Driving north on the midtown connector from the airport, Alexandra marveled at the Atlanta skyline glowing brilliantly against the chalky evening sky. The gold dome of the state capitol building winked at her, while the red sun settled for the night behind the towering skyscrapers and luxury hotels.
“Olympic Drive, there you are!” she muttered aloud and flipped on her right turn signal. Gray clouds flocked like stained cotton around the tops of the city buildings that loomed ahead.
Easing off the interstate, Alexandra flipped on her headlights while the Jeep coasted down a dark ramp to a busy side street. A well-lit gas station beckoned on a corner ahead of her. She took her foot off the gas to slowly ease toward a traffic light.
Guiding the Jeep toward an empty gas pump, she slid her elbow over the door lock and smashed it downward. A couple of teenaged boys wearing baseball caps stood outside the gas station’s shop door, puffing on cigarettes. Neon beer signs smoldered in the windows.
Leering at Alexandra, the taller one slapped his friend’s chest and nodded his head toward her Jeep. She could hear his voice through her closed window as he walked closer.
“Are you lost, sweetheart? You need some directions? We can help you.” He motioned for Alexandra to open her window. Her fingers hovered over the keys still dangling in the ignition. The tall, skinny one speaking to her tapped on the window, while his shorter, acne-faced friend positioned himself squarely in front of her bumper and rested his hand on the hood of the car.
“We need a ride, sweetheart. Can you give us a ride?” the taller boy asked Alexandra, staring at her through the windshield. Her fingers gripped the keys in the ignition and turned them anxiously, but the engine stalled and sputtered. The boys refused to move out of her way. At that point, the shorter boy rested both arms on the hood and stared at her squarely through the windshield. He smirked while she fumbled with the keys. The engine hesitated and sputtered, then stalled again.
Her ears rang in a swell of panic and fury at the punks blocking the Jeep. With the windows closed, the temperature rose within the vehicle. The taller boy continued to tap on her window. As he did so, the ringing in her ears flatlined and spiked into a soaring roar. She heard a voice screaming urgently inside her head: They will hurt you. Hurt them. Hurt them before they hurt you.
“Who are you?” she screamed back to the voice. But that got her nothing but taunts from the boys. She remembered hearing that voice before, the time she got pushed into traffic at the intersection by the park.
Hurt them, the voice repeated, and this time she tried to oblige. One more turn of the keys in the ignition sparked the engine to life. She revved the gas pedal as a warning to the boys to move away from the car. Still refusing to move, the two boys scoffed at her through the windshield.
Go, advised the voice in her head. Go now.
When Alexandra revved the gas pedal once more, the smaller, acne-faced boy slid his hands back from the front of the hood and stood up straight, as if daring her to punch the gas. “You don’t know me very well, do you?” she shouted at him as her foot slammed against the gas pedal.
The Jeep launched forward. The kid dove out of the way, and her bumper brushed against his knee. Checking the rearview mirror, she saw the boys cursing and throwing empty cans at her bumper as she fled into the dark street, not even stopping to check for oncoming cars. Flooring the accelerator, she pushed the cranky old Jeep as fast as she could for a half a mile before an intersection forced her to slow down.
“Don’t turn red,” she told the traffic light dangling from a pole ahead of her. “Please don’t turn red,” she repeated, checking the rearview mirror.
The neon shimmer of the gas station faded in the distance behind her, and she could see no one else on the dimly lit street. Relieved that the boys had not tried to run after her, Alexandra turned her eyes back toward the road. Unexpectedly, a figure stepped from the sidewalk and directly into the path of her headlights.
“Oh no!” Alexandra screamed and crushed her foot against the brake. Her body slammed against the seat belt.
The Jeep had screeched to a halt just inside the crosswalk. Above her head, the light glowed red. The beams of her headlights illuminated the man’s tall figure as he squinted into the bright light. Black clothing covered his body, and what Alexandra was certain was a cape draped down the length of his back to his knees.
“Oh my God,” she said aloud with a nervous laugh, “I almost ran over Dracula.” Her eyes met the figure’s bewildered gaze, and recognition sparked between them.
“Miss Peyton!” she heard him shout.
“Callahan?” she yelled at him in disbelief.
“What are you doing here?” they asked each other at the same time.
