Love & War Book 1 in the Arcadia Falls Chronicles Read online

  Oscar decided to let the topic of Christina drop and stayed silent.

  “Come on, you guys,” Alice beckoned with a wave of her hand. “Let’s go sit down.”

  We squeezed through the crowd and tried not to spill our drinks. Suddenly, I felt the back of my neck tingle. It’s hard to explain, but it wasn’t the normal vampire tingle, although it was similar. I stopped in the crowd and looked around. All I could see were bouncing bodies and flashing lights. I looked to Drew for confirmation of the vampire tingle, but he didn’t appear to notice.

  “Wait!” I grabbed the back of Drew’s shirt and stopped. “Something isn’t right.”

  “What is it?” he scanned the crowd to look for evidence of my claim.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just feel something—” My voice dwindled off mid-word when my gaze settled on a guy with dark hair and a leather jacket. He danced with a drink held high in his hand, and there were hot slutty-looking girls pretty much rubbing themselves all over him.

  “Ugh.”

  “What?” Oscar had been checking out the crowd, too.

  Again, I shook my head.

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t know what the heck the tingle meant, but for some reason, I just knew he was the guy we were looking for.

  I pointed at him. “That guy, we need to keep an eye on him.”

  “Screw that, I’m going to talk to him.” Christina had pretty much materialized beside me. “He’s hot anyway, so what’s it going hurt either way?”

  She smiled and flipped her hair before she pushed back into the crowd of dancing bodies.

  Oscar quickly followed with Alice’s hand grasped firmly in his.

  “I’m not going to miss this,” he declared. They disappeared into the crowd.

  Drew shrugged and followed Oscar. I had no choice but to grab onto Drew so I didn’t lose them. I let him pull me along while we wrangled our way to where Christina was about to interrogate the dark-haired stranger.

  Finally, Christina came into view. She had managed to acquire a spot beside him. She danced close to him, and in true Christina style, she was completely inappropriate. She reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt in her fist and yanked him toward her.

  Now that I was able to get a better look at him, I could tell already he was a typical bad boy. Dark brown eyes twinkled with sarcasm, and his black hair was cut into a trendy sort of spiked-up style. His leather jacket was open to reveal the white tee shirt Christina still held in her fist.

  I watched closely while his hand, the hand that wasn’t holding his drink, slithered down to Christina's hip. He grinned down at her.

  Discreetly, Christina grasped his hand before it reached her thigh, where her knives were strapped. She lifted his hand up and placed it on her shoulder. She smiled up at him in return.

  Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I wished I could be as confident around guys as she was.

  Drew circled behind me, bringing his arms around my waist. I sucked in my breath. Even though Drew and I had been together for a while, I still felt butterflies in my stomach when he touched me like that.

  “Why don’t we dance?” he whispered. I could feel his breath on my neck.

  “Seriously?” I was shocked he would suggest such a thing. Drew wasn’t really the dancing kind of guy.

  I had gone to a dance with Drew once shortly after we'd first started to date, and we had mostly stood around and drank punch all night. I hated to admit, and I never would to him, that I had had a better time when I had gone with Gavin to the New Year's Bash the year before. Gavin and I had only been at the dance for a short time, but it had been wonderful. I could still see the glitter and sparkly stuff that looked like it had exploded in the gym.

  Dammit! I can’t think about Gavin while dancing with Drew, I reminded myself.

  “Yeah, seriously.” Drew moved with the music behind me and then circled around so he stood in front of me. He leaned in close until his lips touched my ear. “We need to look busy, instead of just staring at them.”

  I nodded and bounced to the beat along with Drew and the rest of the crowd.

  Oscar and Alice appeared to be doing the same thing. I watched Alice, her shiny shirt flashing in the lights like a disco ball, smiling up at Oscar. I was never happier that we had gotten her away from Trevor.

  I tried to ignore that I was totally having a blast dancing with Drew and to focus on the mission. We needed to find out more about that guy. If there were one thing I had learned as a hunter, it was not to ignore gut feelings.

  Suddenly, the dark-haired stranger shuffled his gaze away from Christina and reached into his pocket to extract a cell phone. I looked at Drew and raised my eyebrows. Christina continued to dance while he appeared to check his phone, and then he bent to whisper something in her ear. She said something back to him while he guzzled the rest of his drink. He smiled and turned to leave.

  “We have to follow him.” Drew grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. “C’mon.”

  I took his hand but glanced back at Oscar and Alice, tilting my head to signal the plan. Christina had already begun to follow in the direction he had headed, so we took off after her. He went to a parking garage, which was in the opposite direction from where our car was parked.

  “Crap!” Drew muttered.

  “I’ll go,” Oscar offered, leaving Alice with us and running off in the other direction. “I’ll be right out here with the car.”

  Christina was quite a distance ahead of us. She followed him into the garage while we waited on the street for her to return. After a few agonizing minutes of waiting, she came running out of the garage at almost the exact moment Oscar pulled the car up onto the curb beside us.

  “Big truck!” she called out, headed for her car. The rest of us hurried over and piled in, just when a huge black truck slowly exited the garage. She jumped into the front seat and slapped the dashboard, excitement clear in her eyes. “Let’s go!”

