Hunted Girls Read online

  Hunted Girls: NecroVamp

  Prologue:

  Life changed at a rapid rate recently and so did the entire world. Inhumans were now fully out of their proverbial closets and I was the girl who exposed the world to them. I was one of them, born a necromancer and now I was a vampire as well—a Necrovamp.

  Irrevocable changes were sweeping the world. The inhuman populaces were viewed with mixed sentiments ranging from worship to outright violence.

  Why would I do such an insane thing as calling nine-one-one to wheedle S.W.A.T. down to the site of an inhuman showdown? The answer was simple, the alternative was slavery or death. I might have my trust issues, but I had no desire to see my kin—the first Princess of the Earth Throne, bond to the whims and wills of a certain megalomaniac. He was a crazy Necrovamp with powers that eclipsed my own.

  So, humans discovering inhuman life, or the world’s vicarious balance shattering completely, then humans discover us amid a world-ending war. The phrase, “Rock and a hard place,” did not even begin to cover this situation!

  Now, Thirteen-months and one birthday later, I was about to cross the stage of my NYPD graduation ceremony. While I had many agencies badgering me to apply with them, considering my status as a Necrovamp, I had ultimately joined the police. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I personally believe that the cops exist to save lives and protect those who cannot protect themselves.

  At least now that the world was awakened to the presence of us immortal species’, we could act in the open. I had been granted early graduation from NYU—thanks in no small part to my kin. As soon as I had crossed the college stage, government agencies and one lone detective had approached me.

  Harrison Johnson stood out apart from the throng of alphabet soup agencies. He let them badger me within an inch of my life. When I finally made my mad dash for freedom, he had offered me a ride and a drink. While I was extremely confident in him having ulterior motives, his offer for escape was just too appealing at the moment.

  While he drove me to lunch, I laughed openly at the name on his business card that sported a blue-print NYPD logo. “Harry Johnson” the card had read and I laughed myself to the very border of hysteria. Harry might have then accused me of being a well-disguised were-hyena and I might have made a few inappropriate retorts about his member and his hygiene.

  Suffice it to say that our first meeting had been interesting to say the very least!

  He had not gone into any grand speeches about how much glory and grandeur one could achieve working with him. No, Harry had made everything clear up front. His exact words were, “I want you to consider joining me as a detective in the shit-show our country has decided to form for the new breed of special crimes. The hours will be impossible and the job thankless, but we are willing to start you off at a third-grade detective’s salary. That is a huge leap, and you will have to complete all standard NYPD training, as well as pass the detectives exams.”

  In short, come to work your ass off and you’re going to be constantly questioned and undermined all throughout the process. Our new division was Inhuman Crimes Department. We did not have multiple offices like homicide, or robbery, or even Organized Crime. We worked out of Manhattan and we covered the whole New York City.

  Why would I willingly sign up for such an insane unit of the NYPD? If you had been listening, I was clearly insane enough to break the cardinal rule of inhuman club and call the damn cops!

  My name is Thea Salvo, I’m a freshly minted third-grade detective with the NYPD, and I am a Necrovamp. I’m twenty-two and I’ll never look a day over twenty-one!

  One:

  Over the years I had dared to dream of myself standing right where I was now, despite all the shit life had thrown at me. I stood on the stage as my name was called, still nervously watching the tall blue-clad young man who had been a college half-back just a few months ago walking down with his shiny silver NYPD badge.

  The audience was still applauding for him, but they soon stopped completely as I slowly strode onto the stage. The whole room was filled from floor-to-rafters with curious humans, many of whom were not friendly towards inhumans.

  Yeah, I was very used to this type of reaction to my name. Thea Salvo was a name all too familiar with the press and the people of the United States. If you had eyes or even ears, you had likely heard more about me than I knew about myself!

  A single row of people stood and clapped animatedly for me as I was about halfway across from the Police Commissioner of New York City. He was a silver-haired Irishman from a long line of police of the same name, Doyle O’Hara. I had met the man several times already in his need to learn as much about me and my species as possible.

  While I had been very candid about most things vampire and as much as I could necromancer, I had left out some details. Like our weakness to sunlight if we were to stop feeding regularly. I also had not corrected any beliefs they had about our various other mythological aliments. However, in the intervening months, having seen me attend mass at a local Catholic church, some of the disillusionment had been dispelled. In fact, I had a distinct feeling that some people were gravely relieved that vampires were not overtly demonic. Others were furious at the prospect of attending a service where inhumans might be able to muddy the service and people with their presence.

  Humans were never very accepting of that which they fear or didn’t understand. We were other; our very title of “inhuman” made them uncomfortable. Riots and violence had ensued for many months directly following the “Dawning.” That very term was born from a report’s clever article titled, “Dawning of the New World.” He and many others thought the timing of the sunrise discover made for an excellent title. It had sold out in every new stand and store nationally, so I would have to say the name was a hit with the media.

  My thoughts cleared back to my present and I smiled gratefully to my small group of friends cheering me on from their cheap-seats in the balcony. Patty and Chelsea were among my row of supporters. Beside them, I saw Liam and Bix—my kin’s two most trusted and senior inhuman lieutenants.

