The Dark-Hunters (732 page)

She made a sound that reminded him of a filly about to buck off her rider for irritating her. “I grieve for the poor education of so-called modern man. How can you not know the name of the mountain where the Greek gods dwell?”

He rubbed his jaw and forced down his own irritation at her insult. Until he knew who she was, it probably wasn’t wise to make her too mad. “Well, ma’am, no offense, but it probably has a lot to do with the fact I’m not Greek. I was born in Possum Town, Mississippi, and ain’t been no further east than that.”

She growled low in her throat, then spoke angrily in a language he couldn’t understand, which was probably for the best. No need in both of them being angry.

Clenching her fists, she settled down and pinned him with a killing glare. “I will try to speak so that you can understand me. I am the Greek goddess Artemis.”

“I don’t believe in gods and goddesses.”

“Well, you should, because this one has a deal for you that I think will interest you.”

Now, that made his ears perk up. “Deal how?”

She closed the distance between them so that she could whisper in his ear. “I heard what you said when you were dying at the feet of your best friend. Your soul screamed out for vengeance so loudly that it summoned me here to intercept you from your final destination.”

He locked gazes with her. “You can send me back to kill Bart?”

“Yes, I can.”

Rapid joy tore through him at the mere prospect. For that, she could insult him all day. “At what price?”

“You named it when you were dying.”

“My soul.”

She inclined her head to him before she patted him on the cheek. “That’s the going rate for vengeance around here. But don’t fret. There are other perks to being soulless. If you agree, I’ll give you twenty-four hours to do whatever you wish to the one who betrayed you. No consequences for you whatsoever.”

That he could sink his teeth into. His blackened soul had never been much use to him, anyhow.

Artemis smiled. “You will have immortality and all the wealth you could ever imagine.”

“I can imagine a lot.”

“And still it won’t fill even a corner of what you’ll be given.”

When something sounds too good
 …

He ran his thumb across his bottom lip as he eyed her suspiciously. “What’s the mouseprint?”

She laughed evilly. “You are intelligent, after all. Good. It makes the job easier.”

“Job?”

“Hmmm. You will serve in my army of Dark-Hunters.”

He scowled. “Dark what?”

“Hunters,” she repeated. “They are immortal warriors, foot-selected by me.”

“Foot-selected?” What was she talking about?

“Whatever the term is,” she snapped irritably. “They are my soldiers who protect the humans against the Daimons who prey on them.”

Technically, they were speaking the same language, but dang … Hard to follow a woman who used so many words he’d never heard before. “What’s a Daimon?”

She set her hands on her hips as she paced in front of him. “In short, my brother Apollo’s mess. Centuries ago, he created a race called Apollites.” She paused to look at Jess. “Arrogant of him, no? He thought man was weak and that he could do better.” Then she returned to her pacing. “Anyway, he set them loose on mankind, and the Apollites turned on him and killed his favorite human concubine and
my
nephew. Not really wise. Why they thought Apollo wouldn’t figure out who killed them is beyond me. So much for improvements, no?”

She rolled her eyes. “Apollites … ridiculous. At any rate, they are now cursed by him, and the only way they can live for more than twenty-seven years is to kill humans and steal their souls—we have an Atlantean whore goddess to thank for that little benediction to them.” She flung her hand up in a gesture of supreme agitation. “Don’t even get me started on how badly I’d like to kill her.”

Artemis dropped her hand and faced him. “Anyway, that’s where you come in, if you’ve been paying attention. You sell your soul to me, and you will spend eternity seeking and destroying the Daimons—the name given to the Apollites who feast on humanity. Are you out?”

“You mean in?”

“Whatever. Yes.”

Jess considered it. Last time he’d made a bargain to go in with someone was Bart.

That hadn’t worked out so well in the end.

“I don’t know. I need to think about it.”

Artemis splayed her hand out and waved it to her right. A shimmering light flickered there until images appeared. Jess gasped at the sight. It was incredible. He saw everything as if looking through a glass window—so real, he felt that he could reach out and touch it.

The images showed Bart kicking him to the ground and then the final bullet that went straight into his skull.

