The Dark-Hunters (735 page)

Sin scowled. “Didn’t the valet tell you to wait?”

“Nope.”

It was Sin’s turn to curse.

Obviously the Apollite hadn’t been as friendly as he pretended. Jess tsked. “That’s what you get for living with your enemies, Slim. Notice they don’t flinch from stabbing you in the back.”

“Neither do friends.”

Jess grimaced at the touché. “Now, that’s just cold, Sin. True,” he admitted, “but cold.”

“Yeah, well, I was trying to get your attention on the street. It’s why I followed you down here. I wanted to warn you about them before you got into a fight with one.”

That gave him pause. “You were following me?” And he didn’t know it?

Impossible.

“Yeah.”

Jess frowned at that. “Why didn’t I sense you?”

“Maybe the blonde distracted you.”

It didn’t work that way. Never once had he failed to notice someone on his tail. Unless … “What are you?”

“Pardon?”

Jess raked a look over him, trying to find something to confirm his suspicion. “You can’t be human, and I know you’re not a Daimon or Apollite.” Daimons, unless they partook of Clairol, were blond with lighter skin than Sin had. “You’re no longer a Dark-Hunter, so…”

Sin gave a wicked half smile. “You’re right. I’m none of those.”

“What, then? Are you a god?”

Sin’s smile went full-blown. “Remember, Ray, whenever someone asks you if you’re a god, the correct answer is always yes.”

Jess snorted. “I saw that movie, and I think you misquoted it.”

“The sentiment’s the same.”

Which meant Sin wouldn’t answer. Fine. Jess wouldn’t press the issue. He more than understood wanting to keep some things to oneself.

“Did you tell Ren about them?” Jess asked.

“Yeah. I caught him when I came down, then I went for you.”

Thank God for that. He glanced at the scorched stain on the pavement that was the only thing left of the Daimons. He met Sin’s gaze. “I appreciate the assist. And I have another question. Since I can’t throw flames out of my hands like you did a minute ago, how do I dispose of these new Daimons we’re fighting after I kill them?”

“We haven’t worked out the kinks quite yet. But if you drop one, call me and I’ll send out a cleanup team.”

Jess shook his head. “Damn, you really can get anything in Vegas.”

Sin laughed. “You have no idea.”

No, but Jess was beginning to.

“Since you have so many of the enemy working in your casino … Have you heard of a human working with Daimons to kill Dark-Hunters?”

Sin’s eyes widened. “What?”

That expression answered the question. “My Squire got word about it from the Oracles. I was just wondering if they might have misinterpreted whatever they got from the Powers That Be. I keep thinking if there was such a beast, Acheron would have called all of us with a warning.” As their unofficial leader, Acheron tended to watch out for them, and he had powers that defied belief and understanding.

“Ash’s powers don’t necessarily work that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think of it like having a fire hose turned on full blast,” Sin said. “The water flows so fast, it’s hard to control. He blocks his abilities unless he needs something, so that he doesn’t get overwhelmed by it.”

Jess wasn’t so sure he believed Sin. Acheron was a walking contradiction who never spoke to anyone about himself. He couldn’t imagine Acheron having a heart-to-heart chat with Sin, never mind explaining to the ancient Sumerian how his powers worked. “How do you know this?”

“Married to Artemis’s handmaiden, remember? She knows a lot about Ash.”

Now, that he believed. Be hard for Acheron to keep secrets from the goddess they all served. Sin was right. If anyone knew some of those secrets, it was probably his wife.

“So,” Sin continued with his explanation, “if Ash isn’t focused on here, he won’t know what’s going on. You want me to call him about it?”

“Nah. I’ll do it later.” Jess never liked getting secondhand information. Too much room for people to forget something or get it misconstrued. He’d much rather have it straight from the horse’s mouth.

Sin nodded. “Well, I won’t keep you. I know you have a lot to do, and I have a casino to run and a wife and toddler to see to.”

Yeah, but Jess envied him that last bit. A lot. However, he wouldn’t begrudge Sin his good fortune. It was nice to know that life worked out for some people, and since Sin had been a Dark-Hunter, Jess knew the man must have suffered greatly in his first life. It did his heart good to see someone happy, even if it wasn’t him. “Give the missus my best.”

