I leaned back in my seat. "Seems rather like a calling card, don't you think?"

"Like someone is throwing down a challenge?"

I flicked my tongue over one fang, a habit that wasn't really my own. It was a tic of the vampire who'd made me, and whenever I thought of him, I couldn't help but repeat it.

As if he could hear my thoughts, Cal said, "Could it be Peter? Or that a.s.shole Stravinsky?"

"Madre de Dios, I hope not."

Memories of Peter and Stravinsky washed over me the moment I closed my eyes again.

Sleep had been a matter of enjoyment when I was human. No longer. Each time I rested, my mind peeled through my memories, watching the past as if it were a movie rolling in front of my eyes.

Cazador. Vampire Hunter.

I stared at the image in the mirror reflection of my silver stake. My hair cropped short to my head like a boy's, my body laced tightly in leather and light chain mail. Thin silver stakes strapped across my chest from shoulder to hip. I lifted my chin to look at the priest who was to be my guide.

"Father, let us find the demons." I mounted my horse, settling into the saddle. The priest, a young man who looked to be in his early twenties, mounted his own steed.

"Cazador." He nodded to me, but I caught the curl of his lip. The priests didn't like women becoming Cazadors, but that hadn't stopped me. I leaned toward him. "Do not let my gender fool you, Father. I am the best this group has because there is nothing left for the demons to take from me."

His dark eyes flicked over me. "Except your soul."

I snorted. "I will die before I let them turn me."

"Easily said now. But none of the others fell on their blades when they were turned to the darkness." We trotted our horses down a dirt road that wound through the hutches and hovels of a small outlying village.

My jaw tightened. "You are new to our group, and for that I will forgive you. A Cazador loses their mind when they are turned. It is torture for a hunter to become one of the demons they are sworn to destroy."

"Then you'd best keep your eyes open." He lifted a vial of holy water so I could see it. The water bubbled and slowly turned red.

I slipped from the horse's back and pulled two of the silver stakes. "They come, Father."

"Hey, we're within a mile," Calvin said, breaking my memories apart.

Shaking off the memory, I sat up and peered ahead. The line was short. d.a.m.n, I'd hoped there would be more time to prepare. There were two guards waiting in the tiny booth, and when it was our turn, Calvin drove up and handed them our pa.s.sports. Fake, of course, but that had never been an issue before.

"Sir, can you get out of the car please?"

I gritted my teeth, the pressure making my fangs drop. Calvin slid out of the car, exaggerating his limping gait. "Hang on, boys. I get stiff from sitting so long." They didn't touch him, didn't offer him any help.

Not a good sign. I leaned back and slid on my arm wraps and the shrouded cowl that covered my head and lower face. Sungla.s.ses last. The guard opened my door and I slipped out behind him before he even saw me.

Ignoring the heat of the sun on the few patches of exposed skin, I grabbed the guard around the neck and spun him. His body flew fifteen feet before cras.h.i.+ng into a cement barrier.

Guards came running, far more of them than such a small border crossing warranted. Almost like they were waiting for something.

Or someone.

Hesitation kills in a battle. I'd learned that the hard way. "Cal, get back into the car. Now."

He kicked the guard beside him in the knee, breaking it cleanly, then punched him in the throat for good measure. "You sure you don't want help?" For an old man, he still had some good p.i.s.s and vinegar. But I couldn't lose him, and these guards would kill him without a thought.

"Get the car started."

The guards lined up in front of me, forming a human blockade. "Either we're going to play Red Rover, Red Rover, or you all want to shoot me."

They lifted their guns as a single unit. All right then, message received.

Just as their trigger fingers started to twitch, I leapt straight up and forward, landing behind them. A full roundhouse kick took down three of the ten. The rest spun with me, guns going off. I dodged most of the bullets, but one caught me in the stomach.

Everyone froze, and I went to my knees. Holding a hand over the wound, I slowly raised my eyes to the remaining guards. "You didn't really think a bullet would stop me, did you?"

