Not Quite Dead (A NightHunter Novel) (35 page)

With a sigh, she walked over to the sink to fill the coffee pot. As it filled, she surveyed the woods. Something moved, and she jerked her gaze to the right, trying to see what she'd missed. For a split second, she thought she saw glowing red eyes, and chills ran down her spine. She went still, the water pounding onto the metal sink, as she watched the woods.

She'd seen eyes like that in her sleep before.

Red eyes.

Looking for her.

Hunting her.

Eyes that weren't real. Eyes that were alive only in her dreams...eyes that her grandmother had said were almost as powerful in her mind as they were in real life.

Slowly, her hand unsteady, she shut off the water. The steady drip, drip, drip pinged on the stainless steel sink, like the droplets of blood she used to dream about. She quieted her mind, using the same tools that her grandmother had so painstakingly taught her.

Jordyn.
Cicatrice's razor-edged voice was a whisper through her mind, the cold brush of menace.

"No!" She slammed up her mental shields, and stepped back from the window, pressing her hands to her temples. Her hands were shaking, as she stared at the woods. Had that been Cicatrice? Or her imagination haunting her, as it had so many times?

If it wasn't her imagination, if he really had found her...

"Jordyn? You okay?"

She whirled around to see Eric running down the stairs, his shoulders so broad they almost took up the entire stairwell. Relief flooded her at the sight of him, despite his shadowy skin and sunken cheeks. "We have nine hours until sunset," she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

Eric looked past her as he walked up, studying the woods. She felt a push of energy as he sent something out past her. For a moment, he said nothing, then he nodded. "There's nothing out there right now." He looked down at her. "You're safe."

Relief rushed through her so that she had to lean against the counter to keep her balance. "For now."

"For now." He raised his brows at her. "I heard him in your mind," he said quietly. "I felt his presence. You didn't imagine it. He's alive, and he's found you."

"We need stakes." David appeared in the doorway of the basement stairs. He was still covered in blood, but the gash on his arm was healed, and his eyes were brighter and less sunken. He was grasping a bloodied towel that he was using to wipe off the last of the dirt, ash, and blood from his hands. "A lot of them."

Jordyn and Eric broke apart, turning to face him. She couldn't help but glance over her shoulder again at the woods, and Eric moved closer to her.

"Stakes don't work," she said. "It only slows them down."

"Ordinary stakes, yes, but not the special ones." He walked across the kitchen, pulled a stake from the folds of the towel, and put it down on the counter. "This works. If we duplicate the runes onto other stakes, they'll work almost as well."

It was her grandmother's stake. Jordyn's heart jumped and she grabbed it, turning it over in her hands. She remembered every detail of it, and this was definitely it. She looked at David. "Where did you get this?"

"I've had it for a while," he said, reaching for it.

She pulled back, not letting him take it. As if reading her mind, Eric slipped it out of her hand, ostensibly to look at it as he walked away from David, taking the stake out of his reach. She thought she smelled something burning, and she glanced quickly at Eric. His face was composed, but there was a faint tendril of smoke rising from his fingers. A vampire stake?

David sniffed the air, and she spoke quickly to distract him. "You stole that from my grandmother," she said. "It's hers, but it was gone when I went to find it."

David's gaze jumped to hers. "I didn't steal it. It's my job."

"Your job? Really?" She folded her arms over her chest. "What job is that? I'm guessing that's not part of your bartender duties."

"I'm a NightHunter."

She blinked. The word sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it. "What are you talking about?"

"NightHunters. The ancient guild your grandmother was a part of. She was the last active one left that we know of. When she died, there was a void. You left town, so I took over. I'm resurrecting it." He rolled up his sleeve, and she saw a symbol carved on his bicep that she recognized.

It was the shape of the pendant that her grandmother used to wear around her neck. A double crescent moon bisected by a triangle. "The moon, and the three promises: life, love, and peace," she said softly.

"It's the symbol of protection from the creatures of the night," he explained. "We're the secret guardians of the innocent. We're the last line of defense."

