Heart of the Dead: Vampire Superheroes (Perpetual Creatures Book 1) by Gabriel Beyers

whispered to herself. That much was sure. It was a long time before she found the strength to stand and walk out of the forest.
    Jerusa didn’t go directly home. It suddenly felt too small, too constrictive. Instead, she drifted down the path like a wandering nomad. Truth was, she felt drunk or what she imagined drunk to be. Her mind was lost in a sea of thoughts, a sea tossed by the storm of recent events. Between Thad asking her to prom, Foster giving his house to her, and the enigmatic Silvanus appearing and disappearing like a character from a fairy-tale, Jerusa felt knocked off balance, emotionally dizzy. One would think that a girl who had been near death her whole life, a girl who could see and commune with ghosts, could take such events with a grain of salt.
    Her life had been touched, altered somehow. The window through which she watched the world had had a little of the dirt wiped from the panes, giving her a less obstructed view.
    The sun stood well into the west, nestled behind the trees, bathing Jerusa in long, heavy shadows while illuminating the robust gray cumuli that swam above.
    She wondered if Alicia had ever traveled up to the clouds, perched upon them and witnessed the complex living world spinning beneath her. Or was she bound by gravity in spirit just as she had been in the flesh? She wondered if Alicia had the ability to cross over to the next plain of existence, or was she Earth-bound against her will?
    A dark and depressing thought invaded Jerusa’s mind. Perhaps Alicia wasn’t so much bound to the Earth as she was bound to Jerusa.
    She glanced over at the ghost in a prom dress skipping along beside her. She opened her mouth to ask, but the words wouldn’t come. There were some things Jerusa just didn’t want to know.
    As evening drew close and the sun painted the clouds orange and pink, Jerusa decided to turn for home. A deep weariness seeped into her muscles, tickling her bones. She knew now that she really had been drunk on Silvanus’s presence. Something about the man had spiked her adrenaline, and now that the euphoria was washed away, she was crashing.
    As Jerusa approached her house, the pregnant clouds swallowed the sun, casting the world in an eerie green twilight. The sky reminded Jerusa so much of Silvanus’s eyes that it caused a shudder to overtake her. Thunder crackled through the clouds in response.
    Jerusa stepped inside just as the heavy clouds delivered their watery brood. She felt blessed to have timed the weather so perfectly. She wanted nothing more than to collapse onto her bed and sleep, but her mother was home from work and would be expecting dinner.
    Jerusa found Debra Phoenix sitting at the kitchen table. Jerusa rallied herself up, planning to greet her mother with a kiss and a smile. Much was about to change in their relationship, and she wanted to make peace with her mother before it came about. But as she approached the table, she realized this was a moot point.
    Her mother sat drumming her fingers on the table, her long nails clicking on the polished wood like rattling bones. Her mouth was downturned, her jaw clenched tight. A smoldering fire brewed in her dark eyes and seemed to break free when she caught sight of Jerusa.
    Lightning flashed outside and the following thunder rattled the windows.
    “What’s wrong?” Jerusa asked.
    “Do you care to explain this?” her mother asked in a near hiss. She pulled a large white envelope from off of her lap and shook it at Jerusa as if it were a proclamation of war. “Would you mind explaining just why exactly that freak , Foster Reynolds, is giving you his house?”

Chapter Eight
    W hen the rain finally fell near dusk it came in a sudden rush, tearing through the forest with a lasting roar. Silvanus sat high in the canopy of the trees, more than a hundred yards off the path. The rain seemed more sheets than droplets, still his keen eyesight was able to penetrate the watery shield. Lightning and thunder chased each