Dead of Night (Hunters of the Dark #4) Read online

Chapter Eighteen

  Rachel wiped her hands on a towel and left the bathroom, yawning and pausing in the hallway to stretch. “Jesus, I’m tired,” she muttered before walking back toward her room. Jade and Hunter were in the process of taking down the cameras throughout the mansion since their ghost problem had come to an end. Rachel was relieved, as it meant no more late nights staring at the screens. It was tedious work and it exhausted her. The next time an opportunity came along to go ghost hunting, she would gladly sit out.

  She paused as she entered the living area. Jade and Hunter were nowhere to be seen. A few minutes ago, she had passed Jade at the screens talking to Hunter on the walky talky as he uninstalled the monitors. They couldn’t have finished that quickly. She frowned as she saw that many of the screens were still lit up. Maybe they were taking a break?

  Cocking her head, she listened for voices, but nothing came to her from the recesses of the old house. They had cracked this case, hadn’t they?

  If Jade weren’t gay, she would assume they’d found a broom closet to make out in. They’d certainly been spending enough time together, bonding over nerdy stuff. And Hunter was hot, in a stuffy sort of way.

  She smirked. Where had that come from? He was probably closer to Rachel’s age than anyone in her company, but he was still a bit older. Older, smart, capable of taking care of her. She scowled. She did not need a man taking care of her. Especially an older one. She could take care of herself, thank you very much. She’d been doing it most of her life just fine without any men helping her along. All men did was screw things up and betray your trust. Especially when you were vulnerable. Too vulnerable to properly understand what was going on. She shook her head, trying to clear it of her demons, and plopped down on a chair in front of the monitors.

  To distract herself, she let her eyes rove the screens, trying to locate the missing hunters. Her eyes were drawn to Amelia’s room. Krystal was sleeping soundly in the bed, pretty as a picture, her dark curls splayed out over the pillows around her face, framing it. Rachel could clearly make out the salt circle that Amelia had created around the bed. And standing at the foot of the bed was a large figure, staring down at Krystal, unmoving.

  Rachel squinted. Was that Hunter? She leaned forward, frowning. No way was that Hunter. The man in the frame was too large, shoulders too wide. A shiver ran down her spine as the scene fully penetrated her mind. A stranger was in Krystal’s bedroom, staring at her while she slept.

  Standing quickly, Rachel knocked the chair to the floor in her haste. She looked down at the chair quickly, then glanced back up at the monitor. And the man was staring directly into the screen, as if he could see her. His eyes were a cloudy white, like he was blind, his features broad and ugly. And when he moved, he did so stiffly, as if he were being controlled remotely.

  A zombie, Rachel realized. Krystal was right.

  She turned to run up to her room, but stopped short when she saw another man in the room with her, staring at her. He was a blonde man with a quarterback’s build, and those same milky irises as the one upstairs. “What do you want?’ she asked, her voice shaking.

  The man didn’t answer, but moved at the sound of her voice, arms lifting straight up from his sides as a moan left his mouth.

  Rachel didn’t have a weapon on her, so she lifted the wooden chair she’d knocked over, keeping it between them until he grabbed one of the legs and yanked it roughly out of her grasp in a demonstration of strength. He tossed it across the room, where it shattered against the fireplace mantle.

  “Stay away!” Rachel demanded, backing away. Her eyes darted around for a weapon, anything that could be of use, but there was nothing available. At least nothing she could get to before the zombie closed the distance between them.

  Very suddenly, the zombie fell to the floor at her feet and Rachel jumped back with a scream. Serene jumped onto the zombie’s back, pulling both its arms back and swiftly dislocating them so that they fell uselessly at its sides.

  “My god,” Rachel put a hand to her chest. “You scared the hell out of me.”

  Serene raised an eyebrow.

  “And thank you.”

  Serene smirked, then stiffened as two more zombies lumbered into the room, one being the man who’d stood at the foot of Krystal’s bed. Thankfully, Amelia’s salt had actually kept him from her. If Rachel lived through this, she swore she wouldn’t make fun of Amelia’s magickal mumbo-jumbo ever again.

  A loud beeping sounded in the room and Serene froze.

  Rachel’s eyes snapped to Serene’s neck. The tracking device was going off again.

  Serene shook her head and sighed, then launched herself at a zombie.

  Rachel had enough time to secure a weapon this time, and opted for a poker from the fireplace. She held it threateningly before her, and as the zombie approached her, she swung it in a show of what she would do if he drew any closer to her. This didn’t seem to bother him one bit, however, and she slammed the poker into his shoulder with all her might.

  The zombie barely staggered under the blow, and kept coming for her, as if it hadn’t registered the attack. As if pain meant nothing to it. And it probably didn’t.

  The noise from the tracking device grew louder, almost deafening and Rachel cursed the thing before realizing what it meant. Hunter was moving away from the mansion. The zombies had surely taken him. And probably Jade too.

  “No,” Rachel whispered.

  And then the beeping was suddenly cut off.

  Rachel looked up to see Serene sink to the floor, unconscious. She’d managed to take down the zombie she’d been fighting with before the tranquilizer had been released into her blood stream, but that still left the big one in front of Rachel.

  And Rachel was not winning. In a last ditch effort to get away from the creature, as nothing seemed able to stop it, she raced for the staircase. If she could make it to Krystal’s room and get into that salt circle, it wouldn’t be able to touch her.

  But the creature intercepted her easily, and it took only one strong swing of its hand into the back of her head to send her sprawling to the floor and into unconsciousness.