Soul Bite
Page 1
Soul Bite
The Eden Hunter Trilogy (Book 3)
D.N. Erikson
Copyright © 2018 D.N. Erikson. All rights reserved.
Published by Watchfire Press.
This book is a work of fiction. Similarities to actual events, places, persons or other entities are coincidental.
Watchfire Press
www.watchfirepress.com
www.dnerikson.com
Cover design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design
www.bookflydesign.com
Soul Bite/D.N. Erikson. – 1st ed.
Contents
Also by D.N. Erikson
Get a Free Copy of Soul Break
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Epilogue
Also by D.N. Erikson
THE HALF-DEMON ROGUE TRILOGY
Half-demon Kalos Aeon lives by a simple code. But saving the world might force him to break it.
Demon Rogue (Book 1)
Blood Frost (Book 2)
Moon Burn (Book 3)
The Half-Demon Rogue: The Complete Trilogy
THE RUBY CALLAWAY TRILOGY
After twenty years in lockup, supernatural bounty hunter Ruby Callaway is conditionally released to help the FBI catch a killer.
Lightning Blade (Book 1)
Shadow Flare (Book 2)
Blood River (Book 3)
Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection (The Complete Trilogy and All Four Side Stories)
THE EDEN HUNTER TRILOGY
Eden Hunter reluctantly reaps souls for a vampire warlord in the island city she calls home. Until an old enemy frames her for murder.
Soul Storm (Book 1)
Soul Fire (Book 2)
Soul Bite (Book 3)
Eden Hunter: The Complete Collection
Get a Free Copy of Soul Break
To sign up for my free author newsletter and get your free copy of the Eden Hunter novella Soul Break, visit dnerikson.com/soul.
1
“Raise five thousand.”
Smoke drifted through the dim, low-ceilinged room as the ruddy-faced man sitting across the table pushed a stack of chips into the center f the green felt. The other players folded one by one, tossing their cards away in disgust.
Finally, the bet landed on me.
I rubbed a purple chip between my fingers, staring at the flop. Pretending to size up the odds.
But, really, I was trying to size up the curious newcomer. New blood wasn’t uncommon at a high stakes game of Texas Hold'em—a friend of a friend or a poker pro bankrolled by a frequent player at the table—but this guy was different.
No name, no backstory—nothing but an envelope with a hundred grand and a vague allusion to another player who hadn’t played in the game for months.
Despite his youthful appearance, this guy played poker with the grave sincerity of a man facing down a terminal illness. For him, this wasn’t a place to blow off steam, but a means to an end.
He could play, sure. But this guy was here for something else.
And he also kept asking little, prying questions. Most of them disproportionately lobbed at me.
He took a breather on that, though, as he waited for me to call or fold. Instead, he tossed one up for the group. “How long y’all been holding this game?”
“Since the last time you got laid,” Tank said. The werewolf had earned his nickname with thick arms and a cannon of a neck.
“That would be never.” A tattooed woman, who had never offered her real name—so everyone just called her, rather originally, Ink—announced, and everyone snorted at the nosy new guy’s expense.
The ruddy-faced guy didn’t notice the room chilling, though. Or he didn’t care. He just pushed his thin-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his narrow nose and asked another little question—this one directed at me. “What does it mean?”
“Gotta be more specific, man.”
“Your tattoo.” He pointed to the lantern sigil on my right wrist—the only magical spell in my arsenal, capable of an ostentatious, totally bogus display of sorcery. Like a harmless snake pretending to be one of its more venomous brethren.
My eyes didn’t leave the stack of chips at the table’s center. “This and that.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Well, if you wanna get particular, it means shut the fuck up and let me think.”
The guy to my right, an old-timer named Otto who I’d cleaned out a few days before, laughed. Not in a friendly way. “Babe’s got a point.”
The new guy, however, remained undeterred. “It’s just a friendly question, is all.”
His ruddy face was blank, devoid of emotion.
The probabilities told me to fold and split from the table while I was ahead. I had nothing but a hand full of trash—an off suit 2 and 7—and the flop was all royal: Jack, Queen, King.
But poker and life aren’t about the hand you’re dealt. They’re about the ability to bullshit your way from the brink of disaster.
