Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

“This is a stupid idea,” Zane, my unhelpful, undead jackass of a bodyguard said as I continued with my master plan.

My fingertips burned from digging in the snow, my gloves protecting them from getting wet but shit at keeping them warm. Trying to drive stakes into the frozen earth wasn’t optimal, but it also wasn’t impossible. And the damn plan would work regardless, it was just a pain in the ass.

I shook out my numb hands so I could get enough feeling back to flip him off.

“You’re a stupid idea.”

“You’re assuming that they’re going to take the bait when it’s freezing outside. How do you know they’ll even smell the blood through the snow?”

“Because they’re animals.” I grunted as I drove the stake down enough to keep it upright and placed the enchanted stone onto the top. “Animals will come out when they’re hungry.”

Zane crossed his arms, watching as I did all the work, standing there in his leather jacket acting like was cool.

“What exactly is that enchantment supposed to do?”

“Well, we’re running very low on life essence and the possibility of us getting more is unlikely,” I reminded him, wiping some sweat from my face. “So I got some clear quartz enchanted with a grounding spell. They’ll flock to some nice, fresh blood, then I’ll put down the last quartz in the circle and BAM.” I tried to snap but I was wearing the gloves. “They’ll get locked into the circle and we’ll pick them off. Fish in a barrel kinda thing.”

My stoic, unnecessary partner continued to just stare at me.

“You’ve done this before?”

I paused my digging to glare at him. “It’ll work.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“If you’re not going to help me, can you just go be broody somewhere else?” I got back to work torturing my hands with more snow shoveling. “You’re giving me heartburn.”

“I’m going to go wait for this to fall apart so I can ambush a couple of them.”

“I hope they bite you in the ass,” I called out as his boots crunched in the snow. He popped off with something I didn’t catch, so I just said, “Yeah, you too, dickhead.”

“I said your phone is ringing, dumbass.”

“You’re a dumbass.” I fished my phone from my pocket, pulling off a glove with my teeth in order to hit the button. “Wilde Contract Killing and Fish Training, can I take your order?”

Whatever freezing numbness that was settling over my body melted into simmering pools of lust when Sias’s voice rumbled into my ear.

“Dinner tonight at seven sharp,” he commanded, sending all kinds of dirty signals across my body. “Don’t fill up on junk before you arrive.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I promised, unable to hold my grin back.

“I’ll send a car at six thirty.”

“I feel so spoiled,” I teased, knowing it was more to keep me punctual than anything else. “Is this a private dinner or are we doing another uh…buffet situation?”

“Private. I don’t feel like company tonight.” There was a beat before he added a cheeky, “Unless Zane would like to tag along.”

“No,” I said immediately. “He’s not invited.”

“Dallas,” he scolded, which I hated myself a bit for getting a little turned on by it. “I share my toys with you. Why can’t you return the favor?”

“Oh my God. That is not what’s happening here.” I rubbed my eyes with my fingers. “Not a toy. He’s more like a thorn in my ass, and not in the playful, sexy way.”

I could feel Zane looking at me so I flipped him off.

I added for good measure, “I’m not bringing the thorn.”

“Fine, fine. Have it your way. I’ll just have to give you my undivided attention.”

A small thrill danced up my spine and I had to chew on my lip to keep from smiling too big.

“It’s a date.”

Sias hummed. “Don’t be late, Wilde. I don’t want anything to be cold by the time you arrive.”

He hung up without saying “good-bye” because he had too much big dick energy to be bothered with parting words. Goddamn he was so hot.

Attractive, dominating, suave-as-hell incubus business daddy who could make me melt with just a few touches.

He also made my heart do goofy little flutters, even when we weren’t going at it like sex-crazed bunnies.

“Meeting Sias tonight?”

Zane’s sudden voice broke my fun little horny spell and I threw some snow at him.

“Are you listening to my phone calls?”

“No.” Zane tapped his chest. “You got all fluttery.”

“Fuck you, I don’t flutter,” I lied, because it was none of his business and I hated that he could feel my emotions. “You’re not supposed to be keyed in, remember?”

