After she finished the last ghost story, the parents and children thanked her and started to leave. It took less time for them to clear out than she expected. She followed Jessie and Kathleen downstairs and when she saw that Lachlan had left, Erin couldn’t decide how she felt. Disappointment warred with relief. She didn’t know if she could handle him right now.
Jessie left but Kathleen remained behind. “I think we should walk each other to our cars. With the weirdness going on lately it’s not a bad idea.”
“Sounds good. Let me get my stuff.”
On the way out to the car, Erin made sure she glanced around at the property and house. She didn’t see anyone lurking in the shadows, and she took her keys out and held them at the ready.
Kathleen’s car sat next to Erin’s, and before Kathleen and Debbie slid into her compact Kathleen said, “That man you were standing next to in the stacks tonight…”
Erin waited for her to finish, but she didn’t. “Yes?”
“I know I said he looked delicious, but I’d be careful of him. He’s a stranger and it pays to be cautious. Do you know when he first arrived in Pine Forest?”
Erin shrugged. “I’m not sure. He didn’t say.”
Skepticism crossed Kathleen’s face. “I’ll have him checked out. Danny would be interested in knowing a new guy is in town.”
Kathleen’s brother, Danny Fortesque, was a police officer for Pine Forest Police Department, and Kathleen tended to abuse his authority by getting him to do favors for her.
“I’m sure Lachlan is legit,” Erin said, not sure why she defended him.
“You’re on first name basis already?”
Kathleen’s shocked tone yanked on Erin’s strings. “I’m on first name basis with a lot of people here. This is a friendly town.” She unlocked her car and opened the door. “This place is so affable even the ghosts come up on the first day and introduce themselves.”
“They do?” Kathleen’s niece asked.
Kathleen’s chuckle sounded dubious. “No, honey, she’s just teasing.” She glared at Erin. “Be careful. He might be good-looking, but then so was Ted Bundy.”
With that command, Kathleen rolled up her window and shot out of the parking lot. Erin slid into the driver’s seat and made sure all the doors were locked. She stuck the key in the ignition.
A shadow passed over the top of the car. Huge, dark, and hovering.
Erin let out a startled squeak.
She tensed. The shade lingered over the car, turning the bleak night darker than before. Her fingers fumbled with the keys as she turned on the car. A sense of urgency and dread pursued her like a monster in a nightmare as she jammed the car into reverse, then roared forward out of the parking lot. As Erin barreled down the road, she couldn’t shake the sensation that as she put distance between her and the library, that someone still watched her.
* * * * *
As the vampire observed Erin leave the parking lot, the car screeching as rubber spun on asphalt and rocks, he felt no regret. She knew something was wrong, but not with any true understanding. If she did she would leave this town and run as far and as fast as she could. He thought about initiating her tonight, but as in centuries past, he waited for the right woman to realize how much she craved sex. He preyed on that need like a hyena on carrion. He would build the fear and the need for sexual release until she gave into her most unholy desires.
He savored her fear. Adrenaline worked like steak sauce, tenderizing and making people taste so much better. He licked his lips.
How wonderful that he found his reincarnated love in this little town with its strange tendencies. He could hide among all the other unusual beings that roamed the night…those in search of mischief, those wandering without purpose, and those with evil on their minds. Even the high mountain forest creatures avoided town; the people never had trouble with cougars or bears as many places this isolated often did. For the animals felt specters and would avoid them at all costs.
He, on the other hand, enjoyed seeing entities in every corner of town.
He knew the darkness so well; dwelling here for a few days gave him the flavor of the area and the lay of the land. Now that he knew where the next taste would come from, he also felt new hunger. He could have taken her this evening and she couldn’t have resisted. No woman resisted him if he wanted her with him.
He saw an old woman nearby the library, walking alone on the sidewalk. He made tracks in her direction. He didn’t feel like working hard to get satisfaction and food. Tonight he would put an old coot out of her misery.