The Jeep shuddered as Alexandra shoved the gearshift into park and threw open her door to greet him. A pair of oncoming headlights in the opposite lane slowed as they passed and illuminated Callahan’s figure in their glow. “So you’re rocking a cape tonight, Callahan. That is a bold fashion statement for this neighborhood,” she said, gaping at her teacher.
With her hands steadied on her hips in awe, Alexandra watched in speechless admiration as Callahan lifted his arms like wings and twirled once on his feet, the cape cascading around his form. “It is magnificent, is it not? I had it specially made for me by . . .”
“No, let me guess,” she interrupted. “It was hand-stitched by a family of little hobbits in Transylvania, right?”
“Hmm, I detect a bit of sarcasm in your voice,” he said accusingly. “You’re being silly. Every one knows that Transylvanian hobbits have a two-year waiting list for their capes. In fact, it was sewn by a family of leprechauns living in a cave in Ireland,” he explained while he flapped his arms up and down. “Would you like to check the tag here?” he asked flipping the garment label out from under his collar. “Look. It says made in Ireland. Dry clean only. Now do you believe me?” he asked, smiling.
“Dry clean only. Is that so you don’t wash the magic fairy dust off of it?” Alexandra asked.
“Precisely,” he agreed, laughing. “Now may I ask you a question?”
“Not until you tell me what you’re doing running around this neighborhood at night in a man-cape. You’re just lucky that I happened to ride by here to rescue you.”
“Rescue me? I am in no distress,” he protested.
“Are you sure about that, Callahan?” she teased. “Maybe you should get in the car.”
“I always wear my cape when I am hunting,” he pointed out.
“Okay, um, you need to get in the car,” Alexandra urged, climbing back into the driver’s seat as another set of oncoming headlights slowed to pass. “Please,” she coaxed, leaning over and fumbling to unlock the passenger door for him.
Grumbling objections under his breath, he lifted the door handle, and his body glided gracefully into the passenger seat beside her. “I know what I am doing, Miss Peyton. There is no need to rescue me, regardless of how ridiculous I may appear to you.”
“Lock your door,” she commanded and glanced up at the rearview mirror. “Buckle up, Dracula.”
Callahan’s fingers pressed down on the door lock, and Alexandra slammed her foot on the accelerator. Above them, the traffic light turned green as the car sped through the intersection, and Callahan gripped the dashboard in front of him.
“What are you hunting, Callahan?” Alexandra asked curiously.
“Are you sure you want to know?” he countered.
“Quite,” she assured him, pressing harder on the accelerator. “Furthermore, you’re going to have to give me some directions if you want me to take you home.”
“Turn right at this stop sign and then straight until I tell you to stop,” he told her. She pounded on the brake pedal and sent the Jeep into a fishtail swerve. This maneuver made him cover his eyes with his cape. “Does Collinsworth not have a driver’s education course for which you could possibly register next semester?” he asked, dropping the cape slowly from his eyes.
“No. Why?” she asked, turning right at the stop sign to a more brightly lit side street. “Straight ahead, Callahan?”
“Yes,” he gulped and tightened the seat belt around his chest.
Alexandra’s pace slowed the farther she drove down the quiet street. The homes offered glowing windows and wide, welcoming front porches.
“Shouldn’t you be wearing camouflage or something, instead of that costume, if you’re supposed to be hunting?” she asked.
“What costume?” he replied. “And why would I wear camouflage? That would be silly,” he insisted.
“So are you going to tell me?” Alexandra asked as they slowly passed each home. A couple swung quietly on a porch swing and waved politely.
“Perhaps,” he said, waving back at the couple.
“You were looking for something. What’s lurking in the shadows out here to draw you to the dark and dirty streets at night? And in a Dracula cape, no less?”
“Again with the cape, Miss Peyton? I think you’re jealous.”
“Yeah, I am,” she agreed sarcastically. “Do you think I could borrow it sometime?”
“Better than that. I have a spare at home that you may wear.”
“Will it make me invisible?”
“No, only cloaks can make you invisible, and mine is on back order.” He raised his fist defiantly to the air, saying, “Thanks to you, Harry Potter! Seriously though, Miss Peyton, do not make fun of the cape.”
“I’ll stop making fun of you when you answer my question.”
“You’ll at laugh me, I suspect, if I tell you.”
“Possibly, but it’s better than crying at this point.”
“Fine, then, Miss Peyton. The truth is I was pursuing the possible trail of a . . .” He hesitated to finish.