“In order for me to mute the connection so you can have your private time, I have to meditate or read. Not gonna happen when we’re hunting grunt vampires at an old, freaky hospital.” Zane motioned to the large, square building behind us that was all shattered windows and rot.

“I can handle myself just fine. I was doing this long before you started tagging along.” I started stabbing the earth with my stake, pretending it was Zane’s face.

“Uh-huh. You set up traps like this alone too, or just when you have backup?”

“Best time to experiment is when your life is tethered to an undead dipshit.” I twisted the stake into the ground and put my body weight into it. “You can’t let me die. So maybe I’ll get lucky and you’ll get some chunks taken out of you.”

“They’re not going to be interested in me, hunter.” Zane glanced over the circle, the sunlight catching on the angles of the quartz.

“We’ll see about that.” I stood once the stake was pushed in, and dabbed at the sweat on my brow with my sleeve. The cold wind stung my wet skin and made howling noises through the busted windows of the old hospital. Icy teeth hung from the ledges, giving each dark entrance a sense of hunger. Deep within the belly of the empty building was an infestation, mindless husks of what used to be living people now feral with death magic and blood thirst. They had been turned by a necromancer I had yet to find; made to be attack dogs and vessels of brutality and terror.

My job, along with training exotic fish and assassinating regular folk for money, was to purge this world of all the death magic I could find.

Even if I was now part of their twisted little family, by no fault of my own, and had to haul around an unhelpful Thrall with a bad attitude and no sense of fucking privacy.

My backpack sank into the snow as I slung it off my shoulder, the zipper sticking a bit as I slashed it open. Inside the cozy confines of my now soggy canvas bag were a few bags of borrowed blood I’d acquired completely legally and not at all from shady dealings with sketchy people who work at a blood bank.

These non-existent people might also have sold me some drugs on occasion, so we had a good working relationship.

The sun was hidden behind thick winter clouds packed with unfallen snow, and the tangle of dead trees shrouding the ground near the hospital ER entrance was optimal for lesser vampires. Direct sunlight would cause them to burst into flames, but desperate, hungry monsters would take a risk on an overcast day with ample shading.

It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was worth a shot. It was a hell of a lot better than going into their lair and fighting on their turf. The last thing I wanted to do was get myself trapped in a dark corridor with bitey vampires looking for an easy meal. I was fairly sure Zane would let them gnaw on me awhile before helping me.

The blood in the bags was cold, but still dented the snow as I splashed it onto the ground. It sank into the white, staining it crimson and corrupting the footprints we had left behind. Soon the center of my trap was bloody and wet, and I tossed a half-empty bag down as extra incentive before backing away to the perimeter. The smell of pennies and death stuck to the cool winter breeze, and I pretended it didn’t cause dark memories to uncurl in the shadows of my mind.

I flexed my fingers to help with blood flow, resting them on the gun strapped to my hip. There were only a few bullets left that had life essence fused to them, and as long as I kept my glove on, I couldn’t feel the sharp tingle of the life magic yelling at my necromancy blood.

Loading these little bastards had been as equally exhausting as it was terrifying, since I had to get Barnaby to do it for me.

Have you ever tried to get a fussy antiques dealer with a chip on his shoulder to load a firearm for you before?

No? Just a me problem?

Well, it sucked.

Fun fact: Barnaby “dislikes” weapons and thinks bullets will kill him even when they aren’t inside of a gun. He’s also perpetually annoyed and thinks I’m gross.

It wasn’t a fun afternoon.

Since I only had a clip left and no hope of getting more, I also had to bring a sword with me to do things the old-fashioned way. While it is kinda badass to run undead monsters through with a blade, it’s so much easier to just shoot them.

Like, so much easier.

And way less cleanup.

But, when life gives you lemons, you bring a sword.

The wind whistled through the glass teeth of broken windows, the building groaning as its bones froze. An eerie lack of birdsong made the sound seem to bellow, the stinging cold promised more snow in the future. The smell of freezing blood made my mind go static for a bit, eyes overfocusing and blurring at the red crisscrosses.

“So. A date, huh?”

I blinked at Zane’s comment, the scene around me coming back into view.

