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  Night Hunter

  CATHY McDAVID

  PROLOGUE

  The portents were small, hardly worth commenting on by the hordes of Diamondback fans converging on Chase Field that warm May evening. A slight rise of temperature. A shift in the breeze. An annoying increase in static electricity. The huge flock of pigeons startled into flight from their roost atop the baseball stadium.

  Small signs indeed, but they signaled the beginning of a new cycle.

  And once begun, it couldn't be stopped. Not by anyone or anything ... human or otherwise.

  The creature felt a change deep within him and stirred inside the confines of his subterranean cocoon. Without warning, a fiery pain sliced through his entrails, unbearable in its intensity. A scream ripped from his parched throat. Muffled by the thick, protective shell imprisoning him, and layer upon layer of earth, it was heard by no one.

  Instinct overruled emotion. He arched his back and pushed with large, powerful feet. Slowly, the surrounding ground began to crumble, then give way. Fresh air rushed in to fill the newly formed cracks and penetrate the cocoon's porous exterior. His nostrils quivered.

  For the first time in twenty-five years, the creature breathed.

  And smelled.

  Hunger consumed him, debilitating him with its voracity and blinding him to all needs save one: He must feed. And soon. Without sustenance, he would quickly die and with him, the future of his entire race.

  Calling upon the last of his strength, he made one final, herculean effort. A deafening roar filled his ears. Whether from dirt and rocks falling or the thunderous pounding of his recently reenergized heart, he neither knew nor cared.

  His sharp talons pierced the top of the cocoon. In the next instant, the earth above him broke apart. His head emerged through the opening. Shoulders and arms followed. When he could move the upper half of his body freely, the creature hoisted himself from the hole and the leatherlike casing that had housed him for the last quarter century.

  Kneeling on all fours, his armor-plated chest rising and falling from his recent exertion, he took a few precious moments to recover from the ordeal of his rebirth and orient himself to his environment.

  A city. Yes, he remembered Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. returned, his own from the year he'd spent in a larvae state before retreating underground, and those implanted in his brain by his parents. He looked around. His compound eyes transmitted a hundred images to his brain, enabling him to see in darkness almost as well as in daylight. Lifting one arm, he flexed his fingers. The six-inch-long, four-jointed digits tingled as blood flowed into veins long ago collapsed from lack of use.

  Stiff and sore, he stood awkwardly, holding on to a nearby pillar for support. Grass tickled his scaly skin, reminding him that his mother had selected a place where humans buried their dead for his lengthy hibernation and metamorphosis. She'd evidently chosen well, for he'd awakened whole and mature and undiscovered by potential predators.

  Emitting a sound between a squeal and growl, he rotated his shoulders from side to side. Tendons stretched and cartilage shifted. With a loud snap like that of a tree branch breaking, his transparent wings unfolded and expanded to their full fifteen-foot span.

  He was ready to hunt.

  Disappearing into the encroaching dusk was easy for the creature. His mottled brown coloring provided a natural camouflage, while his wings allowed him to coast noiselessly above the ground.

  Within minutes, he scented prey, and the hunger consuming him moved from need to rage. Finding a small stone structure not much taller than himself, he flew to the top, retracted his wings, and huddled behind a sculpted parapet. There, shrouded in darkness, he waited.

  His highly developed senses told him what he needed to know. Female. Long past her prime. Small in stature. Feeble. His mind reached out to her, and he learned she'd come to this place to offer tribute to a recently deceased kin.

  The creature tensed in anticipation. She'd be easy to overpower and, though scrawny, would yield enough nourishment to sustain him until the next night when he could feed again.

  At last, she came into view, emerging from a small stand of trees. The creature wasted no time, surprise being his greatest weapon. .He launched himself from the rooftop, his wings spread wide, and within seconds covered the distance separating him from his prey. She didn't look up until he was directly over her. He could see the confusion on her face as he swooped down and gathered her into his arms. He easily subdued her weak struggle, and carried her back to his temporary hiding place on the roof.

