Or that he was going to die.
More tears appear, and as he looks up to see himself in the mirror, he sees something else there, too.
He sees a big rig truck bearing down on him from behind.
Adam stares in the mirror as his pounding heart fills the car, fills the air, fills everything.
Mercifully, the last sound Adam Carr hears is not the sound of his own beating heart, but the sound of metal crashing into metal.
The End
Vampire Dawn: Outtake
Author’s Note: Vampire Dawn (Vampire for Hire #6) was a tough book for me to finish. I wrote, I believe, six different endings before settling on one. But one of them has always haunted me. I liked it. Except, sadly, I couldn’t make it work. I liked the set-up: Sam saving her kidnapped sister. Except, of course, I never had her sister kidnapped...or even involved in the storyline. So, to make it work, I would have had to go back and layer her sister more thoroughly throughout the story. I wasn’t sure that would work. Plus, I didn’t really like the idea of using her sister as a plot ploy. So, the idea got scrapped, and the scene cut...until now. Please note, this alternate ending was never quite finished, but I think you might still enjoy it. —J.R.
Vampire Dawn
At the base of the stairway, an amorphous entity materialized before me. It kept materializing and soon took on the shape of a young woman—a young woman with a deep gash across her throat. She appeared to be hovering in mid-air, as ghosts are wont to do.
As I stepped forward, she blocked my path. She lifted what was supposed to be a hand, but was really just a blurred stump. I tried to step around her but she blocked my path again. Each time she moved, her mostly shapeless body lost what shape it had, until it swarmed again and reformed. She shook what was left of her head.
I paused in this lower level hallway, a level that was far colder than the floor just above. A level that smelled of death.
“I’m okay,” I whispered. “But thank you.”
She shook her head again, and kept on shaking it even as I stepped through her, scattering her glowing filaments like so many frightened fish.
Shivering, I moved forward again, toward a door at the far end of the hallway. Behind that door, hiding behind a pillar of some sort, was a man waiting to kill me. Of that I was sure.
And behind him, in a room that was filled with light, was my sister.
I was sure of it.
Suddenly pissed beyond control, I marched down the hallway, and gave the killer what he was waiting for.
Me.
With one raised foot and a lot of rage, I kicked the door open. So hard that the whole damn thing collapsed forward, including some of the door frame.
* * *
The sound was deafening.
I was here. They knew I was here. Enough with the charade. Besides, I wasn’t standing in the doorway. I was off to the side, standing behind the mangled door frame as dust billowed everywhere.
I doubted these guys were trained killers. Not like the vampire hunter I’d met last year, a man who systematically hunted down the world’s vampires. No, these guys were punks. Sickos. I imagined they lured and deceived their victims. At least, that was the impression I’d had when I touched the walls. Women were lured, and, in the case of Brian Meeks, people who worked here as well.
How they captured and killed vampires, I didn’t know, but I was beginning to get some ideas, especially if my hunch proved to be true.
For now, though, I had a bastard with a crossbow to deal with.
Of course, what I should do next was still up in the air. I hadn’t really thought things through much further than kicking down the door.
Whoever he was, I knew he was alone. Only one set of excited lungs were breathing at the far end of the hall. How many more were beyond this hall, I didn’t know. How many people it took to run a blood ring, I didn’t know that either. The fewer the better. In fact, I doubted the workers I had seen in the theater were truly privy to what was going on behind these closed doors.
Whoever they were, human life meant little. Blood was all that mattered. They were nothing more than butchers.
As I peered around the door frame and through the settling dust, I could see bright light issuing out from under the door. I could also see shadows moving under the door. I had gotten someone’s attention.
As I waited, knowing that a man at the far end of the hallway was holding the one weapon that could actually kill me, the same ghost girl materialized before me. But this time, she didn’t look so staticy. This time, I suspected, anyone could see her. Anyone, as in the guy standing at the far end of the hallway.
As she turned her head and looked at me sadly, her eyes round and dark, the deep gash in her neck somehow deepened, revealing the ghostly hint of her mortally damaged neck. And as she continued to stare at me, I saw what she was doing.
Acting as a decoy.
In that instant, a shiny-tipped arrow swept through her, to thunk deep into the wall behind her. She never took her eyes off me. Instead, she smiled and dematerialized.
I yanked the bolt out of the wall—and was moving.
I swept low over the ground, moving impossibly fast. I doubted the shooter had another bolt cocked and ready to fire.
I was right, he hadn’t. Instead, he had something else.
Another crossbow.
Already armed with a silver-tipped arrow. Raising it now as I hurled down the black hallway. I’d had some experience with silver. It wasn’t fun. It was hell, in fact.
Rarely have I moved so fast. I was surprised to see I clawed the ground with my hands like a wild animal, hurling myself forward, covering the space in the long hallway in a blink of an eye.
He had just raised the crossbow, and had just started squeezing the trigger when one moment he was alive, and the next he was twitching at my feet, the crossbow bolt lodged deep into his chest. As his legs kicked and he fought for breath that would not come, I looked away and pressed an ear against the door. Voices. Movement. The sounds of water dripping.
I looked again at the man at my feet. He’d mercifully quit twitching.
I considered my options, and realized I didn’t have many.
Now would have been a good time to cast my mind out, to search what lay beyond this door, to search for enemies and, most importantly, to search for my sister.
Good plan, except for one problem.
I couldn’t calm down. I couldn’t focus. My mind was racing too fast. Blood pumping too hard.
As I listened to the sounds of distant water dripping, I fought to calm down. Took deep breaths. I thought of my sister somewhere behind this door, and my mind went off into a rage again. I nearly threw the door open and charged inside.