I stich my wound as carefully as I can, even though every time I thread through my skin my legs buckle from the onset of pain. My wound is still tender, and I opted to shut it rather than sit on a pain pill before starting the procedure. After I stitch my wound shut, I bandage it and take an opioid for the pain. I then lean over the sink, my arms propping me up in front of the mirror while I stand in silence, recollecting on the events that just transpired.
Amidst my thoughts, I feel something familiar. An embrace; someone draping their hands under my arms and clutching my chest. There’s a warmth on my back. I look up into the mirror and see nothing other than a tattered reflection of a hunter who lost everything to the supernatural. It’s too soon for the pill to be kicking in, but my mind still tries to find a way of materialize the woman I love, even when I’m a couple steps away from death’s door. If I could break the mirror with no repercussions, I would. I hate what I see, but it’s who I am. Who I’ve become.
Damn. Maybe that pill is kicking in.
I don’t let any tears fall from my eyes. The world isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. I couldn’t have done anything different.
I hobble from the bathroom to my bed, my thoughts slowly becoming hazy from the onset of my self-medication. I collapse onto the bed and immerse myself between the sheets, my phone on silent and my handgun right beside me.
****
I wake up, but I wasn’t even aware that I was asleep. I passed out not long after I was in the comfort of my motel sheets. I feel somewhat refreshed, but nowhere near one hundred percent. I sit up in bed, and my head spins.
The onset of vertigo’s accompanied by an antagonizing pain in my side. That’s right… I was shot. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should, but it’s still slowing me down.
I place my handgun on the nightstand beside me and exchange it for my phone. There’s a slew of missed calls and a text, all from Roc.
With everything going on I forgot to check in. He probably thinks I’m dead. I hope not. His first call came in at about ten in the morning. It’s half past six, now. The whole point of me keeping up with him in the first place was to ease his mind. Now it’s like a crutch. No… I shouldn’t think like that. He’s probably feeling the same way I felt when I was waiting to hear from Sailor, which makes me a shit friend.
“Hey, Roc?” I say, trying my best to hide the pain in my voice.
“Blaze? You okay? Last I heard, you were hunting vampires…and then morning came and—”
“Nothing. Yeah, I know. I didn’t want you to think the worst, bud. I’m sorry. I just got caught up. It was tougher than I anticipated.”
“What happened? Were you able to finish the case?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I was. I finished it. I just was out of commission longer than I expected. I took a nasty blow to the head. Vampire threw me into a bunch of steel poles at a construction site. I’m okay, but after everything was said and done, I got a massive headache. I took something for the pain once I made it back in and passed out. I got back to you as soon as I came to. Sorry. There was a lot that went on and I wasn’t thinking straight. Didn’t mean for it to be like that. I was just caught up. But, hey. Don’t worry about me like that. It was a simple case—fresh vampires trying to run blood for brownie points. I took them out…just got a little beat up in the process. Nothing to it. The investigation was the hardest part.” My eyes gravitate towards my stitched wound and I feel a pang of guilt. “I’m fine. I’ll be better about it next time.”
A long silence forms between us. I can tell that Roc’s concerned and that he doesn’t believe me. At least, not everything. He isn’t an idiot, but he does have a soft spot for me. We all do for the ones we care about.
“Please,” he says after sighing.
I was expecting another fight; Roc telling me to throw in the towel. I guess not. Things have been going well with our arrangement, and I imagine he doesn’t want me to be pushed away further than I already am. Him being involved as much as he is at least gives him a glimmer of hope. Sorry, Roc. It’s not that simple.
“So, what was it that you called about?”
“You really didn’t check your voicemails, huh?”
“No, I didn’t. So, what’s up?” I press.
“Besides checking to see if you were alive, I did some digging on that guy you wanted me to look into. Cornelius Krowe.”
“Yeah? Tell me everything you know.”
“Well, he’s dangerous, for starters, and apparently into necromancy, among other things.”
