Hunted Read Free Page A

with his or her own kind.
    Darry counted forty men and women in the camp, and they were not here for fun and games. Darry could sense their seriousness: they were training, and they were very, very good at practicing for war.
    But war against whom? People not of their race? The government? Darry didn’t know, and wasn’t really sure he should attempt to find out. These people had not made any attempt to harm him or his hybrids. Darry had a hunch the people below him would not be very friendly toward him; but so far they had made no hostile moves against him, and until they did, what they were doing was none of his business.
    Darry had learned the hard way not to get involved in other peoples’ affairs . . . although he still did on occasion. He’d almost lost his head when he fought against Vlad Tepes, known as Vlad the Impaler, escaping his native country only by the barest of margins. On the hill overlooking the camp, Darry recalled that night he swam the river Dimbovita and eventually left his home country for good. The year was 1460, he thought.
    Darry had so much history it was sometimes difficult to separate the jumble of events in his mind.
    He backed away from the hill, skirted the guards, and began the hike back to his cabin. If those paramilitary types left him alone, he would leave them alone. But if they chose trouble, he was more than willing and able to give back ten times what he received.
    For the man who now called himself Darry Ransom was the world’s consummate and eternal warrior.
    And had been for almost seven centuries.

2
    â€œHow far down the river are we going to go?” the boy asked his father.
    â€œTo here, Paul,” Dr. Ray Collier told his son, pointing to a spot on the map. “We’ll camp on up these bluffs, and then we’ll spend a week exploring.”
    â€œAll right!” Paul said.
    â€œRadical!” Terri Collier said, two years younger than her older brother’s seventeen years.
    Both kids loved camping; their parents had seen to that. They had started taking their kids camping when Paul was three and Terri was one, and had been doing so at least three times a year ever since.
    That was not to say the kids weren’t normal, healthy teenagers, with a love for junk food and music loud enough to raise the dead. But they also loved camping and could do without pizza, ice cream, and rock and roll for extended periods of time.
    â€œWill there be any other people, Dad?” Terri asked.
    Doctor Collier shook his head. “I don’t think so, honey. That’s pretty much a wilderness area.”
    â€œGood,” the girl said. “Peace and quiet.”
    The parents smiled at each other. Paul and Terri had turned out well. Both were straight-A students in school, Paul was an above average basketball player, and Terri had a flare for the dramatics and was the youngest member of her school’s drama club. Both kids were well-liked.
    Karen Collier, who was a partner in a very prestigious L.A. law firm, took her husband’s hand in hers and gently squeezed. She was looking forward to getting out of the city for a few weeks and spending some quality time with her family.
    * * *
    Vlad lived in the forests with the wolves for several years. A year after he left the village he learned both his parents had been killed by angry villagers, accused of being werewolves. The charge was brought by Vlad’s older brother, Octavian, whose life was spared because he had cooperated with the village elders.
    Now Vlad truly was cut off from any human contact in the world outside the forest.
    He occasionally stole articles of clothing from clotheslines to cover his nakedness, and at night, when he could, he slipped into henhouses for eggs and chickens, which he cooked. The wolves Vlad lived with never understood why he insisted upon cooking his food; to them the meat had no flavor when cooked. Sometimes he would watch a house until he was certain