Shen directed the cab driver to stop in front of Magdalena’s apartment building and got out. He watched the cab pull away and instantly regretted not asking him to wait. What if I wasn’t here? Since I hadn’t come back to our motel room he assumed I was with Magdalena, but what if I wasn’t? Where else would I be? He wished we dared use our cell phones.
As he started up the set of steps that joined the sidewalk to the front door of the tall, century old brick building, he caught a glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head quickly, but not quickly enough because the shadow was gone. When he focused once again on his ascent up the stairs leading from the sidewalk into the building’s vestibule, his path was blocked. He sucked in air as his mind registered what stood before him. There was no mistaking it was a vampire. To make matters even more intense, he looked familiar. Shen was su
Bruce stood on the porch of his mountain cabin and watched the sun set over the top of the tamarack pines that dominated the hillsides of the Southern Tier, New York. Tonight the moon would be full. He was already feeling the effects of the change his body was readying for. He and Tatyana had prepared the small root cellar beneath the cabin. It took some doing, but he finally managed to convince her to remain in the cabin at night while he was locked in the root cellar. It was difficult to get her to listen to reason, but when he pointed out that they could still communicate telepathically, she grudgingly agreed.Bruce was frustrated; not just because he’d turn yet again in a few hours, but because I’d called him with the news of Shen’s abduction. How could he help? Until the cursed moon surrendered to the sun and he was once again in control and able to function as a man, he could do nothing to help us. Even then, he wasn&rsquo
I adjusted my body behind the steering wheel of the rental car. I hated driving long distances and even though it was only a few hours’ drive from Middletown to Owego, it felt like an eternity when there was so much gnawing at me. Shen was in the clutches of some of the evilest creatures ever to exist. Even if they weren’t the evilest, I was certain they came close. I was at a loss at what to do.After calling Bruce to tell him about the situation with Shen and hearing the desperation and despair in his voice over his feelings of helplessness, I decided to go to Owego to join him. At least with the two of us in one location, the fears of what was happening to the other would be eliminated.I’d brought Magdalena and Garth with me. I had no idea how they could help or what could be done at this point, but the more on our team the better. Garth put up a bit of resistance until I confided in him about what Bruce was dealing w
Tatyana slumped against the back of the seat as the car sped down the highway. They’d blindfolded her to keep her from knowing their destination. Little did they realize that the blindfold prevented them from seeing her close her eyes as she let her abilities to take over. Thinking her asleep, none of the vampires who with gifts were using their limited telepathic abilities to intercept her efforts. She was grateful that they were of Wadim’s lineage and not that of a true vampire. The human DNA dulled much of their senses and, although they could still read minds to some extent, it was limited and they needed to really focus in order to do it; not like the natural, almost involuntary ease in which a pure vampire with telepathic capability would accomplished it.Her first task was to get a message to Elsa. She hoped the woman was fast asleep. It would be easier to get inside her head if she wasn’t awake and concentrating on something e
Elsa Prescott sat up in bed. Cocking her head to the side, she listened. She’d heard a voice. Was someone in the house?Grabbing the baseball bat that was hidden beneath her bed, she slipped her feet into the slippers she kept positioned for easy access, donned her robe as quickly as she could, and tipped-toed out of her bedroom into the grand hallway of her huge turn of the century Coronado Island home. The floor boards creaked under her weight as she reached the top of the stairs. She stood as still as she could while she waited to see if whoever was intruding in her house had heard her.All was silent.She moved across the landing to the rooms on the other side and slowly peeked into each doorway. Charles was sleeping peacefully in his crib and the other bedrooms were empty.Time to check downstairs.She held her breath, hoping the thick, imported oriental runner that she’d installed down the cente
Bruce and I stood at the end of the rutted dirt path that passed for a road in the empty clearing. There was just enough room for Garth to position Bruce’s SUV in front of the opening in a group of boulders. We were thankful we’d decided to use his SUV instead of the rental car. All eyes were on Magdalena as she touched the boulders to get a sense of where they might have gone from there, but the trail just stopped.“I can’t get a sense of where she is anymore. She isn’t sending any more telepathic messages to Elsa... I don’t know,” she sighed.“How about you,” Bruce said as he looked at Garth. “Can you pick up their scent?”“A little, but not enough to follow,” Garth muttered.Garth was angry with the situation. Never before had he been outsmarted by a vampire. The fact that they were mutant-vampires made it even worse.Bruce pressed his nose agai
Elsa heaved her bulk from the back seat of the cab while the driver pulled her suitcase out of the trunk. Looking up at the rows of balconies creeping up the side of the white brick building before her, she guessed which one belonged to the condo of her destination.The third one from the top on the left, she thought. So, let me see... that would make it the one, two, three, four, five, six, seventh floor. Hmm, unlucky. The sound of her luggage bag being unceremoniously dropped onto the sidewalk beside her as the cab driver grunted ‘good-bye’ ended her little guessing game. She stacked her carry-on on top of her luggage bag and secured the pull handle of her bag into her grip before starting into the building. It looked to be old enough to have come from the era of stairs. She fervently hoped an elevator awaited her.She was not only relieved when she came upon the ornately gilded ele
I sat in the far side of my living room and watched Jess move amongst us. She was doing her best to hide her animosity toward almost everyone in the room, while she served ham sandwiches and beer. It was a simple fare, but a welcome one for stomachs that shamelessly announced the fact that we hadn’t eaten for over twelve hours. Magdalena declined the sandwich but gladly accepted the beer.We’d spent the better part of the last hour in deep conversation about a solution to the situation. Not only did we have to find a way to rescue Shen and Tatyana, but now we had to face the fact that Jessica was dangerously close to becoming a vampire. I recognized the signs well from my days of being with Mie-Lien. My heart felt like it was ripped in pieces at the thought of such a thing happening to poor Jess. She didn’t deserve it. She’d never played a role in the hunt for vampires. In fact, she’d argued and fought with me continually about
Shen lay across the bed, too weak to move. He was aware of movement around him, but he had no energy or desire to investigate. He was once again a captive in a den of cannibalistic vampires. He was once again being forced to breed women on command. The nightmare that he’d barely escaped from with his life was once again his reality. How did this happen?His mind reeled for answers; for just one thing that made sense in this nightmare. He remembered the anguished looks of helplessness on my face as I watched him being whisked into the air by Seth. His stomach was still unsettled from the experience of flying without the protection of a plane or a hot air balloon or... something.The sensation of being at the mercy of his captor as they flew so high into the sky that the trees looked like blades of grass and knowing that at any moment Seth could decide to let go and he could fall to his death was bad enough, but watching his clot