Free Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife) by Joyce Robles

"This thing isn’t right," the tremors that the words were laced with were enough
to let Jennifer know she was not prepared for whatever this was.
                 "Keep your cool," from Manson behind her, usually his rock solid resolve was inspiration
enough to do just that, but there was more than just something ‘not right’ here. She had seen this
before, she knew it even when she had no idea why it was she thought so. She had never seen this
vampire before outside of the night before and even so there was a drastic difference between then and
tonight. The difference was remarkably large, the other night he had been violent for sure but there had
been a certain calculated feel behind each action that wasn’t there tonight, the same way the grace was
gone. Tonight he was moving like a corpse and with as much blood as he must have consumed tonight
his movements should be fluid, his injuries from the night before should have healed.
    It seemed like a long time had passed while she stood silent in the darkness, knowing something
was lurking out there. ‘Where are you damn it?’ Her eyes snapped open as her breath caught in her
throat, she had been in more situations then she could count where fear was an emotion that was
present but she had always been capable of containing it, had never hesitated in the face of it. She was
aware that she had stood still too long, there were shots fired and it wouldn’t take long for official types
to arrive, if she was going to end this it had to be soon or not at all tonight. Forcing herself to take the
first even breath she’d managed in minutes she took a step forward and another making herself focus
on each and every crevice of the space around her. She sensed before she saw movement to her right,
her luck that the bastard would try to sneak up on her on her bad side. On reflex the Remington
snapped up and she had a shot fired off before her eyes had fully focused on the blood drenched
features coming up on her. The Remington was a high caliber weapon, would knock even the undead
off their feet, this one did little more than stumble back before recovering its gait and charging forward.
"Manson," she ground out a warning through clenched teeth fully aware that her big partner would be
able to help very little until he could either maneuver around her or she moved out of the way. She was
dependent on him to do the second because the vampire was on her in seconds, she managed to pump
the shot gun and fire another round into it’s mid-section before it was in reaching distance of her. With
clumsy speed it made a grab for her, she managed only barely to escape the hands that swiped at her.
On instinct and with no time to load before it tried to swipe again Jennifer took hold of the barrel in both
hands and rammed the butt of the shotgun into the things chin. The blow contained enough force to
push it back but only a step, it wasn’t enough to give her time of any sort and so faster than she could
react it struck out again, the blow taking her in the right shoulder, tossing her aside like a rag doll with
one swipe.
    She landed on her side, gasping for air and trying to control the pain that exploded through her
injured arm. She was aware for a moment of only the pain and the sound of Manson’s automatic
weapon discharging. The sound was deafening in the confined space but helped to bring her back to
her senses. She had lost the Remington either when she’d made impact with the ground or somewhere
in the interim of when it had sent her flying before the impact. In any case it made little difference, she
couldn’t afford to waste the time scrabbling around in the dark trying to locate it.
       Her head was fuzzy, her reaction time was suffering, but even with those impairments and the
pitch dark each burst of light that accompanied a round being fired from Manson’s automatic weapon
gave her a glimpse of the monster that wouldn’t go down. The night before this thing