by Blake, Kasi
The girl gestured to Cowboy and said, “The mortal is with him. Maybe he’s his pet... or his next meal.”
“Which is it?” the greasy-haired vampire asked. “Pet or meal?”
Cowboy’s eyes darkened as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Trick. “He’s a friend, and if you want him, you’ll have to take me on as well.”
Trick did a double-take at Cowboy. They were definitely not friends and wouldn’t be even if Cowboy saved his life every day for the next decade. No way. Vampires were monsters, and all monsters needed to die. Simple as that.
Greasy grinned so that his fangs were visible. “I’m going to enjoy killing you,” he told Cowboy. “Making friends with humans? Disgusting.”
“Do you think you can handle all of us?” Cowboy asked.
“All?” Greasy laughed. “There are only two of you.”
“Look behind you,” Cowboy said.
Greasy and the girl turned their heads.
Cowboy disappeared and popped up on the other side of them.
Greasy’s eyes grew three times their size, and the other vampires froze in stunned disbelief.
“How did you...?” Greasy stumbled backward.
Cowboy punched Greasy in the face before making a triumphant sound, something between a cheer and a strangled guffaw.
Trick removed the wooden stake from the inside of his jacket. Fortunately, he also had one in an ankle sheath. It never hurt to have a spare. If he could figure out how to do it, he’d carry ten.
“A hunter.” Greasy wiped blood from the side of his mouth and snarled at Trick.
The rest of the group impersonated angry cats, hissing and spitting.
“Hunter?” Derisive laughter parted the vampire girl’s lips. “Don’t think so. He’s way too young. A wanna-be, maybe, but not a real hunter.”
“I am known as Trick.” His eyes narrowed on her face. “Have you heard of me?”
It was the question he always asked upon meeting new vampires. So far he got the same answer every time along with similar blank stares as if he was a forgotten child star looking for recognition.
“No,” the girl said.
Greasy shook his head. “Nope.”
Likewise, the other two answered in the negative.
Trick looked forward to the day when he heard that sweet word. Yes. Then he would know he was finally on his way to becoming the greatest hunter that had ever lived, especially if the word was gift-wrapped in fear.
Slowly, the vampires spread out.
Trick flipped the stake in his left hand and caught it by the pointed end. He threw it without warning. The stake got the guy next to Greasy. Direct hit.
The vampire turned to dust.
One down; three to go.
And that’s when the rest of them decided to attack in unison.
It only took a second for Trick to realize this wouldn’t be as easy as his previous kills. Without a talisman—or even the bracelet in his pocket—the vampires were at full power.
But so was he.
They used vampire-speed to zip past him. He froze in surprise. Someone struck him in the face, knocking him down. Before he had a chance to recover, someone else hit him. He was kicked from behind while a second vampire got him in the face with a clenched fist. His remaining stake left his hand and rolled across the pebbled ground to land by someone’s foot.
Cowboy settled back against a parked truck to watch the fight instead of participating.
Behind Trick a vampire scoffed. “Have we heard of you? What’s to hear? You suck. One lucky throw and you killed a good friend. Now we’re going to eat your face off.”
If he followed Cowboy’s example and teleported, he could kill them easily.
Using his powers was a bad idea. The gypsy’s warning rang in his ears, but he didn’t have a choice. Without the talisman or Dani’s charms he just wasn’t the great hunter he’d imagined himself to be. Faerie metal had been a drain on supernatural creatures. Every time he had fought a vampire, they’d lost the ability to use supernatural speed. Sometimes they had been weaker than normal too. Without the faerie metal he feared he might not have the natural abilities of a great hunter.
Trick leapt to his feet.
The nearest vampire came at him, hands ready to rip him apart.
Snarling lips parted to reveal hungry fangs.
Trick punched the guy in the face. Then he dove between the other two, grabbed the fallen stake, and rolled head-first so he could elude their grasping hands. He came up fast.
