“The least I can do is walk you home.”
“Thank you, but I have my car.”
“I didn’t see it parked outside.”
“I left it in the parking lot behind the theater.” She started toward the door, a huff of annoyance rising in her throat when Eddie followed her outside and fell into step beside her.
The silence stretched between them, but Kaitlyn didn’t care. She was too upset about how things had ended with Zack to worry about what Eddie Harrington thought. She had nothing to say to him and had no interest in his company. If she didn’t encourage him, maybe he would finally get a clue and leave her alone.
Apparently, he was clueless. “So, you went to the movies? How was it?”
“Very sad.”
“The new sci-fi flick starts on Friday. I hear it’s a good one.”
“Well, I hope you like it,” she said, hoping he would take the hint this time. Grateful to have reached her car, she unlocked it and opened the door. “Good night.”
“Yeah, good night.”
Kaitlyn slid behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition. When she glanced in the rearview mirror, she saw him standing under one of the lampposts, watching her. The surly look in his eyes sent a shiver of unease down her spine. Putting the car in gear, she drove out of the parking lot.
Zack stood in the shadows across from the parking lot, his eyes narrowed as he focused on the man who had been with Kaitlyn. Even from a distance, he recognized the man’s scent. It was the same as the one he had detected outside Kaitlyn’s house earlier that night. Was this guy friend or foe? Judging from the hostile expression in the man’s eyes, Zack didn’t think he was Kaitlyn’s friend, yet she hadn’t appeared to be afraid of him. She hadn’t appeared to be fond of his company, either.
Zack had just decided to confront the man when he disappeared from sight.
Zack grunted softly. Either the stranger was some kind of sorcerer, or he was a vampire. He was betting on the latter. And since the man didn’t smell human, and he didn’t smell like one of the Undead, Zack figured the man was a blood-born vampire, like Kaitlyn.
Frowning, Zack willed himself to Kaitlyn’s yard and took cover in the shadows near the front porch. She might not want anything to do with him, but he was sticking close by until he determined what was going on between her and the stranger.
Chapter 12
Zack rose to his feet and stretched his back and shoulders. It wasn’t really necessary. He never grew tired. His muscles didn’t get sore, didn’t cramp if he stayed in one position for hours on end. But moving, stretching, itching, and blinking came naturally, instinctively, to humans. After being turned, he’d had to practice doing those things until they were second nature again, because not doing so was sure to invite unwanted attention. Unlike vampires, mortals couldn’t sit unmoving or unblinking for hours at a time.
He had spent the last three nights hunkered down in the shadows outside Kaitlyn’s house. He wasn’t sure the stranger he had seen her with was a threat, but Zack had decided it was better to err on the side of caution, at least until he determined what the man was up to, or he left town. Zack grunted softly. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do. Well, other than run the casino, but Kaitlyn was infinitely more important than a few slot machines.
Now, with dawn approaching, it was time to leave, time to seek his lair before the sun found him.
He was about to transport himself to the casino when the stranger materialized on the front porch.
Zack glanced at the sky. Only minutes until sunrise.
When the other vampire reached for the doorknob, Zack flew to the porch, his hand grasping the other vampire by the arm, wrenching him around and away from the door. “What are you doing here?”
The other vampire stared at him, his eyes wide with surprise, not fear. “I’m here to see Kaitlyn,” he replied smoothly.
“Before the sun’s even up?” Zack asked, still gripping the other man’s arm.
“We’re lovers,” the man said with a leer.
“You’re lying. Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Eddie Harrington, not that it’s any of your business.” He straightened to his full height. “Now let me go. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Zack snorted. At six foot two, he stood a good four inches taller than Harrington and outweighed him by thirty pounds.
“I mean it,” Harrington said.
Zack sensed the change in Harrington as Harrington summoned his preternatural power. Harrington’s muscles tensed, his eyes went hard and cold. Power radiated from him, sizzling through the damp air, but Zack knew instinctively that his own power was older, stronger.
Confident of his vampiric strength, Harrington suddenly twisted out of Zack’s grasp, then pushed him down the stairs. He flung himself after Zack, expecting Zack to be facedown on the ground, only Zack wasn’t there.
Too late, Harrington realized he had badly underestimated his foe.
He landed facedown on the ground where Zack should have been, only to let out a harsh cry when Zack twisted his right arm behind his back, his knee grinding into his spine.
“Who the hell are you?” Harrington growled.
“Zack Ravenscroft. Remember that name, because if I ever see you sniffing around Kaitlyn’s house again, I’ll rip your heart out. Got it?”
Harrington grunted something unintelligible.
Zack applied more pressure to the other man’s spine. “Got it?”
“Yes, dammit! Now get off of me.”
As soon as Zack released him, Harrington was gone. Zack frowned thoughtfully. Harrington seemed awfully weak for a vampire, but then, maybe the vampires who were born that way weren’t as strong as those who were made. Or maybe Harrington was just young. Kaitlyn had said their kind got stronger as they got older. Perhaps Harrington would, too. If he lived that long.
Zack was dusting himself off when he saw a wallet lying in the dirt. Must be Harrington’s, he thought. Picking it up, he thumbed through it, then frowned when he saw the man’s driver’s license. The photo was Harrington’s, but the name read Daryn Korzha. Zack grunted thoughtfully. Did Kaitlyn know who Harrington really was? And if not, what game was Harrington, or Korzha, playing?
Well, there was one way to find out. Materializing inside Kaitlyn’s house, he dropped Harrington’s wallet on the coffee table where she would be sure to find it in the morning.
A thought took Zack to his lair in the bowels of the casino. It wasn’t much, just a square room with stone walls, no windows and no doors. And no lights. But artificial light was unnecessary. With his preternatural vision, he could see everything clearly, although there was little to see save the expensive polished ebony coffin in the center of the flagstone floor, and a small iron box that held a few mementos from his past—a copy of Romeo and Juliet, a few old English coins, a wooden toy horse one of the nuns had given him.