At first, the sun blinked behind the clouds, blinding me so I couldn’t make out exactly what the shape was. But then the clouds won the battle, and I recognized the black outline, which delineated itself into a person standing on top of a gravestone and facing my house.

  Spotting me, Roscoe swooped off the gravestone and rocketed toward the Escalade. He’d reach me in a split second, so I immediately veered away and bolted forward, towards my porch. I heard him touch down next to the Escalade with a growl that sounded like something from a horror movie.

  I turned around to get a read on his location, all the while still moving closer to my house as Roscoe stalked a few paces towards me. His eyes were pinpointed on mine as I knocked into the Escalade’s bumper and nearly tripped over my own feet. Roscoe strolled around the vehicle, taking his sweet time, apparently realizing he could toy with his kill.

  He just needed to come a little closer…

  I stood still as Roscoe approached me, wearing a maniacal smile that would probably terrorize me for years to come. That is, if there were years to come…

  You’ve got this, Poppy, I reminded myself.

  I braced myself and once he was close enough, spat a mouthful of holy water into his face. He whipped out of the way and the stream fell through the air, but managed to spatter his leg and he hissed as it sizzled into his skin.

  A second later, the pain identified itself because he howled in agony as his flesh started to bubble.

  I just had to fire that parting shot before I turned on my heel and started for the house, which was only a few strides away. My strength still wasn’t fully recovered, so I wasn’t as fast as I ordinarily would have been. But, Roscoe was tending to his own emergency—which was exactly what I’d counted on. Acrid smoke rose from Roscoe’s leg, but the wound wouldn’t slow him for long.

  And, no, a whole lot of holy water wouldn’t kill him—it would only piss him off.

  I hurried up the steps and threw the front door open. The instant I set foot in the entrance hall, I heard him right behind me. Skidding into the living room, I spotted him out of the corner of my eye. He wasn’t far behind me.

  He turned into the living room and a blood bolt rocketed for my head. I barely ducked in time and the shot blasted into the bookshelf. Splinters and shattered knickknacks showered my head as I dove out of the way.

  Another blood bolt fired into the side table and it exploded in my face. I scrambled backward, but that meant moving away from the couch—the one place I had to reach, no matter what.

  I made another dive for the couch, but Roscoe flitted out of nowhere and I ran straight into him. My own momentum made me bounce off his chest, and I hit the floor on my butt.

  This time, as if an invisible energy deposit suddenly made itself known, I vaulted to my feet and rushed to the entrance hall one more time. Even though I needed to reach the couch, I more needed to get away from him. I veered behind the corner just in time to escape another blood bolt. It sizzled my hair and scorched a baseball-sized hole in the stairs.

  I almost slipped again, dashing into the kitchen. I had one chance at this. I couldn’t screw it up. I streaked to the other doorway leading to the living room and made a headlong sprint for the threshold, turned the corner, and screamed out loud when I found Roscoe standing right in front of me again.

  Just a second earlier he’d been standing behind me. How could he move so quickly?

  My eyes flickered into the living room. Burn marks smoked up from the floor where the side table used to be. A bunch of broken glass and china, wood debris, and scattered broken knick-knacks dotted the floorboards around the couch.

  Poppy, I heard Betanya’s voice in my head. Are you ready for us?

  No, I answered. Not yet.

  Roscoe made another grab for me. I took one chance and ducked, then I dove under his outstretched arm and flung myself across the living room floor. I slid the last few feet to the couch and then scrambled onto my hands and knees.

  At that moment, I felt powerful hands clamping around my shoulders. I kicked out against him and my foot met his shin, propelling me the last few inches to the couch. I slapped down on my stomach and my grateful fingers closed around the potion bottle that had been waiting on the side table when Roscoe blew it up.

  This time, he wrenched me off the floor with unbelievable strength, jerked me three feet into the air and held me aloft, while I kicked and scratched to free myself. But, it was no use. He leered up at me while he crushed my neck with one hand.