“Go on!” Alexandra encouraged him, exasperated. “There’s not much you could say that would shock me right now.”
“Okay, I was trailing a demon,” Callahan said.
Alexandra interrupted. “A demon? As in an evil spirit?”
“Precisely,” he noted, nodding his head. “They take many forms and go by many names; but I assure you, their power is real. This one is quite dangerous, because it is as determined as it is evil.”
“Is this the spirit that you said is stalking me?” asked Alexandra, her grin fading.
“I’m not sure,” he replied earnestly. “But there is no reason for you to be frightened.”
I wasn’t, until you told me that! She chewed on what was left of her right thumbnail.
“Pardon me, Callahan,” Alexandra said, rallying her senses. “But you sound like you’ve fallen off the crazy train.”
“I’m sure I do,” he laughed. “But you must believe me, Miss Peyton. Have I not already shown you that reality is more than what you can see through that windshield at this moment? You will see,” he assured her. “And you will assuredly believe me.”
“What if I don’t want to see?” Alexandra quipped.
“It’s too late for that, Miss Peyton. I have reason to believe you are the cause of this whole mess. I knew it from the first moment I saw you. Mr. Frost was quite right about you.”
“What?” she broke in.
“There is an aura that hovers around you. My trained eye can detect it rather keenly. I am not sure why you’re being hunted, but I am quite certain that you are.”
“Are you playing a game with me?” she demanded to know.
“No,” he assured her. “It’s a fact that you are being pursued by a demon.” He rolled down his window. “You have something that he wants; though what it is, I cannot say.” Callahan sniffed the air and pulled his head back inside the window.
“You’re the expert, Callahan,” she conceded with some sarcasm. “Is there anything else that I might need to know about crazy town before we arrive? I assume we’re almost there by now.”
“Miss Peyton,” he said, gazing at her face. “I stumbled across a most interesting and unexpected development this evening. Something else is out here,” he declared, turning to scan out the passenger window. “Something I’ve never encountered before. I believe it may have something to do with your necklace.”
Alexandra felt his eyes trying to gauge her expression; but her eyes remained steady on the road, her mind bemused by his words. “Do I still keep going straight?” she asked after a silent moment. “We’re getting close to the Collinsworth campus, I think; but I’m not sure in the dark.” She brought the car to a stop.
“Go forward until this road ends,” he directed. “I live near campus, on a street behind the old cemetery.”
“If you are looking for ghosts, or spirits, or whatever,” she queried, “then why did you wander tonight so far away from home? Don’t ghosts haunt graveyards?”
“I’m not hunting mere spirits anymore, Miss Peyton,” he whispered somberly. Their eyes locked in the dim street light.
A pair of bright headlights came up from behind the Jeep, illuminating their faces. A car horn blared for Alexandra to move.
“How rude,” Callahan declared. His eyes checked the passenger’s side rearview mirror. “American drivers can be so impatient.”
“Calm down,” she said. “It’s my fault. I did stop right in the middle of the road.”
Taking her foot off the brake, Alexandra tapped lightly on the accelerator. But the Jeep only sputtered forward a few inches, the engine hesitating and then dying. Panic gripped her, and she turned the key again in the ignition. A wave of relief washed over her when the engine turned over and stammered back to life. Behind them, the car horn blared again as she tapped the gas pedal. That is when the old hunk of metal coughed and died beneath her.
“Why doesn’t he just drive around us?” Callahan fussed as the car horn assaulted them once more. “That’s it. His poor manners deserve an etiquette lesson,” decided Callahan, opening the passenger door.
“No!” Alexandra shouted behind him. “Come back, Callahan.” But it was too late; he was already walking away. Shutting her eyes, she covered her face with her hands. She hoped that when she opened her eyes back up, that it had all been a dream. But when she opened her eyes, she saw flashing blue lights illuminating Callahan’s tall form. He was raising his cape to shield his eyes from the piercing beam. “Put your hands on the hood,” said a booming voice from a speaker in the patrol car.
Alexandra’s heart raced.
“Get out of the car and put your hands on the hood,” commanded the police officer, stepping from his patrol car to the street.
Dutifully, Alexandra opened her door and stepped to the asphalt gingerly, as if at any moment her legs might give way beneath the weight of her body. She glanced at Callahan, his arms spread wide across the hood of her car, and she mimicked his stance. “You look like you’ve done this before,” she surmised.
