Page 38 of Nexus

“I stopped by the convenience store on my way here,” he said with great reluctance. “I’ll be able to lead you to him.”

“Even if we have to wade through piles of crap?” I asked incredulously. Vampires had uncanny senses of smell. They were almost as good at tracking as shifters. My sense of smell was acute, but only when I was up close and personal with the monsters. I didn’t have the ability to track my prey like a bloodhound.

“He’ll have left traces of himself that I can follow, no matter how much excrement we’ll be encountering.”

I snickered at his gloomy expression when he looked down at his expensive shoes. “I bet you wish you’d stashed some crappy old clothing in your trunk right about now.”

He nodded dismally and waited for me to gear up.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

SINCE WE ALWAYS USED Ruen’s car, I’d stashed a variety of weapons in his trunk. First, I strapped four knives with five-inch blades to my wrists. They were good for either stabbing or throwing. Next, I strapped machetes to both thighs. Thanks to how compact they were, I could still kneel if I had to. All of my knives were in leather sheaths.

Next were my new handguns. I clipped a pair of black leather holsters to my belt. Lord Gilden had commissioned the pistols for me two months ago. As black as the night sky, the weapons blended in with my clothing and didn’t have any shiny bits to give me away. The magazines could hold fifteen bullets and the pistols didn’t have a safety. Both mom and I were crack shots and hadn’t needed to be taught how to shoot. It was one of our natural talents.

Last was my mini crossbow. Made of black lightweight metal, it almost looked like a toy, but it was just as deadly as my other weapons. It hung from a strap over my back and I could swing it around to fire it at will. The quiver full of black bolts went over my left shoulder. I’d never been to Sector G before and I intended to be prepared for anything.

Lord Gilden had also commissioned special ammo for me. The bullets were silver and had been blessed by a priest. They were equally deadly to vamps and shifters. The crossbow bolts had silver tips and had also been blessed. I was lucky most of the creatures I hunted were shifters and bloodsuckers. So far, my bullets and knives had been effective against everything I’d faced, but there were plenty of supernatural creatures out there that I’d never come up against.

“Are you done, or are you planning to strap a bazooka to your person next?” Ruen asked.

“Do you think your boss would buy me a bazooka?” I asked eagerly.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he pinched his lips shut. “Get in the car,” he said, then turned on his heel and stalked away.

“I’m the hunter,” I said to his back. “I’m the one who gives the orders!” I had to raise my voice over the sound of him slamming his door shut. I debated about whether I should take my sawn-off shotgun with me, then decided against it. Instead, I reached for a flashlight. Unlike the monsters I hunted, I couldn’t see in the dark perfectly.

Now that I was loaded for bear, I slammed the trunk shut and climbed into the car. I moved the crossbow and quiver so I wasn’t leaning back against them, then circled my finger in the air to signal for him to roll.

Ruen took off with maddening slowness and drove towards the river where we would find an entrance to Sector G of the sewers. “I’ve lived in Nexus for over two hundred years and I’ve managed to avoid visiting the sewers,” he said. “Why am I not surprised that teaming up with you would lead me here?”

“You can blame our boss for lumping us together,” I reminded him. “I don’t need an undead babysitter. Drake is punishing me as much as you by ordering you to follow me around.”

Even after working together for four months, the bloodsucker still hadn’t warmed up to me. Sometimes, I wondered if he hated my guts. I had no idea why he didn’t like me, since I was such good company. To prove it, I turned the radio up and sang along to the latest pop song.

Hunching his shoulders as if he wished he could make himself disappear, Ruen increased his speed slightly. He was almost going at the posted limit this time, which meant he really must want to get this over and done with.

I stopped singing as we closed in on the river that lay to the east of the city. Ruen muttered something beneath his breath that I didn’t quite catch and straightened up from his hunch. “I’ve heard access to Sector G can be found inside a culvert somewhere around here,” he said as he coasted to a stop in an empty parking lot.

Glancing around at the dark buildings that surrounded us, I couldn’t sense any supernatural creatures at all. We were in a human zone that had once been a thriving industrial area. It seemed business hadn’t been great for the past decade or so, going by the boarded-up windows and chained up gates to several of the properties.

We climbed out and Ruen took a deep breath. “Can you smell the target’s scent?” I asked.

“Not yet, but I can detect many other wererats’ scents,” he replied.

That made sense. Most shifters ran in packs and few were loners. It could get complicated entering their territory, since I was here to kill one of their kind. We’d just have to wing it and see how this played out.

The grass was overgrown and the ground was slightly marshy from being so close to the river. The water moved sluggishly and the smell was far from pleasant. It was going to be far worse in the sewers. The moon was edging closer to being full, so it cast plenty of light for me to see where I was going.

Following the invisible trail, Ruen gave me an update as we drew closer to the river. “I can smell our target’s scent. He came this way last night.”

“Lenny’s intel was solid,” I said in approval that the zombie hadn’t led us astray.

Ruen followed his nose to a rusty old culvert that fed stormwater into the river. It hadn’t rained for a few days, so a bare trickle of water was flowing through it. A hole large enough for people to pass through had been cut through the thick metal. It was concealed by a dense bush. The shifters had been smart enough to cut the opening a couple of feet high, so water wouldn’t gush out of it during storms and alert the humans.

Turning my flashlight on, I shone it through the opening, but I knew the drain was empty. My senses weren’t picking up on anyone nearby. I awkwardly climbed through the hole and my assistant gracefully joined me a moment later. “After you,” Ruen said, gesturing for me to go first.

Since I was the only one who could actually fight, I didn’t bother to argue with him. He would guide me from the rear and trust me to take down anyone stupid enough to attack us.