Free Honor Calls by Caridad Piñeiro

Chapter 1
    Michaela had been tracking the vampire since she’d sensed the elder during her scouting mission in Central Park.
    He wasn’t the one she sought, but the heightened thrum of his power told her he had just killed. Reason enough to pursue him until she could find the right vampire and dispatch him.
    Then and only then could she leave New York City for a kinder, gentler place.
    She discovered the elder vamp’s victim just beyond one of the jogging paths. The kill was fresh, the scent of the elder strong on the female runner who had been tossed into the underbrush like garbage. As Michaela bent to examine the jogger’s body in its shredded clothes, she realized the vampire had not just been content to drain the woman of blood. The victim had been sexually assaulted as well and in the most brutal of ways—ripped apart by the vampire sating his lust.
    Michaela opened her senses to pick up every last scintilla of the elder’s trail, from the metallic taste of the victim’s blood on his breath to the unique wake of energy the immortal left behind.
    She reached the southern end of the park and something ahead of her spooked one of the horses attached to a hansom cab waiting along Central Park South. The animal reared up, hooves flailing.
    She darted behind the cab and caught a glimpse of a blurry figure speeding through Grand Army Plaza. As she raced to the fountain in the center of the square, the pulse of undead power beat at her more strongly, signaling that she was getting closer to the ancient vampire.
    Another indistinct flash weaving through the pedestrians on Fifth Avenue confirmed the immortal was within her reach.
    She focused on that vague shape, keeping a watchful eye and a respectful distance as she chased after him. She could not engage the vampire elder out in the open where either humans or other vampires might see what was happening. To do so might expose her presence in the city and possibly bring down the wrath of the vampire council.
    Despite her caution, the elder must have sensed that he was being followed.
    He increased his speed, weaving in and out of the humans on the sidewalks, climbing to the rooftop of a building in lower Midtown Manhattan and leaping from one structure to the next before dropping to the ground. The vampire moved at an almost frantic pace, as if he knew the nature of her mission.
    Michaela kept up her determined pursuit, patiently waiting for the moment when the time would be right. She dodged pedestrians and vehicles as the vampire attempted to elude her, well aware that she had to act before the immortal reached the safe haven of the Blood Bank.
    If he made it there, she would have to pull back and wait for another night. There were too many undead in that place to risk a confrontation within its doors.
    Too many, and she was just one against them.
    She drove back the crush of loneliness that nearly choked her, reminding herself that there was no other way. Her life held too much death and destruction; it hindered any kind of personal commitments.
    The few people she had allowed to get close had run away when they discovered the truth about her existence.
    The truth about her.
    Or they’d ended up dead.
    In Union Square, the vampire geared down to human speed, using that pace to lose himself amongst the many mortals still present in the park. The beat of the humans’ life forces and their scents served to disguise his presence.
    Michaela paused at the far edge of the square, examining the walkways, attempting to separate the humans from her undead prey, but she was unable to pin down the immortal. She waited, hopeful that once the elder moved beyond the boundaries of the crowded area, she would be able to pick up his presence once again.
    Her wait was futile.
    Long minutes passed with no activity that she could discern.
    She finally acknowledged that she had been bested by his subterfuge, but that didn’t mean the chase was over.
    She knew just where the vampire was