Hunter Born, Page 2

recognize the voice, but realizing it might be the health insurance agent she was expecting to drop by, she pushed herself off the couch and grabbed her crutches. She made her way to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open. A petite brunette with a pixie-cut, dressed in a black leather jacket and slim-fit jeans, stood waiting. The woman’s dark brown eyes bore into Trudy like she could see right through her.

  “I know what happened to you back in November,” the woman said before Trudy had a chance to say anything. “My name is Elizabeth and I believe you. I know that vampires are real because I survived a similar attack. Can I come in?”

  Trudy felt her jaw drop. This slim woman wasn’t physically imposing, but her brusque manner was intimidating. And she believed in vampires!

  “I know I’ve caught you off-guard,” Elizabeth said, “but if you give me a chance to share my story, I swear it will be a huge relief to know you’re not alone. You’re not crazy and I can prove it. If you want me to leave after I’m finished explaining, I promise not to bother you again.”

  Trudy swallowed. What did she have to lose? “All right, come in.”

  After closing and relocking the door, she hobbled toward the couch. “Can I get you something to drink, Elizabeth?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll try to keep this brief. And you can call me Liz if you like. Most people do.” She took a seat at the opposite end of the couch without removing her jacket.

  Trudy rested her crutches against the end of the couch and listened as Liz began her story.

  “Five years ago, I was spending a weekend with my husband and seven-year-old daughter at our cottage in northern New York. It was mid-winter and fairly isolated since most of the other cottages around us weren’t built for four seasons like ours. One night, after our daughter had gone to bed, my husband and I were finishing off a bottle of wine. Suddenly, there was a man standing in the middle of the room–we hadn’t seen or heard him come in. He grabbed my husband and bit him in the neck. I’d seen a flash of fangs, but my mind couldn’t accept what was happening. I screamed and went to pull the man off my husband, but the stranger threw me with inhuman strength across the room.”

  “The commotion must have awoken my daughter, because she came running into the room, calling out for us. She ran to my husband and the stranger threw her across the room too. The next thing I knew, the man was leaning over me, looking into my eyes and telling me I wouldn’t remember what happened. As if I could ever forget! Then the man left without a trace.”

  “Wait,” Trudy said. “The man who attacked Brian told me I wouldn’t remember anything either. He said it as if I would actually forget, but of course I remember everything.”

  Liz nodded. “I have a theory about that. I think vampires might be able to control people’s minds under normal circumstances. However, both you and I had consumed a fair amount of alcohol and that might have nullified any vampiric ability to brainwash us.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” Trudy frowned. “Sorry to interrupt. Please, continue with your story.”

  Liz sighed and then continued. “After our attacker left, I crawled over to my daughter. Her head was bleeding and she wasn’t breathing.” Liz paused, her lip trembling. She took a deep breath and then another. “She didn’t survive, and my husband was dead too. I lost everything that night.” Several tears escaped despite her obvious efforts to be brave, and she pulled a tissue out of her pocket to wipe them away.

  “My God,” Trudy whispered. She covered her mouth with her hands.

  Liz blew her nose and looked at Trudy, her eyes brimming with tears. “I told the police we’d been attacked by a vampire and they thought I was nuts. Hell, I would have thought so too if I were them. They said my husband died of a heart attack, and my daughter from slipping and hitting her head. There were no bite marks on my husband’s neck, and no footprints or other tracks in the snow besides our own. No one believed me. They said I’d had too much to drink.”

  “I’m . . . so sorry,” Trudy said. “What did you do? How did you keep going after that?”

  Liz sighed. “I almost didn’t. I sank into a depression for two years. I could barely bring myself to crawl out of bed to eat. I lost a ton of weight and my career as a real estate agent went on hold indefinitely. I’m not even sure how I managed to pull out of my pit of despair, except I had such an overwhelming feeling of anger and desire for revenge. I knew what I’d seen, and eventually I set out to prove it.”

  “How did you do that?” Trudy asked.

