by Mary Hughes
“What do you hunt?”
“Big game.”
“In Meiers Corners?” One black brow rose, arched with graceful disbelief.
I had no prepared answer for that. But by his sharp black gaze, he wasn’t going to let me off. I mumbled, “Vampires?” Hopefully he’d think it was a joke, although my sense of humor was what Rey kindly referred to as stunted.
“Ah.” He smiled.
Oh heavens, that smile. It hit me like a fist of pure male perfection.
And suddenly I was transported to Dallas, five years ago—when the vampire king’s smile had demolished me. When he’d kissed me.
Late at night, hunting alone, I’d been jumped by two dozen bloodsuckers. Fear-electrified blood singing through my veins, I chose to go out in a fury of pure attack. But there were too many. They grabbed me, grinning, about to end me.
And then came a bull roar.
“Halba!”
That halt was so potent and hair-raising it turned my legs to pegs and the gang of vamps to statues.
A giant flickered in the far shadows, flickered again—and loomed, enormous, over the rogues.
Black karate pants circled lean, muscled hips. An unbuttoned dark shirt revealed a slit of bronzed, stunningly strong torso. Black hair framed blood-red eyes. And his face…
Most vampires’ skin hardened in battle into red-leather plates. This monster’s steely mask brandished fearful spikes, like a Samurai’s mempo face plate. Beautifully, primally terrifying.
A king’s mask. I’d never forget it.
He slashed his way toward me, surprisingly graceful, his open black shirt billowing around him as he whirled in his deadly ballet. An intriguing ripple of muscles flashed in the opening.
Liquid heat stirred in my pelvis, startling the hell out of me.
He cut down the last rogue. His dance came to a standstill—before me. His burning gaze locked onto mine.
My insides erupted in bright hunger…I mean terror.
“I’m a vampire hunter.” I snarled it at myself as much as at him. “I kill bloodsucking monsters.” I reared back with Joyce and stabbed.
The king vampire caught the blade. Not trapping the flat between his palms. He grabbed the point—with whole hands. His skin resisted my blade.
Shock electrified me.
“What makes a monster?” His voice, when he wasn’t bellowing, was as smooth and golden as basswood honey. It flowed, warm, teasing, into my flesh, turning my muscles soft, yielding.
“Bloodsucker,” I spat. “It’s all there in the name. Drinks helpless people dry.”
“Ah. You hate vampires who abuse humans. So do I.” His lips, the only mobile things in his mask besides his eyes, tipped in a slight smile. Dusky rose in his bronzed, hardened skin, those lips were hot-damned edible.
My breath began to saw in rasping pants.
He was barely breathing hard. Each lift of his chest parted his shirt, hinting at his pectorals’ deep valley and the march of truly spectacular abdominals.
Lust slid, long and liquid, through me.
Ignited when his searing-hot masculine fingers brushed my face. Wild heat roared through my trembling body. My heart, already hammering, kicked into overdrive. I lifted toward him, insanely wanting to plaster my mouth to his.
He bent, lips parting. Oh, yes. My racing blood thudded in my ears, a thunderstorm raging in my brain. So much wild energy pulsed through me, my hair seemed to rise from the overload.
His lips met mine.
Not quite a kiss, not really. Skin barely brushed skin. Yet all the adrenaline zinging inside me exploded. My body short-circuited, a hundred forked bolts hitting the grid. And I wanted more.
Then, with a low, almost inaudible growl, his body blew into smoke and streamed away.
Was Ryker…?
Can’t be. His smile was the same as the vampire king’s, but though I’d never seen the king without his mask, I’d surely recognize him. Besides, Ryker didn’t have the requisite fangs or red eyes, even when tipping the vampire’s head.
And he’d bandaged my cut. No, not the king.
“What kind of vampires do you hunt?” Ryker asked, smile still flirting with those gorgeous lips.
Aware of suckers or just humoring the crazy lady? I tried, “The king.”
That arched brow winged high. “I’m searching for the king, too.”
