Page 65 of Huntress Unleashed

“Are you expecting someone?” Robert sounded concerned.

“No, but I hadn’t been expecting you either.”

18

Jacqueline looked through the peephole in her front door and saw four men she didn’t know, standing on the porch, looking a little wet from the rain, all wearing rain jackets.

“Trouble?” Robert asked, coming up beside her.

“I don’t know. I don’t recognize any of them. What do you think?”

Robert looked through the peephole. “They’re armed. You can see the tip of their swords tucked under their rain jackets.”

“I’ll be right back.” This time she vanished and grabbed two swords from a sword stand near the living room since her brother hadn’t come armed when he came to see her, which she had appreciated. It meant he really hadn’t felt that she was a threat to him.

“Okay, now that’s a cool ability to have,” Robert admitted, watching her.

She was glad she hadn’t freaked him out and rejoined him in the vampire’s way. “Yeah, one of the coolest. Telepathic communication is too.” She was relieved he didn’t seem to be bothered by her new ability because she didn’t want to have to guard against using it around her family. She opened the front door, her sword in hand, resting by her side.

“Hey, uhm, I’m Zeek Weatherby and my friends and I were hired to, uhm, take down a rogue vampire.” Zeek was a strawberry blond, longish hair, a madcap of freckles sprinkled across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose and was staring at her red hair, before he noticed the sword in her hand. But he didn’t look too worried about it. Maybe because he had three friends with him when there was only one of her, but of course her brother was with her, so she wasn’t totally alone.

“I’m not a rogue, if you are talking about me.” This was the weirdest situation she swore she’d ever been in. If these guys were here to terminate her, why were they standing on her front porch and weren’t doing anything but being honest with her? It was as though they were waiting for her to give them permission to kill her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Shut up! They were the politest would-be hunters she had ever met.

“Well, what are you? You can’t be real hunters. None of them would ever talk to the rogue vampire they were supposed to take down. They would just get on with business.”

“Uh, yeah, we’re humans who work as hunters,” Zeke explained.

“Okay, Van Helsing hunters.” A lot of hunters didn’t care for humans who worked in that field because they felt that was a hunter’s job and though humans could be well trained, they still were weaker than hunters. Too many human hunters were killed each year compared to the number of hunters who were born that way who fought rogue vampires.

“Uh, well, sure, if that’s what you want to call us,” Zeke said. “You’re not the last one who will.”

“Are you new at this?” She just couldn’t figure them out. Why hadn’t they forced their way into the house and tried to kill her. They hadn’t moved to pull out their swords at all.

“Well, no.”

“Then you should know better than to knock on a vampire’s door, who you believe is a rogue, and then tell him or her that you’re there to eliminate him, right?” She felt like she needed to teach them a thing or two so they wouldn’t get themselves killed so quickly in a future fight with a vampire. If she’d been a rogue, they would have been dead already.

“Yeah, of course.”

The other guys with him were nodding their heads in agreement.

“So then, why are you here? It can’t be to eliminate me.” She figured they must be having second thoughts. Maybe they realized she wasn’t a rogue. If they killed a vampire who wasn’t, they would be up on charges of murder.

“We were hired to eliminate you,” Zeke repeated.

“I’m not a rogue. The police haven’t sanctioned it, have they?” That was a scary thought.

“No. Hunters hired us.”

Her jaw dropped. “Hunters?”

“Shit,” Robert said. “What are their names?”

She knew from the intensity of her brother’s voice he was ready to take out some hunters. Hunters who tried to eliminate hunters who had been turned if they weren’t rogues would be considered rogue hunters and then hunters could terminate them.

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