Colton Depardieu woke up groggy. He blinked and tried to remember where he was. It remained dark outside, but the sun had risen just above the horizon in the distance. He was at a farm, he remembered, and they'd been after Abigail.
They'd found her, in fact, and it had been a simple job of springing their trap and finishing her off. Somehow, she'd known of their presence and had managed to take them down and get away.
But, she'd also confirmed what he already knew to be true: she was a monster.
When she'd attacked him, her eyes had glowed, and her face wore a mask of rage. Evil, plain and simple, and needing to be put down. He'd seen that same glow in the eyes of the thing that killed his brother—Marc, seventeen years old and dead in a drainage ditch outside Lyon because no one had been fast enough to stop the creature wearing a woman's skin. Their mother never recovered. Colton had spent every year since making sure he was fast enough. Every demon he put down was one less family shattered the way his had been.
That was what kept him going. Not the money. Not the thrill of the hunt. The memory of Marc's face, slack and empty, eyes staring at nothing.
Colton had wounded her—had shot her in the side, and even though it hadn't been enough to stop her, it would slow her down. With any luck, they could track her. He checked for his keys. Gone.
Colton cursed. They'd slashed the tires on her vehicle the night before, but if she'd found their car, it would prove harder to find her. They could drive on the rims to get back to the road, and then pick up another vehicle along the way, but it would end up costing them time. They needed to get moving.
His jaw clenched at the thought of her getting the better of him. Of all of them. They'd ambushed her at this stupid house and had every advantage, and yet, somehow, she'd survived and gotten away. Worse, every hour she stayed free was another hour she might stumble into a town, cross paths with civilians who had no idea what walked among them. People like Marc. People who wouldn't see it coming.
The woman hadn't even had the guts to finish them off. Part of him understood the hesitation—he'd trained alongside these people, shared meals with them, watched them celebrate after missions. There'd been a time when Abigail was just another recruit, just another kid Arthur had dragged into this life. But sympathy was a luxury that got people killed. Whatever she'd been once, she wasn't that anymore.
He would find her, and then he would end her. The mission parameters were straightforward—locate, engage, eliminate—but nothing about Abigail had been standard since Raven's Peak. The glowing eyes, the inhuman speed, the way she'd shrugged off hits that should have put her down permanently. These weren't the abilities of a trained Hunter. They were something else entirely, and the fact that the Council still classified her as merely a rogue operative told him everything he needed to know about how out of touch the leadership had become.
Colton rose to his feet, planning to find and wake Jack and Anong. They would need to catch Abigail before she made it too far. With any luck, the bullet wound in her side would make it easy to finish her.
Not looking forward to the call, he pulled out his burner phone and dialed the number saved there. Aram answered on the third ring.
"We found her," Colton said.
"Where?"
"Ohio."
"Is she dead?"
"Not yet," Colton said. "But she's wounded. Jack and Anong took some hits too—"
"I'm sending backup to your location."
"We won't need it," Colton said, though the certainty felt hollow. "She'll be dead within the hour."
"I'm not taking any risks," Aram said. "Make sure you don't miss this time." Aram ended the call.
Colton stared at the dead phone. Not a word about the team. Not a single question about whether anyone was hurt. Just the mission—always the mission. There'd been a time when the Hunters looked after their own, when a call like this would've started with "Is everyone all right?" Under Aram, people were assets. Expendable ones.
He pocketed the phone and shoved the thought aside. Aram was cold, but he was effective. And right now, effective was what they needed.
Colton stretched out his body and dragged in a few breaths, trying to clear his head. He had a raging headache as he walked back toward the barn to find the other Hunters.
Not there. He rounded the corner. That, too, proved empty. Broken beams lay scattered about, and the ground looked messed up from where the fight had taken place, but his two friends had gone missing.
"Jack?" he shouted. "Anong?"
No answer. Colton looked around, confused, and then headed back to the house. Maybe they had woken earlier and gone inside?
Still, if that were the case, why hadn't they woken him? They knew the importance of finding Abigail. If they had gone in to rest and just left him out there, he would be furious.
Broken windows had teeth of jagged glass, the door hung askew on its hinges, and bullet holes peppered the walls everywhere. It looked like a war zone. Thank God this had happened in the middle of nowhere, or the police would be swarming by now.
They would get here soon, anyway. No doubt, someone had called in about gunshots. They so had to get a move on. In the old days, the Council maintained a cleanup crew for situations like this—people who could make a gunfight look like a gas leak or a meth lab explosion within hours, wiping the scene clean before any investigation gained traction. Aram had cut the team's funding six months ago, redirecting the budget to mercenary contracts. Without them, every scene they left behind was a loose thread that someone, someday, might pull.
Jack and Anong lay face down in the living room. The bastards had fallen asleep. Colton walked up and kicked Jack's boot. "Come on," he said. "Let's go."
Jack didn't budge. Colton kicked him again, and then went over and tapped Anong on the foot as well.
"Get up, sleepy heads. We have work to do."
Neither moved. He knelt next to them, frowning. And then he eased Anong over onto her side. Her cut throat gaped open in a red mess, but worse still, someone—or something—had cut out her eyes. Two gaping holes were all that remained where her brown orbs should have sparkled with life.
