Vampire, Hunter. Maria Arnt
had never meant to make a life of hunting vampires. She’d just wanted to get those two, to settle the score. But her prey was elusive, and every time she found a vampire that wasn’t him… she couldn’t just ignore the situation. When she lost the trail in St. Louis, she’d just started looking for any vampires, and gone from there.
Along the way, she had learned a thing or two about vampires and how to kill them. It wasn’t like there were books on the subject, at least none that she could rely on to be truth and not imaginative fiction. Mostly it was trial and error, and looking back she was surprised she hadn't gotten herself killed. None of the deaths had made her feel any better, though, so she just kept going. After a while, it stopped being about finding her attacker and was just what she had to do. She got better, discovered that killing a Master vampire would instantly kill all of his minions. Got smart about it after Bradley caught her.
She had lost count. Probably somewhere in the thirties, as far as the ones she had actually killed herself. As for their minions, who knew? Hundreds, she would like to think. Sometimes she wondered if she’d already killed the man she was after, killed his Master. Bradley kept an eye on John Does in the morgue, but a lot of bodies were never found.
Tanya shivered. No, he was out there. She could feel it. Somehow she would find him, if she had to kill every single vampire in the world to do it. Tomorrow she would start the hunt for one more.
She put the glass in the sink, and shuffled off to bed, changing out of her sweat-drenched clothes and into PJs first. Seth Walker, your days are numbered, she thought, and smiled as she fell asleep once more.
Five
The bartender, a teal-haired and tattooed girl named Jackie, handed the photo printout back to Tanya. "Oh yeah." She laughed. “Seth Walker, right? We call him Casanova.”
Tanya raised her eyebrows, not sure she wanted to know why. “Know where I can find him?" She already knew where her target lived and worked, had found out her first week in Chicago and she'd been there almost a month, but she was curious what the bartender knew.
Jackie shook her head. "Nah. He comes in about once a week, usually finds someone to go out back with, and then leaves early. Alone." Laughing again, she tossed her shocking hair out of her face and went back to checking her stock below the bar. It was early, only about 4:30, and they were getting ready for the evening.
She frowned. It was the typical pattern for a vampire, except for the going home alone part. "And the girls he takes out back, they're okay?"
The bartender gave her a weird look, and Tanya knew she had asked the wrong question. "Well, A, they're mostly girls, but not all. B, I'd say they're more than okay. Isn't that right, Izzy?" she shouted over to the waitress who was sweeping around the tables.
"What?" Izzy asked. She was a skinny girl, a little younger than Tanya, with mousy brown hair.
"Didn't Casanova take you out back that one time we got invaded by the football team?" she asked.
Izzy's face turned bright red, and she visibly shrank like a turtle trying to escape into its shell. "Jackie, you promised you wouldn't tell!" she hissed.
"Hey, it's okay," Tanya said soothingly. She weaved around the tables, coming closer so they wouldn't have to shout across the room. "What happened when you went out back?"
The girl blushed even deeper and giggled nervously. "We made out," she admitted.
Tanya balked. "That's all?" What, are we back in high school now?
She shook her head slowly. "No. I mean yes, I guess we didn't do anything else, but..." she glanced toward the back of the bar. "I've never had somebody kiss me like that before."
In the back of her mind, Tanya remembered how she thought that vampire was going to kiss Jake. "What do you mean?"
Izzy licked her lips and took a deep breath. "It was amazing. He was just... totally into me. Like I was the only thing in the whole world at that moment. The way he touched me..." she shivered, and her pupils dilated just thinking about it. "Well, I had to go take a bathroom break afterward, you know?"
Tanya didn't know, not really. After Jake, relationships just hadn’t seemed worth the effort. Besides that, it was out of the question in her line of work—she couldn’t afford any more liabilities than she already had.
It was time to go out on a limb. "Izzy, can I ask you a weird question?" she murmured.
She glanced over to Jackie, but she was too busy to pay them any attention. "Sure," she whispered.
"Did this Casanova guy bite you anywhere?" she asked quietly.
She blinked a few times, thinking. "Yeah, he was a biter all right." She giggled. "Why?"
Tanya frowned. "Where'd he bite you?" She couldn't see any scars on Izzy, and her waitress uniform didn't leave much to the imagination.
"Oh, all over," she gushed. "On my neck, and my arms." She ran a hand across one forearm, and except for the sudden goosebumps that rose on her skin, there wasn't a mark in sight. "Even my hands," she rubbed a finger over the fleshy part at the base of her thumb. "It was really sexy."
That was the last thing Tanya had expected to hear. Most vampire victims she had run across—if they were lucky enough to survive the encounter—were pretty traumatized by the experience. She fingered the scar on the inside of her elbow absently. "Huh. Well thanks for answering my questions," she murmured.
Izzy’s face lit up. "You could try hanging out here, he'll show up eventually, and you probably won't have any trouble getting him to talk to you. He likes redheads." She touched her own hair self-consciously.
"Thanks, but I’m… not actually looking to meet him just yet." Tanya murmured.
The waitress frowned. "Then why all the questions? What are you looking to.... Wait, is he married?" Her face paled.
Tanya laughed. "No, he’s not married. And I’m afraid the reason for my investigation is confidential, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to him."
"Okay.” She bit her lip, thinking. “But if it was something bad, I don’t think he did it. He’s a really nice guy. Good luck anyway," Izzy gave her arm a little squeeze, and then shuffled off to finish her work.
Tanya walked outside and folded up the picture, putting it in her back pocket. That had been the third bar in the area he frequented. They had all said the same thing: he came in, had a drink, went somewhere with a newly-made friend, and then left. No bodies, no suspicious disappearances. It was the damnedest thing.... He fit the pattern in every way, except for the trail of evidence.
She had been trailing him for a couple weeks now, and every day she became less and less sure whether or not he was a vampire. He worked a regular nine to five job at the museum. He came and went as he pleased, sometimes taking long strolls in the late summer sunshine. Even powerful Master vampires tended to avoid sunlight when possible, out of habit.
And there was more. He drank beverages: sophisticated cocktails, fancy coffee in the morning, and tea at home judging by his garbage, but never once ate a single bite of food the entire time she had been watching him. He prowled the local nightlife but left no bodies in his wake. He fed, but didn't kill, didn't even leave scars. And apparently, he was a really great kisser.
I'm really starting to think I need to meet this guy.
Tanya laughed at her train of thought as she made her way down the busy streets back to her car. Yes, she should probably try to find a way to get a closer look at him, but not for that reason. There was something about powerful vampires, that strange buzzing sensation that lifted the hair on her arms, like Etienne du Lac had given off. If she could get close enough, maybe she could confirm her suspicions. Maybe at the museum....
As she climbed into her car, her phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket and answered.
"Hi honey, I just wanted to let you know I'm about an hour outside of Chicago," her