Midnight Predator

knife.

It would have been so much easier—for Turquoise, at least—if he had just tried to bleed her. Trying to kill a feeding vampire is as easy as trying to kill a blind deaf-mute.

“Revenge,” Nathaniel paraphrased. “It sounds sweet, but it doesn’t make for a good life.”

“Maybe not, but in this case, I think I wouldn’t mind it.” Bravado. Did she really think he would help her? And could she really kill, even Lord Daryl?

Nathaniel drew a knife from his boot and handed it to her, handle first. “If you’re willing to kill, wait to strike until he’s feeding. Go for the heart—it’s the only place that will be fatal.”

She hesitated. Cathy wasn’t a killer; violence made her stomach turn. But as her hand closed over the knife’s handle her decision was made.

Daryl caught Turquoise’s wrist and knocked the first knife away. Fortunately, she had others, and Turquoise’s left hand was almost as good as her right. Daryl hissed in pain as the next knife raked across the skin of his chest, but a hasty block knocked the blade from its aim and kept it from piercing the rib cage.

Lord Daryl stormed back into his home, his temper already hot and looking for an outlet. He found one as soon as he saw Nathaniel waiting in his parlor.

“What is he doing here?” Lord Daryl demanded of Cathy, as if the human should have been able to make Nathaniel leave.

“I have business with you,” the mercenary replied. Lord Daryl ignored him; Nathaniel leaned back against the wall to wait.

Lord Daryl pulled Cathy against himself, wrapping her hair around his fingers to yank her head to the side and bare her throat. She shivered with the pain as his fangs pierced the skin.

The knife was in her left hand. The vampire obviously didn’t see it as a threat, if he noticed it at all. Across the room, she saw Nathaniel make anXover his heart, a reminder.

But she missed the heart. The blade hit a rib and skittered across his chest, and her master threw her away with a curse.

Turquoise pulled away abruptly before he could retaliate, but his grip on her wrist didn’t falter. Instead, he used the hunter’s momentum to throw her.

The breath hissed out of her lungs as her back slammed into the wall, and Turquoise stumbled to her knees before she could recover it.

She hit the wall hard, and fell. The next moments were unclear; she only remembered fear, pain, and anger. Because in that moment she heard a sound that had never been directed toward her before—the crack of Lord Daryl’s whip.

The weapon wrapped around her wrist, tearing open the skin; he yanked her forward, and her shoulder screamed in pain, probably dislocated.

Breathing tightly past pain that seemed to pulse from her fingers to her shoulder, down her back and through her gut, she tried to move the arm, then nearly blacked out.No, we won’t be trying that again. In all her years as a vampire hunter, she had yet to break a bone, but there was a first time for everything.

Again came the crack. This time the whip cut open a line above her left collarbone.

Desperately, she dove with the knife. Lord Daryl didn’t react quickly enough to avoid the blade, but she could not reach his heart. Instead, the weapon cut into his stomach.

Lord Daryl growled a curse, and shoved her away, toward Nathaniel. She couldn’t get up again. Everything was bleeding, bruised, in pain. She barely remembered hearing him order Nathaniel, “Get her out of here.”

She had been lucky then to have Nathaniel to save her. This time, she had only training and her wits to help her.

Her knife was still in her hand, held by a death grip, but only because instincts died hard. Turquoise was lucky it had not sliced her open when she fell.

Daryl was already standing above her, expression unconcerned. “You can’t fight me, Catherine,” he said calmly, and the words ignited her rage. “I am your master, and I will be for as long as you live. Did you honestly think you were better than I am?”

“You’re Catherine Miriam Minate,” her father had said, after she first met Daryl, as if that explained everything. “You’re proud, and you have every right to be. And no one—no one—can take that away from you unless you let them.”

Turquoise answered with a single word: “Yes.”

She started fighting again, this time a series of lightning thrusts and dodges that left him off guard. The knife sliced along his arm as he fumbled a block. She barely managed to dodge his blade, by stepping in closer. Her knife cut along the back of his hand, and he dropped his weapon with a hiss of pain.

“Some people only care about themselves. They use things; they destroy,” Mr. Minate told his daughter. “You’re . . . you’re a creator, a builder. A healer, not a user.”

Cathy shook her dad’s words of wisdom off as hokey.

Some people use things—people, objects. They destroy. Some creatures needed to abuse others in order to thrive. This one had picked the wrong life to try to steal.

“I might never have come back here,” Turquoise stated, as she fought. She moved closer, and then dodged back as Daryl tried to retaliate. “But you did something very dumb.” Another series of attacks, and another quick retreat. “You threatened—” She blocked a blow; the effort sent a series of black waves through her vision. “—Eric. And you tried—” He caught her around the waist, and pulled her forward. “—to ruin the life I had just barely created again.” She slammed a knee up, and Daryl shoved her away with a sound of pain.

He was expecting her to fall, or at least be delayed. Instead, she instantly swung her weapon arm up, at the same time throwing her weight forward to add power to the blow.

Finally the knife found its mark, and the creature collapsed, as a marionette will when the puppeteer cuts the strings.

Turquoise nearly fell with him, but somehow managed to lean back against the wall and grit her teeth against another wave of dizziness.

“You’ll do something amazing with your future,” her father stated with surety. “You’ve got so much passion, so much talent . . . you’ll be something incredible, I’m sure.”

He hadn’t been talking about hunting vampires.

Funny, that wasn’t what she was thinking about, either. She had two worlds to pick her future from: human and vampiric. Or both.

First, she was going to need to see a doctor. She had no illusions about what she was at the moment— human—or about how much damage she could do to herself if she didn’t get to a hospital soon to get the arm set. After that . . .

You’re a creator, a builder. Who knew? Maybe she could try to find that part of herself again.

Maybe she would take Jaguar’s job for long enough to decide she was bored with it, and then ask Nathaniel to change her; maybe she would salvage what Daryl had tried to destroy, and realize she was content in human life.

She had choices, and if she didn’t have all of eternity, she had some time. She also had freedom.

Wryly, she mused,In the end, my father was right.