  He let out a spine-chilling laugh at my puny efforts to fight him off and stomped around the couch, slamming me down on the cushions. I clawed at his fingers, which were doing a great job of cutting off my breathing, but nothing loosened his iron hold. He seemed to be chiseled out of solid stone.

  It was then that Roy appeared from one of the rooms, before he was supposed to, and threw himself at Roscoe. This wasn’t part of the plan but, apparently, Roy had taken it upon himself to attempt to protect me, probably because things weren’t looking good.

  But, that was a mistake.

  Roscoe fought Roy with a viciousness I’d never seen before. And he moved so incredibly quickly, he appeared as a blur. Where Roy only had the benefits of his immense sasquatch size and brawn, Roscoe had vampire abilities as well as a witch.

  So when he fired a blood bolt at Roy and it hit him full force in the chest, it sent him sailing into the opposite wall. When Roy hit the wall, it felt like an earthquake ricocheting through the house. The enormous man slid down the wall in an unmoving heap and slumped over himself once he reached the floor.

  “Roy!” I screamed.

  I wasn’t sure if he was dead.

  But, I had no time to further wonder because Roscoe’s other hand dropped over my face. For a second, I thought he was going to cover my eyes so I couldn’t see, but he grabbed my chin and pried my head back as he loomed over me.

  His countenance changed then—he transformed from an unobtrusive, middle-aged man to a grinning monster. His eyes went bloodshot and dripping fangs sprouted from his jaws. He widened his lips and dove for my chin.

  “NO!” I heard Wanda scream as two rays of light suddenly appeared from either side of the living room—one a funnel of white and the other blue. I could feel the magical signature of each spray of energy—one was from Wanda and the other from Olga.

  The bursts of light converged on Roscoe, but they were too late. The pain of his vampire bite was already splitting me in half. I froze against the searing heat of my blood rushing into his mouth and it felt as if an invisible force burrowed inside my body—calling every drop of my blood to him.

  Both Olga’s and Wanda’s power attempted to fight him and as I watched, they entered the room, each extending her hands out before her but their magic wasn’t enough—because it was fighting not only the power of a vampire, but Betanya’s power as well.

  Only one thing under the sun could now save me. And that was the Flying Devil Oil, but I couldn’t reach it. I had to act fast. I already felt myself getting cold… so unbearably cold, as though I’d never be warm again.

  “Lorcan, now!” Wanda screamed and in response, there was a blur and that blur rammed into Roscoe and sent him flying away from me. I fell to the ground, right beside the couch and, in desperation, reached forward and gripped the bottle of Flying Devil Oil.

  Then I looked up and watched as the blur turned into two and Lorcan and Roscoe whirled around my house, looking like two tornadoes tearing everything up in the process.

  I could only lie there because my body was beyond exhausted. I didn’t know how much blood Roscoe had taken, but it was enough to leave me struggling. He’d left me so drained that only the faintest shred of awareness remained.

  When both vampire blurs made their way towards me again, I didn’t waste any time and uncorking the potion, I threw the oil at the shifting tornadoes, not concerned if I hit Lorcan—the potion would only momentarily subdue him. Unfortunately, the same was true of Roscoe.

  As soon as the oil hit them, they both separated and appeared to be mildly dazed and that’s exactly what I was hoping for—the Flying Devil Oil would deplete them of their power and while that wasn’t great for Lorcan, it was for Roscoe.

  Roscoe shook his head as if he didn’t understand what was happening to him and then froze when he came face to face with Wanda, who was standing in the doorway. She advanced into the room. He tried to grab her with a snarl, but she drove him back with a blood bolt. He was able to dodge the blood bolt, but it stopped him from advancing and when he tried to call up his own magic, he couldn’t.

  It was then that Lorcan shook himself off and approached the smaller vampire. Roscoe seeing him, attempted to rush Lorcan, but Lorcan caught him easily. He flung Roscoe back into the living room, where Wanda propelled him backward with another crushing bolt to the chest.

  Wanda flung out her arm like she was going to shoot another blood bolt, but she didn’t. She didn’t do anything. She pointed past Roscoe toward the kitchen.

