Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I learned a long time ago there’s no point in denying your feelings. And this woman is making me feel more than I have in over a century. She’s interesting. Dangerous. A little irritating. And, dammit, I care about her.
“Motherfucker,” Callie sighs. “What the hell does that mean? Gatekeeper? Gatekeeper of what? For all I know he’s here looking for the Key Master.”
Wiping the rest of the demon blood off my face, I look at Callie. She’s funny too. “Now that reference I did get.” I smirk and then go back to the body, checking his pockets for a wallet with ID, but come up empty.
“What should we do with him?” Kristy asks. “He’s somebody, you know?”
“Yeah, but we can’t exactly leave him,” Callie says. “The last thing we need is a bunch of nons walking through here. These woods aren’t the safest.” Her eyes go from the body to the woods beyond. She and Kristy were coming from a meeting with their coven. Do they meet in the woods?
“I’m still not wearing the right shoes for burying a body.” Kristy looks down at her shoes. “These boots are new.”
They’re not shaken by the sight of a dead body. Has this happened before? Maybe Callie and I have more in common than I expected. “Excuse me, ladies, but if disposing of the body is what you want, perhaps I can further lend my assistance. I’m probably better at it than you anyway,” I say.
Callie looks at me again, and I know what she’s thinking: I’ve been killing and burying bodies for years. Yet she doesn’t balk. She knows exactly what I am and has accepted it.
I’m a vampire. I drink blood to survive, and when humans loose a certain amount of blood, they die.
“You know what? That would be really helpful.” Her eyes meet mine for a half second, silently thanking me. She reaches for her friend’s hand. “Let’s go. You’re still bleeding and I need to search my book for anything and everything on Gatekeepers.”
I watch them walk away before picking up the body and carrying it deeper into the woods, wanting to put more distance between the burial site and Callie’s house.
It’s late May and the ground is soft from the recent rain. I get a hole dug in minutes and lay the body inside. I pile the dirt back on him, and then scatter leaves and broken branches over the grave, making it blend back into the underbrush of the forest.
Wiping my hands on my pants, I go back towards Callie’s house, stopping at my car first to change my clothes and clean myself up. I toss the dirty clothes in the trunk and shut it, turning around and looking at the little brick house. I’m walking up to the front door when I hear Callie’s voice coming from the back.
She’s sitting on her back porch, with a blanket over her lap. She looks up from the book she’s reading and her heart skips a beat again. A calico cat growls at me, then jumps onto the large book Callie just closed and set aside.
I speed up to the porch steps but don’t take another step forward. She already invited me in, and both she and I know I don’t need to wait for her invitation, yet I’m not going to push it this time.
“You changed,” she says, eyes running over my body.
“You didn’t. Though I have to admit I like the whole dark-Amish look on you. It leaves a lot to the imagination, and trust me, I’ve been imagining what you look like under those clothes since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“It’s the traditional dress code for gatherings.”
“You witches haven’t modernized much, have you? Criticize the vampires all you want but at least we don’t make our women wear high-collard dresses,” I say with a grin, unable to help myself. Pushing her buttons is just too fun.
She takes the blanket from her lap and stands. “Most covens stopped the whole human sacrifice thing at least. I happen to like black, and not every black dress I own is this high collared. This one just happened to have the least amount of cat fur on it.”
“Very well.”
“So the body…it’s taken care of? No one will find it?”
“You act as if I’ve been drinking animal blood my whole afterlife.”
“Fine. I get it. You’ve done this before and know what you’re doing.” She takes a few seconds to collect herself, to try and conceal what she’s feeling from me—she isn’t. “And thank you.”
“You can thank me by letting me take you out to dinner.”
She goes to the steps and hesitates. “I think I’d like to go, but it’s just, uh, it’s been a long night.”
“I suppose being attacked by a demon is tiring.”
“Nah, that’s more annoying than anything else. Mostly because he killed himself before I could kill him.”