Aurora Sky Vampire Hunter - By Nikki Jefford Page 0,40

mentor, and got to work?"

"Then I skipped town; left the country."

I leaned forward, mouth hanging open. "What? Where'd you go?"

"Netherlands."

I choked out a laugh of disbelief. "What? And then the agents found you?"

"Yep. Caught up with me in Amsterdam where I was smoking more weed than a hippie at Woodstock."

I stared at Dante. I stared until he glanced over, and we both burst into laughter.

"What did the agents do to you?" I asked.

"I'll tell you what they wanted to do - ship me off to some underground facility in Siberia."

"How'd you get out of that one?"

"I said, 'Hey, I was just taking a little holiday before I reported to duty. Give me a chance to prove myself. You got to have some kind of assignment you can give me. See how I do. Trust me, guys, you want this assassin on active duty, not wasting away in some ice cave.' So they gave me a shot."

"And you've been slaying vampires ever since."

"Roger that, Sky."

I glanced out the window. We were no longer in town, but on the highway headed north. Mountains turned to shadows, surrounding us from every angle. The snow along the highway was a glimmer in the headlights.

"Why run in the first place?" I asked. "I mean, don't we turn into vampires if we don't take Melcher's special antidote?"

Dante shrugged. "At the time I didn't care if I turned into a vampire. Who wouldn't want to live forever? Then Melcher explained there was no way of knowing what kind of vampire I'd turn into. They've infected us with everything: rabies, porphyria, typhus, cholera. If it's fatal, it's in us."

Dante tapped his fingers over the steering wheel. "If the rabies turned me, I'd be Schizo. Crazy. Worse than dead."

"At least you got in one last hurrah," I said. "Do we ever get out-of-state assignments?"

"I wish, but we've got our hands full in the Great North. The vamps are moving in on us. Cold. Dark. It's like Florida for seniors."

"So they can't go out in the daylight?"

"Oh, they're free to roam at any time. They just don't like to - light sensitivity and all."

"Any other repellents I should be aware of? Crosses? Holy water? Garlic?"

"No, no, and yes. Rabies vampires can't stand garlic."

"Why?"

"It's their disease. They're supersensitive to any olfactory stimulation, which includes garlic. Then you've got your porphyria vampires, whose skin is hypersensitive to sunlight. The real irony about a vampire is that their disease is keeping them alive. In most cases, their families or entire villages were wiped out, but some kind of freaky chemical reaction with their blood both killed and preserved them in a state of reanimation."

"Their AB negative blood."

"Yep. And now, thanks to the green revolution, scientists have discovered a way to trigger the dormant deadly virus inside vampires using modified organisms. They just needed a way to get it inside the creatures' system. That's where we come in."

"I still don't get why these organisms are toxic to them, but not to us. Don't we share the same blood type?"

"Affirmative."

"Then why isn't it toxic to us?"

"The antidote." Dante looked over and winked. "It counteracts the toxin running through our veins."

"What happens if they run out of the antidote?"

How could Dante act so calm? A shot of liquid was the only thing preventing us from becoming one of those creatures.

"Don't worry, Sky. If you turned Melcher would send in an assassin to put you out of your misery. Maybe me."

I grumbled. "Comforting."

Dante laughed. "Next question."

"Have you ever experienced any side effects?"

Dante smacked his lips together. "Nope. Besides feeling awesome. Have you noticed anything funny?"

"For a while I had trouble looking at myself in a mirror."

"Ah," Dante said with a smile.

"Ah, what?"

"That would be the pellagra. Victims of the disease become perturbed when faced with their reflection for some reason. They're also sensitive to sunlight."

Just another perk of being a vampire hunter." I grumbled under my breath. "How many of us are there?"

"Don't know."

"How long have vampire hunters been around?"

"Probably as long as there've been vampires. We genetically altered AB negative lab rats are the latest and greatest in the history of vampire hunters. Our kind has been around twenty years, tops."

"Do vampires know about us?"

"They're learning quickly and spreading the word. Not that many have an opportunity to talk. You never want to leave behind any witnesses."

"What about human witnesses?"

"Don't take out a vamp in front of a human."

"What if one bites you in front of people?"

"Don't let it."

"What, it's that easy?"

"Here's a little secret, Sky.