The Demon Hunter

The Demon Hunter

Oliver Nocturne, Book Four

Kevin Emerson

For Willow, who takes me to the zoo.

Prologue

IT WASN'T HIS DRENCHED
clothing that was making Lieutenant Nick Pederson shake. It wasn't the cold metal of the gun in his hand or the suffocating squeeze of his bulletproof vest. It wasn't even the slight wheezing sound from the corner of the spacious lobby, where his partner, Sarah Laine, lay on the marble floor, her lung punctured by a bullet.…

It was what the pimply-faced young man, kneeling on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back, had just said.

“What are you talking about, Lang?” Nick snapped.

Braiden Lang looked up coldly through his wild curly hair. There was blood on his cheek. “You heard me, Lieutenant,” he growled. “The end of the world.”

Nick glared at Braiden. “You're a piece of work. We catch you packing the elevators of this building with explosives, you
shoot
my people, and then you try to tell me that you're doing all this to save the world?”

“It's true,” muttered Braiden.

The handcuffed man to Braiden's left, his long hair hiding most of his face, chuckled as if Nick were a fool.

A pained cough echoed through the lobby. Nick glanced over his shoulder to where members of his team were busying over Sarah. He felt his blood boil, and leaned menacingly toward Braiden. “You know what I think? I think you and your little group here—”

“We're called the Brotherhood,” declared the woman kneeling to Braiden's right. She scowled, contorting the long scar across her left cheek, and stiffened her back importantly.

“Shut up,” Nick barked. “I think you're just another bunch of selfish freaks. You're so concerned with your big ideas that you don't even think about who you're going to hurt.”

“We're not going to hurt anyone,” Braiden mumbled. “We're trying to
save
humanity.”

“Oh, right, and we're all going to die if you don't blow up this building.”

“Not the whole building, just the top five floors.”

Nearby, an antique pewter clock chimed three A.M.

Nick's eyes lingered for a moment, not on the clock, but on the night watchman sitting beneath it, staring out at the lobby with vacant eyes. He wasn't dead, but he was in some kind of trance. Nick and his team had not been able to snap him out of it, but they'd had only a few moments before the shooting began. That brief time had been enough, though, for Nick to notice the two holes in the guard's neck, and the crimson stains on his white collar.

That sight made Nick rub at his own neck.
His
scars were nearly invisible now, but he knew what it felt like to be bitten. He would never forget.

“Just go up to the twenty-third floor,” Braiden urged, his eyes flashing to Nick's bite scars. “See for yourself. Part of you already believes me. And we're running out of time. The—”

“Please,” Nick muttered, “spare me the talk about a prophecy and some boy who's going to end the world by opening a gate.”

“His name is Nocturne,” Braiden added calmly, “and he's not just a
boy.
What do you think those are?” Braiden nodded to the piles of silver ash that dotted the marble floor here and there.

“They could be anything,” scoffed Nick, yet he had seen ash piles like this before, had in fact
created
one once, with a well-placed wooden stake.

“If the vampires are successful with this ritual tonight, there will be no stopping them,” Braiden continued.

“I said … spare me.” Nick hated what he was thinking. He turned to the two officers behind him. “How's Sarah?”

“We've stabilized her,” Officer Williams answered. “Bought her a little time. But—”

“Good. I won't be long.” Nick started across the lobby toward the elevators.

“Sir,” Williams called after him. “Shouldn't we be calling in the Feds?”

“If I'm not down in five minutes, call them.”

“But—”

“That's an order.”

Nick rounded the corner. There were three elevators on either side, their doors open. Thick bricks of gray explosive, connected by red wires, had been taped to their gold walls. A female officer knelt inside one car, her cap backward on her head, a pen-size flashlight in her mouth. She was carefully unscrewing the elevator's number panel.

“Any of these defused yet, Alvarez?”

Alvarez cocked her head across the hall. “Only that one. These guys are good.”

Nick stepped into the defused elevator and pressed twenty-three. There was a pleasant ding, and the doors slid closed. The elevator rose, tinny Muzak playing.

Nick rubbed at his neck again and wondered about how, in life, the same trouble seemed to find you over and over. After that night long ago, when Nick had first learned the hard way about the vampires in Seattle, the last thing he'd wanted was to have to deal with them again. Yet here he was.

At first, the police had thought that the Brotherhood of the Fallen was a small ecoterrorist cell. Nick had been assigned to find out exactly what they were up to. It hadn't been easy, but when Nick discovered they were hunting vampires, he could only shake his head at fate.

As he dug further, Nick found that, unlike the Brotherhood, the vampires weren't as secretive about what they were doing. They seemed to rely on humans being fairly ignorant, even of things right beneath them. Still, Nick wasn't sure what to make of what he'd learned. Tonight was September 21
^st
, the fall equinox. The vampires called it Waning Sun and held large festivals to honor the lengthening of the nights. The Brotherhood thought that the vampires had something extra special planned for this year.

There was a vampire child named Nocturne, who had been marked by a prophecy. The Brotherhood thought that tonight, on the twenty-third floor of this building, the child was going to be given demon power through some kind of ritual. If this was successful, it would mean the end of the world.