  Crouching, he turned her over and laid her across his lap. She still clutched the flowers she'd been holding when he captured her. Fear clouded her eyes, but she didn't shut them. He respected her bravery and decided to honor her with a swift death.

  "Are you going to kill me?" she asked in a thin, shaky voice.

  He understood her and was pleased that yet another implanted memory had resurfaced. To survive, he would need to speak the language of the humans inhabiting this place.

  "Yes, I am." His voice was low and coarse and new to his ears. In his immature larvae state, he'd been unable to vocalize.

  "Why?" she asked, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  "Because I must feed."

  He stroked her wet cheek with one finger, the gesture tender and reverent. Then he lowered his head to sniff and nuzzle her ear. She shuddered in response, her entire body quaking.

  "Please," she cried softly.

  He obliged her by snapping her neck before biting into her shoulder and tearing out large chunks of her flesh with his needle-sharp teeth. As her life's blood drained onto the rooftop, the creature fed until very little of the old woman remained.

  Upon finishing, he rose, unfolded his wings and took flight, careful to keep to the inky shadows cast by the city's skyscrapers. Instinct, old as the beginning of time, drove him. Having fed, he must next find sanctuary. Somewhere he could pass the daylight hours safe from the Huntsman, the human ordained by the Ancients to seek him out and attempt to destroy him in a battle old as the dawn of time.

  But before then, the creature must first ensure the continuation of his race. Somewhere in the city, he knew, existed females of his kind. He must find one and mate with her before the Huntsman found him.

  The Huntsman came instantly awake and jerked upright in bed. Tossing aside the single blanket covering his naked body, he stood and strode to the window of his third-story apartment.

  Come, the Ancients' voices called to him. Cadamus has roused.

  And the first thing he will do is feed, thought the Huntsman, unlocking the window. It was too late to save tonight's victim, but maybe tomorrow ...

  He no sooner slid the window fully open than thousands of pigeons appeared and soared past, a giant black river gliding through an even blacker night.

  "It begins," he whispered to himself.

  Cadamus's life would not be a long one, the Huntsman would see to it. But during the creature's short existence, he would embark on a vicious killing spreejust like his predecessor twenty-five years ago.

  The Huntsman stood back from the window and shut it, the pigeons having long disappeared. He would sleep no more tonight, and little over the coming weeks.

  It was his task, his duty, to destroy Cadamus, destroy him before the creature located a female and reproduced. Since the Huntsman had been a boy of nine, he'd waited and trained for the day the Ancients would call upon him to serve.

  And he would not forsake his sacred duty until he succeeded, even if it meant the end of his own existence. For if he failed and the creatures multiplied, the slaughter would be unimaginable.

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Okay, Celeste. Time to smile pretty for the nice folks watching in TV land."<
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  Nicholaus Blackwater adjusted the lens on his camera, bringing the upper half of TV-7's top-ranked investigative reporter into sharper focus.

  "'Bout time," she grumbled through gritted teeth and positioned the microphone exactly six inches beneath her collagen-enhanced lips.

  "Five, four, three, two, one," Nick cued, and zoomed in for a close-up.

  "We're just outside the entrance of the Forever in PeaceCemetery where the mutilated remains of an elderly woman were found atop a gardener's house early this morning by a pair of grave diggers."

  Celeste's face, the one most watched in the noon and six P.M. time slots, reflected well-practiced hints of shock and concern coupled with the trademark stoicism of any successful TV reporter. Fan mail, both paper and electronic, poured in daily, most of the viewers praising her talent for reporting the grisly details of whatever heinous crime she was covering in a professional, unbiased manner while still conveying compassion for the victims.

  Her reputation, as Nick and everyone else at the TV-7 News Center knew, was the biggest joke to come down the pike since Richard Nixon claimed he wasn't a crook.

  Balancing the camera on his shoulder, Nick took a step backward, then another, as Celeste, whose real name was Judy Schwichenberg, walked slowly forward, her articulate and evenly modulated voice imparting what frustratingly few facts they really had on the deceased woman.