As he made his way toward the woman, he felt her sudden apprehension. She couldn’t see him, and yet she perceived danger. So few understood how when the night came down and they felt that prickle on the back of their neck…well, the premonition was often correct.
The Hunter would come here soon and hope to change things, to keep even old ladies safe, but he would fail this time as he did all other times.
Yes, he would make a lair and defeat The Hunter and any pitiful human who sought his demise. Then, if things went as planned, he would dine with or perhaps on Erin Greenway.
Chapter 4
Somewhere in Morocco
Ronan Kieran sniffed the night air as he took swift steps down the dark alley between the two story buildings. Spicy scents, a combination of old leather, camel hair, and sweaty bodies filled his nose. Not so different from his birthplace near Limerick.
Minus the camel hair, of course.
Earlier, in his hotel room, he thought about going back to the old sod and staying for awhile. He needed the break and a return to the familiar scent of peat and the green landscape more emerald than any place on earth. Ten years had passed since he’d visited Eire’s beloved shores, and he missed the ancient land with a fierceness that should have called him back long ago.
Instead, he continued the chase that had taken him around the world more times than he could count. Maybe this time he’d obtain the information he required to rid the earth of a hidden, vicious plague.
Noises the average human ear couldn’t detect assaulted his hearing from all sides. The howl of a dog far in the countryside, the long, drawn-out breath of a woman in a room nearby, the screech of a cat in throes of mating.
Fuck me. This bleeding country has more distractions than Prince Hamad’s harem.
He smiled as he remembered his last trip to this region about sixty years ago amid a war-torn time. Prince Hamad was long gone, and so was the harem. Hamad had been a bastard, but a good friend nonetheless, until the ancient one came to this land in search of blood and destroyed Hamad and his harem in a frenzy of hate.
Ronan shoved back the vicious memories. No time to think about the past or that era when things seemed more defined.
Not that it had been a simpler era, but a slower one when even a vampire couldn’t go from one continent to the next with as much speed or destructive force.
Ronan heard the shuffle of feet from the alley and braced his body for attack. A leisurely smile spread over his face. The murmur of a language he hadn’t heard in a while reached his ears. An old babble that people in this country didn’t understand, but Ronan did. Seconds later Ronan found himself in the clutches of a skinny arm that had more power than it should. An Irish Gaelic greeting reached his sensitive ears.
“Ronan Ciaran,” the hoarse whisper spoke his Gaelic name rather than the anglicized version. “What a weird name for a big man. Little seal black. Makes no soddin’ sense to me. Did your mother realize you’d grow up to be a big, ugly lurch?”
Ronan grinned wider. “My mother was a small, angry woman. She named all her children strange things. I won’t even tell you what she named my brother’s. I think it was revenge for having to push us out of the womb.”
Ronan knew he sounded a little bitter, but his mother had been a cast iron banshee from the word go.
Ronan’s bizarre explanation of his mother’s odd naming techniques made his attacker pause. With one lung
e and a twist, Ronan flipped the smaller man over his shoulder. The man landed with a thud and a grunt on his back on cold, hard cobblestone.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” the man gasped, then groaned. “Are you feckin’ crazy? You’ve been eatin’ your Wheaties again, I take it?”
“Somhairle Dubhe.” Ronan said the man’s Gaelic name.
The smaller Irishman clad in robes stood quickly and faced the man who’d bested him.
Ronan grinned when his friend of two hundred and fifty years said nothing. Sorley might also be a bastard, but his loyalty was unquestioned. His sentences sometimes came out sounding oddly backwards, but Ronan always knew what he meant. Although Sorley had only been a vampire for about three hundred years, the Irishman knew things much older vampires didn’t. He also knew when to give Ronan space.
Sorley grinned back, his golden flecked blue eyes glowing like a cat’s in the midnight darkness. “Aren’t you going to tell me to take you to my leader?”
“Shit, no. You don’t have a leader. Though maybe you should.”
