The Dark-Hunters, page 280
“You know what I want, Leo?”
“Your life back.”
She nodded. “I really need a do-over on this day. Then again, I could really use one for the last five years.”
“I know.” He gave her a gentle hug. “But it’ll be okay, Sue. I promise. We take care of our own and you’re here with us now. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”
* * *
Stryker came to his feet as a rage so raw, so potent, went through him that he wasn’t sure how he managed to maintain himself.
“Kontis did what?” he asked in a low, calm tone that belied his turbulent mood.
“He escaped us, my lord,” the Apollite vet, Theo, explained as he stood cringing before Stryker’s throne in Kalosis. Wearing a blue, blood-spattered lab coat, the half-Apollite should amuse him, but there was nothing amusing about the man’s news.
Stryker met Satara’s disgusted stare before he narrowed his eyes back on the worm who dared to deliver such news to him. “I told you, Theo, that you only had one thing to do. Keep him in a cage until I arrived.”
Swallowing hard, Theo wrung his hands. “I know and I did just as you said. I swear it. I didn’t take him out of the cage. Not once. We just wanted to have a little fun with him until your Spathis killed him.” He glanced up with imploring eyes. “It was the human I work with who took him out while I was speaking to you on the phone earlier. By the time I found out about it, he was already gone.”
Did the fool honestly think that by indicting a human as an accomplice he would get leniency? These stupid tools were getting dumber and dumber every year.
Stryker curled his lip. “Where is Kontis now?”
“He was taken home by another human. The other vet we killed said her name was Susan Michaels. We have a team of humans out, looking for the two of them now.”
Styker ground his teeth as all of his dreams of easily grabbing Seattle as a home base came sliding down around him. By now Kontis had no doubt notified all the other Dark-Hunters in Seattle. Every one of them would now be on high alert. So much for the element of surprise. Their job would now be a thousand times harder.
He wanted blood for this. “Do you have any idea what this means, Theo?”
“I do, but we still have enough daylight left that we should be able to get to him before he reaches the others.”
Stryker scoffed. He knew better than that. Ravyn was like him—a survivor. If they wanted to take the city, they’d have to move quickly.
He turned toward his sister. “Gather Trates and the Illuminati.”
“You’re planning to hunt?” Theo asked, his eyes sparking a degree of relief and hope.
“Yes,” Stryker said slowly.
“Good. I’ll get my team ready.”
“Don’t bother, Theo.”
His nervousness returned tenfold. “My lord?”
Stryker approached him slowly, methodically. He reached out and cupped the man’s cheek in his palm. It was smooth and supple, as were all of theirs. Perfect. That was the beauty of never growing old.
Theo might be stupid, but he was as beautiful as the angels that many of the humans believed in. “How long have you served me now, Theo?”
“Almost eight years.”
Stryker smiled at him. “Eight years and in all that time, tell me what you’ve learned about me.”
He could feel the man shaking as he answered. The scent of fear and perspiration hung heavy in the air—gods, how he loved that smell. It was like an aphrodisiac to him.
“You’re the Daimon King. Our only hope.”
“Yes.” He stroked Theo’s cheek. “Anything else?”
Theo glanced nervously toward Satara before he returned to frown at Stryker. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He sank his hand into Theo’s blond hair and balled his fist tightly in the strands so that the half-Apollite couldn’t escape him. “The one thing you should have learned, Theo, is that I don’t accept failure in any shape, form, or fashion. Your first mistake was letting the Dark-Hunter escape. Your second one was being stupid enough to come tell me about it.”
Theo tried to pull away, but Stryker held him in place. “P-please, my lord, have mercy. I can find him! I can!”
Stryker smirked at his pathetic cries for clemency. “So can I. In fact, I intend to find more than just Ravyn. Before I’m through tonight, I intend to hunt and feed to my heart’s content. But it won’t be human.” He licked his lips as he stared at the throbbing vein on Theo’s neck. “Tonight I feast on Apollite blood and carnage … On you and your entire family.”
Before the man could speak again, Stryker sank his teeth into Theo’s neck, ripping out the carotid as he drank his fill.
Theo only fought for a second, before death finally claimed him. Stryker let Theo’s limp body fall to his feet before he wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
“You didn’t take his soul?” Satara asked incredulously.
Stryker scoffed. “Why bother? He was too weak to even whet my appetite.”
“So what is our plan then?”
Stryker walked down the steps of his dais to stand beside his half-sister. “To run the bastards to ground. Ravyn has a Squire, right?”
She nodded.
“Then let’s put the fear of us into the Squire and he or she is bound to lead us straight to Ravyn.”
“How do we do that?”
“Simple, sweet Satara. You’re not a Daimon. You can enter Ravyn’s house and then invite us in. Trates and the others will go for the Squire, and she will run to Ravyn for protection.”
Satara considered that for a moment. “What if you’re wrong? The Squire might run to others of his kind.”
Stryker shrugged nonchalantly. “Then we eat our fill of Squires. At best, it’ll put fear into the other humans who serve the Dark-Hunters and it’ll be an emotional blow to them. At worst, we just have a stomachache from the blood.”