  Keeping her in the left third of the picture, Nick captured the elaborately crafted wrought-iron gate to the cemetery in the right two-thirds. Yellow crime scene tape fluttered in the breeze, holding curious onlookers and morbid thrill seekers at a distance.

  Suddenly Celeste stopped, looked down, and gave a shriek of alarm. "God damn it!"

  "What's wrong?"

  Nick should have turned off the camera but didn't. He had a drawerful of Celeste outtakes. Once every few months, when the crew was feeling particularly snarly toward her, they'd have a late-night private showing at the station and watch the outtakes. Afterwards, they'd all feel better and less like the pond scum she was constantly accusing them of being.

  "There's fucking dog shit on my fucking fourhundred-dollar shoes," Celeste screeched. The southern Ohio twang she'd spent years-not to mention beaucoup bucks-eliminating from her speech had returned with a vengeance. "Don't they have any groundskeepers at this place?" She glanced around as if one were waiting nearby with a shovel and rake. "What kind of moron takes a dog to a cemetery?" Oblivious of the crowd, she wiped the sole of her shoe on a strip of grass, her lips peeled back in a disgusted grimace. "Oh, ick."

  Behind his camera, Nick smiled. Even on his worst days, and today definitely ranked as one of them, Celeste was good for a laugh. "It could have been a stray."

  "Screw you."

  She'd tried that once already and when Nick turned her down, she'd embarked on a campaign to have him fired. If he hadn't been one of the best news camera operators in the Valley, with the reputation to prove it, he'd have been stuck working at some crummy local cable station for a fraction of his current salary.

  Celeste had accepted defeat with minimal belligerence, a rarity for her, and they'd been working together ever since. Despite frequent power struggles, they were a good team, winning a number of awards, local and national.

  "Your adoring fans are watching, darling."

  Nick's reminder had the desired effect, and Celeste pulled herself together. In the time it took for the red light on his camera to blink once, she stood poised and ready, microphone in place. The whole incident might not have happened except for the bits of grass clinging to her shoe and the slight odor of dog excrement wafting on the breeze.

  "And ... cut," Nick said ninety seconds later when she finished the report. He shut off the camera.

  Celeste was instantly on her private cell phone with her personal assistant, and, by the time they walked the short distance to the news van, she had made two appointments-one with her investment banker and the other with her acupuncturist.

  Inside the van, she checked her makeup in a mini lighted mirror while calling Sherri, her administrative assistant at the station, on her business cell phone.

  Nick sat in the back of the van at the computer console behind Celeste's seat, adjusting his headset. Hooking his camera up to the transmitter, he sent the footage they'd just shot to the station.

  "Heads up, Max," he said into his mouthpiece. "It's coming your way as we speak."

  "I got it," Max replied through Nick's earpiece.

  "How does it look?"

  "Good. Hang tight while I check with the boss. Be right back."

  Nick fished a pack of gum from his pocket. Popping a piece in his mouth, he asked Celeste, "Want one?"

  She shot him an icy, like-you-don't-know stare. "I have dental implants."

  Two minutes later, Bradley McEntee, the assistant news producer at TV-7, came on the wire. "Nick. Get Celeste. I want her included in this."

  Nick tossed Celeste the spare headset, earning himself an exaggerated eye roll. She detested wearing anything that mussed her hair.

  "Yeah, what is it?" she said once the headset was in place.

  "What's with you two? That piece you sent over was pure crapola."

  "The police aren't releasing any details." Celeste's soiled shoe held more interest for her than their conversation with Bradley.

  "Need I remind you remind our viewership has slipped in the last month. You and Nick get your butts back out there and find something, anything, we can scoop KBCB with."

  "What have they got?" Nick asked, readying his camera.

  "Blood splotches on the outside wall of the gardener's house and Linda Perez's thirty-four-D tits shoved into a size six turtleneck."

  Nick's gaze sought Celeste, whose eyes had narrowed to tiny slits.

