Shadow Chaser (Undeadly Secrets Book 3)

by Aaron L Speer

  “What?”

  Bison pulled his gun from his side holster and cocked it. “Stay here. Do not move, do you understand?”

  Sarah watched him go. She didn’t see the need to tell him her feet were rooted the spot and going nowhere. Her bones felt like ice. What the hell is going on? What did he see? Why did he let Mr. Parkins go if he knew there was something fishy?

  At the distant sound of breaking glass, Sarah’s eyes snapped over to the far wall. It was bathed in white light, coming from the TV. The room remained dark but for the beam emanating from the square screen. Had Principal Parkins managed to get the power back? If so, why weren’t the lights on again?

  Sarah marched to the wall behind the desk and flicked the switch on and off. Nothing. Then she heard them. Footsteps, heeled footsteps walking slowly down the corridor. Sarah backed away until she met the wall with her back and sunk to the floor, bringing her knees up to her chest. The footsteps didn’t belong to a man, she was sure. Nor did they belong to her mother. Her mother would’ve called out her name.

  “Sarah…” came the soft, long, tantalising call, coming closer.

  Sarah’s knuckles curled around her kneecaps. That was definitely not her mother’s voice.

  “You’ve been talking to a very bad man, Sarah…”

  The footsteps were much more pronounced and the voice was calling from almost outside the door. “Did you think we wouldn’t find you, Sarah?”

  BANG!

  The sound of wood splintering and something crashing on the far wall made Sarah suspect the office assistant’s desk had just been smashed. Who has the strength to do that?

  The window behind Sarah shattered and a hand was around her throat, lifting her up so her feet were slapping against the ground. She tried to scream but couldn’t breathe.

  “Surprise, bitch!” grunted a man into her ear. “I can tell you haven’t been fucked yet. That’s why you smell so good. I could track you from anywhere…” He started pressing his nose against her neck and gave a quick slash with his teeth. Sarah was frozen in terror and thought she could feel blood running down past her collarbone.

  The man moaned appreciatively. “Oh, I feel your heart pounding, little bunny. But don’t worry.” He kissed her face with wet lips. Wet from her own blood. “You taste even better than your sister…”

  Mention of her sister kicked her brain into gear again. She didn’t want to end up like Sophie. Sarah reached for a piece of broken glass on the windowsill and drove it into the man’s hand. He swore and dropped her with a smack. Just as she got to her feet, the office door opened and she locked eyes with the woman that had been taunting her. The woman gave a quick glance over the situation and sneered, fangs flaring.

  Fangs? What is this, a vampire movie? Sarah flung herself behind the desk just as the fanged woman rocketed past her and out the window the man had grabbed her through. Sarah raced in the opposite direction, out the office door and jumped over the debris of the assistant’s desk. She dashed towards the stairs when the fanged woman swung herself over the rail and landed several feet in front of her. “And where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  Sarah vaulted into the classroom nearest to her and ran into the adjoining doors that connected it to four others along the strip. She could see the woman racing easily on the outside along the student walkway, gleefully enjoying the chase. This is unreal.

  “Run, Sarah!” The woman called. “I can hear your blood pumping faster. It’s driving me crazy!”

  Sarah stopped at the last classroom and almost hit the far wall. She looked to the last window on her left just as the fanged woman appeared outside, tapping the window with a fingernail. “Can I come in now?”

  Sarah tumbled out the window beneath the woman and landed on the rain guard just below. She steadied herself before jumping down to the asphalt.

  “Very clever.”

  Sarah looked up to see the man holding his bleeding hand, leering at her. “I’m going to enjoy biting those perky tits. I’ll make you bleed before any man ever gets you.”

  Turning on her heel, Sarah bolted back into the corridor, the foul beast just behind her. She barrelled into the door and smashed it against the man’s grasping arm. Without even a second’s pause Sarah was on her back, blown to the ground by the force of not only the man, but the fanged woman too, charging against the door. The woman was upon her, lifting her up before again heaving her halfway down the corridor, past a row of windows that looked out onto the street. Sarah felt dizzy, her head was spinning.

