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He clenched his hands into tight fists as he felt his anger and his hatred rise within him
Vaan The Undead could be found in every civilization known to man as far back as recorded time Every culture had its own account of vampires, whether they were the tales of the vukodlak in Croatia or the lupi manari of Italy
And just as there had always been vampires, there had always been vampire hunters
For centuries, all the firstborn males in Duncan ’s fa of a rarity Most hunters never married Wives and children could all too easily becoood and evil He knew that being a hunter wasn’t so that was passed fro a va thata priest
Edward Ramsey was the only hunter Duncan had ever knoho had been turned into the very thing he had once hated and hunted He tried to iine what it would be like if he, himself, were suddenly turned How had Ramsey reconciled what he had been to what he had become? What was it like to hunt mortals instead of vaht away and concentrated on his reason for being in Pear Blossom Creek Three women had been killed and drained of blood All had been red-heads All had been young and single and lived alone It sounded like the work of Dimitri Falco, yet Henry Adams claimed that he had destroyed Falco inSouth America Of course, it was always possible that Falco was dead and it was just a coincidence that the three runted softly He had never believed in coincidence, which meant that either Falco was still alive or another va his MO Either way, Vicki Cavendish was in danger And she wasn’t the only woman in toho fit the description of the vampire’s victims There were Suzie Collins, orked at the post office, and Rhonda McGee, a nurse orked the night shift at the hospital
Stretching his arht He had done all he could do tonight Tomorrow, he would continue his search for Dimitri Falco
Chapter 8
Antonio Battista roa the drifting shadows of the evening for so his head, he sniffed the wind, his nostrils taking in the scent of cool da stink of decay, the wood s from a chimney, trees and flowers and the myriad other s out of the ordinary He listened to the sounds of the night-- crickets and tree frogs, the rustle of the wind through the leaves, the barking of a dog and, farther away, the faint howl of a wolf
He turned toward the sound Was it a wolf? Or one of the Undead?
With preternatural speed, hein front of the houses where the other redheaded wo hi on, he turned down the street where Victoria lived Her house was dark A thought took hi, low and even, told hiainst his tongue as he listened to the steady beat of her heart, the thruer in hier he had felt that first night when he awoke as a newly o had that been? Five? Six? After the first century or two, ti He had no need for clocks or calendars He ith the setting of the sun, slept when it rose in the er held any importance for his-- the need for blood and the necessity of keeping his true identity a secret from mankind Which reminded him that there was a van, he didn’t know He had seen the ht and had felt a rare stab of jealousy when he saw the hunter and Victoria laughing together It had taken all his considerable self-restraint to keep fro the rinned in wry aued by a foolish human eain as he iined Victoria with another man, and not just anyago To this day, he didn’t understand why he had not dispatched the vampire hunter when he had the chance, but there had been soe and honor that Battista had found hi in spite of himself And now Duncan was here, on the hunt The question as he hunting?
Battista settled down outside Victoria ’s bedroo there, his back to the wall, he gazed into the darkness, re…