Read Online Blood Bath, A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy (The Maurin Kincaide Series Book 4) by Rachel Rawlings - Free Book Online

they affectionately call J.B., the only thing etched into the tombstone. Upon examination it was determined that the head had been posthumously removed and placed in the grave facing west. All of the ribs were broken and the femur bones crossed over the torso to form an X- the symbol for death. With no full name, or written record of anyone with the initials J.B. living in Griswold, it may never be determined who this person was and why his remains were desecrated.
    Researchers now believe the rampant fear of a vampire den living in New England during the late 1800s was in fact a wide spread infection of tuberculosis. Symptoms of fatigue, pale skin, coughing up blood -which often left the sick with blood on the corners of their mouths- was cannon fodder for the superstitious, leading to the belief that vampires had invaded and corrupted their communities.
    Damn. Interesting but not very helpful. Aidan had been reading the article as well and went sort of rigid when he got to the end.
    "Tell me what you saw that made you search for this?"
    "I didn't search for this. I searched for vampires in New England."
    "Maurin." Aidan's tone said he wasn't in the mood for games. "That would have garnered all sorts of ridiculous results. Why this article? What about it called to you?"
    I spun the laptop around so Cash could see what we were talking about before I answered him. "It felt like the right time period. I got something from the necklace, from a girl but not the right girl. I was hoping I could make some sense of what I saw before I talked to Masarelli."
    Aidan's hand clasped mine. "Tell me what you saw."
    I told them both in vivid detail about my reading from the necklace. Cash looked confused. Aidan looked stricken.
    "Mercy Brown."
    It was a whisper but I heard it. My stomach dropped. I gave Cash a cursory glance to see if he was keeping up but he just shrugged. I squeezed Aidan's hand, prompting him to continue.
    "She wasn't dead when he threw her into that grave. They thought he killed her but while the townspeople were out looking for him he came back to finish the job. I think he may have actually loved her."
    He was there. He didn't need to read the article. Aidan saw it firsthand. He wasn't newly turned, of course I knew that but I'd never really seen him as anything beyond the thirty year old man he appeared to be. We spent a lot of time getting to know each, our likes and dislikes but as he told us about Mercy Brown I realized how seldom he talked about his past.
    For the first time I was getting more than a glimpse of Aidan's history, of the events that shaped the vampire I had grown to love. I had a million questions that I knew would break the spell Aidan seemed to be under. I needed to let him tell the story on his own.
    "She rose the next night with an insatiable thirst and no comprehension of what she had become. He warned her not to go but she was afraid. Of him. Afraid of the monster she realized he was and what she had become. She went to the only place she felt safe, home. Her brother was there and she succumbed to her thirst. She drained him. Once her blood lust was sated the reality of what she was, what she had done lay like a withered husk at her feet. He found her muttering about the devil and her soul while rocking her brother's corpse and took her back to his home. He would never save her. Not that night or the night the necromancer came.
    "Mercy was not the first he sired, not after centuries of walking the Earth. He was insane, a tyrant in life and no better in undeath. I think he thought she could save him. Instead he spent the next four years keeping her from walking into the sun.
    “ I was there waiting, watching. Dr. Grant was no doctor. He was a necromancer, hired by Willington to rid their community of the demons hiding among them." He laughed. "Demons, if they only knew they truly existed, but we were terrifying enough."
    I didn't miss the fact he said we and wondered what Aidan had done to