“Come on, then. Sure, and Yusuf is dyin’ to meet you.” The wiry Irishman kept his accent, even though he’d lived in Morocco for twenty years. “He wants you to say hello to his daughter Selima.”
Ronan laughed, something he should do more often. His lungs felt rusty. Came from too much time in dusty highways and byways. “You’re not serious.”
“I bloody well am.” Sorley walked ahead of Ronan, steering through the almost pitch blackness.
Not as if Ronan needed the direction, for this area hadn’t changed in sixty years. He would have found the place nonetheless. “Is she pretty?”
Sorley snorted. “Pretty doesn’t quite describe her, lad.”
Lad. Right. I’m older than you.
Only by a hundred years. Sorley’s mind whispered to Ronan’s in the way of two vampires who’d known each other since the seventeen hundreds. Now don’t be starin’ at her the way you do.
What way is that?
That way. You know. All dreamy and romantic and like. Here’s the thing, Ronan boy. The old man won’t take kindly to it. And he knows enough about vampires to kill you twenty times over without so much as blinkin’ a feckin’ eye. Why, he told me last week about this one well-hung vampire that tried to romance his wife Atella. He cut the nuts off—
I get the picture, Sorley. You don’t have to draw me a map.
Sorley laughed, the noise grating on Ronan’s sensitive ears.
Another twist in the labyrinth alley, and they came to a small wooden door. Ronan would have to stoop to enter. The door swung open before Sorley could knock, swinging open on rusty, creaking hinges.
A little man, barely five feet tall, stood in the doorway. Ronan caught the power in the small man’s personality right away and felt it down to the soles of his feet like an electric shock wave. A blocking spell. Ronan knew that old hunters like this one built up a resistance to a vampire’s charms and power. This guy looked almost one hundred but was probably sixty. Still, the man’s gaze held a sharpness that belied his used up and dry appearance. His wrinkled, almost flaky skin said the desert climate drained his reserves with each passing year.
“Come in. Don’t just stand there. I can hardly see you, damn my old eyes.” Yusuf pulled back from the doorway and they followed him.
Ronan knew that Yusuf lied through his yellowing teeth. Clear sight and intelligence shone in his eyes as he waited for Sorley and Ronan to enter his abode.
Ronan nodded and bent at the knees so he could enter without bashing his head. “Yusuf.” He held his hand out in greeting. “I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Yusuf cracked a smile as he led them further into the nooks and crannies of the small, crowded home. They passed one room where several toddlers played with three young women. Ronan glanced at the dark-haired, olive-skinned women and saw their eyes widen into big circles. He smiled and proceeded, heeding Sorley’s earlier warning about Yusuf.
He needed his balls and didn’t plan to lose them any time soon.
Despite the fact he hadn’t felt a woman’s hot, wet channel around his cock in almost six months, he didn’t seduce innocent girls with his extraordinary abilities. He could make it good for any one of the women in that room, but he didn’t want the complications that could come with it just so he could indulge in pleasure. Finding a blood-thirsty vampire must be first priority.
As he passed the room, he heard the human women whispering among themselves.
“Vampires,” a sultry female voice said. “How does Uncle dare bring them in here?”
A high voice answered. “Uncle said they are harmless.”
“No vampire is harmless,” a softer voice said.
“Did you see the tall, dark-haired one? His hair is rich with copper, yet shimmering like black fire. And those eyes. So dark you can’t see the bottom,” the first voice said. “How beautiful he is.”
“He was delicious,” the soft one said. “I wonder if Uncle Yusuf would allow—?“
“Don’t even think it. He intends Selima for the vampire.”
The soft voice came again. “But will the beautiful one help her?”
Ronan stiffened his spine, winching at the thought. Damn Sorley. He bet the little weasel told Yusuf Ronan would fuck the newly made vampire and liberate her from pain. A maiden turned into a vampire must have a good humping to release her powers. Without that, she would eventually starve to death, unable to bite a human neck or drink blood, yet unable to consume human food. Even a newly made vampire woman who’d experienced pleasures of the flesh before would need sexual loving to prevent severe pain from immobilizing her.
