Not Quite Dead (A NightHunter Novel) (2 page)

In truth, a lone werewolf probably wouldn't win a battle with him, but a pack of particularly impressive ones could be another story. And vampires? Yeah, well, Eric had a feeling it might depend on the vampire. A battle with a powerful one might take him where he didn't want to go.

Preferring his throat to be attached to his body instead of set out on a silver platter as an entrée for a bloodsucker, Eric silently grasped the hilt of his knife as he mentally tracked the animalistic growl creeping through the swamp. Energy pulsed in his palm, generated by the weapon that carried several centuries' worth of secrets in its shadowy green blade. He waited, utterly still as he listened for the whine again.

Sweat slithered down his temples, and steam rose from his skin, which was suffocating beneath his tee shirt. Even the air he breathed was so thick with humidity it seemed to weigh his lungs down, and he had to fight to get enough oxygen with each breath.

Though he wasn't moving, the dark swamp was teeming with life. He could hear the scrabble of claws, the croaks of frogs, the splashes as alligators slid into the dank water, and the rasp of snakes stalking their prey. Again, he heard the low growl, and it was deeper this time. Not a small animal. A large one, in the nearby vicinity. For a brief moment, he wished he'd disregarded his gut and had opted to strap his gun beneath his arm for tonight's trip, but he knew that would have been a poor choice.

The swamp didn't like those who entered its realm armed with guns, or at least this part of the swamp didn't. He'd stick with the knife unless the situation became dire. Knife first, gun not allowed, magic as a last resort.

When nothing leapt out of the woods to try to sever his head from his body, Eric grew impatient. Unwilling to waste any more time, he moved forward again, keeping his blade ready.

As the water swirled restlessly around his calves, he cast a glance at his watch and grimaced. He was already late. Would she wait for him? Anticipation rippled through him at the thought of the woman who had texted him right before he'd walked into the swamp, letting him know that her plane had touched down. After weeks of delay, Jordyn Leahy was finally in town. He was going to see her
tonight.

What would it be like when he saw her again? The same? More?
More.

He wanted more. Much more. Women didn't generally intrigue him these days. He'd trained himself out of the need to connect with females a couple hundred years ago. Yeah, sure, he entertained their flirtations and their attentions, but he never allowed himself to
notice
them. But Jordyn was different.

The first time he'd seen her, she'd been hiking through the Brazilian jungle wearing a hot pink tank top, jeans, and a brand new pair of boots. When she'd stepped from behind a tree with a bazooka aimed at his head, he'd been riveted by her. She'd rebuffed every one of his attempts to seduce her, which made him even more intrigued. Add in the fact that his brother had nearly sacrificed his life to save hers? That meant she was important to his brother, which made her important to Eric. It also made her off-limits, but his fantasies and certain parts of his anatomy were having a little trouble with that concept.

Not that it mattered. She'd come to Louisiana to help him find Tristan, and that's what they were going to do.

But there was no denying the fact that Eric's entire body had been humming in anticipation of seeing her again. And now, she was in town. Less than ten miles away. At that very moment, she was waiting for him at the bar where they'd agreed to meet. And where was he? Slogging through a swamp after what he suspected would be another dead end in the hunt for Tristan, who had been missing for a year.

For a moment, he almost considered ditching the rank water and heading out to meet Jordyn. The thought was tempting as hell, and if he weren't so deep into the swamp already, he might even think about it.

But he needed to find his twin, and soon. He was far enough along this particular trail that he'd be able to wrap up this lead in a few more minutes.

Tristan couldn't be dead, because Eric would know if he was. Yeah, he'd know because they had that twin bond. They were also both connected to the metaphysical world in a way that neither of them fully understood. But the most damning indication of his brother's death would be the fact that Eric would keel over and die shortly after Tristan did. Since he was still alive and kicking, he knew that Tristan wasn't six feet under a pile of dirt somewhere, but Eric had a bad feeling that death wasn't far away. And even if Tristan wasn't teetering on the edge, the brothers could survive only so long without being near each other, and the clock was ticking on that one.

It was time to find his twin, and now that Jordyn was here, Eric had a chance to make it happen. Although she hadn't lived in town for years, Jordyn was a local, bringing with her the inside knowledge of the town that had apparently swallowed up his brother a year ago. He needed her familiarity with the locale, and since she owed Tristan her life, she'd been determined to find Tristan as soon as she'd learned he was missing.

Anticipation rushed through him. He was finally going to track down his brother, and he was going to do it with the woman he couldn't get off his mind. He could still remember exactly what Jordyn smelled like: a faint hint of vanilla, sprinkled with something lighter, something so decidedly female that his cock got hard every time he thought about it. He could still recall the highlights in her hair when the sun had slipped through the thick jungle canopy and brushed over her slightly crooked ponytail. And those two kisses. Those two brief, incredible kisses that he couldn't get out of his mind, not even for a moment.

And now, she was back in his life. She was waiting for him. And he was late.

The spirit he'd been following to the grave flickered suddenly, jerking his mind back to the present. Swearing, he sent a careful pulse of magic at it, pulling it back into the physical world just as it started to fade. It surged back into sight, a slippery, silvery-gray presence fighting his grasp. The glittering shadow hovered restlessly between two trees, waiting impatiently. It swirled in and out of sight as if it were still alive.

Eric loosened his grip on it just enough to allow it to move again. With a sudden surge of energy, it burst into action, streaking toward the burial ground that would empower it to break Eric's hold.

Eric pushed onward relentlessly, knowing that he wouldn't be able to hold the spirit in this world for much longer. Once his guide dematerialized, he would have no way to find the cemetery that had once been a holy burial site, but which had been consumed by the swamp over two hundred years ago.

