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Chapter One
Will Logan
The graveyard was silent as…well, a tomb. And there were plenty of those to go around in this cemetery that was first established back in 1857, according to a plaque on the front gate. This elaborately scrolled iron barrier was secured each night at sunset, but we’d easily picked the lock and gone in, carefully closing it back in case any cops or security guards rode by to check it later on. We felt our way along, using only the moon to light our way, walking farther in before we fixed elastic bands around our foreheads to use our headlamps. That way we could keep our hands free in case of trouble.
It wasn’t only the undead who could hurt us here. There were also occasional reports of other intruders, who came for one reason or another, like the kids who dared themselves to go ghost-hunting, or even the homeless or indigent who might be desperate enough to seek shelter in the old vaults near the entrance.
“Ready?” my partner, Theo Conway asked. The two of us were accompanied by Leslie Moran, our third on this team and an operative I hadn’t worked with before. We weren’t alone. Another small team had entered the cemetery from the opposite side of the hill, so there were six of us Hunters in all.
“Ready,” I replied, hoping the nerves I was feeling weren’t showing up in my voice.
It was dark as the inside of one of these tombs in the old graveyard, and the gloom only increased as we climbed and practically felt our way along under the thick trees and foliage near the top. This place was called Myrtle Hill, named for the crepe myrtles and trailing myrtles planted all around the entrance and near some of the gravesites on nine ascending terraces. The graveyard was massive, covering thirty-two acres and the older graves were mostly at the top, though a nineteenth century U.S. president’s first lady, along with a large group of Confederate soldiers were buried in plots on the first level.
We had no wish to disturb any of them. On the contrary, we were here to investigate a possible nest of vampires that were desecrating this peaceful place. We had reason to believe from recent reports of missing persons and strange, unresolved murders in the area that a small nest had taken up residence on one of the large upper terraces. As we climbed, the silence thickened, the hair rose on the back of my neck, and we drew a bit closer, the smell of vampires hit my nose—a pungent, sickly odor of rot and grave dirt. Conway’s shoulders were almost touching mine and Moran trod on my heels as we continued upward.
Conway, who was in the lead, stopped abruptly near the top and whispered to us, though I still worried that he was too loud and would warn them of our presence. “We’re close now. Check your weapons.”
I reached for the iron knives I had shoved down inside both my boots and touched the heavy gold cross at my neck, pulling it out from under my coat. Legend had it right for a change when it came to crosses. Vampires hated them. Holy objects and iron implements were the best weapons against vampires, though movies and TV programs usually had characters using wooden stakes to kill a bloodsucker. Romantic legend, maybe, but wood wasn’t enough to keep a vampire from rising. Iron and silver had been used for centuries and was still considered to be the most effective.
I had iron daggers in a holster around my waist, and even a couple of extras shoved down in my waistband. The more knives I had, the safer I felt. Conway was armed with iron implements too, as well as a pistol containing silver bullets. Leslie was carrying vials of blessed holy water, along with several long, thick iron nails, like the kind they used on railroads, along with a lethal looking skewer.Vampires were also susceptible to prayer beads, sacred pictures or statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Any other blessed objects that you might have on hand would work, and that may have indicated their demonic origin.
It was Bram Stoker’s characters in his novel who popularized vampires like Dracula being called the “undead.” And according to Church lore, that’s what they were, reanimated corpses, kept from corruption by demon sorcery. We weren’t sure why or how, but it didn’t matter, really. All anyone really needed to know was that vampires were evil incarnate, and whatever spark of humanity they might have once possessed was forgotten long ago.
The type of stakes wasn’t the only thing that books and movies got wrong about the creatures. Vampires weren’t bothered by garlic; their skin didn’t glitter in the sunlight; and they weren’t at all beautiful, though they could use demonic enchantment to enthrall their victims and compel them to think so.
Vampires were vicious predators, who searched for their victims somewhere off the beaten path. They might be found on a lonely road or pathway through the woods, a deserted alley or an empty building or parking garage late at night. Sometimes they were seen near graveyards, hiding out in the dark tombs and mausoleums during the day and taking the occasional lone visitor at dusk.
All these places could be considered their hunting grounds, but they didn’t normally choose a victim whose family would come looking for them if they suddenly went missing. On the contrary, their prey was usually those on the fringes or the edges of society. It was the outliers, the stragglers and the homeless who were their primary victims. The ones who would be unnoticed if they didn’t turn up, or at least not for a while.
They fucked that whole scenario up recently with the murder of a police officer who had parked near the gates of Myrtle Hill Cemetery. He wasn’t one of the forgotten, and naturally, he was missed right away, as soon as he didn’t answer on the hourly check-ins to 911. The report of his death and the general outcry over its violence was what had alerted us to the possibility of vampires working in the area.
When his fellow officers had come looking for him, they found his empty patrol car, along with blood smeared all over the upholstery. Though the grass was torn up nearby, like a struggle had occurred, what was left of the policeman wasn’t discovered until after daybreak, and very little remained. Just a few teeth, some hair and scraps of clothing. The police had been keeping it quiet, saying privately that after he was murdered, some kind of scavenger animals, something like coyotes, must have dragged his body away. They had called in forensic help from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, as well as Natural Resources to help track the “animal” down. And our operatives inside the agency had notified us.