On his feet, he spun around and slammed the stake into a second vampire.
This time he didn’t wait to see his victim turn to dust. Instead, he went after the only remaining male vampire. Greasy worried him more than the girl did. She looked freaked out now and would probably run before he killed her last friend. Plus, she reminded him of Summer.
If he wasn’t so busy trying to stay alive, he would wonder why that bothered him. Summer was on his to-do list. She was a monster and needed to die just like the rest of them. As soon as he got around to it, he’d do the job. After he got all the information about his father that Cowboy was holding back, he planned to take care of them both.
But Cowboy wasn’t an idiot. He kept dishing out just enough to keep Trick happy without giving him everything. They both knew that once Cowboy ran out of things to say, Trick would kill him. Or Cowboy would kill Trick. Either way, one of them was going to die.
Greasy and the girl trapped him between them. She knocked the stake from his hand. Her fingers grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked his head backward, exposing his throat.
Greasy’s fangs came at him.
Trick prepared to head-butt the vampire in a last ditch effort to survive, but Greasy turned to dust.
Cowboy stood there, stake in hand and a satisfied smile on his face. He yanked Trick from the girl’s loosened gasp. The stake drove forward, seeking another victim.
Trick pushed Cowboy sideways, knocking him off balance.
To the girl, Trick said, “I’ll let you live on one condition.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip wobbled. “What? Anything. I’ll do anything.”
“Tell vampires about me. Spread the word. Tell them Trick is the coolest vampire hunter you’ve ever seen, and you know if you see me again, you’ll die.”
Her head bobbed up and down.
“Are you insane?” Cowboy asked after she used vampire-speed to disappear into the night.
Trick was good at reading people, and that girl would avoid him for the rest of her unnatural life. Besides, something had occurred to him that he hadn’t considered before now. He grinned. “If no one lives, how will vampires learn to fear me? Someone has to survive so they can tell the story. Get it?”
“Yeah.” Cowboy gaped at him. “I get it. You are crazier than I am.”
A matching grin spread slowly across Cowboy’s face.
chapter sixteen
Summer
After ringing the doorbell, Summer purposely coughed into her hand and sniffed. Her breath wasn’t terrible, but she should have brought some gum. She tucked strands of blond hair behind her ears with shaky fingers. What was wrong with her? She hadn’t been this nervous in years.
Matt opened the front door, and his expression underwent a drastic change from frown to smile. “Summer! What are you doing here?”
She shrugged. “In the neighborhood.”
“I’m glad you came.”
Matt pulled her inside the house before she could respond. They lingered in the foyer in awkward silence. He looked from the kitchen opening to the living room as if wondering where he should take her. In the end, he simply stayed where he was and continued to beam at her.
Summer tried not to notice the warm flecks of gold in his brown eyes or how his smile gave her a weird fluttery feeling in her stomach. She cleared her throat and shuffled from foot to foot. “How have you been?”
“Good. You?”
“We need to talk about your b
rother.”
His smile died. “Is something going on between you and Trick? If you like him, fine. I mean, it would just be nice to know. That’s all.”
Summer’s mouth went dry. “What do you mean?”
He put his hands on her shoulders and stared deep into her eyes, so deep that she forgot the purpose of her visit. A tremor shook through her small frame. What was wrong with her? She was a vampire, a force to be reckoned with, not a silly schoolgirl.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said. His voice was a soft caress. “I know you’re a vampire, and that makes this an impossible situation. But I still want to be with you.”
A weird strangled sound emerged from her parted lips.
Matt pulled her forward, and his head slowly lowered as his eyes closed. He was going to kiss her!
Every inch of her went into freak-out mode. It was ridiculous to get frazzled by the idea of one silly kiss. She’d been kissed hundreds of times by hundreds of guys over the span of six decades, but somehow this was different.
Matt was different.