Adam's apples bobbed in chorus, and sweat beaded along their foreheads. I took a breath and flexed my stomach muscles, pus.h.i.+ng the bullet out. It popped into my hand, slick with blood. "Who wants a souvenir?" I tossed it into the air and the idiots watched the trajectory.

I used their distraction to dart toward them. Before the bullet fell to the ground, I had smashed two skulls together and broken three arms and five noses. There was silence except for the groaning of the guards who lay splayed out on the asphalt.

"You done playing?" Calvin called from the car.

I walked over the downed men, scooping one of them up as I went. "Yes. But I want a souvenir, too." I hadn't eaten in too long and it was making me irritable. Or at least more irritable than usual.

Stuffing the guard into the back of the car, I watched him try to breathe through his crushed nose. A slow gurgle was all he managed as his face swelled at a rapid rate. He didn't even register he'd been taken until we were driving down the road.

"We're going to have to ditch the car." Calvin's eyes caught mine before looking away.

"I'm not going to make a mess, Cal. I just want to know what he knows."

"The quickest way to do that is to feed on him, and making a mess is what you do." Disgust laced his words.

I tightened my grip on the guard. "True." The smell of blood beckoned. My teeth extended as I jerked the guard's head back, exposing his jugular. It would be a death bite. That was the only way to access a person's recent memories.

The guard squirmed and his eyes widened, but I didn't feel bad. My job was to wipe out what was left of the vampires in this world. When I was done, Calvin would stake me. Another life lost in the process was no big deal in my eyes.

I tapped the guard's neck, making the vein bulge more. "This is going to hurt."

He screamed as I latched onto his neck. I could have made it pleasurable for him, but I didn't want to give him any ideas. His blood rushed into my veins, lighting me up like a Christmas tree on crack. Images flickered and danced in front of my eyes, and I struggled to put the pieces together.

The guard whimpered and cried out as I drained him of the last of his blood.

"Calvin, pull over."

The car jerked to the side and I pushed the guard out, his body landing with a squish, as if all his bones had been extracted and replaced with those gummy worms Calvin loved.

I slammed the door, but not before a splash of late fall sunlight blistered my cheek. I rubbed at it, smoothing out the burn as it healed.

Calvin rapped his knuckles on the dashboard as he sped down the road. "What did you see?"

I settled into my seat and rolled my head back, peeling through the guard's memories. "They were told to watch for our car. They were supposed to detain you and kill me."

"How the h.e.l.l could they know what we were driving and where we were crossing? There is no way..."

But there was a way, despite his protest to the contrary. "The humans are developing all sorts of technology. You know that, so do I." I reached forward and grabbed my cell phone. "They could have traced us."

I crushed the phone in my hand, shattering it completely. A tiny, red flas.h.i.+ng dot was attached to the middle of the SIM card. I showed it to Calvin. "Someone's tracking us."

"h.e.l.lfire." He grabbed the pieces from me and chucked them out the window. "Who gave you the phone?"

"Victor."

"I knew that a.s.shole would be a problem. His father, now he was a good patron for you. He had just as much money, but he knew to stay the h.e.l.l out of your business."

"Victor wants something from me." I leaned forward and put my chin on the back of the headrest, breathing in Calvin's smell. A mixture of leather and Old Spice cologne. His wife had bought him a bottle right before she was killed. He still wore it every day. I swallowed the spurt of jealousy. Not my place, not at all. I was one of the demons. I had no right to anything other than the life in front of me.

"He wants you to change him, doesn't he?"

I nodded. "f.u.c.king twinkling vampire movie has made everyone think being a vampire is romantic. None of them think about what you have to give up to be a bloodsucker. Estupido!"

Calvin was silent for a moment. "You never chose this."

Not going there.

"We need to change vehicles. Now." I pointed at a small dealers.h.i.+p, "Daddy's Deals." Calvin pulled in and turned off the engine. "What do you want this time?"

"Pick anything that will work." I slumped into the backseat of the car, throwing my arm across my eyes to get some rest.

The vampires were waiting for us in a clearing surrounded by tall, flowering jacaranda trees.

