“Who are ya?” She studied his face, squinting as if she might have to force an answer from him.
“Curtis Jefferson. I own Crimson Tavern.”
“Oh. Right.” She relaxed her stance and placed her hand against her chest as she let loose a long breath. “That makes sense. Ya are the dhampir my cousins were telling me about the other day. For a moment, I swore I felt a vampiric presence. The last thing anyone needs is a bunch of human-sized leeches sucking the town dry.”
“None taken,” Curtis mumbled.
“Sorry?”
“No offense taken,” he said, clarifying.
She stepped closer. “I’m sorry. I thought they said ya didn’t know the vampire in your family tree. I just assumed…” She stopped herself, lifting her hands to the side. “Forgive me if I inadvertently insulted ya. Let’s start over. Hi. I’m Maura MacGregor. I own Hotel Motel with my brother, Bruce. I do all the work, and he paints obscene pictures on the walls. Yes, I know the name is stupid. It came with the business. We’re currently fighting over what to call it.”
“Curtis Jefferson. Crimson Tavern.” He tried to match her friendly tone, but it became hard to concentrate. “Sounded like a good plan when I made it. No…paint.”
He dropped to his knees in the smoke. He expected it to irritate his lungs, but it felt cool like mist.
“Whoa, easy.” Maura darted forward to catch him before he collapsed to the side. The movement stirred the mist and a small clearing appeared around them. “Are ya…? Is that blood?”
Her hand pressed over his, applying pressure.
“It’s nothing—”
“Shh. Do ya hear that?” Maura glanced around.
Curtis didn’t hear anything. He found it difficult to concentrate, so instead stared at her pretty face.
“What’s happening here?” she asked.
“I’ll be fine.” Curtis tried to push her hand away. “I don’t know if there are more.”
“More what?” Maura wiped her fingers on her leg before taking his face in both hands. “More vampires? Was that a death fire? Are ya out here fighting vampires?”
Curtis’s vision dimmed, and he felt himself sliding to the ground. “It’s not true. Not all dhampirs are vampire hunters. That’s a movie thing. I want nothing to do with them.”
“That didn’t answer my question.” Maura tried to pull him upright, but he had no energy to sit back up.
“You can’t be here,” Curtis mumbled. “It’s not safe for nymphs to be out of the story book.”
Chapter Three
Nymphs?
Maura ignored the nonsensical mumblings of the injured man lying on the ground. It’s clear he’d lost blood and undoubtedly hit his head. He barely made sense.
Maura ran her fingers through his short, dark brown hair feeling for lumps. His scalp appeared uninjured. She then rubbed the tips of her fingers together, causing them to glow softly with magick. She pried open an eye and used the light to check that the pupil constricted. They were strikingly gorgeous eyes, the dark brown threaded with light.
Maura dropped the eyelid but kept her glowing fingers close to his face. She turned his head to get a better look. The man had been blessed with a good jawline and strong features. They were the perfect showcase to firm lips.
“Where have they been hiding ya?” Maura whispered with a shake of her head.
She had more immediate problems than contemplating her future dating life. Her parents and the other elders wouldn’t exactly be thrilled if she brought a dhampir home. They had some antiquated Medieval ways of thinking. Vampire blood being very, very bad was one of them. Of course, some of them remembered the vampiric feeding frenzy that helped spread the bubonic plague.
A light tapping sound caught her attention. Maura extinguished her fingers and listened as the noise grew louder. The drums were back, only there wasn’t a television on which to blame the noise this time.
Curtis didn’t move. She glanced around, wondering if she could call back the light to see his stomach injury better but thought better of it. The drums became louder, the rhythmic military thrumming punctuated by the march of feet. It was not a sound that belonged in the forests of Wisconsin.
Unsure what else to do, Maura traced her fingertip over Curtis’s wound. Tiny yellow lights danced around her finger as she called forth her magick. It petrified the edges, hardening the skin into a stone-like texture to stop the bleeding. She hoped it would work. Typically petrifying spells were meant to turn the whole person into a temporary statue.
The mist stirred around them, causing a chill to work up her spine. The foreboding that had compelled her from the motel parking lot into the woods grew steadily with each ticking second. The phantom music loomed toward them, increasing in intensity.
Ghosts?
Maura tried to hoist Curtis to his feet. He was too heavy for her to carry physically. Magick would only draw attention. Spirits sometimes floated toward magick like mosquitos to a blood buffet.
A figure appeared from inside a tree. The mist parted to give the boy a path.
Her assumption of ghosts had been correct. A drummer boy in a Civil War uniform, no more than thirteen, marched backward as if his time rewound itself. His body was too transparent and the forest too dark to determine what color he wore—blue or gray—but it didn’t seem to matter considering there shouldn’t be an army in this part of the country—ghosts or not.
The mist moved, creating soldiers to march in time with the drummer boy. Some were missing arms, and others were headless as if there was not enough mist to finish their forms. The ghosts moved in reverse, passing through the trees as if they weren’t there. Maura huddled close to Curtis as the soldiers surrounded them. So far, none of the spirits appeared to sense the living. With luck, it would be a residual haunting, ghost energy trapped in a long-ago moment, completely unaware of their surroundings or that they were lost.
“Curtis?” Maura mouthed more than whispered his name. She lightly tapped his cheek. He didn’t respond.
The drummer boy backed toward them. His ghostly steps kept time with the others. Each rap of the drum struck like a warning.
Maura leaned close to Curtis’s ear. “We need to get out of here. Curtis, can ya hear me? I need ya to run.”
When she again looked up, it appeared as if some of the soldiers had turned their attention toward them. Their heads now faced the wrong direction on their backward marching bodies. The drummer boy was almost upon them. The feeling of dread grew.
Maura wasn’t sure what to do, so she shielded Curtis with her body and held her breath as the ghost child marched through them. She pressed against Curtis’s prone form and closed her eyes tight. Cold feet pierced into her back like ice-covered knives. Her breath caught, and all she could manage was a grunt of pain. The spirit pulled energy from her, draining her of the ability to move.
The drummer boy marched on, backward steps thumping a little louder than before.
Maura gasped noisily for air, trying to force oxygen into her freezing lungs. The sound of drums faded, taking the marching soldiers with it. The light had improved, and she was able to see the details of his face better. He was definitely cuter than she’d been led to believe by her cousins. The way they’d described it, the dhampir was some sort of deformed knobby creature, an overgrown gremian.