Know Thine Enemy Read Free

games of hide-and-go-spy; he'd been around long enough to prefer the up close and personal method of conflict resolution. If anyone but Connor had asked . . . well, that would have been troubling. Connor was pretty much the only person around who knew his name.
    Connor would also do anything for him. Add the fact The Wall was one of the few sanctuaries Ryker had left, and there was no way he could say no. As it was, pride typically prevented the rotund bartender from asking anyone for help, so being the one asked meant a lot in a strange way. It meant Ryker was respected and trusted to not completely fuck this up.
    Not to mention lending a hand also meant two weeks of free drinks.
    So, here he stood, submerged in the shadows behind one of the Washington Avenue lofts, watching the same black-haired vixen battle three hapless vampires who had fallen for her trap and mistaken her for a drunk college student. The vixen— Izzie, her name—had a fairly good routine. She stumbled and swayed and slurred her words to attract attention, and, when attention came, she leapt to the ready. Not liking her was hard, even knowing what she was.
    Even knowing she might well try to kill him when he introduced himself properly.
    After all, demon hunters tended to kill first and ask questions later.
    Connor had seen the girl —Izzie Bennett—in his bar more than three nights running, and pretty girls just didn't go into The Wall alone. They especially didn't go into The Wall if their goal wasn't to drown their sorrows in cheap spirits, and Izzie hadn't ordered a damn thing. She went in, found a shadowy booth, and watched as regulars and stragglers chose their poison.
    Not the most innovative way to scope out vamps. Ryker had witnessed this dance enough times to guess her intention. Initially, at least. So had Connor. Demon hunters in a popular demon bar were bad for business. Yet Connor didn't feel comfortable approaching a pretty girl under normal circumstances, let alone to ask if she planned on killing one of his customers. This was where Ryker came in. He could follow her without being detected and determine once and for all her objective.
    Not that she needed continued surveillance. No, Ryker felt he had enough information to placate Connor. Yet, he couldn 't tear himself away. Hell, these last few nights, she'd dominated his thoughts. The more he saw the more he needed to see, and damned if he knew why. Izzie wasn't like the other hunters who passed through town.
    She wasn 't like much of anyone he'd ever seen, hunter or not. For starters, she didn't go after vampires—she waited for them to come after her.
    And come they did.
    Ryker had seen vamp hunters from all walks of life. Young, old, male, female, fat, thin, red, yellow, black, and white, they were equals in his sight. And no matter how unique they seemed, they were linked by one commonality. Something that remained entirely theirs.
    A cause.
    No one stumbled into demon hunting for the thrill of it. Sure, a certain subset of teens enjoyed roaming cemeteries and pretending they were Blade, but once they got a taste of the real deal—a true-to-life fucking vampire—they typically bolted fast and hard in the opposite direction. Real dedication to the cause was born through personal suffering. Those who hunted had once been hunted and more than likely had seen a loved one murdered at the hands of a night monster.
    The hunters were easy to detect. For a group of people who enjoyed thinking they blended in, they constantly gave themselves away . Looking tough and cautious, concealing excessive weaponry behind baggy clothing, doing all those things that helped them blend among humans while never realizing they stuck out like the proverbial sore thumbs to their targets.
    An old vampire could see a hunter coming a mile away. The clothes, the attitude, the fire in their eyes. The heated need to extract a pound of flesh in return for what they had lost.
    All hunters looked the same where