“Really?” Wow. Not just humoring the crazy lady. Was he a vampire hunter as well as a PI? The possibility made me bounce on my toes. I hadn’t hunted with anyone since my mentor, Max. “Hey, here’s a zany idea. Why don’t we hunt together?”
A strange expression crossed Ryker’s face, an almost aching longing. Yearning, frosted with pain.
“C’mon. It’ll be fun.” I reached out to touch him.
“Fun?” He jerked straight, his gaze going stony. “No thanks.”
Snatching up his pack, he slung it over one strong shoulder and strode away.
My heart squeezed a confused beat. That “no thanks,” that rigid stride, clearly said back off.
Yet for an instant, he’d seemed so torn. Perversely, I wanted to run after him to find out what was wrong.
But I don’t deal well with drama, especially my own. The best salve in the world is work, and I had a job to do.
Unsheathing my dagger, I knelt beside the headless rogue. If his heart healed, his body might go walkies, searching for its head. I usually staked ’em to make sure that didn’t happen.
Tonight, I didn’t have a stake, as most of my weapons were packed for transport. Hammering Angel into the sucker’s chest with a sword hilt, I resolved to come back later with a stake.
Since normal people on seeing a dead body would freak, I dragged the rogue’s parts into the shadows of a building. I should have zipped the sucker into one of my special plastic garbage bags with “CDC (hazardous waste)” pasted on to discourage the terminally curious. A hole in the bag let dawn reduce the sucker to ash. Vampires were physical monsters, not magical or cursed. They reflected fine in mirrors, and I’d never seen one fly, though they got the heebie-jeebies from water. A cross didn’t burn them, but the sun worked just fine.
But the bags were packed, too. Rey had packed everything, insisting I carry no weapons, as my fully stocked vest would create a bad first impression on my newfound relations.
Speaking of Rey, she was parked at the opposite corner of Third and Adams, under a banner stretched across the street reading, “Welcome to Oktoberfest!” She’d seen everything, including Ryker, probably even spotting his bare ring finger with her eagle-sharp eyes. I reluctantly plodded to my doom.
Sure enough, as I heaved myself inside, she asked brightly, “Who was that man?”
We started off. I said, “A guy.”
“A guy,” Rey repeated, tone dry.
“A private investigator,” I said grudgingly, trying to forestall the sisterly meddling that was coming. “Name of Ryker.”
“He seemed nice.” Another here-it-comes pause. “You don’t often meet nice men in your line of work. He didn’t freak at the sucker.”
“Yeah. He didn’t have… What’s the word?” To most humans…er, normal people, vampires were the creation of overactive imaginations and CGI. Even if said normal had survived meeting one. Especially if they’d met one. “The word that means people can’t face living in a world where monsters exist, therefore monsters aren’t real?”
“Cognitive dissonance.” My sister smiled. Rey had been through a lot of therapy courtesy of the vampire attack.
I preferred a more direct, sharp-bladed cure.
“Maybe…” She pulled up in front of a nice tidy flat on West Eighth and Eisenhower, my home-to-be. But she didn’t turn off the engine. Oh, boy. A doozy was coming. “Maybe you should get to know him.”
“Why?” I stared
at my new base of operations. Cleaning an area of bloodsuckers usually took me a few weeks, and, like a Florida timeshare, it was easier and cheaper to rent a place.
“He’d be someone to talk with about vampires. Beside your online hunter friends.”
That snapped my attention toward her. “What’s wrong with my friends?”
“Nothing.” She shrugged. “But online friends can’t give you flesh-and-blood hugs.”
“That’s your job, Rey. Besides, he’s not interested. He walked away from me. And I have other things on my mind.”
Heavy, nameless-dready things.
Oh, no, wait. It had a name. Stieg.
Rey gently patted my hand. “Connecting with your birth family is good for you, Kat.”
“Right.” I rolled my shoulders. Rey had been saying that since the Stiegs had contacted me. I didn’t want to disappoint my sister, but the attack that had cut my living family in half had made me a bit gun-shy of all things huggy and kissy. “I’m here, aren’t I? Let’s get my stuff inside so you can get home sometime before midnight.”
