Kitty's House of Horrors

The sniper’s body was limp, still. But his eyes were wide, shining, unblinking. Terrified. I gagged on the lump in my throat.

Gently, careful to keep his head and neck still, to keep him alive for the next few moments at least, she peeled off the knit mask, sliding it up his face, then letting it fall off the top of his head.

“Oh my God,” I said, stepping back, hand over my mouth.

It was Ron Valenti. One of the producers of this horror show.

Chapter 16

He’d covered his clothing with pine sap to mask his scent. Until we were nearly under him, he didn’t even smell like a person, much less one we knew. If I’d caught his scent moving back and forth earlier, it was because he’d been here all week.

Anastasia took the news without a reaction. She stroked his hair, crooning at him like he was a babe in arms.

Lee snarled, which almost sounded like the hiss and bark of an attacking seal. He started toward the prone figure, but Anastasia turned a sharp, commanding glance to him, and I dared to put a hand on his shoulder. His muscles were hard, like wood.

“So nice to see you again, Mr. Valenti,” Anastasia murmured. “But I must say, Armani suits you better than this look.” Her voice was honey and razors at the same time. A hundred clichés about vampires had their origin in a scene like this.

Valenti groaned, his pain and despair clear.

Anastasia shushed him again, low and purring. “I assume your friend Provost is part of this. Who else? Our dear Mr. Cabe? Was the entire company involved? Did you bring in other hunters? Sell tickets for the chance to bag the prize of a lifetime?”

Valenti’s voice came out a whisper. I could barely hear it. He was struggling to breathe. “No… no… no one… else. No…” Tears leaked from his eyes.

“How many more are out here, Mr. Valenti? How many more are waiting to kill us?”

He tried to swallow. Failed, and a line of saliva spilled out of his mouth. He was dying. I could hear his heart fluttering with effort.

Every breath was a failed gasp. “Two… two…” He answered, because no one denied Anastasia.

“Do they have help from the inside? One of the residents? Odysseus Grant, perhaps?”

“Now wait a minute,” I said, and the vampire threw me that look. I clenched my jaw.

Valenti actually chuckled, or tried to, but he wheezed, then choked, probably on spit pulled into his lungs. He coughed, which made the choking worse. Now he wasn’t breathing at all. Terror pulled his whole face taut; his eyes gleamed.

“Shh, shh there.” Anastasia touched his cheek, murmured comforts, but she couldn’t stop the inevitable. She shifted his body, bent over his neck. Valenti was whining now, a high note of desperation. He had to know what was coming. He probably hadn’t seen himself going this way.

Fangs bared, Anastasia bit into him.

I closed my eyes. Lee made a noise of denial and turned away. The light of the moon shone. Long, straight shadows of pine trees fell over us. The lodge, dark except for the candles and flashlights in the front room, hunched like the cottage in a fairy tale. And somewhere out there, two more just like Valenti were waiting to strike.

Valenti had stopped crying. Anastasia’s quiet swallowing was the only sound. When vampires feed solely for sustenance, they don’t need to kill their victims. A few swallows of blood sustain them, and the victim is none the worse for wear. Anastasia drained Valenti. It took a lot longer than drinking a few swallows.

When she dropped the body, I turned to look. Now he was dead, cooling quickly. His skin was white, ghostly. He wasn’t just dead, but a husk. On the other hand, Anastasia glowed, flush and strong. She straightened, and behind closed lips her tongue ran over her teeth.

Lee said, “He’s not going to come back, is he? He’s not going to turn into… into one of you.”

“No,” she said, the repulsed look on her face telling exactly what she thought of that idea. She glanced at me, scowl still locked in place. I had been staring at her. I couldn’t stop. I would never be able to turn my back to this woman again.

The air smelled sharply of blood; it hadn’t before. I wanted to get away from the odor. “We should get inside,” I said lamely.

“Help me with him,” she said, pulling on the body’s arm.

I paused, then said, “What?”

“His friends are out there, and we’re not leaving him here for them to find. Kitty, get his weapons.”

“But—” I stopped. What could I say? I wanted to get out of here so badly. My senses were on trip wires, turned out to the trees, the clearing in front of the lodge, the wide-open sky and silvery light of the thin, waning moon. Provost and Cabe were out there, probably armed just like Valenti.

Lee went to take charge of the other arm. Together, they hauled the body upright, its arms over their shoulders. The head flopped. I found the handgun, then the rifle, lying where I’d tossed them away, and followed them back to the lodge, looking over my shoulders for whoever else was out there.

They entered the front door, and I followed, closing and locking the door behind me, just as Tina screamed, a short burst of shock.

“Oh, my God,” Jeffrey said at the same time.

Anastasia dropped the body in a heap, startling Lee into dropping his half, leaving it in a lopsided heap on the floor. Not very delicate.

There was a sound of retching—Conrad, it seemed, had rejoined the group just in time to see this presentation. He’d turned away, both hands covering his mouth.

“Is that—” Gemma started the question. Didn’t have to finish.

“Now we know it’s an inside job,” Anastasia said, with false brightness. “Sorry I couldn’t save you any, dear. You’ll get the next.”

“I think I’ve lost my appetite,” Gemma said, grimacing.

Conrad had turned back around and looked as bloodless as the corpse. “Do you mean… does that mean… you didn’t… oh, my God!” He stumbled away from Anastasia, even though he was already across the room from her. Couldn’t say I blamed him, but it was still pathetic. Anastasia just rolled her eyes at him. She knelt and started patting down the body, searching all those pockets and pouches.

Odysseus Grant was the only one to regard the corpse without horror. Instead, he wore the pursed lips and creased brow of concentration.

“Can you shed any light on this?” Anastasia asked him, the pointed lilt to her voice even more pronounced.

He said, “Only that it confirms what we already suspected. Though I’m almost impressed. I had assumed they set this up on behalf of someone else. But it’s all them.”

Anastasia collected a pile of odds and ends from Valenti’s person: a box of bullets, a rolled-up wire, a vial of clear liquid—Anastasia put this quickly away from her—and a walkie-talkie the size of a cell phone, turned off.

“Where’s Ariel?” I said to Tina.

“We put her with Dorian.”

I nodded. Wiped my eyes before the stinging got too bad.

“What do we do now?” Jeffrey said.

A horror movie was well under way, and I wanted it over and done with. But no end was in sight. They’d get us all if we didn’t do something. Other than run screaming into the night, at least.

I regarded the group gathered around the crumpled body of Ron Valenti. “The show was a trap. That’s clear. But they’re not just hunting us to kill us. They could have just blown up the house, or fired at us all when we went outside. This is a game. A challenge. They’re setting traps, a different one for each of us. I think they’re going to draw this out, killing us one at a time, because they think we can’t get away. And they think we won’t fight back. But this is a war now. When the others figure out what happened to him, they’ll hit us hard.”

“So what are we going to do?” Tina said.