“Once or twice at most,” he answered, winking at her. “Don’t worry, Miss Peyton. I’ll handle it.”
“That’s what I am afraid of, Callahan,” she confessed, her eyes glued to the Jeep’s hood.
The door of the patrol car opened and a tall, muscular police officer, his blond hair shaved short to his scalp, stepped out of his patrol car and approached her bumper. He ran his flashlight across her face and over Callahan’s draped body.
“What is this all about, young man?” Callahan asked, raising his hands from the hood and stepping toward the officer.
“Get down,” the officer yelled, shining his flashlight directly into Callahan’s eyes.
Obeying the officer, Callahan once more spread his arms across the hood.
“We got a call about some suspicious activity by a Jeep that matches the description of this one,” the officer answered, trailing his flashlight across the vehicle.
“The couple on the porch,” Alexandra mumbled quietly as she glanced back down the street.
“Are you guys out partying tonight, or do you two always dress like this?” he asked, approaching Alexandra. “Let me see your driver’s license, young lady.”
“It’s in my book bag in the back,” Alexandra told him, nodding her chin in the direction of the windshield, careful not to lift her hands from the Jeep.
“It’s okay. You can get it,” the officer said.
She walked toward the open driver’s door and leaned in to reach her book bag behind the driver’s seat. In her skirt pocket, the unexpected ringing of her cell phone startled her. “Taylor,” she read the name aloud.
Ignoring the call, she shoved the phone into her book bag and searched through her wallet for her driver’s license. Leaning vulnerably into the floorboard of her Jeep, Alexandra winced as the officer’s flashlight flickered across her scratched knees and then back again to the bruise on the side of her face.
“Here it is,” Alexandra announced, yanking her driver’s license from her wallet.
The officer reached out for the plastic card in her hand. As his fingertips grazed Alexandra’s outstretched palm, a surge of heat ran through her arm. Flashing through her head was a vision of a pretty teenaged girl with long, brown hair, reclining half-clothed and lifeless in a pile of leaves.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Alexandra said and dropped to her knees.
“Miss Peyton,” shouted Callahan behind her.
“Hold still, cowboy,” demanded the officer. “Stay where you are and keep your hands where I can see them.” Bending down, the officer put his hand on her back to steady her, as Alexandra swayed back and forth, fighting to keep from passing out. “Are you all right?” he asked in her ear. “If there is something going on that you need to tell me about, say it now so that I can help you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she told him, clutching her stomach. “I was just driving slowly to make sure I found the right street. Then my car died.”
“How much have you had to drink tonight?” he asked, quickly surveying the front seat of the Jeep.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Where did you get those?” he asked, pointing to the blue bruises on her face and legs. “Did he do this to you?”
“No,” she said and forced herself to her feet. “He didn’t do anything. I fell when a dog chased me. That’s all, I swear.”
Through the open door of her Jeep, Alexandra heard her phone ring again. Startled, she jumped backward. As her feet hit the ground, her heel slipped, and her backside landed hard against the pavement. “See?” she offered, looking up at the officer. “I’m really clumsy.”
The officer provided his hand to help her off the ground. But she hesitated to accept, her head still reeling from the foggy vision of the dead teen.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Sucking in a deep breath, she grabbed his hand and shut her eyes tightly to brace herself for whatever she might see. With their hands entwined, a flash of heat surged down her arm and shot through her body.
She was suddenly aware that she was standing during the very late afternoon on a densely wooded path, strewn with fallen red, orange, and brown leaves. Watching from behind the young police officer’s eyes, Alexandra saw that ahead of her lay a teenaged girl on the ground, her body partially covered in autumn leaves. Eyes forever closed to world around her, she looked as if she could have been asleep. Her porcelain skin bore no traces of makeup except for smudges of pink lip gloss around her silent lips. A soft breeze blew the dry leaves around her chest and bare legs.
A blue blazer with a prep-school emblem lay by the body, folded neatly, as if she would soon wake up and put it back on after her nap. As Alexandra stared down at the peaceful face, a man stepped up beside the girl’s lifeless body. She knew this man might be the coroner, because he knelt to feel for a pulse in the girl’s neck and shook his head.
With the sun setting behind her back, she stepped toward the folded blazer and turned her flashlight’s beam upon the crest sewn into the fabric.
