Kindred (Kindred, Book 1)

by Nicola Claire

  You see, here's the thing. Often these guys allude to things. Things that I guess I should know about, but have never had the guts to ask. It's as though they all belong to the exclusive part of our club and I'm missing the link, or the invitation, to enter. It was high time I swallowed my pride and got some answers. I was just about to voice some of the questions that have long been on my mind, when Nero suddenly barked.

  “Disconnect, we have been breached. Stay strong Nos-”

  The line went dead. All connections gone. I wasn't even listening to static.

  To say I was stunned, was an understatement. So many questions were swilling around inside my head. The obvious: Why were we suddenly being hunted, why now? The old and faithful: What am I, other than a hunter, to these creatures? And the unfamiliar: What had Nero been about to call us? He had said Nos- before being cut off, but I knew there was more to the word than those three letters.

  Reluctantly, I switched my laptop off. I was so tired, despite the spike in adrenaline, I couldn't keep my eyes open. It was as if as soon as Nero uttered those three letters, my body began to relax into the safety of sleep. But I knew even in sleep, we were not truly safe.

  At least, I never seemed to be.

  Chapter 4

  Sweet Dreams

  The dream started as it always did, on a hill overlooking my parents' farm. Familiar, yet not. The lambs with their little tails waggling were in the distance drinking blissfully from their mothers. Oh, how I loved watching those tails waggle when I was young. Just like a puppy, they were in joyful, rapturous happiness snuggled in to the safety of their parent.

  I guess it was how I always felt when these dreams came visiting; safe. Oh, I knew they were of Michel's doing. But still, a sense of safety always stole over my heart when I was here, despite the thought that Michel created this vision.

  “You look sad, ma douce.” For some reason his French accent and mannerisms were not hidden in this other realm. He lowered his disguise, like a mask, when here. Letting me see him bare.

  “It's all changing. Can't you feel it?” I asked without turning to face him.

  “Sometimes, change is for the good, non? Perhaps it is time.”

  I turned then, to look at his face, to try to decipher his meaning. Of course, facing him here is always hard. Like his accent, his attire is different in my dreams. Almost as though this is the Michel he would want me to see on a daily basis, instead of the prim and proper, upstanding businessman of the city. He was wearing casual dress pants, still elegant but not stuffy, with a dark blue long sleeved shirt, open at the neck with his sleeves rolled up. The pants hugged his hips and the length of his legs like a glove, and the shirt set the colour of his deep blue eyes off to a “T”. I could see his bare chest through the opened buttons at the top of his shirt. The desire to reach out and touch his perfect cream coloured skin was electrifying.

  “There's so many questions and somehow I think you would know the answers, wouldn't you?” I looked into his eyes, daring myself to fall into the swirls of blue and indigo that lived there.

  “Yes.” One word, nothing more.

  “Then why don't you tell me?”

  He smiled then, a leisurely smile that made his face glow in the sun that reached us. Yes, in my dreams Michel could stand in the sunlight. Maybe another trick to make him appear more human, who knows. All I knew is, I loved the sun dancing along the cream and golden skin on his arms. How he must miss it.

  “Not here, ma douce. Come to me when you are ready and we shall talk.”

  “I'm ready now.” I'd had enough of hiding from the truth. I had known for some time that there was more to me than meets the eye. Obviously the supernatural magnet and being in-tune with the vampires had been a hint, but deep down, I knew there was more. I had known it from the first day I met Michel.

  It had been a couple of days after my first intrepid meeting with a vampire. There was a sudden summer storm and deep black clouds had rolled in to cover the city. Not unheard of in Auckland, if you know anything about this city, you'd know it has a high rain count. Even in the heat of summer, rain continues to fall.

  I was at work. Still my first week at my new job - Business Banker for the Bank of New Zealand in Queen Street, a job I was so proud to have landed - talking to a customer across the counter from me. He was from one of the local businesses, making his daily deposit. I'd counted his coins by hand already and was just running the notes through the counting machine, when I sensed a presence.

