Read Online Night of the Vampires by Heather Graham - Free Book Online
Authors: Heather Graham
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love in his eyes. âBe brief, please. I am ordered to watch over the corpsesâGod knows why. They are certainly not going to rise and fight the Union. And who would seek to steal a corpseâand besides there are thousands on the battlefields. There are sons in the family, but they are in the field. Oh, just hurry, sir, and do what examining it is that is necessary. I will see to the young lady. My officerâs tent is just thereâ¦.â He pointed.
âOh!â Megan said again, clinging to him.
âDear girl! Dear girl!â he said. And barely aware of the others, he helped her as she leaned hard against him, and they walked to the officerâs tent. She glancedback over her shoulder just once, smiling at the trio of men. She noticed Cole looking back at her, appearing amused.
Â
T HE OBVIOUS FACTOR regarding the corpses was their color.
Or lack thereof.
âWhiteâ was the term used, and yet they werenât really white at all. They appeared to be a pale, opaque shade of yellow-pearl, and they seemed hollow, as if they had never been human at all.
Cole noted immediately that in addition to the massive trauma apparent on their necks, their throats had been neatly slit as well, though long after the blood had been drained. The perpetrators had been savage, making no tiny pinprick point in the throats of their victims, but tearing at them like rabid dogs. Young vampires, yes. And maybe an older one, hastily trying to cover their tracks.
Cody looked at the victims, laid out on the ground, covered in poor, unbleached cotton sheets, bearing the muddy look of the ground where they lay.
Cots would have been saved for the living.
Joshua Brandt had been a man of perhaps fifty or sixty years; even in death, he had a furrowed brow. His wife was thin, probably pale in life as well, her face portraying the wrinkled countenance of a life that had been long lived. Brandtâs mother was long, excruciatingly thin, and probably soon for death even without the vampireâs kiss. The servant girl was young and had been pretty; her hands were callused. There had been a male servant as well, an older man, bearing signs of stooped shouldersfrom a long life of labor. The bodies had only received cursory inspections and thus remained fully clothed.
âThe heads, or stakes?â Cole asked Cody with sadness in his voice.
âStakes, beneath the shirts and bodices,â Cody said.
Cole hunkered down and reached into his coat for a long, narrow, honed stake and his mallet. He paused before looking down then discovered that he was poised above the body of the young servant girl. She looked peaceful, young and lovely.
To his surprise, her eyes opened. She looked at him and smiled, and he paused again. Then he saw that something in her eyes was registering cunning and evil intent.
He hammered the stake into her heart just as her lips drew back and saliva dripped off her fangs. He sat back, trembling slightly. She had changed quickly. And in daylight.
Cody had already dispatched Joshua Brandt and his mother; Brendan had made a quick, clean disposal of Mrs. Brandt. They both looked at him without words.
We all know that you never hesitate, their silent glances seemed to say.
And, yes, he knew. But he also knew that in Victory, Texas, they had let some of the changed retain their strange new existences. But they knew those they had allowed this for. It might have been possible that someone as young as this girl would awaken and search for a way to appease her hunger without attacking humans, but that would have been an amazing rarity.
He nodded, and though he felt tremendous pain again, he pulled down on the worn shirt of the older male servant and made quick work with his stake and mallet. A slight shudder seemed to escape the man.
There was no blood.
Cole pulled the manâs shirt back into position.
They had completed their task.
The three of them rose, carefully seeing that the dead
âOh!â Megan said again, clinging to him.
âDear girl! Dear girl!â he said. And barely aware of the others, he helped her as she leaned hard against him, and they walked to the officerâs tent. She glancedback over her shoulder just once, smiling at the trio of men. She noticed Cole looking back at her, appearing amused.
Â
T HE OBVIOUS FACTOR regarding the corpses was their color.
Or lack thereof.
âWhiteâ was the term used, and yet they werenât really white at all. They appeared to be a pale, opaque shade of yellow-pearl, and they seemed hollow, as if they had never been human at all.
Cole noted immediately that in addition to the massive trauma apparent on their necks, their throats had been neatly slit as well, though long after the blood had been drained. The perpetrators had been savage, making no tiny pinprick point in the throats of their victims, but tearing at them like rabid dogs. Young vampires, yes. And maybe an older one, hastily trying to cover their tracks.
Cody looked at the victims, laid out on the ground, covered in poor, unbleached cotton sheets, bearing the muddy look of the ground where they lay.
Cots would have been saved for the living.
Joshua Brandt had been a man of perhaps fifty or sixty years; even in death, he had a furrowed brow. His wife was thin, probably pale in life as well, her face portraying the wrinkled countenance of a life that had been long lived. Brandtâs mother was long, excruciatingly thin, and probably soon for death even without the vampireâs kiss. The servant girl was young and had been pretty; her hands were callused. There had been a male servant as well, an older man, bearing signs of stooped shouldersfrom a long life of labor. The bodies had only received cursory inspections and thus remained fully clothed.
âThe heads, or stakes?â Cole asked Cody with sadness in his voice.
âStakes, beneath the shirts and bodices,â Cody said.
Cole hunkered down and reached into his coat for a long, narrow, honed stake and his mallet. He paused before looking down then discovered that he was poised above the body of the young servant girl. She looked peaceful, young and lovely.
To his surprise, her eyes opened. She looked at him and smiled, and he paused again. Then he saw that something in her eyes was registering cunning and evil intent.
He hammered the stake into her heart just as her lips drew back and saliva dripped off her fangs. He sat back, trembling slightly. She had changed quickly. And in daylight.
Cody had already dispatched Joshua Brandt and his mother; Brendan had made a quick, clean disposal of Mrs. Brandt. They both looked at him without words.
We all know that you never hesitate, their silent glances seemed to say.
And, yes, he knew. But he also knew that in Victory, Texas, they had let some of the changed retain their strange new existences. But they knew those they had allowed this for. It might have been possible that someone as young as this girl would awaken and search for a way to appease her hunger without attacking humans, but that would have been an amazing rarity.
He nodded, and though he felt tremendous pain again, he pulled down on the worn shirt of the older male servant and made quick work with his stake and mallet. A slight shudder seemed to escape the man.
There was no blood.
Cole pulled the manâs shirt back into position.
They had completed their task.
The three of them rose, carefully seeing that the dead
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