Eric was leaning against the counter, twirling the stake in his fingers. The smoking of his skin seemed to have stopped, and she could see a faint layer of fluorescent green on his fingertips, as if he'd created a shield to protect himself. "And what exactly do you all do?"

David walked across the room to the cabinet above the stove and pulled it open. "We hunt them, and kill them." There were no plates on the shelves, just dozens and dozens of wooden stakes, all of them carved with the same markings as her grandmother's stake. He picked one up. "These work pretty well," he said, wiping the towel over it almost reverently, as if to wipe imaginary taint off a priceless item. "You hit the vampire anywhere with them, and it slows them down long enough to get one in the heart." he tossed one at Jordyn, but didn't take his attention off the one in Eric's hands. "With these ancient symbols, there's usually no need for beheading. It works on its own most of the time, but if you need to behead one, these engraved stakes make the vampire so incapacitated that it's easy to finish them off. I always decapitate just to be sure, though. Can't risk being wrong, you know."

Jordyn gripped the stake in her hand. The wood was smoothly polished, and the tip was razor sharp. It looked like a lethal weapon designed to destroy, and she hated holding it in her hands. "I don't think my grandmother was a killer," she said. "She wasn't like that."

Her grandmother had taught her to honor life and cherish spirits. Oba was the one who had taught her to commune with the spirits and to allow them to bring positive energy into her. She'd believed in the benevolence of the female spirit, and that women could make a difference in the world. She wasn't an advocate of
killing
.

"Your grandmother was a NightHunter," he said. "Read her book. You'll see."

She stared at him as a feeling of violation crawled over her. "You read her book? That was private."

"I needed to know if there was any information in it." He shrugged. "There's nothing of value, so I left it there." He looked over at Eric. "Tonight we hunt Cicatrice. You in?"

Eric balanced the stake on his palm, watching it steadily. His gaze slid to David, silently assessing.

David stared at him for a long moment, then looked away, unable to hold his gaze. "Cicatrice will come for her tonight," he said. "He knows where she is."

There was something in his tone that put Jordyn on alert. "How do you know that?"

Eric had stopped twirling the stake, and was watching David carefully as well.

David glanced between them. "I heard you saying that he was talking in your head again, right? So, yeah, that's my guess." He glanced past them. "I'll go harvest some more wood. We'll need more tonight. I'll be back in a couple hours." He moved past them to his truck, now moving with lithe grace, despite the fact that he'd barely been able to walk only an hour before.

Neither Jordyn nor Eric moved to stop him, and they were silent as he started his battered truck and drove it away.

As his engine faded into the distance, Jordyn felt her heart tighten. She glanced at Eric. "Last night, in his battle with the vampire, he let it slip where I was." It wasn't a question. She knew it in her heart. "He did it on purpose. Whatever vampire he fought, he didn't kill it. He let it go." Was that why that man Richard was dead? And why Skye had gotten hurt? Because David had exposed them to set his trap?

No. No, that wasn't right. David wasn't like that. But the denial rang empty within her. Maybe he was like that.

But Eric nodded. "He set you up to trap Cicatrice. I can't say I approve of his method." His voice was lethal.

Jordyn bit her lip, refusing to dwell. She wasn't here to rediscover a lost childhood friendship with the one person she'd trusted. She was in town because she owed Tristan, and now, she also wanted to protect her town. Stopping Cicatrice was the only way to do it. "Well, I guess we might as well take advantage, right? I mean, Cicatrice is who we want." But she couldn't suppress the ripple of fear. Her grandmother had warned her over and over again how dangerous Cicatrice was, not just to the world, but to her, specifically.

Eric tossed the stake on the counter. It rattled on the Formica, and then slid off and clattered to the floor. "There is
never
a reason to use you as bait," he said. "Ever." He held out his hand, and she saw angry burn marks crisscrossing his flesh, as if someone had laid a hot poker across his palm repeatedly.

She held out her own hand, which hadn't been affected at all by the stake.

