Read Online Heart of the Dead: Vampire Superheroes (Perpetual Creatures Book 1) by Gabriel Beyers - Free Book Online

couldn’t close her mouth. All she could say was, “Why?”
    “Why give you all my earthly belongings? Because you’re a good person, little rooster. You never once judged me for my weirdness. And you’ve had a lot stacked against you. If you can find the courage to break free of your mother, the house and car will be waiting for you. I wish I could do more.”
    Jerusa darted across the room and clutched Foster around the chest. He wrapped his arms around her and laid his cheek on the top of her head. Never before had she been so happy and so sad at the same time.
    Foster placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. “Maybe once I’m gone, Alicia will finally feel comfortable inside this house.”
    “She’s already inside,” Jerusa said, now weeping freely. “She’s in the basement.”
    A wave of panic crossed Foster’s face, but it was gone before Jerusa could confirm it.
    “You better get going,” he said, pulling his eyes away from the basement door. “This will have to be goodbye for now. I’ll write to you when I can.”
    “Before I go, can I ask a favor?”
    Foster nodded. “Of course.”
    “Do you have any extra clothes that I can have?”
    “Anything you want. I’m leaving all this behind.”
    “Great,” Jerusa said. “I need a shirt, pants, socks, shoes and maybe some underwear.” She wasn’t sure if her new woodland friend would wear another man’s underwear or not, but it seemed rude not to offer.
    “May I ask why?”
    Jerusa wasn’t sure where to start. “I met a naked man in the woods.”
    Foster raised an eyebrow. “You mean like Silvanus, the Roman god of the woods? That kind of naked man?”
    Jerusa laughed, not because Foster’s statement was funny, but because she had sensed something divine about that strange man in the woods, and one of her first thoughts had been that she had met Apollo. “I think he’s been robbed or attacked. He seems disoriented. I told him I’d bring him some clothes. Maybe I can convince him to go to the hospital.”
    “That might not be such a good idea,” Foster said. “He might be dangerous. What does Alicia think of him?”
    “She acts about the same as when I’m around you, so he can’t be all bad,” Jerusa said. “So can I have the clothes or are you going to make a liar out of me?”
    Foster smiled, but his concern remained visible in his eyes. “Technically, I’ve bequeathed to you this house and everything in it. The clothes are yours to do with as you wish. I’ll go pick something out for ol’ Silvanus.”
    Foster left the kitchen and went to the back of the house where his bedroom was located. Jerusa drifted about the kitchen, brushing her fingers along the counter and cabinets, allowing the idea that this house now belonged to her to sink in. She felt both the rush of freedom and the trepidation of striking out on her own.
    As Jerusa passed the door to the basement, she recalled the lightning look of panic that had crossed Foster’s face when she’d told him that Alicia had ventured below. Jerusa had never been in the basement — never even glanced below. The basement was completely underground, with no windows or doors, except this one in the kitchen.
    Jerusa had always respected Foster’s privacy. Though she had been tempted, she had never snooped through his belongings, nor entered a room that she wasn’t invited into. But this was her house now, was it not? Basement included.
    Jerusa reached for the doorknob. A strange nervous exhilaration rushed through her blood. Her senses tightened, her breathing slowed. The story of Blackbeard’s wife flooded her mind, causing her to pause, but only for a moment. Her hand rested on the cold, brushed pewter doorknob and it seemed to tingle in her hand.
    She suddenly felt scared, inexplicably frightened by what might be on the other side of the solid oak door. There could be anything hidden in the dark depths below the house. A virtual labyrinth that made Buffalo