  “I researched vampire lore. Every tale seems to have its own rules for vampires–what their strengths and weaknesses are, and so on. Some things were consistent across the board though, for example, in nearly every story vampires live much longer than humans. So I used my resources as a real estate agent to search for properties that had been held under the same ownership for an excessively long time. The chances of finding a vampire’s residence like that seemed slim, but I figured it was worth a try. As luck would have it, I found something suspicious almost immediately.” Liz smiled, but her eyes remained dark.

  Trudy felt something growing inside her, shrinking the black hole that had threatened to suck her will to live into oblivion. It was a feeling of . . . hope. “And then what?” she asked.

  “Then I spied on the place. It was an old house on the edge of the suburbs of Boston. Several people came and went from the residence, but never during the daytime. Once I was certain it was a nest of vampires, I figured out how to rig explosives using information off the Internet, and I destroyed them. I blew up the house and killed the vampires.”

  Trudy’s stiffened. “Killed? But–”

  “But nothing! They weren’t human, Trudy. They’re killers–every last one of them. They’re destroying people’s lives, like mine and yours. This is war.”

  “I suppose,” Trudy said, thinking the trauma Liz had suffered might have affected her sanity. “How could you be sure they weren’t human?”

  “I’ve discovered a lot about vampires in the last few years,” Liz assured her. “I’d love to show you everything, if you’re willing. Plus there’s someone else I’d like to introduce you to. I’ve found four other people, including you, with similar stories of vampire attacks. Two of them wanted nothing to do with me, but a young man named Sahib has joined with me in the hunt for vampires. He’s quite brilliant, and I think you’ll like him. What do you say?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Trudy said. “It’s hard for me to get around,” she added, looking at her crutches.

  Liz leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “What happened to us was unfair and horrible beyond words. But the sad truth is, the same awful thing is going to keep happening to others if we don’t do something to stop it. Don’t let your boyfriend’s death be for nothing. Help me to do the right thing and prevent these monsters from taking other innocent lives.” She held out her hand.

  After a brief pause, Trudy reached out and grasped Liz’s hand. “Okay. Show me.”

  June 17, 2009

  Trudy raised the binoculars and adjusted the focus until she could see her quarry clearly. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other; the thick layer of pine needles on the ground muffled the sound. A thin sliver of moon shed just enough light for her to make out a path to the house from the stand of trees at the edge of the property where she stood.

  Her prey appeared almost too innocent. Dressed in a navy blue sweater, charcoal-colored trousers, and with hair perfectly brushed, he sat in an armchair reading a book. He was in the front room of the Victorian style bungalow. The room was lined with bookshelves, a dim lamp at his side the only source of light besides the small fire burning in the hearth to his left.

  Trudy knew this was the perfect example of how appearances could be deceiving. This fellow looked like an ordinary man, but he was a vampire. He was also going to be the test subject for the latest weapon in the vampire hunters’ arsenal. It was possible Trudy might not live to see morning, but at least she would go down
battling these monsters. After more than two months of training with Liz, Trudy was thoroughly convinced her cause was worth fighting for, and she was ready to put her new skills into action.

  She lowered the binoculars and returned them to her backpack. Then she replaced her glasses and searched the bag for the weapon. Her fingers closed over the cold metal sphere and she lifted it out to inspect it by the pale moonlight. The genius behind the device, Sahib, had dubbed the weapon a ‘UV ball’ because it functioned by emitting a burst of ultraviolet light. They knew the light would have an effect on the vamps, but they weren’t sure how severe it would be. Time to find out.

  Trudy crept back through the trees until she reached the end of the curved driveway. Then she took a deep breath and marched boldly up the driveway toward the house, the UV ball in the firm grip of her right hand. She had no idea if it was possible to sneak up on a vampire, so she’d decided to go with the straightforward approach.

  When she reached the front door, she rang the doorbell. She pressed the button on the UV ball and prepared to push the slider that would fire the weapon when the vampire appeared. Her throat felt dry and her chest was tight as she listened for the sound of footsteps inside the house. If this guy turned out to be human after all, the worst that would happen is he’d