Page 2 of Blood Illusions

“That’s comforting,” I responded dryly.

He pulled his keys from his leather jacket. “Go get the Ford.”

I cocked my eyebrow and folded my arms. “Why? What do you want to do?” I couldn’t keep the uneasiness from my voice.

“We need to take the body back with us. Dad and the others have to see this. We need to know what the vampires are up to.”

I curled my lip as I turned away from the bloody head. I wasn’t sure what we had to put that thing in. Maybe there was a blanket in the trunk of the car. The trunk was our arsenal, and we had every kind of weapon to use on the supernaturals except for guns. Guns were useless against them. To kill one, you had to get up close and personal. Real personal.

I slipped into the candy apple red ‘67 Ford Fairlane. Dad gave it to us in high school. Technically, it was both of ours, but it really belonged to Damon. It had a V-8 engine and was a beast. I loved this car. It was perfect for hunting. Way better than Sam and Dean’s Chevy Impala.

The Ford purred, and I slowly drove it over the forest floor. As I approached the fallen vampire, Damon hacked at the body. What was he doing?

I jumped from the car. “Damon…” My voice trailed off abruptly.

Damon roared as he brought his broadsword down on the bloody corpse again and again. A sickening thud accompanied each strike, echoing through the forest like a lumberjack chopping down a tree.

“Stop this madness.” I rushed over to him and grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”

He broke away from my grasp, anger flashing in his eyes. He gritted his teeth as he pointed at the bloody remains with his sword. “Sawyer, this vampire has been trying to reattach its head to its body.” He kicked the head away from the body, then staked it with his blade.

My eyes widened. “What? That’s impossible. No vampire can do that.”

His face twisted with rage as he wiped the sweat from his brow. “This bloody bastard could.”

I ran back to the car and opened the trunk. I grabbed a blanket from the corner and hurried back to the head.

“Wrap the head in the blanket and put it in the trunk. We’ll have to bury the body parts in different places. Hopefully, it won’t come back to life.” Damon stabbed the creature in the chest, pinning him to the forest floor.

I shuddered at thinking of the body parts finding each other and creating a headless vampire corpse, aimlessly wandering the woods.

The vampire’s dead eyes locked with mine. After drawing a shaky breath, I bent down and covered the bloody head.

Please don’t talk, please don’t talk, please don’t talk.

I tossed the secured head in the trunk. Damon grabbed two shovels and handed me one. The metal surface glinted in the pale moonlight.

He tilted his head. “Come on,” he urged as he headed toward the corpse.

The forest ground was hard and unforgiving under my feet as I followed him. Sweat-soaked strands of hair stuck to my forehead. With each thrust of the shovel, my arms trembled with effort as Damon and I carved out several holes in what felt like concrete clay.

“These are deep enough,” Damon pronounced as he wiped his brow.

We rolled the bloody pieces into several six-foot holes, then we covered them with dirt, all except for the limbless torso. It was the biggest piece.

I panted hard from all the shoveling. “I hope so. I wish we had something to weigh down the torso. I don’t want this thing reattaching its limbs.”

He scanned our surroundings. “Help me move that boulder.”

I groaned silently, but I nodded and pitched in.

The boulder wouldn’t budge

“Shit,” Damon remarked. “We’ll have to use chains and pull it with the Ford.”

“Sounds good.”

He opened the trunk and glanced warily at me. “I think this thing moved.”

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