Pretty When She Kills (7 page)

Part Two

Saturday

Chapter 6

The sun was barely a sliver of gold over the tops of the trees and it was gearing up to be an exhaustingly warm day. Despite the early hour, the humidity was already thick and gross against her skin.

Samantha jogged at a steady pace, keeping to the path that wound around Lady Bird Lake (formerly known as Lake Travis) in the shadow of downtown Austin. The new high rise buildings were close to completion and she still couldn’t get used to the radically changed skyline. Austin was growing in leaps and bounds, much to the disgust of her family.

Austin was once a small college town with a quirky personality. Now it was a burgeoning metropolis with an identity crisis. Keep Austin Weird bumper stickers and t-shirts had been common for years, but Samantha had seen far too many Make Austin Normal memorabilia of late. In just a short period of time, the whole city had changed dramatically.

But then again, so had her life.

Her blond ponytail swung back and forth behind her head as she jogged. She actually liked its rhythm. It was like a pendulum clock. The beat helped her focus on her breathing and pace. Dressed in the burnt orange and white colors of the University of Texas, Samantha ran past other early morning exercisers. Her green eyes glanced toward the tall apartment building where her former fiancé, Cian, and his new slut girlfriend were sleeping through the daylight hours. The sting of his betrayal still remained, even though she tried very hard to ignore it.

She was kind-of-sort-of dating Jeff Summerfield, the owner of the local occult bookstore and part-time vampire hunter. They got along very well and her family adored him. Jeff and Samantha saw each other a few times a week and always had a great time. They had yet to share a kiss, let alone anything more intimate. She was technically on the rebound from her broken engagement with Cian. Though she told everyone it was a good thing they had called off the wedding, that she was fine, and that Cian and her just weren’t suited for each other, she had cried like a baby when she had dropped her wedding gown off at Goodwill. The worst thing is that everyone believed her. They all believed she really was okay.

Except for Jeff.

Somehow, he knew she wasn’t moving on yet. It almost made her mad how sweet Jeff was to her. He was so perfectly understanding it was annoying. She didn’t want to admit that she was still heartbroken over Cian. She wanted to be stronger than that, but maybe she wasn’t. It was hard to accept that a piece of her still hurt whenever she heard his voice or saw his face.

An early morning mist hovered over the lapping waves of the dark waters of the lake and clung to the trunks of the juniper trees. The birds called out from the high branches as small squirrels darted around on the ground, evading the early morning walkers and joggers. The wide pathway was sparsely populated this morning. A few bikers rode past her, the wheels spitting up small bits of grit. She frowned after them. Some turtles rested on rocks near the water, soaking in the early morning sun. She waved at them. They ignored her.

Legs aching, side stitching, lungs straining, Samantha plowed through her discomfort. She was just getting back into running and it was not welcoming her back like an old friend. It was a struggle to get up every morning and get out the door, but she was determined to be a stronger, healthier version of herself. She had even enrolled in self-defense classes. Jeff joked she wanted to be Buffy. He was sort of right.

Though she had known Cian was a vampire, she hadn’t realized how dangerous he truly was. When she had first met him he had seemed like just a sweet, ordinary guy with beautiful eyes. She had never truly understood that there was so much more to him beneath the surface. Maybe she had read
Twilight
one too many times, but she had secretly adored the idea that a vampire was in love with her. It had been like some sort of modern day fairytale until she realized he really
was
a monster and she had never truly known him. She hadn’t even considered that there might be other vampires out in the world until Amaliya had shown up. Now she was afraid of what else might lurk in the night. Maybe she couldn’t fight the monsters, but she could try to outrun them and if they caught her, she would do her best to make them hurt.

The morning mist was heavier near the Mopac footbridge. The early weekend morning traffic roared overhead as she trudged along. She was tempted to buy a new iPod to replace the one she had broken a week before. The sounds of nature in the early morning were calming, but she missed the steady beat to keep her on track. Trying to keep an even pace was growing more difficult as the stitch in her side worsened.

Running onto the footbridge that sprawled under the very busy Mopac Expressway, Samantha plunged through the misty shadows dwelling beneath the rumbling traffic. It was cooler under the bridge and refreshing. She slightly slowed her pace, trying to catch her breath.