Vampires were only interested in blood, but in our experience, a missing body was the work of one or more ghouls. They often cruised vampire kills and ate the remains of their victims. They devoured the bodies, consumed everything down to teeth and hair, leaving very little behind. After looking into other recent deaths and disappearances in the area, we believed a nest of vampires, with accompanying ghouls, must be operating close by—most likely hiding in the graveyard itself—and they must be getting desperate for victims to come after a policeman, just because of his proximity. Either that or they were feral enough not to care. Either way, they all had to be exterminated.
We were at the top of the highest terrace by this time, and I could see the headlamps of the others closing in on our location from the other side. Conway turned to me to signal that he was going to inspect a fairly large mausoleum nearby when another whiff of rot and the coppery smell of blood alerted me to the presence of a vampire close by only seconds before all hell broke loose.
Out of the darkness, one of the vampires flew toward me, knocking the iron dagger from my hand. I launched myself backward, out of the reach of the thing’s claws, aware of other battles erupting right along beside me. A gunshot from nearby told me Conway had fired on one of them and unholy screams and howls erupted all around us. I heard the shouts and grunts of the other agents, locked in their own battles, as I kicked up at the vampire bending over me, his claws extended. I rolled quickly to the side and scrabbled back to my feet, swinging my dagger in front of me and catching him on the side of his ugly head.
He clawed at my blade, and stumbled backward to get away, but I pulled out another dagger and leaped toward him, thrusting it into his chest. I glanced around for Moran and saw her on her back, holding one of the creatures at bay by flinging a vial of holy water in its face, but she was barely hanging on. The thing was hissing and drooling as it loomed over her, and I knew it was only seconds away from tearing out her throat. I pulled out my blade, then launching myself at the vampire, I drove my dagger through the back of its neck so hard it came out the other side. It fell, clawing at the dagger and badly wounded. Leslie leaped on top of it and drove one of her iron spikes directly into its heart.
A vampire appeared without warning in front of me, maybe six feet away, its long, white fangs extended, and its hands formed into claws. I hurled another dagger, stabbing the creature in the chest. It fell back, looking down at the dagger with horror, but the blade wasn’t in the vampire’s heart, or it would already have been dead. I rushed it, forcing it down on its back across a nearby grave, so I could pull the dagger from the thing’s chest to make another attempt to bury it in something more vital. I stabbed him again and again, and I knew I was successful, when his body began to crumble into ash. This one had been an ancient one then—only the oldest crumbled as they died.
In all, we killed seven vampires and two ghouls who had come out to see if there were bodies or blood they could scavenge as the vampires killed us. They hadn’t realized we were Hunters until it was far too late. We made quick work of them, as ghouls were far easier to kill than vampires. Then we worked on clean-up.
“Check the bodies,” Conway called out to us. “See if any of them is the half-blood we’re looking for.”
We’d been on the trail of that vicious creature for weeks now, only recently tracking him to Atlanta, Georgia, and this small town where Myrtle Hill was located was only some seventy miles north of that city. We set out immediately to find and eradicate this new nest and because of its proximity, it warranted a look for the vicious half-blood.
“No sign of anything but full-bloods and those ghouls,” one of our agents with the other group called out. “He may have been here and gotten away, though. I thought I saw some dark shadows scattering like roaches at the bottom of the hill, just as you began your attack.”
It figured. Dylan Malone, the one we were looking for was intelligent, cunning and literally had the luck of the devil. He had been eluding us now for months. Every time we’d managed to get close, he’d slipped away. It was a popular misconception that vampires slept during the day. They had no need for sleep. Full-bloods, however abhorred the sun, and it would burn them to ash if they were out in it for a long stretch of time, just like in the old legends.
Half-bloods, on the other hand, weren’t bothered at all by sunlight, and it was one of the ways Malone easily passed as human if and when he needed to.
Malone’s vampire master, the one responsible for all this, had gotten into a wild altercation with police, in New York City about a year ago. There had been a fight with a boyfriend Malone had been living with at the time. The fight had spilled out into the hallway, and the intended victim’s screams for help were so bloodcurdling they had brought several of the usually indifferent New Yorkers to the doors of their apartments to see what was going on. Many of them had called the police, and one of them even allowed the intended victim to come inside their apartment, where they barricaded the door with furniture. Officers, who happened to be in the building on a totally unrelated case, had responded quickly, managing to get there just as the door was being battered down. They shot the vampire, apparently stunning him, but he came back to life as they were loading him in an ambulance for transport.
The wild and bloody fight that ensued had alerted Hunters to the vampire’s existence. Our counterparts in New York had tracked him down after he escaped and exterminated him, staking him through the heart, burning his body and scattering the ashes. Malone, along with the boyfriend who had both been involved in the fight, had been taken to a hospital to treat their extensive wounds.
