Free Vampire in the Woods (Merlin's Hoods Book 2) by Carl Waters Page A

wouldn’t know the truth until they found the creatures. Or Geoff himself.
    They dashed through the forest, making faster time than Louis and Geoff would have done, hours earlier. She suspected that they hadn’t been moving as quickly as they should have. She further suspected that they wouldn’t have taken her warning as seriously as they should have. Louis had said that Geoff was concerned, and Angeline had no doubt that left to his own devices, Geoff would have made his way straight home. Louis, though, had ever had an adventurous spirit, and liked to think himself fearless. He would have dawdled, she thought, and perhaps even challenged Geoffrey to do the same.
    The smaller boy had never had the strongest will, and she’d seen him give in to Louis before. This time, she feared, had been no different. And it might well have cost Geoffrey his life. Or worse.
    “We were at the split in the path, just as you thought,” Louis huffed, drawing up beside her. “I’d said that I was in no hurry to get home, but you know Geoff—he wanted to follow your orders to the letter. He told me I was a fool and turned and started down the path to his own cottage. I stood there and watched him go, thinking him … ” His voice broke slightly as he remembered. “Thinking him a coward,” he finished. “I thought him cowardly for not wanting to fight whatever was out there, and now … now that’s the last thing I’ve thought as I watched him walk away. What if this is all my fault?”
    Angeline stopped abruptly and took Louis’s arm. “It is not your fault. This is the work of evil beings beyond our control. It was cruel, what you said to him, but the best thing you can do now is help me find him. Find him, and all will be forgiven. I’m sure of it. Show me where you last saw him.”
    For they’d reached the break in the path, and she could already see signs of some sort of scuffle on the path ahead of them—the one that would have led Geoff to his home, and safety.
    “There,” Louis confirmed, pointing a place where the path twisted slightly. “I watched him until he hit the turn, and then I went toward my own path. I left him.” Again his voice broke, and Angeline felt almost guilty for having given the boy such a hard time. He couldn’t help his own nature, after all, and if he was responsible for sending Geoffrey into a bad situation … Well, the guilt alone would be more punishment than she thought Louis could take.
    “Pray that he’s just got lost, and that we’ll find him hidden in a tree somewhere,” she said comfortingly. She lifted her eyes and met Piers’ gaze, however, and saw the fear and truth there.
    With a slight nod, she acknowledged it. The idea that he was merely lost was a comforting one, but she didn’t believe it any more than Piers did. Geoff had grown up in this forest. And he was far too familiar with it to have become lost, even in the middle of the night. Someone or something had taken him, and as she ran along the path and began to study the footsteps and marks, she could see that it had been a violent meeting.
    The leaves in the path were scuffed, as if Geoffrey had come to an abrupt stop and then scuttled backward when he encountered something he didn’t like. Ducking down, she traced the footprints. He’d stood here for a mere moment, she saw—not even long enough to sink deeply into the moss on the stones. Then he’d turned and run, right into the forest.
    Before she could think too long on it, she was running after him, her eyes scanning the ground as she followed his trail. Louis and Piers crashed after her, but she ignored them, her thoughts only for Geoff. He’d run haphazardly, she realized as she followed the trail. From one tree to the next, stopping every so often in a bush. A couple of times, it looked like he’d even tried to climb the trees, to get away from whatever followed him.
    And here was the strange aspect, for Angeline had tracked many animals and never seen