The Immortal Hunter(76)

"Any news?" he asked sharply.

Lucian shook his head.

Decker sighed. He then slid off the bale he'd been sitting on and crossed to the door. He'd been sitting out there ever since arriving at the house. It had made him feel closer to Dani to be where they'd last been together, but he'd sat torturing himself with memories of the brief interlude and the possibility that it might be all they had. It was better if he returned to the house, even if it was only to pace his room like a caged tiger and fret.

He reached the door and paused, expecting Lucian to step out of the way for him to leave. When he didn't, Decker noted the way his uncle stood, his head raised slightly in a listening attitude and a frown playing on his lips.

Decker arched an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"I think I hear a tractor," Lucian muttered, turning his head to glance around with displeasure. "Who the hell would be working the fields at this hour?"

Decker shrugged. "A farmer?"

Lucian turned a look of disgust his way. "Of course it's a farmer. But what idiot farmer would be working this late?"

Decker shrugged again with disinterest. Lucian didn't notice, however; he'd released the door and was moving away. Decker caught the door as it swung shut and stepped out to see him walking around the side of the building. His gaze slid to the house, moving over windows glowing with light, and then he turned to follow his uncle.

Lucian had disappeared when he reached the back of the barn, but Decker could hear the soft rustle of his passage through the woods and followed. The forest was only twenty feet deep here. Decker made his way through the trees almost soundlessly, and paused at his uncle's side on the edge of the field to peer out at the dark shape of the tractor stopped halfway across. There were no lights on the vehicle, or if there were, they weren't on, but the engine was running.

"What-?"

"Shh," Lucian hushed him. "Listen."

Decker turned back to the field and listened, picking up the faraway sounds of a man yelling and a woman shrieking in high, alarmed tones. "No!" and then, "No Dani!"

Decker's feet were moving even before the name had died. Aware that his uncle was on his heels, he flew across the field, moving so fast his feet hardly seemed to set down on the dirt as he tore through the plants.

The scene he arrived on was one Decker thought would stick in his mind for a very long time. Dani had an elderly man in jeans and a checkered top pinned to the ground, her knees resting on his shoulders as she held his head still and madly licked at his forehead. She appeared completely oblivious to the man's struggles, and even to the equally elderly woman in a cotton dress who was on Dani's back, trying to drag her off, screaming, "Stop that! Stop licking my husband. Have you lost your mind? Leave him alone!"

Decker lifted the woman off Dani, turned to hand her to Lucian, and then turned back to find Dani had given up on the forehead and was now following the dried blood trail down his cheek to his neck.

"Stop her!"

Decker didn't need that shout from Lucian; he was already catching Dani by the arms and yanking her away from the man she was assaulting.

"No," she moaned, struggling weakly to shake him off. "I want more."

"Dani," he said sharply, spinning her around.

She raised her head, her eyes settling on his face and widening. "Decker," she breathed with relief. "You found us. Thank God. Now you can kill me."

When Dani then sagged against his chest, Decker closed his arms around her. His eyes moved to the elderly man as he got shakily to his feet, and then to the older woman before he asked grimly, "What happened?"

The woman rushed to her husband's side as Lucian released her. Slipping a supportive arm around his waist, she peered at him briefly, and then glanced to Decker.

"I don't know," she admitted, her worried eyes shifting to Dani. "That man must have drugged her or something. She was sick when we broke out of the basement, but then as we were escaping on the tractor she started licking on John. When I tried to make her stop, she tossed him off the tractor like a rag doll and leaped out after him. By the time I got the tractor stopped and jumped out, she was on him like a dog on a bone." She shook her head and repeated, "He must have drugged her. There's something wrong with that girl."

"Leonius," Lucian said suddenly, and Decker turned to see his eyes concentrated on Dani. He'd obviously been reading what had happened from her mind. His uncle shifted his gaze to him and announced, "Leonius took her from the mall and brought her to their house." He gestured to the house visible across the field. "He forced her to drink his blood, and then left her in the basement to make a meal of them while he went in search of another victim for himself, but they escaped."

"Jesus," Decker breathed, peering down at Dani. She was leaning heavily against him, her knuckle in her mouth, rocking slightly and moaning with what sounded like pain.

"Get them to the house and get Dani strapped down. I'm going to their place to wait for Leo," Lucian ordered. He then turned and sprinted across the field toward the house next door.

Decker watched him go, and then tugged Dani's finger from her mouth, wincing as he saw the damage she'd done to it.

"No," she moaned, and tried to raise it to her mouth again, but Decker caught her hand in his and twisted it behind her back as he scooped her into his arms. He managed to trap her other hand between their bodies so that she wouldn't then start gnawing on that one. Dani immediately began to struggle, but he merely crushed her closer and turned to the couple.