Page 79 of Whispers at Dusk
But no Romanian.
She walked around an especially beautiful stone angel.
And that was when she saw the girl.
She couldn’t have been much older than twenty. Her hair was long and dark, fanning around her shoulders. She was propped up against the angel, as if just sitting, waiting...
Waiting for a killer? Because she hadn’t been laid out yet, not as if she slept... Snow White in the forest!
“Here, I have something—there’s a girl by an angel if you can get to me quickly!” Della said, hurrying to hunker down by the young woman. She instantly checked for a pulse and was gratified to discover she was right—the young woman was alive.
“Alive! We need help,” Della cried.
“Almost there!” Mason said.
“And on the way!” Alexandru said.
Della checked the young woman for marks at the throat; there were none.
“So, you have come!”
She was startled to hear the rough voice in accented English and turned quickly. A young man stood nearby, holding a gun on her.
Idiot!
She mentally cursed herself. She’d been so hoping the young woman would still be alive that she’d temporarily forgotten about any potential danger.
But Mason had been right: Stephan Dante had been here in Transylvania, but he was already on his way out. And in the little time he had been here, he had found himself a recruit, a young man who believed drinking blood could give him eternal life.
Where else better to meet the real thing than here in Transylvania?
She wasn’t beaten yet.
“He said you were perfect!” the man whispered.
His accent sounded Germanic or Slavic; she wasn’t sure. And yet, like so many Europeans, he seemed to have a total grasp of the English language.
“He? He who?” Della asked, reaching casually for the Baby Browning in the holster at her ankle.
“The Master!” the man exclaimed. “I knew it was real, I always knew it was real! I came here hoping and he was...he was here. Watching. He only takes those who are chosen, but he shows us all the way. There is no cruelty in setting such sweet lovelies as this free. There is a special place among the clouds for those who give their blood for the eternal lives of others. He wanted you for himself, but he said—”
“How do you know about me?” she asked.
“He described you. He said yours was the ultimate blood. He knows about you—knows about the donations you gave to the living...knows it’s special. But if there was danger, I could take you myself. He has gone home. But he thought you might come here. He described you perfectly, your hair, those eyes...”
“Dear sir! In this mist, there is no way you are seeing my eyes!” she assured him. She could barely make out that this was a kid, barely twenty or just over that, lean and tall—and nervous.
He had apparently been about to go for his first kill when she had come upon his victim.
“He’s gone home,” she said impatiently. “Where is home?”
“Home for the Master...maybe the clouds, maybe the sky... He is the king of all that he sees, all that he rules!”
No help there.
Her fingers curled around the Baby Browning and she aimed it at him.
“Drop the weapon,” she said flatly.
