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“I don’t care how she got here, but she’s not staying.” I hissed the words through gritted teeth, trying to keep a firm grip on the girl with my left hand. My elbow protested at the strain, still not fully healed.

Will didn’t say a word, so I nudged the blade upward. All at once, he released the girl, who crumpled to the floor with a thud.

He raised his hands in surrender. “I didn’t bring her here – I swear. She was a gift.”

I laughed humourlessly. “Oh, so that makes it okay?” I paused, unable to resist. “A gift from who?”

“I can’t—” He stopped in a panic as I twitched the sword again and glanced around. “I can’t tell you that.”

I glared at him. Less than five minutes ago he’d been another cocky vamp. Now there was genuine fear in his eyes – and I had the uncomfortable feeling it had nothing to do with me. Neither he nor April had tried to defend themselves. It was almost like they thought someone would protect them.

In the seconds it took to come to this conclusion, he seemed unable to stop looking between the weapon in my hand and the rest of the room. I couldn’t sense anyone else with us, but I couldhave sworn he thought he was being watched – and I was beginning to think he might be right.

“Murray?” I whispered.

His gaze whipped to my face, his eyes widening in a warning. Without thinking, I pulled back the sword and sank it into his chest, deep into his heart and straight through. His face went slack. As I retrieved the blade from his rib cage, he fell to the ground, a puddle of dark blood spreading beneath him. I took a step back to avoid dirtying my boots and caught the girl’s arm to pull her away, too.

Shit. Why the fuck did I do that?

The tingling beneath my skin eased off, but it wasn’t gone. I cast my senses out into the night, throwing them as far as I could – nothing. Yet somehow, Iknewthere was someone else in the warehouse. There were still eyes on me, but I saw and felt no one. And I’d just – stupidly – killed my best lead. What was wrong with me?

I shivered. If there was something in here protecting vamps, or even just scaring them into obedience, I needed to get outnow. The undead I could handle, but something that evaded my senses… Now wasn’t the time to start something I couldn’t win. Trying to appear as though I didn’t suspect anything, I heaved the girl across the room and gently rested her against the wall by the exit while I finished up. She wasn’t conscious enough to see what that entailed, thankfully.

Staring down at the female vampire, I had to remind myself for the thousandth time that despite how she might look now, she wasn’t human. It was much harder to tell when they weredead. And I wanted to be certain she was – which meant her head needed to come off.

I could still feel the goosebumps under my jacket. My heart was pounding, adrenaline pumping through me like icy water. Trying to seem nonchalant, I removed the heads of the two vamps as fast as I could manage, throwing them into the bonfire by their hair and cleaning my sword on Will’s filthy hoodie.

I didn’t stay to watch them burn. Grabbing the girl, I fled.

???

At the precise moment the fiery-haired girl slammed the door behind her, the vampire straightened and dropped to the ground from the topmost metal strut of the warehouse roof. It had followed the hunter on foot and had no trouble getting into the building unseen.

It moved to stand in the doorway, the building’s steel frame shaking in the storm’s wind. The vampire’s gaze followed the girl closely as she half-carried the younger one to her vehicle, strapped her into the passenger seat and drove away. It breathed deeply of her bouquet, still lingering in the warmed air. It wasn’t time yet to taste her. But soon.

9: Misery Loves Company

By the time I’d dropped the still-unconscious teen at the A&E and driven back across the city, I’d almost managed to convince myself I’d imagined the strange presence at the Warehouse Seven lot. But that feeling – like there were eyes on me – was difficult to shake. As I got home and trudged upstairs, still in my soggy boots, I already knew I had no intention of telling Tom about it. I was sure the old him would have had some quippy remark about my paranoia, or maybe a doom-and-gloom reality check to cheer me up with, but that wouldn’t be enough this time. And with the way he’d been lately… why worry him unnecessarily?

The next few days fell back into a predictable routine. I’d wake up, shower, and drive to Jolt. Tom showed up on time each day, and even made an effort to put out an ad for new staff – but it was clear he was running on autopilot, and barely functioning beyond that. His easy laugh and smart-arse commentary were gone.

Days after I’d been to see Solace, Tom was still questioning her information. “She definitely said she sensed more than one?You didn’t mishear?”

“For crying out loud,yes,” I replied, wiping the counter down for the hundredth time that morning. It was too early to go over this again. “But she’s obsessed with the Old Ones – she’d love to think she could sense them. She could still be exaggerating for effect.”

Tom stopped in the middle of stacking the cups by the coffee machine and gave me a look. “I don’t like her. You don’t like her.” He shrugged. “But we both know she’s reliable.”

I sighed. “It doesn’t mean anything, even if it’s true. If WyattandMurray are in town, we still can’t take Adam’s word that she’s not behind all this, and Murrayis.”

Tom didn’t reply – I got the feeling he was still pissed off about Adam turning up at the house – and that was the last we said about it. Instead, each night, I hunted. Tom was still trying to find something about Wyatt, Murray or even Adam online, but beyond a couple of disturbing fan forums, he wasn’t getting anywhere. I couldn’t go back to Solace with favours hanging over my head, even if she had more to share. So I chose the old-fashioned way – punching vamps until they talked. But for some reason, it didn’t seem to be as effective as usual.

There was no shortage of vamps to question – one of the perks of living in a big, northern city – but most of the ones I came across had no clue who Izzie Misery was, much less Nicholas Murray. Whether they were being truthful was another thing altogether – especially after the weird way April and Will had been acting before they popped it.

The third night, I thought my luck was in. I tracked a vampto an abandoned warehouse near the canal – the constant hum of distant traffic was perfect for masking any sounds of a struggle. I’d spotted him earlier in the night, outside a nightclub and chatting up a girl that must have been half his age – or his apparent age, anyway. There was an overconfident swagger about him that told me he was newly sired and convinced he was invincible. He’d looked right at me across the crowd, a smirk playing across his lips before he vanished.

“Evening,” I called, my voice carrying across the cavernous space. He turned slowly, unsurprised.

“The famous hunter,” he replied, voice soft but loud enough to carry. “I was wondering when you’d catch up.”