Fade To Black - Heather Graham Krewe of Hunters

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David Neal said.

      * * *

       So close... So close... He could stand there and smile, anticipate and nearly smell and feel and taste it in the air...

       Blood...

       Death...

       The drama and horror were almost unbearable.

      * * *

      Cara was in heaven. So many people.

      They were signing the “family” photo when the Blood-bone character came swinging his way toward their booth, cape flying behind him, mask in place and sword streaking colors through the air.

      He wielded the sword well, as if he’d had training in swordplay. Well, many actors had.

      He wielded it straight to the booth.

      He pushed past some of the fans, and they all laughed, of course. It looked like it was a bit of impromptu theater.

      Blood-bone pointed at Marnie. She rose from her chair and pointed at him, playing along.

      “Be gone, Blood-bone. You may play your evil games in your show, but you may not come back to threaten ours!”

      Blood-bone swaggered toward Marnie, his lighted sword swirling almost hypnotically.

      “You won’t get past me!” Marnie told him.

      He kept coming. So many people were watching!

      Cara leaped up by Marnie. She set her arm around the woman’s shoulders.

      “Don’t you dare come for my precious daughter!” she cried.

      There was no way that she wasn’t getting some attention and play out of this. Who knew who might be out there? Another job could be on the line. That producer could see how dedicated they were.

      “I know his every evil thought! He will never get by us!” Marnie cried. She was grinning, and that smile of hers seemed to draw an even larger crowd. Yes, it was all play.

      All fun.

      And Cara had to get in on it, big-time.

      “Indeed, we will smite you. I warn you again—touch my daughter, you evil thing, and we will see that you rot in hell forever!”

      The Blood-bone character looked at her. She could have sworn that beneath the black mask, the man smiled.

      He raised his sword...

      Cara pushed past Marnie.

      “Don’t you dare!”

      But his sword was poised.

      And it came down. Again and again.

      Cara really didn’t know what hit her. At first, there was nothing, and then there was an incredible burst of pain. The kind of pain that brought brilliant stars bursting before her eyes, that brought a sea of darkness, black sweeping away the tiny bursts of light...

      She gasped.

      She felt something trickling on her.

      Felt herself falling...

      She heard Marnie scream, felt Marnie’s arms go around her.

       Theater, it was all theater, all show...

      But it wasn’t.

      Blood-bone was gone, swooping his way back into the crowd.

      Cara was bleeding; her grasp on Marnie was weakening.

      “No, no, no, stay with me, Cara. I love you, my friend, stay with me,” Marnie ordered.

      But Cara knew that she could not.

      Comic Con. It was a comic convention.

      And Cara had just never imagined that—for her, at least—she could be so very right.

      That it could be, quite literally, where old stars came to die!

       1

      Bryan McFadden could always feel her, of course. As soon as she decided to grace him with her presence.

      Yes.

      She was there again.

      Watching him, his every move.

      He pretended that he didn’t see her. He also did his best to hide a smile.

      She wanted something, of course. Or he was due for a lecture, a long litany on how to live his life.

      He’d been splitting logs outside his cabin when he’d first become aware that she was there; he continued to chop firewood. If she was going to haunt him because she wanted something, she was bloody well going to have to do so with more than a bunch of her dramatic sighs.

      He paused for a moment; the sun was riding in the sky on a beautiful day. The mountains and valleys of Virginia were, in Bryan’s mind, the most beautiful places in the world to be. Here, right at the base of the Shenandoah Mountain, he could enjoy both.

      This place had been—as long as he could remember—a haven. He and his brothers, Bruce and Brodie, had always been able to go a little wild out here. They’d never been bad kids, but they had been full of energy and ready to run, climb, fish, swim and love the rugged beauty of the land.

      The family cabin was just a weekend retreat.

      Home was DC, near the National Theatre, a half-dozen other theaters and easy access to the casting agents who were closer to their parents—Hamish and Maeve McFadden—than any blood relative might expect to be.

      Though he and his brothers had long ago left their boyhoods behind, they had managed to stay in the same basic area. And, mainly because each of them had joined a branch of the service—Bryan, the navy; Bruce, the marines; and Brodie, the army—they had maintained the manor house close to a river in Northern Virginia where they had actually grown up.

      He was heading back there in the morning. His time here—used to reflect on his choices regarding the future—was at an end. He wasn’t sure he was feeling more certain any one course was right above the others. Bruce and Brodie were coming in the following week; it was time for them to really decide what they were going to do.

      As kids, they had quarreled and squabbled. Tumbled on the ground and tussled now and then—and stood ferociously against anyone who insulted one of them or dared to speak ill of their parents.

      But life had gotten hard—and made them close.

      They were all pretty sure they could work together; they’d talk it out for the final decision in the weeks to come.

      Of course, she was still watching him. Still waiting for a response.

      She sighed again. Maeve McFadden was certainly an example of the word diva. Not so much in a bad way—she had an ego, but not the kind with which to hurt others. She was passionate, she was demonstrative; she didn’t just “talk with her hands,” she talked with her arms, with her whole body.

      But if she wanted something now, she was going to have to talk to him.

       With words.

      Finally, she did. She rather wafted over and leaned against the wood rail fence that surrounded the little cabin and the area with the chopping block where he was working.

      “Bryan McFadden, you’re ignoring me!” She pouted.

      “And it’s not working, eh?” he asked, but he smiled at her—she was his mom, and he did love her.

      She smiled back and then plunged right in.

      “Her name is Marnie, and she really needs help. My friend Cara—Cara Barton, I know you must remember her. She was one of the stars of that yummy vampire

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