“Why, Mr. Stricken, ever the gentleman.” The Master vampire floated inside. “Just a polite heads up, but there’s a shoggoth that just crawled out of the ocean and its lumbering this way.”
“Oh, he’s no concern. That’s just my next appointment.”
She sat on the couch next to him. An unnatural chill pushed away the tropical air. Most people would flinch with such a deadly predator so close, but Stricken routinely dealt with far worse. “All those lies. Is it hard to keep them all straight?”
“It takes a lot of work, but I’ve got a lot of practice.” He held out the bottle. “Care for a drink?”
Her fangs were very white in the dark. “Not my vintage.”
He poured her one anyway. “The thing is, Mrs. Shackleford—”
“Please, just Susan.” She took the glass from him.
“Of course, Susan. I keep everything straight because I have to. Earth is about to become the battleground between some very nasty groups, and mankind is stuck in the middle. The stakes don’t get any higher than this. It makes for a complex, but very interesting game. Saving the world is a nasty business, but somebody has to do it.”
The vampire lifted her drink. “To saving the world then.”
They clinked their glasses together. “To saving the world.”
Monster Hunter Nemesis - eARC Page 42