Night Calls - Nyx Slaughter Book 1

Night Calls

Published by Amber Lynn at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Amber Lynn

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank
you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book,
it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be
reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial
purposes.

If you
enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their
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works by this author. Thank you for your support.

This
book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or
dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The
characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used
fictitiously.

Warning: This book is the musings of a foulmouthed female
assassin with Violence for a middle name. Reader discretion is
advised due to language and violence.

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This is the first book in a series I hope to
write many more. I want to thank my best friend for taking the time
to read through my ramblings and point out a lot of times my mind
wandered and made absolutely no sense.

I have to also thank my husband for putting
up with my days of ignoring anything he said. I know it caused a
lot of frustrations, but in the end I baked him a cake and
everything was forgiven.

Thank you to you, the reader, as well, for
taking the time to download this book. It was a fun for me to write
and I hope you enjoy it.

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Chapter 1

My life, isn’t it grand

“Any last requests?” I ask my
captive. It has become more of a catch phrase with me than anything
else. Frankly, I get a little bored asking it, but I don’t want to
disappoint. The fact that it took me two days to run this jerk to
ground has me hoping this will be over quickly.

“Yeah, go fuck yourself,” he says
as he tries to spit at me. The silver chains holding him down make
it very hard for him to move, though. Unlike some of my other
acquaintances in assassin school, I like to do things up close and
personal. None of that sniper shooting from blocks away.

If someone has warranted me being
called in, they have a right to know exactly why they are dying.
You would hope they already had a clue that killing a person
eventually catches up with you, but most of the ones I meet aren’t
that bright.

“That isn’t a very nice thing to
say to a lady,” I retort.

“Show me a fucking lady and you may
get nice. You are just the bitch they hired to kill me. Stupid no
good Collective, what have they ever done to help any of us?” he
asks.

“From what I understand, they have
made a world a better place for all of the paranorms out there,
it’s people like you who go around killing humans that make it
harder for them to work,” I reply.

“They try to strip away what we
really are. We are killers, haven’t you ever read the book before?
It spells it all out. We are meant to rule the world. The
Collective wants to make us humans, but we ain’t ever going to be
human,” he snarls at me. “Why don’t you just get it over with, so
you can go back to hiding away with the other werewolves that think
blending in is a good idea?”

“Since I am not a werewolf, I think
that would be a little hard to accomplish and I am getting tired of
talking, so let’s get this over with,” I say raising my
gun.

“How in the world do you not know
you are a werewolf? You hang out with paranorms all day; one of
them would have had to tell you by now. This is just great; the
famous Nyx Slaughter doesn’t even know what she is. Too bad you are
fixing on killing me, we could have tried to have a little fun now
that I know you could handle my extra energy in the bedroom,” he
says with a sad laugh.

“Gross. And I am not a fucking
werewolf,” I say really getting pissed off. This is the second
execution I have attended recently where the guilty party tried to
claim I was a werewolf. Maybe it is the fact that I do hang out
with paranorms all day and their scent is finally wearing off on
me. I don’t really know, nor do I care.

“Come on it would be a lot of fun.
I promise I would make it good for both of us,” he
states.

“In your dreams dog. Everyone knows
that Nyx Slaughter is the mangy human left on the Collective's
doorstep the day she was born. I have gotten over it, so you can
too,” I reply.

“Just so you know, when I die I am
totally coming back to haunt you just so I can get a look at what I
am sure are your delectable boobies,” he says laughing. This guy is
clearly delusional because flat chested and I go hand in
hand.

“And just so you know, William Gene
Johns you are sentenced for death for taking six human lives. A
jury of your peers has already convicted you. I am just here to
carry out the execution. In the name of the Grand Collective, I
remove you from this world to make it a better place for
others.”

With my speech over, I shoot him
twice in the heart. Once would have been enough, but he was really
pissing me off. I watch as the silver works its way through his
body. It’s not exactly a pretty sight seeing his veins expand and
start to burst. After about thirty seconds, his body is nothing
more than blood and fleshy bits.

I collect my chains and toss them
in the back of my vehicle. They will be due for another hose down
when I get home. You would have thought William would have noticed
me throwing the silver chains at him. Obviously if I can touch
them, I cannot be a werewolf. Just goes to show his IQ.

I leave his remains to wash away
with the next storm, and climb into my old, beat up Suburban. I
know it’s a tank, but I need the room for all my supplies. I never
know what I am going to run into on one of these assassin
assignments, but I like to be prepared for anything.

For vampires, I have the UV
headlights that help slow them down and an arsenal of cutting and
burning devices. Staking them in the heart, like books suggest,
will do you very little good when they can just regrow it. Chopping
their heads off and burning the body is about the only thing that
keeps them down permanently. As for werewolves, silver really is
the key for them. I imagine, cutting their heads off and burning
their bodies would work just as well, but why go through all the
extra effort when a single bullet will do?

