Michele Hauf - The Vampire's Fall

A hand grabbed her by the arm, halting her near the picket fence that hugged in the front yard. “Yet you are familiar with the terminology?”

She shrugged. Annoyance felt new to her, and she didn’t like the feeling so she tried to look beyond it. Was his hair so black it gleamed blue? When the sun shone on it, it appeared blue. Kinda cool. She wondered if it was as soft as it looked.

Oh, Zenia, do not let his good looks distract you!

“I know a lot of things,” she offered when he gave no sign to leave her alone. “Except who I am.”

“So then how can you be sure you are not a demon?”

Zenia slammed her hands to her hips. “Are you for real? Demons are myth, buddy. Stories. Fantasy. I think it’s time I got some facts from you. Who are you?”

“Blade Saint-Pierre.” His shoulders stretched back proudly, yet his eyes remained dark. Uncertain? “I live on the outskirts of Tangle Lake. I was helping Mr. Larson across the street fix his trellis.” She followed his gesture to the yellow rambler across the street and spied the climbing purple flowers on the side of the house. “And who are you? Oh, wait, you don’t remember.”

“Zenia,” she offered with a lift of her chin. “It’s the name I’m using until I learn my real name. And I’m quite sure you and your weird fantasy ideas will be of no help to that quest, so if you’ll leave me alone, I’ll be on my way. Do not follow me!”

Stalking away from the man’s accusing stature, she strode through the long grass toward the sidewalk. Her truck was parked down the block. Feet shuffling quickly, she landed on the sidewalk and did not look back. A weird feeling that she was rushing forward, walking toward knowledge, flittered into her brain, and as quickly, fluttered back out.

And yet...it had been a familiar feeling. She’d felt the very same when she’d been walking this sidewalk previously. Before the bus had changed her destiny.

Destiny?

Hmm... It felt right to think that. At least, nothing in her being screamed, No, you’re on the wrong path . Interesting. Maybe she had gathered a bit of her memory by retreading her footsteps? Albeit, memory she didn’t know how to decipher. A quest for knowledge? It meant nothing to her.

The man followed so close behind her she could hear the trod of his boots on the concrete sidewalk. His name was Blade? Interesting name. Sharp and dangerous. It certainly matched his demeanor.

And he was stalking her.

“I have a weapon!” she called out, and scrambled for the truck keys in her skirt pocket.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said firmly.

“Says the serial killer before he dumps the girl in the pit,” she called over her shoulder.

Where had she mined such macabre information? It was frustrating to Zenia that she knew things—weird, odd things—and yet, knew nothing about herself.

“A knowledge walk?” she whispered as she neared the truck. Her stalker’s black truck was parked across the street from it. The truck bed was loaded with lumber and tools. So he’d been telling the truth about helping the old man. He earned trust points for doing a kind thing. Right?

“I need to make sure you are safe,” Blade said as he strode beside her, intent on not leaving her alone. “If you’re not from around here, and you don’t remember anything, you could be in trouble.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, still walking. “Really. Kindness of strangers, and all that. But I don’t know what I have to worry about. Wait. The old lady. I should have checked on her.”

“She’s...fine.”

“You said that with a pause. As if maybe she’s not fine. As if maybe you’ve just murdered her.”

He managed to overtake her rapid steps and stop before her on the sidewalk, planting his boots and slamming his fists akimbo. “Will you quit with the serial killer bit? I didn’t kill...the old lady. She wasn’t in the house when I went in there. I promise. There were others inside. Others who mentioned you.”

“Me? Really?” She turned at the hip to eye the pink house, then swung back to Blade. She had to tilt her head to meet his gaze; he was a tall one. “Who were they? They must know me. Maybe they can tell me who I am.”

“They were demons.”

He said it without a smirk or a wink. And that pulled the cord on Zenia’s freak-out alarm.

She shoved the guy away and ran toward her truck. Keys in hands, she opened the door, slid in and started the ignition. She’d be damned if she was going to talk to him one moment longer and risk his kind of crazy.

“Demons?” she muttered. “Talk about attracting a weirdo. I’ll have to return later, after he’s gone. If someone in that house knows about me...”

She shifted into gear, and rolled quickly by him. He waved, but it was more of a dismissive gesture. In the rearview mirror, she saw him get in his truck and turn it around on the narrow street. She quickly turned at the intersection, hoping to lose him.

“Demons,” she whispered again. “Can’t be. No. I won’t believe it. He’s a crazy madman that I was lucky to get away from him. This is bad.” She pressed a palm against the thumping heartbeats under her rib cage. “Really bad. Now I’ve got to shake a serial killer. I don’t want to die. I can’t die. I don’t even know what name they’d put on the tombstone.”

The image of a fresh grave made her miss the next stop sign. A shout alerted her to the pair of teenaged girls who had stepped off the curb, and now shook their fists at the truck.

“Oops. Sorry! Concentrate, Zenia. You don’t want to be arrested for murder.”

She glanced in the rearview mirror. The big black truck still followed.

“But who might be more guilty of such a heinous crime?” she muttered to herself.

He’d said there were others in the house who had asked after her. What had happened to the old woman?

Chapter 3

She was the prettiest woman in Tangle Lake. Demons wanted her. And she had amnesia.

Blade had discreetly followed Zenia to the Blue Bass, a dive bar nestled at the edge of town. So the tail hadn’t been as discreet as he’d hoped. Not easy to be covert in a small town with only two main streets. It was nearing eight in the evening and he suspected she had tried to give him the slip, but again, one of the hazards of a small town was lack of privacy.

Normally, he was not a curious man. That was his brother Trouble’s mien. But it wasn’t every day he watched a sexy woman tread about in a dirt field, and then had to slay demons to keep them from going after her.

He wanted to know where the demons had come from and why. And if she thought to use an amnesia defense to cover her knowledge then she’d better think again. She had to be hiding something. If a person had amnesia, shouldn’t they not operate a motor vehicle, avoid drinking in a bar and most likely be lying in the hospital?

Yeah, she was definitely pulling something over on him. Yet if there was a slight chance she was on the up and up, he sensed she wasn’t safe.

He entered the bar, and stood by the door to take in the yawn of an establishment paneled in rough-cut timbers and decorated with fishing rods, neon beer signs and the mascot stuffed bass with the milky white eyes. At the bar, Zenia ordered a beer. She didn’t fit in this redneck outpost. She looked more like a wine kind of gal.

Currently, she held her own against Brock Olafson, the town asshole. The guy had been divorced twice, owned a tanning bed—which explained his weird orange leathery skin—and never slowed his Hummer for a stop sign unless he sighted a black-and-white nearby.

Asshole was trying to pick up the pretty woman. Blade’s fingers had curled into fists the moment Brock sat down next to her. He held his jaw soft, not tense. Years of practice had allowed him to remain calm while holding within the roiling need to attack. It was never wise to attack. At least, not with human witnesses.