“What?”

“You said ‘it’s a date.’” He had come to stand beside me, watching the hospital entrance with his hands in his pockets. While I was bundled in a down jacket and snow boots, Zane just had on the “cool guy” leather jacket he’d stolen from a bar fight, jeans and black boots. No gloves, no scarf, not even a damn knit cap.

It wasn’t fair that I had to look like a rosy-cheeked five-year-old in layers of protection while he had an icy breeze caressing his hair like some model for “Undead Passion” cologne.

“Thought you weren’t listening to my phone call.”

Zane shrugged. “A little bit.”

I rubbed my hands together to help warm them and kept my eyes on the hospital.

“He invited me over for dinner.”

“Regular dinner or incubus dinner?”

“Pretty sure when Sias says ‘dinner’ he means sex.” I formed a cave with my hands and blew into them, my breath heating the inside and giving me some temporary comfort. “It’s never meant food, at least in my experience. Last time he said we were going to buffet, he meant me and some of his other favorites getting fucked by some of his friends.” I grinned at the memory, my body tingling. “That was fun. He had us all line up?—”

“Okay. I get the picture,” Zane cut me off, sounding bored.

“Prude,” I teased. “You’ve never been presented as a dessert to a buffet of hot incubi dudes while your business daddy pampers you?”

“I’m more of a main course with maybe one extra side type of person.” He lifted a shoulder. “Buffets get messy.”

“So you do have sex!”

“I never said I didn’t. Don’t fucking point at me like that.”

I kept pointing, because he wasn’t the boss of me.

“I’ve never seen you so much as flirt with someone. You just sulk around like a moody goth kid.”

Zane slid his red eyes over to me, the ever-present look of bored annoyance at my existence plastered on his dead face.

“Exactly.”

“Oh my God.” I think I gasped, but I pretended it was a cough. “You covert slut.”

“Can we focus on the vampires that will be crawling out here soon?”

“Hell no. We’re talking about you slinging dick on the down low. That’s way more interesting.” All efforts to warm up my hands were forgotten, my heart pumping with the opportunity to tease Zane had warmed me up plenty.

“Hunter. Focus.”

“So, do you go after the pretty goth girls who swoon for the moody vampire types? Fishnets is pretty hot, right?” My elbow was knocked away as I tried to jab his ribs.

“How the hell has Sias put up with you so many times a week? He doesn’t strike me as a man with patience.”

“He keeps my mouth full.” I wiggled my eyebrows and Zane furrowed his as he rubbed at his eyes.

“You’re giving me a migraine.”

“C’mon, you know my dinner habits!”

“Not by choice,” he argued with a huff. “I’m forced to tag along while you constantly get takeout.”

“Hey, I’m a hungry boy.”

“Goddess, strike me down now.” Zane shut his eyes and leaned his head back. “Bring me back to the void and end my suffering.”

“I bet that makes the honeys melt. So broody. So tragic. Is that why you’re growing your hair out?”

He exhaled a long sigh from his nose, his body too cold to activate steam. It had been a while since he’d had any blood, likely a month or so, and I realized with a needling guilt that he was likely starving.

Since he could only have my blood, which I hated him drinking, he never dared ask unless he was gravely injured. Thralls could only heal and recover their powers from their necromancer’s blood, which made the whole situation uncomfortable.

No wonder he was such a moody ass. I would be hangry too.

“You know,” I supplied after a second, restarting my effort to get my hands warm again. “There is a pretty sweet goth club I haven’t been to in a while. You would clean out the place easily if we wanna go one night.”

“I do fine at your normal haunts, hunter.”

“Mostly dudes where I go though.” I moved my knees a little to wake my cold feet up. “If you want more options, I mean?—”

“I’m an immortal vampire born from the void.” He sliced me open with his eyes. “I don’t limit my dinner options. Now, stop being a jackass. We have company.”

I smelled them before I saw them, the familiar stench of dry blood and filth permeating the frigid air. Glowing red eyes floated near the entrance, their bodies slinking over each other as they tried to gauge the risk of sunlight verses the free meal in the snow. The hissing, gulping noises of them swallowing down the scent of blood made my skin crawl, no doubt my own beating heart teasing them as much as the open blood bag.

