come down, she would look like a coward.

  Sam was the oldest of the new generation of Keepers now in charge of Salem’s Otherworld. It wasn’t an actual title or position, but with all the changes that had taken place, she was more or less the “Keeper of the Keepers.” She was supposed to be calm, cool, stoic—wise at all times. Lo
oking like a coward—or appearing unable to handle Daniel’s sudden reappearance in Salem on Christmas Eve—just wouldn’t do.

  She willed her hands not to shake as she started to descend. Maybe that wasn’t such a great plan. She was tall, nearly six feet. But Daniel, though only about six-three, seemed to tower over her. And he was standing way too close to the foot of the ladder. He might have moved to give her a little more personal space, but he didn’t.

  “Uh, good to see you, but I have things to do, so...?” she said.

  He smiled—well aware that he was blocking her path back to the house. “It’s nice to see you, too. I wanted you to know that, and that I was back in town. I guess we both have things to do.”

  “Thanks. Now if you don’t mind, you’re blocking my way into my house,” she told him.

  Ignoring her, he asked, “Still the best tour guide in the city?”

  “You know I love my heritage,” she told him.

  He grinned and said in a very proper tour guide voice, “In the winter of 1623, a fishing village was established by the Dorchester Company on the shores of Cape Ann. The settlers struggled with the windy, stormy, rock-strewn area, and then a man named Roger Conant led a group to this fertile spot at the mouth of the Naumkeag River. At first they called it Naumkeag, the native word for ‘fishing place.’ And then they chose Salem, for shalom, meaning ‘peace.’” He shrugged. “Well, after so many years of peace—years of infamy, too—now we have...this. This darkness.”

  “Is it dark?” Sam asked, her voice dripping sarcasm. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  He stared at her. “I know that you’ve noticed.”

  “Good. Then you don’t need to be concerned.”

  “It’s most likely not a vampire matter,” he said.

  “Which is great—you’ll be even less necessary.”

  “I never wanted us to be hateful toward each other,” he said quietly.

  Good old Daniel. Always controlled. She wanted him to be hateful—to rage against the powers and circumstances that had separated them. Apparently she wasn’t going to get her wish.