“Alexandra!” a voice called to her through the darkness.
She ignored the call to come back. Instead, she struggled to read the letters on the crest: Whitfield. She knew that name. It was the all-girl’s academy. She had declined a place there when Collinsworth had offered her a full scholarship.
“Alexandra,” the voice demanded again. She felt a nudge on her shoulder.
The vision dissolved as uncontrollably as it had begun, leaving her body shivering with fear.
“Here you go, Alexandra,” said a voice in the darkness. A grip tightened around the top of her arm.
Her eyes fluttered open, and the police officer braced Alexandra from collapsing to the ground.
“Thank you,” he said, handing back her driver’s license.
Who was she? Alexandra wondered, the image of the girl still sharp in her mind.
Shoving the license in her skirt pocket, Alexandra forced a smile. But she could not shake away the stark vision of the dead girl. She swooned, her trembling legs giving way beneath her. Her body landed on the jagged, concrete street curb.
“I’ll call for an ambulance,” the officer said, kneeling beside her and lifting her head gently off the ground.
“Is she hurt?” Callahan asked.
“I’ve got it, Dracula,” the officer told him. “Stand back.”
“No,” Alexandra protested quietly, rolling her head back and forth. “I’m okay.”
“You should listen to the officer,” insisted Callahan, crouching beside her.
“I’m fine,” she said, pushing the officer away. Alexandra forced herself to stand up on her wobbly legs. She brushed away what had clung to her skirt from the fall: dead leaves and a candy-bar wrapper. The officer retreated to his patrol car.
“Please don’t call anyone,” Alexandra wearily entreated.
“Dispatch, come in,” the officer called on his car radio. “Officer Scott. Ten fifty-one; assist motorist owner Alexandra Peyton. We need a tow truck northbound on Edgeland Street, just north of the intersection with Dale Road. That’s a Jeep, tag AWB forty-five sixty. Copy.”
A sharp voice repeated through the speaker, “Copy ten fifty-one, assist motorist. A tow truck is on its way to just north of Edgeland and Dale.”
Behind her eyes burned the image of the girl on the wooded path. Who was she? When had it happened?
The officer approached from his patrol car.
Callahan was now hovering at her side with his hand on her shoulder. He bent to whisper into her ear. “What did you see?”
“Well, a dead girl,” Alexandra said flatly. “She looked about my age. I saw her so clearly. I understand now what you meant when you said that you see more than you want to know.”
Callahan wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “My dear, this is only the beginning.”
Lucky me, she grimaced.
The young officer approached, and she made note of the name sewn above the pocket on his uniform.
“M. Scott,” she read aloud.
“Yes ma’am, that’s me,” he said, amused.
“What does the M stand for, officer?” Alexandra pried.
He hesitated. “It’s kind of embarrassing, ma’am.”
A smile broadened across her face. “Please tell me,” she cajoled.
“Marion,” he said shyly.
From inside his car, the radio crackled and with intensity, a dispatcher announced: “Attention all units. Forty-four P. Forty-four in progress in sector nine. All available units proceed to Gary’s Gas and Go. All units. Forty-four P. Proceed to Gary’s Gas and Go.”
Officer Marion Scott glanced at Callahan’s arms around Alexandra. “If you folks need anything else, I won’t be far,” he offered quickly. “Stay in your car and lock the doors until the tow truck comes, okay? It shouldn’t take long.”
Slamming his patrol car door shut, he flipped on the blue lights and siren. The car pulled away from the curb; and after a screeching U-turn, the officer raced back up the street.
Alexandra twirled the dragon medallion in her fingers and gazed at the blue lights of the police car until they faded into the distance. “You can only see the past, Callahan? Not the future?”
“Yes, Miss Peyton, I have only ever been able to see the past. Why?” he asked.
“The girl I saw was probably my age, maybe younger and very pretty, resting back in a pile of leaves. She looked like she was asleep, except for a trail of blood that ran from the corner of her mouth down her chin. She looked so peaceful,” Alexandra said burying her face into his chest. A tear trickled down her cheek. “She looked like she could have been sleeping. I have not seen a dead person before.”
He pushed her chin upwards. “Don’t be afraid, Alexandra. Your powers are awakening.”
The echo of a distant thunderstorm rumbled above them in the night sky. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her chest as she spied a large pair of headlights chugging closer toward them.