They knew I was there. I wanted them to.

It made the trap all the more irresistible.

I positioned myself just outside of the circle, my hand resting on the trap’s trigger.

“C’mon, you nasty bastards,” I whispered, trying to will them into action.

Zane drifted away to flank the swarm, and I kept my focus on the entrance. Two pairs of eyes turned into six, then eight, the hissing growing more agitated and desperate.

My heart kicked up into a steady dance as the first grunt vampire slinked out from the shadows. They had once been a young teen, an imp, a band shirt torn at the collar and marred with blood. Fangs flashed as they snapped their jaws, eyes smoldering embers of undead magic. Whatever life had been in that young imp was long gone—it was only piloted by corrupt necromancy driven by the need to eat and destroy.

It didn’t move like a person anymore, more like an insect with too few legs trying to scurry across the ground. Once it realized that the sun was too weak behind the clouds and through the canopy of tree branches, it rushed the stained snow and started chomping at the ice. Its little friends followed, grunt vampires of all sizes and races, slithering from their den to fight over scraps.

The shredded blood bag was ripped into smaller chunks by the fighting animals, fangs gnawing at the plastic to try and sip every drop from within. It didn’t take the dead oni teenager long to remember I was there, and it turned its gross, glowing eyes my way. With a hiss, it began its slow approach, testing to see if I was going to run in panic and give it a reason to chase me.

“Let’s see how much of a badass I truly am.” I tossed the last piece of my trap into the air and caught it. “C’mon, ugly. You gonna just eyeball me all day? Or you going to make a move?”

“They can’t understand you,” Zane tossed from across the circle.

“It’s called showmanship, dick.”

“I’m the only one watching the show and it sucks. Put the rock down so it can fail and we can kill these things.”

I flipped him off as I held up the rock. “It’s gonna work.”

Zane checked his watch, and I made a mental note to kick him in the balls later. Why the hell fate had tied me to this jerk was an act of cruel and unusual punishment, and frankly, I was way too nice of a guy to be saddled with such aggression and rudeness.

Especially from a dead guy.

He should be dead . Not giving me crap from wanting a little fanfare with my vampire killing escapades.

The hissing imp kid took advantage of my flipping off my sassy vampire Thrall and lunged, springing from the ground with all the power in its legs to try and tackle me full force. As it was airborne, I slammed the last enchanted crystal into place and pulled my gun free just in case I was somehow wrong about my master plan.

A surge of power rippled out from the ring, my magic blocker humming with the warning of a spike of activity, and the imp leaping into the air to rip out my throat was suddenly face down in the dirt with a delightful thump. The swarm that had been ravishing the empty blood bag all crumpled to the ground, teeth gnashing and hissing with anger.

My mocking laughter took the form of a happy spite cloud puffing out into the air, and I aimed a few at Zane for good measure.

“Oh, look at that! What was that about it not working? Hm?” I put my hand to my ear to wait for his response. “Can’t hear you over there, Zane. I think you said how great I was and how badass this trap is? Who’s stupid now?”

“Are you done?”

“Hell no. I’m going to lord this over you for a week, you mopey goth boy.” I chambered my gun. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pick these vampires off without even breaking a sweat.”

The charm in my pocket pulsed then went still, the ripple threading itself through the crystals stumbled and went slack, one of them shattering like a busted light bulb. The vampires in the circle collectively lifted from the ground like one combined inhale, eyes and teeth aimed my way. A particularly dirty imp face snarled up at me, snow and mud stuck between its fangs.

“Crap.”

“Called it,” said the absolute asshole that was my bodyguard.

Taking my grounding trap personally, the imp vampire let out a screeching scream that shattered like shards across my eardrums before it sprang forward. I put a life magic infused round between its eyes, sending its body into a mist of fire and ash. The other vampires fanned out and rushed me like a pack of wolves, and I picked off two more before switching to my sword.

So much for not breaking a sweat. Switching to my sword meant that things were about to get less ashy and more bloody since the blade wasn’t blessed with life magic. Gross.