This time, he saw not only Bart killing him from a distance, but also what Bart did after he stepped over his body. Rage swelled up as Jess watched him kill Matilda’s father and the preacher, then drag Jess’s bride into a back room.

“Enough!” he roared, unable to take any more. He’d always known Bart was part animal, but that only proved it. How dare he defile Matilda like that …

God damn him.

His fury raging, he glared at Artemis as he literally shook from the weight of his need to bathe in Bart’s blood. “I’m in.”

“There are a few more details you should know, such as—”

“I don’t care,” he snarled, cutting her off. “So long as it starts with me gutting that bastard, I’ll do anything. And I do mean
anything.
”

“All right, then.” A bright gold medallion appeared in her palm. She grabbed his arm and pressed the medallion to it.

Searing pain tore through him as he gasped in agony. Still, she kept that medallion on his bicep, oblivious of the smell of burning flesh, which was so foul, it made his stomach pitch. When she finally pulled it away, he felt completely drained and weak. And there was a strange double bow-and-arrow mark on his arm, where she’d pressed the medallion.

Just as he was about to ask her how he could fight anyone like this, a new warmth crawled up from his toes to the top of his head. Suddenly he felt stronger than he’d ever been before. More alert. He could hear things that made no sense. Things like Artemis’s heartbeat and the whisper of voices from far away. He held more knowledge than he’d ever been taught.

It was like being a god, and yet he knew for all his newfound power, it was nothing compared to what Artemis had.

Cupping the medallion in her hand, she stepped away from him. “You have twenty-four hours, horseguy, to kill your betrayer any way you see fit and to take your revenge. Make them count. Oh, and know that you can’t let daylight touch you. If you do … Well, you don’t want to die without your soul. It’s highly unpleasant. Sometime in the next few days, a man named Acheron Parthenopaeus will find you and teach you everything you need to know about being a Dark-Hunter. If you’re smart, you’ll listen to him.” She gave him an evil smirk as she stepped back and raised her arms. “Welcome to the madness.”

CHAPTER 1

138 years later

Las Vegas, Nevada

“How are you doing?”

Abigail Yager barely understood those words as the male doctor stood over her bed, injecting her with a substance that could very well be lethal. But if it worked, it would be worth the risk. “What?”

“Abby? Can you hear me?”

She blinked slowly and tried to focus on Hannah’s question. Everything was blurry. Even so, she could see the way the light played in Hannah’s blond hair. The concern on her sister’s beautiful face. “Um … yeah.”

Hannah cursed. “You’re killing her. Stop!”

The doctor didn’t listen.

Hannah started for him, but before she could reach the far side of the bed, her older brother, Kurt, intercepted her. “Stop it, Hannah.”

“We don’t know what that will do to her. She’s human!”

Kurt shook his head. “She needs it. If it strengthens us, it should do the same with her. Besides, it’s too late. At this point, it’ll either help her or she’s dead. Plain and simple.”

Could there be any less care in his tone?

Hannah shoved Kurt away. “I’m ashamed of you. After all she’s done for us, you still see her as nothing but a human.” She returned to Abigail’s side and took her hand. “Stay with me, Abby. Don’t leave me alone with an insensitive prick as the only member of my family.”

“I’m not a prick!”

Hannah ignored him. “I need my big sis. C’mon, girl. Don’t let me down.”

Abigail couldn’t really follow the angry exchange they were now engaged in. Honestly, all she heard was her heart pounding in her ears. She saw images of her past playing through her mind as if they were on a DVD. The old two-story house where the three of them had grown up. Of her and Hannah staying up past their bedtime to whisper and giggle about their latest celebrity crushes.

So many happy memories of that time …

Her thoughts turned to Kurt and Hannah’s mother and father, who took her in after Abby’s own parents had been slaughtered. They, too, had died years ago from their curse, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her adoptive siblings.

And you just might be paying the ultimate price.

“Wait…”

Was that the doctor’s voice?

The thrumming grew louder as she felt something shatter deep within her body. Arching her back, she screamed as every molecule in her body seemed to catch fire.