“Aren’t they all?”
“I was hoping to get some work done on those files you sent me, but they’re a bit tougher than I originally thought. Whoever encrypted them was good. Better than anything I’ve seen in a while.”
“One thing at a time,” I respond.
“If that’s the case, it’s better that I send over everything I have on Krowe. It’s a lot to process…you’re going to hunt him, right?”
“Yeah. I am. With your help or without it.”
“Thought so. Give me about an hour to get everything together for you.”
“I appreciate it, buddy.”
“…Just be safe.”
“Always. I’m going to take it slow for the next few days. I’ll be in touch.”
“Yeah. Do that,” he says tersely, his words ripe with worry. “…Talk to you soon.”
“Count on it.”
Roc hangs up on me and I lightly toss my phone back onto the nightstand. My eyes wander to my laptop across the room and then the tome right beside it. If anyone would know about how the book works, it’d be Krowe. He’s the only lead I have, and I’d rather chase a witch than throw myself at another horde of vampires. If everything pans out, I’ll get what I need to know about the book from Krowe, and then I’ll kill Darius.
I sigh at the prospect. I’m not in hunting condition and going after Krowe is something that I have to do alone. I guess in the end, me and that old man had that one thing in common; the vampire’s curse. We both suck the life out of everyone we’ve come in contact with. Even the ones who are trying to help.
It’s never enough. There’s always something more.
I wish I could have saved him…or at the very least had the chance to figure out a way to reach his family. I could have given them some cash to help with the bills or come up with a lie for some sort of closure. Now they’ll never know what happened. What makes things worse is that I was the one to put him down.
Better to kill him then to have him hunt his own family, right? And then there were the others that they kept around as pets. They were so far gone, I don’t think they even knew what was going on. They were just starving and forced into a life of servitude.
I know this last hunt was a win, but it doesn’t feel like it. The rabbit hole only goes deeper. It’s always been this way. There’s always another hunt. Another demon. Another witch. Another life to lose. Another broken family.
I hobble from my bed to the desk, my sights set on the grimoire resting beside my laptop. I slide my fingers over the cover of the ancient book, my senses taking in every last detail of the rough fabric that incases the knowledge hidden in the pages of the tome. I crack it open and boot up my laptop, picking up where I left off with my research. No matter how I look at it, everything I need is in this book.
If I find a way to use the grimoire, I can change everything.
The End
Blaze Monroe and the Tainted Heart
Blaze Monroe and the Tainted Heart
After barely surviving my last hunt, I dive deeper into the grimoire while I recover from my injuries.
At first, there was some progress. Now, things are starting to move slow. It’s frustrating. I need answers. Every day without a solution is another day wasted.
Roc’s been wanting to meet with me. I can tell something is up, but I’m not sure what. The last time we spoke, he seemed off. I’m going to drive to see him and see what’s up. It’s the least I can do for him. Plu
s, I need to get my mind off things. So much has been going on and the company will do us both good. I can’t get Sailor out of my mind. The same goes for everyone else that I’ve lost along the way.
~
When I pull up to our meeting spot, Roc’s already outside leaning against the door of his car, arms folded and legs entwined. He doesn’t seem to be angry, but at peace. I think I caught him right as he was really starting to take in the scenery of what Tennessee has to offer, whatever that is. At times, I’ve asked him what was going on in his life, but he’s been so focused on me, I never really had the chance to probe deeper than what he’s giving me. He’s been hunting a lot, too.
As far as I know, it’s been going great...if that’s really something that counts for anything. It’s not the most stress-free way to live.
I park next to his car and Roc glances my way with a smile stretched across his face.
The gravel beneath my feet crunches against my boots and I take a breath of the clean country air, devoid of the pollution from the city. “Not gonna lie, Blaze…I was expecting you to look like shit.”