CHAPTER SIX
Susan was a bit confused by the vastness of the Addams layout. It wouldn’t take much to get lost in the ten-thousand-plus-square-foot building that had some secured areas and some that were open to the public.
One of the first things Leo did was take her to an electronic scanner for a hand and retinal imprint that would allow her access to their locked facilities. It would also allow them to find her if she ran, or, her favorite part of all, identify her remains should the Daimons get their hands on her for torture and mayhem. She would also need to get a copy of her dental records for their files … just in case.
Yes, she was really enjoying the prospect of being part of this world. Maybe they could even manage a few ritual slayings just for fun and practice!
But one of the more interesting parts of the building was the very front, which was a small coffee and pastry/deli shop that let out onto Pioneer Square. It was dark in tone, with pine paneling and a black ceiling. Even so, it still managed to have a homey, old-fashioned feel to it. And spookily enough, it was one she’d eaten at several times in the past with Angie and Jimmy whenever they came down here for the antique store on the corner that Angie had dearly loved.
While they showed her around the shopfront, from behind the scenes innocent people came and went without realizing that just past the business area was the Twilight Zone. Only a few hours ago, she would have been one of them, too.
In fact, with the exception of the small eating area, the counter, the bakery area, and one small storeroom, the rest of the monstrous building was essentially command central for the Seattle-based Squires. There were high-tech computers that kept tabs on virtually everything to do with them. Where they lived, shopped, and patrolled. There were databases of local businesses they owned. Lists of who worked for the city, state, and federal government, and those who were assigned to particular Dark-Hunters in the area.
Apparently, there were nine main Dark-Hunters in various parts of the city while another six were assigned to outlying areas such as Bainbridge Island, Bremerton, and Redmond.
There was also a hospital set up to tend any Dark-Hunter or Squire who was injured in a way that didn’t lend itself to visiting a traditional medical facility without freaking out the “ords.” Ords being a slang term for “ordinaries,” who were people who had no clue about their world. Personally, Susan wanted to return to being an ord, but she knew better than to even ask.
But what fascinated her most was the one lone man who sat in an office where he monitored all the local emergency bands. He’d been the one to tell her that the call hadn’t gone out on dispatch to those cops who had come to her house, when she and Ravyn had been attacked. If it had, he’d have known it. They had been sent from behind the scenes, which begged the question who had sent them.
“Here, Sue.”
She turned to find Leo behind her with what appeared to be a leather-bound phone book in his hand. “What is that?”
“The Squire’s handbook I told you about.”
He handed it to her and she almost dropped it. The huge thing had to weigh at least fifteen pounds and it smelled like her grandmother’s old mothball-infested cedar closet. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He gave her a grim stare. “And you’ll be tested on it, too.”
She gaped.
“Just kidding.” He smiled. “But it will explain exactly who and what we are. There’s also a lot more information in there about Daimons, Apollites, and emergency numbers for every major city.”
“And the Dark-Hunters? Is there anything about them?”
“Oh, yeah. Lots of stuff about them. Their history and origins. If you go to our Web site, Dark-Hunter.com, there’s an online database that tells you the names of all the Dark-Hunters, as well as a profile page about their general age and background.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
Now that could be useful. “Is it safe? I would think having all that online would just be inviting hacker trouble.”
Screwing up his face, he shook his head. “Not really, but we have our own hackers who keep the rest at bay. And if someone does, perchance, find their way around our security precautions, they get a rude visit—”
“Let me guess, from Otto?”
“No … people who make Otto look fluffy.”
Now that was something she would love to see, but not knocking on her door.
Susan tried to balance the book in one hand to flip through it, but it was too big for that. So she resorted to asking more questions. “What about Squires? Does the Web site tell about them, too?”
“Only a handful. We keep a lower profile as a rule. And there are a lot more of us than there are Dark-Hunters. They number in the thousands while we are tens of thousands worldwide.” He tapped the cover of the tome and winked at her. “Happy reading.”
Susan grunted at him. “Up yours, Leo.”
He gave her a devilish grin. “Yeah, I know.”
Sighing, Susan decided to find herself a quiet room to read in. She opened the first door she came to and pulled up short as she found herself in the same room as Ravyn, who was asleep on a red futon.
It was all she could do to catch her breath as she saw him lying facedown, entwined in the stark white sheets that seemed to just highlight how tan his skin was. And the man was tan all over. That dark, tawny shade appeared to be his natural skin tone.
It was enough to set her heart pounding. He was all sinewy muscle. All man—in a shapeshifting … leopard … undead kind of way. And even stranger than that, most of the bullet wounds on his back were nothing more than puckered scars. Leo had told her that the Dark-Hunters healed fast, but dang. They really didn’t waste any time with mending those wounds.
He opened one black eye to stare at her. “You need something?” His voice had a rumbling quality to it that was deepened by his sleep.
“I thought this room was empty. Sorry.”
He stretched before he rolled over, and the sheet slipped to give her a nice view of one bare hip and the trail of black hair that ran from his navel to a thicker patch of hair. A wicked part of herself was hoping the sheet would pull down another few millimeters so that she could glimpse the rest of him.
