front of. It must have dated back nearly two hundred years, and it had been meticulously restored.
Then abandoned.
As she stood in the darkness, she saw that there
Lauren fingered the cross that Mark had given her. She needed strength so badly. Her knees were giving out on her. She felt a rush of fear and knew she couldn’t give in to it.
As she stood there, staring at the house, the night changed abruptly.
The sky darkened, and when she looked up, it seemed that the moon rode across a sea of red.
The darkness around her seemed to swoop and swerve. Giant shadows, changing, forming, coming close to her.
The breeze whispered.
Grew louder.
And then it wasn’t the breeze whispering at all. It was the sound of laughter, soft and throaty and all around her.
A strand of her hair rose, and she shuddered; it felt as if one of the shadows had touched her face.
She gritted her teeth and fought the urge to run. The din seemed to grow, laughter rising.
Her hair was tugged.
Pulled.
The shadows began to take form, and then, suddenly, people were standing before her, at least twelve of them, all men. They were all dressed in black. Black jeans, chinos, even dress pants. Black T-shirtss, polos, dress shirts. Some were young, others older. And they were all amused.
One man stepped forward. Stephan, standing tallest, and very dark. He was wearing a black poet’s shirt and trousers that clung to his muscular legs. He wore black boots, as well, that covered his calves.
“Welcome,” he told her.
“Don’t welcome me. You know I don’t want to be here. But you have my friend.”
“I have both your friends, and if you’re lucky and very well-behaved, they just may live. Come. Come closer.”
“No.”
He shrugged. “Take her,” he said casually.
The others closed in around her. She heard someone moving at her back, and he was close, far too close. She thought she could feel his fetid breath, teasing at her nape.
Her fear peaked. and she realized that she had to move—or die.
So she moved.
She drew out her water pistols and began to shoot.
She turned to her rear, desperate to rid herself of the creature breathing down her back. He was close, and she aimed straight into his eyes. She smelled burning flesh.
He screamed, and as he sizzled and burned, he tried to change back into shadow. He morphed…there, not there. She saw a patch of skull. She saw wings.
She fired again, and he collapsed at her feet.
She stomped on him, and he exploded into dust and soot. An old vampire, she thought. Very old.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
The others moved on her then, and she began to spin, her water pistols working. She tried, in the midst of her terror, to remember to aim. She couldn’t waste her holy water; she had no idea how long her “ammunition” would last.
All around her, the night seemed to explode with cries of pain and shouts of fury. The cacaphony rose to a crescendo; there was fire, mist…explosions of unnamable filth all around her.
And then there was a roar of fury. “Enough!”
It was Stephan.
“We can’t take her while she’s shooting,” one of his minions said. She couldn’t tell where the sound had come from and tried to find the speaker, longing to see him die.
But Stephan roared out a command again. “Enough!”
There was stillness all around her.
Shadows formed shapes again. Only five who remained standing, and they lined up at Stephan’s side.
“She will drop her weapons,” Stephan said.
“Why would I do that?” she demanded.
He smiled. “Because if you do not, your friends will die. I will kill them slowly, one at a time. The little blonde first, then the dark beauty. You will watch them suffer, and I promise, you will hear them scream and curse you as they die.”
