Roland released Sarah’s hand and reached for the passenger door handle, then paused.
Marcus stopped short.
Both men tilted their heads to one side, like an animal that hears a noise pitched too high for human ears. As one, they dropped the bags they carried and spun around to face the trees on the opposite side of the house.
Ice skittered down Sarah’s spine as they raised their faces to the sky, drew in deep breaths, and held them.
Man, these guys could be creepy.
Roland’s chin dipped. “They’re here.”
Chapter 5
Such menace glittered in Roland’s dark gaze that Sarah found herself taking an involuntary step backward.
As if the movement drew his notice, he took her arm and urged her to stand behind him. Marcus moved to Roland’s side, the two forming a solid barrier that protected her front while the car protected her back.
“I count eight,” Marcus murmured, his stance alert.
“As do I.”
Eight men? How could they count eight men, she thought wildly, when she couldn’t hear anything but frogs and that weird bug she had never encountered before moving to North Carolina that sounded sort of like a cicada, but not really?
Ch-ch-ch … ch-ch-ch … ch-ch-ch.
“I thought you said you took out four of them,” Marcus said as Sarah strained to hear whatever it was they heard.
“I did.” “Took out” as in killed? “And severely wounded two others.”
“Then who the hell are we facing?”
Roland shook his head. “I don’t know who he is or what he wants, but he appears to have raised quite an army.”
“The one who staked you to the ground?”
“Yes.”
“Unbelievable.”
Sarah concurred. This was all unbelievable. Shouldn’t these guys be nervous or tense or sweating or something? Maybe jumping in the car so they could get the hell out of there? Especially when one considered how the previous night’s confrontation had ended.
Instead, they seemed relaxed, their bodies loose, their deep voices casually ominous.
Unlike them, she was a bit of a wreck. Her palms were sweating. Every muscle was tense. And her fingers were clutching the Glock in a death grip.
The foliage on the opposite side of the large front yard parted in several places. Dark figures emerged from the shadows, growing more distinct as they stepped into the dim outer reaches of the porch light. Men. Six, no seven. All young, in their late teens and early twenties.
Marcus and Roland stood with their arms at their sides, feet shoulder’s width apart.
Peering between her two massive protectors, Sarah anxiously took stock of those they were up against.
There were three, around twenty years old, who were decked out in goth gear. Black T-shirts with skull faces emblazoned on them in dramatic patterns. Ragged black jeans. Big black boots. Lots of chains and spikes and studs and body piercings. They were all around five-ten and sported the same hairstyle: two-inch shocks that stood up like porcupine quills. The only difference was the coloring. One had cherry-red hair. One had royal blue hair. And one was bleach blond.
The next in line looked to be a boy no older than sixteen or seventeen. Standing five foot eight, he had brassy orange hair, was liberally covered with freckles, and had a feral look about him that screamed serial killer in the making.
On the other side of him stood a pair of identical twins who nearly matched Roland and Marcus in height. Unlike their comrades, who were all thin and lanky, these two had broad shoulders and thick muscles clearly defined by tight gray T-shirts and faded jeans. With long, straight, flaxen hair, they would’ve looked perfectly at home dressed as medieval Vikings.
The guy on the other side of them had shoulder-length greasy brown hair and looked like he had just stepped off the pages of an ad for an ′80s grunge band, plaid shirt and all. He, too, stood around five foot ten or eleven.
As Sarah completed her visual inventory, an eighth figure materialized from the darkness and moved to stand in front of the others, who fanned out in a loose horseshoe around him.
She swallowed.
This man was almost as scary as Roland when Roland was at his most intimidating.
He was tall, an inch or two above six feet, with shoulder-length black hair. His taut, muscled body was clad in black jeans and a black T-shirt, his broad shoulders encased in a long black coat. His face was clean-shaven, his jaw strong.
He would be quite handsome if he didn’t give her a major case of the creepin’ willies.
“So,” he spoke, his attention focused on Roland, “it’s true then. You can’t imagine my disappointment when I arose, expecting to be handed your remains in a coffee can and was instead informed that you had been rescued.”
Sarah recognized his voice as that of the Brit who had told the kid stabbing Roland to let the sun finish him off.
Beside Roland, Marcus snorted. “This is the prick you mentioned earlier?”
“He’s the one.”
The feral ginger turned to the leader. “You still want him dead?”
“Yes.”
“And the other one?”
“Take him alive.”
“Look,” Marcus said, amiably apologetic, “I know I’m prettier than he is. And I’m flattered. Really. But I feel like I should tell you … I’m really not into guys.”
Clearly they were all homophobes.
An explosion of violence erupted in the front yard.
As Sarah looked on, immobilized by shock, the grunge kid, Vikings, and ginger attacked Marcus while the leader and the three goths went for Roland. Fear, more intense than any she had ever experienced, cemented her feet to the ground and made her heart slam against her ribs.
It wasn’t right.
It wasn’t normal.
Roland whipped out a couple of sais—long steel daggers with sharpened prongs that extended on either side of the main blade—while Marcus drew short swords. Together they expertly engaged their opponents, who were armed with everything from big bowie knives to machetes to short swords of their own. Fending off three and four at a time, Roland and Marcus forced them back and kept them distanced from Sarah. It was like watching Neo and his friends in The Matrix fight, only these men all wielded deadly blades and moved so swiftly they became a blur.
This isn’t possible, her panicked brain whispered.
No one moved that fast. World record–breaking Olympic athletes didn’t move that fast!
And, of them all, Roland and Marcus were the fastest.
Blood sprayed in an arc, light from the porch sparkling off the crimson droplets as the blue-haired goth stumbled back, his throat sliced open. He didn’t even have time to raise a hand to it before Roland buried one of his sais in the kid’s chest, spun, and parried a blow the leader aimed at his back with a short sword.
Roland’s eyes were glowing again. And his weren’t the only one’s. Marcus’s. The leader’s. The Vikings’. Everyone’s eyes glowed green or blue or amber.
Everyone’s but hers.
And their teeth …
The blue-haired goth sank to his knees, emitting horrible gagging and gasping noises, mouth open to expose what could only be described as fangs.
Her heart skipping a beat, Sarah looked at the leader, whose lips were drawn back in a snarl of rage, revealing more fangs.
Oh shit.
The Vikings—fangs.
The ginger kid—fangs.
These guys weren’t …
They weren’t … vampires … were they?
Vampires don’t exist.
Then why did the ginger kid just sink his fangs into Marcus’s arm?
Marcus rewarded him by cutting his femoral artery, damned near severing the kid’s leg in the process.