Anne Brontë Nightwalker

Chapter 30

She steps toward me, tensed as if waiting for a blow, and for a moment I wonder if I'm hallucinating. Is she a ghost? A haunting? Emily is different than I remember, more animal now than woman, but I feel our shared blood pulsing between us like an electric wire. There is a feral grace to her posture. A wildness that was always there and has finally come into full bloom, erupting into the light of darkness.

God, how I love her.

I bear my fangs and hiss, "He's mine."

A shocked look crosses her face. "Since when is anyone yours, sister?"

"Since now."

"As you wish. I didn't realize I was hunting your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend." She raises an eyebrow. My hood has fallen back and my bare face, no doubt, reveals all my uncertainty. "He's . . . um, he's a writer," I say, as if this will elicit sympathy.

"Just what the world needs, another vampire book."

"He's not writing about vampires."

"Zombies? The end of the world? The fiction today is utterly detached from reality."

"Some would question your sense of reality."

She smiles. "Touché'"

Bewildered, I look at William. He is unconscious. Gently, I run my hand across his forehead and brush the hair off his face. "What did you do?" I demand.

"I was waiting for the right moment when suddenly that little blind fellow darted in front of him, entangling him in the lead. The man stumbled back and fell, dashing his head against the gravestone of Thomas Wolfe, no less. I must say he's not as strong as I thought, to be felled by such a small creature."

"Why didn't you kill him?"

"That ungodly howling caused me to hesitate. I would have silenced the noisy fox, but I never kill canines. I heard you coming and didn't want our reunion to take place over a corpse. I knew it would offend your delicate sensibility."

"How did you know it was me?"

She looks away. "I've been here a while."

"How long? Have you been watching me?"

"So many questions, sister, for a graveyard and a fallen man. I'll make it short. I've been looking for you and Branwell and the trail led me here."

"Branwell?" Unease crawls up my spine. And guilt. I haven't seen my brother since I was newly turned and we didn't part under the best of circumstances.

"Yes, well his trail has gone cold, but I smelled you in the woods and knew I was close."

"Did you kill those girls?" I am afraid of her answer.

She looks at me perplexed. "I only hunt males. I like my blood strong."

"No one is stronger than a mother."

"Oh, Anne," she says in a sad whisper.

Carefully, I move William off the cold gravestone to a soft bed of grass away from her. He is heavier than I would have thought. There's a density to his bones I didn't expect. Rage wells up in me and the sudden urge to rip out my sister's throat hits. So much havoc she's wreaked and so little shame.