  Oscar peeled away from the curb into the traffic behind the truck. Our newfound stranger didn’t appear to be in too much of a hurry. He rolled slowly through, keeping pace with the rest of the city traffic. Alice leaned forward, trying to get a better view.

  “I wonder where he's headed”

  “We’re going to find out,” Drew mumbled, never taking his eyes off the truck.

  I reached over and felt for his hand, wanting to feel him close to me. My blond vampire hunter responded by giving my hand a squeeze of reassurance.

  After about ten minutes, we rolled into a community of older-looking houses. Most would describe them as Victorian. Almost every single one of the houses had a pointed rooftop and a really nice covered porch.

  “Where are we?” I looked to Drew, but it was Christina who answered.

  “This is the college community.” She gestured toward the houses. "Almost all of these homes are occupied by college kids.”

  Drew nodded. “That makes most of them party houses. The perfect place for a vampire to find himself a little snack,” he finished.

  “Oh.”

  Oscar followed as closely as he could without being seen, but the traffic had dissipated considerably. I could tell that every moment that passed, we were more at risk of being spotted following the truck.

  The truck continued to roll aimlessly down the shiny streets that were wet from the snow.

  “What is he doing?” I wondered aloud.

  Christina, impatiently tapping her foot on the floorboard of the front seat, said, “I think he’s waiting.”

  I leaned forward, trying to get a better view of the truck. “For what?”

  “For something to happen,” she responded.

  It seemed like we drove around the neighborhood in pursuit of our stranger forever. I took the opportunity to gaze around the neighborhood. Some sections of the housing areas were far busier than others. Lights lit up almost every window of most houses, and music could be heard emanating from the majority of them. Through the fogged
up windows, I could see cars full of people either coming or going. One yard even had a rather large looking fire going in a pit dug right in the snow-covered front yard. Guys and girls stood close to the flames, talking and holding beer bottles.

  I sighed and realized they had no clue what could be watching them, but we did. That was what we were put on this earth to do: to protect those innocent people.

  “Look!” Alice pointed. “He’s parking.”

  Sure enough, the brake lights from the black truck glared at us when he pulled over to the curb next to a snow bank. Quickly, I scanned the area. There wasn’t much there. It looked like there was a small park area across from his truck. There were several buildings that appeared to be empty. One had a large sign explaining it was the library. Other than that, not much was around.

  Drew leaned forward and tried to get a better view.

  “Let’s move past him so that we can park and come back on foot,” Drew said.

  Oscar nodded his acknowledgement and drove on.

  We finally found a place to park about a block up. Oscar parked as quickly as he could.

  “Come on.” Drew grabbed my hand and practically yanked me out of the car. “Let’s move.”

  We stayed off the sidewalks until we got a little closer and then stealthily maneuvered off into the trees that lined our side of the street. Finally, we found a spot to hunker down where we could see the truck and a wide view of the surrounding area.

  “I think the school is that way,” Christina whispered, nodding to indicate the direction.

  No one said anything, maintaining silence and watching.

  Damn, it was cold! I wished I had more clothing on.

  While we waited, I silently hoped the little voyage we'd taken to get there would be worth it, because if we had all come out there for nothing except my ‘little feeling,’ I knew I would get a lot of flak from the others when we got back home.

  “Look.” Drew nudged me.

  I followed his gaze and saw a girl who didn’t look much older than I am carefully making her way along the sidewalk. She wore jeans and a heavy jacket with a backpack strapped over the top. Her curly blonde hair shone in the lamplight underneath her winter stocking cap. After focusing for a moment, I realized she also wore ear buds. Wonderful, she wouldn’t be able to hear anything coming at her.

  Our stranger didn’t get out of his truck, and we didn’t move either. She was just crossing in front of the library when the vampire tingle happened. For me, it was always a shock to feel it, but the others, aside from Oscar and Alice, were so used to it they didn’t appear to feel it at all. I looked to Drew, but he was desperately searching for the vampire we knew was around somewhere.

  “Is he just going to wait for her to be attacked?” I whispered. I extracted my gun and popped the slide.

  Christina already held her gun in her hand. “That’s what it looks like.”

  “He doesn’t have the warning signal we do,” Drew said in defense of the strange.

  “I don’t care.” I whispered loudly. The girl had stopped and was looking at her music player, probably changing songs. “He shouldn’t wait.”

  Then it happened: A male with blond hair and a black jacket appeared, just casually strolling down the street as if he weren’t a vampire about to rip that woman’s throat out.

  “Shhh.” I felt Drew gently place his hand on my leg, indicating I should be quiet and hold still.

  “But…”

  “Shhh.”

  Dang it. We needed to move. The vampire approached the young lady. Seeming to sense him coming, she lifted her eyes away from her music player. As soon as she spotted him, she immediately took a couple of steps backward and then looked around, probably searching to see if there were someone to witness if she were mugged or raped.

  “I’m going,” Christina declared. With that, she was off and running, knowing we would follow.