“Help me,” a female voice called out.

It was somewhere ahead in the misty gloom.

“Hello?” Samantha answered.

“Please, help me,” the voice repeated.

“Hello? What’s wrong? I can call 911.” Using the plea as a reason to drop to a walk, Samantha nervously fished her phone out of her fanny pack. 911 was on speed dial. She activated the screen and walked forward, her finger poised over it.

A soft, desperate sob drifted out of the mist. “He hurt me.”

“Oh, shit!” Samantha yanked out her pepper spray from her short’s pocket as she tried to call 911. To her dismay, her phone registered a dead battery and turned off. “Crap, the phone is dead. Where are you? I can’t see you!”

“Please, he hurt me,” the woman whispered.

The thick mist and dark shadows clouded her vision, making it hard to see anything. Samantha held the pepper spray out in front her, ready to deal with any attackers. Shoving her phone into her pocket, she warily advanced toward the voice.

“Please, help me!”

“I’m coming!” Samantha swept her arm back and forth in front of her. Her breath was puffing out in cold wisps as the air turned from warm and humid to cold and prickly. The world suddenly felt far away. Even the overhead traffic was a distant drone.

“Please…”

The air had turned frigid and Samantha shivered as she pressed forward. The shadows appeared thicker and darker as the mist shrouded the path.

“Where are you?” Samantha whispered, suddenly very afraid.

She almost tripped over the jogger lying face down across the path. Gasping, she caught her balance and knelt next to the woman.

“My phone is dead. I can’t call 911, but maybe I can help you up and we can try to find someone to assist us.” Samantha timidly stretched out her hand to turn the jogger over.

“He hurt me,” the woman cried out in agony, rolling onto her back, and thrusting a bloody, straining hand toward Samantha.

“Oh, my God!” Samantha gasped and drew back in shock.

“He hurt me!”

Samantha felt her breakfast trying to crawl up her throat and leap out of her mouth. The woman’s chest was a ruin of flesh and long ropey, fleshy strands of intestine lay on the ground. Blood splattered the woman’s face and arms and her eyes were wide with terror.

“Help me, please!” the woman sobbed. “Please, Samantha.”

Overcoming her repulsion and fear, Samantha held out her hand to touch the woman’s shoulder. Just as her fingers could touch the jogger’s arm, the woman vanished in a swirl of mist.

“What the hell?”

Samantha stared at the empty spot on the jogging path as several runners sprinted past her. There was no sign of the woman who had cried out for help. No blood, nothing.

Samantha scurried out from under the bridge and ran toward the nearest rest station. Trembling from terror, she hugged herself as she leaned against a streetlamp, trying to compose herself. What she had seen had been horrifying, but what was even more frightening was that the woman--the apparition--had called her by name.

Chapter 7

Samuel Vezorak was in a good mood all things considered. The family was drinking all his beer and had devoured most of the barbecue he had cooked up earlier in the day, but he had a good buzz going and he could ignore the barbecue sauce smeared all over his leather sofa.

Outside, the radio was pumping out old country classics into the warm summer air. The porch was crowded with family, kids were in the yard chasing after each other, dogs begged for scraps and attention, and the menfolk swilled down beer while they told tall tales.

Samuel was hitting the buffet table one last time. Though he was leaner than a blade of grass, he could eat any man under the table. His wife, Kelly Ann, had made some of her killer potato salad and he heaped a mountain of it on his plate next to some barbecue chicken and brisket.

“Looks like trouble,” Kelly Ann muttered, entering the kitchen of their double-wide trailer. Her long blond hair was plaited into a braid down her back and her cheeks were rosy from the heat. She guided their youngest, John, to the sink to wash off a mixture of grease, dirt, and sauce from the six-year-old’s face.

Samuel had two sets of children. The first set was Samuel Raymond Vezorak, Jr., who went by Ray, Damon, Amaliya, and Rachel from his deceased wife Marlena. Ray and Damon worked with him and lived in the trailers on either side of his with their wives and kids. Rachel had died of cancer when she was very young. Amaliya was...gone. The second set was with his second wife, Kelly Ann. John and Betsey were his pride and joy.

