THE HUNT

CHAPTER-SEVENTEE

"Please, no." Kate knew her pleas wouldn't matter. Knew she couldn't reason with him, yet she still begged anyway. Begged for the life he was about to steal from her. A life she so desperately wanted to still live. "Please. Don't do this."

"But I have to," he said, with bitterness in his eyes. "You deceived me."

Her head pounded, and she wanted to reach up and clutch her skull in her hands, but her wrists were bound. She was naked, her clothes in tatters on the ground. Her head felt hazy, as if, she was in a dream, then she realized, where she was. In a cold, dank, crypt strapped down to a hard cement slab.

She screamed for help, praying someone would hear her pleas, but no one came. Nothing but the pounding in her head and the cold shivers that wouldn't stop. Bone-deep, trembling that shook her so hard, her teeth chattered.

"You'll be warm soon," he said. "The dead, can't feel the cold."

"I don't--I don't want to die."

"You won't. Not at first," he said, then he smiled at her. "First, you'll give your life-essence to me."

He stepped closer, and for the first time, Kate saw the knife in his hand, shining in the moonlight that beamed in through the windows of the crypt.

"I would tell you, that this wouldn't hurt, but, I'm afraid, I would be lying." He smiled wide. "And, I never lie."

She wanted to cry, and scream, but no sound came out. No sound that is, until he dragged the tip of the blade across her stomach. Until he ripped through flesh and muscle.

When he did, the scream bust from her mouth, a desperate cry. A piercing plea for someone to come, and save her.

***

Kate raised up in bed shaking, from the cold vivid nightmare, brought on by--most likely--her new job at PSI. The idea, of real-life monsters, roaming the streets, was a bit unsettling.

She took a breath and felt the cool brush, of her mother's necklace, move against her chest, and reached up to run her fingertips over the garnet stone. She'd lost everything else, but she was grateful, she still had a piece of her past. And, of course, she was still alive.

Kate barely slept, the rest of the day, how could she, when she knew what the night would bring. Her first night, at the BackTrack club.

The club was dark, so dark that it was hard to see the faces of the men and women huddled around the tables, or leaning against the far end of the long sleek bar.

Kate stood behind the bar, with a bottle of tequila in one hand, glaring at the karaoke machine, that was temporarily set up on the stage, where a man crooked out Tone Loc's "Funky cold Medina!" In a drunken slur.

He spread his arms out wide, gyrated his hips, and mangled the chorus. Kate cringed, and in a moment of rare compassion, she hoped that he hadn't come here tonight to get laid, because no woman in the bar, including the girls who were serving the men on the floor didn't look drunk enough to take him home. And that, said a lot since most of the people in the club smelled of sex.

Kate was ready to locate Tony Mills and get the hell out of this joint. The red five-inch stilettos heels were pinching her feet. The black velvety, booty-shorts, were riding up her ass. The tight corset top, had her breasts pushed up to her chin. And, the damn cigarette smoke was so thick in the club, it was starting to restrict her airway. She felt and looked like a cheap, two-bit hooker, turning tricks over on Bradford street.

Slowly, she scoured the faces of the men in the club, looking for the one from the picture, but the darkness hindered her preternatural vision. He was supposed to be here tonight according to Adam and Clint's source.