  “Your sister ran too. Fat lot of good that did her,” the man said, sauntering side-by-side with the woman.

  “How— What did you do to my sister?” Sarah asked, struggling to even get on her knees.

  The man grinned. “Sucked her dry and fucked her corpse. I saved the dickhead she was with the trouble. Even for a dead root, she was a dead root.”

  Sarah scrabbled backward across the floor and screamed for help. She looked out to the courtyard, which was still bathed in only moonlight. Neither Bison nor Principal Parkins were anywhere to be seen. Sarah didn’t dare imagine what had happened to them.

  “Please… Someone!”

  The man chuckled softly, the woman stopped and stared at Sarah, hands on hips. She appeared to be listening to something outside.

  “What is it?” he asked her sharply.

  “Footsteps. Two people coming this way. Don’t fuck around. Let’s do it now.”

  “You think we can’t take two middle-aged humans?” the man scoffed and turned back to Sarah.

  “We came here for the girl! Nothing else. Or else he could find out we were here.”

  “Fuck the king. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” The man closed in on Sarah, eyes glaring at her.

  Sarah was about to close her eyes against the impending death, when a shadow fell across her entire body and the glass panes beside her disintegrated into thousands of flying shards. When she lowered her hand from shielding her face, the figure of a man had landed in front of her, blocking the other two from view. The man turned to face her, his eyes a brilliant, almost glowing, emerald green.

  “Stay there.” His deep voice radiated strength, and she didn’t dare disobey.

  “Delavega.” The man behind him seethed with rage. But Sarah sensed fear as well. The woman said nothing, only gnashed her fangs in a foul hiss. The man ventured forward just as Delavega turned, opened his stance and cracked his neck. All three sprinted towards each other and collided with a vicious crunch, all three bodies looking like they were crawling over each other. Snapping their jaws and swinging their arms. Sharp hisses and angry growls filled the air.

  Sarah wanted to run, needed to run. There was no way she was going to wait to either be eaten to death or have the blood sucked from her body. But she couldn’t move. She also couldn’t look away from the spectacle in front of her. Sarah watched as the man and woman were flung, kicked and punched into the walls, only to come back at the one called Delavega again. A tremendous backhand sent the fanged woman flying, crashing just in front of Sarah.

  The woman’s cheeks were lacerated to shreds. In a flash, Sarah found the female’s hand around her throat.

  “So…hungry…”

  Sarah tried to remove her hand but it was no use, the grip was like a vice. With little more than a tug, Sarah’s whole body crashed on top of the female and she felt the snake-like fangs pierce her wrist.

  Sarah cried out but couldn’t shake her off. Suddenly, Sarah felt the jaws open as the female let out a scream of her own. A red-haired woman had wrenched the female away and faced off with her, snarling with glistening teeth. The vampire lunged at the redhead, who caught her in mid-air and flung her to the ground, clamping her own mouth onto the fanged woman’s throat. She screamed and with one flick of her neck, the redhead sucked everything the woman had.

  Sarah realized she was in shock as she had begun to watch this all play out as if she weren’t even there, as if it were a TV
show. It seemed as if the last fight was coming to an end. The one called Delavega had the other man’s head in between the palms of his hands and was smashing it repeatedly against the wall. In seconds, the sounds of crunching were replaced with wet plops, and the body went limp. Delavega staggered backwards, bent over, hands on knees. He soon straightened and locked eyes with her.

  “Here, let me fix that bite for you.” The red-haired woman moved towards her, but Sarah scurried backwards. “I’m not gonna hurt you, kid.”

  “Melina.”

  Delavega moved toward them with a limp, a stop-start stride that closed the distance between them. Now her attackers were dead, Sarah had calmed down, though adrenaline still raged through her. She didn’t sense danger from him, but power. As she locked eyes with his again, she stilled, taking the rest of him in. He looked like the strangest warrior she had ever seen. He wore a slim business suit, tailored, tight around his biceps. The shining dark purple shirt was the only evidence of the fight, ripped just above his belt, bloodied and torn. And that isn’t the only thing ripped. Sarah almost giggled at where her mind was going.

