Authors: Stephen Kozeniewski

Hunter of the Dead (42 page)

BOOK: Hunter of the Dead

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Bonaparte was silent for a moment.

“Well, good thing you put her down then, kid.”

She clinked her glass against his. Neither of them stated the obvious. Whatever Kasprzak had put together had certainly not died with her. There would be files, that likely would already be in the hands of the vampires. And their long secret war was no longer a secret.

An Inquisitor came hurrying in, holding a laptop. He had rabbity little beady eyes.

“Ma’am! Ma’am! You’re not going to believe this!”

“What?”

“There’s been a rash of attacks in New Orleans.”

Bonaparte ran her hands down her face. She corked the cognac.

“It never rains but it pours. Are they confirmed vampires?”

Rabbit Eyes shook his head.

“Werewolves,” he whispered.

“Well, shit. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good wolf hunt. Most everybody will have to remain here for the cleanup tomorrow, but we’ll have to at least send some scouts. Don’t want the trail to get cold. You know how cagey werewolves can be.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Gather up five or six volunteers and put them on a chopper.” She eyed Nico up and down. “I don’t suppose you’ll be joining us for either effort?”

“I’m not really a joiner,” Nico replied.

A thin-lipped smile quirked her face.

“How did I guess you’d say that? Too bad. You would’ve made a hell of an Inquisitor.”

“I am an Inquisitor.”

He held out his ceremonial stake towards her. She tapped the spelling mistake and grunted a laugh.

“Typical Carter. Well, congrats, kid. I can give you the name of a good tattooist in New Orleans.”

“Thanks, but I think I have some business left in Vegas.”

Bonaparte nodded.

“Good luck, kid. There should never be ill will between Inquisitors.”

She stuck out her hand. Nico took it.

“Um…one last question…if you don’t mind. Do you know what happened to Idi Han?”

“None of my men have captured or killed her. I can let you know if they do.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

She gave him a sidelong glance.

“I take it you’d rather deal with her?”

“Yeah. I think maybe I owe her that.”

Bonaparte shrugged and clapped him on the back.

“All right. She’s your problem now, kid.”

Nico reached into his shirt and drew out a small metal necklace bearing her nickname: Blood Flower. He ran his finger over it.

Twelve

Earlier that night…

Suddenly The Hunter froze in mid-air.

“Hello?” Price whispered.

“Hello, Price.”

“Idi Han?”

He felt her delicate fingers run through his hair. Her other hand, disproportionately tiny, was holding up the hundreds of pounds of muscle and metal.

“Are you going to let me up? Or…is this a revenge thing?”

“Did you kill Cicatrice?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

Price wheezed. Too much pain.

“Bonaparte. Her gang.”

“How did he go?”

He turned his head as best he could to look into her eyes, which were gleaming with something like earnestness. He struggled to reach into his pocket and handed her the obsidian ring.

“It was like watching a pack of jackals take down a lion.”

She didn’t smile, but he could tell she wanted to. She was learning to hide her emotions like her master had.

“I released The Damned. I wanted to change everything.”

He coughed. He didn’t like the look of the blood spatter his hacking was leaving on the floor.

“I think you’ve succeeded then.”

“I can grant you death. Or…”

She trailed off. Price looked up at the arrested figure of the armored giant. He seemed, if anything, at peace. In an instant, everything became clear to Price.

He saw her in the shadows. He saw in me a successor. She has no idea about any of it.

“You can grant me the Long Gift.”

She cocked her head.

“Is that what you want?”

He smiled.

“You know…I think it was Cicatrice’s last wish that I join you.”

“But is it yours?”

A lifetime unfurled before his eyes. A dozen lifetimes. Chasing down nightcrawlers into the deepest, darkest corners of the earth. Becoming a boogeyman beyond all reason to the most powerful beings in existence. A lonely, solitary, maddening existence. But one where he could finally do some good. And prove that smarmy Bonaparte wrong once and for all.

“Do it.”

He felt her open his shirt and carve something over his heart. Then he felt an icy finger of darkness drive into his chest from her fingers.