“John, what were you doing out there?” Samuel asked, cocking his head to gaze down at the little tow-head.

John giggled in response.

“Not talking about him, Samuel. Out there. I think it’s another one of those reporters.” Kelly Ann gestured out the window.

“Dammit. Not another one,” Samuel growled.

Mae, his mother in law (and previous sister in law when he had been married to Marlena), carried Betsey into the kitchen. The four-year-old was just as messy as her brother.

“They’re looking for Amaliya, you know,” Mae said. “That girl’s trouble. Pure and simple.”

“Amaliya is dead,” John said, scrunching his face as his mother wiped at it with a kitchen towel. “She wented to heaven.”

“Yes, your sister Amaliya is an angel now looking down on you when you sleep, taking care of you,” Kelly Ann said with a forced smile. She gave her mother a warning look and started to clean Betsey’s face, too.

“Yeah, of course,” Mae said, rolling her eyes, her head turned so the kids couldn’t see.

Mae was drunk and ready to fight, but Samuel shut her down with a stern look. Kelly Ann looked up nervously. They did not discuss Amaliya’s visit from beyond the grave in front of the children. Samuel would never forget the way his daughter’s eyes had glowed red as she casually tossed him and her brother Damon around like they were toys. Mae and Kelly Ann were convinced she had been possessed by demons, but Samuel feared it was something much worse. Though Amaliya was legally declared dead, Samuel still feared for her. And feared her.

Sometimes at night he would wake up in a cold sweat convinced she would be standing in the doorway of his bedroom, her eyes glowing, her teeth sharp, ready to take revenge on him for his shitty parenting.

His chest hurt at the thought of her. He remembered her as a beautiful blond child with blue-gray eyes, dancing and singing out in the backyard, not the surly young woman covered in tattoos with dyed black hair. It was difficult for him to reconcile the two images of his daughter.

Samuel shifted his over-burdened plate to his other hand and moved to look out the window.

“Where’d you see the reporter, Kelly Ann?”

“Out near the fence,” his wife answered. “He’s wearing a cowboy hat.”

“A local maybe?”

“Never seen him before if he is.”

The screen door screeched open, then snapped shut as someone else entered the trailer.

“Hey, Dad, got some reporter type out by the end of the drive. Want me to shoo him off?” It was Ray. Tall, lean, and weather-beaten, the oldest of his children was the spitting image of him at the same age.

“I’ll take care of it,” Samuel decided. “A man can’t even enjoy a decent meal around here without those jackals coming around.”

“Damon went to get his shotgun. A good shot over his head will get that reporter’s ass moving,” Ray said, grinning.

“I don’t want the police out here again,” Mae said shrilly. “They give me hell about the dogs running around loose.”

“Calm down, Mama.” Kelly Ann frowned at her mother. “Let the menfolk take care of it.”

Samuel glanced down at his plate, sighed, and set it on the counter. Plucking a fresh beer from the cooler, he gestured to Ray with a jerk of his head to follow him, and headed into the living room.

The living room was just as crowded as the porch. A few people were watching a race on the TV. The barbecue was a monthly event at his house and neighbors always showed up in droves for his award-winning brisket. He liked showing off his culinary skills and hanging out with the people he thought of as true friends. They were not fancy uppity types.

Pete Talbert was lingering near the doorway, keeping a watch on the stranger outside. Pete was a good guy in Samuel’s estimation. He had hoped that Amaliya would gain some sense and marry the guy, but that had not come to pass. Lately, Pete was withdrawn and a little jittery. Samuel suspected he was mourning Amaliya’s death. Pete had never stopped crushing on his daughter, even when she had turned weird. Pete had suffered a bizarre stroke a few months before and was still recovering. Though Samuel didn’t like to admit it to himself, he wondered if it had to do with Amaliya’s mysterious visit on Easter.

“He’s just hanging out by the gate taking photos,” Pete said as Samuel stepped next to him.

“The road is public land,” Ray said, frowning. “Not much we can do if he doesn’t come on our property.”

“I can go check it out,” Pete offered. He scratched at his black goatee, his blue eyes nervous. “Maybe I can get him to leave.”