Page 13 of Silver Claw

“She saved your life,” he said. “Or at least your sanity. The more power there is to lose, the emptier the victim. She cut you to—”

“Fill the empty spaces,” I whispered. “Because otherwise I would collapse in on myself like a crushed paper bag.”

The siphoner really believed she was hunting down the evil and getting rid of it. She really believed I was the bad guy, and she was making sure I didn’t take over the world or some shit. She didn’t care about getting to know the supernaturals she attacked and devastated. She didn’t care about the trauma and destruction she left in her wake. She believed she was doing the right thing. The necessary thing.

I believed she shouldn’t exist.

“She may hang around for a few days,” Max said. “The more power they have to destroy, the harder it is on them.”

“I also beat the hell out of her,” I told them. “I couldn’t believe she got up from what I did to her.”

Max looked up from his phone. “As I said. Super strong. Super fast. Able to take damage like a video game boss.”

“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t get hurt,” Joe said. “It just means she’s going to be harder to kill.”

“But not impossible?” Zach frowned. “She’s not immortal?”

“No,” Max told him. “She definitely can die.”

“All this talk about killing and dying,” my mother scolded. “Kait is back with us and she’ll heal. We should focus on that joy.”

And we would. We would.

I’d shift and run through the woods of Shadowfield with Jared and I would finish healing. But as soon as I was healed, I was going to track an injured siphoner.

I was going to kill her so she could never again do to another person what she’d done to me.

Chapter Five

Either Anika Draper was hiding from me, or she’d left the city. Not even Bastien, the Clinton County vampire master, could find her. He didn’t think she’d fled, though. He, like Max, believed she was holed up somewhere close, trying to recover from the damage my magic and my blade had dealt her.

I was becoming a little obsessive, because in my heart—and no matter what Max or my own research told me—I believed I could retrieve what she’d stolen. Surely some of it remained inside her. I absorbed power. I could soak up whatever lingered, and if none of my magic was left, I’d take hers.

It occurred to me that she might have taken my ability to absorb power, but I wouldn’t dwell on that. No sense being negative.

Not quite a week after my attack, I was back to work. Half the supernaturals in the city were hunting the siphoner, and I had no doubt that we’d find her eventually. Even if she left Jakeston. I’d track her down. No matter where she went.

But I had other responsibilities, as well.

“I sure enjoy this, Kaity Bug,” Joe said. “Riding shotgun with you, chasing ghosts, killing…” He frowned, his voice fading.

“Vampires?” I asked helpfully.

He pursed his lips. “Bad guys,” he said. “I missed being normal.”

I laughed. “We hunt vampires and rogue supernaturals. We take clients who need us to get rid of their ghosts. We fight demons and protect the city. You’re a vampire, I’m a wolf. When have weeverbeen normal?”

Remy Simon leaned up from the back seat. “Staking vampires is the most fun, isn’t it?”

Joe didn’t let the hunter rile him. “Sometimes breaking a hunter’s face and making a meal out of him is even more fun.”

Andthatriled Remy, who, as a human hunter, was a little on the biased side. “Sick bastard,” he growled.

I knew Remy was sticking close to me because he now believed that I was at risk of being killed by whatever I came up against, but I didn’t mind. I wanted a fight to come so I could prove to them all that I was still Kait Silver. That I could still fight and come out on top.

And maybe I wanted to prove that to myself, as well.

Joe grinned and gave me a wink when I glanced at him, but before he could say anything, my cell phone rang.