by E. J. King
“Why don’t they ever pick five-star hotels?” I muttered.
“Who wants the front door? Not it!” Rafe stepped back.
Ethan gestured to the side of the building. “I’ll take the front. You two go around back. I’m sure that’s where they are expecting us to enter anyway.”
The back door was nearly rusted shut, but Rafe was a strong guy and he was able to muscle it open with a loud screech.
“If they didn’t know we were here, they do now,” I said with a wince. So much for a sneak attack.
“Ladies first.” Rafe swept an arm in front of him.
Since we had already given away our location, I didn’t hesitate to turn on my flashlight. “You should’ve brought one, too,” I told Rafe.
“Don’t need one.” He pointed to his gold, inhuman eyes. “I can see just fine.”
Yet another thing about Rafe that was different. Because he had Soul blood inside him, he had also inherited some of their better qualities- strength, sharp hearing, and excellent night vision. I was a little envious of the latter. It was going to be hard to fight and hold the flashlight at the same time.
“For the record, if we have a choice between a big one and a little one, you get the big one,” Rafe said softly under his breath. It was a lame joke, but I smiled anyway.
“You don’t have to pretend this is fun, Rafe. It’s okay if you’re scared. I’ll even hold your hand if you want.” I grinned when he gave me an annoyed look.
“You are always looking for an excuse to touch me, aren’t you?” His smile was wicked.
“Touch you? More like punch you.”
Rafe started to retort, but a shuffling noise at the end of the hallway made us both stop abruptly.
“Maybe it is Ethan,” I said.
Rafe shook his head. “Ethan would have a light on. Whatever’s down that dark hallway isn’t going to be friendly.”
“Can you see anything?”
He squinted into the dark and his jaw tensed. “I see at least four of them.”
We both reached for our weapons. Just in time, too, because they moved fast. Rafe stepped in front of me at the last minute, unable to resist the urge to protect me even though I was an experienced fighter.
The first Soul rushed at him at full speed and Rafe dropped his shoulder at the last second, flipping the Soul over both of us and sending it crashing into the wall. Instantly, the Soul was on its feet and it lunged at me.
I landed a kick in its chest, knocking it to the ground. The other Souls had reached us and we were quickly surrounded by four of them.
“Keep your back to mine,” Rafe said, urgently but also calmly. It was going to take more than a few Souls to fluster him.
Four was a challenge, but it wasn’t impossible. I’d once taken on three Souls all by myself. The important thing was to not lose sight of any of them. Quickly, I surveyed the two Souls that were closest to me. One was male and the other was female. A rookie would mistakenly assume that the male would be stronger, but I could tell from the color of the woman’s eyes, a burning bronze, that she was much older than the male. Older meant stronger and smarter.
Moving quickly, I kicked the male Soul again as he lunged at me, sending him back several feet and allowing me to focus on the female. She was less impatient than her friend, and she came at me purposefully. When she did finally make her move, I almost didn’t see it coming. She had lightning fast speed and my pathetic human eyes could barely follow her. It wasn’t surprising that she nailed me with a fist to the jaw, snapping my head back.
Her claw-like hands grabbed my arms just above the elbows and she snarled as her fangs popped out. When she leaned her head down to snack on my neck, I threw my head forward, head-butting her just enough to free myself from her grip.
I dropped to the ground and swept my leg at her ankles, bringing her down with a loud smack. Before she could react, I had the knife in her chest.
It was my first real kill in over two years and I was proud that I had been able to take her down by myself. Hunting Souls was a bit like riding a bike. But I didn’t have time to gloat because Soul number two was barreling toward me.
I snagged the knife free of the rotting corpse and threw it without thinking, handle tumbling over blade tumbling over handle, until it smacked dead in the center of the Soul’s chest. It had been a perfect throw, and I smiled as the Soul dropped to its knees and began to decompose.
The sound of clapping behind me reminded me that I wasn’t alone.
