by Anna Abner
“That’s the spirit,” she exclaimed. “Now get out your phone and start recording everything.”
Rolling his eyes, he produced his cellphone.
While he preserved their visit for posterity and later uploading to their website, Natasha knelt to get a closer look. Tucking her long, glossy dark hair over one shoulder, she blinked at the exposed body parts half visible under sand and gravel. It raised goose bumps on her arms to think there were vampires buried beneath her whom she knew by reputation. Vampires who’d been involved in the failed invasion of Prague. And the last people to stand where she was standing were Oleksander the Destroyer and Maksim Volk. She could hardly feel more exhilarated.
Reading about vampires was fun, hiring your own vampire-hunting duo was really fun, but actually standing on vampires’ graves and in their footsteps was beyond any high she’d ever felt.
The sand beneath her shifted and made mini avalanches of gritty dirt cascade further into the crater. “Are you getting this?” she asked, glancing behind her at her brother.
“Yep.”
She squinted through black-rimmed librarian glasses at the red light on his phone. “You’re live streaming this, right?” Their fans and colleagues expected the very best.
“No,” Anton said. “I want to edit it before we upload. I’ve been experimenting with really subtle sound and visual effects.”
She sighed dramatically. He knew how much she disagreed with him on the tampering of eyewitness video, no matter how subtle. Natasha took a breath to ask him as calmly as possible to please switch to live streaming for their site, as they’d never have another opportunity like this when the earth seemed to rumble beneath her.
“What the…?” A withered, gray hand broke through the upper crust of earth and hovered there, sort of half waving in the bright afternoon sun. “Oh, my God,” she breathed, totally thunderstruck. They were still alive under the earth. Desiccated and starving, but alive. “Tell me you’re getting this.”
“You bet I am.”
Tentatively, Natasha reached out and very gently swept the sand away from the limb, exposing more mummified flesh.
“Who do you think it is?” she wondered aloud. Three of the Four Sons were rumored to be buried here.
The hand seemed to track her the way a snake tracks its victim right before a strike, and then with inhuman speed the corpselike fingers locked around Natasha’s wrist.
“This is unreal,” she gasped, grinning at her stroke of luck. She was touching a real vampire. Maybe even one of the famous ones.
The hand yanked on her, and with a squeal of both surprise and delight, she landed on her belly inside the crater. “Anton?” she called nervously, hoping he was getting good angles with his video. She would be so pissed if he messed this up.
Another cave-in, and Natasha screamed as the rest of the vampire rose from the earth, a dirt-covered husk of a man, and sank his fangs into her carotid. Fireworks went off behind her eyelids as he drank deeply, gorging, a greedy fiend. With her last thread of strength, she called out for her brother.
Anton answered her, “Natasha!”
Her attacker released her, and she rolled helplessly onto her back, too weak to move or even speak. She’d lost her glasses, and her vision blurred.
Poor Anton. So brave, so foolish. He jumped in after her, but the vampire grasped him by the neck and crushed his vertebrae like a fistful of toothpicks. Her brother’s body went limp as an old dishtowel, his phone dropping soundlessly onto the sand.
The vampire tossed Anton across her midsection, an uncomfortably heavy restraint, and began to dig deeper into the earth with his bare hands. One after the other, mummified men were freed and laid out like kindling at the edge of the pit.
Natasha felt loads lighter and realized the vampire had lifted Anton’s body from hers and carried him out of the crater.
“Drink up my brothers,” the monster said, tearing Anton’s head from his shoulders to rain his life’s blood upon the faces of the corpses. “We have work to do.”
Look for Spellspeaker’s Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas #2) coming soon!
About the Author
Anna Abner lived in a haunted house for three years and grew up talking to imaginary friends. In her professional life, she has been a Realtor, a childcare provider, and a teacher. Now, she writes edge-of-your-seat paranormal romances and blogs from her home in sunny southern California about ghosts and magic. Connect with Anna at www.annaabner.com.
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Other Works by Anna Abner
Novels
Spell of Summoning (Dark Caster Series Book One)
Spell of Binding (Dark Caster Series Book Two)
Spell of Vanishing (Dark Caster Series Book Three)
Spell of Shattering (Dark Caster Series Book Four)
Elixir (Red Plague Trilogy Book One)
Antidote (Red Plague Trilogy Book Two)
Panacea (Red Plague Trilogy Book Three)
The Red Plague Boxed Set
Remedy (A Red Plague Novella)
Shopgirl’s Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Series Book One)
Short Stories
The Night Trevor’s Soul Came Loose
Shadow Cells
Table of Contents
Shopgirl’s Prophecy
Acknowledgements
Praise for the Dark Caster Series
Praise for the Red Plague Series
Other Works by Anna Abner
The Seer Ilvane’s Prophecies…
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Works by Anna Abner
