Burning (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #1) (11 page)

She frowned. “We don’t brag about our kill numbers. Lucas can show you the spreadsheet on all of us. I’m only running about a fifty percent kill rate as a solo vampire hunter.”

“
But you are also running a hundred-percent life retention.”

“
Good point.”

Even through the closed car windows, I could hear the ravens shrieking cries of warning as Ambra stopped the car and put the gearshift in park.

“As I told you, ravens make good watchdogs,” she said with her soft Swiss-French accent.

“
And they lend a spooky and forbidding welcome.”

“
Don’t get out yet.” She tapped on the car horn.

A female silver wolf slunk out of the shadows and trotted off. I think my mouth dropped open. In fact, I was sure of it.

“That’s a wolf,” I said lamely.

“
She’s the alpha female. She came for a look at us. Isn’t she beautiful?”

“
Er, yes.” Personally, I thought
terrifying
was a better word, but I nodded along stupidly.

A raven swooped low over the wolf and cawed. The wolf put her ears back and loped back into the trees.

I put my hand on the car door handle.

“
Don’t get out yet,” she repeated. I watched in awe as a whole pack of wolves followed her.

“
The alpha male and the rest of the pack.”

“
It’s a sea of wolves and a flock of cawing ravens. It’s like a horror movie.”

“
There is more to the ravens and wolves than their Hollywood reputation. Corbin—who is not a vampire hunter—is doing wildlife biology research on the symbiosis between ravens and wolves.”

“
Tell me more.”

“
In the beginning, we had few wolves. It is known that ravens can steal half the kill from only two wolves, so it was necessary that the pack grow larger and hunt together, in order to not just survive, but thrive. As the numbers of the pack increased, so did the amounts of kill meat that the wolves retained from those thieves, the ravens. However, even though the ravens are fed by the wolves, they are tolerated. In turn, the ravens act as hunting partners to alert the pack of any injured animal and even lead them to it.”

“
Interesting.”

“
What is even
more
interesting is how we have studied this research of the wolves and applied it to ourselves as vampire hunters, because we, too, are predators.”

“
Wow. Does it mesh?”

“
Yes, by studying the wolves, we become better vampire hunters. We discovered that when we have a pack of vampire hunters that is made up of teams of two, we can kill so many more vampires than when we kill individually. Three vampire hunters going on a hunt together is even better. Lucas has been the keeper of our statistics. A big part of vampire hunting is a numbers game. We are constantly retooling our techniques as our teams change.”

“
You mean, as team members get killed by vampires.”

Ambra took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes. The last few months, the vampires have stepped up their counter-intelligence. They seem to be better at protecting themselves. In the process, some of us have gotten killed. Lately, the vampires have definitely been on the offensive. We have been ambushed in three incidents where lone vampire hunters were on a mission, instead of with their partners.”

“How many?” I asked.

“
Five in total.”

“
That’s a high mortality rate.”

“
It’s a deadly business, as you well know, Rand. And vampires, some would say, are the ultimate predators.”

“
Hunters hunting hunters,” I said.

She nodded. “That’s exactly right. Still, something has to change about the way we do things on vampire hunts. We hope that you can help. Our numbers are down and our ‘pack’ is suffering. We are barely surviving. It wouldn’t take much to wipe out the rest of us. One or two more missions like that, and our future as a group would be uncertain. Falling below a certain number will be found to be unsustainable.”

“I have some ideas about vampire hunting that are very unorthodox.”

“
How so?”

“
I’ll tell you all soon, when I get my bearings.”

“
You can get out of the car now. The wolves are gone.”

“
How do you know?” I asked.

She pointed at the raven perched unsteadily on the hood ornament, crooning softly to her with a
rook-rook
sound.

“
Hello, Nevermore,” she said.

I smiled as she opened the car window and threw out a treat of some sort from the car’s console. He caught it and flew away.

“How do you tell them apart?”

“
To me, they are all named Nevermore. It helps me not to get too attached to any one creature.”

Her eyes were sad, and I knew that mine were, too.

Chapter Twenty

As expected, the castle had a massive foyer with suits of armor, coats of arms, and even an umbrella stand with a dozen umbrellas in it.

“
Where is everyone?” I asked.

“
Asleep. The first thing you should know is, we keep vampire hours. Always sleep when your enemy does.”

“
That makes sense.” I paused. “Have you ever done a raid on a vampire lair during the day and try to catch them sleeping?”

“
We tried, and we had one fatality. They expected it and rigged an electrocution device to a doorknob.”

“
That’s diabolical!”

“
As you might suspect, they play dirty.”

“
We should play dirty, too. Is that how your husband, Pieter, was killed?”

“
Yes. He was out by himself on the mission. I had a terrible flu and stayed in the castle.” She paused. “When he didn’t come back from the mission or report in, when the sun came up, we went to the vampire lair. He was dead outside their back door, the imprint of the doorknob burned into the flesh of his hand. Our doctor and medical researcher, Buck Griffin—we call him Griff—did an autopsy. The verdict was cardiac arrest due to electrocution.”

