Page 83 of Starved Until Sunset

“Why did you suggest Pastor Campbell?” Demetrius asked.

“I don’t know, just trying to think of least likely suspects,” Eileen said. “Like in the movies, you know? The surprise reveal.”

“If that were going to be the case, one of us would be their Renfield,” Demetrius said.

They all looked at each other.

“Well, I’m not,” Amelia said. “After being an unwitting werewolf for a year, I’m not at all interested in helping out wicked vampires.”

“Me either,” Eileen said.

Both women looked at him, and Demetrius scoffed. “Seriously?”

“Yes, all right,” Amelia said. “We’ll give you a pass.”

“I should hope so.”

For her part, Eileen just gave a quiet, “Hmph.”

Demetrius couldn’t help looking at their old office space as he passed the strip mall on the way out of town. It still had a For Lease sign in the window, and he briefly entertained the idea of applying for their business license again and renting that same space. A surprisingly deep pang of loss echoed within him, and he turned his attention back to the road. Living in the past wouldn’t help anyone, especially Cody.

The two lane blacktop stretched out in front of them, the dotted yellow line running ahead within his headlights. Two miles down the road, The Hollow Leg bar appeared on their right. It was a rectangular building made of weathered brick. Neon beer signs glowed in the windows, and a couple of big lights high up on poles threw a white glow over the gravel parking lot. Pick-ups and SUVs were parked close together, and Demetrius was about to look back at the road when sudden movement from the shadow-drenched back corner of the bar caught his attention.

“What was that?” he said, slowing.

“See something? Eileen asked, squinting out the side window.

“Maybe. I’m going to check it out.”

There were driveways at either end of the parking lot, and Demetrius pulled into the one at the western end. He rolled slowly up the open lane along the side of the bar. The garbage trucks came up this way to empty the dumpster in the back corner, which now shone in Demetrius’s headlights. A raccoon poked its head up from the depths, and he thought briefly of Trevor. He rounded the back corner, gravel popping under the tires. The headlights swept across the small copse of trees ten yards from the back wall of the bar, then revealed a grisly tableau at the far corner of the building. A man wearing a white apron was facing them, head tipped uncomfortably to one side, his face pale and his eyes wide and unblinking even in the glare of the headlights. A young man stood behind, mouth clamped on the aproned man’s neck, and a runner of blood glaringly red along pale skin.

“Oh, coconut trees,” Amelia whispered.

“Let’s go!” Eileen had the door open before the car had come to a full stop.

“Wait, Eileen!” Demetrius called, but she’d already hit the ground and rounded the door, bringing up her squirt gun.

“Bite this!” Eileen shouted, releasing a stream of holy water that didn’t even make it halfway to her target.

“Dammit,” Demetrius said as he got out, hearing Amelia grunting as she slid across the bench seat to follow Eileen. In an effort to distract the vampire from having Eileen for dessert, he shouted, “Hey, ass fang!”

The vampire snapped his head up and the force of his red-eyed glare made Demetrius hesitate. Panic and terror went through him from the top down, as if he’d stepped under an icy waterfall. He tightened his fingers on the squirt gun, and he had a sudden realization of the fragility of the plastic it was made from, and how easily it would shatter. Just like his bones.

“You let him go!” Amelia shouted from just behind Demetrius, startling him back to alertness.

With a curl of his lip, the vampire allowed him to crumble in a heap onto the gravel. Grinning, he ran a hand across his chin, smearing blood, then rushed at them. Demetrius was just able to pull the trigger of the squirt gun before the vampire bumped him aside to get at Amelia. As he fell back hard, Demetrius heard the vampire shriek and Amelia scream before he blacked out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Voices from far away. Sounded like a foreign language. Maybe talking too fast? Demmy must be watching something obnoxious on TV.

Cody tried to speak, to ask him to turn the volume down, but his throat was dry and his lips felt as if they’d been glued together. He couldn’t open his eyes, not yet. Now that he was awake, he was very aware of a throbbing pain on one side of his neck.

“I think he’s awake.”

The words were clearer, spoken by a woman. Demmy must be watching a cop show or something.

“Cody?”