  You see, here's the thing. You know I said vampires don't like the sun, they try to avoid it and all that. Well, yeah, they do, but it's not impossible to go out in daylight. If there's enough cloud cover and they're not in direct sunlight and they're a mega-master level vampire, they can get away with it. Hell, for all I knew, there was a lot more that Michel could get away with, he just didn't care to show me it all at once.

  So, there he was, standing just inside the doorway to the bank. I could actually see how tall he was against those coloured strips they have on the door jam, to tell you the height of a fleeing bank robber. Well, he wasn't fleeing and he came up to the red. Over six feet tall. He just stood there and looked at me, this strange look on his face. But the thing was, it was as if no one else could see him, just me. The customers all walked around him. Not up to him or through him, or anything like that. Somehow they knew to avoid him, but they still didn't acknowledge him. Which was strange, because he glowed, not obviously, but in some ethereal way, where you couldn't take your eyes off it. It was just so compelling.

  My customer was jabbering away about the latest trend in fashion this season and hadn't noticed my statue-like appearance. Lucky. It wouldn't have been good to stand out on the first week in the new job. And suddenly Michel was in front of me, across the counter. I had no idea where my customer had gone to and when I glanced down at my hands, the counter was bare. The deposit slip sitting in its shelf, completed, my terminal screen back to the new customer page. Somehow I had lost several minutes, I had no idea how.

  Michel smiled at me. It was open and friendly, yet there was more to it than that. I couldn't open my mouth, I couldn't breathe. I knew beyond a doubt that he meant me no harm, but I also knew my life had changed and that this being across the counter was to blame. It was at that moment that I knew for certain that I was different. That there was more to me than being a girl from the farm and a bank teller in the city. But I also knew, somehow, as though Michel was telepathically telling me, that I was special. Special to him.

  I know, I know, it's sounds a little hokey, but what do you expect dealing with a more than five hundred year old vampire. And that's the thing, all of a sudden he let me see. He let me feel his power, his age, his intentions. He let me see him. And you know what? It didn't scare me. At least not then. It felt like....well, it felt like home. Weird, didn't even cover it.

  As quickly as he came, he was gone and I was left shaking from head to toe like a leaf.

  You don't forget your first encounter with a Master Vampire, I certainly won't forget Michel.

  I looked at him now, waiting for him to answer. “Are you so sure you are ready, ma douce?” he asked with that knowing smile. It irritated me, that smile. But it was all him, nothing I could do to change that. There was no point getting upset about it, he'd only smile more. Like a bloody Cheshire Cat.

  He was right though. I wasn't ready to face him here, he had too much control in this place. But in the real world, I could resist. Another visit to Sensations was on the books it seemed.

  He knew my answer before I gave it, with the shake of my head. He slowly reached up to trace the outline of my face with the fingers on his right hand. The shot of fire that went through me felt real, burning in my veins, spreading throughout my body. I shuddered a breath out and fought the urge to lean into his hand. It's only in these dreams that I let him get this close. In reality, when I get summoned to his club, I rarely let him closer than a kiss to the cheek, or my hand in his.
But here, I don't know, it just seems safer, not real. As though I can allow that part of me, the part that longs for him despite what he is, free reign.

  It's all an illusion. These dreams may not be reality, but they are real. When I wake, I will still feel his touch, still smell his expensive cologne around me, on me, still hear his whispered words inside my head. And he will remember too. He makes sure I know that. That he visits in my dreams, that he is actually there.

  So, why do I let him get so close here and not in real life? It's amazing what the mind can tell you. It can shelter you from the harsh light of day and have you believing any number of falsehoods. I let Michel close in my dreams because, although they are real, they are still to my mind, a dream.

  He made a move closer, an intensity and conviction in his eyes I hadn't seen before. As though he would test me this time, see how far I would actually let him go. But although I longed for his touch, dreamt of it, a part of me was distracted. Fancy that, a luscious dream with a gorgeous male giving me his undivided attention and my mind was wandering? Who would have thought.

