AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ahead, a car alarm began to wail.
Shane was still at least a block behind me, but kudos to him for continuing the hunt. This was his job, after all, and as much as I wished it were me out here instead of him, he was going to have to learn how to handle these matters on his own. If I could teach him a little tonight, all the better.
When I got even with the car, its alarm continued to scream while its lights flashed and the horn honked and honked. Car alarms were the devil’s alarm clock. I wanted to shoot the damned thing in the hood and put it out of its misery, but I’d learned the hard way a long time ago, being a bounty hunter didn’t give you a free license for property destruction.
Shane caught up to me, wheezing but not doubled over this time. I hadn’t broken a sweat.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I cooed.
“He’s probably halfway to Jersey by now,” Shane added.
But he wasn’t. I could smell fresh blood with a strong vampire taint to it. Not only was the vampire no longer running, he was lying in wait for us. Too bad he’d tried to hide behind an alarmed vehicle.
“If you play nice, I’m in a position to help you.” I wasn’t used to promising aid instead of dealing out threats. It felt strange. Not that I had any intention of helping The Greek, but as long as I didn’t make anything official, he didn’t need to know I was full of shit.
“I don’t think—”
I shushed Shane by placing my fingers over his mouth. His lips were dry and his breath came out hot against my hand. He didn’t argue again. I sniffed the air, a gesture more attuned to my werewolf half than my vampire one, but it did the trick. The scent of blood was stronger up ahead. It had to be fresh blood, because once blood aged I had a hard time picking up on it. This was so ripe it might as well have been an open vein in front of my nose.
Creeping forward with Shane at my side, I came up next to the car where the smell was the strongest. A smear of crimson stained the door handle. If we’d been chasing a human, his breath would have fogged up the glass inside, but there were no other signs of life inside the car.
Shane reached for the door, his gun drawn, but I stopped him.
“This doesn’t feel right,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
I stepped back, pulling him with me, and a second later the answer flattened us both to the ground. Injured or not, this vampire wasn’t planning to go down without a fight. He’d smeared his blood around the car, then hidden across the street and waited.
Clever bastard.
Fear and pain had gnawed away at him, and now that he had us down he was going for the kill, no questions asked. His fangs were out and his eyes had given over to the oily black of a blood-frenzied vampire. My own survival instinct kicked in, and my face shifted to mirror his own, fangs springing forth so fast I nicked the skin of my lip.
Shane was gawking at me with wide-eyed terror. He’d seen me week after week at the Council, sitting next to Sig, but until now he clearly hadn’t thought of me as a real threat. It’s amazing how far a pair of fangs will go to convince someone you mean business.
Sadly, they did nothing to faze the vampire on top of me who was gunning for my throat.
“A little help,” I grumbled.
Pinned to the street, I couldn’t get my gun angled for a good shot. Shane staggered to his feet, fumbling for his own weapon. I wondered—not for the first time—how he’d lasted as long as he had up to this point without being killed. Maybe it was a little performance anxiety, having to show his skills in front of his boss.
I didn’t care as long as he helped get the massive, three-hundred-pound, feta-scented vampire off my chest. I kneed The Greek in the groin, but either his testicles were so unimpressive I missed them, or he was so deep in his frenzy he hadn’t felt the attack.
“Shane, any time now.”
Snapping out of his shock, Shane raised his own weapon and fired without hesitation. The bullet glanced off the vampire’s shoulder and bit into the asphalt beside my head. That was a little too close for comfort. My pulse kicked up, and my anxiety blossomed. I needed to get this meaty man-mountain off me in a hurry, before Shane’s next shot took me out.
I pushed at the wriggling mound on top of me, but the vampire was made of hard, immobile fat. He didn’t budge. Snarling, he dove for my neck again, my hammering pulse an obvious target for his predatory instinct. I slammed my palm into his nose, shattering the bridge backwards. If I’d hit it at a better angle, I could have driven the bone into his skull. It would have killed a human and dazed a vampire. Instead he kept coming for me; the only difference was now I was covered in his blood.
Shane fired again, and the vampire jerked. He’d scored a direct hit, but not anywhere lethal.
My survival instinct kicked up a notch, and the street turned a hazy red color as my eyes lost their focus and my senses shifted away from the human and into something different. My arm hurt, which made no sense since the vampire hadn’t bitten me, and it being pinned between us shouldn’t cause me pain. The bones adjusted, realigning themselves. It felt like my hand was being broken and put back together.
I cried out in pain and shoved all of my frustration, hurt and rage into the stomach of the vampire.
He stopped fighting and fell backwards.
When the red cleared from my eyes, I could see him clearly. He was sitting in the middle of the street with his stomach split open in a series of ragged red lines. They looked like claw marks. His hand was pressed against them, and when he pulled back to stare at his bloodstained fingers, the rips on his stomach sagged, then tore, spilling his entrails all over the asphalt.