I unloaded my scooter, my weapons chest, and my sea bag. Unpacking took half an hour. Rey and I toasted my new digs with a glass of grape juice.
I shrugged out of my slashed hoodie. “Can I catch a ride back?”
“You have to go out again?”
“Yeah, I have to finish the job.” I changed into my leathers, starting with the long-sleeve, tight-legged cat suit. I’d recommend it for anyone wanting optimal protection and movement. Although, be sure to google for the assassin-style suit. It’s more likely to have pockets—and a crotch.
I took extra care wrapping on my neck protector. Steel-toed boots and my weapons vest completed the ensemble. Daggers and shuriken slotted in my vest. Stakes went in loops circling my ribs above my waist, like a deadly wood-and-metal fringe.
Rey took me back along Eisenhower. At Third, I stopped her from turning south.
“I’ll walk. It’s only a couple blocks.”
I hugged her goodbye and jumped out. She continued east on Eisenhower.
I stood there until her taillights disappeared, then sighed and headed south. She was only an hour away, in Chicago. We’d been farther apart often enough. But saying goodbye was always hard.
The vampire’s head and body were right where I’d left them, two shadowy lumps beside the brick building.
Cautiously, I checked three-sixty. Nobody around. Whew. Made it in time. No scarred locals tonight.
Before I staked the sucker, I’d need to recover Angel. I knelt beside the body, grabbed the dagger’s handle, and wiggled it out.
A woman shrieked behind me.
“A body!”
Chapter Two
The ancient vampire Enkidu stalked toward the Caffeine Cafe, a local 24-hour coffee bar. No, he needed to think of himself as Ryker now. Irritation buzzed his nerves. Not because of the name change. He’d had many names over the millenniums, so taking another wasn’t the problem. But he’d done it because of her. No female had ever got under his skin that fast.
Damn it, he was meeting dangerous adversaries and had to have his head on straight. Yet all he could think about was Kat.
He’d been staking out the cafe when his preternatural hearing picked up a woman’s shout, the squeal of brakes, and the unmistakable sound of an attacking rogue.
Ryker didn’t hold with lip-service morality. His personal code was the same in both the saying and the doing. Protect the innocent. Be kind to those in need. Take the smug down a peg or two. Rogues attacking women hit all three.
Misting toward the sounds, the short-lived, dissipated state the fastest form of vampire travel, he’d collapsed solid only to see Kat lunging into trouble.
He’d recognized her instantly as the woman he’d met five years ago in Dallas, saving her from a gang of rogues. She hadn’t recognized him tonight, no doubt because he’d been masked in facial plate then. But she’d made an impression on him. Facile with swords, slender yet lithely muscled—she wasn’t cookie-cutter beautiful, but she had a remarkable, attractive strength to her face and form. In Dallas, he’d been intrigued by her and had paused for a brief touch of lips…and had been astonished at an insanely strong surge of desire, the need to take her, to keep her. He’d misted away before he’d done anything so stupid.
Tonight, her sword flashing like an avenging Valkyrie, she’d made surprisingly tidy work of the rogue—for a human. He’d only jumped in when she needed an assist, telling himself he’d have done it for anybody in trouble.
He hadn’t needed to plate up, which was just as well. Most civilized vampires pretended to be human—preternatural speed and strength hadn’t protected them from pitchforks and torches, and it certainly wouldn’t shield them against anti-tank weapons and drones.
In this case, there was a more pressing reason. He couldn’t remind Kat they’d met before, no matter how much he wanted to. He was emphatically human right now; he had to be. He was in the city of his enemies, vampires who were too smart, too resourceful. They’d use any excuse to eliminate him with extreme prejudice.
Not a problem, if it were only him. But the safety of his best friend hung in the balance as well.
While tending to Kat, he’d flustered her. Strong as nails, but speaking rattled her. Adorable. He’d delayed coming back here to enjoy bantering with her.
Then she’d used the word together.
Never again.