“What’s happening to her?”

“Get your sister out of here.”

Abigail heard Hannah protesting as Kurt jerked her from the room and slammed the door behind them. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. She could no longer see anything, and yet she saw everything. There was no way to describe it. It was as if she had a mirror to the world.

“Breathe,” the doctor whispered. “Just breathe. I’m not about to let you die.”

That was easier said than done. Pain lacerated her body. It was as if she was burning from the inside out.

Unable to stand it, she screamed until she could stand no more. This was it. In spite of what he said, she was dying. She had to be. Surely no one could withstand this much pain and live. There was no way she’d survive.

In fact, she felt the darkness coming for her. It was swallowing her whole. Piece by piece. Shredding her completely.

She turned her head from side to side, trying to breathe. Something had its hands on her throat, choking her.

Was it the doctor?

She couldn’t focus. Couldn’t see.

“Stop!” Her cry echoed in her ears.

Then as quickly as it’d come, the pain left her—like a bird that shot skyward for no reason. It was gone.

Her throat was so dry now. She tilted her head to meet the doctor’s gaze. Concern etched his brow as he lowered the mask on his face.

“How do you feel?” There was only the smallest bit of his fangs showing as he spoke. Something else flashed. A memory of him that was gone so fast, she couldn’t grasp it.

Was it important?

“I need water,” she rasped.

“Do you crave anything else?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“What?”

Abigail licked her lips as the memory of her birth parents’ deaths seared her. Even all these years later, that memory was perfectly intact, as if it’d happened only yesterday.

Barely four years old and dressed in her red Sesame Street pajamas, she’d hidden under the bed while the man her parents had called friend mercilessly slaughtered them with a shotgun. Those horrendously violent sounds were forever carved in her heart. From where she’d been, she saw the man’s black cowboy boots, which caused the floorboards to squeak while he searched her room. Terrified, she’d watched him track blood all over her pink princess rug. She’d held her favorite teddy bear to her mouth and bit him hard to keep from crying out and betraying her location. He’d paused before her dresser, and there in the mirror she’d seen his face so clearly. So perfectly.

And as she heard those heavy footsteps leave her home, she’d sworn one thing.

To find that man and kill him as brutally as he’d killed her parents. To make him beg for a mercy she had no intention of giving him.

Retribution would be hers.…

“Abigail?” The doctor forced her to look at him. “What else do you crave?”

“The throat of Sundown Brady.”

CHAPTER 2

“Someone’s killing Dark-Hunters.”

Jess Brady scowled as his Squire, Andy, burst into the obscenely huge kitchen, huffing and puffing, with his dark hair sticking out all over his head as if the boy had been wringing at it—a habit Andy had whenever he was duly stressed.

Much less excited, especially since he’d been up only a few, Jess blew his breath across his steaming coffee. “Settle down, pup. I ain’t had my caffeine yet.” And he wasn’t a morning person, even though his mornings were what most people called early evening.

Still the boy jumped about like a filly around a rattlesnake. Had
he
ever been that nervous about anything?

The answer hit him hard in the chest and did nothing to improve his irritability.

Jess quickly turned his thoughts away from that memory and focused on the boy he’d known since the day Andy was whelped.

Even though Andy was nearing thirty now, he was about as high-strung as anyone Jess had ever met. Times like this, he missed the old calmness of Andy’s pa. Nothing had ever rattled that man.

Not even the time he’d landed in a nest of scorpions.

“Sundown … you don’t understand. It’s—”

He held his hand up to stop the boy midsentence. “I get it, kid. Case you haven’t noticed, Dark-Hunters are on almost as many menus as humans are. Having something trying to kill us is about normal. Now, why you more flustered than a preacher in a whorehouse?”

“I’m trying to tell you.” Andy gestured toward the door as if expecting the bogeyman to charge through it. “There’s a human out there who is killing off Dark-Hunters, and someone needs to stop them.”

Jess took a slow drink before he spoke. Ah, yeah, that hit the spot. Little more, and he’d be as close to human as a dead man could come. “Well, that’s just plain rude.”