Ripper (Hunter #1)(21)

The lights in the middle townhouse came on at precisely six forty-three. Sundown. The hairs on my forearms stood straight up. Now I knew why there weren’t bikes on the lawns. I would bet my life that all six townhomes were connected on the inside and I was staring at a vampire club.

I took a deep breath because a couple of things were becoming clear to me. One, Joanne Taylor had been playing a dangerous game. She was a hooker, but it went beyond that. Vampires wanted more than sex. Oh, from what I understood, they wanted the sex. Vampires could feed off sexual energy, but their primary source of energy was always blood. Sometimes the vamp got a little overeager and took too much. Joanne might be stronger than a regular human, but she needed the proper blood volume to survive. The second fact I realized while staring at that club really scared me. The freaking Vampire Council had to be involved. If she was working at a vampire club, then the Council knew about it.

I didn’t want to get involved with the Council.

Everything I knew about vampires I knew from my father and from the stories my mother has told me. Mom’s dad was a hunter, but not exactly one like my dad. He’d hunted at the request of the Council or a pack where, for political reasons, the alpha chose not to dispense justice himself. Every so often my grandfather would get a call and he would leave his backwoods home in East Texas and hunt down some supernatural creature that had gone crazy or caused too much trouble. Granddad was particularly good at hunting werewolves. He always had an order of execution and he only killed wolves who met the criteria for a “righteous” kill.

My dad was pretty much the opposite. While Granddad had many friends in the local packs and was respected, my father was a revenge hunter. I twisted the top off a beer and let it coat my throat as I thought about my father. His mom and sister had been torn apart by a wolf who went crazy. My granddad had been the one to hunt the wolf and he’d found my seventeen-year-old father in the process. He felt bad for the kid and brought him home where he taught him everything he knew about hunting. I would like to have known my granddad better, but he died before my father left us and we weren’t permitted to have anything to do with a traitor. Mom had only managed to sneak away to visit her dad a few times. While my father had been more than happy to take my grandfather’s training and his daughter, once Dad had everything he needed he decided to have nothing more to do with the old man. Having a friend or two in the nonhuman world was the same thing as treason in my father’s mind. I suppose my brothers’ and my lifestyle were a big old “f*ck you” to Dad.

I shook my head and took another swallow. My mind was wandering. Dad had known the basics about vampires. Rule number one—don’t f*ck around with vampires. Rule number two—see rule number one. Vampires are a genetic anomaly. There’s something in their DNA that clicks on when death occurs. The vampire rises and takes blood and then, as long as he continues to take blood, his body functions. The vampire is stronger than a human. Most are stronger than wolves and shifters. They develop different powers over the years and this forms their class system. Warriors tend to be the strongest of the strong. They’re fast and kill with ease. Most vampires can be described as warriors, but there are others as well. Some have exceptional mental powers and others can make you see things that aren’t there. I’ve heard that some can even fly, but until I see it, I ain’t believing that one.

They also have the most organized, powerful central system of government in the supernatural world. The Vampire Council rules the supernaturals with an iron fist. I’d heard vague rumors that there had been a change at the top of the Council, but trust me, they’re still the same *s, different faces. If Joanne Taylor was killed by a vampire it would be hard for me to prove it and even harder to bring him to justice. The Council protects their own.

I sighed and settled in because I wasn’t going to let some group of old, and I mean old, politicians stop me from finding out the truth. I pulled out my camera and concentrated on the front of the building. I took a bunch of pictures, getting the lay of the land, so to speak. The first limo arrived shortly after full dark and contained a group of females. It surprised me because I had understood that the women who worked in the vampire clubs tended to live there. They were slaves. These women didn’t look like slaves, but they were dressed in heels and short dresses and ready to party. Their clothes reminded me of the dresses Liv found in the back of Joanne’s closet. I made sure I got close-ups of the girls as they headed into the building. A big guy opened the door and I caught the briefest glimpse of a blonde-haired woman greeting the girls.

I twisted the cap off beer number two and my body was finally relaxing after a day of tormenting me. I shifted on my knees and decided that I would put a pillow in the back of the Jeep for times like this. My knees were hurting from kneeling on the hard concrete, but I didn’t want to stand up. Even though I was a long way from the club, vampires have damn fine senses, and I didn’t want to get caught.

A Mercedes pulled up and the big guy was moving quickly to get to that car. He hauled ass to open the door for the dark-haired man who tossed his keys at him. I snapped off a few quick photos before really studying the vampire through the lens. I engaged the zoom and got my first good look at a vampire who didn’t play games with my brother.

He wasn’t the tallest man I’d seen, but he was powerfully built. His eyes were gray and seemed extremely cold to me. His hair was brown and slicked back. He wore a tailored suit and black tie. The male radiated superiority to everyone around him. He breathed in the night air and I felt the air of anticipation from him even across the block and five floors up. He was hungry and he wanted blood.