Most of my calls are for those two
species and most of them are for execution purposes. I get
occasional calls to help with other kinds of shifters, demons,
witches, and general misbehaving paranorms, but they are rare.
People have started to figure out if you want someone killed, you
call Nyx.

I try to only take cases from the
Collective, because they have tried the guilty party. Every once in
a while, I will be compelled to take a private party case, if
enough proof of wrongdoing can be given to me. I am a simple
assassin and could probably detach myself from the situation if
need be, but I prefer to take cases where the target is a no
questions asked ruthless killer. I don't get involved in political
killings and revenge stuff if I can help it.

I check the clock and see that it
is just after one in the morning. It seems like my day is just
getting started, but it is already half over. When you spend your
life chasing down the things that go bump in the night, you tend to
pick up their sleeping habits. I am usually only outdoors from nine
at night to about five in the morning. The rest of my time is spent
indoors training. I don’t think I have actually seen the sun in
three years.

I have been on this earth for
twenty-two years and all of that time has been spent with
paranorms. I don’t know why, and no one else has ever appeared to
have the exact knowledge, but the day I was born a woman dropped me
off at the Collective’s door. No note or explanation, no name
given.

I have since found out a little
information about my dad, but nothing has turned up about my mom. I
don't know if she was who dropped me off or not, but I was told
looking into it would be dangerous, so I have resisted finding out
more information. Not that the danger part scares me, it is just no
sane person leaves a human with a collection of paranorms for safe
keeping, meaning I would be searching for some crazy psycho I would
eventually have to kill.

From the moment I was dropped off,
Frank, who is one of the top werewolves in the Collective, raised
me. He has been a strong father figure and groomed me to be able to
do the job I do today. For a human growing up in the world of
paranorms, it was both interesting and aggravating.

These days normal humans know about
the Collective, but that wasn’t the case just a few decades ago. We
were a back alley type of society that skirted along the edges.
Nowadays it isn’t as bad, but I doubt the human world knows of the
assassins like me out there and for the most part paranorms just
blend in with society. They do know we police our own kind because
they are ill equipped to do it and they hate that fact.

Learning all of my training and
being the kick ass fighter I am now probably wouldn’t have happened
if I hadn’t been dropped off that day. For that I will always be
grateful. The aggravating part of growing up there was never
belonging. Everyone else around me was special and no one wanted to
be a friend to a human.

My only consolation was my friend
Ryan. He was an orphaned werewolf that also fell under Frank’s
guidance. With him being a paranorm he didn’t have to hang around
with me because everyone accepted him, but he always tried to make
me feel special.

These days he is kind enough to
pretend to be my boyfriend. We both know he has a mate out there
somewhere for him, like all paranorms do, but he still sticks
around to try to keep the teasing down. He also claims that I need
the protection. Recently, I have been trying to set him free of any
obligation he feels towards me. The man is twenty-four and needs to
start thinking about settling down and making his own little
pups.

So far, I have allowed his excuses
to stay linked as a couple, but they are going to have to stop
soon. More and more he tries to act like a real couple even when
there aren’t other people around. Hand holding in private and
kisses that go past our previously agreed on pecks are starting to
annoy me.

I realized early on in life that I
was never going to settle down with a husband, two kids and a white
picket fence. I think the Collective realized that as well and that
is why they have been grooming me for this job from the moment I
could hold a knife in my hand. It took a lot of work as a human to
learn to fight well enough to take on any species thrown at me, but
I have made it through and I can only get stronger.

That is enough thinking about how I
got to this point for now. I take my smart phone out of the glove
box and start up my Collective app. I scroll through looking for
the now deceased Mr. Johns and hit the terminated button when I
find him.

As I go to put the phone away it
starts vibrating. When I am on cases, I never have the ringer on
and even the vibration has been known to give off my location, so I
leave it in the car. When I look to see who it is, I find a text
message waiting for me that makes me smile.

Hey Cheeseburger, I am a
little hungry tonight and was wondering if you weren’t too busy to
come join me for a midnight snack. XXX Hawk

I guess that means I am going to
have to make a pit stop before heading back to the Collective for
the night. With no one else on my target list currently, I welcome
the interruption, especially from Hawk. I start up the Suburban and
head towards town.

Chapter 2

A hawk in the hen house

Hawk, known to everyone else as
Sebastian deYork, is a vampire that runs, for lack of a better
term, a den of iniquity called Sins. It is actually a pretty nice
place, if you don’t mind getting eyefuls of people doing activities
most people don’t witness outside of the bedroom. I take that back,
most people probably don’t even see these activities there. That is
one of the reasons the place is so popular.

I have spent quite a bit of time
over the years either visiting Hawk or running down targets that
frequent these types of locations. I long ago lost my blush at what
went on between those four walls. I mean you can only see people
getting it on in so many ways before it becomes a little bit
boring.