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“Hello? Masie? What’s wrong?” Thomas’s voice came over my cell.
I looked at the phone and then at the door. Then I looked at Betsy.
I pressed the phone to my ear. “Sorry, Thomas. I musta butt-dialed you. Go back to sleep.” I hung up and opened the front door, pointing the barrel of my gun at Ronnie’s chest. “How the hell are you still alive?”
Ronnie stared, a blank look on his bluish-white face.
“I have instructed him not to speak.” The man with the gravelly voice appeared behind Ronnie, as if stepping out of a cocoon of shadows.
“What the hell is this?” I kept my gun pointed at Ronnie’s chest.
“Your gift.” He smiled, flashing his bright white teeth, including two sharp fangs.
My mouth fell open. “But I saw you kill him.”
“Let’s just say that a vampire my age always has a few tricks up his sleeve.” He jerked his head of long, silky black hair at the murderer on my front porch.
“And what-what sort of trick is this?” I stammered.
“Is it not obvious? I turned him, though he has not yet fed and is very weak. Either way, he is mine to do with as I please—torture, kill, command.”
“You’re telling me he’s a vampire.”
“As are his friends. One can never have too many thugs at their disposal. However, this fine specimen, I gift to you.” He shrugged. “You may make his suffering last a lifetime. Longer if you give yourself to me. Or,” his pale eyes focused on Betsy, “you may end him right here and now.”
My mind began spitting out any logical reason it could come up with for what my eyes were seeing: Had I dreamed Ronnie’s death? Was I dreaming now? Did he have a twin? Was I going mad?No. Maybe. Probably not. Absolutely, yes.
Still, there was only one explanation, albeit totally impossible, to explain what was happening.Ronnie is a vampire.Which meant the shadowy man was also one?
My fingers tightened around Betsy. “I can’t believe it.”
“If you do not believe, shoot him. In the chest. He will not die.”
I wasn’t going to do that. If Ronnie was still alive, he belonged in jail. “You just told me I could end him.”
“Not with your gun. You merely need to command him to die. I have instructed Ronnie to obey your every wish.”
“Die, Ronnie.” I slapped my hand over my mouth. I didn’t mean it. I wanted him to live in prison.
Ronnie collapsed on my front porch.
The man hunched over Ronnie, stroking back his sticky blond hair. “You are free now. You will leave your body and roam the earth until the end of time.”
I watched a smokey wisp rise from Ronnie’s body and dissipate into the air.
“Sweet Jesus, what was that?” I took a step back, my fear and confusion turning to sheer panic.
He shrugged. “His soul. It will drift with the wind until this world is no more. A man like him does not deserve peace.”
“Did I really kill him?” I stared down at the lifeless body.
“Technically, you cannot kill something that is already dead. But yes.”
This wasn’t me. I didn’t take vengeance. I was a good, good person.
“I see that I have finally caught your attention, Masie. So allow me to formally introduce myself.” The man bowed. “My name is Montgomery Stark.”
I took another step back into my doorway.
