Weaken the Knees (The Immortal World Book 6)

by Shannon A. Hiner

  Will watched the humans, his shoulders shaking as he thanked God Rene wasn’t seated next to him at that moment. More than once during a Gathering she’d stood up and shouted, “OY!” at the top of her lungs when Hadrian was ready to give his opening speech and the room wouldn’t quiet. Will was half tempted to do so himself: it always worked. Always. Too much attention though. It would draw the human’s leaders’ eyes to him, and they should have been smart enough to know what he was. They weren’t . . . but it was a stupid chance to take.

  “Excuse me,” Marissa called out, snapping her fingers. “May I have your attention please?”

  Elbows shoved under arms got the rest of her audiences’ attention. All heads faced forward, eager and delighted with anticipation.

  “Thank you.” Marissa smiled tightly, her annoyance with the group was fresh roadkill, ugly and slow to die. “Thank you so much for coming, once again. Ever since losing our beloved Stephen, we have struggled to find new identity, I know. As one who survived a vampire attack, repelling it by his blood alone, he was an inspiration to us all. His untimely heart attack,” yes, they were lying about his disappearance; probably wasn’t good press to advertise that just because the vampires couldn’t drink their blood didn’t mean they couldn’t kill every person in the room, “was a shock and a tragedy, but we are his legacy. And we will live on well after him, and continue his vision of eradicating all of the blood sucking demons infesting this city and indeed, the world.

  “Some of you have heard already, and I’m sure you must be nearly as excited as I am, that we have recently come into contact with someone who hunts these demons. Hunts and kills them. I have invited the Vampire Hunter here to speak to us tonight and tell us what these creatures are truly like, and how to defeat them. If you would like to take notes, I strongly encourage it. We will have time for questions afterward, so please hold those until the end.

  “Now, please stand and give a very warm welcome, to Erica Brooks.”

  Will snorted as he stood, hiding his laughter behind the back of his hand with a fake cough. From the side door a rather tall young woman stepped out, shoulder length blonde hair framing her face, with long side-swept bangs that obscured the color of her eyes. The only thing discernible about them was the extremely thick, dark eyeliner and twenty coats of mascara that turned her eyelashes into spider legs. Even from across the room, Will could see them crawling down her cheekbones.

  She was dressed in black leggings and boots. A dark amethyst tank top covered her torso, but her arms were left bare—well, bare of a jacket. Instead her arms were strapped with wood stakes, chains of silver, and some sort of glowing indigo liquid in tiny bottles. Around her neck she wore a heavy silver cross. Around her waist was a holster sporting five more wooden stakes as well as a wooden axe and a couple more silver chains. Her legs were left free, though there did appear to be the silver tip of something poking out of each bootleg. And the toes of the boots also glinted silver, as if there were hidden knives within. Tattoos of Latin words and Celtic runes covered every inch of exposed skin from her neck down.

  He couldn’t help it, he gave a bark of laughter. Unfortunately the applause had just started to die down as the crowd took their seats again, eager to hear Erica Brooks speak. Many turned to look at him in confusion when they heard it. Will coughed into his arm and waved them off with a quick apology. At the front of the room Ms. Brooks was glaring silver daggers straight through him.

  “You may laugh,” she said loudly, never taking her eyes off him as he sat. Her voice was smooth and cool as the ocean after a hurricane, deceptive in its calm. “You may smile, and chuckle, nudge your neighbor. You can do all those things. Enjoy them. While you can. Because I’ll tell you one thing right now, if you’re not ready to take this seriously, you’re going to be dead before you know it.”

  The room was perfectly quiet now, focused on the speaker and nothing else. Eyes wide, drinking up her words, her demeanor. She was selling and they were ready to buy, preorder, and wait outside the store for two days just to be the first to have their hands on her product. Hmm, her product. Will’s eyes took in the way her leggings hugged her legs as she slowly strode back and forth in front of them.

