5 - Together To Join by Jackie Ivie

 
     
    CHAPTER ONE
    The man went down easy. The woman…he had to hunt.
    Garrick shoved the bow over one shoulder, his rifle onto the other, and pulled the night goggles off, as well. He didn’t need them to hunt down a wounded vampire. Even in a dark marshy swamp amidst damp rot and leeches. Relying on his eyes would get him killed. He’d use his vampire side.
    Garrick was one of the lucky ones, half-turned; a hunter who’d tasted vampire blood and reaped the rewards: Heightened senses; superior strength and agility; lack of emotion; dearth of soul. The others could relate which vampire they’d tasted and when. He seemed to have been born with it.
    He passed the man already turning skeletal, his good looks rotting as they slipped away. That’s what a vampire looked like once speared through the heart: ugly; decayed; dead. Garrick gave the corpse a brief glance before moving on. This one didn’t look more than a century old, at best. That was disappointing, akin to taking a calf when hunting a rutting stag. Garrick angled his head and slid beneath a curtain of weeping willow, masking each step to the swish of water, shaking off any lingering thought of the man’s youth and lack of skill. A dead vampire was a dead vampire. Besides…the mate might be older.
    Honed senses caught the slightest whiff of fear. It was tempered by an itch he knew and recognized. It portended a possibility of pain. She might be having trouble with his arrow. That’s why he used real cedar taken from an ancient cross, blessed by an arch-bishop, and then fashioned with little slits to all sides, making it impossible to pull out backward. The slivers became spikes that scraped as they embedded, causing more sear and more pain. Garrick smirked and used his itch as another marker. If it increased he moved a step that direction, a decrease got the opposite.
    He factored in smell, sniffing the air more than once. A wounded vampire gave off the slightest scent, akin to ocean rain, hard to catch over his own. Humans gave off a burnt-smell, even the half-turned humans like him. That’s why he spread sandalwood-scented oil on before every hunt and used the clothing from a closet he’d vented through to the neighbors. They were always burning some sort of scent-remover over there. It covered over their pot smoking. It aired his clothing as well. They also turned a deaf ear and blind eye to just about everything. He lived there for a reason and it wasn’t the company.
    The slightest sound sifted through wisps of fog, barely decipherable as a moan. Garrick hovered in mid-crouch, slowing his heart rate in order to sharpen his hearing. It paid off almost instantly as another moan tickled his ear. Slight. Soft. Coloring a release of breath no dead creature should need. He was closer than he’d suspected. Or she’d set a trap for him. Or she was more wounded than he thought. He slid his right hand along a camouflage-covered thigh, drying any moisture from it, and then did the same to his left palm. He was really close to his fourth pair kill, and another trophy, and with that would come recognition and accolade as he matched the record. He’d be the highest decorated hunter in the clan. A shiver ran through his frame. The possibility kicked at his heart-rate, altering his advantage. Garrick caught the physical embodiment of joy and stopped the next from happening. If he lost this kill because he celebrated it too soon, he’d never forgive himself! He inched closer, reaching a finger to part the drape of willow.
    Another moan graced the scene, and with it an itch begging a scratching. If Garrick smiled, he was smiling. It wasn’t a trap. She was injured, and soon she’d be dead, a wooden stake right through her already-dead heart. He was going to make certain of it. He tilted his entire frame to ooze through the leaves, materializing on the other side of the willow with the move, and hit pay dirt.
    His prey was huddled in the midst of a thicket,