Prologue
The girl stood drenched in blood in the center of the graveyard. Languorously, she swayed as the night wind tossed about her unfettered white-blond hair and tugged at the white lace dress that was dangerously close to sliding off her delicate shoulders.
Enormous blue eyes gazed vacantly at the bodies at her feet. The askew forms of the young men foolish enough to dig her up out of her grave bore brutal wounds inflicted by her long, sharp teeth. Tilting her head, the girl gazed past the treetops at the bloated harvest moon ascending in the night sky. The orb spilt light through the branches and cast a bluish glow over the old cemetery. Her pink tongue licked the blood from her full red lips.
Rachon stood in the dark shadows of the pine trees watching the ghostly figure. Her eyes thoughtfully surveyed the scene before her, her long blue nails tapping against the trunk of the tree she leaned against. Tilting her head, she sniffed the air. The coppery smell of blood mingled with the scents of fresh earth and chemicals.
It wasn't difficult to stitch together what had occurred just a few minutes before she had arrived on the edges of the old cemetery in East Texas.
“She's awake,” Rachon said, her naturally husky voice sensual to the ear.
“Why do you always end up with the messy jobs?” a voice grumbled behind her.
Flicking her gaze in the direction of her companion, she bestowed an annoyed look upon the immaculately dressed man maneuvering over the uneven forest floor. Prosper's skin was as dark as hers, but whereas her afro was shaped into twists, his head was shaved. Despite being blood relations in life, his eyes were black and hers were maroon. He bared his fangs as he grimaced.
“The Master calls and I obey,” she said, annoyance in her voice.
“You're a stupid woman for loving that pasty man,” Prosper said, shrugging.
“He's my Master. I obey him whether I want to or not,” Rachon said in a low, dangerous voice. “Whether I love him, or not.”
“Kill her and be done with it.” Prosper lifted one of his fine Italian loafers out of the dirt and sighed. “We've wasted enough time in Texas. I want to go home.”
“Just shut up and let me deal with this.” Rachon returned her gaze to the pale wisp of a figure swaying in the moonlight.
The girl was probably barely eighteen. Her slightly rounded cheeks and arms gave her a very youthful appearance. Her burial garb hung by threads over her mostly nude body. Blood and bits of flesh slid lazily down between her small breasts and over her smooth stomach.
“He's just playing more games with you,” Prosper said with a shrug.
“It's what he does best.”
“Mayhem, death, destruction,” Prosper agreed.
“Exactly.”
The so-called Satanic Murders at the local college was the biggest story in the area. It was constantly on the news. Every gruesome detail was recounted in solemn tones by perfectly coiffed reporters to tantalize the audience's morbid interest.
What had really happened at the college was simple: Rachon's creator and sometime lover, The Summoner, had made a new fledgling and buried her in the forest. Upon her resurrection, the new vampire had slaughtered over a dozen people to satiate her newborn thirst. That fledgling was gone now, having fled the area. The Summoner had followed, tracking her for his own amusement across Texas. It was a sick game he liked to play: create new vampires, abandon them, then see if they survived or not.
Which left Rachon to clean up after him. Setting her hands on her hips, she stared across the graveyard at the petite woman with the hair the color of moonlight.
“Dammit,” Rachon growled, and stepped out of the tree line.
The ground was soft beneath the soles of her boots as she carefully avoided the consecrated areas of the graveyard. The waves of power wafting up from holy ground repelled her if she drew too near a blessed grave. It was like being too close to a raging bonfire and the heat of the power burned against her skin.
Shuddering, she hurried toward the open grave. The earth had lost its blessing when the men had dug up the coffin of The Summoner's latest victim. She felt her shoulders loosen with relief as she stepped onto the unconsecrated earth. The casket had fallen back into the grave, most likely when it had been shoved aside in the mayhem.
An icy tendril of power rippled across her cheek and she looked sharply toward the blood soaked creature standing a few feet away. The dazed expression on the girl's face had not altered as she slowly shifted her weight from one foot then to the other. Her burial dress continued to slide downward over her body inch by inch as she swayed.
“Did you feel that?” Rachon asked.
Prosper grunted as he stepped next to her, wiping at his very expensive Italian suit with his hands. He hated being dirty and complained bitterly under his breath before saying, “Feel what?”
Rachon’s eyes searched the darkness enshrouding the trees that bordered the small cemetery. “This had better not be another one of his games.” Rachon did not like the idea of The Summoner turning his perverse attention in her direction. She would not be a pawn in one of his sick games.