Michele Hauf - The Vampire Hunter

Sunset would be the optimal time to go looking for her.

* * *

Walking home from the grocery store, Zoë inhaled the evening air. She loved crisp, cool autumn. In this kind of weather she often wore ankle boots and tweed slacks and a snuggly, solid-colored sweater, along with her mother’s diamond pendant at her neck. Classic and cozy.

In her recyclable bag, fresh veggies nestled against a crusty baguette. The celery, leeks and potatoes would make a nice stew that should last her—and Sid—a few days. Now that she needed to increase production for her buyer, she would be working nights through the week.

Now, if only Luc would give her a call. She’d stopped by his apartment last week, but no one was home. She felt sure it was tough getting over a broken engagement, but to fall victim to such an addictive drug as faery dust? She’d thought Luc stronger than that, but then again, she knew he had a dark side that sometimes lured him to do things out of character. Best to give him the distance his very soul must require.

Turning the corner toward her house, she passed by the narrow alley that was heaped with the neighbor’s discarded, bent-iron bed frame. Kicking the fallen leaves, she delighted in the schushing chorus that responded.

Grunts echoed from down the cobbled alleyway, and she paused, stepping back beside a shed wall so as not to be seen as she peeked around the corner of the building.

About fifty yards away, three men and one woman stood over a fallen man. In seconds the man who had been prone leaped to his feet and swiped a threatening weapon toward his attackers. With each movement, the tails of his long, black leather coat dusted the air like bat wings.

Clinging to the rough brick, Zoë recognized one of the attackers. The vampiress with the bright pink hair—the very vampire she had hoped to never meet in a dark alley. She stood flanked by two others to her right and one to her left.

The other man, the object of the vampires’ scorn, was human. She recognized him, as well.

“Kaz,” she whispered, then checked herself to be sure she’d not spoken too loudly.

Why was he standing up to four vampires? And doing an excellent job of it, since he wasn’t bleeding or dead.

Yet.

Did the man pick a fight wherever he went? He’d easily taken down four men the previous night. But tonight’s opponents were vampires. They had double, or even triple the strength of the strongest human man, not to mention a supernatural agility and speed.

The vampiress chuckled and checked Kaz with an expert kick, which landed her high-heeled boot aside his jaw. Her henchmen followed closely with more brutal punishment. None went at Kaz alone; they attacked en masse. One wrenched Kaz’s arm around behind his back, which caused Kaz to cry out in pain.

Kaz fell to his knees. The guy was outnumbered.

“I just want to talk,” he managed, then spat blood to the side. “We don’t need to do this. I made no move to harm you or your buddies.”

Narrowing her gaze, Zoë saw that the weapon he held in his free hand was a stake. The very stake she’d stolen from him? How many people carried stakes on them unless they expected to get into a tussle with a vampire?

Why hadn’t she considered the possibility he was a hunter last night?

You were too googly-eyed at the time, remember?

Right. Rushing head-on into happily ever after and kicking her glass slippers aside with abandon.

A kick to Kaz’s back flattened him. His head was crunched under one of the vampiress’s boot heels, and blood sputtered from his mouth.

Zoë cringed. The urge to rush for him, to help him in some way, had her teetering on the balls of her feet—but she wasn’t stupid. If Kaz couldn’t stand against the vampires, what could one feeble witch do but make it ten times worse?

From where she stood, she could fling some magic at them, but again, that would draw unnecessary attention to her. And she couldn’t feel the magic that normally hummed at the tips of her fingers because right now she was anxious. She could never access her magic unless she was calm.

“Don’t kill him,” she muttered as the female bent and wrenched up Kaz’s head by a hank of his hair.

Fangs exposed, the vampiress lunged for Kaz’s neck, yet the tips of those fangs did not prick skin. Releasing Kaz as if electrocuted, the vampiress jumped back, cursed and smacked a fist into her palm as she again swore aggressively.

Spitting on the fallen man, whose eyelids fluttered, the vampiress hissed something Zoë could not hear. Then she marched off, her henchmen in tow.

They didn’t intend to kill him? Rarely did a vampire let a human go free without, at least, a bite. And all encounters were usually removed from the human’s mind with persuasion, a means to enthrall the memory from their minds. It hadn’t appeared as if any of the vampires had taken the time to enthrall Kaz.

Zoë waited until the vampires were out of sight, then dashed down the alley and squatted beside the fallen man. He bled from his mouth, ear and his split knuckles. Apparently, he’d gotten in a few good punches.

The stake he’d wielded lay beside his head. Acting on some sort of emergency autopilot, she shoved the stake inside his inner coat pocket, then lifted him by the shoulders. Her heel slipped on the leaf-strewn cobbles as her struggles nearly toppled her. He was heavy, and he wasn’t helping her much because he was bleary. Zoë noticed his coat collar was edged with blades. She hadn’t noticed them the other night. Strange fashion statement. She had to be careful not to get cut.

“You need to get out of here before they come back. I don’t know why she didn’t bite you. You’re one lucky guy. Come on. I’m going to help you to stand, but you’re a big guy. You gotta do some work, too. Kaz?”

With a mumbling grunt, he struggled to his feet as if drunk. She suspected that the bruise on his temple had him dancing in and out of consciousness. But he managed to hook an arm over her shoulder and stumbled along beside her. She had to abandon the grocery bag. With luck, she could run back to get it before someone nabbed it or a rat found the booty.

Zoë led him toward her home, maneuvered him through the door and deposited him on the couch in the living room. It took some delicate finessing to get the coat off his shoulders without cutting herself. His black T-shirt had torn to reveal a monstrous bruise below his ribs and along the side of his torso. A kidney shot. That one must have hurt like a mother.

“You’re going to need a magical touch,” she said. “Fortunate for you, I can help you with that.”

She stood over him, spread her feet and smacked her palms together. Rubbing them slowly to heat her palms, she recited a healing spell, closing her eyes and focusing on the resonation of her voice as it touched the air. The healing she performed went beyond herbs and potions that most Light witches used. Her father had taught her this magic, and she used it in all aspects of her magical needs.

Words fading, but sound rising, she hummed deep in her throat, centering the vibrations in her chest as she laid her hands over Kaz’s body.

At what she knew was an electrifying touch, Kaz’s chest pulsed upward and his arms flailed. Alert, he moaned, looked down over what she was doing, then, still discombobulated, settled back into the couch. Zoë spread her palms over his chest and shoulders and down his arms and hands, humming constantly to maintain the magic’s resonance. At his ribs, she concentrated the healing vibrations.

Sensing the shock of her magic as it permeated his skin, the man groaned again.

The healing had been laid upon flesh and bone. Now, to make it permeate. Rubbing her palms together again, she summoned a soothing numbness spell to tender his pains. Blowing the visible white mist toward his wounds, she noted that he blinked and opened his eyes.