  “Damn it!” Drew slammed his fist into the snow and took off after her. Oscar, Alice and I were right behind them with our weapons drawn. Christina, had a gun in each hand, both pointed at the vampire. The woman on the sidewalk caught sight of Christina and screamed.

  The vampire also caught sight of her and, within a second, had the woman in his arms, neck tilted to the side so far it seemed dangerously close to snapping. Then he bit her.

  Christina fired her weapon two times, once in the back and once in the head. He spun around to face her, and she nailed him in the chest. The vampire grasped his heart, blood oozing between his fingers as he crumpled to the icy pavement with rays of UV filtering through his disintegrating body.

  Still running, Christina holstered her gun and the woman turned to run, slipping on the icy sidewalk in her haste. Drew was the first to reach her.

  “Stop! It’s all right.” He reached out and took hold of her jacket.

  “No!” She screamed at him, eyes wide with fear.

  “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

  “Leave me alone.” She whimpered. “Let me go.”

  Drew encircled his arms around her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides to prevent her from attacking him. “Let me go.” Her last words were a whisper and her body fell limp in Drew’s arms.

  Blood spilled from the wound on her neck, drenching her jacket as well as Drew’s.

  “Let me talk to her,” Oscar offered. “She will listen to me.”

  He had taken off his button-up shirt and held it to the woman’s neck while Drew handed her over.

  “I’ve got this guy.” Christina, pulled one of her knives from her boot. Before she could drive it through what remained of the body of the dead vampire, through his heart, a loud roar echoed through the air as the stranger’s truck roared to life. We had completely forgotten about him in the rush to save the vampire’s victim.

  “Shit!” Drew began to run after him, and I followed. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be the only one who would be able to catch him as he pulled away from the curb. I dug in, channeling all my power into my run. I got close enough I thought I could probably make the jump and launched myself into the air, tucking my feet and hoping to make it because it was sure going to hurt if I didn’t.

  I stuck it.

  I landed in a crouch in the bed of the truck. He swerved and tried to knock me over, but I crawled quickly to the back window, hoping it was unlocked, because I sure as hell didn’t want to climb over the side and try to get in the door.

  I wedged my fingers into the crack and pulled. Yes! It was open. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw me trying to slip through the tiny window. Then, suddenly, my face was wet and scalding. “Ow! Son of a bi—”

  “Get out!” he yelled at me. “What do you want?”

  That bastard had thrown his coffee in my face. I fell down inside, plopping into the back seat head first. I felt the truck swerve back and forth while he tried to keep an eye on me in the back. After I quickly righted myself, I lunged for his neck and wrapped my arm around him in a head lock.

  “Pull over,” I growled.

  “Who are you?” he managed to ask again.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. Pull over!”

  I squeezed my arm even more tightly around his neck until he did as I asked. Safely off to the side of the street, I felt relief wash over me. At least we weren’t going to die in a car accident.

  “Now, who are you?” I asked, not even close to letting him go.

  Drew arrived at the driver’s side door and flung it open, his gun held out in front of him.

  He demanded what I had been asking the guy already. “We know it was no accident you were waiting there. Now tell us,” Drew pushed his gun up against the dude’s thigh. At least he didn’t have it pointed at his head or anything.

  “My name is Zander. Now let go of my neck!” He yanked himself forward just as I let him go and so he bashed his head on the wheel. “Wonderful, just wonderful,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead.

  Drew dug the barrel of his gun
into Zander’s thigh even more. “It was no accident that you were here. Explain.”

  I kept my hands behind his head, ready to fry him if he so much as made a move at Drew.

  “I don’t have to explain jack to you. Now get the hell away from me.”

  Drew smiled slyly. “Actually you do have to explain yourself. Are you the man from the newspapers, the one saving women from animals?”

  “Like I said, man, leave me alone. From what I saw out there with that woman, you know as well as I do what kind of animals those are.”

  After catching my eye and seeing my nod, Drew raised his gun up and away from Zander in a sort of conciliatory move.

  “Can we just talk, man? We have to get back there and take care of that girl.”

  Zander shook his head and looked from Drew to the street. “I don’t know about that. I should probably just go.”

  “Don’t you want to help that girl? Isn’t that what you’ve been doing is saving people?” Drew raised his eyebrows. “Well, now we have to go save her and figure out what the hell we are going to tell her about what just happened."

  I think Zander finally realized he wasn’t going to get out of this one. “Fine. Get in, and let’s go check it out.” He gestured to the passenger seat.

  Drew hurried around and hopped up into the truck while I stayed in the back.

  He turned the truck around and headed back toward the others.

  “So who are you guys?” he finally asked. “I saw what you did, and I know this isn’t something that surprised you.”

  I watched Drew contemplate his answer before he responded. He flexed his hand on the grip of his gun. “We are vampire hunters.”

  Zander nodded. “I figured.”

  “We can talk more about this later,” Drew said when we approached the scene.

  Oscar, Alice and Christina had pulled the woman into the shadows to reduce the risk of being seen. I looked around and saw that even though from a distance nothing appeared to be happening, splatters of blood remained on the sidewalk as evidence of the incident.