  Then it dawned on me why. There was a banging in the background. A hard thumping. Fist against wood. It took only a second to latch on to that sound and the world around me on the hill above my farm vanished. The last thing I saw on Michel's face, before he disappeared and the farm we were standing on shattered, was complete and utter frustration.

  I woke in my bed to an insistent and loud banging at my door.

  If you've ever gone to bed with fatigue after a marathon, or the dull ache of a too exuberant exercise routine, or in my case post a fight with three vampires in one night, one of them a level four master, and only had five hours sleep, then you'd know what I felt at that moment as I rolled out of my bed and stumbled to the door.

  The clock on the bedside table said 10:00. I don't do 10:00 on a Sunday normally.

  I reached for the door with a grimace at the light that poured in through the frosted glass window. You'd think I'd be more careful, opening my front door to an unknown and persistent banging. But I've long gotten over my fear of the average human and the undead wouldn't step foot on my doormat. I've known for some time now, that Michel has put a protection on my property. No vampire or ghoul would dare step on a millimetre of this land. My neighbours don't know it, but they've got the safest building in the city. Besides, where-ever it is that Michel rests during the day.

  Anyway, I knew that sound. It was the ever cheerful banging of a wound up shape shifter ready for some fun. I opened the door, reluctantly taking in the fresh faced exuberance and endless electric energy of my best bud. His brown hair was in disarray, short spiky tufts of it standing out at odd angles, like he'd run through blackberry bushes backwards. His soft brown skin glowed in the morning sun and every well-toned muscle on his medium height body was defined in detail by a tight fitting white muscle shirt and hip hugging camouflage cargo pants. His feet were bare.

  “Rick,” I croaked in greeting and turned back towards the kitchen and the coffee machine. Need coffee now.

  “Whoa. You look like death warmed up.” His chocolate brown eyes twinkled with unrestrained mischief.

  I glared at him for that one.

  “Tough night huh? On the streets, or in the dreams?” he asked with one eyebrow raised.

  Rick knows about me. Everything. It was just too hard to hide it. Especially when the vamps started circling when we were out on the town one night and I had to flash silver. Silver, which as a shape shifter, he tries to avoid. We decided then and there to be honest with each other.

  You can imagine the look on my face when he first changed in front of me on my living room floor. He'd warned me by then of course. But still, if you haven't ever witnessed a Shifter change, then it's bound to have an effect. And it's not as though his alter ego is a pleasant sight. Rick's a Taniwha. That's pronounced Tan-e-far; a native Shifter to New Zealand. They are considered dangerous, predatory beings. With the razor sharp serrated teeth, large round beady eyes - the colour of their human eyes remained with them through the change to Taniwha, they just became more sinister - and four inch long claws on both front and back legs, you can see why.

  They have sand-paper skin, covered in small scales, grey on their backs with a white stripe down their fronts. The scales, along with their long, spiked tail, are designed to provide thrust and aerodynamic speed. They are shark-like in their Shifter appearance and characteristics. Although capable of running on all four clawed feet, they can move as a bipedal. Larger than their human form, Rick had taken up most of my lounge when he first shifted for me. But aside from the magic required to make the shift, his bulbous head, no neck and thick tree-like stumped legs and arms were what caught my attention the most. The size of him and the size of his very sharp serrated teeth, that is.

  “Both,” I said as I prepped the coffee machine. I love my coffee. Back on the farm it had been a stove top espresso maker, but here in the city I splashed out and got myself one of those fang-dangled uber expensive flash jobbies. You know, the kind that grinds the beans, froths the milk and even milks the cow? Yeah, it's a weakness I don't mind others knowing.

  I grabbed two mugs out of the cupboard. Both covered in pictures of bright red lipsticked lips with fangs and a blood dripping message that read: Bite Me! It's Monday. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good novelty shop.

  Rick jumped up on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter. “Come on, 'fess up. What's happening?”

  I sighed as the coffee machine poured frothy milk over two steaming mugs of espresso and handed Rick his across the bench.

  “Three last night and one was a level four master.” I was getting used to saying that, even though it still sounded foreign to my ears.

