Page 4 of How to Entice a Fiend

The phone starts ringing and I see that it’s Finn, so I swipe to answer it. “Do you have something?” I try not to sound desperate as I ask this but I’m pretty sure I fail.

“The key card belongs to a vampire named Annalee McLernon. She owns a house in the inner city and a place down at the pier near where we were searching. Looks like an outbuilding of some kind, so I would check there. My guess is that it’s storage for boats, but it is in the direction the van was heading.”

“Why would this woman want her?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Finn says. “They almost have to have found out what she is, but how? Did the council share it before we could stop them?”

“I’m going to kill them all,” I snarl.

“Or you could kindly talk to them? Maybe you shouldn’t arrive first? Maybe you should letusarrive first. Ender? Ender, I know you can hear me! Ender, the call is still connected. Do NOT kill anyone. Do you understand? You are in hot water as it is. DO NOT KILL?—”

I decide that’s enough of that nonsense and hang up on him. I mean… does he really think I’m going to let them go free after they took Rylee from me? Honestly, they deserve worse than whatever I’m going to do to them.

When I reach the pier, I head to the right since there are more outbuildings that way. It doesn’t take long before I can smell Rylee. I don’t see the van anywhere, but I can smell her and that’s all I need to know that she’s here.

With Finn’s annoying words circling around in the back of my head, I move over to the door of the outbuilding and quietly slide it open. I don’t need them aware that I’m here, so I’m silent enough they’d never imagine they weren’t alone.

I step inside and nearly trip over a body since I’d been so fixated on looking up that I hadn’t even noticed it. Slowly, I kneel down, careful not to make a sound as I realize that the body lying at my feet is a vampire, but nothing seems to be wrong with him. There’s no scent of blood and his head is attached. Did he get hit by whatever killed the people in the council?

I carefully make my way in as I see more bodies littered along the floor. If someone attacked them… what about Rylee? I hesitate when I hear a noise.

There’s someone in here who isn’t quite dead yet… a vampire whose steps are too heavy to be Rylee. Are they the one who killed them all? Or are they the last one standing?

I move around the corner to face them and find a man standing in the middle of the room holding up the body of a rather dead vampire. Noticing me, he drops them. The way he drops them on the ground tells me he’s not someone who was attached to the vampire who’d just died.

“Where is Rylee?” I ask, voice cold.

He appears like he’s in his early thirties, but I can’t quite tell how old he is as a vampire, although his age doesn’t worry me. Even Marcus, a true vampire, has trouble when it comes to me. He has light hair, almost blond, with vibrant blue eyes that are watching me quite closely. “Rylee? I think you’re confusing me with someone else. How can I help you?” he asks with a British accent and a beaming smile that I want to wipe off his face.

“You can help me by telling me where the girl is.”

“The girl? I haven’t seen a girl anywhere. Then again, I just arrived here and haven’t thoroughly looked around. It appears like you’ve just arrived as well, so you wouldn’t happen to know what happened here, would you?”

I step toward him, and he puts both hands up.

He gives me a nervous chuckle. “I have an odd feeling that maybe you mistakenly think that I have anything to do with any of this. I was simply walking by and heard something… peculiar and happened to walk on in.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you did to these people. I only care where Rylee is and if she is well.”

“I would love to help you find her. Can you tell me what she looks like?”

I rush over and grab the man by the neck, slamming him against the wall as he stares at me with wide blue eyes. The innocent act is irritating me.

“Ha. I feel like maybe I pissed you off for some reason that I don’t yet know. Did I do something wrong? I really feel like maybe you think I did something wrong. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to if I did,” he says as he reaches toward me. At first, I assume he’s going to try to crush my throat, but instead he pushes my hair back and tucks it behind my ear before smiling even bigger at me. “You should definitely wear your hair up when fighting with others so it doesn’t shield your view. Imagine if your downfall was because your hair got in the way!”

I toss him, positive that this guy is confused, and leave him to murder whoever else he wants to.

Of course I don’t let my guard down. It’s apparent this man is a psychopath, but my worry is about Rylee, and I don’t feel like fighting with him if I can just take Rylee and leave.

Seeing a door past the boat stored in the building, I rush over to it.

“I will check over here. What does she look like?” the man asks, evidently not getting the hint that he should be on his murdering way.

“If you see a child, then tell me.”

“Ahhhh, makes sense. I will, I will.”

“If you even look at her wrong, I will rip your head off your body and drain you dry.”

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