Duel Nature

Duel Nature

A Novel of the Demon Accords

By John Conroe

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. All of the
characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel
either products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.

Copyright © 2012 John Conroe

All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
author.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

Books by John Conroe

The Demon Accord Series:

God Touched

Demon Driven

Brutal Asset

Duel Nature

Black Frost

Chapter 1

The drops of rain had fallen thousands of
feet, gathering speed and size before they smashed into the ground.
Some, the very biggest, were smashing into the back of my head.
Those particular drops were also, I’m pretty sure, the coldest.

The freezing spring downpour had been
sheeting past us for twenty minutes, the only real activity around
us during our stakeout. Only slightly interesting, but very
annoying.

“Stop that! You’re being a wussy about this.
You don’t even get cold anymore,” my partner said.

I hadn’t said a word, but the slim,
black-haired and black- clad figure kneeling next to me could still
read my inner whining like I had shouted it out loud.

“I don’t like sitting in the rain. Never
have,” I replied, glancing sideways at Tanya. That was a mistake
because my eyes found her beautiful features infinitely more
interesting than the rainy night.

She sighed and glanced back at me, electric
blue eyes glowing in the dark. “Focus, Chris. The rogue may be here
soon and we don’t want to miss him,” she said, pointing one slim
muscled arm down the side of the building to the bar entrance
twenty-three floors below.

That was the other weird thing about our
stakeout. We were kneeling on the side of an apartment building,
using Darkkin energy techniques to Cling to the side, little pitons
of quantum energy holding us in place. It was definitely weird,
even if it was more comfortable than standing on the roof and
leaning over the edge.

Two years ago I hadn’t been
aware that vampires and werewolves (not to mention other weres)
existed. I
had
known all about demons though, as those were something of a
specialty of mine. You might even say I had been tapped by God to
handle Hell’s children. But then I met Tanya (if by meeting you
mean driving away a demon and then feeding her most of my blood
supply) and my life had changed.
I
had changed, drastically. When she gave me a small
amount of her unique and potent blood, it had fit my DNA like a
glove to a hand. I gained vampire-like abilities and a werewolf’s
metabolism. And a life mate.

“There he is!” she whispered, as if the rogue
was gonna hear her voice 230 plus feet above him in the middle of a
thunderstorm. But that attention to detail was part of what made
her an apex predator.

I looked below and spotted the man she was
talking about. From above all I could see was dark reddish hair and
a green army jacket. But my ability to identify vampires and weres
on sight was telling me he was the one we had been waiting for – a
new vampire, maybe two weeks old. He was also the one that was most
likely responsible for a two week spate of recent murders.

“Okay. I’ll go round him up.
See you out back,” I replied, standing up on the side of the
building. Or maybe standing
out
is a better term. I don’t know – this whole
climbing walls like Spiderman is still pretty new. Tanya has done
it her whole life, but I’ve only been at it a couple of years
now.

I released my Cling, my body immediately
pulled down by gravity, free falling down the side of the building.
Wind tugged at my clothing as the ground rushed up faster and
faster. Forty feet above the ground, I Pulled my feet back to the
wall, running as soon as my feet touched the bricks. Then I
gradually slowed to a walk and finally, stepped smoothly off the
side of the building onto level ground. Bizarre -- but really,
really cool.

Puddles splashed around my boots, darkening
my jeans with wet splotches. I had actually stayed pretty dry
during our watch. My long waxed Aussie drover-style duster had kept
most of the rain from my clothes; just the drops that had hit my
head and neck had gotten past its protection. My normal body
temperature of 103 degrees had shrugged off the cold.

I still didn’t like sitting in the rain…too
many hours spent on deer watch in freezing Adirondack weather while
I was growing up; waiting to shoot deer that I really hadn’t wanted
to kill, but that my grandfather insisted we needed for the
freezer.

No one noticed my sudden appearance, mostly
because no one was stupid enough to stand in the rain outside the
sports bar housed in the ground floor of the apartment building. A
glance up showed an empty building side. Inside was dry and noisy.
It was one of those casual neighborhood places that are great for
hanging out and watching a Monday night football game or just
meeting friends after work. It seemed pretty busy for a Wednesday
night, a mix of mostly young people, and slightly more guys than
girls. The thirty foot bar was fully occupied and about two-thirds
of the tables had occupants, sipping drinks, laughing and watching
the ten or twelve flatscreens mounted around the place.

I scanned the room as I approached the bar,
shaking the rain off the drover coat. Two sweeps of the place and I
had found my guy, standing back in a dark corner, holding a beer
and watching the rest of the pub’s customers with predatory
eyes.

A direct approach would either lead to a very
short, very graphic fight (with blood-spattered walls and equally
blood-spattered customers) or him bolting from the pub too early,
so instead I decided to hang at the bar. Four big ceiling fans were
swirling the warm air around the room and very shortly my scent
would reach him. Then his attention would lock on to me. That was
pretty much a given, as my AB positive blood mixed with whatever
pheromones the V-squared virus had fostered inside me was pretty
much an irresistible combination for hungry vampires. Like Taco
Bell for teenage boys.

