The Dark-Hunters (480 page)

Simone choked on the Coke she was drinking. “Excuse me?”

“You heard right. Nialls is now in a straitjacket because of it. He freaked out so badly we had to call the psych ward for him.”

She coughed twice to clear her throat before she spoke again. “The victim was in a coma?”

“The victim was dead as a doornail. As you saw from the photos, her throat had been ripped out and Nialls had just opened up her chest for the autopsy. Her heart was in his hands when she started breathing.”

“Uh-huh…” It was the only response she could manage for a moment. “And she got up and walked off…”

He nodded glumly. “Welcome to my world. Oh, wait, welcome to
your
world. Yours is even more bizarre than mine. At least I don’t live with a ghost who has his own bedroom in my house.” He glanced around the table, then lowered his voice. “Is Jesse here?”

Simone inclined her head in the direction of where her friend was seated and staring at them with a stern frown.

“Please explain to me how she got up while he was holding her heart,” she said slowly.

“That’s what I want
you
to tell me. See, I deal with … well, most days, bizarre paranormal crap. You are Queen Weird. I need the queen on this before I have to start hiring a new staff of medical examiners who don’t freak out when the dead move off their tables. You know where I can find some of these unusual people? I know you hang out with them.”

“Thanks, Tate. I always look forward to these ego-bolstering pep talks of ours.”

“Yes, but at least you know I love you.”

“Like a hole in your shoe.”

He laughed. “Not true. You are the best damned medical examiner I’ve ever seen and you know that. If I could get you away from Tulane and hire your butt for the city, I’d do it in a heartbeat. The fact that you’re the only one I can talk to about paranormal deaths is a major bonus to me. Anyone else would have me in a room next to Nialls.”

Simone reached for her pickle. “True. I’m also told they have incredible drugs to help curb those hallucinations.”

“Then sign me up. I could definitely use them.”

So could she, but that was another story. Then again, her entire life was bizarre enough to be considered one massive hallucination.

If only it were.

Simone paused as she got that weird feeling in her gut again. She glanced about the dark restaurant, then out the window to the left of her that showed the traffic on Decatur Street. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, but still the sensation persisted.

“Is something wrong?” Jesse asked.

“I’ve got that feeling again.”

Tate scowled. “What feeling?”

Her face heated at his question. “I was actually talking to Jesse. But for the last couple of weeks I’ve had this bizarre sensation that something is watching me.”

“You mean some
one,
right?”

She shook her head. “I know it sounds crazy—”

“I just had a body walk off the table mid-autopsy and you think
your
story is nuts? Yeah, boo…”

That was what she liked most about Tate. He made her feel almost normal. Not to mention he was the only person besides her who knew about Jesse. Of course she was also the only person outside of a small handful who knew Tate was a Squire for the Dark-Hunters—a group of immortal warriors who hunted down and executed the vampiric Daimons who preyed on human souls.

Yeah, her life was anything but normal.

So why should she even be concerned about the fact that she felt as if something evil were watching her? It probably was. And unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the first time. She only wanted to make sure it wasn’t the last one.

“Do you know where it’s coming from?” Jesse asked.

“No. I can’t pinpoint it. All I know is that it’s making my skin crawl.”

Tate leaned back in his chair to stare at her. “I really wish I could hear Jesse. It’s so disconcerting when you two talk. Makes me wonder if he’s not sitting there, mocking me.”

She smiled. “Jesse only makes fun of me.”

“That’s not true.”

She looked at Jesse. “Yes it is.”

“No it’s not,” Tate inserted.

Simone frowned at him. “Do you even know what you’re arguing?”

“Not really. It just seemed natural to add that.”

She laughed. “How I
ever
got mixed up with the two of you, I’ll never know.” But that wasn’t true. Jesse had come to her during the darkest hour of her life and he’d been with her ever since.

Tate … he’d been there when she’d come the closest she’d ever been to catching her mother’s and brother’s killer. Unfortunately, her hunch hadn’t panned out and the evidence she thought would give them a clue to her mother’s murderer had been too tainted to use. Even so, Tate had fought for her tooth and nail even though he hadn’t known her at the time. That meant more to her than anything and they’d been friends ever since.

