Chapter One
Los Angeles, California. Present day
Vampires had a vibe, and right now it was thick. She could feel them on her skin, making her flesh crawl beneath it. Oh, yeah. Tonight it was on! Damali glanced around the club, all her extrasensory instincts humming. The electric blues, fluorescent greens, and flaming orange stabbed into her brain as the insistent reggae tempo seeped into her blood and created a second pulse within her. She could feel the rhythm of her walk becoming smoother, longer in stride as the music filled her up. It beat inside her, mingling with the grief and rage that had been her companions for the past month.
Lingering cigarette and spliff smoke burned her eyes. The stifling, club-sweat heat of bodies dancing, pressing, grinding, nearly smothered her as she shoved her way through the crowd to get close to the bar. Screw what Marlene and the guardian team had to say about her venturing out alone at night. She was a full-blown Neteru now - a vampire huntress... and the vamp empire had killed her man. A Corona was in order... no, perhaps a Red Stripe beer. Fuck it. Make it Jack Daniels.
"Whatchu having, pretty sis?"
How about every vampire's head on a silver platter? she wanted to say. Ever since that cop, Berkfield, had rolled up on her earlier today asking about Carlos, grilling her about his Jamaican territory, and wanting to know where he was, she'd seen red. She'd clean out every lower-level vamp left in Nuit's old vamp zones while the cops chased drug dealers till the end of time. That's all she had left to cling to
5
