LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 2

      Riley Price blinked back an almost supernatural wave of fatigue and unlocked her car without getting in. She leaned briefly against the cool metal of her silver sedan and glanced up at the moon, wondering if she should howl at that big round disc the way werewolves did in the movies.

      She sighed instead.

      The hours at work this week had been long and tough to get through, leaving little energy for extras no matter how fun those extras could have been. After her first days on the job, she could have used a little jolt of excitement. Listening to other people’s problems day in and day out was exhausting, especially when she had a few fantasies of her own.

      Wasn’t that the premier joke about psychologists—that people in this kind of field went into it because of their own need for answers?

      The boulevard was crowded with people coming and going at 9:00 p.m. Shouts, laughter and revving car engines nearly drowned out the sound of the keys jangling in her hand.

      And there was something else, wasn’t there? Beyond those normal city noises, Riley could have sworn she heard another sound. Something that didn’t quite fit in.

      If she hadn’t just thought about howling at the damn moon, she might have imagined that someone else had.

      “It sure sounded like that,” she muttered.

      The back of her neck chilled. In spite of the common sense she had always been known for, she secretly wished for adventure. It was one of those personal issues she had to deal with. The desire for a little action was probably what was craved by every female who had done her schoolwork straight through and ended up in a job with no break whatsoever.

      Riley Price, PhD. Helpful, empathetic, on her way to becoming successful and, these days, quite bland. Bland on the outside, at least. Deep inside her was where her more rebellious ways had always been corralled.

      She turned back to the car, opened the door and slid carefully onto the seat, respecting the restriction of her black pencil skirt. But she didn’t get both feet inside before that same eerie, slightly discomforting sound came again from somewhere in the distance.

      A wolf’s haunting howl?

      “You know you have a vivid imagination,” she reminded herself with a stern head shake. One strange belief too many and she, in spite of all her education in this area, would be in need of a psychiatrist’s comfy couch.

      How many times had she thought that she should have become a cop like her father and let out all of her pent-up energy? For cops, the world was viewed in black-and-white terms, without too many murky gray zones. As it was, her need for independence and a life of her own outside of law enforcement had dictated taking another route toward helping people. So here she was, several states away from her family in Arizona, and on her own.

       One more head shake ought to do it.

      “Wolves in downtown Seattle? Give me a break.”

      Feet in the car, key in the ignition, Riley released a slow breath and closed the door, then paused before starting the engine. Opening the door again might have been willful, but she did so anyway. She hoped to hear a repeat of that eerie sound and wished that things didn’t actually have to be black and white in terms of reasonableness and reality.

      She shivered at the incoming breeze of cool night air and was overtaken by a sudden onslaught of chills that weren’t related to a change in the weather. Waves of ice dripped down the back of her neck to lay siege to sensitive skin beneath her baby blue sweater. She did hear that howl again, didn’t she?

      “I’m sure I did.”

      This third sound made it seem like there had been no mistake. Someone had howled. Not something, because everyone knew there were no wolves in the city and no such things as werewolves. So who, like her, was digging into the beauty and mythology of this full moon? Who, like her, had watched a few too many movies that had activated their imagination?

      She could try to find out. Chase down those sounds. Meet that person. Though those ideas were intriguing, women weren’t always completely safe on their own in a city the size of Seattle after dark. It wasn’t that she was afraid of the statistics. Fear hadn’t been part of her upbringing, and inquisitiveness was a trait that had been tightly wound into the strands of her DNA. But it wasn’t wise to throw caution to the wind all at once for the sake of folly.

      Somewhere out there a human being with a similar sense of fun and fantasy was having one on. Since moving to Seattle, she hadn’t met anyone quite like that. Didn’t that fact alone determine the need for a closer look?

      Fatigue melted away. Riley was out of the car in seconds, listening hard, and issuing a whispered challenge. “Come on. Do it again. I dare you.”

      Cell phone in hand—she wasn’t stupid, after all—she locked the car, turned toward the sidewalk and started out in three-inch heels that wouldn’t let her win a race, but would get her far enough.

      She hadn’t experienced tingling nerves like this in some time. They drew her half a block to the east, where she’d still be within safety limits. Men and women strolled in both directions, oblivious to the finer art of adventure. None of them glanced up at the sky. Noise from the pubs and restaurants blurred her ability to hear much else.

      When more chills arrived, along with a sudden awareness of being stared at, Riley slowed to glance at the man who leaned against the side of an open doorway. His face was half-hidden by the shadows of an overhead awning that spanned most of the sidewalk, and yet Riley knew he was looking at her in a predatory way. Not man-to-woman stuff. Something else. Something more.

      With a tight grip on her cell phone, she passed by him, careful to avoid any kind of contact that might have been misconstrued as an invitation. She’d been fed those kinds of self-defense tips for breakfast in the Price household and knew them all by heart.

       Show no weakness.

       Be a predator, not someone else’s prey.

      Almost able to hear her dad say those words, Riley smiled, which would have been the wrong thing to do if she hadn’t already put some distance between that creep by the bar and herself. Nevertheless, she took one more quick look over her shoulder...just before she felt the firm grip of a hand on her arm.

      Derek silently counted to five, nodded and took another step forward, hoping to taunt the vampires that were hiding here into showing themselves. Possibly they were going over their options for getting away, as if they actually had some.

      Another step took him closer to the cans lining the walls. The stench of rotting food was unbelievable. And this was taking too damn long.

      He kicked the closest can with the tip of his boot, providing more incentive for the fanged abominations to make an appearance. Vampires had sensitive hearing and didn’t like noise.

      He kicked the can again and it rolled sideways, spilling what was left of its contents—unrecognizable stuff with an unbelievable odor.

      The challenge worked.

      One of the vamps dropped from above the trash cans as if it actually might have been half bat, as the old wives’ tales suggested. Its partner followed. They were a pair of completely colorless creatures whose dirty and tattered clothing suggested they might have recently crawled up from the grave.

      A ripple of disgust rolled over Derek.

      Both of these guys were drenched in blood that was now darkening. Tiny red rivulets of what had been some human’s

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