***

Eyes closed, Price listened for the sound of the helicopter blades to fade. When they were gone, he flipped the half ton of man and metal off of him like it was nothing. He pulled himself to his feet. Rather than being split in half as he had told Nico, he was feeling unusually spry. His leg and wrist ached with a dull pain from the night’s events, but he felt them growing stronger already.

The clawmarks across his face he knew would never heal. Neither would the mark of Cicatrice on his chest. Technically, his wrist and leg never would either, and he would always carry the vampire equivalent of a limp, but as time passed he would become so powerful only he would ever notice it.

The pain that would never fade, though, was from the tattoos that still covered his body. He still carried his faith and his body was a holy symbol. He would carry this excruciating pain every day of his new eternal life, just as Cicatrice had carried his Inquisition tattoo.

Price snatched up his deerskin jacket and wrapped himself in it to cover the smoking tattoos. He grabbed The Hunter’s discarded helmet and stared at it.

“Why?” he whispered.

“I had to,” a syrupy, malevolent voice whispered in his ear, “I’m a scorpion.”

Price looked up but the casino was eerily, painfully empty.

Just my imagination.

Becoming one with his pain, he headed outside and stumbled into the parking lot. He fished into his pocket for his keys and dropped them under the car. His vision was becoming blurry. Perhaps it wasn’t so strange that he was hallucinating.

“You need to feed.”

He turned his head. This time the voice had been Idi Han’s. Was she following him, watching over him?

Or have I simply gone ‘round the bend?

Stories told of what happened to vampires who didn’t feed, especially on their first night, when the hunger was uncontrollable. They turned to ghouls and madmen, walking skeletons, deranged, crazed, uncontrollable…

No.

He pushed the worries, along with his hunger, deep down into his mind. He focused on the pain of his searing flesh. It became like a candle in the night, then a lighthouse: a beacon. He finally understood what had driven The Hunter of the Dead: a hunger that could never be sated, a pain that could never be salved, and a boundless thirst for revenge.

He turned the key and sat down in the driver’s seat. Idi Han was sitting next to him. Or perhaps not.

“You people always say the blood is the power,” he said, “but it’s not, is it? It’s the hunger that’s the power.”

“I don’t know about that,” she replied, “But I do know one thing.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

She leaned in and whispered in his ear, her breath hot on his face, “There was a time when our kind was not relegated to the shadows. And there will be again.”

THE END

Thank you for reading HUNTER OF THE DEAD. Whether you liked it or not I hope you’ll take a moment to leave a review on Amazon or your favorite book review site. Reviews are vitally important to me as an author both to help me market my book and to improve my writing in the future. Thank you!

-Stephen Kozeniewski

Acknowledgements

This book would not exist without John Waxler’s insistence (and financial investment) on it. He has been a tireless champion for Cicatrice, Idi Han, Price, Nico, and the whole crew. That it exists now is more a testament to his boundless faith, persistence, and support in this work than my own.

My eternal gratitude goes out to Sharon Stevenson for helping MacVicar sound less like a crappy American author’s idea of what a Scot sounds like.

Thank you to Renee Pickup (and her whole family), Holly Ann Kasprzak, Lily Luchesi, Nikki Howard, Alessia Giacomi, the Light Brothers, Stevie Kopas, Brian Keene, and everyone else who lent their names to the usually terribly fated characters in this book.

Thanks to Claire Ashby who believed that I could write a vampire novel that didn’t suck (ha!)

Thanks to Elizabeth Corrigan (who won the contest to name Cashley) and Mary Fan for their unflagging, sometimes daily support.

I’d like to thank Matt Worthington, Tristan Thorne, and the whole crew at Sinister Grin Press for working with me.

To my cats: may you eat like ghouls and age like oldbloods.

Finally, to my wife, Lina: I wrote this novel at a very difficult time. I don’t know which of the professor’s many roads lay ahead for us right now. I just know I want to walk it with you.

About The Author

Stephen Kozeniewski (pronounced "causin' ooze key") lives in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the modern zombie. During his time as a Field Artillery officer, he served for three years in Oklahoma and one in Iraq, where due to what he assumes was a clerical error, he was awarded the Bronze Star. He is also a classically trained linguist, which sounds more impressive than saying his bachelor's degree is in German.

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