Eternal by V. Forrest (new reading TXT) 📗

will, or I make a call to my brothers. You know my brothers, Joseph. They won’t wait for a decision from the sept to determine whether or not you’re a danger. You know what they’ll do. You don’t want me to make that call.”

She hung up. Peed. Washed her hands. Put a little lip gloss on her lips and went back into the dining room to finish her date. To go on with her life.

Shannon glanced over her shoulder as she walked up the dark driveway. Something or someone was giving her the creeps. She eyed the shadows in search of a tiger or a lion, thinking maybe Arlan was playing one of his practical jokes on her. Nothing stirred. Not the browning grass on the lawn or the crisp leaves that were beginning to fall from the trees.

She walked a little faster. She rented an apartment over Mr. and Mrs. Hill’s garage at the end of the driveway. It wasn’t that late, just after eleven maybe, but the street was empty. The streetlamps were on, but seemed to glow dimly in the hazy darkness. It had begun to rain when she was in the forest, hunting. Not a heavy rain, but the kind that slowly soaked through your clothes to the skin.

She knew the council had advised against hunting alone, but she had been doing it for so long that the idea of taking blood with someone else watching seemed repulsive. Maybe she just hadn’t been doing it long enough, yet. But she hadn’t stayed long because something had made her uncomfortable in the dark woods, even though she’d been hunting there for hundreds of years. There was something evil out there. Something that frightened her.

The discomfort had followed Shannon all the way home. But she was only steps from her door, and there was nothing there. No killer lurking behind Mrs. Hill’s rhododendron bushes.

Shannon took the flight of creaky wooden stairs, thankful for the light that glowed at the top. Once inside, she’d lock her door, something people rarely did in Clare Point. She’d be fine.

The door hinges creaked as she opened it. Needed some WD-40. Inside, she flipped on the light switch. Light flooded the living room, kitchen, dining-room area. There were no killers lurking here, either. She twisted the lock on the door and turned around to face the open room. She still felt weird. On edge. She knew she was alone, but somehow the dark bedroom and bathroom down the short hall suddenly seemed scary places.

She shivered as she kicked off her shoes on the throw rug at the doorway. Her clothes were wet and she was cold. She should jump in the shower and get into some dry clothes. But that would mean going down the hall, into the dark.

Pretty funny for a vampire to be afraid of the dark.

On impulse, Shannon pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket and searched for Fia’s number. Shannon had been meaning to get back to her. It had been nice of Fia to call her just to say hi after last weekend. The phone rang on the other end. Four rings and then Fia’s voice. A recording.

Shannon glanced toward the dark hallway. “Hey. It’s Shannon. Just called to say hi.” She pushed a chair in under her dining table. “Martinis at my place next time. I’m thinking chocolate. Hope you’re busy with the hot FBI guy. Talk to you later.”

Hanging up, she eyed the dark end of the house.

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” she muttered. “What would Fia Kahill do?”

March right back there. Prove to herself she was alone and safe, of course. Fia had been her hero for as long as she’d known her.

Shannon marched.

Chapter 19

Fia stood over Shannon’s body. Shannon’s cell phone was a smoldering cinder in her pocket. This morning, while waiting for Glen to finish in the shower, before going out for Saturday morning breakfast, she’d checked her voice mail and discovered that Shannon had left a message at eleven twenty-five the previous night. Just about the time Fia and Glen had been on round two. The call from Sedowski at the office came in at nine-forty, as Fia and Glen were walking into a diner.

Dr. Caldwell had taken Shannon’s liver temp when he arrived at the scene. He put the time of death between 11 P.M. and midnight. Nothing Shannon had said in her phone message indicated there was anything wrong. She doubted it would have made a difference if she had taken the call, but Fia felt guilty just the same.

She stared at Shannon’s body, then at her head, obviously posed by the killer. Sour bile rose in Fia’s throat.

The murderer had decapitated Shannon just inside the bedroom door. Blood patterns, spray and pools, made that obvious. She was probably taken by surprise as there was no sign of struggle.

Her body had then been dragged to the bed, her breasts viciously cut off. The breasts were gone, but this time the head was left behind and displayed. As per the MO, there had been an attempt to burn the body, or at least a symbolic attempt. Shannon’s bed linens had been set on fire, only the killer hadn’t stuck around long enough to see his deed to completion. The bedspread, treated with some fire-retardant chemical, had prevented the mattress from going up in flames and the fire had eventually put itself out. The fire had done very little damage to Shannon’s body, though it had burned off her clothes, leaving her naked in the bed.

The sick bastard.

Fia didn’t think she had ever witnessed such a vicious crime scene in all her years with the FBI. Not even mob killings were this bad. What kind of hatred did a man have to have inside him to kill, to maim this way? It didn’t matter that Fia knew Shannon’s heart had ceased beating before her breasts had been sliced off. No one, alive or dead,