out why Saintcrow loved this car. Going zero to sixty in under four seconds felt like flying, but it was nothing compared to zooming down the road with the speedometer hovering near ninety. She had never driven that fast in her life and her good sense quickly took over. Saintcrow might survive an accident at that speed. She most certainly wouldn’t.
She took a road that veered to the right and found herself in a part of the town she had never seen before. Vaughan had told her it had once been a cattle town, and here was the proof. After parking the car, she got out to stretch her legs. The place looked like an old western movie set, she thought, glancing around. There was a saloon, a telegraph office, a hotel. The buildings were in sad shape, roofs sagging, doors askew, the wood gray with age. The jail, made of red brick, had fared better, although the door was missing. Beyond the town, she spied what remained of a few corrals.
Picking her way across the rough ground, she peeked inside the dilapidated buildings, surprised to find furniture inside the hotel, or what was left of it. Animals had obviously taken refuge inside. The sofa pillows had been shredded, the insides used for nests. A faded picture of a naked woman hung over the bar in the saloon.
She tried to imagine what it must have been like to live there in the 1800s. No movies. No satellite radio. No electricity. No sports cars. Doing laundry by hand. Cooking on a woodstove.
“Definitely not for me,” she decided.
Leaving the town behind, she walked toward the mountains. She hadn’t been here before, but as long as she was, she might as well see if she couldn’t find a way out.
She followed several trails. All were dead ends. She tried climbing a winding path that led toward the summit, but it grew increasingly narrow until it disappeared. Pausing to catch her breath, she stared upward. She had been foolish to think she could climb to the top before dusk. And even if she managed to reach the summit before sundown, what then? It would be dark soon and as badly as she wanted to leave this place, she wasn’t foolish enough to wander around out here after dark. There could be wild animals. Snakes. And who knew what else?
With a sigh of resignation, she turned back, a sudden unease urging her to hurry. She began to run, unmindful of the brush that snagged her clothing and scratched her skin.
She glanced over her shoulder, her gaze darting right and left, her panic growing. Was that a vampire, or a shadow? The cry of a night bird, or the wail of some earthbound spirit?
She sobbed with relief when she reached the safety of the car. She locked the doors, turned the key in the ignition, hit the lights.
And screamed.
Saintcrow loosed a pithy oath as he changed from a mass of swirling gray mist to his own form, opened the passenger door, and slid into the seat.
Kadie stared at him, her face pale, her eyes wide. “I thought you were a ghost.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She pressed a hand to her heart. “Gee, I’m out here in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, alone,” she remarked sarcastically. “Why would I be frightened?”
“What the hell are you doing out here, alone, anyway?”
“Just sightseeing.”
“Not much to see,” he mused, glancing around. “A few dilapidated old buildings and a couple of empty corrals.”
“There aren’t a lot of entertainment choices here. You can only watch so many movies, or read so many books, you know.” She glanced out the side window, thinking that she had a lot more sympathy for animals forced to live out their lives in zoos. No matter how big or beautiful a cage might be, it was still a cage.
“Is that how you think of this place? As a cage?”
“You might not keep us behind bars,” Kadie said bitterly, “but we’re still just animals for you and the other vampires to prey on.” She slid a glance at his face, recoiled at the fury smoldering in his eyes.
Folding his arms across his chest, he said, “Drive.”
She kept her gaze on the road, afraid to look at him again. The words, Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, kept running through her mind. Making Saintcrow angry was just stupid. Her life, and the lives of the men and women in town, depended on his goodwill.