“Nice work,” Rafe said, looking like he actually meant the words. “I’m impressed.”
I freed my knife from the second corpse and cleaned the blade by wiping it against my leg. Hunting definitely wasn’t a clean hobby. “There’s plenty more where that came from,” I promised.
His own piles of Soul remains were much more decayed than mine which meant he’d been finished for a while and had likely been watching my entire fight.
“We need to keep moving,” I said, bending down to scoop up the flashlight I had dropped during the fight.
“Admit it,” Rafe said after we had taken a few steps.
“Admit what?”
“Admit that you enjoyed that.” He nudged me. “I saw the smile on your face.”
I wasn’t willing to admit to Rafe or anyone else that I enjoyed killing, even if the Souls were evil. Instead, I pretended to be intently focused on choosing which turn we should take from the main hallway we were in. Smaller hallways branched to the left and right.
When I didn’t answer, Rafe continued, “You should smile more.”
“What?” I looked at him in surprise.
“You have a nice smile,” he said with a shrug. “It makes you look less bitchy.”
“Rafe.”
“I was kidding, Kaylie.”
I put my hand over his mouth. “Listen, Rafe.”
Muffled voices carried down the hallway on our right. Rafe’s eyes lit up and before I knew what was coming, he licked my hand, coating it with a heavy layer of saliva.
“Gross!” I hurried to wipe it on his shirt.
“Again, always looking for a reason to touch me.” He grinned as my hand froze on his chest.
I pulled my hand away, formed a fist, and jabbed him in the side, just below his rib cage. He grunted and grabbed his side. “That was unnecessary.”
“Next time we split up, I’m going with Ethan.” I stormed away, but as soon as my back was turned to him, I smiled. He might be an annoying jerk sometimes, but at least he could make me smile.
“Slow down, Red.” Rafe halted me before I could march into the room at the end of the hall. It was probably smart not to go barging in, but I hated that Hope might have been in danger while we had been screwing around.
“What’s the plan?”
His eyes narrowed as he scanned the part of the room that we could see. From the looks of it, it was an old manufacturing plant. The lights inside were dim, but I could see that heavy machinery lined the walls.
“I’m betting whatever is going on in there is happening in the middle of the room.” Rafe twirled his knife in his hand. “This is going to be messy. You up for it?”
“Bring it on.” We tapped the blades of our knives together in a silent toast and then strode confidently into the room.
I had mentally been preparing for a lot of different things. A room full of Souls. A Harvester slowly draining the blood of Meggie or Hope. Both of those would’ve been bad things to find, but they were nothing compared to what we actually found.
The body of a young female lay naked on a metal slab in the middle of the room. A large needle was stuck in her back, pumping a clear liquid into her spine. From the color of her hair, I guessed that the girl was Meggie. She wasn’t moving.
“Holy shit,” Rafe muttered and I agreed completely.
Aside from the horror of seeing another human so vulnerably exposed, even more alarming was the circle of six Souls surrounding her, slowly drinking from various tu
bes that had been stuck into her arms and legs. They were all so focused on their meal that only one of them even looked up, his eyes nearly red from feeding.
“Guess our dinner invitation must’ve gotten lost in the mail,” Rafe said.
“I think it’s because you chew too loudly when you eat.” I squeezed my fingers tightly around the knife handle as the other Souls looked up, eyes burning when they saw their intruders.
“Is it time for the after-meal entertainment?” Rafe took a step forward, again putting himself between me and the Souls.
“I don’t see Hope,” I muttered quietly, not that it mattered since the Souls had superhuman hearing capabilities.
Rafe took another step forward and then everything happened at double speed. Two Souls rushed him at the same time. He swatted them both away effortlessly and that was when I finally understood just how strong he really was; his Soul blood combined with Hunter fighting skills made him a fierce opponent for any creature.