  He had to hand it to Bradley. Their boss knew exactly which of her buttons to push and how hard.

  KBCB's recent acquisition had put herself through college by being a regional spokesmodel for a bathing suit manufacturer. Linda's dual degrees and long list of credentials weren't nearly as impressive as her physical attributes. Celeste, still considered tops in the Valley by her peers and fans, had nonetheless begun being compared to the younger, more voluptuous Linda.

  It wasn't a comparison Celeste took kindly to.

  Ripping off her headset, she tossed it on the floorboard and said to Nick, "Let's go."

  "We're on it," Nick told Bradley before removing his own headset and powering down the equipment. Camera in hand, he pushed open the van's side door.

  "Follow me," Celeste snapped and set out at a brisk walk.

  Nick was only too happy to accommodate her. He'd been wanting a closer look at the murder scene and wondering just how to manage it. Now, because of Bradley, he'd get that closer look under the guise of doing his job.

  "Damn rocks," complained Celeste.

  Damn your three-inch heels, thought Nick, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

  They left the service road and picked their way along the back end of the Forever in PeaceCemetery. Inside the wrought-iron fence bordering the cemetery lay a ten-acre oasis in the desert, resplendent with green grass, sprawling trees, and flowering rose bushes. Outside the fence existed an altogether different world. They trudged across dry, hard ground dotted with small cacti and scraggly weeds. Foxtails and burrs adhered to the bottoms of Nick's jeans like paperclips to a magnet.

  Fifty or so yards in the distance, police and other official vehicles surrounded the small gardener's house, obscuring Nick's and Celeste's view.

  "Christ, would you look at the cars. We'll never get a decent shot." Celeste grabbed the wrought-iron bars in her fists and pressed her cheeks to the fence, reminding Nick of a child at the zoo hoping for the alligator to stick its head above water.

  "Let me try."

  Turning on his camera, he panned the area, zooming in as close as possible. Even then, he could see nothing beyond the small fleet of vehicles parked three deep. Just for kicks he took s
hots of milling police officers and car doors bearing official emblems.

  "What've you got?" Celeste asked.

  "Zilch."

  "Well, shit."

  "Wait a second." Nick had spotted a small area of disturbed ground at the base of a tall, leafy oak tree. There! his mind shouted, his nerves instantly on fire.

  Celeste squealed with unrepressed excitement. "What is it?"

  "Hold on. Not sure yet," Nick lied.

  He actually had a good idea of what the hole in the ground signified, but wanted to see for himself before letting anyone else in on his find, especially Celeste. With luck, the police would be too busy to expand their search of the murder site until tomorrow, giving Nick the chance to come back tonight and investigate-alone.

  "Sorry, kiddo." He sighed as if disappointed. "Just a pile of rocks."

  "Well, keep looking," Celeste grumbled.

  Slowly, Nick moved the camera away from the hole, making wide sweeps back and forth along the manicured lawn. One minute passed. Then two. Celeste's foot started tapping. All at once, something unusual flashed across his line of vision. Sucking in a sharp breath, he inched back along the path his camera had taken until he came upon the object that had caught his attention.

  "Son of a bitch," he whispered, fighting to keep his hands steady and the camera from shaking.

  "What? What!" Celeste bunched in close to him.

  "I think I hit pay dirt." And he had.

  "Nick, I'm gonna throttle you if you don't tell me."

  Not daring to pull away from the viewfinder and look at her for fear he'd lose sight of his find, he said grimly, "It's a body part."

  "Oh, my God!"

  He could almost hear her jaw drop.

  The camera's soft whir was the only sound to be heard as he filmed the remains of what had once been the elderly woman's forearm.

  Under a moving blanket of buzzing flies, bits of stringy tendons clung to a bloody bone stripped clean of flesh. Frail fingers, still intact, one bearing a gold wedding band, clutched a mangled and wilted bouquet of spring flowers. Petals were scattered on the. ground around the forearm as if plucked and discarded in a game of he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not.