The Darkest Kiss

That’s when I heard it. A soft, hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-raising moan.

The sort of moan that came from the dying.

I stepped back, raised a foot, and kicked the door open. It smashed back against the wall, sending dust and plaster flying. The thick smell of wrongness and vampire rushed out, overwhelming my senses and making me want to gag. Or maybe that was a reaction to the sight before me.

A naked man hung from a ceiling rafter—not from his neck but from rope around his wrists. Rope as bloody as his shredded back and butt.

The man causing all the damage was the source of both the vampire scent and the wrongness. And his scent was one I recognized.

“I told you—” he began, as he swung around, then stopped. His expression changed from one of a

I sprinted after him, the smell of blood, sweat, and fear heavy in my nostrils as I ran past the naked man. The wrong-smelling vamp had disappeared into what looked like a bedroom.

I ran into the room just in time to see him leap for the window. Glass shattered, spraying outward into the night as he plunged through and down.

The drop wouldn’t kill a vamp. It might damage him, but vamps were a resilient lot. Unfortunately, in this case.

I cursed and spun around. I might be able to take a seagull’s shape, but hitting the ground from the height of a fourth-floor window would be a hell of a lot harder than hitting it from the top branches of a tree. And while I had flown briefly—and successfully—today, I didn’t feel like putting my life on the line to test out my new-found skills. As I ran past the bloodied and still-bound Ivan, I said, “He’s ru

“Wait,” he said, voice hoarse. “Wait—”

I didn’t. The vamps out in the corridor had drawn closer, perhaps lured by the sharper scent of blood.

“Touch him and you all pay the price!” I dragged my badge out of my pocket again and thrust it in front of me. I didn’t know if it would actually help, and I couldn’t afford to hang around and find out. Not if I wanted to stop the vamp.

Because a vamp willing to go to such extremes of torture before tasting his victim’s blood was a vamp who would not stop at just one victim.

Once upon a time, I might have taken care of the living before chasing after the dead, but I’d learned the hard way that such actions generally only resulted in more deaths—and I had enough of those on my conscience right now.

I just had to hope the vamps in this building feared the Directorate more than they wanted to taste Ivan’s blood.

I pounded down the stairs and out the shattered glass doors. Even against the thick reek of vampire that clung to the night, the odd scent of my quarry was easy enough to pick up. I raced across the barren ground of what once might have been a playground, and out onto the street. The vamp was nowhere to be seen, but his scent pulled me on.

“Sal, the vamp is on the run.” Headlights swept across the darkness, tearing away the shadows. The vamp became briefly visible—stringy hair flying, his legs almost a blur, arms pumping. “He’s about half a block ahead of me. If Talvin’s near, can you call him in as backup?”

“Will do.”

The car moved past, the headlights sweeping onto me. I threw up a hand to protect my eyes and kept on ru

He swung right into a side street. I reached for more speed, not wanting him out of my sight for long, and felt the twinge of protest in my bruised and battered leg muscles.

I ran into the side street. The rich smell of barbequing meat filled the night, making my mouth water. The vampire was nowhere to be seen, but his lingering scent suggested he’d crossed the road and wasn’t that far ahead. I flicked to infrared, and realized the strength of the scent was misleading. His body was a fading blur up ahead. Fuck, he was fast.

I upped my own speed again, and the twinges in my legs became outright pain. I ignored them and ran on.

The vamp swung left into another side street. It was almost thirty seconds later before I skidded around the corner. Who’d have thought a vampire with such ski

Under the glow of infrared, the street was empty of life. I frowned, looking left and right, seeing the glimpses of life in the houses along either side of the street, but nothing that indicated my would-be murderous vampire was anywhere near.

I couldn’t have just lost him. No vampire could move that fast.

Yet his scent was not only fading fast, but dispersing in all directions. As if he’d stopped, and something had scattered the smell of him.

I looked upward. No vampire in the nearby trees, no unusual shape in the sky. Not that vampires could actually fly—not unless they’d been a bird-shifter in life, anyway.

Though with the sheer wrongness of his scent overwhelming everything else, it was possible for me to have missed the scent of shifter on him.

But if he was a bird-shifter, why hadn’t he taken flight when he’d jumped out the window? He could have gotten away much easier and cleaner.

Unless his intention all along had been to drag me far enough away so he could go back and finish what he’d started?

“Sal,” I said, as I turned and ran back as fast as my aching legs would allow. “My target has flown the coop and I’ve lost him.”

“Well, shit, Riley, that’s slack.”

No doubting that. “He’s five ten, gaunt build, with brown eyes and stringy hair. Can you put out a bulletin? I’ve got a bleeder in an apartment block of vamps to attend to. Send an ambulance ASAP.”

“What about Talvin?”

“Can you ask him to patrol the building’s grounds? Just in case our rogue decides to return?”

“Will do.”

The graffiti-strewn building felt no safer going in the second time than it had the first. The vamps still hovered, their hunger stinging the air.

At least there was no sense of a feeding frenzy. No overwhelming aroma of blood filling the air.

I pounded back up the stairs, wondering if I was even going to be able to walk tomorrow after everything my poor muscles had been through today.

The vamps on the fourth floor had stayed back, as ordered. I slowed as I neared the end apartment again, my breathing short, sharp gasps that filled the air. I raised an arm to swipe at the sweat trickling down my cheeks and entered the apartment.

Ben’s bloodied friend still hung by his wrists, and the odd-smelling vampire was nowhere nearby. Relief filtered through me. For once, fate hadn’t chucked me a curveball.

“Please,” he croaked, “get me down.”

“There’s a knife in the kitchen?”

He shook his head, sending droplets of blood flying from the cut on his cheek. “Not strong enough. Bedroom.”

I raised an eyebrow, though given his living arrangements, I guess it wasn’t such a bad idea. Personally, I’d be keeping a few handy stakes within reaching distance, too.

I found several large hunting knives in the bedside table, along with several smaller throwing knives. I picked the biggest and headed back out.

To find we were no longer alone.

“Fuck,” Ben said, his expression both shocked and angry as he stopped just inside the doorway. “I didn’t expect this.”

“No,” I agreed. I waved the knife in the direction of his friend. “You want to support his weight while I cut him down?”

He moved forward quickly, his big arms going around the waist of his smaller friend and taking the weight off Ivan’s torn and bloody wrists.

Ivan groaned, though I wasn’t sure whether it was in relief or pain. I dragged a kitchen chair up to them both and climbed up.

“There’s an ambulance coming. It should only be a few minutes.”