This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5)(58)

I crouched low as I crept along the bushes, making my way toward the less populated screening of some horror movie, it looked like. With all the headlights, I’d stand out like a sore thumb if I straightened and just walked there, but we weren’t about to all cruise in through the main entrance. Even with our power levels cloaked, if this was some sort of secret ghoul meeting place, three vampires showing up would be enough to stir trouble, no matter if they thought we were here just to watch some flicks.

Hence the sneaking around while we sought to find out if we were the only pulseless people here. We’d split up to cover more ground. I couldn’t see or sense Vlad or Mencheres, so they were doing a good job at being stealthy. I hoped I was being equally furtive.

Then I stopped. That was odd. A van was too far off to the side of the viewing area of the closest screen to even see the movie. It didn’t rock in a telltale way, either, leaving the possibility of being out of viewing range of the movie for a romantic reason doubtful. It still might be nothing insidious, true, but there was only one way to find out.

I crept closer, still keeping low and doing my damnedest not to crunch the fallen leaves I stepped on. When my cell phone vibrated with a noise that seemed like a screech to my tense nerves, I hit ignore even though I saw with a pang that it was Bones calling. I didn’t have time to chat with him now, and aside from the noise that someone with undead ears might pick up on, I needed to keep my cell clear in case Vlad or Mencheres texted with anything important. Like “need help” or “run for it, we’re outnumbered!”

Fifty yards away from the van, I heard voices that weren’t from the movie or inside my head, thanks to being back on Bones’s blood. I stopped, trying to feel the air with my senses to catch any supernatural vibes on it, plus taking in a deep breath to see if I caught the earthy scent of ghouls. Nothing.

I’d just have to get closer to find out for sure.

The van was parked near where a clump of bushes turned into a tree-lined hill. In the dark, with the slope and the lights from the movies glaring in the opposite direction, the area behind there would be practically invisible to anyone looking. Hell, I could see in the dark, but with the slant, glare, and bushes, it was still hard for me to tell if any people were in that area, or if all I was seeing were trees.

I was almost crawling now to avoid being seen and straining my ears for any sounds that weren’t the movies, the people watching them, their thoughts, or the nearby highway. There. A male voice, definitely, followed by another one, both back in the wooded area where no regular moviegoers would have any reason to be. Could be a couple of vagrants just having a little chat, but I drew out two of my bigger knives anyway. Damned if I’d let myself get captured if it wasn’t just an innocuous gathering of humans. I might be the only chick in the group, but that didn’t make me the damsel in distress.

After another few minutes of quiet crawling, I could pick up the twinges of power in the air, too low to make me turn around, too high to be Vlad or Mencheres with how they were cloaking their auras. I got a tighter grip on my knives and continued forward, glad I didn’t have a regular heartbeat anymore, or it would be racing. Come out, come out, wherever you are.

“ . . . take more down. Show our brothers we mean business,” someone muttered.

A particularly loud crescendo of music cut off the first part of whatever the other person replied, but I caught “ . . . till every last bloodsucker’s dead,” and really didn’t need to hear anything else.

I was close now, barely thirty feet away. Enough to see that there were four ghouls standing in a loose circle, one of them casually prodding the dirt with the toe of his boot. Two of them looked pretty normal, wearing denim pants and short-sleeved T-shirts in the warm summer evening. The other two were dressed like a bad imitation of Hell’s Angels with their leather jackets, fingerless gloves, black jeans, and thick chain accessories.

Overcompensating for something, are you? was my contemptuous thought.

“Did you feel that?” one of them asked, glancing around.

The others didn’t even have a chance to reply before power slammed through the air, feeling like a whip on my skin before it skipped over me to land on them. I stood up, still holding my knives even though none of the ghouls was able to put up a fight anymore. From their horrified expressions, they couldn’t even move enough to scream.

“You do know how to make an entrance, Mencheres,” I remarked.

The Egyptian vampire appeared from the opposite side of the ghouls while measured, crunching noises coming from behind me told me where Vlad was.

“There’s a white van nearby, did any of you check it out?” I asked.

“Stinks of these ghouls, but it’s empty,” Vlad replied as he drew abreast.

I stared at the four ghouls, thinking if their eyes bugged any wider, they might pop out of their sockets. Bet they never expected party crashers like Mencheres to show up. Vlad and I could kill them easy enough, but only Mencheres could freeze them into complete immobility without even laying a finger on them.

“This group is too small to warrant meeting out here like this. More must be coming,” I said, lowering my voice.

From the flash of emotion across two of the ghouls’ faces, I’d guessed correctly.

“I’ve still got them,” Mencheres said, backing away. “Let’s hide.”

I’d seen his power in action before, so I had no hesitation about turning my back on the ghouls and creeping deeper into the woods. Odds were, their buddies would approach from the other direction, and if they smelled vampire, hopefully they’d think it was from a recent kill the group had made.