LITMIR.BIZ

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That’s good.” Michael Brandt’s voice. “I didn’t want to have to take you to the emergency room and try to explain what happened to you.”

      What happened?

      Ted was dead, that’s what happened. And her throat hurt like hell, and so did her stomach, and she had not only seen one of her friends die, she had also witnessed a man bursting spontaneously into flame, only to disappear when he was stabbed with wooden stakes, just like the other guy. That’s what happened.

      She lifted a shaky hand to push back her hair and she forced her eyes open. She had decided from the feel of it that she was lying on a well-upholstered sofa, and now she saw that she was right, although her vision was rather blurry. She blinked her eyes a few times until it cleared. She was in the luxuriously furnished living room inside the lodge. Her gaze focused on Michael Brandt, who leaned over her with an anxious expression on his face.

      “You’re all right,” he told her.

      “Says…you,” she replied in a weak voice.

      “I know you’re shaken up and your throat is bruised. And you’re upset about your friend getting hurt. But I checked your neck and there are no bite marks. You’re safe.”

      Jessie struggled into a sitting position, rubbed her sore throat for a second, and then said, “Ted’s not…dead?”

      Brandt shook his head. “No. He has a couple of broken ribs, possibly some internal injuries, but he’s being well cared for.”

      “He’s in the hospital?”

      Brandt didn’t answer for a moment, then shrugged and said, “A private facility.”

      Something else he had said a minute earlier occurred to Jessie. “Did you say something about…bite marks?”

      Another voice said, “Michael, be careful. There’s no need to tell this woman anything else.”

      One of the men she had seen with Brandt earlier came into view. He was very tall, at least six-six, and had massive shoulders. His hair was blond and cropped close to his head. Something about him struck Jessie as familiar, and after a second she realized that she had seen him at the wheel of Brandt’s limo that afternoon. Clearly, he wasn’t just a chauffeur, though. Not the way he’d been running around brandishing a crossbow.

      Brandt said, “I think she’s already seen enough that we’re beyond worrying about that, Max.”

      “I thought you said she was a reporter.”

      “She is.”

      Max scowled. “Then you know what we ought to do with her.”

      The third man moved around the sofa and said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Just because our enemies go around slaughtering innocent people doesn’t mean that we have any right to.” He was smaller than Max but had a look of compact strength about him. Older, too, with touches of gray in his dark hair.

      “Thanks, Clifford,” Brandt said. “I’m glad you agree with me.”

      “I didn’t mean we should kill her, blast it!” Max said in a surly voice. “You know that, Michael.”

      “But the lady’s presence does represent a problem,” Clifford went on as if the bigger man hadn’t spoken. “There’s no getting around that.”

      Neither man really looked like a gangster to Jessie. She supposed that Ted had gotten that impression because they both wore dark suits. They looked to Jessie more like government agents, the sort who would climb down out of the black helicopters when those ominous aircraft finally landed. Who were they, and what was their connection with Michael Brandt? Obviously all of her earlier theories had been wrong. He wasn’t gay, and he wasn’t a mobster. He was…he was…

      What the hell was he? she asked herself. Because she sure as blazes wasn’t prepared to admit, even to herself, that based on everything she had seen tonight, he was some sort of…well, vampire sl—

      “I kill vampires,” Brandt said as he looked right at her. He held a hand palm out toward Max and Clifford to forestall any protests they might make.

      Jessie stared at him, the pain in her throat and the sickness in her stomach forgotten for the moment. She opened her mouth but couldn’t get any words out. She had to swallow a couple of times before she was able to speak.

      “Oh, come on!”

      Brandt smiled. “You don’t believe me?”

      “There’s no such thing—”

      “As vampires? Be glad that neither of those bastards bit you, or you’d find out how wrong you are.”

      Jessie continued staring at him. It was a shame that someone so good-looking was a nut job.

      But what if he wasn’t crazy? She thought back over the countless stories she had written about UFOs and alien abductions and Bigfoot and swamp monsters…and she knew firsthand that strange things existed in this world, things that couldn’t be fully explained by logical, rational thought. Those things were the bread and butter of her work.

      So why couldn’t vampires be real? They had appeared in popular fiction for more than a hundred and fifty years, and the old folk tales about them went back a lot further than that. Plenty of people believed in them. Anything with such a stubborn, persistent presence in a culture had to have its roots in some sort of truth, otherwise it wouldn’t resonate so strongly in the collective psyche.

      Either that, or people just liked to believe in a load of crap.

      “Come on!” she said again.

      Brandt nodded. “It’s true.”

      “Get out!”

      “Maybe I should say the same thing to you,” he replied. He turned and went over to the door. “There you go,” he said as he opened it. “If you don’t believe me, you’re free to leave. After all, if there’s nothing in the dark to be afraid of, why shouldn’t you just walk right out that door?”

      Jessie stayed where she was on the sofa. Despite the lights in the trees along the path, a lot of shadows lurked out there. Thick, black shadows that could hide almost anything.

      “I thought so.” Brandt closed the door.

      Jessie swung her legs off the sofa. She would have stood up, but at that moment a wave of dizziness hit her. “Look, just because I don’t believe you doesn’t mean I want to go out there right now. More of those guys could be around. You said there was a third one who ran off.”

      “And what did they want?”

      “To kidnap you?” she guessed. “You’re worth a boatload of money, remember?” She waved a hand at Max and Clifford. “That’s why you’ve got bodyguards.”

      Max gave a short bark of laughter. “We’re not his bodyguards. Anybody dumb enough to try to kidnap Michael would wish they hadn’t.”

      Clifford said, “We assist Michael from time to time in his work, but you can be assured, miss, he doesn’t need us to protect him. He can take care of himself just fine.”

      Having seen the way Brandt handled himself in the fight, Jessie had to admit that was true. He wasn’t just dangerous; he was deadly.

      And speaking of that…“What did you do with the bodies?” she asked. Her voice caught in her throat as she added, “And where exactly have you taken Ted? I want to see him.”

      Brandt shook his head solemnly and said, “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I told you he’s in a private facility. I deeply regret that his family won’t know what happened to him for the time being, but it can’t be helped. We can’t afford to have the authorities involved in this.”

      Outrage jerked Jessie to her feet. “You can’t do that! It’s…it’s kidnapping!”

      “As I

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