  Liam was still technically on loan to me to help rule The Harlem Republic. Patty was right below him in my group’s power structure. Inhumans work mostly off of power. If you have power and you manage to hold your own territory, then all within those borders who submit to you are yours to maintain.

  Beside them, a few sets of cat eyes reflected Phil the alpha of the shifters and his people. The shifters had taken to me more than most. I had bested Phil, their leader, without resorting to magic or vampire tricks. I had fought him with my own two hands and bested him, then spared his life. In the shifter community, this act seemed to garner much respect. Shifters have dominance battles more often than other races, but mostly they reframe from unnecessary murder. All like is precious and my people tend to hold a higher value on it than some other territories. Most of the inhumans who traveled to America did so to escape the bloodier practices of the inhuman version of the “Old World.”

  I plastered my slime onto my lips and I came to a stop and gave the Commissioner a crisp salute. (Trust me; your body remembers how to achieve this stance considering how heavily this is drilled into you in the Police Academy!)

  The Commissioner returned my salute and his smile seemed genuine. He did not strike me as a bigoted man, just a cautious one.

  “Welcome to the NYPD Detective Thea Salvo!”

  I heard gasps from those in attendance who had not already heard my official rank upon graduation. Everyone from my class knew the entire time since I stepped foot into the academy gates. They loathed me because some people would spend their entire lives in blue, never managing such a rank, or only posthumously becoming a detective.

  “Sir!”

  I spoke firm
ly and he pinned my golden shield onto my dress blue uniform. Unlike my colleagues, I would be in plain clothes my first shift on the job. I felt their wild animosity and the anger tickled my nostrils. Vampires can smell emotions, amongst other things. I could also smell all the fresh human blood in this huge crowd of people.

  Thank my lucky stars that I had managed to eat my breakfast before coming to my graduation! Breakfast these days involves normal people food, and the red stuff—blood. Vampires are no different than any other inhumans, we require nutrition, and we must have blood.

  Shifters and fairies survive on food, and some need to feed on emotions as well. We all have physical human food in common, so we are not that different, for all our wildly differing appearances and our diverse habitats.

  “Thank you, sir!”

  I clasped the Police Commissioner’s hand and he leaned in closer. I was a small and slight Latin girl of Five-six, but he dwarfed my height at six-five. He was silver-haired but clear-blue-eyed. His mustache twitched as his lips curved up into a deeper smile.

  “You have come this far despite all the odds. Keep up the good work and help us nail anyone who dares to break our very tenuous peace.”

  I nodded and I lowered my voice to conspiratorial levels.

  “That is all I hope to accomplish, Sir.”

  He nodded and I did not miss the slight and polite dismissal. Can’t hold up the line, not on the day you get your badges handed out! A girl could get shot for less—ok I hope that is just a joke!

  I walked off the stage and I went down to my seething throng of classmates. All eyes were trained on me with the inferno of human will. If they could have conjured eye-beams of death, then I would have been a dead girl many times over!

  I walked in and took the first open seat directly next to the football jock. His jaw was set and he eyed my golden badge covetously. Hey, this girl is not going to apologize for taking the deal she was offered! Not after raising myself on the streets. Being a former Boston street-rat, I did not apologize; I just survived and held true to my convictions in this life. Beyond that, all else was of little interest to me.

  I did not bother to point out all the double-dealing from some of my classmate’s families. Some of the Legacy rookies were receiving starting bonuses or favorable rookie assignments. Family members up the ladder had pulled strings to ensure their new rising stars had a ladder straight up the food chain. Not that I cared! Hell, I get it, people do favors and if they are legal, then who am I to judge?!

  “She’s a disgrace to the uniform…”

  I heard one of the young female officers behind me whispering at less than subtle levels. She either forgot about the super-heard package or didn’t care. Not to mention I could place any voice to any face I had met in my entire life. I was born with perfect recall, yet another reason why the NYPD had been so hungry to get its claws into me!

  I was a human—or inhuman—supercomputer mentally speaking. My skills of observation and memory retention were flawless and even several degrees above others of my kind. I had thought all inhumans held such vast intellects at first, but that had been due mostly to the first group I met, even the man who still haunted my thoughts and dreams.

  While most inhumans did have higher IQ’s than the average human, this was not universal. Some were just average or even below average, but none had bellow-human normal IQ’s. Being “normal” was considered the inhuman equivalent of retardation. Hey, I don’t make the rules of society, so don’t give me that hateful glare!

  I watched on as my classmates received their silver badges. After about ten minutes of non-stop leering, most of the rookies had gone back to clapping and cheering animatedly. I guess even the Necrovamp loses her appeal after a while?

  The proceedings were arduously long. I was very enamored with the Commissioner’s speech. While he was a long-winded man, he made many amazing points. He could make a pacifist decide to sign up for the NYPD! I listened on about our sworn duty to protect and serve the public from all threats foreign or domestic. He had also amended his speech to include “inhuman” into the list. While I might wish to debate the wisdom in separating inhuman from domestic and foreign threat classification in an implied manner, I could understand how this resonated with the human crowd. These people were looking to him to promise some safety and security in the largest city in the world, no matter the threat.

