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  In Her Blood

  Book One in The Dagger Chronicles

  Janice Jones

  Amberjack Publishing

  New York, New York

  Amberjack Publishing

  228 Park Avenue S #89611

  New York, NY 10003-1502

  http://amberjackpublishing.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, fictitious places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Amberjack Publishing

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, in part or in whole, in any form whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  ISBN: 978-0-692-42948-8

  Cover Design: Jerilyn Hassell Pool

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Jennifer:

  With me always

  Prologue

  From Her Past . . .

  She enjoyed seeing those chains of pure silver wrapped around the vampire’s scrawny arms like tattoos. He barely resembled the picture of the old parish priest the Cardinal sent them two weeks ago. His brown skin hung from his bones like an ill-fitting suit. His paunch bounced up and down as he struggled to get loose. It took longer to catch him, much longer than it should have, but all’s well that ends well.

  Alex Stone, call-sign Dagger, ran her fingers through her dark hair. Flakes of dried blood and sand fell as she pulled the dirty mess into a ponytail. Benjamin Palmer, Team Commander, snatched her wounded hand back down and tightened the field dressing as he griped at her about how dumb it was to try to catch the sharp end of a knife with her hand. She knew that . . . now.

  “Who do you think you are,” he said as he gave the knot one last yank, “Superman?” Ben checked her busted lip with a shake of his head. “That’s gonna hurt like hell ‘til morning.”

  Alex just nodded, taking the pills in her good hand and swallowing them with a quick sip of warm water from his canteen.

  Under normal circumstances, Alex would be pulled from the field, evaluated, and possibly scrubbed from the next assignment for that stunt. But time was running out and this wasn’t normal, not even for the top vampire hunting team in the country.

  “We are no longer taking orders from them,” the vampire barked. “The Council has gone soft living among humans. My sire will not bow to their rule any longer!”

  This rogue clan called themselves ‘Hellclaw’. They broke the agreement and trashed an entire village, so the Council of Pure Blood Vampires asked for help rounding them up and delivering them for punishment. Only this guy wasn’t going to the Council.

  This guy belonged to the Catholic Church. In their eyes, his being turned was an attack on the Vatican. And because vampirism had no real cure, he would be executed to save his immortal soul. Alex remembered having met a few Cardinals or whatever and they were a lot scarier than any vampire she’d ever come across. So if they were asking the DOD to get involved in his capture, he must be pretty important; although she couldn’t see why if he’d been stuck out here in the middle of nowhere Mexico.

  From the pew at the back of the small church, Alex and Ben watched as Matthias “Matt” Wolfe and K.C Becker conducted the interrogation like Beavis and Butthead on sedatives. They liked to get up close and personal with the vamps they captured—try to piss them off as much as possible. But the slow waltz was getting boring and they promised to wrap this up quick.

  “Oh please,” Matt said as the vampire spat and growled. “Your sire is on the Council’s shit list! You can’t just go snacking on innocents and expect us or them to turn a blind eye. And you’re a priest! You think the Catholics are gonna take that lying down? No, sir!”

  Their prisoner continued to try his luck at the chains. “Humans, you’re such simple creatures. My sire is not afraid of anyone, not even the Pontiff! You’ll never catch him. My sire is very smart, very smart indeed.” He laughed, and then snapped his teeth at them. “Now be a good little puppy dog and go pee on a hydrant or something. You’re boring me. I bet the girl is much more entertaining.”

  “Don’t worry about her,” Matt replied with a low growl. “Teach him some manners, K.C., before I cut off something that won’t grow back!”

  K.C. pressed a large hand in the center of Matt’s chest and pushed him back a few steps. “Hold up, partner.” K.C. fancied himself a cowboy. “Don’t call him simple, ok? He’s sensitive.”

  You had to be kinda crazy to do what they did; scratch that, really crazy. So crazy you had to be open to the possibility that vampires and werewolves and stuff were real. Alex always thought the world was full of nut jobs, but this was a whole new ball game. Alex Stone had been in this game since she was thirteen years old. Of course, she wouldn’t show up on anything official in Washington—the Department of Defense did have rules, you know. But just to be clear, Alex was not just a bench riding second stringer—she was the game changer.

  Being tested and retested, poked and prodded and studied like a lab rat was old hat for her. She didn’t care about the blood tests and psychological exams anymore. She didn’t even care that the only friends she had were standing right here in this dilapidated building with her, questioning a vampire. She and her companions were special; so special, in fact, that their chemical makeup responded to the drug in a way that enhanced their physical strength, mental acuity, speed, healing, you name it. Anything a vampire could do, they could too. The fight was fair now and that’s what pissed off Hellclaw to begin with. At first, she thought her father was kidding. She was getting along just fine without a bunch of G.I Joes getting in her way. But, like her father said, there was strength in numbers.

