Page 7 of Midlife Vampire Unexpected

He turned and looked at me, snarling, twisting his head towards the trail to move me along. Clearly, he was not the snuggling kind.

Fine. Neither was I. Never had been. I bared my teeth. He didn’t need to know how his gaze made a fire burn in my belly. It must be the new vampire powers.

Antonio took off racing, a streak of white through the verdant, moss-covered woods. His tail disappeared in and out of the trees as he followed the path out of the valley and up the mountain. He didn’t stop to see if I was following him. I wondered what would happen if I didn’t. What would happen if I disappeared into the mountains? There was plenty to do and see out in the woods, plenty to eat, and it would keep me safe from humans and human safe for me.

But my curiosity got the better of me. I couldn’t help it. We still hadn’t solved the murder of the two kids who were dismembered in the forest and now? Now I was a vampire, I’d have a little bit more access to all the mysterious goings on I’d seen at The Estate, if they didn’t hate me. They at least had to admit I was part of their world, whatever crazy supernatural world it was.

A howl from the top of the mountain got my attention and I realized Antonio was all the way up there. I moved toward him at what seemed like a normal pace, but the mountain practically spun with each step I took. It was effortless and accurate. My gaze caught every stone, branch, tree and leaf that could trip me up or throw me off my step. In moments I was standing next to Antonio, who, in wolf form, gave me a little yip of appreciation.

He didn’t wait though. In seconds he took off again and this time I kept up with him, racing and following him as he made his way across the mountainside. It was exhilarating. We ran along the ridge with the air flowing through my lungs and across my skin. Every sense was heightened. A feeling of effervescence moved in my chest.

We came down out of the mountains onto a farm. We were clearly still in Southern Oregon with the deep forests and sprawling ranches, but I still didn’t recognize the precise area.

Antonio shifted back into a man so fast I barely saw the movement of his change. Apparently, his clothes and rucksack shifted with him and he was fully clothed standing by his beat up truck.

I grimaced. “Maybe you should get a job and fix your truck.”

“I have a job,” Antonio said.

“The way the truck looks is part of it. I’m assuming.”

Antonio threw his rucksack in the back of his truck. “Right.”

“You’re trying to look like a drug dealer from the outskirts of the inner city?” I asked. “Or a beat-up hill-billy?”

He looked at me and shook his head as his ice blue eyes stayed steady on me. “Deputy, we got an hour drive. Maybe we keep it quiet.”

Unfortunately for me, as bad as his truck looked, it actually worked while my vehicle wouldn’t start. We tried to jump it but that didn’t work either.

“Relax,” Antonio said. “I’ll give you a ride into town and we can get the mechanic to come out and take a look at it later.

I climbed into his truck dubiously, but the engine started, and it seemed to run just fine. After about fifteen minutes on the curving back roads, I knew there was no way in hell I was going to be able to stay quiet. My natural inquisitiveness was too intense.

“So, what’s your job?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything.

“Do you come from Oregon?” I asked. “Are there a lot of werewolves around here?”

His eyes stayed glued to the road. “Only one”

“Do you have a werewolf pack or something?”

He coughed. “If I had a pack, I sure as hell wouldn’t be hanging out with the likes of you, vampire.”

“Oh, I get it. The hate is real. Fine. I’ll wait till we get to Cougar Creek.” We rode in silence for the remaining half hour of the trip, and I watched the sparkly landscape go by.

About an hour after we left the deep forest, we pulled up outside of the two-story Victorian home that was the center of The Estate. I had been up here recently a couple times and always something weird had happened. The cemetery had had a big fire going on, but hardly any signs of the fire even remained; in fact, none. And then there’d been the night I’d gone up to the house and one of the women and two of the guys had been in the backyard by a bonfire. One of them with his shirt off.

Each time I’d left them confused, with blanks in my memory. Blanks I couldn’t fill. One of the reasons I’d become a detective was because I wanted answers.

Antonio knocked on the front door.

I smoothed my hair out. There hadn’t been a mirror in the cabin. I had no idea what I looked like, but I assumed I was still the same blonde haired, brown eyed person I was before and didn’t have blood dripping out of the corners of my mouth or anything.

Antonio glanced back at me, motioning me forward. “You better come stand up here in the front. They’re going to be a lot more interested in you than they are in me.”

Chapter 5

---