There was nothing she wouldn’t do for him and he knew it.

Tate, LaShonda, and Jesse were the only family she had.

He leaned back and waited for the waitress to put his plate on the table and leave before he spoke again. “Are you sure it’s not one of the ghosts you see eyeballing you?”

She shook her head. “No. They’re never this subtle. They usually pop in, like ‘yo, she-bitch, do my bidding.’ This … this is something else.”

“Evil is coming for you,” Jesse said in a grim, echoing voice.

Simone narrowed her eyes on him. “I hate it when you do that.”

Tate pulled back as if he were offended. “What’d I do?”

She smiled at him. “Not you. Jesse. He’s using his ghost voice on me. It’s extremely unnerving.”

“Yes, but you still love me.” Jesse winked at her.

“Of course I do. But save the voice for a haunting.”

“I would if anyone else could hear me. Have you any idea how annoying that is? No, ’cause everyone hears you when you talk.” He stood up and danced in the corner. “Hey, people!” he shouted. “See the freaky ghost dance.” He flapped his arms around and shook his booty. “I’m bad, I’m bad, I’m bad.” He stopped and looked around at the people who went on about their business, oblivious to his offbeat antics. “See. Sucks.”

She passed a dry look to Jesse, who held his hands up in surrender. There were times when he was a strange cross between a nagging mother and a wife combined with a lunatic brother.

She focused her attention on Tate. “Anyway, back to the decedent … do the police have any leads?”

Tate shook his head. “She was found in an alley down in the Warehouse District. Her throat was lacerated with something clawlike. Too large to be animal and too jagged to be individual knife marks.”

“Definitely not a Daimon attack then.” Daimons were a particular breed of vampire who called New Orleans home … and unlike many of the others who made ambitious blood-sucking claims, these guys were real and they were deadly predators with highly developed supernatural powers. As medical examiners, she and Tate were used to seeing their handiwork come through their offices.

Her acceptance and willingness to help cover the Daimons’ tracks was what kept her close to Tate. They weren’t protecting the Daimons, they were keeping the rest of humanity safe by not informing them of what was really out there ready to take them down. If mankind were ever to know, they would freak out and kill innocent people, too.

The bad thing was that even though the Daimons drank blood, they didn’t feed on it. They fed on actual human souls. Luckily a single human soul could keep them fed for a long time, so as a rule, they weren’t out hunting victims every night.

If you could call that lucky. Which Simone did, and that more than anything said just how weird her life was.

Anytime the Daimons left their holes, the Dark-Hunters Tate worked for would seek them out, hoping to stop them from killing more people. A bonus to the Daimons’ deaths was that it also freed the human souls they’d eaten so that their victims could go on to the afterlife.

Tate swabbed his fry in ketchup. “Definitely not Daimon,” he repeated. “She was drained of all her blood, and since none was found at the crime scene, we assume she died somewhere else and was dumped in the alley. You sure you can’t summon her from the grave and ask her what happened?”

“That would be a voodoo priestess, Tate. The decedents come to me, not the other way around.”

He stifled a look of disappointment. “We need to find the body ASAP. Her parents are on their way down from Wichita and I don’t want to tell them that their little girl went AWOL from the examining table.”

“Did you get anything from Nialls?”

Tate scoffed. “Nothing coherent. As you can imagine, he was a bit hysterical. All he’d say was that she smiled at him on her way out the door.”

“So you don’t know if she was a zombie then?”

“Thankfully, I’ve never seen a zombie. Much other weird shit on the job, but not that. Have you?”

“No. However, I’ve learned to not question things like that. If there’s a legend, then there’s something real behind it.”

He saluted her with his drink.

“What about your Squire contacts? Have they anything to offer on this?”

Tate shook his head. “None of them know anything more about the dead walking around than you or I. Daimons don’t make the dead rise. They make the living fall.”

Simone looked at Jesse. “You have any suggestions?”

“Only that I wish my body were still walking around. It would make my undeath easier to bear.”

