Hunter in My Night
by Joana Rodriguez
a.k.a Lady Dragon



Chapter 1

        There was blood under my nails, again, but for once it wasn't mine. Hot dog. Technically it wasn't even human. There had been a small nest of fledglings, young vampires, and after a couple of hours the nest curtosy of moi, was history. My name is Jeanette Fleming, and believe it or not I'm a vampire hunter. Okay I know what your thinking: 'Jeanette Fleming what kind of cheesy name is that for a vampire hunter?' Pft! All I've got to say to that is this; it sure as hell beats "Buffy". But hey if you think that name is bad just wait it gets better. All my friends and associates insit upon calling me Jenny. My code name happens to sadly be 'Honey'. No one deemed to tell me why my code name was honey, just that it was and I couldn't change it. Aint life grand?

        Right now I had to give my report to our leader, Steven Debrazio. One of the other who had patrolled that area, a well known vampy-hideout, and cleared it. A three block radius in the heart of the docks, pletny of abandoned and condemed buildings and it was cleared. Of course it could have been a simple error, for that it would be somewhat forgiveable, but somehow I doubted that. The docks was like a vampire magnet, with so many drunks, prostitutes, and just general scum bags walking around down there it was an all you could eat buffet for the undead. Complete with doggie-bags. So naturally it was populated by fledglings galore. Its for this reason that there is always one hunter on patrol twenty-four hours a day down there.

        So how in seven hells could an area consisting of three blocks be be empty of undead life? It hadn't seemed logical to me, and so I had gone down to the docks after my last class, still clad in my regular school clothes and done a little reconisance. I had found four fledglings at the first place I dropped in on, which happened to be the basement of a so-called empty warehouse on the edge of the cleared zone. I had dropped in at aproximately four in the evening the report was filed at 2:30 pm. That left one hour and thirty minutes of broad daylight for the vamps to move about it, and since they fledglings were decidedly not crispy fried toast when I arrived it was apparent they hadn't moved from their spot since the night previous. To put it simply something was amiss.

        I never did apreciate the sunset, and now I positively hated it. In the brilliance of the sunset the blood on my clothes stood out big time. So bad in fact that if I'd taken the main streets I'd have been hauled off to jail, or perhaps the hospital. Carefully I peeked around the street corner and after checking that it was clear jogged down the street. I was heading back to headquarters about to rat out a traitor. Life was good.

        Everyone always seemed to feel the need to be presentable when talking t o Steven, I just found it a nuisance. Steven had seen me up to my knees wading through bloods and stuff to thick to be anything but body chunks, pieces of flesh stuff that should never be seen outside of a body clinging to my skin; to simplify he had seen me at my wors. So what I ask is you a little blood soaked t-shirt compared to that?

        Our headquarters is situated behind a Holiday Inn, with some help from a coven of white witches no one knew it was there. Behind the section of cheap rooms a nice long dark alley stetchs out curving sharply to the left; by the time you where halfway to curve you are submerged in complete and total darkness. Needless to say tourists tended to avoid the alley along with locals. If they had bothered to continue down the alley and around the curve they would have come to a dead end anyway. At the end of the alley lies the entrance to Humans vs. Monsters, or HVM for short. The entrance is a metaphysical one; say the right words, open your heart, and step on through kind of thing. Magic wand sold seperately.

        I might be some big bad vampire hunter but entering the damn place always freaks me out. To feel the door you need to step through the brick wall no less, dominant arm outstretched chanting the words: 'to dim the darkness, birth the light'. I've always wondered what silly witch came up with that particular password. Now it seems pretty simple, and it makes you wonder why the hell I get the hebbie-jeebies going through the doorway, but its the actual entering thats freaky; no really it is. As you soon as you step pass the door you're sucked into a dark void, nothing to see and no light what-so-ever. Passing through the void is like falling off the Twin Towers; air rushing past you, the sense of falling from a great height even, the mind numbing fear that your about to hit rock bottom innards splattered from here to Hon Kong. All that fear, anticipation death only to land on your feet unhurt and in another dimension, all of which takes 3.5 seconds. I know, I've timed it. Somewhat hesitantly I stepped up and through the door wondering for the uptenth time if maybe this would be my last time.

