Hunter of the Dead
Page 33
“I think you’ve succeeded then.”
“I can grant you death. Or…”
She trailed off. Price looked up at the arrested figure of the armored giant. He seemed, if anything, at peace. In an instant, everything became clear to Price.
He saw her in the shadows. He saw in me a successor. She has no idea about any of it.
“You can grant me the Long Gift.”
She cocked her head.
“Is that what you want?”
He smiled.
“You know…I think it was Cicatrice’s last wish that I join you.”
“But is it yours?”
A lifetime unfurled before his eyes. A dozen lifetimes. Chasing down nightcrawlers into the deepest, darkest corners of the earth. Becoming a boogeyman beyond all reason to the most powerful beings in existence. A lonely, solitary, maddening existence. But one where he could finally do some good. And prove that smarmy Bonaparte wrong once and for all.
“Do it.”
He felt her open his shirt and carve something over his heart. Then he felt an icy finger of darkness drive into his chest from her fingers.
***
Eyes closed, Price listened for the sound of the helicopter blades to fade. When they were gone, he flipped the half ton of man and metal off of him like it was nothing. He pulled himself to his feet. Rather than being split in half as he had told Nico, he was feeling unusually spry. His leg and wrist ached with a dull pain from the night’s events, but he felt them growing stronger already.
The clawmarks across his face he knew would never heal. Neither would the mark of Cicatrice on his chest. Technically, his wrist and leg never would either, and he would always carry the vampire equivalent of a limp, but as time passed he would become so powerful only he would ever notice it.
The pain that would never fade, though, was from the tattoos that still covered his body. He still carried his faith and his body was a holy symbol. He would carry this excruciating pain every day of his new eternal life, just as Cicatrice had carried his Inquisition tattoo.
Price snatched up his deerskin jacket and wrapped himself in it to cover the smoking tattoos. He grabbed The Hunter’s discarded helmet and stared at it.
“Why?” he whispered.
“I had to,” a syrupy, malevolent voice whispered in his ear, “I’m a scorpion.”
Price looked up but the casino was eerily, painfully empty.
Just my imagination.
Becoming one with his pain, he headed outside and stumbled into the parking lot. He fished into his pocket for his keys and dropped them under the car. His vision was becoming blurry. Perhaps it wasn’t so strange that he was hallucinating.
“You need to feed.”
He turned his head. This time the voice had been Idi Han’s. Was she following him, watching over him?
Or have I simply gone ‘round the bend?
Stories told of what happened to vampires who didn’t feed, especially on their first night, when the hunger was uncontrollable. They turned to ghouls and madmen, walking skeletons, deranged, crazed, uncontrollable…
No.
He pushed the worries, along with his hunger, deep down into his mind. He focused on the pain of his searing flesh. It became like a candle in the night, then a lighthouse: a beacon. He finally understood what had driven The Hunter of the Dead: a hunger that could never be sated, a pain that could never be salved, and a boundless thirst for revenge.
He turned the key and sat down in the driver’s seat. Idi Han was sitting next to him. Or perhaps not.
“You people always say the blood is the power,” he said, “but it’s not, is it? It’s the hunger that’s the power.”
“I don’t know about that,” she replied, “But I do know one thing.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
She leaned in and whispered in his ear, her breath hot on his face, “There was a time when our kind was not relegated to the shadows. And there will be again.”
THE END
Thank you for reading HUNTER OF THE DEAD. Whether you liked it or not I hope you’ll take a moment to leave a review on Amazon or your favorite book review site. Reviews are vitally important to me as an author both to help me market my book and to improve my writing in the future. Thank you!
-Stephen Kozeniewski
Acknowledgements
This book would not exist without John Waxler’s insistence (and financial investment) on it. He has been a tireless champion for Cicatrice, Idi Han, Price, Nico, and the whole crew. That it exists now is more a testament to his boundless faith, persistence, and support in this work than my own.
My eternal gratitude goes out to Sharon Stevenson for helping MacVicar sound less like a crappy American author’s idea of what a Scot sounds like.
Thank you to Renee Pickup (and her whole family), Holly Ann Kasprzak, Lily Luchesi, Nikki Howard, Alessia Giacomi, the Light Brothers, Stevie Kopas, Brian Keene, and everyone else who lent their names to the usually terribly fated characters in this book.
Thanks to Claire Ashby who believed that I could write a vampire novel that didn’t suck (ha!)
Thanks to Elizabeth Corrigan (who won the contest to name Cashley) and Mary Fan for their unflagging, sometimes daily support.
I’d like to thank Matt Worthington, Tristan Thorne, and the whole crew at Sinister Grin Press for working with me.
To my cats: may you eat like ghouls and age like oldbloods.
Finally, to my wife, Lina: I wrote this novel at a very difficult time. I don’t know which of the professor’s many roads lay ahead for us right now. I just know I want to walk it with you.
About The Author
Stephen Kozeniewski (pronounced “causin’ ooze key”) lives in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the modern zombie. During his time as a Field Artillery officer, he served for three years in Oklahoma and one in Iraq, where due to what he assumes was a clerical error, he was awarded the Bronze Star. He is also a classically trained linguist, which sounds more impressive than saying his bachelor’s degree is in German.
Coming Soon
Renovation by Sara Brooke
Fresh Meat 2016
Savages – Greg F. Gifune
Find these and other horrific books at www.sinistergrinpress.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PROLOGUE
Night One
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Night Two
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Night Three
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Night Four
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Note From The Author
Acknowledgements
About The Author
Coming Soon
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PROLOGUE
Night One
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Night Two
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Eight
Nine
Ten
Night Three
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Night Four
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Note From The Author
Acknowledgements
About The Author
Coming Soon