“Will do.”

Jess went back for his coat while Sin took his leave. He glanced around at the remains Sin had burned and let out a tired breath.

New rules. New playing field. The gods must have gotten bored with them all. In the back of his mind, he could picture these new Daimons spreading like in a bad SF movie. Hell, he could even see the map with a superimposed image of a red horde spreading out like an epidemic.

And somewhere out there was a human playing vigilante on them.

Yeah, it was a good time to be in Vegas. He was so happy Acheron had reassigned him, and that was said with all due sarcasm.

He shrugged his coat on and returned to the street to continue his lonely patrol. As he walked among the crowd, he tried to imagine what it would be like to be one of them—an innocent person going about completely ignorant of the preternatural around him. A part of him had forgotten what it was like to be human.

Another part wondered if he’d ever really been human at all. His enemies and victims would definitely deny it. And he’d been nothing more than an animal.

Until Matilda.

“Gah, I’m maudlin again.” Must be his lack of horses. Riding always made him feel better, and he’d been away from them for way too long.

Soon, though, they’d be here and he’d be back to normal. At least as normal as an immortal could be.

Hours went by as he searched and found no target. It amazed him that the nightlife in Vegas didn’t let up. The crowds did thin, but still …

Totally different world from what he was used to in Reno.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, letting him know it was time to head back so that he’d be home a few minutes before dawn. When it came to that, he never liked pushing his luck. No one wanted to spontaneously combust into flames, especially not in traffic. The thought of going Johnny Blaze just didn’t appeal to him in the least.

He headed back for Sin’s casino to collect his ride.

Jess hadn’t gone far when a flash across the street caught his eye.

It was two Daimons pulling a woman into a storm drain. Jess sucked his breath in. Underneath the city was approximately a five hundred-mile maze of drainage systems. It wouldn’t take much for the Daimons to lose him down there.

He bolted across the street, hoping to catch them before they killed their prey or lost him.

The minute he was inside the drain, he all but let out a sigh of relief from the soothing darkness.

After removing his sunglasses, he slid them into his pocket and made his way through the smelly tunnel, which had about an inch of standing water in it. He curled his lip at the rotten garbage and other things he didn’t want to think about. There were a number of homeless people who called these tunnels home. Some of them were every bit as dangerous to the average human as the Daimons he was after.

“Please let me go! Please! Please don’t hurt me!”

He followed the sound of the woman’s petrified cries. It didn’t take long to find them.

Only it wasn’t what he’d expected.

It was a trap, and he’d just barreled right into it.

CHAPTER 4

Abigail had spent her entire life bracing for the moment when she’d see Sundown Brady again. Over the years, when she wasn’t training to kill him, she’d played every imaginable scenario through her mind. Them meeting by accident. Her breaking into his house in the middle of the day to murder him in his sleep. A smoky, crowded bar where she walked up to him and then stabbed him in the heart and watched him fall to her feet as he died in utter agony. Even an abandoned movie theater where she trapped him inside and burned it to the ground. All to the tune of him begging her for mercy.

Yet none of those imaginings had prepared her for this.

For one thing, he was a lot larger than she remembered. Not just tall, which he was, but wide and extremely well muscled in a way very few men were. It was the kind of build that said he could snap her in two if he got close enough. His dark hair fell just past his ears and was a bit shaggy, as if he’d missed a haircut appointment. Two days’ growth of whiskers shadowed a face that was so perfectly formed, he didn’t look real. His eyes were black, and the intelligence there said nothing, absolutely nothing, escaped his notice.

Even with her new powers, she swallowed at the thought of fighting him. He wouldn’t go down easy.

He’d probably take her with him.

But all she had to think of was her parents and the merciless way they’d died by his hands, and the fiery rage in her ignited to a level that wouldn’t be intimidated or denied. It demanded his blood.

Sundown Brady was going to die tonight, and she was the harbinger who’d deliver it.

Jess froze as he saw the woman close up. Her black hair was pulled back from her exotic features into a tight ponytail. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a dark purple shirt, she was armed from head to toe. But that wasn’t what stopped him dead in his tracks.