        Per usual the HVM headquarters are alive and buzzing with energy. No matter what time of day, high noon or dark of the night, there is always a full and very caffeineated staff moving about. Normally I would stop in to the second level and log in to access the latest reports that cant be accessed from outside on my laptop. Hell I might even head down to the thrid lever where the exercise and training rooms are located and beat the shit out of anybody who'll take me on. Instead I headed straight for the stairs, I'm not lazy enough to take the elevator, and down to the bottom level where Steven's office and living quarters where located.

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        Stepping off the stairs, I headed towards Steven's office hand raised to deliver a sound knock to the door. Before my hand was even three inches near the door I was beckoned in with a stern "Enter." Ominious is our fearless leader.

"How did you do that?"
Curiosity got the better of me forcing me to open my big trap, again.

"Smelt the blood as you came down the stairs."

"Oh."
Gee great comeback.

        I stood there a second trying to decide whether or not he was joking. It always was hard to decide with him. Gazing into Steven's cornflower blue eyes I could get no reading at all. Most of the hunters have a 'cop face', a game face that keeps you from reading them. Hunters tend do go with the stoic, blank face; but some try to go for a 'I'm to cool' look. Steven however was the exception. His whole auroa, for lack of a better word, generated a wam caring feeling. When you where around him you just wanted to do whatever was necesary to please him, and thats were he got you.

        Steven did not particualry care about anything or anyone. His job, his hatred for the monsters came first in life. Hell the man lived at the HVM headquarters for crying out loud! His mission in life was assuredly to rid the world of monsters, at any cost. To say he believed that the ends justified the means was a drastic understatement. If you could look past his of calm you'd see sculptured face, set with twin perfectly blue eyes. Looking into those eyes was dangerous, numerous women found themselves enthralled with the blue-eyed greek god to the point of no return. He might look like a perfectly mannered business man in the prime of his life stepping straight out of a GQ magazine, but his past would have sent Rambo tail between his legs, running to a convent.

"Now what brings you here, brimming with party favors before your shift?"
The warm eyes turned cold as calculating eyes ran up and down my body attempting to decipher whose blood exactly had been spilt. "Did someone dare atempt to be civil with you before you had your coffee?"

"Hardly" I snorted. "Besides the blood's to fresh for that."

"Care to enlighten me then."
It wasn't a request, it was an order.

        With a small sigh I told Steven everything I knew, from my routine skim through the offline reports to the actual patrol that had resulted in a nest within the first fifteen minutes in an 'all-clear zone' and even the fact that the report had been left unsigned and my own suspicions of a traitor. As I continued on I noticed the coldness seeping into those once warm eyes, making them nothing but frozen shards of ice in an already cold face. Right then I almost pittied the betrayer, almost.

"And your certain that section A-D was cleared? Perhaps a mere grammatical error had occured."

"Thats what I thought of at first, but like I said the record was filed without a hunter's authorization code and the electronic trail of who filed that particular entry was earsed fromt he database."

"Keep it to yourself."

"What?!"

"If there is a traitor within our midst than an investigation must be launched imediately. This must be a classified, on a who needs to know basis only."

"I see-"

"Can you keep it quiet, speak nothing to anyone about this matter."
Once again his question was not that, but an order.

"Of course, I..."

"Have you told anyone about this already?"
His tone seemed to imply I could kiss my ass goodbye if I had.

"No, you were the first to be notified."

"Hn, keep it that way."

        Something about his tone said there was more to this than I realized. Normally my personality forbids me from letting this slide. I have an insatiable curiosity that admittably gets me into more trouble than its worth, but something told me I wouldn't be getting any answers from Steven. Just a death threat, if I was lucky, if not then a bullet to the head.

"Is that all?"

"Yes, thats it."

        The dismissal, although not spoken was evident. Why is it without exchanging any insults I always feel like I've lost a war when I leave this office?

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chapter 2 *coming soon*

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