“Are you going to help me?” I yelled to Zane as I sent a head flying from another’s shoulders.

“No, you got it.” He crossed his arms. “Doing great.”

“Is this because I made fun of you growing out your hair?” I dove to the side and slid onto one knee, driving my blade up through a grunt’s chin and out the top of its head. “Because you don’t look totally douchey.”

“Is that your attempt at an apology?”

“I’m not apologizing.” I dodged a snapping set of teeth and cracked my knuckles across its jaw before slashing at its throat with my blade. “For being honest.”

“This is why you don’t have friends, hunter.”

“I have friends!” I turned one of the grunts into a kebab and rushed forward, using it as a shield to fire a few shots at some faster vampires who were trying to rush me.

“Name two. Sias doesn’t count.”

“Barnaby is kind of a friend. We bonded a little once rent was caught up.”

“Barnaby called you a drug-addled hussy less than twenty-four hours ago.”

My sword came up and out of my shield, and I grabbed the vampire that had tried to sink its teeth into my neck and tossed it onto its back before shooting it twice for the offence.

“So? He calls everyone names.” I panted, spitting some blood from my lips. These fuckers had a habit of splashing their nasty fluids everywhere when you sent blades through them.

“Doesn’t call me names.”

“That’s because you make my life hard and he thinks it’s funny.” I stepped over a vampire I had decapitated and paused in reflection. “Okay, I might not have close friends, but I have some acquaintances that don’t hate me.”

“Yikes.”

“I don’t exactly see you with tons of friends, Mr. Undead Asshole.” I gave my sword a shake to get rid of some of the bloody and nasty bits.

“I’m a vampire Thrall. I’m undead, immortal, and bound to do the bidding of whatever necromancer holds my tether.” He shrugged one big shoulder. “What’s your excuse?”

I had a really witty response to him being a jerk, but it was cut short by my phone ringing again.

“Wilde Contract Killing and Fish Training, please excuse the gunfire.” I popped off a round at a grunt rushing my direction. “How can I help you?”

“Bad time?” Dex asked, the sound of a gum bubble popping following directly after.

“Dex!” I swung my gun to connect the butt to the temple of a vampire, then snapped its knee backwards. “We’re friends, right?”

“Friends?” she repeated slowly, like maybe she was mispronouncing an unknown word. “Are you about to ask me something weird?”

“What? No, I mean like…we’re friends. Buddies. We’d go grab a beer together or…you know, do normal people shit.” I wiped some vampire carnage from my chin.

“Are you asking me to go get a beer with you?”

I was a little insulted she sounded so disgusted, and I ignored Zane as he chuckled.

“Never mind,” I grumbled, turning away from Zane so I could kick a dead vampire and pretend it was him. “You got good news about my super-secret project you’ve been working on?”

“No updates there, but I do have some info about a certain imp you have beef with.”

“You’re gonna have to be way more specific.”

“The one who’s boyfriend you fucked,” she added with a sigh. When I didn’t respond back immediately, she added a flat, “Dallas.”

“I sometimes make bad choices!” I pointed at Zane before he had a chance to chime in. “Shut all the way up.”

“Marthas,” Dex sighed. “I’m talking about Marthas, from the Broken Horn, one of many people whose homes you’ve wrecked.”

Marthas. How could I forget the big, angry, leader of the imp gang Marthas. Last I saw the guy, he was trying to kick my ass in his club after a tryst I could barely recall at this point. Zane had gotten stabbed, and I’d been permanently banned from my favorite hook-up location.

Oh, and then Marthas broke into my apartment and stole a lot of very rare, expensive magical shit I had lifted from Omar’s place. So that was also really fun.

“Oooh, right.”

“You’re a dog.”

“Woof, woof.” I dodged a vampire trying to tackle me and tripped it before shooting. “Whatcha got?”

“According to my sources, Marthas has been looking for a buyer for some really upscale, expensive artifacts. From what I understand, Florence Pierce has tapped him as a potential buyer.”

That was not what I had been expecting.

“Florence? Like the health guru lady?”

