Free (SPECTR 1) Hunter of Demons by Jordan L. Hawk

urgent. How long would Gray tolerate a delay? How long before he had to feed?
    Uncertainty. “The demons kept my bodies from decay. If I did not feed enough, the corpse began to fail, until I was forced into a newer one. But you are alive. You heal.”
    “So maybe you don’t have to hunt.” Shit, now he was talking aloud to the voice in his head. At least no one was there to see it.
    “I refuse to starve. We must go. The other mortal cannot prevent it.”
    You’re wrong. Wait…if he could keep control long enough, prevent Gray from feeding, would the drakul weaken to the point he could be exorcised?
    Unease. “The other mortal wishes to trap me in a bottle. Destroy me. But others have tried and none have succeeded.”
    A stream of memories, like old film, colorless and with only muted sound: chants and candles and nets of knotted seaweed; silver knives and iron stakes and incense.
    Too much; too many. Caleb stumbled, grabbing at the back of the couch.
    The parade of memories stopped, and Gray flinched back. “I do not wish to hurt you. Only to show you there is nothing to fear.”
    “I’m not afraid of Starkweather, you moronic demon!” Caleb shouted. “I’m afraid of you!”
    “That is foolish. Also, I am not a demon.”
    Caleb pushed back to his feet and ran his hands through his hair, letting it fall around him. God, please let Starkweather find something, anything, because he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take.
    Something hit the half-circle window in front of him.
    Caleb’s heart impacted the back of his throat. Had it been a bird? Going to the window, he peered out into the water-streaked day. Jesus, if he had to watch some poor animal die in the yard because he couldn’t walk out the fucking door, he’d go crazy.
    No bird. But there was a figure in a hoodie standing at the iron gate. Seeing him at the window, it tilted its head back to let him glimpse beneath the hood.
    Melanie.
     

Chapter 11
     
    John took another sip of coffee and rubbed eyes which ached from staring at a computer screen for hours. At least most of the records were digitized now; back in the 1970’s, when the agency had first formed, researchers had to consult the original books or badly-photocopied replicas. Now even the rare medieval texts housed in the Vatican had been scanned and uploaded to an international database.
    He’d run search after search on vampires. Even using the strictest parameters, he’d ended up with a list of hits as long as his arm—and every damn one of them useless.
    Etheric entities had barely begun to be categorized and studied scientifically. The earliest solid work had come in the 17 th century, and even then, it was still two-thirds superstition and one-third actual observation. Before the Enlightenment, treatises on NHE’s cast them as demons, angels, or demigods, depending on the cultural bias of the writer. Any observations of their behavior were hopelessly tainted by religious doctrine.
    None of the reputable sources described NHEs powerful enough to animate the dead, let alone ones which preyed on other etheric entities. On the other hand, the folklore was filled with garbled stories of walking, blood-drinking corpses, which could only be defeated by trapping them in their graves in some way—including the traditional staking—or through decapitation, removal of various vital organs, or fire. In other words, rendering the corpses uninhabitable.
    Considering such measures would kill Caleb, and presumably only force Gray into another corpse, it didn’t really help.
    Killing a possessed person was an act of last resort. Some agents regarded it as inevitable, but he viewed it as a failure. And yes, after the forty day period, there was simply no saving the host, whether eager faust or unwilling victim. By then, they were usually preying on other people in some fashion or other, and public safety had to come first.
    But he didn’t like it. The incident at the brothel, which Sean