  “Hunting vampires is the most dangerous thing you could ever think of doing. This isn’t big game hunting, this is the only game worth hunting. They aren’t panthers, or tigers, or wolves. They are all of those. They are all of those and hawks, eagles—with the strength of an elephant. The rage of the bear. And you. You are what they hunt. You think you can hunt them back? Can kill something that lives off your blood?”

  A shiver rippled through crowd as she worked them. Her voice lowered menacingly as she picked out and stalked the weakest of the group. “Are you going to sneak up on them? They can hear you, smell you, taste you, from a mile away. Are you going to chase after them? They can outrun you, disappear from plain sight, get behind you and be fang deep before you even know they’ve disappeared.”

  She moved quickly, darting behind one of the audience members and posing by his neck, mouth hovering over the throbbing vein just below his ear. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply. When those coal-lined orbs reopened, they were even darker, her pupils were almost entirely engorged, eating up the irises and leaving nothing left.

  “What is stronger?” Her whisper echoed in the room. “The will to survive? Or the desire to feed?” Moving away from the man—he shuddered and collapsed against the back of his chair as soon as she was away from his neck—she stalked through the crowd to stand directly in front of Will. “For vampires, they are one and the same.”

  Their eyes met and he couldn’t help it. Will only just managed to keep the smile off his mouth—his lips were twitching, he knew they were—but there was no way to keep it out of his eyes. Hers narrowed dangerously on him. The stare down was brief, he wasn’t worth her time.

  Turning in a slow circle on one heel, she looked out over the rest of the room and said, “Change of plans. Instead of questions and answers, we are going to do a little hands-on activity. See how much you don’t know, teach you something useful. Who’s up for a quiz on identifying a member of the undead?”

  Two thirds of the hands in the room went up. She smiled slowly. “Excellent.”

  Returning to the front of the room, she faced the assemblage once more and squared her shoulders. Her mouth was carved in a Mona Lisa smirk as she met the eyes of her audience. “The first thing you must remember is this: Vampires are counting on your stupidity. Constantly. Humans are oblivious. They see what they expect to see. You need to be more observant. You need to trust your instincts. Vampires are your natural enemy, your body and mind will warn you when one is near. It’s up to you to listen.”

  A hand raised in the second row. Her eyes sharpened on the human. “Hold your questions please. If you still have any at the end, you may voice them then.” The hand lowered slowly. Ms. Brooks sniffed derisively, raising one supercilious brow and purposefully turning away from the human. “Where was I? Ah, yes, you need to listen to your instincts. When you’re in the vicinity of a vampire, you’re sure to feel a pressure in your chest, just above your heart. That’s your blood starting to pump adrenaline, readying the rest of your body to run.”

  Several humans reached up to touch rub their chests, frowning. A couple even glanced around.

  “Next will be the shiver of foreboding. A chill will sweep over your neck, slicing down your arms. This is your mind recognizing the creature, processing information your eyes haven’t yet keyed on. What kind of information? That’s the next point: physicality.”

  She was walking through the group again, wending her way through chairs slowly, circling like a shark. “Vampires are nothing like humans. Your mind is trying desperately to tell you that. You can smell them, they don’t smell human. There’s no scent of perspiration, no slow decay of getting older. They smell sweet, soothing. Don’t be soothed. It’s a trap.”

  More eyes wandering about the room,
some subtle sniffing. The corner of Will’s mouth was twitching again. The human next to him glanced his direction, then away again. Crossing his arms, Will leaned back in his chair and watched her work.

  “They move differently.” She paused next to one woman, looking down with her cool gaze, then proceeded to walk a slow, predatory circle around the woman’s chair. “Too smooth, too controlled, like they’re trying not to run, trying not to scare you away. If you’re their prey, they’ll find reasons to touch you, and you’ll notice how cool their skin is, hard like living stone, impenetrable.” She trailed her fingers over the shoulders of the human woman, then moved past Will’s chair again, brushing them across the back of his neck almost fondly. He closed his eyes to savor it. Her fingers didn’t feel cool to his skin, they were almost warm. The human didn’t have the same reaction though, instead her eyes widened and she shivered, pulling her scarf tighter around her neck.