Unfortunately, his aim was off. They bumped noses. An awkward moment followed where they just stared at each other, faces inches apart.
She jumped backward.
His arms fell to his sides, and disappointment filled his eyes.
She pretended not to notice and returned to the reason for her visit.
“We need to talk about your brother.” Matt rolled his eyes, but she didn’t let that deter her. Things needed to be said. Somehow she had to convince Matt to help her with Trick. She added, “If Trick doesn’t let us turn him, he’s going to die.”
The color drained from Matt’s face. “Are you suggesting he become a vampire?”
“He doesn’t have a choice. It’s us or death.”
“He’ll choose death then.” Matt threw his hands into the air in an agitated move. “Ian Carver was obsessed with killing vampires, and he raised Trick to hate people like you.”
“Yeah, I know all about Ian Carver. That’s why you have to talk to your stubborn brother. If anyone can change his mind, it’s you.”
Matt made a funny sound, a cross between a snort and a noisy exhale. “No one short of Ian Carver’s ghost could convince Trick to become a vampire, and I doubt that would do it either.”
Summer tapped her foot against the hardwood floor and folded her arms. “Do you care about him?”
“That’s a stupid question. I love my brother.”
“He’ll die unless he becomes one of us.” She circled Matt while trying to figure out how to get him on board with the plan. Maybe she should have kissed him. “The wizard’s powers are too strong for his mortal body.”
The front door burst open, and the two idiot girls in Trick’s life raced in as if they were running from the devil. They did a double-take at Summer. The one with the uncontrollable strawberry-blond curls ran straight to Matt. She latched onto him with both hands.
“Something happened to Trick!” she shouted.
The brunette girl, calmer than the blonde, spoke to Matt in a quiet voice. Eyes wide, she seemed to be in shock as if a bomb had gone off in her face. “He just... disappeared.”
Matt blinked. “What do you mean?”
“He disappeared,” the brunette repeated. “We were all in the car, and he just disappeared. He was there, and then he was gone.”
Matt turned to Summer. “Is that one of his powers? Can he vanish into thin air? Or did the Shadow Faerie take him? Do you know?”
A slow smile curved Summer’s lips. “He inherited the Dark Wizard’s power, so I would say he is fully capable of teleporting.”
“Teleporting?” Matt’s eyes narrowed on her face. “What do you mean?”
Her smile grew wider, and she winked. “Watch this.”
She vanished, moving from Matt’s foyer to her borrowed house. They would have to finish their conversation later. Maybe by then she would have her unruly emotions under control. What was wrong with her? Had she been without a boyfriend for so long that she was imagining feelings that weren’t real?
♫
“Where in the hell have you been?” Summer yelled.
Cowboy had taken off yesterday without leaving her a note; Summer had spent the entire night pacing. Her mind returned to what she saw as the only feasible explanation again and again. The Shadow Faerie must have gotten him.
She’d been up all night worrying, and the jerk just breezed into the living room at dawn as if nothing had happened.
Cowboy stopped whistling a happy tune and raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s wrong with you?”
Summer glared. “What are you looking so pleased about, you jerk? We were supposed to come up with a plan to get Trick on our side. I thought you were dead. Idiot!”
He grinned. “You were worried about me?”
“I was worried about me. If the Shadow Faerie killed you, I’d be next. While you were gone, I paid a visit to Trick’s brother, but we got interrupted by hysterical girls.”
Cowboy did a ridiculous dance across the room. He stopped next to the huge marble fireplace and rested an arm on the mantle. With a smug smile he said, “I was missing because I was with Trick. Spent the entire day with him, in fact.”
“Liar.” She tossed the magazine she’d been reading onto the cushion next to her. “Why would he spend five minutes with you?”
“Did you forget he wants to know about his dear old Daddy? I gave him information, just a tad. We rode motorcycles, visited Nebraska, and killed a bunch of vampires.”
She felt the blood drain from her face, leaving her skin cold inside and out. “You did what?”