I stepped around him and approached the Soul nearest to us. Still feeling confident from my earlier success, I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. The Soul made me pay, throwing its body at me. He was heavy and as he sat on my chest, all of the air rushed out of my lungs. My arms were pinned at my sides by his legs and he grabbed my hair, pulling back my head and exposing my neck.
Just as suddenly as he had incapacitated me, I was free. Rafe kicked him once in the side and he went flying. Then he reached down and yanked me up by my arm.
“You alright?” he asked without looking at me. He was busy scanning the room, preparing for the next attack.
“I’m fine,” I croaked hoarsely.
“They just fed so they are going to be stronger than usual.” His hand still clutched my arm. “Stay by me.”
I had no intention of disobeying. The next attacks came slower. These Souls had seen what Rafe was capable of doing and they weren’t in a hurry to become piles of rags anytime soon. Rafe took out two of them while I finished off another. A flurry of movement near the exit caught my eye.
“Over there!” I yelled and Rafe followed my pointing finger.
A sudden, loud scream echoed into the room from beyond the exit. I knew that it was Hope and that she was in trouble.
Before Rafe could stop me, I sprinted toward the door.
“Kaylie!” He started to follow me, but had to stop to take care of the remaining dinner party guests.
The hallway was dark. I had long since abandoned my flashlight, but my eyes were starting to adjust to the dark building. I screeched to an abrupt halt when what I thought was an exit actually ended in an old storage room. One side of the room held a wall of wire storage cages, and in one of those cages Hope was huddled on the floor.
“Hope!”
She wasn’t alone. Two Souls stood at the door of the cage, facing me. They had placed the bait perfectly, and I had run straight toward it.
“Surprise,” I said lamely.
“Where are your friends?” The tall one asked. I immediately dubbed him Lurch. His companion was about half his height, so he became Shorty.
I smiled. “They’ll be here soon. I wanted some alone time with you before I kill you.”
Hope gasped.
“She doesn’t know the truth about you, does she?” Lurch looked between me and Hope and smiled. “She is in for quite a surprise.”
“Leave her out of this.” I wondered if there was any way to get the Souls to follow me out of the room so I wouldn’t have to kill them in front of Hope.
Shorty squatted in front of the cage, stubby fingers gripping the wire door. “Your friend is a killer. See that knife in her hand?”
I had to admit, it looked pretty bad. Blood dripped from the tip, and I had more blood smeared on my clothes. Hope’s eyes grew even wider as she took in my deranged look.
“Hope, ignore them. I’m going to get you out of there.” I tried to get her to look at me, but she wouldn’t make eye contact.
“How many people have you killed, Kaylie?” Lurch was enjoying the show.
“How do you know my name?” I needed to keep the Souls talking until I could draw them away from Hope. If I made a move on one of them, the other would grab her.
Lurch laughed. “You thought that you were hunting us, but we’ve been hunting you for weeks.”
“Why? Why hunt me? You could’ve just grabbed me like you did with the other girls.” At least now I knew why I had been feeling so weird lately, sensing that someone was watching me from the shadows.
“You are almost never alone. Those Hunters are always with you.”
Rafe and Ethan. My new bodyguards.
“So you took Hope instead, bringing all three of us into your lair? That seems like a really bad idea.”
“Home turf,” Shorty explained. “Don’t worry. None of the humans are going to make it out of here alive.”
Something still didn’t make sense to me. “Why did you go to all this work just to kill me? What’s so special about me?”
“You’re Kaylie Hart,” Lurch said.
“Hart?” Hope looked at me with accusation in her eyes. “Have you been lying about your name this whole time?”
“I’ll explain later, Hope.” Assuming that we had a later.
“That’s right. Your friend is a liar. A liar and a killer.” Lurch paced slowly in front of me, eyes growing angrier with each step. “And now it’s time to kill you.”
“You haven’t answered my question. I’m no different than any other Hunter.”
Shorty let out a loud burst of laughter. “You really have no idea, do you?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” I was getting tired of them acting like I was the dumbest human they’d ever met.
