“A few things,” Julian said, and he began to explain the best tactics for hunting.
Jasper walked out onto Mason Street wearing Julian’s long coat with the sword hidden underneath and five hundred dollars in his pocket—just like something out of a movie.
He almost couldn’t believe what happened to him. Maybe those years of bad luck had been his just due while his life built up toward this moment, this night. In all his fantasies, he could never have imagined this.
He was immortal. He was unstoppable. He was rich.
And this was so much better than what he’d seen in vampire movies. He felt like something right out of Highlander, walking down the street with a sword hidden under his coat.
He had a mission.
But Julian had said he’d need to feed. As of yesterday, Jasper had never once broken the law—but only because he didn’t like trouble. But now, trouble didn’t seem like such a big deal. . . . In fact, it seemed new and shiny.
He turned down Sacramento and headed toward Hunting-ton Park, which was mainly a haven of upscale condos and town houses. Sacramento Street was way too busy, so he slipped in between several apartment buildings and looked around for the darkest section of a parking lot. He just kept walking for a while until he spotted a young woman who came out of a security building and walked beneath some trees toward a silver Lexus. He couldn’t see—or hear—anyone else close by.
A beep sounded when she hit the button on her keys to unlock the car, and he came up behind her.
“Can I get a ride?” he asked, wondering what would happen after he spoke. Julian had explained how a gift would surface to help him hunt. Julian’s gift was fear, and that would be awesome, but Jasper kind of hoped his would be more like that of the Philip guy Julian told him about. That would be the best.
The girl turned to look at him, and his interest went up several notches. She was pretty, with long blond hair, wearing a tight pink T-shirt and small diamonds in her ears—the kind of girl who normally wouldn’t bother to spit on him.
She didn’t seem startled and glanced at his coat. “You borrow that from your big brother?”
He went cold. She was making fun of him?
“No, it’s mine,” he lied defensively.
But his words sounded different this time, and her expression changed. He felt something flowing out from his body as he recounted all the times people had ignored him or discounted him or rushed to be away from his company.
The girl suddenly looked like she felt . . . sorry for him.
“I didn’t mean to say that,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”
The feeling inside him increased until she was looking at him like he was some sort of lost puppy. Her eyes filled with sympathy.
“Poor thing,” she said. “You said you need a ride?”
Pity? His gift was pity?
No!
He wanted to wipe that look off her face as fast as he could. He should be feared, desired. There was nothing about him to be pitied! Not now.
As these thoughts passed through him, her expression wavered, and he remembered that Julian said his gift would help him to hunt more quickly and quietly, but he had to keep it focused. He didn’t want to mess this up, and he rushed to her before the sympathy in her eyes completely faded. He grabbed her, clamping one hand over her mouth before she could scream, and he jerked the back door open with his free hand, pushing her halfway inside the car and then shoving her down beneath him. The sword hampered him, but he couldn’t believe the strength in his arms and hands, and he pinned her down easily, driving his teeth into her neck, still keeping his hand over her mouth.
She struggled and tried to scream but kept getting weaker. The blood tasted so good, he was gulping it down, feeling the strength in his body growing stronger, and then he saw pictures passing through his mind . . . her father playing golf, her mother drinking from a martini glass, her sixteenth birthday party with a bunch of adults she barely knew, a string of boyfriends in polo shirts. . . .
The images faded. Her heart stopped.
He wanted it to go on, but she was dead.
“Hurry up,” someone said from behind him.
He jumped back out of the car and whirled around, his right hand going for the