“Maybe he made her because she looks a little like him,” Rachon said.

“Pasty,” Prosper agreed.

Rachon swept the whitish hair away from the lovely face. “Ghostly.”

Bianca turned her blue eyes toward Rachon. For a moment, Rachon thought she saw a sliver of clarity in their depths, then it was gone in the blankness of her stare. Slicing open her wrist with one long fingernail, Rachon watched the girl’s face. It did not alter as the girl gripped her arm and fed.

“You should have killed her, you know,” Prosper sighed, shaking his head. “She’s brain dead.”

Tenderly stroking the girl’s hair, Rachon just smiled slightly. “No, no, she’s much more than that. She’s his power incarnate. She’s now an extension of me. She gives me power as I give her life.”

With a grunt, Prosper wandered back down the hall to the living room.

Pressing a kiss to the silent girl’s head, Rachon whispered, “We will do great things together, won’t we, my little ghost?”

Part Two

Saturday

Chapter 6

The sun was barely a sliver of gold over the tops of the trees and it was gearing up to be an exhaustingly warm day. Despite the early hour, the humidity was already thick and gross against her skin.

Samantha jogged at a steady pace, keeping to the path that wound around Lady Bird Lake (formerly known as Lake Travis) in the shadow of downtown Austin. The new high rise buildings were close to completion and she still couldn’t get used to the radically changed skyline. Austin was growing in leaps and bounds, much to the disgust of her family.

Austin was once a small college town with a quirky personality. Now it was a burgeoning metropolis with an identity crisis. Keep Austin Weird bumper stickers and t-shirts had been common for years, but Samantha had seen far too many Make Austin Normal memorabilia of late. In just a short period of time, the whole city had changed dramatically.

But then again, so had her life.

Her blond ponytail swung back and forth behind her head as she jogged. She actually liked its rhythm. It was like a pendulum clock. The beat helped her focus on her breathing and pace. Dressed in the burnt orange and white colors of the University of Texas, Samantha ran past other early morning exercisers. Her green eyes glanced toward the tall apartment building where her former fiancé, Cian, and his new slut girlfriend were sleeping through the daylight hours. The sting of his betrayal still remained, even though she tried very hard to ignore it.

She was kind-of-sort-of dating Jeff Summerfield, the owner of the local occult bookstore and part-time vampire hunter. They got along very well and her family adored him. Jeff and Samantha saw each other a few times a week and always had a great time. They had yet to share a kiss, let alone anything more intimate. She was technically on the rebound from her broken engagement with Cian. Though she told everyone it was a good thing they had called off the wedding, that she was fine, and that Cian and her just weren’t suited for each other, she had cried like a baby when she had dropped her wedding gown off at Goodwill. The worst thing is that everyone believed her. They all believed she really was okay.

Except for Jeff.

Somehow, he knew she wasn’t moving on yet. It almost made her mad how sweet Jeff was to her. He was so perfectly understanding it was annoying. She didn’t want to admit that she was still heartbroken over Cian. She wanted to be stronger than that, but maybe she wasn’t. It was hard to accept that a piece of her still hurt whenever she heard his voice or saw his face.

An early morning mist hovered over the lapping waves of the dark waters of the lake and clung to the trunks of the juniper trees. The birds called out from the high branches as small squirrels darted around on the ground, evading the early morning walkers and joggers. The wide pathway was sparsely populated this morning. A few bikers rode past her, the wheels spitting up small bits of grit. She frowned after them. Some turtles rested on rocks near the water, soaking in the early morning sun. She waved at them. They ignored her.

Legs aching, side stitching, lungs straining, Samantha plowed through her discomfort. She was just getting back into running and it was not welcoming her back like an old friend. It was a struggle to get up every morning and get out the door, but she was determined to be a stronger, healthier version of herself. She had even enrolled in self-defense classes. Jeff joked she wanted to be Buffy. He was sort of right.