“Glad to hear it.” I let out a light chuckle as I move in front of him, my hand in my pocket, protecting my injured side. If I didn’t have a shirt on, he’d definitely get what he was looking for. Thankfully, my face wasn’t beat up this time. The only way I can hide that is with shades. Roc, himself is sporting a cut along the bridge of his nose and a slight bruise under his left eye.
“How did your last hunt go?”
“Same way it went last time I told you—fine. Everything went fine. Just got a bit banged up, but that was a while ago.”
“Like, a week ago,” Rocco blurts. “You didn’t do anything since?”
“Week and a half—I think—and no. I’ve been on bedrest. Contrary to what you believe, I’m not actually trying to kill myself. I know my limits.”
“Right. I guess you do.”
“I’m still kicking, ain’t I?” I shrug.
“You are, indeed. Just haven’t seen you in a while, you know? A text is one thing, and a call is another, but you seeing someone gives the full picture.”
“Has it really been that long?” I ask, knowing full and well that it’s been an eternity.
“Yeah. About a month, give or take. We worked that one case in Missouri.”
“Right, right.” I briefly look down at my feet while nodding before returning my gaze to him. “I remember. It was a witch. Witches,” I say, correcting myself. “A crazy case with a helping of blood magic. Took quite the beating on that one.”
“Yeah,” Roc answers succinctly, his mood taking a noticeable hit.
“So, how’ve you been? I see you’ve been busy, too. Everything, good?”
“Yeah, I’m doing all right,” Roc answers succinctly.
“And Sonya? How’s she?”
Roc pauses and his face shifts uncomfortably, as if my question caught him off guard. He purses his lips and his eyes wander towards the ground. Was there something I missed? I rack my mind in speculation on Roc’s distress, but I silence my thoughts once he looks back at me. “Recovering,” Roc finally says. “She’s recovering. Sonya got hurt pretty badly.”
My heart jumps and then flatlines as a chill spreads from my core. It’s crazy how quick everything can change in this life. Up until now, I thought she was doing fine.
“Damn…is she okay?”
“She will be, yeah. She called me up not long after I got back at you. She said she had an easy case; a novice witch with a sloppy calling card. He was apparently trying to make a name for himself. Obviously, we couldn’t have that. She let me know what she was doing and asked me if I wanted to tag along, so I did. Another hunter was supposed to help her, but he had to pull out. Something was going on in his hometown. Possible vampire sighting. I filled in for him. She went on without me and thought she had it all under control until she realized that she had walked into an ambush. The witch she had been tailing wasn’t as green as she thought, or rather, the ones with him weren’t. She held her own, but they had numbers on her,” Roc says as he shifts his gaze down towards the gravel again. “They called themselves the Purge Knights. She’d found out about them via some cryptic post that alluded to looking for recruits via the dark web. The witch, Mitchell Forest, was one of the prospects who they were on the verge of recruiting.”
“Recruited? Making a name? The way you say it—”
“Sounds weird, right? That’s because the way they were doing things isn’t how it normally works…or at least that’s not what we’re used to seeing. Mitchell had to do certain things first to prove his worth.”
“Like a gang initiation,” I muse.”
“Correct. Just like one. Capturing hunters is apparently something they can do to earn brownie points and climb the ranks.”
“So, he was trying to be proactive and get in good from the jump,” I conclude.
“Yeah. Thankfully, I showed up before they took her away. They got her by using Mitchell as bait. Mitchell knew he was being followed, so they arranged for a setup. Sonya thought it was someone else he was targeting, a woman on her way to her car at night. Sonya intervened, but the woman was a knight, herself. Things went downhill from there. If I would have showed up a couple of minutes later, she wouldn’t be alive today… I was lucky that she reached out to me when she did. I finished what she started, but I think it was only just the tip of the iceberg.”
“So, there’s more of them? What’s their motive?”
