Dream Chaser (Dark-Hunter 13)

Her face heated at his question, "I was actually talking to Jesse. But for the last couple of weeks I've had this bizarre sensation that something is watching me."

"You mean someone, right?"

She shook her head. "I know it sounds crazy-"

"I just had a body wall; off the table mid-autopsy and you think your story is nuts? Yeah, boo ..."

That was what she liked most about Tate. He made her feel almost normal. Not to mention he was the only person besides her who knew about Jesse. Of course she was also the only person outside of a small handful who knew Tate was a Squire for the Dark-Hunters-a group of immortal warriors who limited down and executed the vampiric Daimons who preyed on human souls.

Yeah, her life was anything but normal.

So why should she even be concerned about the fact that she felt as if something evil were watching her? It probably was. And unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time. She only wanted to make sure it wasn't the last one.

"Do you know where it's coming from?" Jesse asked.

"No. I can't pinpoint it. All I know is that it's making my skin crawl."

Tate leaned back in his chair to stare at her. "I really wish I could hear Jesse. It's so disconcerting when you two talk. Makes me wonder if he's not sitting there, mocking me."

She smiled. "Jesse only makes fun of me."

"That's not true."

She looked at Jesse. "Yes it is."

"No it's not," Tate inserted.

Simone frowned at him. "Do you even know what you're arguing?"

"Not really. It just seemed natural to add that."

She laughed. "How I ever got mixed up with the two of you, I'll never know." But that wasn't true. Jesse had come to her during the darkest hour of her life and he'd been with her ever since.

Tate . . . he'd been there when she'd come the closest she'd ever been to catching her mother's and brother's killer. Unfortunately, her hunch hadn't panned out and the evidence she thought would give them a clue to her mother's murderer had been too tainted to use. Even so, Tate had fought for her tooth and nail even though he hadn't known her at the time. That meant more to her than anything and they'd been friends ever since.

There was nothing she wouldn't do for him and he knew it.

Tate, LaShonda, and Jesse were the only family she had.

He leaned back and waited for the waitress to put his plate on the table and leave before he spoke again. "Are you sure it's not one of the ghosts you see eyeballing you?"

She shook her head. "No. They're never this subtle. They usually pop in, like 'yo, she-bitch, do my bidding.' This . . . this is something else."

"Evil is coming for you," Jesse said in a grim, echoing voice.

Simone narrowed her eyes on him. "I hate it when you do that."

Tate pulled back as if he were offended. "What'd I do?"

She smiled at him. "Not you. Jesse. He's using his ghost voice on me. It's extremely unnerving."

"Yes, but you still love me." Jesse winked at her.

"Of course I do. But save the voice for a haunting."

"I would if anyone else could hear me. Have you any idea how annoying that is? No, 'cause everyone hears you when you talk." He stood up and danced in the corner. "Hey, people!" he shouted. "See the freaky ghost dance," He flapped his arms around and shook his booty. "I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad." He stopped and looked around at the people who went on about their business, oblivious to his offbeat antics. "See. Sucks."

She passed a dry look to Jesse, who held his hands up in surrender. There were times when he was a strange cross between a nagging mother and a wife combined with a lunatic brother.

She focused her attention on Tate. "Anyway, back to the decedent. . . do the police have any leads?"

Tate shook his head. "She was found in an alley down in the Warehouse District. Her throat was lacerated with something clawlike. Too large to be animal and too jagged to be individual knife marks."

"Definitely not a Daimon attack then." Daimons were a particular breed of vampire who called New Orleans home . . . and unlike many of the others who made ambitious blood-sucking claims, these guys were real and they were deadly predators with highly developed supernatural powers. As medical examiners, she and Tate were used to seeing their handiwork come through their offices.

Her acceptance and willingness to help cover the Daimons' tracks was what kept her close to Tate. They weren't protecting the Daimons, they were keeping the rest of humanity safe by not informing them of what was really out there ready to take them down. If mankind were ever to know, they would freak out and kill innocent people, too.

The bad thing was that even though the Daimons drank blood, they didn't feed on it. They fed on actual human souls. Lucidly a single human soul could keep them fed for a long time, so as a rule, they weren't out limiting victims every night.

If you could call that lucky. Which Simone did, and that more than anything said just how weird her life was.

Anytime the Daimons left their holes, the Dark-Hunters Tate worked for would seek them out, hoping to stop them from killing more people. A bonus to the Daimons' deaths was mat it also freed the human souls they'd eaten so that their victims could go on to the afterlife.

Tate swabbed his fry in ketchup, "Definitely not Daimon," he repeated. "She was drained of all her blood, and since none was found at the crime scene, we assume she died somewhere else and was dumped in the alley. You sure you can't summon her from the grave and ask her what happened?"

"That would be a voodoo priestess, Tate. The decedents come to me, not the other way around,"

He stifled a look of disappointment. "We need to find the body ASAP. Her parents are on their way down from Wichita and I don't want to tell them that their little girl went AWOL from the examining table."

"Did you get anything from Nialls?"

Tate scoffed. "Nothing coherent. As you can imagine, he was a bit hysterical. All he'd say was that she smiled at him on her way out the door."

"So you don't know if she was a zombie then?"

"Thankfully, I've never seen a zombie. Much other weird shit on the job, but not that. Have you?"

"No. However, I've learned to not question things like that. If there's a legend, then there's something real behind it."

He saluted her with his drink.

"What about your Squire contacts? Have they anything to offer on this?"

Tate shook his head. "None of them know anything more about the dead walking around than you or I. Daimons don't make the dead rise. They make the living fall."