  Alex didn’t really subscribe to that logic. Being on her own for as long as she could remember, she hardly needed help. She was still alive, right? But she agreed only because he asked her to. It seemed like he wanted to get to know her better, having been sort of an absentee dad for so long. Only popping in when his work brought him to town or making the occasional phone call at holidays and stuff. Convincing herself he felt guilt for all those missed years, she jumped on a plane to D.C. and didn’t look back. That’s where she made her first mistake.

  In most parent/child relationships, the parent offered guidance, protection, and support. The parent could show the child the right path because they’d walked it. But this was no average parent/child relationship. Dr. Johnathan Carlisle was a big time scientist and the head of the program. Alex may have been his daughter, but he made it very clear that would not get her any special favors in this outfit.

  “You’ll learn more here than you ever will on your own,” he’d said from behind his old beat up desk. “Their numbers are growing and their interests are becoming much more global. They don’t care about hunting cities anymore.”

  Alex felt claustrophobic in his cluttered and cramped office. It took every bit of focus she had just to keep from ripping the door off its hinges to escape. “I get it, daddy,” she replied.

  He cleared his throat as he eased back in his chair. “Good. You’ll train with Commander Palmer for a few weeks, then we’ll see how you do in the field.”

  That got her attention. Alex remembered the anger in the pit of her stomach when he told her she had to be confined to this place like she didn’t know what she was doing. She also remembered thinking she should be teaching them, not the other way around.

  “I gotta st
ay here and train? Why,” she glared at her father.

  “Because there are protocols and rules of engagement, Alex,” he glared back. “You’re not running the streets back home anymore killing anything that moves. You have a place on the team, and you will learn to work within that team or you’ll be restricted from field work indefinitely. Do you understand me?”

  Effectively swallowing her pride just enough to nod her agreement, Alex stood and gave her father a defiant salute. Leaning forward in his chair, he grinned and told her she could go. It took everything she had in her not to slam the door. Acting like a spoiled brat would get her nowhere with him. She decided in that moment to show her father and the entire team just how awesome a vampire killing machine she could be. That very night she became the Dagger.

  Alex’s team, collectively known as Night Command, was attached to the Department of Defense for now. Finding a renegade vampire named Tristan Ambrose brought them here, to a dusty little town in Mexico running down a lackey that may or may not lead them to him. Alex was thinking not.

  She knew this vampire hadn’t expected to be chained to an altar at the end of their fight though, that was for sure. When his jagged blade sliced through her palm, Alex felt a trail of spicy pain shake her body. Before the others caught up, she had spiked him to the floor.

  Alex’s five foot six frame of lean muscle didn’t seem intimidating in the least. She might have the face of a child, but if he thought her age was a weakness, he was sorely mistaken. As she approached him, the vampire priest smiled sweetly in her direction. The bolts were secure; not even he could pull them loose in his weakened state.

  “You’re running out of time,” he said, “and none of them will live forever.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Alex replied as she pulled her silver Zippo from her pocket. “No one lives forever, not even you.”

  She found his obvious confusion strange. Did he really think he was going to live forever? His eyes darted from Matt to K.C. to Ben and back to her when she stopped short of the front pew. Everybody was quiet. The vampire priest’s laughter ping ponged around the small space.

  “She doesn’t know,” he said as his gaze slid from person to person. “With all that drug does for you, you still can’t tell the difference between you and her? My goodness, you are in for a surprise my child!” He laughed so loud, dust sprinkled down from the rafters.

  As footfalls bounded up behind her, the shots echoed around them as bullets whizzed by her ear like flies. Alex jerked sideways and bumped the pew. The slugs entered the vampire’s body with very little blood and no real effect on him. They travelled straight through and lodged in the bell behind him. A dull clanging chased the gunshot noise.

  “Shut your mouth,” Ben barked in his face then snatched the lighter from Alex’s hand.

  The vampire’s bloodshot eyes widened and his long teeth dropped slowly. He pulled in a deep breath then slid his tongue across razor sharp fangs. “She smells so good! Just one taste before I die,” he said with a jerk of the chains, “see if the rumors are true.”

  “What rumors?” Alex replied as she stepped closer.

  “If you were smart, you’d take your own life,” he growled. “It will be far less painful than what they’re going to do to you.”

  Before she could get any closer, Ben pushed her backward then lit the rags of the vampire’s sleeve. “Suicide’s a sin father,” he chuckled, “shame on you.”

  Alex lowered her gaze when she saw the first rays of sunrise touch his bare feet through a hole in the stained glass window. Apparently, he hadn’t fed enough if the sun was having that effect on him. So, maybe he wasn’t the only monster snacking on the locals, she thought. As he stamped and twitched to put the fire out, she felt Ben’s grip on her shoulder. “You didn’t do this alone, did you?” she asked as she tried not to take in the smell. Then his burning flesh ignited the frayed cuffs of his tattered pants. “Who’s helping you?”

  With the foul odor of simmering flesh caught in her nose, Alex waved her bloody hand in front of his face just to pull his attention back to her. He looked up from the flames and purred with excitement at the smell of her blood. She knew her scent would wrap around his senses and trigger his need to taste it.

