Vampire Hunter: Shadow Hunter. Anna Hackett
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for reading this before it was polished. Rebekah, you’re a fantastic friend and hopefully I will find myself in the acknowledgments of your debut YA novel in the near future.
To Dr. Thebaud and Dr. Romain, thank you for restoring my health when I needed it most and for always keeping my well-being in mind. You’ve seen me at my worst but lifted me to my best. My family and I are beyond thankful.
To the best author girlfriends I could ever ask for, Cecy Robson and Kate SeRine. Thank you for holding me up every time I need it. I hope to always call you both my friends. And to my good friend and dance guru, Hollie Ruiz, for being such an enthusiastic fan and cheering for me: shimmying equals happiness. You’re a great friend and a beautiful person. You inspire me.
To one of my best friends on the planet and the most awesome critique partner ever, Britt Marczak. Thank you for being there for me every step of the way. You read about Jace and the E.U. heroes when they weren’t decent to see the light of day, but you loved them nonetheless. I don’t know if I would have pushed through Jace’s book without you.
To my pets: Sookie, Olivia and Elliot, for keeping me company in my office and being my favorite lazy editors—writing isn’t the same without you interrupting me every five seconds and walking across my keyboard.
To my family (both immediate and extended) for supporting me in every single endeavor, I know that at the end of every day, no matter what has happened, you will all always love me and continue to support me. Mama, you believed in me. You believed in my writing way before it was any good, from that first butterfly book we made when I was little, to my sixth grade stories, through the first drafts of my first novels, all the way to where I am now and beyond. You’re my best friend. You brought me into this world, and you’ve been the one to hold me up ever since. I love you.
To my husband, Jon, for sticking with me through all the ups and downs of the deadline for this book, for cooking dinner and cleaning the house when I’m too stressed out to do so, even in the face of a forty-hour work week. More importantly, honey, thank you for teaching me what it’s really like to fall in love. I’m looking forward to spending our lives together, for better and for worse, until we are old and gray. I love you more with each passing day.
And greatest thanks be to God with Whom anything is possible. You rain down blessings on me every day, Lord.
Damon Brock clutched the neck of the guard and twisted. The crack of broken bone pierced the silence in the alleyway as the spine snapped beneath his fingers. The wind whistled in a large gush of freezing air, so cold that Damon’s breath swirled in front of his face. The guard’s pulse beat several feeble times against his hands before fading.
Not a single scream. Damon released the guard, and the body crumpled to the cold winter ground. He nudged the corpse with the steel toe of his boot.
No movement. Only deadweight. A quick kill.
Not even 9:00 p.m. and already he’d taken out one bloodsucker. Rochester seemed promising.
He stepped over the corpse and slipped through the back entrance of Club Fantasy. A silver dagger under the sleeve of his leather trench coat, a Desert Eagle .44 caliber semi-automatic tucked into the back of his jeans, one silver throwing knife in each boot and a smooth, lacquered wooden stake inside his coat—you could never be too prepared when it came to vampires. The leeches were nearly impossible to kill. While bullets and silver would give them pause, only a severed spine, decapitation or a stake through the heart destroyed the undead.
Like a neon sign in a red-light district, the establishment’s name flashed over the door: Club Fantasy.
He shook his head. Club Fantasy? More like club hell. If only the patrons knew the monster vampire who owned it. The man sitting at the top of Damon’s hit list.
He pushed through a second door and into the main level of the club. If the night went well, he would gladly up the body count to at least four.
The thick smell of liquor, cigarettes and sweat from one too many dancing bodies assaulted his nose as he scanned the crowd. Bright red lighting flashed over the floor, and the bass of the heavy dance music pounded in his ears. The most difficult thing about hunting vamps: they were damn near indistinguishable from humans. After nightfall, the pulses of the undead beat with the same intensity as any human civilian, but their craving for blood, their inhuman strength and their drive to drain life from unsuspecting victims lingered. If only humanity knew what they were up against.
Damon strode across the dance floor, navigating between writhing bodies before he slid onto the black leather bench of one of the club’s booths. His hands ran across the smooth, newly lacquered black tabletop. Despite the underlying seediness, the atmosphere of Club Fantasy came out on top compared to most of Rochester’s low-scale raves. With western New York prices and Manhattan quality, Club Fantasy had young twenty-somethings flocking to it like drunken sheep led to a bloodlust-fueled slaughter. High quality aside, Club Fantasy was twice as dangerous as any New York City club. At least, the City offered ample backup.
He’d admitted one disadvantage to himself: navigating the supernatural scene of a city with no hunting division would be damn hard. But he was up to the challenge. He’d tracked his target to Mark’s hometown, Rochester, and he wouldn’t stop until he avenged his friend. He’d requested assignment to Rochester for that purpose—even if it meant a chance of running into her. He let out a long sigh. He couldn’t think about that now.
His gaze jumped from face to face, searching for his target blond hair, blue eyes, medium build, a strong, slightly crooked nose and a small but noticeable scar beneath his left eye. He dreamed of that face every night.
An ancient piece of Roman shit, Caius Argyros Dermokaites ruled over the Rochester vamp nests with an iron fist, more because he was old as dirt, rather than because of some great attribute of his own. The older the vampire, the more deadly he—or she—became, and Caius was the highest on Damon’s hit list.
Damon was going to kill him. He would make sure of it this time.
His eyes locked on to the vampire. Though the swaying limbs of the dancing patrons skewed his view, he could see Caius sitting on the other side of the club. Anger bubbled up inside his chest, and pure rage filled every inch of his body. It took all he had not to pull his Desert Eagle and shoot Caius point-blank before driving a stake straight through his heart.
His hands clenched into fists. It was his fault. His fault that Caius sat there laughing while Mark’s ashes had gone unburied. His fault the only woman he’d ever opened his heart to wished him dead. He’d failed Mark—his closest friend—and he had failed her, too.
A grin crossed Caius’s face as he wrapped his arm around the skimpy-leather-and-fake-silver-chain-clad woman next to him. He was surrounded by women. Not surprising. Few things were larger than a male vampire’s ego, and Caius overcompensated like a pair of tricked-out rims on an already overpriced car. Damon observed the vampire’s interactions. If there was one thing he’d learned during his field training, it was how to be a quick judge of character. Vanity was no doubt Caius’s number one weakness, and striking that vein would make him bleed.
A sexed-up raspy voice purred right next to Damon’s ear. “You gonna order a drink, hot stuff, or just stare into the crowd all night?” A cheap pair of too-tight latex pants blocked his view.
The bottle-blonde waitress smacked her lips together as she chewed on a piece of gum. She leaned down and rested her elbows on the table in front of him, treating him to a prime-time view of her fake chest. Her breasts squeezed into a top smaller than some women’s panties. Her breath reeked of over-chewed bubble gum and the sharp smell of cheap gin.
She licked her lips. “You look like a vodka-on-the-rocks kind of man to me—strong, bold, served on ice but easily warmed.”
Damon barely glanced at the woman. He leaned back in his seat, aligning his vision with Caius again.