The Unmasking (Dhampyre the Hunter Book 1) Read online

  Frontispiece

  david l. burkhead

  Published by David L. Burkhead

  Copyright David L. Burkhead 2018

  Cover image: © 2018 David L. Burkhead

  About this Work

  DHAMPYRE THE HUNTER #1

  tHE uNMASKING

  CHAPTER ONE

  The chill night air burned in my throat as I ran. Sweat rolled between my breasts. One vampire I could handle. Two were a challenge, but an acceptable one. Four, however? That was a different story.

  I sprinted toward the edge of the roof. Alley. Twenty feet wide. Next building one story lower. I could do it. I had to do it.

  I was built like a dancer, lithe muscle in a trim package. This led vampires and others to underestimate me. It also meant that I had a pretty good jump.

  My left foot hit the low retaining wall at the edge of the roof. I leaped. The sound of traffic from the streets below became louder, unimpeded, as I passed the edge of the wall. I sailed over the alley sixty feet below and cleared the far side by a good six feet.

  As I continued to run, I stripped off my jacket leaving me clad only in a sleeveless leotard and jeans. The jacket represented too much weight, too much heat, for my level of exertion. Bye, bye, six-hundred-dollar leather jacket. I dropped it behind me.

  A soft thump to my right indicated one of the vampires landing on the rooftop. A second thump marked another landing nearby.

  Where were the other two? That was the problem with vampires. They ran almost soundlessly. Not only did their tread fall lightly even in a sprint, not even the sound of breathing alerted you.

  I shifted to the left. They were herding me. I knew it. But either they had split up or there were more of them. In the latter case I was dead. But if the four of them had split up, two to herd and two to wait, I had a chance.

  Next roof edge coming up. Abutting buildings. This one a two-story drop. I kicked my feet out in front of me, dropping to the roof into a sliding stop that would have made a major league baseball player proud. I twisted, parallel to the edge of the roof. I rolled off, one hand and one foot hooked over the edge of the roof. I released the foot, hanging down at full extension from one hand. I was an average five foot four inches tall so that still left a lot of drop below me, but every little bit helped. I let go, letting the slight kiss of friction against the wall slow my fall.

  I hit, letting my legs flex to drop to a low crouch. Ahead a shadow loomed, silhouetted against the backdrop of the next building.

  I reached over my shoulder and pulled a stake from is sheath. I charged. The other charged in return. I drove the stake forward, a specially built stake with a honed silver-plated-steel point backed by a rowan shaft.

  Fatigue slowed me. The vampire knocked my left hand, the one holding the stake, aside. Unlike most, this vampire knew how to fight. He grabbed at my head but missed. There were advantages to keeping my auburn hair cut short.

  The vampire, faster than I had expected, shifted his grab from my head to my arm. This time he caught it and pulled it to the side and up. My left hand fell to my waistband with practiced ease. The vampire pulled my captive arm closer, fangs piercing the inside of my arm, seeking the brachial artery. Pain shot up my arm into my shoulder and side. My left hand wrapped around the hilt of the Kahr K9 in its holster tucked inside my waistband. Silver does little to vampires, but lead and copper do nothing. A little silver solder melted into the cavity of Jacketed Hollow Point bullets made a round that would at least sting the vampire. Accuracy went to hell, but I considered that an appropriate trade-off.

  I fired three rounds at contact range, up and through the torso of the vampire. He jerked away a moment before releasing his grip on me. The movement pulled me off balance. I continued the motion, dropping to one knee. My right arm still burned from the bite. Blood poured from the wounds. I ignored the pain, ignored the blood, and drove forward and up with the stake. It pierced the vampire's flesh just below the breastbone. I drove in and up, seeking the heart. I felt the point hit the lump of muscle. I twisted, putting all the weight of my body behind the shove. I had to drive the steel through, get wood into the heart.

  The vampire shrieked once, a sound abruptly cut off as the stake penetrated. I stood. The entire fight had taken mere seconds, but the others would be here soon. I just needed to take the head before...

