Night of the Vampires

She was whole; she didn’t seem maddened, diseased, in any way.

He had to hesitate; she might be among the living. Untainted.

“Who the hell are you, and why the hell shouldn’t I kill you?” he demanded.

“Strike Cole, strike! It’s deception, it’s always deception!” Brendan cried.

He lifted his stake again.

“Please, for the love of God! I don’t want to hurt you!” she cried. She glanced toward the others, then back at him.

“What?”

“Cole!” Cody shouted in warning.

At his back!

He twisted, just in time to spear the man wearing a preacher’s collar who was about to rip apart his back. He didn’t dare take more than seconds to shake the fellow from his stake, not with the woman beneath his feet.

The body fell near her and she shuddered, but her eyes never left Cole’s.

“Cole!” Brendan warned—there were two of them circling him.

“Give me a reason not to kill you!” Cole shouted to the woman at his feet.

She continued staring straight up at him.

“Cole!” Cody shouted at him this time; he could see that Cody was involved in helping Brendan—there were three around him, and now one had gained a certain power and speed, probably one of the first to be infected in the prison.

It sickened him. It had always sickened him. Self-survival had allowed him to learn to kill the creatures, just as the need for law and order and justice had always helped him out when a firm hand was needed in Victory.

But too often this felt like…

Murder.

He didn’t want to do it; God help him, he didn’t want to do it. Neither did he want to be seduced into a dreaded death, granting mercy, and finding that a harpy suddenly flew from the face and shape of the angel, and dragged sharp, wicked fangs into his neck.

Tension riddled his frame.

Time. Time could be everything.

His fingers wound more tightly around the stake.

“Damn you! Prove it, prove you’re not one of them. For the love of God, then, give me a reason not to kill you!” he shouted above the fray to the woman beneath his feet.

She looked straight at Cole. “One can prove nothing in this world.”

He raised the stake with purpose.

“Wait, damn you,” she cried. “I’ll give you a very good reason not to kill me.”

“And that is?”

“Fool! I’ve been fighting with you, not against you.”

What?

“I’m Megan Fox. Don’t you understand, cowboy? I’m Megan Fox, Cody’s long-lost sister,” she said with a dry and weary drawl that shook him, even in the middle of the melee.

CHAPTER TWO

MRS. GRAYBOW’S ROOMING House on the edge of the mall was a pleasant place. Until the war it had just been the home of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Graybow.

But Arnie Graybow had been among the first to die at Manassas, and so now Martha Graybow, a thirty-two-year-old widow with two little mouths to feed, ran a boardinghouse. Mrs. Graybow and her brood, Artie and Marni, twelve and seven respectively, resided in the carriage house in back and to the left of the main house, otherwise empty now with the carriage and horses having long ago been sold. The main house itself consisted of five bedrooms upstairs, a lovely dining room, parlor, kitchen, pantry and music room downstairs. It was a fine and private temporary residence for vampire hunters.

As fortune would have it, Megan Fox was friends with Martha Graybow. They both hailed from Richmond. Once upon a time, Martha would babysit her when her mother had business at the bank, or would sometimes allow her to “help out” at the boardinghouse, though she’d been too young to be of any real assistance.

But, of course, Martha had no idea what Megan was up to nowadays. Martha, bless her, thought that Megan was just a fiery young woman, the kind that didn’t swoon, that was happiest standing up against injustice. And indeed, Megan had faith, but she was pretty sure the world had a long way to go. One day there would be justice, and equality would exist. But not this way, not with the North decimating the South. Instead of shaming their brethren, the industrial North should have been figuring out ways to educate those in the South. But maybe she was wrong. Maybe half the planters were just greedy, and they didn’t see anything equal in their darker brothers. Nothing about the war—despite the bloodshed, death and devastation—was cut-and-dried, or black-and-white. It was all gray and red—the color of the blood of all the Americans dying in the war, Yankee, Rebel, black man, white man, yellow, pink, dark or tan.

But she knew that a different war was also being waged. One that most of the world knew little about. Sometimes, she really wanted the entire world to know about it. Maybe they would stop fighting one another and face the true threat if they knew, but the words she had spoken to Cole were true: it was hard to prove the existence of the evil creatures to a large, disorganized populace to a satisfactory degree. The world wasn’t ready to understand that the myths actually represented a very real part of the world.

And a part of her.

Cole Granger, the tall, sturdy, striking fellow who had nearly staked her, paced the room. His eyes were more than suspicious. He was thinking that he should have staked her.

Select—very select—Union troops had been called in for the cleanup of the prison fight. And so, now, there were four of them at the boardinghouse, and she sat on a chair in the center of the music room—the music room, rather than the parlor, which faced the street and afforded less privacy—seated very much as any prisoner of war might have been.

She was being questioned.

Cole kept pacing, trying to keep silent, and let Cody Fox take charge. She was attempting to explain to them all that she was Cody’s sister. And it was interesting, of course, because she knew that Cody would certainly have told them all that he’d grown up without a sister, which would have been, in his mind, correct. They didn’t know what she knew, of course, because she was Cody’s younger sister—and she knew everything that their father had told their mother long after Cody had left. Still, she hadn’t thought that it was going to be this difficult to explain.

But none of them had actually managed to sit quiet long enough for a nuanced discussion. She tried to remember the barrage of questions they had last voiced—in the order they had voiced them.

“No. Yes. No. And yes, and yes, I believe,” she said, staring from one man to the next. Brendan Vincent first, older than the other two men and straight as a ramrod—a military man, possibly retired. His eyes showed age and knowledge; the hollow structure of his face betrayed pain even as the mobility of his mouth hinted at a kindness remaining despite the lessons of the world. Then there was Cody Fox. Her brother. He should easily believe her—apparently, the wheaten color of their hair had been their father’s, along with the strange hazel-and-gold hue of their eyes. He had sharp eyes, ever watchful. And shouldn’t he be able to sense their mutually other nature? And Cole Granger. Rock solid, with piercing blue eyes of a shade deep and dark blue, enigmatic. In contrast to the others, his hair was almost jet-black. Each of his limbs seemed muscled and toned, as did the breadth of his chest. He was evidently a physical man, one accustomed to constant movement—the look of a frontiersman, someone who met every challenge. His mouth was grim and one that had apparently forgotten all about trust or kindness. Maybe that wasn’t true. He seemed to trust Cody Fox and Brendan Vincent.

“She’s got a sarcastic mouth on her, that’s for sure,” Cole said.

“Yeah. That could mean some proof that she’s Cody’s sister,” Brendan commented.

Cody’s gaze turned on Brendan, ever so slightly dry and indignant.

Cole Granger was suddenly hunched down in front of her. “Who are you really, and what were you doing there?” he demanded quietly. But even when his words were soft, they felt deep enough to fill any room.

She inhaled deeply, refusing to be intimidated by the man.

“I’m Cody Fox’s sister, Megan Fox. You can ask me a million times, and I will give you the same answer. There is none other to give,” she said, staring back at him.

“I don’t have a sister,” Cody said harshly.