Darkness Hunts (Dark Angels 4)

And the bitch had known about the connection well before I’d gotten involved—she was just more intent on protecting the secrecy of the fucking club than in protecting its patrons.

“Have any of them killed while they were feeding?” If they had, it might explain our killer’s insistence that they needed to be destroyed. It was a view I could almost agree with—although his time and attention would have been better spent chasing down those responsible for the clubs’ existence than attacking the addicted who attended them—whether by choice or not.

“No.” Hunter hesitated again. “The Dove is not like Dark Earth. It caters to those who are more lightly addicted.”

I snorted softly. Addiction was addiction, and unless something was done about it, it would always get worse. But the vampire council seemed content to cater to the situation rather than cure it.

Damn it, these women weren’t like the men and women I’d seen in Dark Earth. They weren’t so far down the abyss of addiction that they couldn’t function normally. Hell, they held down jobs, something the deeply addicted could rarely manage. They could have been helped, if they’d wanted it, and if that help had been available. So why these woman rather than those who drank from and sometimes killed blood whores in clubs like Dark Earth?

“The killer called them Kudlak,” I said. “Is that another name for blood-whore-addicted vampires?”

“No. Kudlaks are something else entirely.” She turned around, giving me a brief glimpse of stark white walls and a view out over the bay through ceiling-to-floor windows. She wasn’t at her Directorate office. Maybe she was home—she was certainly old enough that even windows that large wouldn’t be much of a threat sun-wise. “Kudlaks originate from Croatia and some parts of Slovenia. They are a form of vampire who are, at their core, evil.”

“Define ‘form of vampire.’”

“Both the Croatians and the Slovenians believed them to be a form of energy vampire—someone who feeds off the emotions of others, and who does evil when alive, but who becomes an actual vampire at death.”

I frowned. “But you have to undergo a blood ceremony to become a vampire. You don’t just become one willy-nilly.”

She smiled, though it did little to lift the darkness in her eyes. “You and I know that, but truths often get lost in the beliefs and myths handed down through time.”

“So why would this man believe his victims are Kudlaks rather than plain old vampires? And why the hell would he think it’s his birthright to kill them?”

“If he believes his victims are Kudlak, it is possible he also believes himself to be Kresnik.”

Meaning we weren’t dealing with an ordinary, everyday nutter after all, but something far worse. I rubbed my eyes wearily. “What’s a Kresnik?”

“Ah, that’s where this gets interesting. According to the myths, a person born with a caul—an embryonic membrane still attached to the head—is destined to become either a Kudlak or a Kresnik. It is said a person born with a red or dark caul becomes a Kudlak, but a person born with a white or clear caul becomes a Kresnik.”

“And it’s the destiny of Kresniks to go after Kudlaks?”

“Yes.”

“So what else do these myths say about them? Do they have any special powers?”

“I have never come across either personally, but it is believed Kresniks can leave their bodies to attack their foe, and are also capable of magic.”

Which explained our killer’s ability to harm someone both astrally and physically, as well as the hint of magic Azriel had sensed when we’d found Dorothy’s body.

“Are Kresniks also vampires?”

She hesitated. “Some legends suggest they are enhanced by the goodwill of the community, and that in itself suggests energy vampirism rather than blood.”

Which meant it was more than possible he could move around in daylight, since energy vampires often didn’t have the same restrictions as blood vamps. The thought had trepidation shivering through me. “What kills them?”

“Kudlaks are killed by impaling them with a hawthorn stake, then slashing their tendons below the knees and letting them bleed out.” Amusement touched her lips. “Of course, such actions would kill anyone, human or not.”

Except, I suspected, her. Not because she was immune to such things, but because no one who knew her—or knew of her—would ever be stupid enough to attempt such a thing. “Is Dani Belmore still at the Dove?”

It wasn’t likely, given that the man behind this madness had said she’d only an hour left to live, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

“No. She hasn’t been there for several days, apparently.”

So why had Vonda believed that she was? Or was that simply a belief our killer had implanted? “Did you get the club’s management to check the security tapes, on the off chance she met someone near the club?”

Hunter raised an eyebrow. “She would not be foolish enough to meet anyone outside the club.”

I snorted softly. “She has an addiction, and she’d just come away from feeding it. I seriously doubt she would have been too worried about what she should and shouldn’t be doing as she left the place.”