"David doesn't see in shades of gray," he said softly. "He sees only in black and white."

She looked at him, understanding what he was saying. "He'd kill you, even though you're perfectly sane. And Tristan."

"With great pleasure." Eric closed his hand, and she felt him push energy across it. His hand glowed green, and this time, when he opened his palm, it was almost healed.

Almost, but there were still a few faint lines across it, as if even he couldn't quite take away the damage of the stake. He met her gaze. "Tonight, the enemy won't simply be Cicatrice. It will also be David. He knows there is something going on with me, and he will work to take advantage of it."

Jordyn brushed her hair back from her face. "The woman he loved was killed by a vampire," she said. "I understand where his hostility comes from."

Eric shook his head. "Hostility is dangerous. A good warrior never lets personal vendettas drive him."

Jordyn bit her lip. "I know." She knew Eric was right, but at the same time, she understood what it felt like to be coping with extreme emotions. "I think his heart is in the right place," she said softly. "Plus, he's a good fighter, apparently," she said. "We'll need his help to stop Cicatrice. As an ancient vampire, he's ridiculously powerful. David will know how to stop him."

"David is a bull in a china shop," Eric said. He walked over to the dining room table and picked up her grandmother's book. "I was in your grandmother's shed. I felt the strength of her power, the finesse with which she'd woven her protections. She had skills far beyond what David possesses. Find out what she knew, and find out quickly."

She took the book, her fingers brushing against his. "That spirit that was trapped in her shed? The one that you said was cruelly trapped? Was that her magic?"

He met her gaze. "It wasn't David's," he said, answering the question she hadn't asked. "He's not talented enough to do it. It was hers."

Jordyn's heart sank. "So, maybe she had a good reason."

He nodded at the book. "Figure out what it was. And fast."

Eric paused in the doorway of David's bedroom to check on Skye. She was still in deep healing mode, but her spirit was settled. He couldn't sense danger from her, and her energy seemed balanced, unlike David's.

Satisfied that Skye was neither a threat, nor in danger of dying, he turned away and strode down the stairs to where Jordyn was hunched over the book. She'd been reading for two hours straight while Eric had searched every corner of the house, seeking information about David and vampires.

He'd found out what he wanted to know when he'd discovered the room hidden behind the safe room that he'd destroyed. It had been a cache of vampire hunting paraphernalia, along with extensive runes carved on all the walls. It had smelled of stale blood that had turned Eric's stomach. Bad things had been in that room, but he hadn't been able to identify the specifics.

Grimly, he walked into the dining room and sat down across from Jordyn. Her hair had long ago fallen out of her ponytail, and it was curling in tangled tendrils around her neck. She looked exhausted, and he was filled with the urge to pick her up and carry her away from all this hell. She awoke in him feelings of protectiveness that he hadn't felt in a very long time, perhaps ever.

She made him want to be the man she thought he was. Just sitting there near her eased some of the torment in his soul, and it softened the voices screaming inside his head. The shadows that he hadn't managed to settle after the festivities in the basement eased back, giving him room to breathe, simply because he was near her.

He tipped his chair forward, giving him enough reach to pick up a tangle of her hair and run his thumb over the ends.

She looked up, a startled expression on her face. She saw him, and then she relaxed. "Oh, it's you. I didn't hear you come in."

"How is it that your hair is so soft? I didn't know it was possible." He continued to slide his fingers along the strands.

Jordyn smiled. "It's called conditioner."

"It's good." He bent his head, breathing in the scent. "It smells like lavender," he said. "With a touch of peach."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "How on earth did you discern those scents? But yes, that's what it is, at least according to the bottle."

"We spent a lot of time in graveyards as kids. People leave flowers there. It always seemed incongruous, the beautiful flowers and all the hell that I called up. I used the flowers as an anchor, to remind myself that not everything in the world was like me." He idly watched the sunlight sparkle across the strands. "I haven't thought of flowers in a long time."

She put her hand over his. "Flowers are good," she said softly.