Possession-Blood Ties 2 by Jennifer Armintrout

chest.
    The anchorwoman continued. “The victim, whose name has not been released, was jogging down a public bike path when an unidentified man tackled her to the ground and cut her throat.”
    A teenager appeared on the screen, her face blotchy and red from crying. “It happened so fast, no one could do anything. His face was all messed up, like it got burned up or something. It was like he just ripped her whole neck out.”
    “We’re following up with witnesses and pairing them with police sketch artists, and we’re hoping to get an arrest as soon as possible.” I recognized the middle-aged police officer on the screen as the one who’d given me a speeding ticket earlier that year. He looked a lot more forgiving of the psycho killer than he had of my measly eighty in a fifty-five. Back in the studio, the anchorwoman fixed the camera with a somber gaze. “Police artists have compiled this drawing….”
    Though it was hastily sketched in pencil and the jagged snout of his feeding face had somehow translated to a larger nose and whorled burn scars, there was no denying the man in the picture was meant to be Nathan. The reporter’s voice continued. “Police say the suspect is Caucasian, in his midthirties, with facial scars and several tattoos. He should be considered dangerous.”
    “Tattoos.” I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger. “The sigils. Of course.”
    “Hopefully, the Movement will have more information on this when we land,” Max said softly.
    “They’re going to kill him, aren’t they?” I couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired. This was where Max was supposed to say something to comfort me. He remained silent. I covered my face with my hands. “I hope they do kill him. Because if they don’t, he’ll never forgive himself.”
    4
    A Rabbit Hole
    I f the dead priest hadn’t owned a television, Cyrus might never have known what was happening.
    Not that he felt he owed the Father any gratitude. Cyrus hated television. Since its horrible birth, the blasted thing was all humans could talk about. In this wretched captivity, though, Cyrus needed something to occupy his mind, and he wasn’t about to take up Bible study. The Mouse still slept. After she’d finished crying and he’d rested long enough to manage sitting upright again, he’d demanded she bring him a first aid kid to bandage her bruised and bloody neck. He’d let her sleep in the bed. He had no use for it. The care and, God help him, nurturing, he’d displayed had unsettled him. There’d been no chance of sleeping after that.
    For the first few hours, he’d busied himself ripping pages from the Bible on the shelf to make paper cranes. He’d worked through the first half of Genesis when he grew bored and flipped on the television. It helped him cover the sounds from upstairs. Though any sensible vampire would have been sleeping by now, the Fangs seemed content to blast pounding, repetitive noise that barely qualified as music.

    Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer ( http://www.novapdf.com )

    There were three channels, and only one showed anything of interest. The local news anchorwoman wore too much rouge and her hair looked like one perfectly molded plastic piece. Exactly the kind of woman Cyrus liked to charm, then torture to death. He leaned forward in his chair.
    “Authorities in Louden County are calling off their search for three people who were reported missing after a church fire in Hudson .” The picture cut to three photos. The dead priest and nun, and a pretty girl with a bright smile wearing a cotton sundress. The Mouse.
    The anchorwoman’s nasal voice continued. “Police say Father Bartholomew Straub, Sister Helen Jacobs and Stacey Pickles were working at Saint Anne Catholic Church on Friday when the fire broke out, but the three have not been seen since. Footprints leading away from the building suggest they may have attempted to walk to safety, but