Page 28 of Shadow Hunter

She rolled her eyes. “Look, my brother was one of you, okay? I understand how you guys are with keeping your secrets, never admitting your true occupation to anyone, blah, blah, blah, but there’s nothing to hide here.” She shrugged as if secret international networks of lethal hunters chasing the supernatural were no big deal. “I already know the Execution Underground exists, so why the tight lip?”

He recapped the now-empty plastic bottle and placed it on his countertop. “Organization or not, I don’t make a habit of sharing my personal life—with anyone.”

She gestured to the large open space around them. “I’m in your apartment. How’s that for personal?”

He smashed the empty water bottle with his palm. “Which is exactly why I didn’t want to bring you here. Remember that, Shortcake?”

Unsurprisingly, she prickled at the nickname, her lips pulling into a frown.

Man, what wouldn’t he give to throw her over his shoulder and carry her up to his bedroom. Give them both of taste of where he feared this was headed. Maybe in another life.

The thought instantly sobered him. Another life where he wasn’t a worthless excuse for a hunting partner, where his mistakes didn’t cause innocent people to get killed. Onewhere the deaths of more than one person didn’t rest on his shoulders. Mark could have gone after Caius without the need for a transfer, closing in much sooner than Damon could. And any extra time meant bodies piling higher. Which meant those deaths were on him too.

Tiffany deserved better.

“There’s no division of the Execution Underground in Rochester,” she continued, unaware of how her questions were affecting him. “I know because otherwise my brother would have worked here. So why are you here?”

He took the samples from his coat pocket and walked toward the tech room. It had been meant as nothing more than a bedroom, but it hadn’t even taken him two days to hardwire everything in place. His own personal contact with headquarters. “Stay here. Then we’ll talk.”

He may have made the mistake of changing plans and bringing her back here, but he couldn’t allow himself to get distracted. Not completely. Not on a case like this.

She shot him a scathing look before she marched to the other side of the room and flopped onto the white leather couch.

Certain she was firmly planted in place, he slipped down the short hall to the tech room. He punched in several series of codes to unlock the door and stepped inside. The wall was lined with monitors of all shapes and sizes. The highest-end technology headquarters could supply him with was all contained within this one room. It was a tech nerd’s wet dream.

Damon dropped into the desk chair and typed several numbers on the keyboard. The monitor rang like a telephone until a small beep confirmed that Chris had answered the other line. Seconds later his face appeared on one of the monitors.

Chris’s expression was one of concern. “Hey, Damon. How you holding up?”

Ignoring the question, Damon held up the three samples. “I need these processed as fast as possible. If I load them into the DNA analysis machine, can you connect with my database and look them over?”

“Yeah, sure. Though...want to trade jobs? I’d rather be the assassin.”

Damon fought back a small smirk as he rolled his chair to the opposite wall and carefully loaded the specimens into the scanner, which processed the data instantly, locking the genetic code into Damon’s control system. Only the technological abilities of the Pentagon and the CIA rivaled those of the Execution Underground, and even they sometimes fell short.

“The samples are from the latest victim. One blood culture, one saliva analysis and one unknown.” He fixed Chris with a hard look. “Looked like the killer ate the body. Ate it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the bloodsucker took atruebite out of her.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Like a zombie?”

“Sure, whatever you want to call it. But vampire, zombie or who knows what, I don’t care what it is. I just want to know who and where it is so I can stake it straight through the heart.”

Chris focused on one of his monitors and typed at full speed. “The blood looks normal, nothing unusual about it. But the saliva and the unknown, I’m going to have to get back to you on those. There’s something off about them.”

“Off like how?”

“Like there’s a different genetic marker that’s screwing up the whole code. They don’t look anything like normal.” Chris pounded away at his keys. “Are all these from the victim on the far side of Franklin Street?”

Damon gripped the arms of his chair like a vice. “What do you mean, the far side of Franklin Street?”

Chris stopped typing and looked at Damon through the screen. “Didn’t you get my text? Another victim was called in ten minutes ago on the far side of Franklin Street. A P.D informant tipped us off. He said he’d call you. He saw it on patrol, and he’s been holding off on calling the cops. I thought you said this was the most recent—”

“I have to go.” Damon stood and jabbed at the keys, beginning to shut down his system. “And Chris, F.Y.I., Iliveon Franklin Street.”

Tiffany pressedher ear against the door, straining to hear even the smallest sound, but the door was apparently soundproofed. She sighed. Just her luck.

She missed her brother every second of every day, and, as pathetic as she knew it was, she’d told herself that she was only here because she wanted to know everything there was about Mark and his role in the Execution Underground, about how to avenge her family. But after that little conversation in Damon’s car, who was she kidding?

That wasn’t the only reason she was here. Not entirely.

---