“Your blood,” Lurch said with a snarl. “Your blood is what makes you special.”
“I’m sure you say that to all the girls,” I said, but my quip lacked bite.
Lurch stopped directly in front of me. “You know that your blood can stop the Soul transition, right? I would expect with that Lost Soul hanging around you, this has come up?”
“I’m aware,” I said through a clenched jaw.
“Did you ever stop to wonder what your blood does to a Soul that has already transitioned?” His eyes lit up and when he smiled, all of his fangs appeared.
“No one likes a know-it-all.” I shuffled my feet backward, hoping to draw the Souls with me.
Shorty pointed to the door through which I had entered. “How many Souls did you kill out there? Five? Ten?”
“A few.” I couldn’t look at Hope when I answered.
“If those Souls had had just a few drops of your blood in their system, you wouldn’t have been able to kill any of them.”
Despite the seriousness of the accusation, I laughed. “You really believe that? Some Soul told you that over a pint of blood and you believed it?”
Lurch didn’t react, but Shorty looked uncertain.
“You’re a clever girl, trying to distract us. It’s not going to work. I can smell your blood, and it smells delicious.” Lurch licked his lips, his fangs cutting his tongue and sending a trail of blood down his chin.
“You must do well with the ladies.” I continued shuffling backward and Lurch took a big step in my direction.
“I’m going to do very well with you in a minute.” The way that he eyed me said that he had more than just blood on his mind.
This time when I shuffled my foot back, I hit something solid. I had reached the wall. Lurch had followed me away from Hope’s cage, but Shorty was still there. Since my only plan hadn’t worked, I scrambled to come up with a new one on the spot.
Lurch wasn’t in the mood to wait. As he lunged at me, I threw my knife across the room at Shorty, hoping I would have the same success I’d had earlier with the same move. The only problem was that I now didn’t have a weapon in hand to use on Lurch.
He collided into me, slamming me against the stone wall. My head snapped back hard, connecting with
a sickening crack that made my vision go black. I heard Lurch growl and could feel his hot breath on my neck. Then he was gone and I was sliding to the floor.
“Kaylie.” Rafe’s voice was far away. “Kaylie, can you hear me?”
I mumbled nonsense words and my vision slowly came back, starting in the center and working its way outward. Rafe’s face hovered just inches above mine, his gold eyes thick with worry.
“Rafe.” It was the first coherent word I said and it made him smile.
“You shouldn’t scare me like that, Kaylie.” His hand was gentle when it brushed hair off my forehead.
“Hope!’ I remembered that I hadn’t seen whether my knife had connected with Shorty.
Rafe helped me sit up, holding me when my vision went black again and I lost my balance. “Hope is fine, Kaylie. Ethan has her.”
“Ethan…” I had almost forgotten that Ethan was with us.
My vision came back again and I took several breaths before telling Rafe that I was ready to stand. He helped me to my feet and kept his arm around me for support as I surveyed the room
My knife hadn’t hit Shorty cleanly, but Ethan had finished the job. He was helping Hope out of her cage and she wouldn’t look in my direction.
“We should get out of here,” Rafe said. “I think we got all of them, but it’s possible there could be others lurking around.”
“What about Meggie?” I shivered when I remembered the poor girl on the metal table.
Rafe shook his head. “She’s gone, Kaylie.”
“No.” My knees felt week.
“She lost too much blood,” Ethan confirmed. “We’ll call the police to come get the body.”
Hope started crying softly and I wanted to rush over and hug her. But I knew that would be a bad idea.
We had to pass Meggie’s body on the way out of the building and I was relieved to see that one of the guys had covered her with a sheet.
“Wait.” I stopped.
“Kaylie, we have to leave her behind.” Rafe exchanged a look with Ethan.
“No, it’s not that.” I tried to remember what Lurch and Shorty had said to me in the storage room. Something had stuck out to me at the time, but now my head hurt as I tried to remember. “They said something to me. Something about no humans making it out alive.”