Sherrilyn Kenyon: Dream Chaser

Simone choked on the Coke she was drinking. "Excuse me?"

"You heard right. Nialls is now in a straitjacket because of it. He freaked out so badly we had to call the psych ward for him."

She coughed twice to clear her throat before she spoke again. "The victim was in a coma?"

"The victim was dead as a doornail. As you saw from the photos, her tin oat had been ripped out and Nialls had just opened up her chest for the autopsy. Her heart was in his hands when she started breathing."

"Uh-huh . . ."It was the only response she could manage for a moment. "And she got up and walked off. . ."

He nodded glumly. "Welcome to my world. Oh, wait, welcome to your world. Yours is even more bizarre than mine. At least I don't live with a ghost who has his own bedroom in my house." He glanced around the table, then lowered his voice. "Is Jesse here?"

Simone inclined her head in the direction of where her friend was seated and staling at them with a stem frown.

"Please explain to me how she got up while he was holding her heart," she said slowly.

"That's what I want you to tell me. See, I deal with . . . well, most days, bizarre paranormal crap. You are Queen Weird. I need the queen on this before I have to start hiring a new staff of medical examiners who don't freak out when the dead move off their tables. You know where I can find some of these unusual people? I know you hang out with them."

"Thanks, Tate. I always look forward to these ego-bolstering pep talks of ours."

"Yes, but at least you know I love you."

"Like a hole in your shoe."

He laughed. "Not true. You are the best damned medical examiner I've ever seen and you know that. If I could get you away from Tulane and hire your butt for the city, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The fact that you're the only one I can talk to about paranormal deaths is a major bonus to me. Anyone else would have me in a room next to Nialls."

Simone reached for her pickle. "True. I'm also told they have incredible drugs to help curb those hallucinations."

"Then sign me up, I could definitely use them."

So could she, but that was another story. Then again, her entire life was bizarre enough to be considered one massive hallucination.

If only it were.

Simone paused as she got that weird feeling in her gut again. She glanced about the dark restaurant, then out the window to the left of her that showed the traffic on Decatur Street. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, but still the sensation persisted.

"Is something wrong?" Jesse asked.

"I've got that feeling again."

Tate scowled. "What feeling?"

Her face heated at his question, "I was actually talking to Jesse. But for the last couple of weeks I've had this bizarre sensation that something is watching me."

"You mean someone, right?"

She shook her head. "I know it sounds crazy—"

"I just had a body wall; off the table mid-autopsy and you think your story is nuts? Yeah, boo ..."

That was what she liked most about Tate. He made her feel almost normal. Not to mention he was the only person besides her who knew about Jesse. Of course she was also the only person outside of a small handful who knew Tate was a Squire for the Dark-Hunters—a group of immortal warriors who limited down and executed the vampiric Daimons who preyed on human souls.

Yeah, her life was anything but normal.

So why should she even be concerned about the fact that she felt as if something evil were watching her? It probably was. And unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time. She only wanted to make sure it wasn't the last one.

"Do you know where it's coming from?" Jesse asked.

"No. I can't pinpoint it. All I know is that it's making my skin crawl."

Tate leaned back in his chair to stare at her. "I really wish I could hear Jesse. It's so disconcerting when you two talk. Makes me wonder if he's not sitting there, mocking me."

She smiled. "Jesse only makes fun of me."

"That's not true."

She looked at Jesse. "Yes it is."

"No it's not," Tate inserted.

Simone frowned at him. "Do you even know what you're arguing?"

"Not really. It just seemed natural to add that."

She laughed. "How I ever got mixed up with the two of you, I'll never know." But that wasn't true. Jesse had come to her during the darkest hour of her life and he'd been with her ever since.

Tate . . . he'd been there when she'd come the closest she'd ever been to catching her mother's and brother's killer. Unfortunately, her hunch hadn't panned out and the evidence she thought would give them a clue to her mother's murderer had been too tainted to use. Even so, Tate had fought for her tooth and nail even though he hadn't known her at the time. That meant more to her than anything and they'd been friends ever since.

There was nothing she wouldn't do for him and he knew it.

Tate, LaShonda, and Jesse were the only family she had.

He leaned back and waited for the waitress to put his plate on the table and leave before he spoke again. "Are you sure it's not one of the ghosts you see eyeballing you?"

She shook her head. "No. They're never this subtle. They usually pop in, like 'yo, she-bitch, do my bidding.' This . . . this is something else."

"Evil is coming for you," Jesse said in a grim, echoing voice.

Simone narrowed her eyes on him. "I hate it when you do that."

Tate pulled back as if he were offended. "What'd I do?"

She smiled at him. "Not you. Jesse. He's using his ghost voice on me. It's extremely unnerving."

"Yes, but you still love me." Jesse winked at her.

"Of course I do. But save the voice for a haunting."

"I would if anyone else could hear me. Have you any idea how annoying that is? No, 'cause everyone hears you when you talk." He stood up and danced in the corner. "Hey, people!" he shouted. "See the freaky ghost dance," He flapped his arms around and shook his booty. "I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad." He stopped and looked around at the people who went on about their business, oblivious to his offbeat antics. "See. Sucks."

She passed a dry look to Jesse, who held his hands up in surrender. There were times when he was a strange cross between a nagging mother and a wife combined with a lunatic brother.

She focused her attention on Tate. "Anyway, back to the decedent. . . do the police have any leads?"

Tate shook his head. "She was found in an alley down in the Warehouse District. Her throat was lacerated with something clawlike. Too large to be animal and too jagged to be individual knife marks."

"Definitely not a Daimon attack then." Daimons were a particular breed of vampire who called New Orleans home . . . and unlike many of the others who made ambitious blood-sucking claims, these guys were real and they were deadly predators with highly developed supernatural powers. As medical examiners, she and Tate were used to seeing their handiwork come through their offices.

Her acceptance and willingness to help cover the Daimons’ tracks was what kept her close to Tate. They weren't protecting the Daimons, they were keeping the rest of humanity safe by not informing them of what was really out there ready to take them down. If mankind were ever to know, they would freak out and kill innocent people, too.

The bad thing was that even though the Daimons drank blood, they didn't feed on it. They fed on actual human souls. Lucidly a single human soul could keep them fed for a long time, so as a rule, they weren't out limiting victims every night.

If you could call that lucky. Which Simone did, and that more than anything said just how weird her life was.

Anytime the Daimons left their holes, the Dark-Hunters Tate worked for would seek them out, hoping to stop them from killing more people. A bonus to the Daimons' deaths was mat it also freed the human souls they'd eaten so that their victims could go on to the afterlife.