Page 2 of Cursebound

Pausing, I sniff the air and give my night vision a second to adjust to the patchy lighting. This is the land of broken bulbs and murky shadows, dark corners and hidden hazards.

I see his outline down at the side of an overflowing dumpster. Not that I need to see him. I am close enough to smell him, and it is not great. A combination of decaying flesh, stagnant blood, and foul breath. The dumpster smells better.

The girl is making no sound at all, unless you count the repulsiveglugof her lifeblood leaving her veins, like thick bleach sluicing down a drain. Vampires can make this pleasurable for their victims, can make it so good that humans go to them willingly, at least to start with, but he seems to have skipped that lesson at Vampire Charm School, along with Personal Hygiene 101.

His name is Rogan, and he is a monster. He was undoubtedly more than that once, but it’s not my job to care about that; it’s my job to stop him. I have been Called, and I have seen enough of him to understand that he needs to be wiped from the face of the planet.

The golden amulet that hangs between my breasts warms up, a building heat at my throat. No surprise—it kicks into life when I’m in danger, and I’m about to go up against a mortal enemy at least a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. Sometimes, when I’m facing a danger that’s hidden or subtle, it’s useful. But at times like this, it’s a real no-shit-Sherlock situation.

Grinning, I brace myself for the fight. I’ve always kinda liked this part. The part when I know exactly what’s coming, exactly what I have to do next.Survive. I find it strangely calming. Mindful, like my version of sitting down with a coloring book. When I’m busy fighting, surviving, I don’t have time to feel anything else.

“Hi there!” I call, my voice low enough not to carry in the street, but definitely loud enough for a vampire’s ears to pick up on. “Mr. Rogan!”

There’s a dull thud. At a guess, it’s the girl’s body being dropped like a sack of potatoes. Heavy, plodding footsteps. A dark figure coming closer.

Yikes. He’s even bigger than I expected. Around six three or four, with the kind of muscle gone to fat you’d expect from a WWF wrestler who retired to run a doughnut shop. Stringy gray hair hangs down from a central bald patch, and his nose has been broken at least a couple of times without being reset. His fangs are out, hooked over his lower lip, red from the blood but tobacco-yellow underneath. Oh yeah. He’d definitely make it onto the hunky vamp pinup calendar.

“You’ve made a big mistake, bitch,” he says, his voice thick and deep with anger. The accent is Midwestern American. He’s come a long way for lunch—just like I’ve come a long way to end him.

“Oh,” I reply, smiling. “You know my name. Have we met before?”

He charges at me like a rhino that’s been tagged with a taser and is just about as graceful. I let him get closer, my eardrums vibrating as he bellows abuse at me. He is not a polite guy, and I am going to enjoy this.

I let him get so close he reaches out to grab me with blood-soaked hands, but right before he can make contact, I spin to the left, stick out my sneakered foot, and simply trip him. The big ones are always overconfident. He face-plants onto the drizzle-soaked cobblestones, and there is an audible crack. Oops. Sounds like that nose has gone again.

I heft my stake and lean in for the kill. Except he’s only down, not quite out. He rears up his massive slab of a head and butts the wood out of my hand. It skitters off across the stones, and I bite back a cry at the jagged spike of pain that shoots from my wrist to my elbow.

He turns, flips upright, and tries to make a grab for my hair but ends up with a handful of my hood instead. I learned that lesson a long time ago—vampires fight like girls in the schoolyard.

I twist out of his grip and roundhouse kick him in the chest, knocking him back a few feet. He roars, clearly annoyed with how this bitch is fighting, and comes at me again. It’s time to stop playing. From the inside of my jacket, I remove a second stake and let him run right onto it. I drive it home, into his almost-dead heart.

He stares at me in shock, hands grappling with the stake, his dull, bloodshot gray eyes fading to yellow, then white as his skin flakes away from his face. Dust-like particles fall from his cheekbones and jaw, and his skull cracks and disintegrates. He was a big bastard, and it takes several seconds for the rest of him to follow suit. In less than a minute, the once apex predator is a heap of blood-stained clothing and a pile of ground-up bone dust floating away on the breeze.

I brush myself down, not thinking too hard about what my hands are touching. I have done what I came here to do, and I should feel satisfied. This is not my first kill. It isn’t even my first kill this week. The Calls have been relentless recently, and I can’t remember the last night I slept without a vision.

I should be used to it, and I am, but there is always that final moment, that second when they realize they are dying, when they gaze at you, wondering what they’ve done to deserve this. A moment when they looked nearly… human.

I shut down that train of thought, shake it off like Tay Tay, and get ready to tend to my wounded gazelle. She’s making pathetic mewling sounds from her position beside the dumpster, which means he didn’t have her long enough to do serious damage. She will be fine. And she is a reminder that by taking Rogan’s life, I have saved many others.

As I start to walk toward her, a slow clap rings out, filling the night air. I am receiving a round of applause. For what? And more importantly, from whom?

Nerve endings tingling, amulet now so hot it’s a burning disk against my skin, I ignore my flight instinct and instead prepare for another fight. I’ve dispatched one miserable swine to hell already tonight. No big deal if I have to make it two.

“Bravo, Signorina Capelli. That was quite the show.” The deep voice seems to come from all around me. American sounding, but with an Italian accent so perfect he must be a native speaker.

I inhale, searching for a sign of who and what he might be. I find… nothing. All my spider senses tell me he is also a vampire, but unlike Rogan, this one comes with no giveaway stink. Just a trace of wood and spice and all things… Well, very, very nice. The kind of nice that has a few other senses tingling—ones that live much lower down my body.

I stand perfectly still apart from my right hand, which is inching toward my third and final stake. It’s small, secreted in the back pocket of my jeans, but with enough force it can still penetrate deep enough to get the job done.

I should be able to hear him, feel him, sense him. My survival depends on me knowing where a threat is before I can actually see it. This time, I have nothing, and it totally freaks me out that I didn’t know he was there watching me the whole time. If he hadn’t spoken, I would have been oblivious to his presence. Man, am I really that tired? Or is he really that good?

I hear footsteps but get the feeling he is treading more heavily than he needs to, allowing me the chance to prepare myself. He emerges into the pale-yellow glow of a flickering streetlight, and I finally see him. He is tall, about the same height as Rogan, but that’s where all similarities end.

This creature is less monster, more god. Everything is taut and tight and totally hot.

I drag my eyes from his body and gaze into the face of a Renaissance angel about to fall—all harsh lines, firm jaw, and sinfully luscious lips. Thick dark hair, eyes of bottomless black. Italian, like me. English-speaking, like me.

Dead. Not like me.