The Vampire Hunter's Daughter The Complete Collection (9 page)

I sighed and rolled over. It was still
Christmas vacation. I didn’t have to go to school, but I still had
to train every day. I lay there for so long I knew Drew was
downstairs pacing the living room, waiting for me. I threw back the
covers and let the cold air touch my bare legs for a minute before
I forced myself to get up and throw on a pair of black yoga pants
with a tank top and hoodie. I pulled my hair into a crude ponytail,
put on a windbreaker over the hoodie and headed downstairs.

As I had suspected, Drew was pacing the
living room while the news blared in the background. “Turn that
down or you’re going to wake up Luke. It’s still early.”

Drew rolled his eyes at me and clicked off
the TV. “There were six robberies within a four-block radius last
night. All the people in the homes died, their throats slit,” he
announced and then continued his pacing.

“Does that mean you’re going on mission?” I
called from the kitchen where I had gone for a bottle of water.

“Yeah, but probably not until tonight.” He
shook his head. “I can’t believe how bad this is getting, so close
together.”

I wandered back into the living room “How do
you know it's vampires doing it?”

Drew grabbed his own water bottle and shoved
it into his back pack. “Lots of vampires cut the throats of their
victims to make it look like a murder. A murder by a human. You
ready?”

I nodded, and we took off.

Running through the snow sucks big time. On
my list of things I hate most about training, running in the snow
was probably in the top three. Apparently it was of the utmost
importance to learn to run in the elements, because I might have to
chase a vampire through the snow or something.

While we ran, Drew veered off into the
trails. The snow was actually not as deep in the forest, so we
crunched over the icy layer on top of the soil. We were deep in the
forest when I began to really detest the slippery ground.

It had become my habit to push through it
when I felt this way. I dug in and ran faster. I breathed in deep
with my nose and exhaled long with my mouth, forcing the fatigue
out of my body. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest,
pounding rapidly as the blood pulsed throughout my body.

I dipped my head down and sped up again,
passing Drew who jumped a little bit when I did. I smiled with
triumph when I passed him, because the whole time I had been
running and training with Drew, I had never, ever passed him.

I kept thinking about the ice melting beneath
my feet and the soles of my shoes touching the earth beneath it. My
feet felt like they were on fire.

“Chloe…”

I heard my name, but I didn’t stop because I
didn’t want to give him the chance to pass me again. I had the
lead.

“Chloe!” He called again.
“Stop!”

I skidded to a halt when his shout carried
that tone I had come to know as warning. I turned to face him.
“What? What is it?”

He only pointed. I looked down at my feet and
there were small flames flickering around my shoes.

“What the—” I jumped back and shook one of my
feet. “Ah, what is this?” I turned quickly and stuck my foot into
one of the snow banks on the side of the trail. Nothing happened;
the flames only melted a gigantic hole where I had plunged it into
the bank.

“
Stop it!”
I screamed, shaking my foot
again. The flames immediately went out on both shoes.

“Oh, my god. What was that?” I panted and
looked up at Drew, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring down
the trail that we had just run.

I followed his gaze and saw why he was
staring down the trail like an idiot. The path was clear. Where I
had run, the snow was gone and the earth beneath had been
exposed.

“Drew, how…wha…?”

“You melted the snow, Chloe.”

“No! My shoes were on fire!” I hollered at
him. “My. Shoes. Were. On. Fire!” I punctuated every word to make
sure he heard me.

He turned to look at me and awe was clearly
written across his face. “I think you have the gift of fire.”

“Whatever. I’m not even sixteen yet.”

“It doesn’t matter. How else can you explain
what just happened? What were you thinking about?”

I was still panting, not because I was tired,
but because I was scared. My freaking feet had caught fire. “That
the ice would melt. That I hated running in the snow.”

He nodded knowingly. “See, it’s your
gift.”

“I don’t know. I think it’s some kind of
freak accident.”

“Can you do it again?”

“I don’t think so.” More like I didn’t want
to try again.

“Come on, try again.” He glanced all around
us, looking for something. Finally, his eyes settled on a tree. “If
you don’t want to set your shoes on fire again, do that tree.”

“Drew, I am not setting fire to a tree.”

“Come on.” He was practically begging. I
couldn’t stand seeing him look like that. He was usually so
confident and had this whole ‘whatever, I’m just gonna stand here
and look awesome’ attitude going on.

“Fine.”

I thought he might jump up and down, he
looked so excited. I adjusted my stance so that I was staring at
the tree, squinted my eyes, and thought about it catching fire.
Nothing happened.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this.
It’s not working.” I told him.

