Maz nodded, looking up at me with bright blue eyes which were nestled behind a bed of wrinkles. “The bounty has been wired to your account.” She tapped something on her iPad.
Only about one percent of the human population knew about or believed in vampires, and the ones who did paid us good money to avenge their fallen or assaulted loved ones. It was our job to protect the humans from the bloodsuckers, and I would step in any day to protect a human free of charge. But the money we made from hired hits helped us keep the organization going for generations. Most of the other hunters within the society were put on patrol at bars and nightclubs that we knew the bloodsucking demons frequented. They kept the humans safe from random vampire attacks.
Some of the bloodsuckers fled Magic City and tried to make a life out here in the human world; others had been here years but get sloppy and we catch them. We were well within our rights to wipe them from the face of the Earth the second they crossed the line from their secret little compound in Northern Idaho. But for me, Liv, Vasquez, and some of the other elite junior and senior hunters, we got the paid gigs, the marks who had done something horrible and needed justice to be served, and God willing, I wanted to be the one to bring those families closure.
My phone buzzed with the incoming wire. Five grand.
Score.
“Thanks, Maz.” I headed for the door, tired, hungry, and sore all over.
Her iPad dinged as I was walking out. “Oh, Aspen? How tired are you?”
I spun, wearing a smirk. She always had a mark for me. Sometimes they took a few weeks to track down, but she always had more.
“I have this other mark…” She fiddled with her pen. “I’ve sent some of the newer hunters just to tail him, but I just got word that he’s at Bang, planning to drain some pretty little blond no doubt. I’d like to take him out now, before he can hurt anyone or gets too comfortable and sets up residence here.”
Bang was a nightclub where a lot of unknowing humans went to die. It was a notorious underground feeder club. The lower level was for “VIP” customers, AKA vampires, and if he was there, he was up to no good.
I didn’t answer right away. I was tired and she took that as a no. “No worries, I’ll send Vasquez.”
Freaking douchebag Vasquez? No way.
“No, I can do it.” I perked up. “What’s the bounty?”
I was tired, but nothing a double shot of espresso couldn’t cure. Still, I wasn’t going back out hunting for less than five grand.
“This is abigmark, Aspen. Your highest profile client yet. He’s very dangerous. He just broke out of Magic City Prison.” She looked at me with one raised eyebrow.
My tongue instantly stuck to the roof of my mouth. Magic City Prison?Holy crap, he must be a big baddie. Bringing down big baddies brought me untold joy.
Magic City was segregated into six territories, housing all of the supernaturals: vampires, werewolves, witches, light fey, dark fey, and trolls. Magic City Prison was their way of trying to contain their miscreants. If he’d broken out of prison and then escaped the enclave, and was in Spokane, I wouldn’t be able to sleep without his head in that incinerator.
“It pays fifty grand,” she added.
Fifty grand!
I whistled low. I loved my job, and the society, but I already had a retirement plan in place. Get to one thousand kills and five million bucks in savings, then quit and go buy a private island where I could live on the beach with Liv and whatever hotties we were married to by then.
“There’s been chatter of an issue in Vampire City and he’s fled to seek refuge here,” she said. If there was an issue in Vampire City, that meant the bloodsuckers would flee to the human world and there would be more deaths here—inmycity. I couldn’t have that.
“Send me the details. I’ll do it,” I told her instantly.
She nodded, but then looked up at me with an unreadable expression. Maz was hard to read sometimes. As a priestess of our secret order, she was basically a nun. She’d devoted her entire life to God and our calling of ridding the Earth of the foul demons called vampires.
“Aspen … there is something you should know about this mark.”
I steeled myself, waiting for her to tell me he was a part of the royal family or something.
“He’s a Drake. Luka Drake,” she finally said, and I nearly choked on my own spit.
Hewasa part of the royal family. “A Drake?”
Maz inclined her head. “Yes. He’s the nephew of the queen. But the family paying the bounty is high society. He drained their daughter of blood over ten years ago after asking her on a date. They want closure.”
That sick bastard.
“I’ll do it. I’ll take Liv with me. Split it.” If this guy was a member of the Drake family line, I’d need all the help I could get.