He reached the cafe and circled it. No traps in evidence. Easing into a walkway between buildings, he snatched up a stone, aimed for the single bulb lighting the area, and threw. Glass shattered. The light died.
In the now-dark walkway, he opened his pack and took out his disguise for tonight. Button-down uniform shirt. Blue trousers. Shiny black shoes. Police duty belt.
The uniform of the human Officer Keydew.
A flex of will morphed his body into the slender form of Keydew, Ryker’s snug sweater and thin pants collapsing around Keydew’s thinner frame. He’d learned misting at one hundred years past the grave and shape-changing at one thousand, as all vampires did. But he took it one step further. He was the only one of his kind who could change his apparent mass, the color of his eyes and hair, and even alter his scent.
Ryker smiled. He’d worn many faces and names over time, but Keydew was fast becoming his favorite. In his normal form, he was over seven feet tall, black haired, and had the subtle sweet-earth smell of a vampire. As Officer Keydew, he was tall but skinny, blond, and smelled entirely human. A bumbling inconsequential, passing right beneath the noses of his vampire adversaries.
He tucked his gray knit around Keydew’s thinner body then slid the blue shirt on over it. As a plus, the extra material made him appear slightly rumpled, like Columbo.
As he buttoned himself into his uniform, his thoughts wandered to Kat again, as it had too many times while he was supposed to be checking for traps.
She’s not special. He tried to convince himself she was simply another innocent he’d gone to bat for in Dallas all those years ago. After all, Kat didn’t have the sense the queen of heaven, Inanna, gave an infant. Overrun by a gang of vampires, any normal human would’ve shat themselves or run. She had gone in with sword blazing. Innocent, or daring? Or psychotic.
A smile lifted his lips. They all appealed to him. She appealed to him, with her seductive alto, her spiky blond hair tipped in black, her warrior’s gaze, her eyes so blue they were like the horizon brightening with dawn.
Most of all, her wild, fiery nature called to something equally elemental in him. But he worked alone. He cursed as he donned the blue uniform pants, adjusting Ryker’s thin slacks underneath to fit. He had to focus on the upcoming meeting. Shoving his minimalist-shoe-clad feet into Keydew’s duty oxfords, he laced. Another flex of will informed his cells of his desire to wear a human scent, blond hair, and b
lue eyes.
Odd, though, that Kat was hunting the vampire king just here, just now.
Meiers Corners was the last place the king, his best friend Kai Elias, had been—before he went missing.
Hiding the first-aid supplies, Ryker wadded up the backpack and stashed it in one of his duty belt’s pouches then traipsed out of the walkway on Keydew’s thin legs.
He caught sight of his reflection in the cafe’s front window and paused, adjusting his collar. The first time he’d toyed with morphing into people, he’d stood before a flattened metal mirror like this, in ancient Egypt.
Naturally he’d picked Elias. After several tries, he’d managed to mold himself into the likeness of his best friend…and worst enemy, so perhaps “brother” was the better term.
Elias was at that time Pharaoh, and Ryker, just for grins and giggles, took the Pharaoh’s place on the throne.
He’d only lasted for an hour before his brother returned—but what an hour. He smiled in memory, his reflection’s thin pink lips curving in a childlike grin. Demanding oxen eggs, ordering the palace painted a lurid shade of puce. And the showstopper, immediate freeing of all slaves. Oh, the number of people falling all over themselves, trying to placate the bizarre requests of their god-king.
When Pharaoh had returned to find his smoothly running palace in chaos, he’d beheaded Ryker. Not that it killed him permanently, being a vampire. But it hurt. Though the expression on his brother’s face had been beyond priceless.
The same brother whose last message was so troubling.
If you’re seeing this, I’m caught or dead.
A snarl of unease ate at him. Damn. Elias was the one person who’d marched down the millenniums with him. The only one who stuck.
The only one he’d brave a lair of hostile vampires for.
He squared his shoulders. His brother was going to owe him big for this.
Officer Keydew settled his hat, two-handed, on his blond head and gave it a wiggle to make sure it was seated. Then, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, he approached the cafe’s front door, whistling.