Night's Promise(14)
Logan swung her into his arms, then carried her swiftly up the stairs to their bedroom. He was undressing her when she grabbed his hands, her brow furrowed.
“All of our old enemies aren’t dead,” she said, a hint of red glowing in her eyes.
Logan frowned, and then nodded. “You’re thinking about those two old ladies, aren’t you? The ones who were with Ramsden.”
“Edna and Pearl,” Mara said, her voice edged with malice. “I should have killed those troublesome creatures years ago.”
Chapter Eight
“I told you I could find him,” Edna said, her voice ringing with triumph.
“I know, dear. I never doubted you for a minute.” Pearl kicked off her shoes, then sat back in her chair and picked up the glass of wine on the table beside her. It was a lovely room, done in shades of green and gold. “Who do you think that girl was?”
“I have no idea. His next meal, perhaps?” Edna sank into the other chair. “He certainly turned into a handsome specimen, didn’t he? So tall and dark. Makes me wish I’d been turned at thirty.”
Pearl rolled her eyes. “You always were boy crazy.”
“You don’t think he’s attractive?”
“That’s beside the point, dear.”
“We should have said hello.”
Pearl stared at her friend. “Have you lost your mind? What would you have said? ‘Hi, Derek, you probably don’t remember me, but I helped kidnap you when you were a baby’?”
“Don’t be absurd!”
With a huff of annoyance, Pearl said, “Now that we’ve seen him, I think we should leave town.”
“Leave? Why?”
“Because he’s not here alone, you twit. Mara is here.”
“Mara?” Edna glanced around the hotel room, as if she expected to find the ancient vampire standing behind her. “Are you sure?”
“I caught her scent inside the club. Didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t paying attention to anything but Derek.”
“Boy crazy, like I said,” Pearl remarked with a sigh. “Could you tell if the werewolf gene has kicked in?”
Edna shook her head, her brow furrowed. “No. We need to stay until the full moon.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“How else are we going to find out if he’s both vampire and werewolf?”
“What possible difference can it make?” Pearl asked irritably.
“None, perhaps, but wouldn’t you like to know if he can reproduce? What if it was the werewolf gene that allowed Bowden to impregnate Mara? Derek carries Mara’s blood and the werewolf gene. . . . We could be looking at the beginning of a whole new race of vampires!”
Pearl stared at her friend, her mind racing with possibilities, but, in the end, her fear of Mara made her shake her head. “True, dear, but, like I said, what difference does it make?”
Deflated, Edna sat back, hands folded in her lap. “What are we going to do if we go back home? You were the one who wanted to put some excitement in our lives, remember?”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but the idea of meeting Mara face-to-face is more excitement than I had in mind. We not only kidnapped her son, for goodness’ sake, we fed on her child’s father. Everyone knows she’s never been very big on forgiveness, or are you forgetting what she did to Dr. Ramsden?”
Edna chewed on her thumbnail. Word of the doctor’s death had spread quickly through the vampire community. It had carried Mara’s warning loud and clear: mess with my family and you mess with me. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
Edna tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair, then sprang to her feet. “We’ll just have to stay out of Mara’s way,” she exclaimed.
Pearl shook her head. “And if we can’t?”
“Now who’s being negative?” Edna chided. “We can avoid her until the full moon,” she said, patting Pearl’s shoulder. “And then we’ll go home.”
Chapter Nine
Louise McDonald sat at her desk, idly thumbing through an old scrapbook. She found it hard to believe she had been in the vampire-hunting business for over thirty-five years. She had made a lot of kills in her long career. In all that time, she’d only let one get away. Mara. The so-called Queen of the Vampires.
Grunting softly, Lou sat back and propped her feet on the edge of her battered desk. Even though it had happened twenty-five years ago, she still recalled her meeting with Kyle Bowden, the foolish mortal who had fallen in love with Mara. Bowden was the only person she had ever met who hired her not to kill a vampire, but to locate one.