Whoever does that best is the one who walks away with all the chips.
I wanted his stack. Every last chip.
Also, as a side note: fuck this guy.
So I said, “Call,” and pushed ten purple chips into the pot.
The dealer burned a card, then placed the turn card down.
A 2.
That gave me a pair. A sad pair, but a pair nonetheless.
The ruddy-faced man sipped his whiskey. “How’d you come here?”
“By pony,” I said. “I’m environmentally conscious.”
“I meant to the island. It’s a hard place to find.”
“Hey buddy, would you just fuckin’ play?” Ink glared at the new guy. “I didn’t know any better, I’d figure you for a cop.”
An artic chill ran through the stale air. Technically, I was a cop, now, of sorts: an FBI consultant, complete with my own shiny ID card. I hadn’t bothered to share that with anyone at the game.
They wouldn’t flay me alive or take my fingers, but a swift kick in the ass could be expected.
“Interesting theory,” the ruddy-face man said, his eyes still fi
xated on me. “But not as interesting as the story I came to tell.”
“About when you found your pecker?” Otto said.
More hostile laughter.
This guy wouldn’t be invited back. If he even made it out the door with his teeth intact.
“No.” The mystery man counted his chips out one by one—two grand, then four, six, eight, as he continued, “It was originally a story about murder.”
“Don’t tell me you’re some hack screenwriter,” I said.
“Four murders, actually.” The man kept counting. “But then it turned into so much more.”
“Can’t wait to hear about this.”
“It turned into a story about a woman who lost her way, only to reawaken in a land of thieves and warlords and gods.”
“Sounds a little unrealistic,” I said, nerves buzzing at the end of my fingers.
“And, despite being smart and resourceful, a noose found its way around her neck.”
“The public prefers happy endings,” I said.
“For this woman, I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“She’s in too deep—in a game she can’t win.”
His counting continued—up to forty grand, now—as my pulse rose. As annoying as his flat, monotoned inquiries had been, his poker face had served him well: he had the fattest stack in the room, other than me.
But I was less concerned about the chips now, than his little allusions.
I said, “I think your story sucks.”
“And why is that?” Seventy-two grand.
“Missing a lot of details.”
“The protagonist would need a name,” the man replied. “Emma has an interesting ring.”
My breath hitched at the mention of my given name, but my expression remained terse. “Can you just fucking bet?”
He was up to a hundred and fifty-two thousand.
I realized he was counting up his whole stack.
“But I left out the best part.” He finished the final chip and then pushed his entire stack into the middle. “Unlike most stories, the girl dies at the beginning. Not the end.”
The rest of the table held its collective breath as the tension ratcheted up to eleven.
“Sounds like you don’t have much of a story, then.” The dealer started to count the chips, and I added, “A hundred ninety-six thousand.”
The dealer raised a bushy eyebrow, knowing I was right—also knowing that it was his job to count them anyway.
After thirty seconds, the dealer nodded, indicating it was my bet.
“Well, perhaps she dies at the end, too,” the ruddy-faced man said.
“She can’t die twice. That’s impossible.”
“Everyone thought it was impossible for her to return from the dead, too. Laughed at the storyteller.” A hard edge creased over his lips. He slugged down the rest of his whiskey. “But he has proof.”
“I doubt it.”
“Four years ago, the dead girl calls her mother.” A smug gleam entered the ruddy-faced man’s blank eyes for a fragment of a moment. “Not long after the mother had buried that very daughter six-feet deep.” The slightest pause, just for effect. “And her other daughter, too.”
“Call,” I said, through gritted teeth, and pushed most of my chips into the center.
“Is that story compelling enough for you?” The man stared at me blankly as the dealer tallied my chips.
“Direct to DVD at best.” A thin bead of sweat trickled down my neck.
It was like this guy had read pages straight out of my diary.
Not that I kept one.
But it begged the damn question: How the hell did this asshole know all this?
And another, more sinister one: What did he plan to do with it?
“I was thinking more of a career-making biopic.” He leaned back in his chair. “You can get in on the ground floor. I’ll be the most famous person in America.”
“You wish.”
“We’ll see, won’t we, Emma?”