  A heavy weight hit me in the side as another vampire tackled me. My gun went flying. The impact drove me toward the edge of the roof. Toward, and over.

  As my head passed the edge of the roof I saw the glaring neon of signs, cars on the street, pedestrians moving purposefully along the sidewalks. Desperation drove my actions. First, I hooked my instep, catching the retaining wall with my foot. This stopped my outward momentum, but did nothing about the pull of gravity. Four stories to the ground. The second vampire, my attacker, released his grip on me and began to fall separately. Freed of that burden, again in desperation I reached back with my right hand to grab a cornice. My fingers closed on it, then pulled free almost immediately. I felt the bone in my hand pop. The brief grip nevertheless diverted the direction of my fall. I slammed into the side of the building and hit a windowsill which killed a bit more of my speed before I bounced away from the wall again. A glance below showed that I had diverted my path enough.

  I had time for two thoughts as I rushed toward the awning that marked the main entrance to the building. How cliché to have an awning break my fall. And this was going to hurt.

  Awnings are not trampolines. They are not nets to provide safety for circus acts. They simply provide a decorative means of keeping rain and snow away from a doorway or window. Punching through the awning killed some of my speed, as did my collision with the poor sucker who didn't get out of the way in time. I felt a rib go as I hit the concrete. Maybe two.

  All in all, I got off lightly. Even my enhanced constitution might well have not survived the fall.

  I staggered to my feet. Too many people around. Too many streetlights. Where was the vampire?

  I saw him. He had grabbed a man by the throat and was holding him aloft in one hand. The vampire gave the man a shake and the man went limp, his neck broken.

  Someone screamed. As if that sound was a signal others began screaming and stampeding away from the vampire. He grabbed a young woman before she could flee. Blonde. Bottle according to the dark roots.

  "Shit," I said. I wasn't supposed to fight vampires in public.

  I didn't have any choice.

  I reached over my shoulder, feeling, and found that my second stake was still in its sheath on my back. I pulled it free and took a step forward. Fire in my left ankle. Something else I'd hurt in the fall.

  The vampire pulled the woman in front of him. His hand over her mouth stifled her screaming. I took another step forward. The vampire opened his mouth wide, exposing his fangs. I heard shouts behind me.

  Great. At least a dozen people were seeing this. I could hope that the public would dismiss this report. Who believed in vampires, after all? Still, too many incidents like this and people would notice.

  I took another step. My vision blurred. I glanced down. Blood still pulsed from my arm. A lot of blood. I had to wrap this up quick.

  With my next step I sprinted. Okay, it was more of a lumbering run. The vampire saw that I would not be deterred. He bit and tore with his fangs, ripping the woman's throat out. He hurled the corpse in my direction.

  I lunged to the right, ducking the grisly missile. The vampire turned to run. Mistake. I leaped. I wrapped my right arm around its neck. My injured arm had little strength, but it only had to remain in place for a moment. I drove in with the stake
, piercing the creature's heart.

  With a short, strangled cry the vampire collapsed to the street and I collapsed on top of him.

  I lay on the body for a moment. I let my eyes close, just for a moment. I opened them to an unholy keening and a strange pulsing of blue light. I shook my head and started to struggle to my feet.

  "Freeze!"

  I only half understood the word. I turned in the direction of the voice.

  "I said 'Freeze!'"

  Oh. My muddled brain parsed what ears and eyes were telling me. Sirens, the flashing lights of police cars. An officer stood, pointing a gun at me. Young, barely out of the academy I guessed. I could see terror in his eyes.

  I froze. I've hunted vampires for years but there is nothing, absolutely nothing, more dangerous than a terrified rookie cop.

  "Hands on your head," he said.

  I complied.

  "On your knees."

  Again, I complied and used the movement to cast a quick glance at my right arm. Blood still surged from it in time with my pulse.

  "Officer," I said forcing my voice calm.

  "Shut up. Just shut up."