He stared thoughtfully at the tree. “I think
you just need to practice. Think about how you were feeling at the
time.”

“Drew, I’m done with this. I just want to go
home.”

“Chloe.”

“I can’t do it. Why don’t you understand
that?” I stomped my foot and flung my hand toward the tree. “I
can’t make the stupid tree catch fire.”

With a ripping sound, several branches of the
tree burst forth sparks and erupted into large flickering flames.
Both Drew and I stood with our mouths open. My arm was still
extended while we watched the flames crawl along the branches until
they reached the tips. I lowered my hand and looked at Drew, who
must have felt quite proud of himself, because his open mouth was
replaced by a gargantuan sized grin.

“Knock it off,” I told him.

“Chloe… Do you know what this means?”

“Yeah, it means I’m more of a freak than I
already was.”

I didn’t want fire. I didn’t want a gift I
couldn’t control. In the course of twenty minutes, I had set my
shoes on fire and made a tree go up in flames without even
trying.

“I’m going home.” I swiveled and marched off
down the trail.

Drew chased after me. “This isn’t bad, Chloe!
You can learn how to control this. You’re going to have to.”

“I don’t
have
to do anything.”

“Why are you fighting this? This could be the
one thing that helps you get what you want most! If you want to
kill Trevor, fire is an ultimate weapon, especially if he doesn’t
see it coming.”

I stopped in my tracks. He was right,
absolutely, perfectly right. I could blow Trevor right off the face
of the planet if I wanted to.

As if reading my thoughts, Drew said “But you
have to learn how to use it first.”

I nodded. “Yes, I do.”

Once we got home, I stormed up the stairs and
into my room. I wanted to get a shower and change so I could go to
the library. I wanted to do as much research as I could, and when I
had school, I didn’t have much time to go the library. Between
training, school and hygiene, I didn’t have much time for
anything.

Drew said we would work on honing my new
firepower after he got back from the mission. That left me all day
to ponder the visit from Sostrate, not to mention setting stuff on
fire. Instead of worrying about that stuff, I headed out to the
library.

Of all the places in the community, the place
I loved most, besides Luke’s house, was the library. It was so
quiet there, and the air inside was always perfect. It smelled like
history. I entered the two-story stone building and greeted the
librarian. “Hi, Linda.”

She sat behind the counter and organized a
cart full of books into piles. “Oh, hello, Chloe. What are you
looking for today?”

She pushed back her chair and smoothed back
her hair while she stood. Her glasses sat somewhat crooked on her
nose. She looked sort of flustered.

I shifted my book bag to the other shoulder.
“I want to look up vampire children today. I thought I’d just start
with the computer.”

She waved her hand, dismissing the idea. “No,
you never know where that information is coming from. Yeah, it can
be helpful, but the books are better.”

I should have expected nothing less from
Linda. “Okay. Well, point me in the right direction.”

She smiled and beckoned me to follow her.
“Down this way.”

We went to the old section where I’d found
all the books on vampire hunter history, but several rows over.

“Do you know what the child of a vampire and
a mortal is called, Chloe?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“A child created by a vampire and a human is
called a dhampir.” We stopped at a shelf with big, thick books.

“Chloe, you may have a harder time looking up
vampires than you did vampire hunters.”

I raised my eyebrows in question, but
remained silent.

She continued with, “There are many different
kinds of vampires. The vampire legends range from the most common,
the European vampires, to the rarest vampires, like the bat
vampires from Africa and South America.”

She lifted a book and hefted it over to me.
“I know that you are looking for stuff about being a dhampir, so we
can start there.” She grabbed another book off the shelf and
plunked it on top of the one I was already holding. “But when you
start researching vampire breeds and histories, you will have a lot
of work ahead of you.”

She pulled another leather bound monster book
off the shelf and held it in her arms.

“This should do it for now,” Linda said.

We hauled the books over to the tables and
deposited them onto the wooden surface.

“All right, then.” Linda pushed her glasses
farther up onto the bridge of her nose. “I’ll let you get to it
then. Come find me if you need any help.”

“Thank you, Linda,” I told her. I pulled a
chair out to sit while she wandered back through the stacks of
books that led back to her desk.

I took the first book off the stack and
examined the cover. It was titled
Vampires throughout
History
. The cover was leather and so old it was stiff and
cracked in spots. The pages showed signs of age too, yellowing and
stiff to the touch. There was no table of contents, so it looked
like I was going to have to scan the entire book for what I was
wanting. I flipped the pages carefully, so as not to tear any of
them.

After an hour of scanning and about half way
through the book, I found something referring to vampire
children.