Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife) (34 page)

"You have a heart beat," she looked up at him, tried to ignore his amused smile and pressed her
ear to his chest. "That’s just insane, you have a heart beat," she told him again before looking up at him.

"You know so very little for someone who hunts us," he said hunt but didn’t lose his smile for a
minute. "My kind can regulate their heart, it can beat, it can not, same goes for breathing, I rather enjoy
the activity but it isn’t by any means necessary." When she just shook her head he motioned for her to
follow him and she finally took note of their surroundings. They were near the back of the club, only a
small walk from that back door he’d so readily given her a key to.

"You told me you’d give me the name’s for the people in your group," Jennifer reminded as she
kept a steady pace behind him. He shook his head, and she knew from the amused look on his face that
at least he wasn’t offended that she’d decided to simply ignore the fact that vampires, at least on
occasion, had a beating heart in their chest.

"You’ll meet them in a minute, introductions will be made, and any form of cataloging your kind
is determined to do is up to you from there." He seemed so certain that she wasn’t going to make a big
deal out of doing just that, but if she thought for a minute she could get the vampires she was about to
meet to fill out an entire survey, listing their names, vampire ranks, and all the people they’d murdered in
the course of their lives, if they could even remember anymore, she would.

"How long is this going to take," she asked deciding that pushing the subject of vampire
cataloging by ‘her hunter kind’ and it’s importance, was not something he would want to argue about.

"Few minutes, with any luck they’re already prepped and ready to go," but he didn’t sound to
hopeful. Considering time was of little significance to them and they could move at the speed of light she
supposed it wasn’t unthinkable that as usual, even in a crisis, vampires would procrastinate.

"Of course," when he opened that invisible back door and stepped in she hesitated for the first
time tonight to follow him. So far she had worked solely with him alone, true she’d encountered two of
‘his’ vampires but it had given her little basis on what to expect. There was no way to know whether or
not she would be safe in there, with no one watching her back, not really. Of course he noticed her
hesitation before he made it more then a few steps, whether that was due to his super hearing or because
he shared that weird bond she felt when he was close by she would never ask.

"There is no need to hesitate," he noted the way her hand strayed to the weapon he’d strapped
onto her hip himself and shook his head. "No one will touch you while you are under my protection,"
she shouldn’t believe him, she had no reason to, well other than the fact that so far he’d saved her life
and outside of being ludicrously seductive hadn’t touched her.

"Vampires make me nervous," that wasn’t saying much, you would have to be a complete
moron to surround yourself with blood sucking murderous fiends with super hearing, super strength, and
super speed and feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

"And some vampires should make you nervous, just not my vampires," he shrugged, "at least not
tonight. Until we’ve solved our zombie problem we work together, because that is what’s best for
everyone." He seemed to be series about thinking that vampires and vampire hunters, well hunter
singular, working together was a good idea. The why of it was completely beyond her and he didn’t
seem inclined to explain, normally that would make her take a step back, take time to analyze. Well
normally she wouldn’t have considered it at all but she was in one of those desperate times, desperate
measures scenarios. In the end she forced herself to step over the threshold of the door, she might end
up dead, she might not, and if it was the latter then she got names out of it. True while names didn’t give
her much information, if they were known vampires it could let her know whether or not some of the
blood fiends needed to be put down, eventually.

Once she was in the building Ethan closed the door behind them and led the way into the
darkness that was the club. It was a place that was usually open on only Fridays and Saturdays, so the
building was quieter than Jennifer was used to hearing it. There was still the pounding rhythm of music
coming from somewhere, and she knew without seeing that it was probably down here where the
vampires tended to roam, and kill. She forced herself to ignore it, she had forced herself to stand idly by
before, it got harder to do each time, but she knew that interrupting feeding time for vampires tended to
make them cranky and she had more important, potentially zombie apocalypse matters to attend to.
"How many vampires are here," Jennifer asked, "I’m assuming more then just what you consider yours."

Ethan glanced to her over his shoulder, "Ada prefers to keep this place open at all times for our
kind. I’m sure there are enough to make things uncomfortable if you wanted to try to make a go at
them." She got the impression he was teasing her about trying anything, for the moment he was right,
she hated that he was right about anything concerning her. "Keeping the reason for your presence here
quiet is advisable given any number of the other vampires here might belong to Ada."

For a confused moment Jennifer tried to work the words he’d just said through her head, "wait,
I thought you were one of Ada’s."

Ethan looked back at her again, "I’m sure she’s under the same misconception, and let us keep
it that way." He turned down a tunnel that was a few down from the one that led to his office, she
always forgot what a maze of tunnels were down here. She couldn’t help but wonder if it had always
been like this, considering it was an old closed down factory building of some sort she found that
unlikely, but then again she had no actual idea how long vampires had held ownership of it either.
Maybe it wasn’t always a showy club but it could very likely have always had secret tunnels beneath it
where vampires lived. Ethan led her into a section so dark it was suffocating, she probably should have
paused since she couldn’t see an inch in front of her face but she forced herself to keep moving forward.
She was in no mood to waste more time and if he thought he was going to catch her off guard then he
had another thing coming.

In less then a minute he pulled a door open up ahead and light came streaming out as well as
quite a bit of chatter. She could not explain why the sound made her chest hurt, probably because her
colleagues and her office used to sound like that when they’d gather together. It was something she
would never share with the people she’d lost again, something she might never work her way into being
comfortable around again. Jennifer gritted her teeth against the painful sensation in her chest and made
her way into the room behind Ethan without hesitating. Apparently they either hadn’t had warning of her
or they hadn’t expected her to actually be stupid enough to come because the room fell silent when they
took note of her.