  "I'm bleeding out over here, Officer," I said. My vision started to tunnel. "And I think I'm about to pass out."

  I didn't quite get the word "again" out before blackness swallowed me.

  I woke to a high keening sound. This time I had no trouble recognizing the siren of an ambulance. I was strapped to a hard surface. Backboard. A thick cervical collar immobilized my neck. Something squeezed my legs and lower abdomen, an even pressure that ran from my ankles to just above my hips. A mask covered my mouth and nose, with air, no...oxygen, against my lips. An IV fed into my left arm and another into my neck under the cervical collar. I'd lost a lot of blood.

  The bouncing of the ambulance told me that we were moving fast.

  "Well, well. You're back with us."

  A young man leaned over me. The nametag on his blue shirt said "Grant". A patch on the shoulder carried the logo of what I presumed was an ambulance company.

  "We got to you in good time," the man continued. "You're going to be all right."

  He meant his words as comfort, but I did not need them. Since I was not already dead, I would recover. The word for what I am is "dhampyre," the child of a vampire and a human. Or, in my case, two vampires. My kind is rare. Vampires, walking corpses at heart, were not fertile except in very special circumstances.

  I am stronger than a normal human, faster, more durable, and I heal better.

  "Can you tell me where you're hurt?" Grant asked.

  I drew a deep breath or started to. The pain in my side reminded me of the rib. So, I started there.

  "Rib. Right side. Broken, I think." My voice sounded weak, even considering the mask. "Right arm. Stabbed. Twice." I could not tell him that a vampire had bit me. "Right hand. Broken bone. Heard it...pop. Something...left ankle. Broken? Somethin' left wrist. And...lost a lot of blood."

  "Well." Grant looked at the wiggly trace on a screen. Heart monitor. My heart. "We got most of that. Hang in there. We'll be at the hospital soon."

  "Guy I...landed on?"

  Grant's expression sobered. "Other team got him. I can't say more than that."

  I squeezed my eyes tight. People get hurt in my line of work. Innocents. But what should have been a simple takedown of one vampire became an ambush by four with two innocents, maybe three, depending on whether the one I hit in my fall survived, dead.

  The ride was short, but it provided plenty of time for me to imagine what I might have done differently what might have left those three people alive. The options started with letting the vampires have me and went downhill from there.

  We arrived at the hospital and I gritted my teeth at the jostling, however slight it was, as the crew unloaded me from the ambulance. Once inside, the ambulance crew handed me off to the emergency room staff and then went off to do whatever ambulance crews do between runs. Paperwork would be my guess. That's the bane of everyone's existence.

  The paperwork on my mission was going to be a nightmare. A fight with a vampire in full view of multiple witnesses. A body with a stake in it and two-inch fangs in its mouth. Two bodies if they check the roof and considering how I'd come through that awning, they would.

  This was going to be a hard one to keep quiet.

  There was a jump in time. I was still drifting in and out. I had lost more blood than I thought.

  While waiting for someone to take me for additional examination and treatment I ran a more detailed personal inventory. I could not move my head to look so the inventory had to be by feel. The EMTs had cut my leotard off. With leotard cut off, there was no way they could avoid finding my holster. That meant the police had it which meant they were looking for my gun.

  Yet another reason they would end up on the roof. They would have two vampire bodies to play with. And once somebody had the idea of pulling one of my stakes out? Wouldn't that be fun?

  Life just got better and better.

  The doctors and staff in the emergency room were attentive and efficient, I'll give them that. They had me in the examining room in minutes and connected to various monitors. A nurse drew blood. That the fluid they drew out of my vein was thin watery liquid was purely my imagination. They didn't put that much saline in me.

  I overheard a doctor at the door telling someone I could not answer questions yet. Good. The longer I could put that off, the better. I did not know how Indiana would treat my killing the vampire. After all, the vampire had already killed two people before I staked it.