But I don't really believe all this, do I?
Nick wondered. He didn't think he did, but … He had managed to learn a little bit about a vampire organization called the Half-Light Consortium, and while it was unclear exactly what they did, what Nick had learned did seem to confirm what that annoying Braiden Lang fellow was saying.

The elevator slowed and dinged again. Nick took a deep breath. He felt an old ache in his neck. The doors began to slide open.

When Nick returned to the lobby moments later, he already understood that his bright future in the police force was about to come to an end. Maybe he'd get lucky and only get demoted, lose some pay. Or maybe he'd end up in jail. Whatever. He knew what he had to do.

“Pull back, Alvarez,” Nick barked as he strode from the elevator.

“But sir, these explosives are still hot.”

“That's an order. We're calling in the Feds.”

Alvarez huffed, but began to gather her gear.

“Sir, what did you find?” Williams asked as Nick crossed the lobby.

He didn't reply, didn't break stride, until he was beside Williams. Then Nick lunged at Braiden Lang.

“Hey!” Braiden shouted.

Nick said nothing, just punched Braiden in the jaw and wrestled him to the floor.

“What are you doing?” the scar-faced woman snarled, falling back and kicking at Nick.

“Sir!” Williams and the other officers were there in moments, pulling Nick off.

Nick finally relented. “You got that?” he shouted at Braiden, who rolled over on his side, coughing wickedly.

“What is wrong with you?” Williams protested.

“I'm fine,” Nick spat, and shook the officers free. “Sorry. He had it coming.” Nick glared at Braiden, who returned the cold stare, but didn't say a word.

Nick fixed his tousled jacket. “Williams, keep these vermin covered. I'm taking Laine out and calling in the Feds.”

“All right, sir,” said Williams tentatively.

Nick turned and walked away, not wanting to think about what he'd just done. Instead, he hurried over to Sarah. “Can we move her?” he asked.

“She's stable,” an officer replied.

Nick picked her up carefully and moved toward the door. “Everybody else out!”

They were halfway across the street when gunfire erupted from inside.

“What was that?” shouted Alvarez.

“Take cover!” Nick shouted, and broke into a run.

They had just ducked behind their squad cars when the concussion of a massive explosion sent them sprawling. High above, hundreds of windows shattered outward as five elevator cars of explosives detonated on the twenty-third floor.

Glass rained down on them. Nick used his coat to shield Sarah. A mangled office chair crashed onto the roof of the car behind them.

Kneeling there beside Sarah, Nick gazed at her unconscious face, but then had to look away. What had he just done?
I caused the destruction of millions of dollars of property,
he thought. That alone would probably get him in trouble.
But what else did I do?

He was pretty sure that no one had seen him slip the key to the handcuffs into Braiden Lang's hand as he was pummeling him. He hoped that Lang had the decency to spare his officers' lives as he made his getaway. If nothing else, the explosion meant that Lang had understood what Nick wanted him to do.

After what he'd seen on the twenty-third floor, he'd had no other choice but to let the Brotherhood succeed.

Nick's gaze drifted through the dust clouds and settled on, of all things, a poster on the side of a bus stop. It showed the smiling face of the Seattle Mariners' young superstar Ken Griffey Jr. Nick loved baseball, and the entire city had fallen in love with this year's Mariners team. Would they make the playoffs? Could they win it all? Well, even if it meant the end of his career, Nick knew that what he had just done would ensure that those questions were answered.

It was 1995, and thanks to Nick, no vampire child would be ending the world. They'd all be around to see October, and with a little luck, maybe the Mariners would go all the way.

Chapter 1

Feast of the Dead

AS THE SUN SET
on the final day of August, Oliver Nocturne awoke and headed out to enjoy his last night of freedom. School started the next evening, and he was not looking forward to it.

Freedom for Oliver was not what it was for most vampires. Though he was sixty-four human years old, he was only thirteen in vampire years, and because he didn't yet have a demon, he was still considered a child.

So freedom was not setting off into the night to stalk and terrorize, as it might be for Oliver's older brother, Bane. It also wasn't heading out to attend a sophisticated party where humans were fed upon, as it might be for his parents, Phlox and Sebastian.

But lately, freedom for Oliver was also not hanging out on his own at home, because his parents were around almost every night. Phlox and Sebastian hadn't gone out to any events like the Friday Social feedings all summer. Sebastian hadn't stayed late at work as he often used to, and Phlox hadn't attended a Central Council meeting in months.

Bane was the only one who ever went anywhere. He'd been gone for a few nights at a time now and then, occasionally missing his summer school classes, which put Phlox in a state like nothing else could. Nobody knew what Bane was up to when he was gone, and he wouldn't say. Most nights, though, he returned home as soon as class ended and slouched sullenly on the couch, hogging the TV and video games.

As a result, for the first time he could remember, Oliver was the member of the family who behaved most like a normal vampire, at least when it came to going out at night. But even this freedom was different for Oliver. Other vampire kids would likely be on their way to see some indie bands down in the sewer clubs or at the Vera Project, to mess with human kids on Capitol Hill, or to hang out in Fremont and flirt with the glossy vampires from the east side towns like Bellevue. Oliver's activities, however, were quite different.