Though she had known Cian was a vampire, she hadn’t realized how dangerous he truly was. When she had first met him he had seemed like just a sweet, ordinary guy with beautiful eyes. She had never truly understood that there was so much more to him beneath the surface. Maybe she had read Twilight one too many times, but she had secretly adored the idea that a vampire was in love with her. It had been like some sort of modern day fairytale until she realized he really was a monster and she had never truly known him. She hadn’t even considered that there might be other vampires out in the world until Amaliya had shown up. Now she was afraid of what else might lurk in the night. Maybe she couldn’t fight the monsters, but she could try to outrun them and if they caught her, she would do her best to make them hurt.

The morning mist was heavier near the Mopac footbridge. The early weekend morning traffic roared overhead as she trudged along. She was tempted to buy a new iPod to replace the one she had broken a week before. The sounds of nature in the early morning were calming, but she missed the steady beat to keep her on track. Trying to keep an even pace was growing more difficult as the stitch in her side worsened.

Running onto the footbridge that sprawled under the very busy Mopac Expressway, Samantha plunged through the misty shadows dwelling beneath the rumbling traffic. It was cooler under the bridge and refreshing. She slightly slowed her pace, trying to catch her breath.

“Help me,” a female voice called out.

It was somewhere ahead in the misty gloom.

“Hello?” Samantha answered.

“Please, help me,” the voice repeated.

“Hello? What’s wrong? I can call 911.” Using the plea as a reason to drop to a walk, Samantha nervously fished her phone out of her fanny pack. 911 was on speed dial. She activated the screen and walked forward, her finger poised over it.

A soft, desperate sob drifted out of the mist. “He hurt me.”

“Oh, shit!” Samantha yanked out her pepper spray from her short’s pocket as she tried to call 911. To her dismay, her phone registered a dead battery and turned off. “Crap, the phone is dead. Where are you? I can’t see you!”

“Please, he hurt me,” the woman whispered.

The thick mist and dark shadows clouded her vision, making it hard to see anything. Samantha held the pepper spray out in front her, ready to deal with any attackers. Shoving her phone into her pocket, she warily advanced toward the voice.

“Please, help me!”

“I’m coming!” Samantha swept her arm back and forth in front of her. Her breath was puffing out in cold wisps as the air turned from warm and humid to cold and prickly. The world suddenly felt far away. Even the overhead traffic was a distant drone.

“Please…”

The air had turned frigid and Samantha shivered as she pressed forward. The shadows appeared thicker and darker as the mist shrouded the path.

“Where are you?” Samantha whispered, suddenly very afraid.

She almost tripped over the jogger lying face down across the path. Gasping, she caught her balance and knelt next to the woman.

“My phone is dead. I can’t call 911, but maybe I can help you up and we can try to find someone to assist us.” Samantha timidly stretched out her hand to turn the jogger over.

“He hurt me,” the woman cried out in agony, rolling onto her back, and thrusting a bloody, straining hand toward Samantha.

“Oh, my God!” Samantha gasped and drew back in shock.

“He hurt me!”

Samantha felt her breakfast trying to crawl up her throat and leap out of her mouth. The woman’s chest was a ruin of flesh and long ropey, fleshy strands of intestine lay on the ground. Blood splattered the woman’s face and arms and her eyes were wide with terror.

“Help me, please!” the woman sobbed. “Please, Samantha.”

Overcoming her repulsion and fear, Samantha held out her hand to touch the woman’s shoulder. Just as her fingers could touch the jogger’s arm, the woman vanished in a swirl of mist.

“What the hell?”

Samantha stared at the empty spot on the jogging path as several runners sprinted past her. There was no sign of the woman who had cried out for help. No blood, nothing.

Samantha scurried out from under the bridge and ran toward the nearest rest station. Trembling from terror, she hugged herself as she leaned against a streetlamp, trying to compose herself. What she had seen had been horrifying, but what was even more frightening was that the woman--the apparition--had called her by name.

Chapter 7

Samuel Vezorak was in a good mood all things considered. The family was drinking all his beer and had devoured most of the barbecue he had cooked up earlier in the day, but he had a good buzz going and he could ignore the barbecue sauce smeared all over his leather sofa.