The Demon Hunter by Kevin Emerson

into the dark. Oliver waited, leaning on a pylon, hands shoved in his sweatshirt pockets, until the next bus arrived. Between troubled thoughts about Bane, Dean, and now even Emalie, he glanced around for any sign of the apparition. He found that he really wanted to see it again, but it didn’t appear.
    When he returned home, he found the house strangely empty. His parents were still out, and there was no sign that Bane had returned.

Chapter 7
    A Plot Revealed
    AFTER ONE OF HIS most sleepless days in months, Oliver dragged himself out of his coffin early the next evening to find the crypt empty. The kitchen was as it had been when he’d returned home: startlingly messy, dishes and goblets from many days of hurried meals piled carelessly. Oliver began organizing and counting them without thinking about it. Once they were arranged in neat, orderly stacks, he turned to leave, then imagined his parents out there somewhere, no doubt exhausted, and turned on the faucet.
    As the hot water filled, he took a steel canister of coffee from the cabinet, the Eternal Dark Roast with cayenne pepper. He scooped some into the grinder, then transferred the grounds to the coffeemaker. He filled the carafe from a tiny tap on the side of the sink. The Nocturne home was secretly connected to the human water system, but any water for drinking was first run through a special filter to add a touch of bleach, which helped with whitening teeth and killing bacteria.
    Oliver poured the water into the machine, spilling a bit as he did so. He grabbed a towel to wipe it up. He’d rarely been the one in the house to make the coffee. It felt kind of important to be in charge of it, but the circumstances undermined the feeling.
    Once the pot was steaming and gurgling away, Oliver set to scrubbing the dishes, and his mind quickly returned to the night before, to Emalie storming off, and to Dean being summoned.
    Dean. Oliver couldn’t shake the memory of him speaking like Lythia and dashing off to do her bidding. Maybe he’d been doing it all along. What if he’d been reporting to her about everything Oliver did? He might not even know he was doing it. What if she could simply read Dean’s thoughts whenever she pleased? And most important, what was Lythia really up to?
    Thinking about it gave Oliver that overwhelmed, crowded feeling in his head. All his thoughts seemed to be fighting for space and yelling for his attention at the same time.
    The coffeepot beeped. Oliver filled a stone mug, the brown one that his father often used, then slugged back the coffee while it was still nice and scalding hot. His tongue and throat exploded in flames from the cayenne.
    He finished the dishes, refilled his mug, got himself a plate of leftover Sepulcrit casserole from the fridge, and ate alone at the kitchen island. He paused at every faint sound of rats upstairs or neighbors in the sewers, hoping it might be either his parents or his brother.
    When he was done, he threw on his sweatshirt, made sure Bane’s necklace was in his pocket, and headed downtown, determined to get some answers.
    For the first time in months, he used the sewers. Traffic was light, and when he passed other vampires, Oliver just kept his gaze straight ahead. As he walked, he took some slight enjoyment from the warm air, mellow candlelight, and that faint smell of time wafting off the ancient art on the walls. It was nice to be down here again.
    He emerged from a manhole behind the Seattle Public Library. Celia St. Croix greeted him at the back entrance, and he proceeded into the empty human library, where he took the number two elevator down to the lowest listed floor.
    The door slid open at the concrete parking garage, and Oliver performed the counting password: “One,” he said to himself, then pressed the P button again. “One, two.” He pressed it again. “One, two, three, four,” and a third time. The elevator’s chime rang three times,