Page 5 of Slayer

I spun back to Rae to see that her skin was waxy and pale.

“Rae!” I bellowed, but she didn’t look up at me.

Okay, this was wrong. Something was very wrong.

I peered around in horror to see that nearly every person on the dance floor was coupled with someone, and they were all…neck kissing. The person being kissed had a zombielike expression, like they were lost in a trance.

Where the heck had these people come from? It looked like the club had doubled in size almost instantly. A cold prickle raced along my spine as I realized how many strangers had appeared without me noticing, blending into the flashing lights before my brain could track them.

Dizziness washed over me as panic set in, and I did the first thing I could think of. I stepped closer to the guy who was attached to Rae. Then I reached out with my arm and grasped the dude’s slicked-back hair, knotting my fingers into it to get a good grip. With a forceful yank, I ripped him off my friend, bringing his face up to mine.

Big mistake.

A scream tore from my lips when I came face-to-face with his bloodstained lips and glowing red eyes. And they weren’t just normal pupils. Aside from glowing red, they were…pulsing, like a heartbeat.

I let go of him, stumbling backward as he snarled at me. His upper lip curled, and the ramen noodles threatened to come up when I saw his bloodstained teeth. A sour taste hit the back of my throat, the kind that comes right before you actually puke.

I glanced at Rae, who stood there stiffly, still gyrating in the air with a dazed look on her face as if I hadn’t just pulled a freaking neck biter off her. Her pupils were blown wide, catching the flashing lights in a way that made her look even more lifeless.

“What did you do to my friend?” I screamed at the guy over the stupid music, which I wished would turn off so I could call for help. The bass thudded against my ribs like it was mocking me. But the guy before me seemed stuck in his own trance, sniffing the air like a dog with his pulsing eyes.

Rae worked here. Surely the bartender or door guy would come to her rescue. Someone had to notice this chaos. But when I scanned the bar, the staff wasn’t moving. They had that same empty expression and were frozen in place like mannequins.

My gaze flicked around to see that nearly every single person in the club had the same glazed expression on their face. All except for the people attached to their necks. I blinked rapidly, because now there was some kind of blue mist coming off the clubgoers’ bodies and floating up to the second floor where a VIP section was. The mist shimmered faintly in the lights, drifting upward in slow curls like steam from hot pavement. I followed the mist to see a well-dressed man with his arms out, inhaling the vapor through his nose like it was incense.

No. I shook my head, blinking rapidly. This wasn’t real. I was hallucinating. My hands shook, and the room tilted slightly, like my brain couldn’t decide which nightmare to show me first.

“You drugged me!” I screamed at the bloody-mouthed air sniffer before me. Had a drink even touched my lips since I got here?

No.

Maybe they pumped it in through the air vents. The thought made my stomach flip again.

The dude in the three-piece suit cocked his head to the side and inhaled again. When he did, he hissed, like a cat.

“Hunter.” He growled, low and feral as he lunged for me.

I screamed as I stumbled backward, the sound swallowed by the shattering of skylights. Glass rained down like hard glitter as figures dressed in black dropped through the window-like openings in the ceiling and swung down on ropes like some kind of tactical team.

It was a raid. For the drugs. My brain grabbed the most logical idea it could find.

Oh, thank God. I was saved. My knees almost buckled with relief.

“Help!” I screamed as I ran for one of the cops who had just burst in through a lower floor window. The clubgoers were still in a trance, and the lunatic with the bloody teeth was hot on my trail.

When the cop in all black popped up in front of me, I skidded to a stop.

Holy crap. He is hot.

It was a wildly inappropriate thought to be having in the middle of being chased by someone who was clearly on some home-cooked drugs and ready to bite my nose off, but I couldn’t deny this man’s beauty. He looked about my age, tall, broad-shouldered, and he moved with a kind of effortless power. His shirt stretched across a chest that clearly spent more time lifting weights than lounging around, but I noticed he was missing a police badge. My gaze then went to his hair. It was light, like sunlight through honey, falling just past his jaw in that perfectly tousled, I-woke-up-like-this way that shouldn’t have looked good on anyone but absolutely did on him.

But it was his eyes that wrecked me. Green. Not just any green but sharp, electric, arresting, like he could see straight through me. My breath snagged tight in my throat, trapped there by fear and something else I didn’t want to name.

“I need help—” I managed.

“Get down!” the hot guy screamed as he pulled an honest-to-God sword from his waist belt.

I knew cosplay and fantasy role-play was coming back in style, but this was taking it too far, no? He looked like a modern knight without the horse.