Page 2 of Nexus

Mom had worked for an agency who’d hired bounty hunters back in her day. The owner had been drained by a crazed rogue vampire. Mom had fallen pregnant had decided to retire, but her colleagues had started working for someone else. Word had it that the mysterious being who’d taken over the agency only hired the best hunters. Tonight, I was going to make a name for myself as a badass bounty hunter. First, I had to find something to kill to get the ball rolling.

Chapter Two

I SENSED SOMETHING on the edges of my internal monster radar after walking for a few blocks. Changing direction, I picked up speed as I went on the hunt. Mom didn’t have this talent and it was hard for me to explain it to her. I always knew when supernatural creatures were close and I could also tell how dangerous they were. While this one wasn’t particularly strong, I had a feeling it was up to no good.

Hearing a muffled scream of terror, I cursed myself for wearing high heels. They clattered on the sidewalk when I took off, making enough noise to wake the dead. I was panting for air by the time I reached the area where I’d heard the scream.

A man dressed in a black suit was hunkered over a body in an alley. “Vampire,” I whispered beneath my breath, taking in his too pale olive skin, lank black shoulder-length hair and bared fangs. He didn’t even notice me as I closed in on him. He was too busy drooling over the woman he’d just murdered. His eyes were dark pools of utter emptiness as they gazed at the drained human. Her throat had been torn open and blood was splattered on her dark skin. From her short shorts, lacy bra and six-inch heels, she’d been a ho.

“I’ve caught you red-handed, leech!” I said in triumph, pulling an item out of my purse that I’d nicknamed my kill-bag.

The vamp didn’t even seem to register my presence. His elbows rested on his thighs and his hands were clenched into fists. He wasn’t handsome, or ugly, but somewhere in between. For a monster, he was fairly ordinary looking. His cheeks were hollow and his face looked gaunt, as if he hadn’t been getting enough blood lately. He was strangely clean for someone who’d just made such a mess of their meal. He wore a black button up shirt beneath his jacket and shiny black shoes. If not for his fangs, he could have passed for a businessman out for a drink after work.

“Hey, you!” I exclaimed and he finally dragged his attention to me. There was something strange about him, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“Huh?” he asked in a dazed tone, focusing on the item in my hand. It looked like an ordinary can of pepper spray, but it was full of holy water.

“This is what you get for feeding on helpless humans,” I told him, then I pressed the button.

My target gaped at me as the spray came towards his face. His skin sizzled in reaction when it hit him and he recoiled in pain. On his feet in a flash, he sprinted away far too quickly for me to be able to keep up with him.

“You poor thing,” I said to the corpse in pity as I reached for my phone. “You didn’t deserve to become vampire chow.”

I called mom and she answered after a few rings. “Have you run into trouble already?”

“I just busted a vamp feeding on someone and sprayed him with holy water,” I replied.

“Is the victim dead?”

“Very,” I said wryly. I’d seen plenty of bodies during my decade of training. I’d puked a lot during my first year, but had toughened up pretty quickly after that. “Can you call someone from the body disposal team to come and clean this up before the humans find her?” I asked.

“Give me your location,” she requested. I gave her the address, knowing she still had contacts in the industry. She hadn’t been an official bounty hunter for a couple of decades, but a few people knew she was training me to be her replacement. “Someone will be there soon,” she told me.

“Do I need to wait around for them?”

“It’s probably best if you leave before anyone sees you,” she suggested.

“Okay. I’m going after the vamp.”

“Good luck, honey. Don’t try to take him down if he’s fled to his coven. It’ll be too dangerous to take them all on by yourself.”

“Justice needs to be served,” I reminded her. “I’ll follow his trail and see what I’m up against. I’ll call you if I need your help.”

We hung up and I skirted around the body. Vampires didn’t have strong scents, so it would be impossible for me to track him by smell. One of the side effects of being sprayed with holy water was that it left a faint silver trail in the air. It would only last about an hour before the divine traces would fade, so I had to get moving. Humans couldn’t see the trail I diligently followed. I wasn’t sure if anyone else could. Mom couldn’t. It was one of my special talents no one else in our line possessed. We all had our own gifts, but I seemed to have more of them than usual.

The trail led me directly to a nightclub after hoofing it for a good fifteen minutes or so. Three stories tall, the club was nestled between a liquor store and a café. The bricks were painted black. A subtle sign above the door spelled out Den of Iniquity in gold letters. Pedestrians barely even glanced at the place as they hurried past it. I knew why when I drew closer. Magic was subtly shooing them away from the premises.

I’d heard about this club, but this was my first time seeing it. Mom used to come here back before I’d been born. Power emanated from behind the door. All kinds of monsters were inside, ranging in strength from low to mid-range. Some of them might even be bothersome if they rushed me at once.

A huge bouncer stood guard at the door. I sensed he was a werebear even before I approached him. A couple of inches taller than me in my heels, he had a luxurious brown beard and a barrel chest. Although he was physically large, he wasn’t strong when it came to power levels. “Did you see a panicked vampire come this way?” I asked, knowing full well my target had entered the building.

He looked me up and down in amusement. “What are you supposed to be?” he asked in a deep voice. He wore black jeans and a red t-shirt with the name of the club on the front in gold letters.

“I’m a bounty hunter.”

The bear’s grin widened at my confident claim. “I take it you dosed the leech with something that didn’t agree with him? He looked a bit worse for wear when he arrived.”

“I caught him feeding on a human in an alley. She’s dead.”