Immortals After Dark 05 - Dark Needs at Nights Edge

bayou.
    Thanks, Louis. Oh, and may you rot in hell—because surely that’s where you went... .
    Usually, at this point in the newspaper struggle, she’d be battling the urge to tear her hair out, wondering how much longer she could endure this existence, speculating what she’d done to deserve it.
    Yes, on the night of her death, she’d refused to die, but this was ridiculous.
    But even as desperate as she was for the words, she wasn’t as badly off as usual.
    Because last night a man had come into her home. A towering, handsome man with grave eyes. He might return this night. He might even move in.
    She shouldn’t get too excited about the stranger, to have her hopes crushed yet again—
    Lights blinded her; the shriek of squealing tires ripped through the quiet of the night.
    As a car shot forward onto the gravel, she futilely raised her arms to protect her face and gave a silent cry. It drove straight through her, the engine reverberating like an earthquake when it passed through her head.
    The vehicle never slowed as it prowled down the oak-lined drive to Elancourt.

2

    Néomi blinked, her strong night vision returning slowly. Even after all these years, she was still surprised that she was unharmed.
    She recognized the sharp, low car from last night, so markedly different from the trucks that usually chugged by on the old county road. Which meant... which meant...
    He’s returned! The grave-eyed man who came here last night!
    The paper forgotten, she materialized to Elancourt’s landing, overlooking the front entrance. She moved as if to clutch the sides of the window there, her arms floating outspread.
    And there sat his car in the drive.
    Won’t you move in? she’d wanted to beg last night as the man had examined the manor. He’d tested the columns, drawn sheets off some of the remaining furniture, and even yanked on the radiant heater in the main salon. Appearing satisfied that it was solid, he’d followed the contraption’s underfloor pipes by stomping on the marble tiles.
    The heater will work, she’d inwardly cried. Ten years ago, the manor had been modernized by a young couple who’d stayed for a time.
    Yet she couldn’t relate the merits of Elancourt to this mysterious stranger. Because she was a ghost. The act of speaking, or at least talking in a way that others could hear, had proved impossible for her, as had making herself visible to others.
    Which was probably for the best. Her reflection was haunting even to her. Though Néomi’s appearance was a close facsimile of how she’d looked the night she died—with the same dress and jewelry—now her skin and lips were as pale as rice paper. Her hair flowed wildly with rose petals tangled in it, and the skin under her eyes was darkened, making her irises seem freakishly blue in contrast.
    She focused on the car again. Deep masculine voices sounded from within it. Was there more than one man?
    Maybe there’d be two more “confirmed bachelors” like the handsome couple who had lived here during the fifties!
    Whoever was within the car needed to hurry inside. Autumn rains had been tentatively falling all night and lightning had begun flaring in a building rhythm. She hoped the men didn’t catch the front façade lit by the glow of lightning. With its arches and overhangs and stained glass, the manor could appear... forbidding.
    The very Gothic traits she’d admired seemed to drive others away.
    The vehicle began to rock from side to side on its wide wheels, and the voices grew louder. Then came a man’s bellow. Her lips parted when two large boots kicked through the back window, shattering it, glass spraying out into the gravel.
    Someone unseen hauled the booted man back inside, but then a rear door began to bulge outward. Were cars so weak in this age that a man could kick it out of shape? No, no, she’d dutifully read the crash test reports, and they said—
    The door shot off its hinges, all the way to the front porch. She gasped as a wild-eyed, crazed man lunged out of the vehicle. He was manacled at his wrists and ankles and covered in blood. He immediately fell into a deep slick of mud, only to be tackled by three men.
    One of them was her prospective tenant from last night.
    She saw then that they all were covered in blood—because the chained one was spitting it at them as he thrashed.
    “No... no!” he yelled, struggling not to enter the house. Could he possibly sense there was more here than could be seen? No one had