it. He’s not a monster. He doesn’t kill people when he . . . when he drinks from them. He’s treated me with nothing but kindness.”
“He’s got you under his spell, Kadie. Can’t you see that? You’ve got to listen to me and come home, if not for your sake, then for your mother’s. She’s worried about you.”
“You told her about Rylan?”
“Of course not.”
Kadie drummed her fingertips on the edge of the night table. “You didn’t have to tell her, did you? She already knew.”
“Kadie, I’m asking you one last time to come home. I can’t be responsible for what happens if you don’t.”
With that ominous declaration, her father ended the call.
Feeling sick to her stomach, Kadie dressed and drove into town. She was surprised to see a black van parked up on the hill in front of Blair House. Had Lilith returned without Saintcrow knowing?
That seemed doubtful.
Another car she didn’t recognize was parked in front of the restaurant. A good sign, she thought, remembering Donna’s hopes of finding a way to make a living in Morgan Creek. It was a pretty place, what with the mountains and the trees. But, as Rosemary said, the future hinged on whether the vampires returned. She wondered if Saintcrow could cast some kind of spell that would keep the vampires out, the way he had once kept the humans in.
Kadie parked the car and went into the restaurant.
Rosemary smiled at her from behind the counter.
Three men stood at the cash register, waiting for Donna to ring up their bill. They all wore long, dark coats and shuttered expressions.
Shirley was in the kitchen.
Kadie took a seat at the counter.
“What’ll you have?” Rosemary asked. “Shirley made an apple pie last night.”
“Sounds good,” Kadie said.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
Kadie glanced at the three men. They didn’t look like tourists. She felt a shiver run down her spine when one of them looked up and caught her staring. She quickly looked away.
“What’s wrong, Kadie?” Rosemary asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Nothing. I . . . I . . .” She bit down on her lower lip. She was just being paranoid, she thought. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that the three men were hunters, and that they had come to Morgan Creek to destroy Saintcrow.
In the back of her mind, she heard her father saying he wouldn’t be responsible for what happened if she didn’t come home. Had he sent those men here? If so, how had he found her? And even as she asked the question, she knew the answer. He had traced her cell phone to this location.
Was her father here, too? Maybe up at Blair House, looking for vampires to kill?
“Rosemary,” she said quietly, “are there any other vampires in town?”
“Not right now. Lilith’s been here a couple of times, but she hasn’t come near any of us. Why?”
“I think those men who just left are hunters.”
Chapter 33
In the darkness of his lair, Saintcrow stirred, then came fully awake as the scent of freshly spilled blood stung his nostrils.
Vampire blood.
Lilith’s blood.
There were strangers in town. Strangers who smelled of blood and death.
Hunters.
Saintcrow opened his preternatural senses, honing in on his blood link to Kadie. It was midafternoon and she was in the restaurant with the other women.
A thought took him to Blair House. The scent of freshly spilled blood was strong inside. He found Lilith in her bedroom. A thick wooden stake made of hawthorn had been driven into her heart while she was at rest. The skin of her face was gray and shriveled, her white nightgown dyed red with her blood.
Saintcrow ran his fingertips over the stake. The hunters were Old School, he mused. In times past, people had believed stakes had to be made from ash or hawthorn or black thorn in order to be effective when, in truth, one kind of wood served as well as another.
Taking hold of the stake, he eased it from her chest and tossed it aside, then wrapped her body in one of the blankets. He would come back later tonight and bury her.
There was no sign of the young man she had preyed on. Either the hunters had taken him away, or he had left on his own early this morning, after the sun had sent Lilith to her rest.
The young man’s fate was immaterial. Saintcrow’s only concern was for Kadie. After ascertaining that she wasn’t in any danger, he was about to return to his lair when his senses warned him that the hunters