  Being part of the inhuman leadership of this city, I did not like how we were singled out. We might go by a different name than humans, but we were still “humane” mostly. Besides, humans had their fair share of serial killers and psychos.

  Try to mention this fact to humans and watch them lose their shit! They argue that they do not feed off each other! Right, tell that to your elected officials across the country! (Or don’t, just go to D.C. and observe the shark-tank that is Capitol Hill. I won’t even mention the other kind of vampires—AKA lawyers.

  Suffice it to say, the human community was chock-full of cannibalistic practices. I would personally accept blood-drinking over rapists and murderers any day!

  After the lengthy procession of our graduation ceremony, I left out the huge amphitheater doors, out into the jeers and boos of the protesters set up. Signs featuring blown up pictures of my head with Photoshopped fangs dripping with blood and a circle and a slash through the center were the prominent theme of the day. Times like this I regretted just how public my face was around this city! I often had to wheedle Bix into glamouring my appearance, just so I could go study for exams and get a coffee from the local Starbucks without being mauled.

  Liam loved to watch me squirm, so he had been very hesitant to teach me how to manipulate the vampire version of glamour illusions. He kept hinting that kin should be the ones to teach newly made vampires.

  I did not have a problem with my kin, per-say. But, Seraphina Herrington was not the easiest girl to approach to ask for lessons on vampire-one-oh-one. She was three-hundred-years-old and she looked about nineteen and delicious. She was my personal kryptonite, a redhead with killer curves! Over the years I had attracted my fair share of capital-K, crazy redheads. Seri was just the latest and most drastic example of my unhealthy addiction to her deadly breed of female. In fact, the night I was led down to Seri’s old bar in Brooklyn, the Cold Coffin, I had just learned my previous redheaded girlfriend was still knocking boots with a frat boy behind my back! (I am still scrubbing my mouth out daily, trying to hope that I didn’t catch something!)

  Suffice it to say, kin relations were awkward at the very best of times for me right now. Now that I was out of the academy, I would have to figure out some new housing situation, or I would have to move back into the Upper East Side high-rise most of our kingdoms of the shared Manhattan Island were now residing.

  Like it or not, I am now inhuman royalty for two reasons. I had won Harlem and I had vanquished the former Winter Queen of Manhattan, and I was Seri’s kin. Her blood sharing to turn me alone made me a royal.

  This street-rat was still reeling, even thirteen-months-later!

  Two:

  “No rest for the wicked,” has never rung truer, than it does for now right now! I was scarcely out of my ceremony and dodging back to my little POS silver Honda compact coup when my phone rang. Harry-Balls showed on the screen—my little running joke about my boss’ name. I huffed out a long and languid breath and pressed the “talk” button.

  “Sir?”

  I made that one word sound like a greeting and a weary question all at once. I heard snippets of conversations behind him on the other end of the line. He sounded as if he was in a bar or a hotel lobby of some kind.

  “Detective, your presence is required at a crime scene, time to put that gold shield to good use.”

  I groaned to myself, so he was at a crime scene, likely one they assumed must have an inhuman perp if he was calling me right out of my graduation ceremony.

  “Sir, I am not due to clock into my first shift until tomorrow morning.”

 
His gruff scratchy voice barked into the phone.

  “You’re on the clock when I tell you to be Detective, so you’re going to get your damn money!”

  Ok, he clearly needs me badly for some reason!

  “Yes sir, sorry sir, I was just surprised I will be right there.”

  “You got a pen on you?”

  That question made me quirk my lip in amusement at his question because of my perfect memory.

  “I’m good sir, please give me the address.”

  He gave me the address and I had a very good map of Manhattan called up to my mind now. He was in Midtown, one of the middle-class areas not too far from Hell’s Kitchen. When I asked what the details were, he hung up on me. I was then left to stare at my still new iPhone with a heated glare at the screen.

  Yep, the honeymoon’s over now Thea, welcome to police work!

  My thoughts were as much resigned as they were amused.

  ***

  Traversing to Midtown had not taken too long. By New York standards, the traffic was not too bad today and most the traffic seemed to be congested in the opposite direction today.

  I managed to stare into my rearview mirror and cast a small shadowy glamor over my skin. It would break easily if I was to draw much attention to myself, but it would obstruct the casual observer. Despite the fact that I was now a cop, I had to find a parking spot. Unfortunately for me, being in my own car had not afforded me direct building access. Now I was trotting two-and-a-half blocks up to the Midtown apartment.

  Many random New Yorkers passed me by without batting a single lash. My glamour was a success! I could possibly kiss Liam for his ability to teach my rudimentary analytical mind rudimentary spell crafting.

  Walking in my silently brisk pace, I felt my shoulders tingling. Something was watching me, or so my gut and my ever-growing senses told me. Carefully, I ran my hand over my cheek lightly and I felt the warm tingles of my magic intact. Someone was steadily tracking my progress, but they had not shattered my glamour. I was far from fluent in all the ins and outs of spell crafting, but that shouldn’t be possible!