“The superstar health guru who owns ReNew, yeah,” Dex clarified. “She’s all about utilizing inner connections with magic. Like, this bitch has yoga for aligning your magic chakras or some shit.”

A bone-deep chill went up my spine at the mention of ReNew.

Visions of Omar staring at me with crystalized spikes coming from his smoky eyes clouded my brain; the memory of his voice commanding me, my wrists bleeding.

Sias walking off into the night, stoically trying to drown himself.

The terror I had felt when I thought I had lost him, knowing it had been my fault he was there.

Feeling Zane pull me from the void just as I had seen how endless it truly was…

“Hunter!”

I turned at the sound of Zane’s voice, just in time for a set of teeth to latch onto my leg. One of the grunts I had incapacitated hadn’t fully died, and in one last desperate attempt to piss me off, had sprung up and bit me just above the knee.

I hated how familiar the sting was, how vicious it squeezed my heart.

The thing was already at re-death’s door as it was, so it died quickly when I shoved a blade through its throat to finally push it back to the void.

“Dex, I’ll call you back,” I managed through my teeth, terminating the call to examine the bite.

Zane had materialized beside me. “Why the hell did you just stand there?”

“I thought it was dead! Er. Dead again .” The cloth of my pants stuck to my skin from the blood, the wound hot in the frigid air. “Some fucking bodyguard you are, by the way.”

“Who called? Whatever it was had to be pretty interesting to have you that damn distracted.”

I slapped his arm away when he tried to help me walk, managing to limp along just fine.

“Dex,” I spat. “You remember all those cool, rare, magical artifacts we stole from Omar’s place a while back that got lifted from the apartment? Marthas is planning on selling them to the owner of ReNew.”

“Shit. When?”

“I don’t know,” I explained slowly, contempt boiling over. “I got bit by a vampire while getting the intel, because my bodyguard sucks .”

“You’ll live,” he deadpanned. “You can’t get turned into a vampire as a necromancer.”

“You are terrible at apologizing.”

“I don’t apologize for being honest.”

I threw the keys for the car I had stolen at him, annoyed that he caught them when they were very clearly aimed at his head.

“Go get the car. I’m going to check inside.”

“Alone?” He pinched his brows into a frown.

“I got it.” I made a shooing motion with my hands. “Go get the car.”

“I can go with you?—”

I dramatically motioned to my bleeding leg.

“Go get the fucking car, Zane. I need medical supplies.”

The vampire threw up his hands in surrender, turning to fetch the stolen sedan while I peeked inside for any lingering traces of the elusive necromancer. Whoever had created this batch of ghouls had been slipping through my fingers for weeks, leaving very little in the way of clues or motive. The last place I had found even the smallest little whiff of this jerk’s trail was almost a day away from the city.

They were getting bold by creeping closer to the city. I didn’t like it, and I knew I needed to find something soon, or I’d be chasing down fangs in the damn market district next.

My boots crunched on dead leaves and debris as I pushed through the double doors of what had once been an emergency room. Dark streaks of grime and decay clung to the high corners of the stained hallways, outlining everything in black and deep green. Busted light fixtures drooped from the ceiling, an old fire alarm switch had met a grisly fate on the dirty floor.

Sunlight had reached as far as it could from the dingy windows, shadows taking up permanent residency in the quiet hallways. A few drops of owl’s eye helped sharpen my vision, piercing through the darkness so I wasn’t completely blind as I continued forward. A sticky, rotten smell grew worse the deeper I went, trailing downstairs and punching me in the face as I made my way into the basement.

I had smelled all stages of decomp for years, and it still wiggled like worms in my stomach when I got too close. A smear of menthol-coated cough suppressant under my nose helped curb it, but damn if it wasn’t rancid.

It was absolutely annoying how uninspired and clichéd it was that they had set up their little paradise in the damn morgue. To be fair, having a decent sized room with little hidey-holds to crawl into during the day would be mighty temping for a group of undead. I was more disappointed they gravitated to the dead body room instead of surprising me with something else.

But hey, dead husks weren’t exactly brimming with imagination, so I wasn’t exactly surprised.