  The humans were all shifting now. Even Marissa looked uncomfortable. She didn’t appear to know where to look; her eyes kept passing over the gathered humans as if there was a wolf among the sheep, but they never rested longer on Will than necessary. Then she would look back at her special guest with confusion and burgeoning suspicion. She hadn’t yet reached any conclusions, but her thoughts clearly indicated she believed she’d made a mistake. Maybe a big one.

  Brooks had circled back to the front of the room once more, the smirk gone from her face and replaced by a serious expression. “Do you want to know the worst part of all this? You’re fighting a battle against something worse than vampires through all this. You’re fighting yourself. Your own thoughts will be telling you vampires don’t exist. None of this is possible. You’re imagining things. You think you believe in vampires? Wait until you’re face to face with one. Your mind will turn on you. Tell you you’re crazy. Tell you your instincts are just on the fritz.”

  She reached out and plucked one empty chair out of the first row and banging it against the concrete floor with a sound that crashed and echoed through the room, startling the humans so they jumped and cursed. Sitting on it backward, she rested her arms against the backrest and looked out over the group.

  “So,” she said, “you want to hunt vampires?”

  The humans sat in stunned silence, all pounding hearts and gooseflesh. Will shook his head slowly. Incredible.

  Silence stretched through the room for an awkward long moment until it seemed as if she were truly waiting for an answer. None was forthcoming, and the humans began to shift nervously. Tilting her head, she smirked once more. “Okay, if you want to be vampire hunters, start now. Identify the vampire in this room and kill it.”

  Again they were looking about, examining each other, already wide eyes widening further, sweat breaking out on their skin as they sniffed at each other.

  “Kill it,” Brooks said again. “Before it kills you.”

  Standing suddenly, she knocked over the metal chair and it clattered loudly to the ground, breaking the tense silence and creating a chain reaction that moved through the room faster than Will’s eyes could follow. The humans scrambled from their seats, unarmed and panicking, the scent of their fear permeated the room. More chairs hit the ground, scattering, banging together as their former occupants broke for the exits.

  Screams resounded through the poor acoustics of the room, echoing and piercing. They pushed at each other, and the shock of touch frightened some even more. Turning on each other, the group became a desperate melee. Fists and knees were thrown.

  Through it all, Will kept his seat in the back of the room, arms crossed over his chest as the room descended into utter chaos and destruction. The majority of the humans escaped out into the streets of the city, though a few were left groaning, injured and trampled on the floor. At the front of the room, the instructor was smiling still, her pose mimicking Will’s.

  When calm finally came over the room again some long minutes later, she pulled the hair off her head, blonde locks exchanged for the deep brunette underneath, and sauntered toward Will.

  “Well,” Rene said. “How was I?”

  “Inspiring. I hope you enjoyed yourself.”

  Smoothing her hair, she grinned. “I did.”

  “So did I.” Will met her halfway. “You want to go get dinner?”

  “Ugh, yes,” she said. Grabbing his arm and pulling it around her neck, she leaned into his side. “I’m starving.”

  “What are you in the mood for? A-positive?”

  “Too upbeat.”

  “B-negative?”

  “Perfect.”

  Not Quite . . .

  The End.

  Acknowledgements

  To Stephenie Meyer – I didn't mean the dedication. Honest. Thanks for helping inspire my teenage heart and point me in the direction of the undead. We may disagree on our vampire lore, but I think we agree that they're awesome.

  To Dutch Bros. Coffee – none of this would be possible without you: You. Complete. Me.

  To Pangur Ban – Thanks for keeping me company when I drink. I forgive you for the hairballs.