  And that was when Betanya stepped out of the darkness of the hall. Roscoe’s expression dropped momentarily, to be replaced with surprise, and Betanya narrowed her eyes at him.

  “This is for all of these years, you undead son of a bitch!” she yelled.

  Lightning quick, she spread both arms and brought them together in a thunderclap in front of her. A devastating blood bolt fired from her joined palms and blasted straight through Roscoe’s chest.

  He reeled a few steps toward her, tottered, and then staggered toward the couch. Blood poured from the wound in his chest and drenched his already stained clothes. It was all over the place—on the couch and on me. Roscoe flopped to the floor and didn’t move again.

  Lorcan stepped over Roscoe’s motionless body and then turned his concerned expression to me. Wanda and Betanya were right beside him.

  “How bad is it?” Wanda asked as she looked down at me and she kept swimming in and out of my focus. Actually, they all did.

  “Bad,” Lorcan breathed. “She’s barely hanging on.”

  “Can’t you do anything?” Wanda asked.

  Lorcan’s eyes darted up to meet mine. Then he pushed my chin up to examine the wound in my neck. I could barely focus on his face, but that one moment of connection calmed me.

  “My saliva will stop the bleeding until we get you to the hospital,” Lorcan said as he bent down, and I could feel his tongue lapping at my still bleeding wounds.

  “Sealing the wounds isn’t enough,” Wanda said. “She’s not… she’s not going to make it.”

  I felt myself weakening by the second. I could barely keep my eyes open. Then I heard what sounded like yelling in the background and a second later, it was as if a bomb went off in my head and I reeled out of my senses.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “She’s crashing! We’re losing her!”

  “Another twenty milligrams of epinephrine IV push! Get the crash cart over here now!”

  Fluorescent lights careened past my bleary eyes. I couldn’t focus on them before they streamed out of sight. I was moving fast and the back-and-forth sway made me sick.

  Excruciating pain tore me apart. I had to make it stop somehow, but I couldn’t summon the strength to move. My body felt glued to the stretcher, and every limb melted to jelly.

  Masked faces appeared above me. They yelled something I couldn’t make out and then they vanished. Needles punctured my arms. Pain like nothing I’d ever experienced blew me into a million pieces.

  “Her blood pressure is tanking! She’s going into atrial fibrillation!

  “Where are those two units of blood I ordered?”

  I had to have been in a hospital. Yes, that was it.

  The stretcher on which I lay slammed to a sudden halt. Brilliant, blinding light shone in my eyes. I shut them and immediately started to fade out of consciousness again when another blast of pain made me scream.

  “Restrain her!” someone shouted. “Hold her down! She’s convulsing.”

  My head flopped to one side. When my eyes hauled into focus again, I saw a man standing in the far corner of the room. The man was dressed in a black suit and I didn’t recognize him, though he had a kind face.

  You need to fight, Poppy, a voice sounded in my head.

  I didn’t recognize it, but the tone was deep, masculine. And the accent was… English? I couldn’t understand where the voice was coming from and when I focused on the strange man in the corner of the room, he simply nodded as if to say the voice belonged to him.

  I can’t fight… I’m too tired, I thought back, because I was more than sure my voice wouldn’t work.

  It’s not your time, the man insisted and this time, the slight smile was missing. His eyes were as hard as his tone. And they were piercing blue and in sharp contrast to his olive skin and black hair. In fact, the more I looked at him, the more I realized he was incredibly handsome.

  Not my time.

  Not my time.

  Not my time.

  Think of your son, his voice persisted.

  My son. Finn.

  All at once, a flood of heat rushed into my veins and the pain spiked out of this world. Molten lava burned me up from inside and I wanted to cry out.

  Be brave, the man continued.

  Life blood began to flow through my body. It filled every cell and corpuscle. It swelled in my arteries and muscles, bringing me back to life. I felt it enlivening my limbs. It filled me with strength and energy, even though I still couldn’t move.

  The blood suddenly filling me satiated my bottomless hunger as never before, making the pain a thousand times worse, but I didn’t care. I wanted that blood. I needed it.