Inside the morgue was evidence of long-term stay, with discarded corpses and gnawed bones thrown to the corners. The amount of leftover scraps told me that the vampires had been there at least a month, which settled like a cold blanket over my shoulders.

This necromancer was an expedient little fuck. I was further behind than I thought.

It meant they might already be inside the city.

I kicked a ribcage in annoyance, feeling a little better as it shattered against the wall. How the hell this necromancer was giving me the slip was beyond me, but I had to light a fire under my ass to find them. If the vamps got into the city and made a nest, it would cause absolute chaos, not to mention really screw up the whole monopoly I had on the vampire killing market. Keeping these undead shits out of the city kept the general population and government unaware of their existence. They were getting too damn close to exposing themselves.

My charm gave a pulse, a little warning sign the same moment I heard something fall to the ground a few feet from the morgue. It wasn’t strong enough to be the necromancer, but I had been wrong in thinking all the vampires were outside. My sword slid free as I peered out from the morgue’s door, listening to the scraping, hissing sounds slipping down the hallway.

The bite on my leg throbbed as I moved, the fresh blood no doubt exciting the vampire close by. I adjusted my grip, fingers wrapping around the hilt, my charm humming with warning as I crept toward the noise. An office door was hanging half open, the plaque beside the entrance molded over so completely that the name was forever lost to time.

I kicked the door open further and lifted my sword to swing, only to realize my readied strike wasn’t necessary. Pinned to a dusty desk with a hunting knife through its jaw was a grunt vampire, still very feisty but completely unable to move. Its red eyes flashed at the sight of me, the fresh blood from my leg wound sending it into a starving frenzy. Its hands slapped the desk and clawed, sending dust flying like it was a bull stomping before a charge.

It was not what I had been expecting.

Someone had clearly been here, gone through this whole office and stripped it for information, and run into this bundle of sunshine.

So much for my fucking monopoly.

The much more disturbing part of the whole situation wasn’t the trapped grunt nor the threat to my income. It was the reality that very few people had the training to handle these undead bastards, nor the knowledge of how to find them. It was a very small pool of people.

And none of them were fans of me.

I dodged the swiping, bony fingers of the starving grunt to look at the blade, noticing a thick piece of paper pieced between the handle and the thing’s jaw. The paper tore free with a gentle tug, the blade sharp enough to cut through it clean. I had to shake the sticky, clotting blood from the paper before I could unfold the calling card that was no doubt left behind for the slippery necromancer.

My heart began to thunder once the note was opened, the familiar, clean handwriting ripping me down the middle as cleanly as the blade through paper.

By the light of The Saint, you shall be found, cleansed, and brought to order.

There was a good chance this note wasn’t for the necromancer.

I had been knocked so senseless by the message that I had missed the trap pinned to the goddamn vampire.

I knew better. I knew better than to get so lazy about checking for traps, but it had been years since I’d had to think about it. The enchantment was basic and punchy, a concussive ward that ignited with a simple tear of a piece of paper. The energy inside the room expanded like a bomb, sending me through the doorway I had come through and knocking the door off its hinges. I met the wall like a bug to a windshield, the liberated door following me like an unwanted guest.

My vision and hearing were momentarily gone, the volume of my existence turned up far too loud in my skull. For a few seconds, all that I knew was my heartbeat and darkness. It almost felt like dying, like touching my toes into the void before jerking back from the chill.

Then I moved, and the screaming confirmation I was alive ripped over me like a lightning strike of pain.

Debris and glass ground into my palm as I pushed myself up, an awful numbness settling over my body. I thought I yelled, but it sounded like I was underwater, my head ringing with the memory of the explosion. Slowly the shock cloud faded from my vision, and I took stock of all my body parts.

Two arms, two legs, a head and a dick.

Thank all the Gods and Goddesses twice for that.

I wanted to lie there for a while and recount all of my bad choices, but that seemed like a bad idea. Instead, I did some more underwater screaming and kicked the door off me, forced myself to my feet, fell a little bit, and spit some glass from my mouth.