  “Check on Bison and the principal.”

  “What about her?” Melina gestured to Sarah with her head.

  “I’ll help her.”

  “So I’m messenger girl all of a sudden?”

  “Just go,” Delavega said, taking a knee just in front of Sarah.

  Melina rolled her eyes and made a dramatic curtsy. “As his majesty wishes.” She then walked off, muttering. “Cute girl in trouble and who’s there? Fuckin’ pussy…”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Um…I guess. Who are you?”

  “I’m Dante Delavega. A friend. And I’d like to prove that by fixing that bite for you if you would allow me.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because I wasn’t there to help your sister.”

  Sarah swallowed. “Well…will it hurt?”

  He gave her the warmest half-smile before adding, “No, you just have to trust me.”

  She held out her aching arm, after trying to stem the blood from her neck. His voice soothed her nerves, his manner was the opposite of threatening. As he took her wrist in his hand he glanced at her, “You might want to look away.”

  She shook her head and he didn’t pursue it. He looked like he was cleaning his teeth behind his lips, before placing his mouth over her wound. She expected pain, but felt only his cool tongue and lips caress her skin. I feel like I should be grossed out by him licking me, but it feels…good?

  He released her and she saw clean fresh skin. She figured what he had done, but still couldn’t fathom it.

  He pointed at her still-bleeding neck. “May I?”

  Sarah nodded.

  Dante hesitated for a brief second before leaning in and giving her the slowest yet lightest presses of his tongue against the tender skin of her neck.

  “I’m sorry this evening turned out this way, Sarah. You deserve to know what’s been going on.” He leaned back on his haunches and shook his hand like it was in pain. “You deserve to understand. But I need to wait until your parents reach us.”

  “My parents? Why does everyone want to see my parents? What is all of this about?”

  “I suggest we wait outside for them. There are a few things you all need to hear.”

  *

  “Two years ago you made a deal with a man,” Dante gestured back inside to the school, “by the name of Ben, after one of your peers pulled the rug out from under you. Your clients abandoned you, and you got desperate.”

  Sarah looked at her father. His face had drained of colour.

  “And whether Ben found you, or you found him is irrelevant. Regardless, he promised to deliver your business back to you. Guaranteed perhaps. And he did, for a fee, I suppose. What you hadn’t counted on was his methods. Ben slaughtered your ex-partner in cold blood, and when you learned of this, you backed out of the deal.”

  “Of course I did. He killed my colleague of twenty years. I never wanted him dead. I had no idea it was going to come to that, and I’m not having that shit on my conscience.”

  “But Ben wasn’t so easily dismissed. He is the one that murdered your daughter the night of her formal. And felt not a shred of remorse.”

  Sarah stared at the ground for an age, the words melting into her, weighing her feet down. Her father stifled a sob as he stuttered and mumbled “No. Don’t say that…”

  “I speak the truth. The reason I know is I have taken down the individual that organised this whole sordid affair. The individual who had imprisoned Ben—for a completely unrelated issue, however. Everything was documented, including Ben’s claim that he had unfinished business with your youngest daughter. We’ve been tracking him for days, and finally noticed him lurking around the school, staking it out. We learned of the evening drama classes and confirmed Sarah is in that class, and knew what his plan would be.”

  Sarah’s mother looked at her father with a mixture of fear and disappointment. Her jaw was clenched but she said nothing, and Sarah knew she was angrier than she’d ever seen her. She turned her gaze to her father and realised she found it difficult to look at him. He was partially responsible for Sophie’s death. He had made a deal with someone he knew was capable of murder. So why hadn’t he ever said anything?