Damn it, Sorley. If you’ve—
It was a condition of tellin’ you how to slay the ancient one. Don’t get your briefs in a wad.
Ronan wanted to clamp his hands around Sorley’s lily-white, scrawny neck and choke the life out of him. Instead, he shook his head. He didn’t relish initiating a virgin, but he might not have a choice.
Yusuf brought them into a larger room laced with the potent smell of incense. Around the room were shelves piled high with weapons—some of them stolen, no doubt. Yusuf might be honorable, but he wouldn’t quibble on every principal when it came to keeping his family safe. A huge carpet, expensive for the abode, lay in the center of the room. Probably a payment for ridding a sheik of a vampire infestation. Piled high with the silken, overstuffed pillows, the area had the festive air of a place ready for a party. Containers of drink stood near a silver tray holding cups.
“Come.” Yusuf gestured toward the pillows. “Make yourself comfortable. We’ll talk and eat and drink.”
Ronan’s stomach growled. Since he’d stopped drinking human blood centuries ago, his stomach required human food. “Thank you.”
They feasted in silence for some time, and then Ronan became a little impatient. “We must know how to kill the ancient one. What can you tell us?”
Yusuf popped a piece of spiced meat into his mouth. “Vampire, you grow impatient.”
“Don’t call me that.” Ronan spoke without vehemence, but he didn’t like being reminded of his eternal state. “My name is Ronan Kieran.”
Yusuf’s face, as wrinkled as a pug’s, broke into a smile. “Ronan. A strong name for a warrior. There was a time, not so long ago, I would have hunted you rather than invited you into my home. You are blessed to have lasted so long.”
Sorley held up his goblet and made a toasting motion. “Damn glad we are of that. By the way, this wine is almost better than ale. Got any more?”
Yusuf didn’t flinch at the bold vampire’s lack of manners. The old man poured Sorley another cup full of the red liquid.
“Would you rather it was blood?” Yusuf asked.
Sorley flinched. “No, indeed. You know better than that. Quit stallin’ now, and tell my friend what he needs to know. It’s urgent. What can he do to kill the ancient one?”
The old man seemed a little
amazed, then covered his astonishment with anger. “Your lack of manners is abominable. Have you no shame? ”
“None the feckin’ at all,” Sorley said as he smacked his lips.
Ronan gave his friend a hard, level glare. “Mind your behavior, Irishman. Yusuf might decide to stake you yet.”
After slurping down another heavy draught of wine, Sorley’s attention went to the steel-eyed expression on Yusuf. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. I forgot.”
Soon after the wrinkled man told Ronan the bad news, Yusuf grinned widely and said, “A vampire will have to sacrifice himself to save a human from the ancient one.”
Wary of this information, Ronan took a long time questioning. He sipped more wine. “Sacrifice how?”
Yusuf leaned back into his cushions. “A battle of wills. You are one of the strongest vampires on earth.”
Ronan acknowledged he could kick most vampires into the next century without much effort, but the ancient one would be the exception. “Not strong enough to kill the ancient one. That’s why I’m here. Are you saying I’d have to sacrifice myself in a fight to the death?”
“No one has the perfect answer on how to kill the ancient one, but there is talk that love might be the only thing strong enough to slay him.”
“What?” Ronan and Sorley asked at the same time.
“Love,” Yusuf said.
Ronan scoffed at the idea. “I love no one. Least of all a blood sucking killer.”
“You don’t love your friends?” Yusuf asked.
Ronan shifted on his cushions and propped up one knee. He rested his arm upon it and stared at the plain earthenware goblet in his hand. “My affection for my friends runs deep.”
The man smiled, showing his crooked teeth again. He scratched at his white beard. “This will not be enough. The love of a woman must sustain you.”
Sorley’s narrow, pock-marked face twitched into a smile, and he laughed. “Weird idea, I say. You really expect us to believe that?”
Deep is the Night: Dark Fire Page 4