“As far as I know, they lack the order of your standard coven. They’re just sowing chaos because they can. And they’re growing. I guess, power’s what they’re after. Control… They want to make a name for themselves among the supernatural. No other way around it.” I can tell by Roc’s answer that he’s still a bit shaken by what happened. I haven’t seen Sonya in forever. All of us have had close calls, but this one seems different. Roc’s unnerved. Angry. There’s an urge to do something. Anything you can to make the situation right, even if you don’t know exactly what to do. Anything but sitting still while twiddling your thumbs. I know the feeling.
“And you want to put an end to them, right? Wipe them out?”
“I do…”
“Count me in, too. If anyone messes with you guys, they mess with me.”
Blaze Monroe and the Tainted Heart
A Note from the Author
Hey, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed reading this entry in Blaze’s story. A lot has happened in this book. Some things on the surface, but some things are layered within the fabric of Blaze’s situation and mindset. As you know, after the news of Sailor’s death, Blaze has been in the wind, essentially on a hunting spree. A part of Blaze died when Sailor did. It wasn’t the only thing that contributed to his downward spiral, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Blaze previously lost his family to vampires. He became a hunter virtually the moment it happened, as he, Sailor, and her dad, Joel Ray, tracked them down along with the vampires in the area. He killed them out of mercy, which was something he unfortunately had to do in this book with the old man who was turned. Reliving that moment was just another blow to his psyche. Blaze feels that he has to be tough; that in order to protect the ones he cares about, he has to keep them at a distance or else he’ll just lose them, like he lost everyone else in his life. He feels especially bad about the strain he’s been putting on him and Roc’s relationship—who’s essentially one of the main reasons he’s able to hunt as well as he does. Blaze is burdened with survivor’s guilt on many accounts. Surviving the initial attack that led him to hunt. Killing his parents…‘letting’ Sailor and her father die. All of these things have been weighing on him. For this reason, Blaze has been throwing himself into risky situation after risky situation as a way of torture for living while his loved ones passed.
His mindset has a subtle shift however, once he finds out that there may be a way to resurrect the ones he loved. There’s a further—and more powerful shift tha
t occurs after he grabs the grimoire he’s been seeking towards the end of book two. Once he grabs it, something happens. Blaze doesn’t realize, but the book connects itself to Blaze’s vulnerable soul and instantly begins to search it for weaknesses to exploit. The moment that this occurs is when Blaze zones out mid-conversation with one of the witches he’s interrogating.
As the third book progresses, you get glimpses of how the book is slowly changing him. His purpose has shifted from hunting, to bringing back Sailor and everyone else that he’s lost. While Blaze’s intentions are somewhat pure, his thoughts are being manipulated by the book in his possession. He’s hearing Sailor’s voice and seeing her in dreams. His memories are even being distorted of her. The book drains the lifeforce of anyone who uses it, but even still, Blaze wants to explore it and learn its secrets. At several points in the third book he is seen trying to decipher it even though it appears to be written in an unknown language. Just being in contact with the book gives Blaze a sense of direction.
The book itself desires to be used. It has a will of its own, but it needs a vessel to operate through. I’m not sure that Blaze realizes this. He’s blinded by the prospect of what the book can offer him and he’s convinced that he can somehow find a way to use the book without suffering from its effects.
The late Eugenie, the witch that Blaze killed in the opening chapter, mentioned how it’s impressive that the darkness of the book hasn’t swayed him completely.
Can Blaze resist the darkness? Only time will tell. The Purge Knights, Blaze’s next group of enemies, might just push him to his limits.
Blaze Monroe and the Tainted Heart
A Note to the Reader
I want to take the time to thank you for reading my story. I’m an independent author so having my work read by even one person is a step forward in chasing my dream.
That being said, if you enjoyed this story, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a review for this title. The process will take less than a minute. All you have to do is click the link below and write a sentence or two expressing your thoughts. Hopefully, your words can inspire others to take a chance on my work.
Blaze Monroe and the Tattered Heart: A Supernatural Thriller (The Hunter Who Lost His Way Book 3) Page 10