“Thanks for the nonhelp, Jess. You’re such a doll.”

Simone didn’t speak much more as they finished lunch, then headed to the morgue. Jesse opted to stay outside while she followed Tate into the crypt. Honestly, she couldn’t blame Jesse for his feelings. She didn’t like hanging out with the dead, either, Jesse notwithstanding. The only reason she did what she did was to help the victims and their families. Having seen her own mother and brother gunned down before her, the last thing she wanted was to stand by and let someone else’s killer go free.

It was why she worked cases for the city pro bono and why she spent her life training the next generation of medical examiners at Tulane. She figured she could do more good by training other MEs to be conscientious than she could working on mundane cases. The more people who did their jobs right, the fewer criminals who would go free to slaughter again.

That philosophy was also what kept her single. Most men didn’t appreciate dating a woman who was handy with both a scalpel and a shovel.

Tate opened a door in the middle of the crypt vault and pulled out an empty drawer. “She was stored in here.”

“Do you have any of her personal items?”

“Let me get them.”

Simone closed the drawer and turned slightly as she felt a presence behind her. It was a young woman around the age of twenty-four. Her brown hair was mussed and she looked a bit confused. It was a natural state for many of the newly deceased.

“Can I help you?” Simone asked the girl.

“Where am I?”

Simone hesitated. She never liked being the one to tell another that they were no longer alive. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was walking home from work.”

That was a good start. If Simone could help the woman remember more details of her life right before it ended, then she might remember her death, too. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Gloria Thieradeaux.”

A chill went down her spine as Simone recognized her from the photos. This was the woman whose body had risen up and walked out of the morgue.

Merde.

The ghost looked about the room. “Why am I here?”

“I’m not sure.” Any more than she was sure how her body had reanimated itself.

“Why can’t I touch anything?” The agony in her voice made tears of sympathy well in Simone’s eyes.

There was no avoiding the answer and no way to make it kind or gentle on the poor thing. “I’m afraid you’re dead.”

Gloria shook her head. “No. I just need to get home.” She frowned as she looked around the room as if trying to identify something. “But I can’t remember where I live. Do I know you?”

Simone paused. Something wasn’t right. It was normal for a new ghost to be slightly disoriented, but Gloria was more than that. It was like a part of her was missing …

“Jesse!” Simone called. “I know you hate it in here, but I really, really need you.”

He manifested right beside her. “Yeah, boss?”

She indicated Gloria with a tilt of her chin. “She doesn’t know where she lives.”

His scowl was fierce. “Do you remember when they killed you?”

“Jesse,” she said under her breath, “a little tact, please.”

Ignoring her, Gloria shook her head. “I don’t feel dead. Are you sure I died?”

Simone passed her hand through the woman’s abdomen. “Either that, Princess Leia, or you’re a hologram.”

Gloria stared at her in a cross between horror and disbelief. “How did you do that?”

Jesse answered for her. “We have no body. All we have is our essence and consciousness.”

Gloria staggered back as if overwhelmed. “I don’t understand. How can you die and not know it?”

Jesse shrugged. “It happens. Not common, mind you. Most people know when they die, but every now and again, someone gets trapped on this plane without realizing they’re dead.”

Gloria shook her head in denial. “I can’t be dead. I have finals.”

“The Reaper waits for no one, babe,” Jesse said glibly. “Believe me, I have firsthand experience there. It’s a pisser, but reality for us nonetheless.”

“What’s going on?”

Simone turned at Tate’s worried voice. He was standing behind her with a manila envelope in his hand.

“I found Gloria.”

“Good, where is she?”

Simone glanced to where Jesse and Gloria stood side by side. “Well, her ghost is right in front of me. Unfortunately, she has no more clue about her body’s whereabouts than we do.”

Tate let out a frustrated breath. “How can that be? I mean, really, shouldn’t the ghost have like a homing beacon on its body or something?”

“It would make sense. But unfortunately, the two parts separate and the spirit never wanders back to the body … at least not to my knowledge.” Simone looked at Jesse, who nodded his head in agreement.