“
Sorry.” I took a deep breath and let it out.

“
The vampires left that lair the very next day and left no clues behind as to where they went.”

“
That figures. I’m surprised to find a doctor on staff.”

“
Griff is a retired heart surgeon whose family was killed by vampires. He has been able to provide free health care for all of us. He’s a vampire hunter, too.”

“
Free health care?”

“
Welcome to the first world,” Ambra said.

“
Great, because I’m a guy who spends a fortune on emergency room visits.”

“
We have plenty of bandages ready for you. Training starts tomorrow.”

“
What kind of training?”

“
Fencing, climbing rope, rappelling, throwing a weapon, mixed martial arts, parkour, yoga.”

“
Yoga?”

“
Yoga helps with anxiety, flexibility, and focus.”

“
What about weapons? I lost my bow over the ocean. I still have some of my silver-tipped arrows, though.”

“
You’ll be measured and weighed for your new weapons and they will be custom-made for you and refined as you train with them.”

“
What about my bow and arrows?”

“
You’ll have at least one weapon that all of the others have. The Brotherhood of the Blade has a custom-made short sword or long dagger, made of pure silver, of course, that has a sheath that will be in your custom boots.”

“
Like your boots?”

“
Yes.”

“
I like those.”

“
They feel like a sneaker, but you can carry a whole arsenal with you. Lucas, who is also our silversmith, will measure and weigh you for custom weapons, and check your reach with your arms and legs and Nariko, our clothing and accessories designer will do the same. Your alternate or secondary weapon, for stowing in the boot of your non-dominant side, is a personal choice and if we don’t have it, Lucas will try to make it for you. I’m not sure that he has ever made a crossbow, though.”

“
It wasn’t as portable as I would’ve liked.”

“
I liked your improvised blowgun. Nobody else has anything like that. I want one.”

“
I’ll make you one. It’s tricky getting the fletching glued to silver needles. I’m a real MacGyver.”

“
I don’t know who that is.”

“
Just an American TV show character, from long ago. He made stuff on the fly, to solve problems.”

“
We could use him,” she said.

“
I guess you’ve got the next best thing, then,” I said, and winked.

* * *

Later, when everyone woke up, I slayed them all at darts in the big rec room that had the aforementioned clothing-optional co-ed sauna, which I pretended didn’t exist, a heated swimming pool, but I didn’t have a swimsuit yet, and pool tables and chessboards.

After I beat Lucas, our leader, in darts, he asked if I wanted, instead of a crossbow, a set of silver-tipped darts that would fit in a small quiver in my left boot, the right boot reserved for my blade for my dominant hand. I was over the moon with excitement about the darts.

“Can you make silver darts?” I asked Lucas.

“
A lot easier than I can make a crossbow and full-sized silver-tipped arrows.”

I weighed the rec room darts in my hand. “I keep hitting the bull’s eye. There’s something about these game darts that are very balanced to my hand.”

“You’ll be the first of us to choose darts for your auxiliary weapon.” Lucas smiled. “I’m very intrigued that you are this good at darts as a game. I can’t wait to see what you do with them as a weapon against vampires. I’ll craft you the finest darts in all Switzerland.”

“
Don’t be so modest, Lucas,” Ambra teased.

Lucas burst into a bellowing laugh and then asked me, “How long have you been playing darts?”

“Since childhood. I’ve won many tournaments. My father taught me about aim, trajectory and visualization techniques.”

“
This is wonderful. Darts are far more portable than arrows,” Ambra said.

“
Not to mention, more discreet than a big-ass crossbow,” I added.

“
You’ll be able to go into many places with small darts. If I also make the shafts out of silver, the weapons will be completely diamagnetic.”

“
So I can walk in some secured buildings and an old-style metal detector will not go off.”

“
I see you understand,” said Lucas, nodding.

This was
it
, I suddenly realized. This was the beginning of my life as a vampire hunter with the Brotherhood of the Blade and the Sisterhood of the Scythe. All for one and one for all. Big leagues. Risk. Cool weapons, custom-made for my body.

“
How do you afford all of this?” I asked, looking around.

“
We have many revenue streams. From the international donations for the wolf pack to a portion of Gabrielle’s music royalties, and various other money-making enterprises, we are solid, even in this bad economy. Your paycheck will be very competitive.”

“
How competitive?”

He told me. For the second time that day, my mouth dropped open.

Chapter Twenty-one

The next six weeks of training were grueling, not just the physical training, but because my body clock was gradually adjusting to keeping vampire hours. We slept during the daylight hours and the alarm chimes rang at five in the evening.

During which time, I began growing my hair out. I also dyed it black. I was, if anything, a master of disguise.

I felt like I had been chewed up and spit out by a pack of wolves, only to lay on my bed moaning when I tried to get up the morning. I hurt everywhere, even places where I had never hurt before, not even during Hell Week of Navy Seals.

The worst of it was the adrenaline that even made my fingertips hurt, as I battled vampires in my sleep and killed them with my silver-tipped blade.