Stalking Dead (Vampire Hunter Book 2) (2 page)

“Hide!” Lucas said frantically.

I took off running in the direction that I thought was
away from the people. Panic had set in, and I focused on getting as far away as fast as I could. My feet pounded against the hardened dirt, and to my own ears it sounded like claps of thunder with each step. But I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t force myself to slow down, to try and be quiet.

As soon as I reached an area shrouded with trees, I stopped. I looked around expectantly, but Lucas and Henry were nowhere in sight.
Oh shit. Where the hell are they?

I tried to be as still as possible and listen intently.
Good, I can’t hear anybody talking now. But how did I lose Lucas and Henry?

I really hoped the two of them had stuck together. Henry would never forgive me if we dragged him out here and then left him alone.

Convinced there weren’t any people around, I tried to get my bearings. To the left of me was a talk rock structure with a fountain cascading down the middle.
I don’t remember seeing that before.

To the right, it looked like there was another pathway leading to an exit out to the road. This looked totally unfamiliar. “What have I done?” I moaned.

“Aurora, there you are!”

Lucas was
beside me. “I am so glad to see you!” I flung my arms around him.

Lucas patted my back. “Um, yeah,” he said awkwardly. “Unfortunately, we’ve lost Henry.”

“Oh no!” I wailed. “What in the hell happened?”

“I don’t think you have any concept of how
fast you can run,” Lucas said, exasperated. “I tried to tell you last night, you’re moving at incredible –
inhuman
– speeds. We’re on the other side of the cemetery! Do you know how big this place is?”

“The other side of the cemetery,” I echoed.
What?!
“That’s impossible.”

“No wonder you were able to outrun that werewolf,” Lucas said. “I mean, I knew you were going fast, but even I didn’t realize
just
how fast.”

“It didn’t feel like I was going that fast, though,” I said. “It’s weird. It’s effortless when I run like that, but the speed seems normal. I, I can’t explain it.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to figure it out. Right now we’ve got to find Henry. I really don’t need that on my conscience, especially when this escapade was my suggestion. Let’s head back in the direction of where we were before.” Lucas started walking.

“Hey, you didn’t tell me how you got here so fast,” I said. “You keep raving about my amazing speed but you weren’t far behind.”

“I can move through space differently than you. Not quite the same as your running ability, but pretty useful.”

“Can’t you just go look for him then?”

“I’m not splitting up again,” Lucas replied. “And it’s also dangerous. More chance of us being seen.”

What on earth is he talking about?
But I decided to let it drop. I was finding things out about Lucas at the pace that he wanted me to find them out.

“Do you know what those people were doing here?” I asked, changing the subject.

“No,” he admitted. “I’m hoping we don’t see them again. This whole thing is taking a lot longer than I wanted it to.”

I kept sneaking glances at Lucas out of the corner of my eye as we were walking. I felt like I was bipolar or something. When I had stormed out of his house the night before, I hated him with every fiber of my being. I knew he thought I was just some dumb kid and would never look at me in a romantic way.

But then he had put his own life in danger by saving me from the werewolf. He obviously cared about me, at least as a friend. And that kiss!
Wow!
When it ended I had been desperate for more. Kissing Lucas made my whole body feel like it was on fire, in a good way.

Lucas claims
he shouldn’t mix business with pleasure and then he turns around and passionately kisses me?
Sure, he might be teasing me or stringing me along for his enjoyment, but Lucas didn’t remind me of the type of person who would do that. I had known humans with less of a conscience than Lucas.

And he was thoughtful enough to tell me scariest part of Tobia
s’ case file without Henry around, so that I could make the decision to tell Henry or not. Didn’t that mean he was watching out for my feelings, just a little bit?

“Why do you keep looking at me?” Lucas asked suddenly.

“Huh? I wasn’t looking at you.” My voice sounded shrill. “I’m keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. I don’t want to run into anybody else out here!”

From then on, I star
ed straight ahead.
How embarrassing!

After walking for a little bit, I started to see familiar landscape. “We’re getting close to where we heard people talking, aren’t we?” I whispered the question to Lucas.

“Yeah, we are. I’m thinking Henry might be hiding somewhere around here.”

“Henry?” we called out i
n hushed voices, tiptoeing around the headstones and grave markers. No answer.

“I’m sure he’s looking for us, too,”
I said morosely. “What if we crossed paths?”

“Maybe he went to your grave. We should have devised a meeting place in the event of something dumb like this happening.” Lucas sounded frustrated.

“Yeah, that’s probably exactly where he is! Let’s go.”

We had just started walking again when we heard the voices. Male laughter. Then a girl was speaking, but the words were muffled. Lucas and I looked at each other at the same moment.

Well, at least we know it’s not the security guard.