“Which part is giving you a problem? I told him about Ian Carver. We visited an old friend in Nebraska. Then we rode motorcycles for a while and ended the day with a fun vampire fight.”
What was her problem? She didn’t know where to start.
After staring at Cowboy, dumbfounded, she listed her concerns in a way that even he could understand. She stood up to deliver the rant, knowing things were going to get heated.
“If it gets around that you are killing our kind with the help of a hunter, every vampire in the world will want you dead. Because we’re friends that means they’ll want me dead too. We still have a Shadow Faerie trying to assassinate us. Remember? And we don’t seem to be doing anything to stop him. You’re trying to replace Jackpot with Trick, but they are nothing alike. I really wish you’d get that through your thick skull, and what the hell were you doing in Nebraska?”
Cowboy stared at her in silence for a full minute. “Jealous?”
“Of what?”
“You’ve been knocking yourself out trying to get his attention. I did what you couldn’t.”
“Whatever. Maybe you should have asked Jackpot for help while you were in Nebraska.”
Cowboy sneered. “We don’t need him.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the delusional statement. If she didn’t think of a way out of this mess, the Shadow Faerie would kill them both. Trick wouldn’t help them. She didn’t care how many times he rode motorcycles with Cowboy. The kid hated vampires with a passion that rivaled his father’s. Why couldn’t her long-time best friend see that?
“I wish you’d been there to watch him fight,” Cowboy said with awe. “Oh, and get this. He allowed one of them to live so they can spread the word about him. Crazy, huh?”
Crazy wasn’t the word for it.
“Are you insane?” Summer asked. “What if the vampire he spared shoots their mouth off? You should have killed them yourself.”
Cowboy scoffed. “She barely looked in my direction. All she’s going to remember is a hunter named Trick ran a stake through her friends. If anything, they’ll be looking for him. Just between you and me, I don’t think she’ll say a word to anyone. You should have seen her face. She was terrified.”
“Really?” Summer held a hand under her chin to showcase her own face. “Did it look anything like
this? Maybe she was scared because she had an idiot for a friend, or maybe she was afraid because a Shadow Faerie was hunting her. No, wait. That’s me.”
He made a comical expression. “You aren’t as funny as you think you are.”
“You aren’t as clever as you think you are, so I guess we’re even.”
Cowboy put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry so much. Trick is about to join us, and together we will defeat the stupid Shadow thing. Trust me.”
Didn’t her father always tell her not to trust anyone that said the words trust me?
That stupid grin on Cowboy’s face drove her closer to the mental edge. She couldn’t wait to say “I told you so.” Only problem was, she might not live long enough.
chapter seventeen
Back in Black
“Where in the hell have you been?” Sean Donovan shouted as Trick crossed the threshold early Monday morning.
As unbelievable as it seemed, Trick had spent the entire weekend with a vampire. They had stayed up for two days straight. Cowboy had entertained him with numerous stories, most of them featuring his brother Jack and some sort of adventure that inspired envy in Trick. He was actually a little jealous of his brother. Jack had done things, seen things the average person never would, things Trick would give almost anything to experience.
Cowboy’s stories included running into a burning building just for kicks, base jumping off the Eiffel Tower, and proximity flying in a wing suit over treetops. At the end, he’d added he still wanted to jump from a helicopter onto a mountain with a snowboard strapped to his feet. He hadn’t gotten the chance to do it with Jack; he was hoping he’d have a new crazy vampire friend soon.
That’s when Trick decided to go home, Cowboy’s offer ringing in his ears.
The guy made being a vampire sound like the most awesome thing in the world. Still, Trick remembered his father’s stern warnings about monsters and how they sometimes used charm to persuade people to make stupid mistakes.
Trick had been so charmed that he’d forgotten the vampire promised to tell him about his father’s death.
The last thing he expected was to have Sean Donovan confront him as he walked into the house.