  You may think that vampire hunters spend every night hunting the undead. But that's the thing, very few vampires stray from the Iunctio's rules nowadays. It's odd to have so many in one night. I usually manage one or two each week, but they're spread over the entire week, not in one night. And how do I find them? Well, when evil comes calling in my city I just know. It's like a homing beacon or something. I just know they're here and I find them. Usually, but not always, when they're about to bite into an innocent. Nothing like getting hands-on proof you're doing the right thing.

  “Wow, that's busy. Why the action, ya think?”

  “Um, I'm not exactly sure why, but Michel reckons it's something to do with me.” I dared a glance at him across the top of the steam coming from my mug. He just looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to elaborate. “He mentioned something else. Something about a group of vampires who wish to take over the night completely. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Rick shook his head from side to side slowly. “Nah, not a thing, but let's back up a bit. Michel reckons it's something to do with you. What's that about?” Rick, being a shape shifter, is well aware of what Michel is. Shape shifters and Vampires don't normally live so closely together, but Auckland's a little different. They say it's the Ley Lines, those invisible lines inter-connecting various psychic hot-spots around the world. Well, Auckland, for some unknown reason, is the Grand Central Station of all those Ley Lines. The supernova of all coming and goings on the supernatural plain. So, even though it's not common, when these two supernatural creatures do co-exist, the vamps are on top of the food chain and the shape shifters know it. So, Rick knows what Michel is and is afraid of him. Clever boy.

  “Apparently, my status as a Hunter comes into it, but I'm not altogether sure how. There's another thing, I got on the site last night and had a pow-pow with the others. It's happening everywhere, we're all being inundated with careless and aggressive vamps. There was something that Nero said, that didn't make any sense to me at all. Something about this happening to our kind before and we prevailed, or some such guff. You know Nero, he's so melodramatic.”

  Actually, Rick didn't know Nero, but he knew what I meant. I'd conveyed enough of my conversations with the Egyptian over the past
two years for him to get a picture of what he was like.

  Rick shrugged. “So, what are you gonna do?”

  “Well, pay another visit to Michel, get some answers and then, I suppose, do what I do best. Kick some vampire butt.” I grinned at him and swallowed the rest of my coffee.

  “Cool.” Ever the relaxed Shifter. “Well, with that settled, get dressed. Celeste has been gunning for you to come visit for months, so get going we're having a party.” He got up and ushered me into the bathroom to get ready.

  There was just no arguing with a shape shifter.

  Chapter 5

  Hapū Pride

  Celeste is a member of Rick's Hapū. New Zealand shape shifters don't run in Taniwha packs, they run in a Taniwha Hapū. She's youngish, about two years older than me, that would make her 26 and the mother hen to the younger members of Westside Hapū. They call themselves that, but there's no Eastside Hapū, or Southside or whatever, it's just them. They are the Hapū of the city.

  Shape shifters aren't as prevalent as vampires and certainly not as widespread as Ghouls. Celeste is as close to a best girlfriend as I have. We get on, we laugh together and can share the odd joke at the expense of the guys, but she's still a little aloof. I'm not Hapū and I never will be. My inclusion in their world is purely at the insistence of Rick. The others tolerate it, the guys especially - hormones! But, the girls in particular are more weary. It goes against their scaly skin to disclose who they are.

  I guess a bit like a vampire.

  The Hapū have lived in Auckland for decades. Maybe even longer than the vamps. New Zealand's not that old. The Maori have been here a while, but the white man, the Pakeha, only arrived in the early 1800's. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, that's really when New Zealand as we know it today was formed. So, Taniwhas and vampires have not been here centuries like in Europe or elsewhere.

  The Hapū lives out in Whenuapai, the west of Auckland City. They own several hectares, which is slowly being encroached on all sides by urban sprawl, but they'll never sell. Their roots are too deep. The land is heavily wooded and well fenced. No one strays onto Hapū land accidentally. They can get away with it, because they're right next to the Air Force Base. All that menacing barbed wire fencing looks legit.