  Anybody should be able to see that killing the vampire had been self-defense. But some places treated any killing, no matter how clear-cut the case for defense, as murder until proven otherwise. Others would give you a "thank you" and you would be on your way. I did not know Indiana's position on that.

  Considering what's necessary to kill a vampire I try to avoid having kills come to police attention at all. I try hard. Look, despite what you see in the movies, a stake through the heart does not kill a vampire. It does immobilize it. Remove the stake and the vampire comes back. How fast depends on how powerful the vampire is. To kill it you must either burn the body to ash—I've heard of cases of a few charred bone fragments regenerating—or you must remove the head and stuff the mouth with either garlic or communion wafers, then bury head and body separately.

  I always liked to combine my options. Remove the head, stuff the mouth, and then burn the body to ash. That removed all doubt.

  The doctor was asking me something, but my head was still not working quite right. I tried to shake my head, but the cervical collar prevented my head from moving.

  The doctor repeated himself. "You've lost a lot of blood. We need your consent for a transfusion."

  I wiggled my fingers. "Can' sigh' 'nyth'ng."

  "Verbal consent will do for now."

  "Yeah. 'kay. Do 't."

  The doctor gave rapid fire instructions. I felt another needle go into my arm and saw a bag of dark red liquid hung above me to the side of my bed. I suppressed a giggle. This time I got to be the vampire.

  The doctor leaned over me again. "We want to take you down for an MRI of your head and neck and of your arm. Okay?"

  " 'Kay."

  The doctor grinned. "Once we get you out of that collar and off this backboard, we can get you to sign some papers."

  This time I let out the giggle.

  " 'lways the pap'rw'rk, eh, Doc."

  "Always." He patted my shoulder. "You hang in there. We'll get you through this."

  I managed to twist my left hand enough even with the brace on it to make a thumbs up gesture.

  The doctor gave additional instructions to the attending nurse, then swept out of the room to go deal with other patients. Perhaps he'd have to deal with the poor sucker I'd landed on.

  Yes, that bothered me. I hate it when innocents get hurt. I hate it more when they get hurt because of me.

  And on that thoug
ht I let unconsciousness take hold of me again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The MRI gave me a clean bill of cervical vertebrate health, allowing the doctors to remove the backboard. The arm showed the punctures. I still called them stab wounds to the doctors. A barbecue fork, or maybe an ice pick used twice, might make such wounds if one didn't examine them too closely.

  I did not need surgical repair of the artery and instead of stitches they used glue for the wounds. The doctors said the bones would need six to eight weeks to heal. I knew I would need about half that.

  And then, major injuries checked and treated, blood pressure back up to a reasonable level, heart rate down to a, for me, elevated level of fifty-three beats per minute and I was ready for my worse challenge—the police.

  Two plainclothes officers entered the room. The nurse changing my IV bag—only one in the left arm I was happy to note—scowled at them but left at the shorter man's gesture.

  I took a moment to examine the two men. The shorter stood about five feet ten inches. I judged he weighed close to two hundred pounds. Aside from a slight paunch, most of that weight was muscle. He clearly worked hard to keep himself in shape. Gray salted the dark brown hair behind his widow's peak. Slight bags hung under his brown eyes. Fighting an admirable holding action against late middle age.

  The taller man was younger. About six feet. Similar weight but in a much trimmer package. Bright red, not Goth or Punk red, but real red, hair in a buzz cut. He could have stepped right out of a recruiting poster. Not a rookie at least. Nobody working plainclothes was a rookie. But I guessed he was fresh out of a uniform.

  "How may I help you, detectives?"

  "Dani Herzeg?" The older one held out a hand.

  So, they were playing it friendly? That was a good start. I looked down at my arms, one with the IV, the other bandaged and immobilized. I looked up at the detective and shrugged.

  He grinned. "Sorry." He dropped his hand. "Let me confirm. You're Dani Herzeg?"

  I nodded. "That's my name."

  "I'm Detective Sergeant James Ware. This is Detective Evan Mulryan. We'd like to ask you a few questions."