"We hear you are the chosen one." They circled us. Six of them. Six. Since when did they hunt in packs?

I s.h.i.+fted my stance. I would go down fighting with honor. "Father, if you get the chance to slip away, go."

"I will not leave you now." His voice was resigned. We both knew what we faced.

The first vampire hit me from behind, and I rolled with him, slas.h.i.+ng his throat with my silver blade. The gurgle of air and blood seemed to echo in the night.

Everything became a blur. Blood and silver, the screams of the dying. The priest calling out last rites for the two of us as we fought, knowing we would die.

Neither of us stayed dead, though. I woke to the priest's high-pitched scream. My hand flew to my neck as I sat up. The wounds were gone, but I knew what that meant. My mind raced. How long would I have until I went mad?

How long until I lost myself?

Above me stood a vampire, his light green eyes watching me closely. "Well, well, the beauty awakes."

"Who are you?" I whispered as horror flickered through me.

He crouched, brus.h.i.+ng a hand over my head in a gesture that was...kind. "Hush, I am your master. But you may call me Peter."

Standing up, he beckoned to me. "Come, leave the priest to his death. You have much to learn."

Peter slid into the night as if I would follow, and my body inclined to do as he commanded. I pushed away the desire to do as Peter wished. I would not be ruled by a monster. A demon that had no soul.

Every move I made away from Peter burned, but I gritted my teeth and forced my body to obey me. I was in charge.

Not that d.a.m.n vampire.

I rose and went to the priest, pulling my hood up to protect me from the morning light. They'd nailed him to a cross and stuck it into the ground. As the sun rose, it crept down the cross, inch by inch, blistering his skin. Though a vampire could stand some light, the younger they were, the weaker their blood, the faster they burned. His eyes, blinded from the sun, still turned my way.

"Kill me, Cazador. Do your duty until your soul is called to rest."

I slipped a silver stake out of its sheath, the handle blistering my skin, and threw it, pinning him to the cross. His body burst into flame, burning bright like a star that had fallen from the sky. Sliding my last stake from the top of my boot, I turned, lifted my head, and scented what vampires were left.

Peter was there, somewhere in the darkness.

"This was a mistake you will not live to regret," I said softly, following their trail into the shadowed forest.

"We got a car. It ain't pretty, but it will do." Calvin knocked on the roof of the Mustang. I slipped up my shrouded cowl and put on my sungla.s.ses. Even though I was mostly covered, the sun could slip through, and it hurt like a son of a b.i.t.c.h.

I was in the back of the new car, an older Camaro with a giant eagle on the hood, in three heartbeats. "Cla.s.sy."

Calvin peered through the window as he moved our gear from one vehicle to the other. "Don't complain. He didn't ask any questions since I was willing to give up the Mustang for this piece of s.h.i.+t."

A few minutes later, Calvin settled into the driver's seat, and I slumped lower into the back. He shoved the blackout blanket back at me. "Cover up. We've got a few hours of sunlight left."

I pulled the blanket over my head and tried not to think any more about the memories that haunted me, that ate at my soul. If I had one left.

A few hours later, the sound of heavy traffic pulled me out from under the blanket. Vehicles flowed around us on one side, and a large green s.p.a.ce beckoned to me on the other. Central Park. "We close?"

Calvin held up the vial of holy water, the silver backing facing me so it would block out my vampire essence. I could hear the water as it boiled and frothed, and knew without seeing it that it would be bleeding from clear, to pink, to blood red. His eyes met mine, a glitter in them. "What do you think?"

CHAPTER 4.

RACHEL.

After my encounter with Sean, I hailed a taxi to my East Harlem apartment. Call it a hunch, but I wanted to get off the streets as soon as possible.

I tossed and turned all night, trying to figure out which man to believe, but in the end, there was no question. While I'd tried to keep in touch with Derrick, I had never expected-nor wanted-to see Sean again. I'd listen to what Derrick had to say.

If he ever showed up.

He'd told me he would come by my apartment, but so far I hadn't heard from him. The fact that Sean was actively looking for him had me freaked out.