The spirit traveled swiftly, and Eric had to break into a run to keep it in sight. He slogged through the swamp to solid ground, and then was able to move more quickly as his feet found purchase in the mucky soil. His body moved with the same grace it always had, and it felt good to unleash the power he usually had to keep contained in mainstream society. His stride lengthened, and his muscles elongated as strength surged through him. The thick, steamy air weighed on him as he ran, but he kept his pace even, tracking the spirit as it led him deeper and deeper into the swamp that the locals refused to enter.

Then, finally, Eric felt his body suddenly go taut, as if his muscles were made of wire strung so tightly they were about to snap.
The spirits of the dead were nearby
. He eased to a stop, his skin humming with the energy of dozens of spirits, entities who had feasted upon the life that still existed in this world.

His weapon ready, he slipped between the trees, his senses open wide as he searched the night for all the information he could find. The spirit he'd been tracking ducked behind a massive cypress tree, and then vanished, but he didn't need it anymore.

He was close.

He could feel it.

Forcing himself to approach more slowly than he wanted, he eased through the overgrowth, calling upon his deeper skills to move with absolute silence. He passed the cypress tree, and then froze. Ahead of him, covered in moss and dampness, were seven ancient, crumbling headstones. He could feel the weight of the spirits in the area...all of them heavy with malice and darkness.

The burial site of the damned.

In this region, most bodies were buried above ground because the water table was too high, but these had been buried deep beneath the earth, cut off from any chance of them reconnecting with the human society they had terrorized. In front of the first headstone was a burned patch of soil centered around a small, black stone.

He knew instantly what it was, and adrenaline surged through him. Anticipation and triumph, marred by a dark foreboding.
Tristan had been there.
It was his altar.

Eric had seen Tristan build hundreds of altars as a kid, until they'd discovered the dark side of his brother's abilities. Tristan didn't do it anymore, and yet the signs were unmistakable. Tristan had been there, trying to resurrect whoever had been buried in that grave. "Tristan. You around?" His voice was low, drifting through the mist for only his brother to hear.

There was no response, and he tried again, this time reaching out telepathically over the bond he and Tristan had shared since they were kids, though it hadn't worked since Tristan had gone missing.
Tristan? You here?

Again, no response, but once more he heard the deep whine of a large, wild animal. It was in the distance, but the menacing sound made his muscles tense with readiness. Moving quickly, he strode out into the clearing, staying low and ready as he swiftly approached the altar his brother had abandoned.

He crouched in front of the headstone and shined his flashlight on the burned patch of dirt. Instead of the single stone he'd expected to see, there were dozens of small, rounded rocks, all filthy, so covered in soot that they had blended into the ground from a distance. Tristan never used more than one stone, and yet there were close to two dozen in this one spot. Had he tried more than once, or had all the stones been used for a single, massive burst of power?

During the year he'd been searching for Tristan, he'd refused to give up hope that his studious brother was holed up in a library somewhere, consumed by some massive research project that had made him forget that the rest of the world existed. But this site destroyed that delusion. His brother was in trouble, serious trouble. "What the hell were you trying to raise, Tristan?" Eric whispered as he picked up one of the stones.

The stone was dead and lifeless, which meant considerable time had passed since Tristan's magic had run through it. It was also intact, which meant his brother hadn't been successful in the resurrection. He picked up another. The surface was rough, and it flaked off under his thumb, but this one was also intact. Eric began to relax. If Tristan had failed, then he might still be okay—

He suddenly noticed a large stone to the right of the grave marker. Unlike the others, it was streaked with a blood-red spatter that appeared to be sunk deep into the rock...and it was cracked in half, splayed open on the ground in two parts.

A dark shadow of unease crept down Eric's spine. The broken stone could mean only one thing: Tristan had successfully resurrected whoever had been buried in that grave. Who was worth the cost it would have taken on his brother to call upon so much magic?

Eric flashed his light onto the crumbling headstone. The carvings in the granite were faded and chipped away, making the name unreadable, but there was no doubt that the year was 1621.

For his brother to resurrect someone or something that had been dead for almost four hundred years, the cost to Tristan was unimaginable. Why had he done it? And what had happened in the time that had passed since then?

Then the thin beam of his light settled upon a marking at the top of the headstone, a carving so deep and violent that it had survived four hundred years so well that it was almost blinding in its intensity.

It was three intersecting triangles bisected with a stake, the ancient warning symbol that the locals had once used to warn that it was a gravesite of the damned.

It was the symbol of a vampire.

Tristan had raised a vampire?

No. He would never do that.
Ever.
There had to be another explanation.

Eric plunged his hand into the dirt and opened his mind, searching for the truth of what had happened. The moment he dropped his mental shields, the dark energy of the spirits in the vicinity converged upon him. Images flashed through his mind of bloodied corpses, ravenous hunger, and the gaping emptiness of souls long missing. There was no doubt that the creatures buried there were every bit the predators they'd been accused of being. Evil plunged deep inside him, seeking a foothold to anchor itself to, as the spirits trapped in the burial ground swarmed him.

He closed his eyes, knowing he had only seconds left to raise his shields before the spirits of the dead would consume him. He plunged his mind deep into the soil beneath him, sending out tendrils in every direction. Deeper and deeper he went, searching for the vessel of the body that was supposed to be in the grave.

The soil was thick with maleficent violence, tainted with the shadows of the creature that had once lain there, but Eric could find no physical remains lingering. The body was definitely gone. Tristan had brought it back to life.

Eric gritted his teeth. "What the hell have you done, Tristan?"

But it was pretty obvious what Tristan had done. He'd resurrected a vampire that had been dead for almost four hundred years, one so evil that it had been buried in this remote site, its grave marked with ancient runes to protect against it coming back to life or causing any more harm.

Tristan had brought it back to life.
Hell.