“I think they’re on the other side of that hill,” Lucas said, pointing. There was a small hill just a few feet away from us, covered in trees. It did sound like the voices were nearby.

We crept carefully over to the hilly area. Lucas crouched down on his stomach and peered over the other side. I did the same. Sit
ting, sprawled out comfortably among the headstones, were two girls and two guys. They looked about twenty. Beer cans were littered all around them.

“These idiots decided to have a party in the cemetery,” Lucas whis
pered. “They’ve probably seen one too many episodes of
Ghost Hunters
.”

I snickered. “What are you going to do?”

“They’re right by your grave. They need to get the hell out of here.”

Lucas stood up from his crouched position. He zipped his signature long black coat up as far as it would go. He was now in plain sight of the partiers, but they were too wasted to notice.
They wouldn’t see a ghost if it flew up and smacked them across the face.

“Do I look like a security guard?” Lucas asked me.

Maybe a male stripper dressed as a security guard,
I wanted to say. Aloud I said, “They’ll buy it. They’re drunk.”

Lucas grinned. “Watch this. It might actually be kind of fun.”

He walked authoritatively over to the group. They didn’t even realize he was there until he was practically standing on top of them.

“
Woah!” One of the guys struggled to his feet.

“What are you doing her
e?” Lucas asked in a stern voice.

Oh my god that is so sexy!

The remaining three pulled themselves to a standing position as well, dusting the dirt off their jeans.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” the other guy said frantically. “We just wanted to have a good time. Tonight’s a full moon, you know.”

“Do you know what the sentence is for trespassing in a cemetery? You could easily get five years behind bars!”

I willed myself not to laugh. The intruders were looking at each other in panic, totally convinced they had ruined their lives by sneaking in here at night. They all started
talking at once, explaining that they thought it would be fun to drink some beers and see if anything cool happened in the graveyard during a full moon.

“You missed the full moon,” Lucas interrupted them. “That was last night.”

“Dude!” One of the guys smacked his friend. “You freaking idiot!”

The other guy grabbed his arm in pain. “What the fuck did you do that for?” he practically screamed. He leaned over and shoved his friend in retaliation.

Shit! They’re getting really loud, really fast
.

Lucas stepped in between them, holding each at arm’s length. The two stopped struggling, but continued yelling at each other. I could hear a dog start barking, probably
somewhere in the surrounding neighborhood.

I was getting really nervous now, and I imagined Lucas was, too. We had taken all of these pains to quietly and discreetly make our way around
the cemetery and these drunk idiots were about to blow our cover.

“
Lower your voices!” Lucas practically bellowed. I cringed.
That was even louder than those bozos were yelling.

But it did the trick, because they shut up immediately.

“You jack asses better get the hell out of here before I call the cops,” Lucas hissed at them. “Consider this your first and only warning. Now get your shit together” – Lucas paused and waved at the mound of beer cans – “before I change my mind.”

I shivered and crouched as low down as I could. Lucas’ tone was downright frightening. The foursome obviously felt the same way. They silently gathered their trash and high tailed it out of our sight.

After they were gone, Lucas looked around. I could see in the bright moonlight that his brow was furrowed worriedly.
They made a ton of noise.

And where was Henry! Why did everything we tried to do end up being a huge cluster fuck?

Apparently convinced that the real security guard wasn’t coming to investigate the commotion, Lucas slowly walked back over to where I was waiting, still huddled close to the ground.

“Life with you sure isn’t boring,” he said dryly.

“I didn’t conjure up those douches to give you something extra to worry about!” I said defensively.

Lucas sat down on the ground
. I shifted from my crouching position to sit down next to him. “I don’t see Henry around here anywhere,” I said. “No matter what we do tonight, we have to find him.”

“I know you won’t believe me, but he’s pretty safe here,” Lucas responded.

“What do you mean?”

“Supernatural predators aren’t exactly hanging out at the cemetery, waiting for some human to come along. Any creature that preys on the living wouldn’t pick a graveyard as its hunting ground.”

“That makes sense,” I said slowly.

“You know, Aurora, I wanted to ask you something.” Lucas looked at me and brushed my hair out of my eyes.

What’s going on?

I gulped. “Yes?”

Lucas leaned in closer and looked at me intensely.
Is he going to kiss me again?

We were startled by a rustling noise from behind. I jerked around to see what had made the noise. Lucas was on his feet in what seemed like less than a second.

Henry! “I finally found you guys!” he exclaimed.
“That was absolutely awful. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

I stood up and Henry wrapped me in an enormous bear hug. “I was really worried when you took off like that. I thought something had taken you, to be honest. Nobody could have run away that quickly! It seemed like you were gone in a flash. And then I couldn’t find Lucas and I didn’t know what the hell had happened.” Henry was still hugging me.