Unfortunately, the same
virus that had left me smelling good to vampires had made me
look
good to humans, so I
was starting to attract attention on my way to the beer tap
bristling bar. Two of the young waitresses watched me as I wove
between tables and several of the seated customers, not all of them
female, tried to catch my eye.

Ignoring the glances in my direction, I found
a gap between stools and waited for the bartender’s attention,
using the moment to keep track of my quarry. He had been watching
two couples playing a half-hearted game of pool, but I just about
felt the moment his gaze shifted to me.

“What can I get you?” the brunette bartender
asked. Meeting her eyes, which widened at the sight of my violet
irises, I tried to keep my peripheral vision on the rogue.

“Smithwick’s if you have it.” Might as well
enjoy the role I was playing.

“Sure,” she said, taking a second to pull her
gaze away from my strange peepers, then grabbing a pint glass from
the rack behind her.

The rogue had shifted position slightly, his
stance oriented in my direction now. Perfect.

“Nice coat,” the bartender said with a smirk
as she slid the frothy beer my way.

“Gift from a friend. She meant it as a joke,
but I ended up liking it. It really works well on a night like
this,” I replied.

That was actually true. When
Tanya and I had been selected to work as Coven Rovers I had made a
stupid comment in front of Lydia, Tanya’s best friend and de facto
sister. It was one of those mental lapses that hit many people from
time to time and me painfully often. I think I said something about
heading west to be a ‘cattle rover’ and the spikey haired little
vampire had burst out laughing. She finally caught her breath and
said, “It’s ‘cattle
drover’
, not rover. Dumbass!” No
matter how deferentially other vampires and weres treat me, I can
always count on Lydia to bring me back to solid ground.

A week later the coat had shown up in our
quarters, wrapped in brown paper with a cow bell on the outside.
However, when I tried it on it had fit perfectly and Tanya had
liked the look, so I kept it.

“Gift from your girlfriend?” the bartender
asked, ignoring the guy three places down who was holding his empty
glass in her direction.

“Girlfriend’s sister,” I said, wondering why
that was important.

She nodded once, gave me a smile and then
after a pause, went to fill the man’s glass. I drank a third of the
pint in one swallow, followed it with another third and then
finished the glass, making a production of smacking my lips.

“That tasted like another!” I said to the
bartender’s surprised expression.

“Whoa! Someone’s thirsty tonight!” she said,
giving me a bemused smile. She refilled the glass and then took the
twenty dollar bill I left on the bar. I polished off half of the
second beer while she was getting my change, earning myself a
cautionary look from her and smirks from the trio of nerdy guys
sitting next to me.

“Easy there cowboy, you don’t have to rush.
We’re not running out of Smithwick’s anytime soon,” the bartender
said, her reappraisal of me starting to come up negative.

“First beer of the night?” one of the geeks
asked. They had been discussing hadron colliders or something when
I arrived.

“Well, first beer here, anyway!” I said with
a laugh. The rogue was completely locked onto me and I knew he
could hear my words even from across the noisy room. I polished off
the second beer, then asked the science types where the men’s room
was. They pointed in the direction of the rogue’s corner and I
headed over, adding a slight weave to my walk.

Behind me I could hear the bartender talking
to one of the waitresses. “- first interesting guy in a month and
he drinks like a frat boy!” she said.

“I don’t care. If he’s tipsy maybe he’ll
forget about that girlfriend he mentioned,” the waitress
giggled.

I wasn’t really tipsy. My metabolism eats
alcohol way too fast for me to even catch a buzz, and it would be a
frosty frozen day in Hell before I’d ever forget Tanya.

Pushing into the men’s room, I moved to a
urinal and pretended to take a piss, waiting for the rogue to
follow me in.

Right on schedule I heard the door open and a
miasma of odor flowed over me. Unwashed body odor mixed with dried,
decaying blood. I think I threw up in my mouth a little.

Spinning around, I faced the young vampire up
close for the first time. About six feet or so, thin with a whole
slew of freckles to go with his red hair. Howdy Dowdy Dracula, in
person. Sunglasses covered his eyes, which would be the red that
all new vampires have for a time. Comes from all the blood vessels
in the eyes that the V-squared breaks during the Turn.

He missed the fact that I hadn’t had to zip
up or fix my clothes, his attention on my throat.

“Dude, you absolutely reek!”

He frowned, surprised, but quickly shook it
off and pulled back his lips in a fang filled snarl.

I took two steps forward and palm smacked his
forehead.

“Stop that!”

He hadn’t been able to react to my speed, a
fact that clearly puzzled him. He tried for the intimidating
growling fang face thing again. I smacked him again – harder.
Bouncing off the wall, his dark glasses knocked askew, he looked
truly shaken.

Young vamps are one and a half to two times
faster than humans. As they age, vampires get stronger and faster.
As they learn to harness whatever Dark energy or quantum particles
allow them to manipulate Newton’s physics, old vamps get scary
fast.

My Tanya was born into the species, the only
vampire of her kind. At only twenty-four she was as fast as the
Elders who ran the Covens. I, even new to the virus as I am, am
much faster than most vampires. I’m not really a vampire, but some
odd hybrid, as unique as Tanya, in my own way. I’m usually nowhere
near as fast as Tanya, but I was much quicker than Howdy. The only
time that I am as fast as my vampire princess is when Grim comes
out to play.