Free Sun God Seeks...surrogate? by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

door, which was left ajar. A broken potted plant lay in the center of the living room floor next to her Italian mosaic tiled coffee table. All of the lights were on, and a purse had been left sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room.
    “Penelope!” He ran into what had to be her bedroom; it smelled like her.
    Empty .
    “Bloody hell.”
    Kinich closed his eyes and opened his senses. He hoped to feel or hear anything that might indicate which direction she’d been taken. If he could figure out that much, he had a chance of catching up.
    Unless she’s been taken by an Obscuro . Which he prayed wasn’t the case. Obscuros—dark vampires—were multiplying like cockroaches and missing persons reports were through the roof. It was believed they were turning their victims, building an army to prepare for the Great War that Cimil had prophesied.
    This was the reason he’d come to New York in the first place; he’d been spending some quality time with an old—very, very old—friend who might help with this problem. For a price, naturally.
    Kinich sensed a small disturbance in the air to his side, like a void or an absence of light. Once again, he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to drift into the atmosphere, hoping to catch a tiny whiff of her essence in the air.
    There!
    His eyes flew open, and he darted for the door. He almost reached the threshold to the outer hallway when his eyes caught another glimpse of the broken potted plant. A tiny clump of bloody hair stuck to one jagged edge of a large piece of the pot.
    His heart skipped exactly three beats. “Holy saints.”
    He picked up the shard and gave it a whiff. He immediately tossed it back to the floor when the foul stench permeated his nose.
    Not an Obscuro.
    “Fucking Maaskab.”
    But why would they want Penelope?
     
     

CHAPTER 9
     
     
    You know that scene in Alien vs. Predator when the woman stands right in front of Mr. Predator, almost pees in her pants, and then decides to team up with him to avoid becoming alien chow? Well, facing that monster standing at my door had been exactly like that. Only, without the teaming up part because I was pretty dang sure he’d viciously murder me on the spot.
    No. Not going to be sci-fi BFFs .
    The hulking beast occupied my entire doorway with his deadly looking, soot-covered body clothed in a black leather loincloth of sorts. His hair was unlike anything I’d ever seen: long black ropes of crusty dreads down to his midsection. He looked like he’d shampooed, rinsed, and conditioned it in a slaughterhouse, and then, for good measure, did a little spritz with evil stench behind the ears.
    I immediately gagged from the smell and sprinted to the kitchen where the only weapon in the apartment lay tucked away in a drawer.
    The man, monster, demon—whatever—caught me by my hair, and I flew back with a snap that nearly broke my neck. My body arched painfully backward as he fisted my hair and pressed my head against his foul-smelling chest. Snarling and growling, his black-and-crimson eyes drilled into me.
    “What…do…you…want?” I managed to croak.
    He said nothing, but an unmistakable sense of doom crept into my bones.
    He lowered his head ever so slightly and took a long, hard whiff. His eyes rolled back in his head.
    Holy hounds of hell.
    At such an angle I felt the muscles in my back stretching and pulling in an unnatural direction. I had to do something. Anything.
    Across the back of my arm, I felt the tiny tickle of my giant, feathery philodendron that sat on the center of my coffee table. I reached out my hand and grasped a bundle of leaves close to the roots and swung hard. I landed a blow on the side of the monster’s head.
    He stumbled for a moment and released me to the floor.
    I righted myself and bolted to the kitchen where I yanked open the knife drawer and sent its contents scattering across the floor. The giant Chinese cleaver landed an inch from my big toe.
    That was a close call, little