Something buckled in his chest. Anong. They'd trained together in Budapest, shared bad coffee and worse jokes during stakeouts that stretched into dawn. She'd shown him photos of her nieces last month, talked about visiting them when this was all over. He'd given her a hard time—that was his way—but she'd always called him on his bullshit, and he'd respected her for it. Now she stared at nothing with eyes she no longer had.
Repulsed and grieving, Colton lowered Anong's body and stepped back, removing his gun from its holster. Still gasping, he used his foot to roll Jack. He bore the same mutilations.
Jack. The man who'd driven eighteen hours straight to back him up on a job gone sideways in Seville. Who'd pulled him out of a collapsing warehouse without a second's hesitation. Gone. Both of them, gone, and whatever had done this had taken its time.
"What the hell?" Colton muttered, scanning the room. His eyes burned, but he blinked hard. Mourning would come later—if there was a later. Now that he paid attention, he saw droplets of blood on the floor, leading from the kitchen. Not nearly enough to justify cut throats, but more than a dribble.
They hadn't died in situ. Someone had dragged them here. Arranged them. The precision unsettled him more than the violence—no fingerprints visible on any surface, no muddy boot prints tracking through the blood. Whoever had done this understood forensic evidence and had taken care to leave nothing that would survive scrutiny. That spoke to something more disciplined than a random demon kill.
Gun wobbling in his trembling hand, Colton followed the small trail around the corner and into the kitchen. Large pools of drying blood congealed on the floor. Four eyes on a cutting board stared at him. The massacre had taken place in this room.
Noise from behind had him spin on his heels. A woman stood there with a cloak pulled over her face. Colton aimed and pulled the trigger.
It clicked but didn't fire.
He pulled it again, but it kept clicking.
"I removed the bullets while you slept," the woman said, walking closer. Not Abigail, though he had no idea who it might be.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Call me a concerned citizen." She strode toward him. "I'm cleaning up the streets and taking vigilantes out of commission."
Colton dropped the gun and drew his knife, and then fell into a fighting stance.
"You're a demon," he said. "I would recognize the stench anywhere."
"That's not a nice thing to say." She stepped closer. "Especially to a lady."
Colton stepped forward and stabbed. She deflected his arm, stepped inside his reach, and shoved him on the sternum with her palm.
He staggered back, gasping for air when his lungs collapsed. Never in his life had he received such a forceful hit. She stepped in again, knocking the knife out of his grasp and kicking him to the floor. Colton slid on a pool of blood, and when he hit the floor, the crimson mess soaked his clothes. Then the woman lifted a pan from the counter and bashed him in the side of the head with it.
Time passed while he fell in and out of consciousness. He had flashes of awareness, but when he finally came to, she had tied his hands, and he lay in the living room next to the other Hunters.
The woman stood over him, holding a huge butcher's knife, her cowl hiding her face.
He tested the ropes. Too tight to wiggle out of.
"Reinforcements are coming," he said.
"I know."
"You won't get away with this," he said. "You murdered Hunters. They'll never stop looking for you."
"On the contrary," she said. "By the time I'm done, there won't be anyone left to come looking." She tilted her head, studying him through the shadow of her cowl. "Your Council has spent centuries hiding in the shadows, erasing evidence, making the world forget that things like me exist. You've become so good at disappearing that when you actually vanish, no one will notice. No police investigation. No search parties. Just silence." A smile crept into her voice. "Poetic, isn't it?"
She knelt down, pulling up his pants leg and exposing his shin and calf. "Ever been to a butcher shop? Ever watched someone carve up a cow? I've always found it fascinating, the way they strike down and cut right through the bone."
"Please," Colton said, shivering and trying to scoot back.
"But, often," she said, setting down the butcher knife. "They will use other tools as well. Like a meat tenderizer."
She picked up a heavy-looking mallet from the floor and held it up for inspection. It had ridged sides and looked cumbersome.
"Softens up the meat and makes it easier to cut. More tender."
"I'll tell you everything. Don't do this."
She laughed. "So easy to break. If only I needed information from you, I'd feel rather disappointed at how easily I shattered you. No, friend, I don't need anything from you. You're just a victim of circumstance."
She slammed the mallet down on his shin.
Bone crunched.
Colton screamed.
Agony roared up his leg.
She slammed it down again, and once more.
He jerked and crawled back. The foot dragged along the ground, attached only by the wrecked skin and muscle.
"Amazing, isn't it? The tools we've created to make tasks easier. We are remarkable creatures at overcoming obstacles."
She hesitated, and then added, "Well, I guess not we, right?"
Then she swung the mallet down again, crashing it against his knee.
He didn't quite black out, but his world became pain and confusion after that. She kept talking, but the words no longer made sense. All he could do was plead and beg while she crashed the mallet against his legs and arms.
At some point, she switched to using the butcher's knife and sliced off chunks of his flesh. She did it methodically, patiently, always doing just enough to make sure it gave him excruciating pain but not enough to kill him.
By the time she finished him off, he lay begging for her to kill him. It took what felt like forever before he died.
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