Chapter 1: Waking up dead 1
The Sterling Grand ballroom was the kind of place where people spent more on a single drink than most folks made in a week. Crystal chandeliers threw sparkles across polished marble floors, while men in thousand-dollar suits laughed at jokes that weren’t funny and women draped in jewelry pretended to care about charity auctions.
Kaine Cross stood at the bar, nursing his fourth whiskey and watching the parade of fake smiles and designer dresses. The scythe strapped across his back drew nervous glances from the wealthy crowd, but nobody said anything. They all knew what it meant...what he was. A Hunter.
The kind of man you hired when things got bloody and needed cleaning up.
The bartender kept his glass full without being asked, probably figured anyone willing to drink top-shelf bourbon at fifty bucks a shot and carrying vampire-killing equipment to a charity gala,deserved the royal treatment and a wide berth.
’Three hours,’ he thought, checking his watch again. ’Three goddamn hours waiting for this Marcus Blackwood asshole to show up.’
The job was supposed to be simple surveillance. Follow his target, see who he talked to, report back to the client. Easy money, except the target was apparently fashionably late to his own social event.
A woman approached the bar beside him, close enough that he caught a whiff of expensive perfume something that probably had a French name. She was the kind of beautiful that made smart men do stupid things. Dark hair cascaded over bare shoulders, and her dress clung dangerously to her hour glass frame.
"Gin martini," she told the bartender. "Extra dry, three olives."
The bartender nodded and went to work. While he mixed her drink, another whiskey appeared in front of Kaine, top shelf, exactly how he’d been drinking all night.
The woman turned slightly, eyeing his fresh glass. "That looks good."
Before Kaine could respond, she smoothly intercepted the whiskey as the bartender slid it toward him, taking a delicate sip.