Chapter Six
Over the course of the next week, a handful of vampires showed up at the bridge. Like the first one, they were all looking for Saintcrow.
“This is so weird,” Kadie remarked late that night after Rylan returned from meeting with yet another one.
Saintcrow shrugged. “Yeah. They all want to stay here.”
“Why?”
“They’re not sure. I told them it was impossible, but they’re not leaving the area. I can sense them lurking nearby.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Sure, decades ago before we opened the town to the world. But now...?” He grunted softly. “The last one said she just wanted to be near me.”
Kadie lifted one brow. “Near you?”
“That’s what she said.”
“That’s just...creepy.”
“Yeah. They all asked to drink from me.”
A cold chill ran down Kadie’s spine. “Drink from you?”
“Well, I am one of the oldest of our kind. And the most powerful.”
“You’ve been that way for centuries. Why the sudden interest now?”
“Beats the hell out of me.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry about it, darlin’.”
“Do you think it has something to do with whatever it is that’s affecting you?”
“Maybe.” Or maybe they sensed something he didn’t, he mused.
Maybe he was getting weaker and like wild animals, they were closing in for the kill.
It was a troubling thought and he dismissed it out of hand.
He wasn’t growing weaker. Far from it. It was more likely that they were here hoping to take a little of his blood and make themselves stronger and more powerful. But why now all of a sudden?
“What are you going to do about it?” Kadie asked, troubled by the thought of strange vampires lurking outside the town.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t think they want to turn Morgan Creek into what it was before, do you?”
“No. They’re all young, little more than fledglings. I doubt if most of them even know this was once a haven for our kind.”
“So, they’re just here hoping to get a little taste of the master’s blood?”
Saintcrow snorted. “It sounds silly, when you put it like that.”
“It doesn’t sound silly to me,” Kadie retorted. “It sounds dangerous.”
“The wards are holding. They can’t get inside the town.”
“But...”
He silenced her with a kiss. “Stop worrying. Whatever it is that’s been urging me toward violence seems to have stopped for the moment. Let’s hope it’s gone for good. What do you say we...dammit, there’s another one at the bridge. Well, to hell with him. Let’s go make love.”
She smiled up at him as he reached for her. And then frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“This one’s bleeding.”
“Bleeding?”
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”
“You can’t just leave him out there bleeding in the dark,” Kadie exclaimed softly.
“Watch me.”
“Rylan!”
He huffed a sigh. He’d never known such a tender-hearted vampire as his Kadie.
Even years as a predator hadn’t hardened her to the brutal side of life and death.
She had never lost her faith or her humanity, her sense of right and wrong, or her respect for mankind, traits rare in the world of vampires. “Fine,” he said curtly. “I’ll go.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Sometimes he liked her better when she was afraid of him, he thought with a wry grin.
“All right, darlin’. Have it your way.”
Moments later, they materialized side-by-side at the end of the bridge. The vampire looked no more than nineteen and hadn’t been a vampire more than a year or two. Tall and thin, he had shaggy blond hair and a wary expression. Dried blood stained his shirt sleeve from shoulder to wrist.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Saintcrow asked gruffly.
“Seeking refuge.”
Saintcrow jerked his chin at the vampire’s bloody shirt. “What happened to you?”
“A wolf attacked me.”
Saintcrow shook his head. “You need a better story than that, Leonard. I can smell a lie a mile away.”
“All right,” Leonard said, his voice gruff. “I cut my arm with a knife.”
“Why would you do that?” Kadie exclaimed, appalled.
“I need to see Saintcrow.”
Kadie shook her head. “And you thought he’d feel sorry for you if you were injured?”
Unleashing some of his power, Rylan said. “I’m Saintcrow.”
The kid took a wary step backward as power washed over him.
“Why did you want to see me?” Saintcrow asked.
“I’m not sure. I was home in Indiana when I felt this sudden urge to come to Wyoming and find you.
” He took a deep breath, a look of ecstasy in his eyes.
“I want your blood,” he said. “I can smell the power in it.” Hands forming into claws, his eyes going red, he sprang toward Saintcrow, his fangs raking across Saintcrow’s shoulder.
Saintcrow reacted instinctively. A burst of preternatural power slammed into the kid, ripping through his heart, lifting him off the ground and smashing him into the pavement with the force of a jack hammer.
The kid shuddered once as preternatural power destroyed him from the inside out and then lay still.
Kadie stared at the boy, wide-eyed. She had seen Rylan kill before, but never like that.
Saintcrow swore under his breath. Damn, he hadn’t meant to kill the kid, just teach him a little respect. He flinched when Kadie turned her gaze on him.
“I told you to stay home,” he said, his voice harsh. “Dammit! Stop looking at me like I just killed a puppy!”
“Rylan...”
“Go home, Kadie. Please.”
“What are you going to do with the body?”
“I’ll hide it in the desert. The sun will destroy the corpse in the morning.
” He could see she wanted to argue, but she didn’t.
Instead, she kissed him on the cheek and vanished.
Shit! Just when he thought things were getting better, this had to happen.
Hands shoved into his pockets, he made his way back across the bridge toward the town.
Maybe it was time to return to the past, to turn Morgan Creek into a haven for vampires again.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew it would never work.
Modern technology had taken care of that.
Morgan Creek was too well-known. Cell phones were everywhere.
Drones occasionally flew overhead. From time to time, inspectors came by to check the restaurants and the other businesses.
There was no way to fly under the radar these days.
“Just as well,” he muttered, even as he wondered what to do about the vampires lurking in the vicinity, hoping for a taste of his ancient blood.
He was debating whether to go home or give Kadie some space when Kincaid materialized beside him.