While I wasn’t broken or bleeding any more than I already had been, the whole exploding through a room did make me a little jumpy and kinda pukey. When Zane came rushing in to help me, I fired at him before I realized what was happening.

Then I puked.

The asshole had the audacity to yell at me, even though I had once again missed his head.

“Concussive ward,” I yelled, because my hearing was still calibrated wrong. “Didn’t notice until after. Stoppit.” I tried to bat his hand away as he grabbed my jaw, turning my head from side to side. “You’re gonna make me barf again.”

“You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda my whole vibe, man.”

“Anything broken?” Zane’s hands ran down both arms and my torso, and I groaned a warning as he spun me in a circle. His palms were ice on my cheeks. For a few blinks, Zane had four red eyes that were peering into mine.

“No. But I wouldn’t argue if you wanted to give me a piggy-back ride.”

“I’m not doing that.” Zane looped my arm over his shoulders to steady me. “What the hell was a concussive ward doing in a vampire den?”

“Rival hunter,” I grumbled. “Left a note for the necromancer that set off the ward.”

“Great.” Zane sounded murderous, apparently not thrilled with the idea of more vampire hunters on the loose for some reason. “You know this person?”

“No,” I said immediately, then remembered he could tell when I felt uneasy. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s deeply obvious, but I should know who we’re up against.”

The sedan we had borrowed had been pulled closer to the overgrown parking lot, and I hobbled into the passenger seat where my duffel was waiting. I dropped into the seat and settled into the cushion while my body hummed from the events of the last thirty minutes.

“We have other things to focus on,” I told him as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “Like Marthas selling shit to ReNew.”

“Hunter—”

“Zane, give me a break.” I looked at him, bone tired and sore. “One catastrophe at a time. My head hurts and a vampire chewed on my leg.”

Zane’s jaw bunched, the engine rumbling to life as the subject was dropped.

“How is Marthas able to get a sit-down with ReNew?” Zane asked as I fished my first aid supplies out, the sedan rocking us as he pulled back onto the long-abandoned road. “I didn’t think Florence Pierce took meetings with mid-level thugs.”

“Apparently she does when they have priceless artifacts for sale.” I lifted my hips and wiggled out of my jeans, hissing as the wound pulled from the rough denim. The bite punched deep holes into my skin, blood dripping onto the tarp we had earlier placed over the seats. The sting of the antiseptic made me wince, and the frigid cold settled into my bones enough to force a shiver from me.

“Would Sias know about deals like that?” Zane asked, the bumpy road giving way to something better traveled and smooth. “He seems like he’d be given a heads-up if something expensive and possibly deadly was floating around on the market.”

“I’ll ask during my dinner date.”

Zane grunted, pulling out his phone to check the screen. I sealed the wound with some gauze, holding tight to help stop the bleeding.

“I still can’t believe you let a damn grunt bite me. You literally have one job.”

“Not my fault you got complacent, hunter. Maybe you need to do some training.”

“ Me ?”

He pivoted the conversation into a hard left turn. “Sias is inviting me to dinner tonight.”

That made my already pounding head throb like a war drum.

“Gods, he’s relentless.”

“How often am I invited without my knowledge?” Zane cocked a brow. “Maybe I want to have dinner with Sias.”

“You’re ruining my really clever metaphor.”

“I wouldn’t call it clever,” the moody goth boy retorted.

“I’m not into policing who Sias enjoys his time with, but I swear to the Gods I will set you on fire if you follow me to dinner.” I jabbed my finger at him after I finished wrapping my leg. “It’s a private dinner. No asshole bodyguards allowed.”

“What do you know about how these deals are brokered?” Zane sliced the conversation in half and moved on. “Who would be the middleman on something like this?”

“Marthas is a thug, but he’s also the leader of a wide network of imps. The Broken Horns aren’t small, they have their connections all over.” I checked on the bite and sighed. “I have some people we can tap for answers if Dex?—”

The rumbling noise of a growling stomach interrupted me so severely that it made me lose my train of thought. For a few beats of very pregnant silence, there was only the hum of the road and the dying gurgles of Zane’s hunger.

The mumbled “Sorry” sounded much more genuine that time.