Fia shifted her gaze. Okay, so the kid believed in vampires. She could go in that direction. “Derek, think about it. It doesn’t make sense. A vampire wouldn’t kill your mother. He…he wouldn’t waste the blood in a tub of bathwater,” she said gently. “Vampires never waste human blood.”
“Shut up!” Derek took another step closer and Fia had to lean back as he swung the sword in front of her nose, cutting the air with sharp swishes. “I know all about you. I read all about you on the Internet. You think I’m stupid, but I’m not. I’m smart. I read how to kill you. It’s all on the Internet, you know. You just have to know where to find it.”
“So…you killed the postmaster?”
A strange smile lifted the corners of the young man’s mouth. “He was so easy, the fat bastard. Never saw it coming. That cop, he was a little harder. He fought, but the three of us took him down. You should have seen the look on his face when I pulled out Excalibur Three.” He demonstrated by cutting the air with the sword tip again.
Fia drew her head back. Nuts. He was fucking nuts.
“We waited for the blond slut,” Derek went on. “Waited in her apartment. Ate her chips while we were waiting.”
“And…and you chose people…randomly?”
The young man shrugged, pushing his hood back off his head. He was sweating profusely. His hands were shaking. He was scared. Getting more scared by the minute. Becoming less predictable. “The first one, yeah. The cop, he was snoopin’ around in the woods. Found where we killed some rabbits. Gave up their souls to the Horned One.”
Fia blinked, trying to absorb what the kid was saying. Realizing he was certainly no kid, and nothing he said was going to make sense. “Derek—”
“Don’t say my name! Don’t you dare speak my name!”
Derek took a swipe at Fia’s head. She rolled, face down, grunting as he sank the toe of his boot into her side. Her body jerked involuntarily as hot, blunt pain shot through her body and she tried to continue to roll through the leaves, out of his reach.
But Derek caught the hem of Fia’s sweatshirt with the heel of his boot and she looked up to see the young man, wild-eyed, lift the sword over his head.
Her neck was exposed. If his aim fell true, Fia’s head would be severed from her body and she would die a vampire’s death. She would be lost in everlasting purgatory. Dead but not dead. Living but not living.
Unforgiven.
Chapter 24
Glen heard the screams in the distance and drew his sidearm. It was so damned dark. Why didn’t he think to bring a flashlight?
Because he hadn’t expected Fia to be going into the woods alone. He hadn’t thought she’d be this stupid.
Someone crashed through the underbrush toward him.
“FBI,” he called out, halting as he lifted his weapon. “Stop where you are!”
“Don’t shoot us!” a young woman cried as the branches of a bush parted.
Two shaking teenage girls peered through the tree at him, hands up, their faces white and stained with tears. “They have them. Derek and the guys. They have Kaleigh,” the dark-haired one sobbed. “And Fia.”
Glen’s heart had been pounding in his chest. Now it seemed as if it were burstnig through his sides. Fia was in danger. Glen eased past them. “How many?”
“Three. Derek, Mike, and John. They hurt Kaleigh. We heard her scream,” she managed through another wave of tears.
The boys Fia had interviewed this afternoon.
He tensed his jaw. Damn it! Why the hell hadn’t she trusted him enough to tell him something was going on? Why would she have come into the woods to meet them alone? What the hell was she thinking?
“I want you to get back to town. Can you do that, alone?” Glen asked, already moving in the direction of Fia’s voice. He could hear her speaking, though he couldn’t make out what she was saying. What was obvious was that she had a situation. He could hear the graveness in her voice, interspersed with the staccato shouts of a young man. “Go to the police station. Have them send police here. And call for an ambulance in case anyone is hurt. Can you do that, girls?”
He hated to send them alone through the woods, but he thought they would be safer running for town than waiting in the dark for him.
“The police. We’ll get the police.”
“Good. Run,” he called over his shoulder.
Hearing the girls’ footfalls, Glen turned his full attention to the sound of Fia’s voice. As he approached in the dark, he caught bits and pieces of the conversation. He only heard Fia and the one male voice. Derek, he guessed. The teenage boy sounded frenzied. Unstable.
Glen was nearly blind in the darkness. He followed the voices, staying on the path because it was easier than cutting through the underbrush, the way the girls had come. Finally, he spotted a flicker of firelight. There was a clearing with a campfire. He heard Fia call out from where she lay sprawled on the ground and saw the silhouette of a figure, illuminated by the glow of the fire, raise something over his head.
Holy hell. He had a sword.
Images of the decapitated victims in the town flashed through Glen’s head like stills from a slide projector. But in his mind they were in living color, heavy with horror and the scent of freshly spilled blood.
“Stop. FBI!” Glen barked.
The young man heard him. Glen knew he heard him, but Derek didn’t turn. Derek raised the sword high as if preparing to strike. Fia yelped. Rolled.
“Halt or I’ll shoot,” Glen warned, breaking into a run. “FBI.”
It all happened so quickly that it