  To the guy who told me “loving coffee isn’t a personality trait” – First of all, how dare you, sir? Secondly, you don’t know me.

  To all the people who keep calling me “nice” – I hope you know better now.

  Oh, and Prince Charming? You're late. I'll save myself.

  Special thanks to the #WriterBaeTribe, as usual – Your love for my broken murder baby, Rene, has kept me pushing on this project from day one. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I still hear Grem yelling “TIMELINES” in her best Heimlich voice.

  The Immortal World

  Welcome to the world of immortals. All around you, yet always unseen. They move among us, even interact on occasion, but you'll never know, until it's too late . . .

  A series of standalone novels set in the same world, The Immortal World can be read in any order.

  But beware, once it touches your life, there's no going back.

  Only The Stars Know

  Rowan is a town that is seldom left, or found.

  Within the cottage on the edge of town, Kali finds the quiet solitude that she has sentenced herself to. Keeping herself away from people, she hopes she can escape a past that leaves her terrified of her own subconscious.

  Zane left the town twelve years ago and was never heard from again. Now he has returned to seek the advice of old friend, only to find Kali in residence instead. While he will not reveal himself to his family and friends, something about Kali keeps drawing him back to the cottage.

  He must leave soon though, tonight…because the ones who took him years before, are coming.

  They will never stop looking for him.

  Shadows On the Wall

  Her memories are missing. She doesn't even know her own name. her master calls her Cameo, but it has never felt right.

  Her body is held as a slave, forced to hunt her own kind The depraved vampire who has taken her freedom has also convinced her she is weak, and has no where else to go.

  Over the years, Anthony's bloodlust has strayed into the forbidden: other immortals.

  When Anthony sends Cameo after a shape shifter named Daniel it becomes clear that he has chosen the wrong victim. Daniel is surrounded by is vampire friends, one called David in particular. Besides being very protective of his friend, David also develops a disconcerting interest in Cameo.

  As the web of lies spun around Cameo starts to unravel, it isn't only her memories she finds, but her strength and something new too: her anger.

  Die For Me Again

  It isn’t easy being a seven hundred year old Roman Catholic vampire, to say the least, but whether or not Angela Estrada could enter a church became the least of her worries the day she reluctantly became the leader of her clan.

  Connor is having a really weird day. First, he was chased by a pack of wolves until he collapsed, sure he was about to be eaten alive. Now, the most terrifyingly beautiful creature he has ever
seen is demanding answers he cannot give.

  Vampire law dictates that Angela kill the human just for discovering the immortal city of Discord, but lurking behind his eyes is a voice from Angela’s past that has haunted her for nearly 600 years. She lets Connor live, against the wishes of everyone including her best friend, Damon, and the vampire leader, Hadrian.

  Determined to find the truth, whatever the cost, Angela must face not only her most painful memories, but also the possibility that Connor is possessed.

  Either that, or she is finally losing her mind.

  Tears You Apart

  Hadrian Catane never wrote a law he couldn’t keep. Until now. Hadrian’s Laws are very clear on vampire-human interaction: No human can know of the immortals’ existence; those who do must die.

  Aubrianna Pennington only wanted a quick drive to clear her head. She would have been home for dinner if it wasn’t for the accident. In the dark and the rain, an angel comes for her, but not to take her to the afterlife.

  Drawn by crippling pain to a scene of destruction, Hadrian finds Aubri dying. The mysterious bond that connects them allows Hadrian to feel all of her agony. As she slips closer to death, it’s impossible to know if she’ll take him with. Forced to act on instinct, he chooses to

  save her.

  Unrest stirs within the vampire hierarchy. With werewolf attacks on the rise, all eyes are on Hadrian as the leader of the Immortal World. His realm is on the brink of civil war and the last thing Hadrian needs is to show any weakness, but in keeping Aubri alive he may end up breaking every single one of his Laws.