For one instant, he could swear he was looking into Bart’s face.

Time seemed to freeze as he took it all in. Her deep blue eyes that were shaped like a cat’s. The dimple in her chin. The way she looked at him as if she could kill him.

It was like he was lying on the ground wounded again, looking up at Bart right before he pulled the trigger one last time.

“You bastard!” she snarled in a voice that was hauntingly familiar. One that brought back excruciating memories.

Before he could recover, she lunged at him.

Jess jumped back and twisted, sending her into the wall. He looked at the two Daimons, who were staying out of the fight for some reason. But he didn’t have time to contemplate that as she came back at him, slashing at his body with a black KA-BAR.

He blocked her slash with his forearm across hers, then grabbed her hand. Dang, she was strong. Supernatural strong. Not to mention, she kept kicking at him. She fought like a well-trained wildcat.

“Let go of me!” she snarled, head-butting him.

That rattled his senses, but he refused to let go of her. She was too quick and too close for that. If he released her, she’d get a shot in someplace that was going to hurt.

She looked past his shoulder to where the other two were sidelined. “Get him!”

Great. He slung her toward the Daimons. She collided with them, but it didn’t slow them down.

His phone buzzed again, warning him he was running out of time.
I’m going to be a crispy critter if I don’t do something quick.
While he could probably hole up here, he didn’t want to chance it. Police and workers did occasionally venture down into the drains. All he needed was for one of them to find him loaded up with weapons.

Or worse, a flash flood could swoop down on him. Lionel had warned him on his first night here about seeking daytime shelter in the drains. Every year, there were a number of homeless who died from the flooding. While he couldn’t drown, he could be swept into daylight, which would really suck for him.

He had to get out of here. Fast.

The really bad thing was he couldn’t kill her. Dark-Hunters weren’t supposed to kill humans, even when they were attacked by them. Stupid rule, granted. But it was one Acheron would have their ass over if they violated it.

And then there was the terrible suspicion he had about her identity. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be right or wrong. “Abigail?”

Anger darkened her blue eyes. “You do remember me.”

How could he forget? “I thought you were dead.”

She shrieked in rage before she attacked him with a fury that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her. It was the same force that he’d had when he went for Bart.

Now that he knew who she was, there was no way he could hurt her. He choked on conflicting emotions. Relief, sorrow, and the deep need not to let her end his life. “I take it you’re the one who’s been killing Dark-Hunters?”

She lifted her chin proudly as she swung at him. “With relish. But you’re the one I really want.”

Why? All he’d ever done was protect her and her family.

He caught her arm and yanked her closer. “Ah, sugar, for that, all you had to do was get naked.”

She curled her lip before she attacked even more viciously.

He staggered under a couple of well-placed blows. She was very well trained.

But then, so was he.

Jess twisted the knife from her hand and managed to finally catch her in a sleeper hold. She was harder to grip than a hungry greased pig. Luckily, he was used to pinning such ornery things. But if he’d been human, she’d have freed herself and been back on him.

He turned to the Daimons. “One step closer, and I snap her neck.”

They exchanged a doubting frown.

“I mean it,” he said, as they looked like they were about to pounce. He increased the pressure on her carotid and jugular. Within seconds, she was out. Still, he waited a few seconds more, in case she was faking. At this point, he wouldn’t put anything past her.

Once he was sure she was unconscious, he slid her to a dry spot on the floor. “All right, punks. Bring it.”

The moment he took a step forward, they ran deeper into the tunnel.

Well, at least they weren’t the infected Daimons who could convert him.

Jess started to go after them, but rethought it. It was too close to dawn, and right now he had the prize of all time.

The woman who’d been hunting them.

A woman he’d once known …

“I can’t believe you survived.” But how? He had so many questions, they made him dizzy.

Best thing to do would be to interrogate her and find out what was going on and why she had such a hard-on for them. Hoping he didn’t live to regret this decision, he picked her up and carried her back to the street. Now that she wasn’t trying to kick his jewels into his throat, he realized just how tiny she was. Very well-muscled, but short.