Okay, so she already knew what he looked like naked, but earlier she’d been a bit occupied to notice the finer details of his body. Now she was feeling a little greedy and if the man wanted to run around naked …
Well, far be it from her to complain.
“No problem.” He yawned as he scratched the arm that up until a short time ago had also had a bullet in it. Now it appeared all healed like the rest of him. “You doing any better?”
His question and the concern she heard in his deep voice surprised her. Why would he even care, and yet a part of her was grateful that even if he didn’t, he at least pretended to. Having spent her entire adulthood alone, she really ached to have someone just for her. Someone whose love she didn’t have to share. It was selfish, but she really did want to find that one person who could love her unconditionally. “I honestly don’t know. What about you?”
He looked down and ran his hand over his tight, perfect chest. “Pretty much healed.”
It was so strange to try to reconcile this man with the one she’d seen viciously kill the half-Apollite earlier. A chill went down her spine at the memory. Ravyn might be acting friendly toward her at the moment, but he was a ruthless killer. He hadn’t even blinked or hesitated at taking the lives of those men in her house. Whether justified or not, it was a sobering thought that life meant so little to him.
Suddenly uneasy, she stepped back into the hallway. “Well, I won’t keep you. You probably need more sleep.”
He pulled the sheet up higher and tucked his exposed leg under it. “Yeah.”
Nodding, she pulled the door closed and backtracked to the room she’d been in earlier that held the computers Leo had told her were for regular Squire use.
Kyl was in there alone, typing furiously at one station.
“Can I borrow one?” she asked hesitantly. Kyl, like Otto, still acted as if he’d like to kill her.
He looked up but didn’t break in his typing at all. “The one on your left.”
She sat down, placed the book beside her, then wiggled the mouse. As soon as the screen came up, she tried the site Leo had mentioned, only to pull up a porn site. “Holy cripes. I don’t think this is right.”
Kyl frowned at her. “What?”
“Leo said there was a Dark-Hunter Web site, but I don’t think I have the right URL.”
He laughed at her. “You didn’t put the dash in between Dark and Hunter, did you?”
She looked at the field and realized he was right. “No.”
“Put it there and try again.”
Susan did and breathed a little easier as the right page came up. It was all black-and-white. “How very monochromatic.”
Kyl snorted. “It’s easier on the Dark-Hunters’ eyes. They’re a lot more sensitive than human eyes. The dark background is the easiest one for them to read.”
Hmmm, that was interesting. “Why’s their sight different?”
“If you’ll read your manual, which should be used for information and not a doorstop, you’ll see that since they hunt during the night, they have special night vision. Their eyes are always dilated, so bright light is painful to them. It’s why many of them wear dark sunglasses even indoors.”
Tucking that away into her brain in case she ever needed to blind one of them, Susan clicked for the Dark-Hunter profiles and paused as she saw Ravyn Kontis’s name. Oh, it was too much to resist. Clicking on it, she quickly read what they had listed for him.
It was actually highly fascinating. He was born in ancient Greece—304 B.C. to be precise. Dang, he was an old coot. She hoped she looked that good at two thousand plus years.
She somehow doubted it though.
But as she was reading, she realized that the Were-Hunters, the shapeshifting branch in all this, didn’t live normal life spans. Rather, they lived for hundreds of years and, unlike humans, they didn’t have to live chronologically. They could move through time.
Impressive, but it also begged one major question. “Is Ravyn’s family still alive?”
Kyl paused in his typing. “Technically yes, but no, not really.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ravyn’s a Were-Hunter. They’re cousins to the Apollites and to the Daimons who are hunted by the Dark-Hunters. Since they share the same bloodline, many of the Were-Hunters run sanctuaries that protect the Daimons from the Dark-Hunters. Because of that, Ravyn was denounced when he became a Dark-Hunter. He’s not allowed near any of his kinsmen in any incarnation.”
Susan’s heart clenched. Having had her own father turn his back on her, she fully understood the pain of rejection. But at least she’d never known her father. How much worse would it be to have someone she loved turn her out?
“Here in Seattle. His father owns one of the sanctuaries just a few blocks over.”
Her jaw dropped at that. “And none of them ever talk to him?”
He gave an odd half laugh. “Nooo.” He stretched the word out with meaning. “They’re not even allowed to say his name. He’s completely dead to them.”
“If they felt so strongly about that, why did he become a Dark-Hunter?”
Kyl shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“Hey, Kyl?”
They both turned to look at the doorway where Jack stood in the small opening. “Have you heard anything from Brian?”
“No, why?”
“We sent him over to check on Cael, but he hasn’t come back yet and he’s not answering his phone.”
Kyl scowled. “That’s weird.”
Jack agreed with him. “We thought so, too, and it’s dusk already. Should we send someone after him?”
Kyl hesitated. “Has the sun set?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
He cursed.
Susan was perplexed by his hostility. “Is that bad?”
Both men gave her a “duh” stare. But it was Kyl who answered. “Just a little bit. At sunset, the Daimons are free to prowl.” He let out a tired breath. “Man, times like this I really miss home.”