  We will meet again, Poppy, the man’s voice continued. When the time is right.

  I must have passed out again because I suddenly snapped alert and looked over at the corner of the room, searching for a sign of the man, but he was gone.

  ***

  I woke up comfortable and happy, but very tired.

  All the pain was gone. I didn’t want to open my eyes in case the aching returned, but it didn’t. I checked every toe and fingertip. Nothing hurt. I was all right.

  I tried to stretch and felt someone holding my hand. My eyes popped open of their own accord and I looked up into the face of… Marty.

  He leaned over my bed, gazing deep into my eyes ,and clasped my hand between both of his.

  “Thank God you’re awake! I…” He took a deep breath. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to come back, Poppy.”

  I tried to sit up. “How long have I been here? Finn…”

  He pushed me down. “You have to relax, and stop trying to move around.”

  “Where is Finn?” I demanded, not giving a damn about what I was supposed to do or not do.

  “He’s with Henner and RJ and he’s fine. He was here earlier and he’s going to come back in an hour or two.” He cleared his throat. “We wanted to wait until you woke up… if you woke up.”

  “Well, I’m awake,” I answered as all of a sudden, memories started filtering through me. And in remembering… “Oh my God, Roy,” I said as I faced Marty and my mouth dropped open in shock. “Is he…”

  “Roy is okay,” Marty said with a quick nod. “He’s in one of the rooms down the hall.”

  “Then what… what happened to him?” I knew Roscoe had hit him with a blood bolt but I wasn’t sure how that would translate in hospital speak.

  “The doctors think he had a heart attack,” Marty answered as he shook his head. “But, he’s fine and he’s resting.” He continued to shake his head. “God, you all came close.”

  I relaxed back against the cot as I breathed a sigh of relief that Roy was going to be okay. Then my thoughts returned to Finn. “Finn knows I’m going to be okay, then?”

  Marty nodded.

  Then something occurred to me, and I faced him nervously. “Am I going to be okay?”

  He nodded again. “The doctors want to make sure before they release you, but yes, you just required a blood transfusion.”

  “And Wanda, Olga and Betanya?” I asked.

  “Everyone is fine.”

  “Roscoe?”

  “Is dead,” Marty finished for me.

  I groaned. “Thank God.” Then I looked over at him again. “Lorcan is okay?”

  Marty nodded. “I think Lorcan could survive an apocalypse. He’s like a cockroach.”

  I tried to laugh, but it hurt. “Don’t tell him that.”

  Marty beamed at me. “We’ve had a hell of a time with the human staff here,” he started. “And we’re sticking to the story that you fell while trying to change a light in your chandelier. You broke your glass coffee table and that’s how you cut your neck. Got it?”

  I nodded. “Got it.”

  He bent over and pressed my hand again, leaning close to me and rested one elbow on the bed. “I just don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t made it. When I thought you might not wake up… I couldn’t think of anything worse.”

  “Well, I pulled through, right?”

  He just looked at me, and I looked back up at him. I knew what he was going to do before he did it, but I didn’t try to stop him. The weirdest part was that I wasn’t uncomfortable. I didn’t feel awkward or anything, really.

  Marty leaned down and his lips met mine. I didn’t question him or us or the kiss. I just allowed it to happen. I kissed him… or he kissed me… or we both kissed each other. And the moment our lips touched, it felt somehow… right.

  He pulled back and his eyes told me he felt the same way.

  His eyes sparkled and he burst into a grin. “Hi.”

  I laughed. “Hi.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. We gazed at each other for a few seconds.

  “So that’s what it’s like to kiss Poppy Morton, the girl I’ve had a crush on since she moved to Haven Hollow.”

  I laughed. “That’s what it’s like,” I answered.

  A strange thing happened then—a memory of a man, all dressed in black, standing in the corner of my hospital room met me like a thief in the night. His piercing blue eyes and black hair that matched the darkness of his suit and contrasted with his olive skin suddenly wouldn’t leave my mind’s eye. And I could hear the echo of his deep British accent telling me to fight, to hold on and to be brave.