Jennifer didn’t take it personally, she probably would have acted worse if someone had brought
a vampire into her place of work or safe haven, well except for apparently Ethan. She did a quick body
count of the room, five males, not including Ethan and one female, that made a total of seven. In an
attempt to try and ignore her urge to go for the Beretta, which seemed to pop up any time she laid eyes
on a vampire, she tried to focus on the room. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, vampires
to get together in torture chambers or places that had blood splattered walls and dead bodies. What she
found herself in was a well lit gym, the floor was covered in blue mats, assorted punching bags hung from
the ceiling and on the opposite side of the room sat exercise equipment. Why vampires would need a
treadmill was beyond her but there were all sorts of weight lifting and cardio-aerobics equipment in the
room. They could bench press a fire engine and run faster then a Porsche, and they were surrounded by
useless equipment, she had to figure it must be for humans they kept around. She liked that idea less
then she liked the idea of being alone in a room full of vampires.

But the minute she looked back up at the crowd in the room that was staring at her as if waiting
to see what she was going to do, her instincts tried to kick in and reflexively she reached for the Beretta
at her hip. Before she could do it Ethan’s hand shot out and took hold of her, she looked at him, not at
all pleased, but not trying to take her hand back either because if she did they both knew exactly where
it would try to stray to. "Perhaps we should try introductions before you decide to try to shoot anyone,"
Ethan breathed and she knew that even though he whispered it the entire room had heard him. She
spared a glance down at his hand wrapped around hers before looking back to him and giving an
exasperated nod.

The minute he took a step forward with her hand in his, the tension that appeared to be knotting
everyone of the vampires shoulders seemed to drain out of the room. Well it drained out of everyone’s
shoulders but her own, the more comfortable they seemed to get the more nervous it made her. While it
was true that she’d had more exposure to vampires in the lines of conversing then any of the other
members on her team, she still didn’t quite understand how they thought. Were they calming down
because they didn’t perceive her as a threat anymore, or was the hand holding some kind of claim
indication for them. There were other options probably, she didn’t like the thought of either of the ones
she’d thought up on short notice. She tried to shut it down, remind herself that she was only here
because she needed to get to Dimitri, and as revenants went he seemed to be just a tad smarter than one
that had been human first. Not by much, but last she’d seen him he’d still had enough brains to run from
taking damage rather then dying.

Ethan walked her up to the crowd much closer then she would have liked to be before stopping,
"you met Dominik already," the buzz haired vampire gave a nod, "MacArthur was there with us that
night as well." Jennifer had very briefly seen the other vampire though he had chosen to keep his
distance that night. She didn’t blame him, he probably didn’t like hunters much, and given she didn’t like
vampires much that hardly seemed to matter. She was never surprised anymore to look at a vampire
and see they were Hollywood quality beautiful. He was of course, he had leaner longer features then
Ethan or Dominik but he was still breathtakingly handsome. Auburn hair, that nearly bordered on
copper flowed past his shoulders down his back, it was longer then she’d want to have in a fight but to
each their own, his eyes were a shade of brown that was so similar in color to his hair that she didn’t
even think brown could be applied and judging from his glare he wasn’t happy to see her. That suited
her just fine, she could deal with open hostility far easier then she could pretend pleasantries. "And his
brother Mary," she glanced to where Ethan indicated and then did a double take. Mary was a complete
carbon-copy of MacArthur in both build and facial features, the only differences were that Mary had
shorter hair that fell shaggily about his forehead and ears and he sported a scar that ran the length of his
left eye to his upper lip. The scar was maybe the first she’d ever seen on a vampire, it didn’t detract
from how handsome he was but it was still something, as far as she knew, that would have disqualified
him for vampirism. Both twins were wearing some kind of chainmaille get-up that really screamed old
world and though it wasn’t what she was used to seeing vampires run around in she would have
probably guessed what they were with a glance.

Without pause Ethan dragged her in the direction of the last three, "this is Lydia," he said
nodding to an Adonis with dark hair cut short in a bob style, "Jim," he indicated an attractive younger
looking man with a cowboy hat, "and Thadeus, my second." And there it was, if there was rank
involved vampires just had to mention it. While everyone he’d introduced were up to the standard of
vampire beauty a survey of the vampires in the room and what they were wearing was not within the
regular range. Lydia was wearing what Jennifer was pretty sure were jeggings and some filmy looking
dress with a fashionable belt cinched at her tiny waist. Jim had on holey jeans, a flannel shirt with the
sleeves ripped off and snake skin cowboy boots. And Ethan’s second, though his hair seemed more old
school in the cut was still only wearing black jeans and a t-shirt with words in another language scrolling
across the center. She knew from her quick glance at Dominik that he was wearing a black long sleeved
shirt with cargo pants, these were definitely not the regular kind of vampires she ran across. Usually they
were gothed-out, running around in era dated cloths like the twins, or mostly naked to show off their
splendorous assets. "And of course all, this is our resident Hunter Jennifer Ryan," Jennifer nearly
jumped when Ethan spoke again, she’d let herself get that distracted.

She wasn’t at all sure what she should say to that introduction, she doubted somehow they
appreciated having it pointed out that she was the resident person, who under normal circumstances,
would be killing them. So instead of opening her mouth she just stood there and did her best to ignore
the urge she had to reach for a weapon. She was really going to have to work on that if she intended to
stay in the room and not get her arm ripped off.

"Jim," Ethan spoke up after a pause, "can I leave her with you?" It took Jennifer’s brain another
second to translate the ‘her’ he was referring to was in fact her. She looked up at Ethan and was about
to protest when he said, "I need a moment alone with Thadeus," if he thought she would find that
comforting he was so delusional. But she didn’t say anything because what could she say that would
make a difference. Besides it could have been worse, he might have asked to leave her with the
chainmaille twins and that would probably be twice as uncomfortable as sitting next to a flannel, cowboy
boot wearing vampire.