  Ben jerked her back and pushed her ahead of him. “Go! Father Tomas is waiting outside.” They followed the others down the aisle toward the exit. Common sense told her not to look back, but she did it anyway. Through the smoke and flames his white teeth stood out like a beacon. Would that be the only thing she’d remember about tonight—how white his teeth were? Or would she be stuck with the smell of his burning flesh buried in her clothes and hair forever?

  “Tell Tomas the devil is waiting,” the vampire yelled after them. “And, a friendly warning to you all, Hellclaw’s reign begins with the next century and yours will end in her blood!”

  After they emerged from the church one by one, her companions bolted the doors shut. The other young priest, Father Tomas, said a prayer, and then turned to Alex as she began to speak.

  “Take the ashes and scatter them in the cemetery then pour holy water over them. The damage to the sanctuary should be minimal.”

  “Ha tenido que matarlo,” the young man whispered. “Era un hombre un sola vez; un hombre de Dios.” He crossed himself, kissed the rosary clutched in his dirty fist and repeated his question in English. “Did you have to kill him? He was a man once; a man of God.”

  “We didn’t kill the man of God,” Ben answered. “We killed the thing that has been feeding on your village for weeks. And believe me when I say, we were much kinder than he was to those he fed on.”

  “Gracias,” he said with a bow of his head, “Y que Dios se apiade de sus almas. Thank you and may God have mercy on your souls.”

  Black smoke billowed from underneath the door bringing the vampire’s stench outside. His screams announcing the beginning of a new day.

  “Thank you, Father,” Alex replied.

  What would she confess if she could? She didn’t know anything that wasn’t classified, even from God. Besides, no priest would be able to change anything that had happened since she joined the team and he certainly wouldn’t be able to stop what was coming. Alex wasn’t even sure they could either. How do you fight the invisible? All they had was a name; no description, no solid location. Tristan Ambrose just moved to the top of every known covert agency’s ‘Most Wanted’ list overnight. And Night Command had drawn the assignment to find him and the book.

  “The next century,” Alex sighed as she climbed into the passenger side as Ben took the wheel of the Jeep. “Do you know what he was talking about?”

  “Why would I know,” Ben chuckled. “He was just trying to save his own ass anyway, Dagger. Relax. It’s over. And by the way, scatter the ashes in the cemetery and holy water?”

  “Come on, they love that superstitious crap! Just call me Bram Stoker,” Alex laughed.

  “Dagger sounds cooler,” Ben replied as he slid his sunglasses on his tanned face. “Besides, after Sandbox, everything goes back to normal again. We get the book, they get the vamp and we go back to being regular grunts again, right?”

  “Say ‘duck’ next time,” Alex said with a punch to Ben’s shoulder, then she pushed her sunglasses back up her nose. “I’d like to get home in once piece, it that’s alright with you,” she giggled.

  “Home,” Ben let out a loud fake laugh. “You mean the hole in the ground we live in! Yea, I can’t wait to get back to cafeteria food, the bunkhouse and no real sunlight. I say we swing by Cancun on the way back. You in?”

  Alex didn’t really mind life at Area 51 as much as the others seemed to. That place had been home for the last five years. For her, it beat wasting away in regular school. By the time she was seventeen, she had an entire secret facility for a playground. What regular teenager could say that? The bottom five levels belonged to the
team. Nobody else came down there unless it was to sneak a peek at the test subjects for bragging rights. But for Night Command, there was no place like home.

  “What’s the difference between you guys and me?” Alex asked as she turned in the seat to look at Ben. He still had dried blood in his hair and a long scratch down his neck that was healing.

  “If I gotta tell you that, you need to go back to school kid,” Ben laughed, then he shrugged her off. “Forget it. He was just trying to get into your head. They like to fuck with us as much as possible—you know that.”

  “Yea,” Alex sighed again. “So, training for Sandbox? Whoopee.”

  Their rusty Army Jeep bounced down a dusty road toward the old hotel they had taken over two weeks ago and Alex felt really tired all of a sudden. She fiddled with the damp cloth on her hand, and could feel the blood flow slow down and begin to heal with spasms of pain.

  “Don’t act like you’re not excited about going,” she heard Ben laugh. “Dugway Proving Grounds ain’t gonna get over us anytime soon!”

  “I know we’re getting the best survival training in the world, but we’re still stuck in Utah for six weeks,” Alex said. “And Army Rangers aside, vampires are growing stronger and becoming immune to daylight. We need an edge Ben, a good one.”

  “We are the edge, Dagger,” Ben answered with a tug of her ponytail, “The best one in the world.”

  The ride back to Edwards Air Force Base in Nevada, as predicted, was bumpy and hot. Mexico wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, unless you were on Spring Break. And even then, wake up on the wrong side of town and it might cost you more than a cab ride back to the resort. Still she had to admit, no other kid in the world would ever be able to say they’d hunted vampires. As she dropped her duffle next to the rest, she walked slowly toward the elevator that would take them 100 stories underground for debriefing, chow, and hopefully, sleep.