Hunter of the Dead Read Free Page A

shit job.”
    The master took advantage of the distraction to reach up and twist Scav’s leg, yanking it and wrenching it from its socket. Scav tumbled to the ground and the master popped up to his feet with a single flex of his back muscles. He stood now in the center of the aisle, backing away from the intruders and towards the altar, brandishing Scav’s severed leg like a cudgel to ward them off.
    Scrabbling to grab hold of a pew, Scav pulled himself upright, balancing on his remaining foot. Miranda stared at Scav’s stump, wondering briefly if his leg would regenerate like a lizard’s, but it didn’t. It seemed that immortals were capable of healing almost any damaged flesh, but could not regrow lost parts. No wonder, then, that their clashes descended into bouts of dismemberment.
    “Toss me the lad’s leg, Cashley,” MacVicar growled.
    “You have no idea what’s coming, fixer. You’re going to wish you’d listened to me. I’ve seen things. Dreadful things hiding in the shadows. Otto Signari won’t be able to stand against him. Not even Cicatrice will be able to stand against him.”
    Suddenly a hole exploded in the wall behind the altar. Perhaps sensing his distress, the master’s six remaining immortal brides had eschewed the door entirely and simply punched their way in. The chosen few wore scintillating white jumpsuits to signal their elevated status in the compound.
    “Ah,” the master said with a grin, “the cavalry’s arrived. Seems I have a leg up at last.”
    He tossed the full grown man’s leg as effortlessly as if he were passing a Frisbee. Scav snatched it out of the air.
    “Newborns, Cashley?” MacVicar said with a snort. “Have you even weaned them off flesh yet?”
    “All that should matter to you, fixer, is how hard they’ll fight for me. I don’t intend to go gentle into the abyss.”
    MacVicar clapped his hands together.
    “I do so love my job. Nothing like putting down a traitor as well as his Houseless bastards. How you feeling, Scav?”
    Scav had reattached his leg to his stump, but the area where it had been torn away still seemed soft and scabrous. Suddenly his eyes alighted on Miranda, and flashed with a bestial hunger.
    “Actually, I’m feeling a bit peckish. Maybe I’ll have a quick bite before this imbroglio.”
    The pseudo-punk, with half his pantleg pooled around his ankle, lunged at Miranda.
    “Wait!” Miranda shouted, pulling down her right sleeve and showing her wrist.
    Scav paused, his head bobbing in the air like a bird’s. “What’s that?”
    “Just a bit of cosmetics,” she said.
    She pulled her wrist across her jumpsuit, rubbing away the foundation. Underneath the makeup was a tattoo of a green double cross, with an olive branch to the left of it and a sword to the right of it.
    “Inquisitor!” Scavatelli hissed.
    “That’s right. I spent the last three weeks infiltrating this cult for a shot at that sorry son of a bitch.” Her finger shot out in Cashley’s direction. “After all the shit I’ve had to take from him and Inessa, there’s no way I’m letting two low-rent fixers eat my lunch.”
    She plunged her hand into her front cargo pocket, slipping her fingers between the pages of her hollowed-out copy of “the sacred text,” and pulled out the Colt .45 hand cannon she kept hidden there. With her other hand she ripped open the seam of her pantleg and pulled a long, wicked blade from the scabbard that ran practically the whole length of her thigh. Thank God for Cashley’s modesty rules. She’d managed to keep it taped there for her whole tenure in the compound.
    Scav roared and charged at the vampire hunter, even as she filled the air with bullets. Their stopping power wouldn’t do much to harm a vampire, but if she was lucky and destroyed his eyes it would buy her the precious seconds she needed to sever his head.
    She managed to catch one eye, but not the other, and then when she took her stroke it went astray. It was enough to move