Prologue
I woke up in a dark room, on a comfortable surface. Blearily, I stretched my arms above my head, wondering what Dale had in store for us today. Suddenly I froze as memories of the night before came flooding back to me. The plan, the nest, the vampires… that terrifying girl, I remembered.
The day had started normally enough. Well, as normal as a day can get when you're a vampire hunter. Dale, our leader, had briefed us on our mission that morning. We were trying to draw out the vampire monarch. Rebecca, she was called. Unfortunately, it wasn't working. Rebecca had yet to show her face, even after we had destroyed seven of the nests in her territory. Last night was supposed to be the end of it. We were told to abandon our truck, knowing that the vampires would take it as evidence back to Rebecca. The truck had a tracker on it, to lead Dale back to Rebecca's hideout. It was rigged to blow up as soon as we were all in position to kill the monsters that would come out after the explosion. It was a good plan. Until she showed up.
At first I thought she was a vampire. She was definitely fast. She had a knife at my throat before I even heard her coming. Her voice was soft and feral as she told me to put the shotgun down. I dropped my gun and was immediately pushed to the ground. When I looked up, Sean was standing about ten feet away with his gun pointed at her. Before he could say anything though, the weapon was wrenched out of his hand - wait, what? She wasn't standing anywhere near him! – and slammed into my face.
"You got this one, Tommy?" She asked a man who had suddenly appeared behind me, without taking her eyes off of Sean.
The man called Tommy grunted and slung me over his shoulder after cuffing my hands behind my back. He walked over to the truck and deposited me next to Mattie and Liam, whose chest was caved in with a broken knife sticking out of the center.
As I watched her rejoin the fight though, I realized that she was human. -wait, how did I know that? - But why would a human be helping the vampires? My mind went blank with fear as I watched one of the vampires take a man down and begin to drink from him. Another vampire was fighting with Thane, grinning maniacally and occasionally laughing when Thane got a cut or two in. This was insanity! These monsters were killing my team and they were going to kill me next! I looked at the man guarding me and my teammates behind the truck and realized with a shock that he was also human, though I wasn't sure why I knew, it was too dark to see whether he had fangs or a tan.
As I watched in silent horror, the human girl began to toy with Sean, taunting him with a long knife and a black shield that looked like it was made of glass. I groaned when he spat at her, knowing he was about to die. She tilted her head, her eyes gleaming with monstrous excitement, and smiled beatifically at him, before slowly pushing her knife right into his heart. Then everything went dark.
I shot up in bed as I remembered all of this, breathing hard. I jumped as I heard the door creak open, and the room was flooded with light. The girl from the night before stepped in, looking significantly less horrifying when not covered in blood. Then she spoke in a kind voice much different from the growl I heard at my ear last night. "Hi, I'm Eva. I'm sure you have some questions, but right now it's time for breakfast."