Immortal Coil: A Novel (Immortal Trilogy Book 1) by James McNally

him.”
                  “How?” David asked.
                  “He will have the same black aura as Antony. If we get close enough for me to see the aura, I’ll know.”
    “We will need to be very careful with this one. He has been feeding on the innocent for a very long time. He is not trying to hide his presence. These are all signs that he may be well beyond any kind of rational thinking. He is…”
                  “Insane.” Maggie finished Antony’s sentence. He nodded agreement.
                  “About this aura stuff,” David said. “I’m still not happy that you said my aura is as clean as a baby’s.”
    “What?” Maggie was bewildered.
    “I’m no angel. I’ve committed crimes.”
    “Well, your aura is clean, so you must be doing something right.”
    David returned to the original topic. “This…insane…vampire, if he is one, has caught the attention of the FBI. They have been tracking his movements. I have much of their information through newspaper clippings and internet details. With this information and your abilities, we should be able to do what the FBI can’t.”
                  “Where is he now?” Antony asked. He was talking to David.
                  “The FBI last placed him somewhere in Pennsylvania. His last victims were in the suburbs of Philadelphia. They believe he has moved on from there though, and do not have any idea where he will strike next. Maggie, does your sixth sense tell you anything?”
                  “I’ll need time. But yes, I believe I can. Unfortunately, it will be much easier after he takes his next victims. Their pain and suffering will be like a beacon leading us directly to him.”
                  David grimaced. “That’s gruesome.”
                  “But at least we will be able to stop him,” Antony said.
                  “Hey, you know what this means, don’t you?” David asked with an excitement that caused the other two in the room to look at him. “It means a road trip is in order!”
                  Maggie tilted her head slightly. She glanced at him, confused. “So,” she said and he mocked utter shock at her lack of enthusiasm.
                  “Didn’t you see it in the parking garage?”
                  “See what?”
                  “The Zephyr!”
     

5.
     
                  He called himself The Dark One. He supposed he had once used a given name, but so many years had passed without hearing it spoken that he had long since forgotten it. The tabloids called him The Houseguest Killer because of how he selected his victims. More accurately, he was the Unwanted Houseguest Killer. This thought made him laugh. One of his favorite methods for picking out his prey was to visit the parking lot of a shopping mall and look for the decals on the back windows of minivans. This almost always told him how many members were in the household. He preferred three, but no less than that. To date he had never picked a house with more than five family members and probably never would. He wasn’t a glutton, after all.
    He was a vampire.
    He only required three blood-filled humans to satiate the need. Everyone beyond that was just wasteful, really. But it was so much fun to watch them bleed out.
    Tonight’s meal consisted of a man, the man’s wife, and the wife’s elderly mother. He spotted them returning home from some day-long outing and thought, why not?
                  The houseguest Killer kept a lair in the Poconos, in a mansion that had once been an expensive bed and breakfast during the sixties, but was now just a run-down and abandoned haunted house, with graffiti decorating its facade. He tried to stick close to home, and mostly hunted in the city of Allentown, or the surrounding area therein. His latest family lived in the town of