  “My question to you is, what will you do now? Now that you know the truth of what happened to your daughter and that there are things out there that will hunt you. My role here is done and this is where I take my leave. The principal will have no idea what’s happened here. The only ones who will know, will be us. Speak of it at your own risk.”

  And he walked away, just like that. He moved past them into the darkness. Sarah felt the weight in her legs evaporate as she glanced at her parents. Suddenly, she sprinted after him, ignoring the cries for her to come back.

  “Don’t!” she screamed at them, holding up one finger, blinking the beginning of tears out of her eyes. She headed out the same doors he had just gone through. “Wait! Please.”

  He turned calmly, as if he had expected this.

  “Was that…was that all true?”

  The response was heavy, sad. “Yes, Sarah. All of it.”

  “But…I don’t understand. All that stuff, all the things you can do.” Sarah’s voice caught, her throat thick. “Why didn’t you save my sister?” She knew even through her emotion it was wrong to ask such a thing. But she just had to know, especially when he was being all honest. She had been introduced to so much in the last hour and she understood nothing of it. But she needed to understand this.

  He took a step towards her, so close she could again see the brightness in his eyes. “I wasn’t there, Sarah. I had no idea. I truly wish I could have.”

  Sarah’s tears betrayed her now, and fell freely. She believed him, but it was so hard to hear all the same. She couldn’t blame him. Unlike her mother, she couldn’t fully blame her father, though she really wanted to. He was still alive; he was still back there. She could scream at him, thrash at him. But he was still her father. “What am I supposed to do now? What am I gonna do…”

  Dante brought her in to him at the same time she took a step forward. Perhaps it was the fact he had just saved her life, maybe it was his body language, but she placed her forehead on his granite-like chest, his hand finding its way to the back of her head, cradling the base of her skull. She stayed like that for almost a full minute, with this stranger that had shown her such honesty and tenderness. She lifted her head with his gentle encouragement, and repeated her question.

  “Live and be happy,” he whispered, using his finger to flick a strand of her hair stuck to her wet cheek, behind her ear. His deep voice seemed to seep into her senses. “Every day you wake up honours your sister.”

  She swallowed over the lump in her throat and nodded.

  He reached into his jacket pocket and handed over a red silk handkerchief. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Sarah Hasler.”<
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  She took the square of silk, looked it over before holding it to her chest. When she looked up one last time, he was gone.

  “Thank you…for everything,” she whispered to nothing but air, but she suspected he could still hear her.

  Chapter 9

  Lauren Returns

  “So how’d it go?” Bison leaned against the car and Melina stood beside him, also waiting to hear the news.

  Dante walked briskly across the road and opened the driver’s side door. “Plan worked great. I feel stupid for doubting you. As soon as you shut the generator down, I knew that was the signal you’d spotted them. I followed the principal and knocked him out when he got to it and guarded him just in case one of them slipped past you as requested. He’ll wake up with a headache, but none the worse for wear.”

  “My turn to ask the questions.” Melina slid into the passenger seat and Bison climbed into the back. “What the hell took so long?”

  “The family deserved to know the truth.”

  “Not that part. I mean the fight. You should’ve been able to crack them in half the time it took. But while we are on the subject, I don’t smell the family. I smell that girl. All over you.”

  “Your point?”

  “I didn’t know we were in the business of hugging random humans? Oh but let me guess. She fucking cried?”

  Dante started the engine, signalling to Melina he was done talking.

  The rest of the drive consisted of sullen silence, which suited him fine. By the time they reached the mansion, Dante was finally starting to feel calm again. He jogged up the steps to the front door, Melina trailing behind him. He stopped suddenly and she bumped into him.

  “What—?”

  Dante raised a hand, concentrating all around him. The night was still and cool, the only sound was a soft tossing of leaves from a gentle breeze. “Something is here.”

  “I don’t smell anything.” Melina inhaled loudly to prove her point.

  Dante whipped to the side and thrust out his arm, catching an unseen form out of mid-air and slamming it onto the ground. “Very good,” Dante said, talking to the ground, before the form he held shimmered to reveal Lauren.