“Her name’s Eden,” Ink said, breaking the silence from the rest of the table.
“My mistake.”
Then, the ruddy-faced man did something he shouldn’t have.
He winked.
Not at me.
But at Ink.
The dealer burned a card and went to place down the river card.
Before he could, the chips were flying high in the air, the table rising from the concrete floor like a tornado had lifted it.
Tank released the table’s edge and reached for the newcomer’s shirt collar.
The ruddy-faced man slipped the grab and raced for the pock-marked door.
Not fast enough to outrun a wolf, though—even one in its human state.
Tank loped over with two long strides and lifted him by the throat.
“I should kill you for even looking at my goddamn woman.”
News to me that him and Ink were knocking boots, but it fit: rebel girl with the bad boy werewolf. A perfect cliché, down to defending his woman’s honor through force.
Extreme force, if the ruddy-faced man’s bulging eyes were any indication.
They threatened to pop straight out of their sockets after Ink got up and kicked him square in the groin. But with his windpipe cut off, he couldn’t even let out a sound.
I stepped over the scattered chips, noting that the river card had been a 7—my lucky day, I suppose, although the hand would be null and void thanks to the interrupting mayhem—and walked over, a smirk floating across my lips.
“Want a free shot, Eden?” Tank asked, swinging the man toward me like a ragdoll.
“No thanks.” I slipped my hand into the ruddy-faced man’s pleated khakis and pulled out his wallet. “Let’s see who this nosy asshole is.”
His license read Byron Murphy, but it was a worn business card peeking out from between a few ratty bills that caught my attention.
“Reporter for the Seattle Free Post, huh?” I waved the card in his face. “Long way from home, Byron.”
He managed to gasp out, “People will come looking for me. My editor knows—”
“Your editor doesn’t know shit,” I said.
“You can’t stop the truth.” His cheeks turned turnip purple as he pushed the words out.
“My, my, Byron.” I smiled—lethal and unforgiving. “I think you have the wrong impression about our little island.”
Truth be told, I had no desire to kill him. But making him piss his pants would make him think twice about pursuing this modern Lazarus tale.
My modern Lazarus tale.
“I know who you are,” he said, his face now a deathly shade of deep, unhealthy purple. Each word sounded like it was summoned through sheer force of will. “And…everyone will…they’ll all know.”
“You’re not going to let this go, are—”
My ringing phone sliced through the tense silence like a gunshot.
Everything happened fast.
The ringing caught Tank off guard.
His grip loosened, and Byron, sensing an opening, bit down hard on the massive man’s arm.
Tank howled and dropped the reporter to the grungy concrete.
Like a mouse fleeing the jaws of certain death, Byron scampered to the door and flung it open.
He was slipping into the tropical winter night before anyone moved.
Tank recovered first and caught the closing the door.
But Byron was already in his car, which was parked right out front—no doubt for a quick getaway. The engine crackled to life as the werewolf roared and grabbed the front grille.
The tires spun in reverse, and Tank crumpled to the pavement, unable to hang on.
Then the sedan screamed into the night, its headlights vanishing into the darkness.
No one said a word.
My phone rang again.
I ignored it, and it rang a third time.
I answered. “What, goddamnit?”
Rayn
a Denton, the Regional Field Director for the Atheas office, said, “Where the fuck are you, Hunter?”
“This had better be important.”
“Just come to the Tropical Estates Condos.”
“Having a party?”
Sirens swirled in the call’s background. “One of our own got killed.”
2
As I pushed the bike past fifty through the empty streets, I knew two things for certain.
One, Byron Murphy had some serious stones, trying to rattle me at the poker game.
Two, at least one person on the island had way, way bigger ones.
After all, it took serious moxie to knock off an FBI agent. That was like poking a hive full of killer wasps in a closed room. Escaping the ensuing shitstorm struck me as unlikely.
It was a short ride to the crime scene, although the surrounding scenery changed significantly during that brief span. The poker game was held in a seedy part of the island’s small city. The Tropical Estate Condos, on the other hand, were located in a nicer section of downtown—not far from Black Sea Holdings’ thirty-story headquarters. Its top third gleamed like a lantern, looming tall as I passed beneath its watchful glare.