Page 5 of Their Haunted Hearts (Detectives Kane and Alton #27)

Four

He watched in amazement as chaos erupted in town.

Standing in the crowd of onlookers and seeing the ruined corpse angered him.

He wanted to make a statement, send a warning, and now it had become a sideshow.

Almost as bad as the so-called amusing ghouls and other blood-soaked atrocities the townsfolk wheeled out each year.

It didn’t matter in which town he spent Halloween, the people ignored everything as if the vampires had used their glamor on them and bent them to their will.

All this weird exhibitionism—the costume-wearing and the need to outdo the graphic brutality each year—was the result of the vampires.

They waited patiently for this night and snatched people from the streets.

Once bitten, they become slaves, willing to do anything their masters tell them.

It wasn’t like the movies. Vampires moved through time and they don’t catch fire in the sunlight.

He’d seen them and understood what it was like to have the woman he loved seduced by one and taken from him.

He could read the signs. They snuck into town at night, always wore dark clothes and had pale skin.

Many faked a problem. They’d lost their money, were hungry and homeless, or escaping from abuse.

If these terrible things had really happened to them, rather than being wary, they were the opposite.

He’d found them easy to talk to because they believed they could manipulate him.

Luckily, he understood their glamor—the way they mesmerized people with their eyes to make them believe their lies.

They figured they had their target in sight and would follow him home.

He understood their intention to strike the moment he shut his eyes, but luckily, they never made it that far.

He’d destroy them before they rose on the second night to wreak havoc in Black Rock Falls.

If the vampires were left to run free, many innocent people would be taken—and no one would know until it was too late.

It needed to stop. Not a soul would listen to him—and nobody could stop him.

He would deal with the problem by sliding into the role of a vampire slayer to take them down before they infected everyone in the town.

He smiled to himself. Each one was a thrill.

The discovery, the chase—and the execution.