"This is my home, and you're trespassing."
Mitch spun at the sound. The voice echoed in the massive foyer of the mansion. "Who’s there?" He asked.
"This is my home. Has been so for over a century."
Now Mitch knew he was speaking with someone—as yet, an unseen someone. It was twilight, his eyes adjusting to the fast-darkening room, but even as his gaze swept the shadowed corners and doorways, he'd yet to locate the stranger. A stubborn one, at that. "Whoever you are, wherever you are. I own the deed. It’s legal and binding."
A soft chuckling magnified from anywhere and nowhere. Chills ran a line down Mitch’s spine.
A dangerously threatening timbre followed. "It matters not to me. I am the sole resident; I've no intention of vacating."
Mitch detected a slight European accent in the man’s speech. "Show yourself," he demanded.
"Soon."
"What are you waiting for?"
As if the walls themselves expanded and abated with the man’s sigh, he answered, "I wait for Rachel."
"My Rachel?"
"Mine!" the voice bellowed. "I've waited lifetimes for her. And tonight..." he growled, "Tonight she is mine."
Rage filled Mitch with equal force. He'd do murder before he let some skulking coward near his woman.
A whooshing sound reverberated, and the man materialized before his eyes. Cloaked in trousers and dress shirt, he cut a dashing figure, even to Mitch’s ultra-hetero preference.
"If you test my patience, it will not be you who kills this night," the man ground out.
Instinct cautioned Mitch to show no weakness. Narrowing the space between them, he asked, "You think I won't kill you?"
Admiration crossed the man’s face. "You can try," he replied. The inflection left his eyes. "But you cannot kill the undead, my mortal friend." A flash of razor-sharp incisors shone in the full moon’s light.
A Vampire! Mitch cursed silently. He hadn't encountered one since childhood. Now he stood facing a formidable one. Hatred consumed him. "You've met your match, ghoul," he seethed.
The creature lunged as Mitch drove his wood-carved fountain pen into its heart. He took pleasure in the howl of pain bouncing off the walls.
Sinking to his knees, the fiend’s face was a mask of stunned disbelief.
"That won't kill you," Mitch assured regretfully. "But it serves me well to extend a warning of my own." He bent, staring into soulless eyes. "Hear this, vampire. I'm not to be trifled with, either. Stay clear of me and mine, or the next stake I plunge into you will end your very existence."
He stood, but his booted foot pressed the pen, plunging it deeper into the flesh. "Be gone before I return. This is my home, and you're trespassing." Mitch turned and strode out the door, knowing he was safe—for the moment.
He had to walk away, find Rachel, and live to fight another day. Taking on a vampire—even an incapacitated one—with no weapons was a fool’s errand. And he was no fool.
