Heart of the Dead: Vampire Superheroes (Perpetual Creatures Book 1) by Gabriel Beyers

onto a small playground for children that sat nestled next to the road. A mother pushing her toddler son on the swings nodded to Jerusa as she passed. Jerusa smiled, but neither spoke. She continued to the road, which was bordered by concrete sidewalks on both sides. A right turn would lead her home. She turned left.
    Jerusa continued until she came to a narrow driveway, not much more than two tire tracks lined with gravel, cutting a surreptitious line through the trees. The driveway rose in a gentle hill, making it impossible to see the land beyond, even if you were perfectly lined up.
    Jerusa followed the driveway over the hill, through the trees, until she came into the fifteen acres of open land where the tiny stone house stood hidden from the world.
    The house sat in the center of the open ground, surrounded by a lush carpet of grass as immaculate as any golf course. The house itself was built from slabs of dark brown sandstone with crisp white limestone accenting the corners and window frames, all quarried from the ground on which it stood. Built a century ago, the detail and craftsmanship of the masonry spoke of the earlier generation’s desire for quality over quantity. A one-acre pond, the remains of the quarry, sat behind the house near the woods, sparkling in the sunlight. It was a place of serenity and privacy, a place one could escape the modern world that was late for everything while on the road to nowhere.
    That is why Foster Reynolds chose to live here.
    Jerusa jogged up the driveway to the front door. Despite her health condition, multiple surgeries, and her mother’s overbearing opinion, Jerusa was actually in quite good shape. Channeled mostly by her mother’s fears, Jerusa ate only the healthiest of diets, and due to her mother’s insistence that she be in moving vehicles as little as possible, Jerusa walked almost everywhere she went. The driveway was long, though, and by the time she reached the front door her borrowed heart was beating hard.
    Jerusa stood for a moment, relishing the pulse in her chest. They say that a heart is given only a certain number of beats and when that number is up … well, you know. Before the transplant, Jerusa had been terrified when her pulse rate went up for fear that she would expend her allotted beats. Though she couldn’t prove it, Jerusa believed it was her mother who had slipped that little gem into her psyche. But now, with her new heart, she often ran just so that she could feel it thrumming within her. It was humbling to think that she was only alive because of another’s death.
    Jerusa looked around for Alicia, but she was nowhere to be seen. She was close by, Jerusa was sure of that, but the ghost was almost as upset with her for coming to Foster’s as she had been when she had spoken to the naked man. She wasn’t much impressed by the men in Jerusa’s life. In fact, Thad was the only boy Alicia had given her approval to.
    The thought of Thad brought a strange swirl of unfamiliar emotions to Jerusa. Though she couldn’t explain why, she felt sort of guilty about talking with the naked man in the woods. As though she had performed some act of infidelity. But that was ludicrous. Thad had never actually asked her on a date. According to him, it was more a playful ruse to annoy Kristen and Jerusa’s mother. And though the naked man — she was trying her best to banish that image from her mind — had watched her with the most fascinated look settled in his glorious eyes, he had not shown any of the peacock-strutting that boys his age displayed when they are attracted to a girl.
    A stupid grin seemed to be etched into her face and she was giddy to the point of giggling like an idiot. One would think she’d never seen a boy before. What had gotten into her?
    “You’re not thinking of breaking into my house, are you?”
    Jerusa turned around as Foster Reynolds came jogging across the open grass from the woods.
    Though Foster was in his forties, he looked