I laughed awkwardly and wriggled out of his grasp. “Stop, you’re crushing me,” I said.

I noticed Lucas watching us.
He must think I’m such a flirt! Kissing Henry, then him, then hugging Henry again.

“What happened back there?” Henry asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“We just got separated; no big deal,” Lucas said. “We have work to do. Let’s dig up the grave and get out of here, before something else happens.”

Lucas walked in front of Henry and me. “Is he alright?” Henry whispered. “He seems
kinda mad or something.”

“I think it’s just been a long night,” I whispered back.
Could Lucas be jealous?

We reached my grave, which had trees surrounding it on one side. It was serene and
peaceful.
Not too shabby a place to spend eternity.

“Aurora, keep a lookout.” Lucas didn’t sound mad anymore but he was definitely all business. No kidding around with
Henry and me.

I paced around my tombstone nervously as Lucas and Henry started digging. My eyes kept flicking over the engraving on the headstone, but I wouldn’t let them linger to read the words. Even though I was used to the notion that I had died by now, seeing it written out that way, so
final
, was something I still couldn’t handle.

The two made quick work of loosening the dirt and shoveling it to the side, layer by layer. At one point
, maybe a foot into the ground, Henry stopped and leaned on his shovel handle, breathing heavily. “This dirt feels like its packed solid,” he said. “That day when we came back and saw your family, I assumed somebody else had replaced the dirt on the grave. But it’s almost as if it were done by
magic
. I would have thought the grave had been packed for years.”

For the first time in awhile, Lucas spoke. “What do you mean, ‘that day we came back and saw your family’?” he asked.

“Oh, I guess we didn’t think to tell you,” I said. I quickly explained how we had decided to come fill the grave back up, since I had left it in tatters that morning when I climbed out.

“We knew that my family or friends might bring flowers to the grave on the anniversary of my death,” I finished telling Lucas. “But when we got here, the grave was completely undisturbed.”

Lucas started digging again. “I wish you’d told me that before. Just remember, I need to know
everything
. Even if it seems unimportant.” He looked pointedly at Henry.

He wants me to tell him if Henry and I have become a couple.
Right, like that would have happened
overnight.
The day after I kissed Lucas. For a million year old vampire who’d probably been with a gazillion women, he was acting like a gawky sixteen year old.

For all
of the bad luck we’d had up until this point, the grave digging was going surprisingly smoothly. It was going fast, as well. It was no shock that Lucas could dig and shovel dirt effortlessly with his huge ripped arms, but Henry was holding his own.

I thought back to that awkward moment we’d had in the kitchen on the morning I’d followed Henry’s father. I’d noticed then how his arms seemed awfully muscular. But now, as I watched him shoveling dirt in the moonlight, I could see just how muscular.

Lucas must have caught sight of me staring at Henry. “Aurora! Keep watch in case someone is around!” he called agitatedly.

Perfect! He thinks I’m drooling over Henry’s body. Now look what I’ve done.

I was so confused. I had to clear my head and focus on
now
. How was it I could be so strongly attracted to two guys? And who the hell really knew if
either
of them wanted to be with me!

I looked around the graveyard in all directions. Everything wa
s quiet. I forced my shoulders to relax. I discreetly glanced back down at Henry and Lucas, inside the dug up grave, trying to see how much farther they had to go.

I don’t want Lucas getting pissed off at me again for not keeping lookout.

“How deep do you think you’ve dug?” I called from above. “That’s got to be at least 5 or 6 feet. Surely you’re getting close.”

“Or there’s nothing to find,” Lucas responded.

I didn’t want to admit that if that was the case, I was more than a little disappointed. If nothing was in my grave, then what? We’d have no leads whatsoever.
But it would lessen the chances that you’d turn into a monster
, I reminded myself.

“Yeah, we’ve
been digging for a long time. We’re over 6 feet down now. This could go on forever. At some point we’ve got to call it a night and go home,” Henry said. “I’m exhausted. This is hard work, in case you can’t tell.”

“Please,” I whined. “Can’t you go just a bit further? I can come down there and help.”

“No!” Lucas and Henry said in unison.

Ha!
Why did I feel like I was in the middle of a pissing contest?

After several more minutes of digging, I was just about to say that Henry was right, but just then he exclaimed, “I think I’ve found something!”

Lucas was quickly by his side, the two shoveling dirt like crazy with their hands.

“What is it?” I called excitedly, but they were ignoring me.

Screw this.
With a quick look around to make sure nothing was coming, I sat down on the edge of the grave so that my legs were dangling into the massive hole they had just dug.  Before either of them could notice what I was doing and yell at me to stop, I jumped down into the grave to join them.