Kincaid glanced back at the body then looked at Saintcrow, one brow arched. “Another one?” he asked.
Saintcrow grunted. “This one makes eight. He’s the first one I’ve had to kill.”
“This has to have something to do with whatever it is that’s eating at you,” Jake said.
“Have you heard anything from Alara?”
“No.”
Saintcrow swore under his breath. “I thought whatever the hell was driving me was fading but...” He jerked his chin at the body. “I guess not.”
“What happened?”
“He wanted my blood. He came at me and...” Saintcrow shrugged. “I didn’t mean to kill him. The hell of it is, Kadie was with me.”
“Ah. Not good.”
“Just my luck to fall in love with a tender-hearted woman. I’m surprised she didn’t leave me years ago.”
“You and me both.”
“Thanks,” Saintcrow said dryly. “Where’s Rosa?”
“She went to Arizona to go to a late movie with her sister. I’m going to meet her there later.”
Saintcrow blew out a sigh. “This thing is driving me crazy. One day I want to kill everything in sight and drink until I can’t hold any more, and the next I feel fine.”
“What are you gonna do about all those vampires hanging around?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sooner or later one or more of them is gonna start killing your guests when they leave. You know that, don’t you? Why hunt for prey when you can pick it off when it crosses the bridge.”
“Yeah, I thought about that. At the moment, there’s only seven of them. All young ones.”
“They’re the worst,” Kincaid said. “No restraint. No fear. What I don’t understand is how they know where to find you.”
“The kid I killed, he said he just had this sudden urge to come to Wyoming and find me.”
“That’s bizarre.”
Saintcrow snorted. “Tell me about it. If all the others have had the same urge, what, or who, could possibly influence them like that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anything like that happening before.”
Saintcrow blew out a sigh. “Life was a lot simpler back when no one knew Morgan Creek existed except for a few vampires and the two of us. Prey was always available. Nothing to worry about except an occasional hunter.” He shook his head.
“Hell, I’m getting maudlin in my old age.
Why am I standing out here talking to you when Kadie’s at home waiting for me? ”
“Always the same thing on your mind, Casanova,” Jake said, with a grin. “Catch ya later.”
“Later,” Saintcrow agreed.
But Kincaid was already gone.
~ * ~
By the end of the second week, over fifty fledgling vampires had come to Morgan Creek looking for Saintcrow. One and all, they wanted the same thing – a taste of his blood. He might have shared a little with one or two, but fifty? No way.
Sitting in his office late Friday night, he could sense their presence.
They were all young in the life. The oldest had been a vampire less than ten years, but their combined power hit him like a dull vibration in the air.
They were waiting in Cheyenne and Custer, Casper and Laramie, Rock Springs and Cody.
Hiding out by day, hunting by night. Police departments across the state reported a sudden increase in the number of missing people, mostly tourists and transients.
He had to put an end to this before things got out of hand, he mused.
Before hunters started showing up in Wyoming and gradually made their way to Morgan Creek.
It was late when he returned home.
“You have to do something,” Kadie said, tossing the evening paper aside when he entered the living room.
“Nice to see you, too,” he said, dryly.
She lifted her face for his kiss. “Rylan, people are dying.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Huffing a sigh, he dropped down beside her and captured one of her hands in his.
“There’s only one thing to do. Call them all together and compel them to go home.
” Or he could kill them all. It would easy.
So easy. He could sate his thirst with their young blood, experience their terror when he destroyed them, dip his hands in their blood.
It would be like the old days, when he hunted and killed until he was drunk with power.
Damn! Where had that thought come from?
“Rylan!” Kadie’s voice put an end to his thoughts.
Dammit. She’d read his mind. He would have to block the blood bond between them...
“Rylan!” She slapped him as hard as she could. “Stop thinking like that!”
He stared at her, his cheek stinging from the force of her blow. She was no weak, mortal female but a vampire who carried his blood. “What the hell?”
“I thought you were getting better,” she murmured. He hadn’t been as uneasy or restless the last few days. She had hoped and prayed that whatever was driving him was weakening.
Saintcrow clenched his hands, a muscle twitching in his jaw as he glared at her.
Kadie glared back, hoping he wouldn’t unloose his anger on her.
He took a deep breath when he sensed Kadie’s unease. Did she really think he would strike her? Not that he could blame her for worrying. She might carry his ancient blood, but she was no match for his anger or his strength.
He closed his eyes, took another deep breath and held it util he felt his rage drain away.
Murmuring, “I’m sorry,” he opened his eyes, his gaze not quite meeting hers. “Forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I know you’re going through hell.”
“Yeah.” She had no idea, he thought bitterly. No idea at all of the torment he’d been experiencing.
Filled with an overwhelming restlessness, he went to the window and stared down at the town.
Even though it was late, there were several people strolling along the sidewalk in front of the hotel.
Prey. An indrawn breath carried the scent of their blood, each one just a little different.
He had once thought of humanity as a smorgasbord – so many different tastes and smells and textures between young and old, male and female.
His gaze settled on a teenage couple holding hands in the shadows.
The girl smelled of lavender and burgeoning lust. He felt his hunger rise hot and swift within him.
So easy to take her. To take them both.. ..
He reeled back when Kadie slapped him for the second time that night. He had killed people for less, he thought. His head snapped back, his eyes going red with rage. He bared his fangs at her and she slapped him again.
“Stop it, Rylan! Dammit, I said stop it!”
He glared at her, his admiration for her courage overcoming his anger as he lifted a hand to his cheek.
She glared back at him, her eyes glowing red. “I’m closing the town tomorrow,” she said.
He didn’t argue. They had done it once before.
When he didn’t say anything, she put her arms around him. “We’ll figure it out,” she murmured. “Somehow.”