Hunting Karoly Read Online Free PDF

bitterly.
    Rocking back on my heels, I finally let the dog lie down in the middle of the map, from where he swished his tail at me and with huge, soulful eyes requested a walk.
    Well, I could let them do it. I hated their damned Centre anyway. Even school libraries beat that shit and God knew it would be no hardship to come home. My mother would tolerate it and Dog would be delighted. My friends would never bring up the subject of my failure. I could get another job, another flat…
    And yet it went against the grain to let the bastards win. That was the only reason I hadn’t told them to stuff it already. I was determined to show them— something ! They treated me like some sort of hybrid of country bumpkin and blithering fool, determinedly misunderstanding my accent and ridiculing me ’til I was twice as clumsy as normal. But I wasn’t a country bumpkin. I had grown up on rougher city streets than most of them had crossed and I was at least as streetwise as they had learned to be since. Nor was I ignorant or foolish. I had a good degree from Glasgow University and a postgrad diploma from Strathclyde to prove it. What I wasn’t —and this did hold me back, under the circumstances—was a good psychic.
    Although I’d bloody recognized that vampire! As soon as I’d seen him, I’d spotted something powerful in him and when I’d looked into his eyes, I’d known immediately, without doubt, despite the fact that I was rat-arsed and despite the extreme unlikelihood. And he had known me! He had called me vampire hunter!
    Well, he had called me “ little vampire hunter,” but it was the same thing, wasn’t it? Almost?
    Excitement began to mount. This was something I could do.I didn’t need Nigel’s silly maps. I knew if I went back to the hotel, I would be able to feel where he had been. And follow him to wherever he had gone.
    I stood up so fast that the dog leapt up with me and began to bark.
    “All right, Dog,” I said. “Let’s go and find my Bonnie Prince Karoly!”
    * * * * *
     
    It was a typical spring day in Glasgow—gray, wet and cold. The Caledonia Hotel overlooks the River Clyde. Since it’s made up of several converted Georgian or early Victorian terraced houses, both the architecture and the inner features of the hotel are beautiful, which is why it’s so popular for weddings. Poor Maggie, who’d only booked a year in advance, had had to make do with a Friday rather than the Saturday she’d originally wanted for her reception.
    Today, on this miserably drizzling Saturday afternoon, there were two wedding receptions being prepared. Leaving the outraged Dog tied to the railings, I walked up the steps and into the hotel. One sign proclaiming “Drummond wedding” pointed upstairs to the smaller function suite and the other directed guests along the passage to the rooms where we’d celebrated Maggie’s nuptials yesterday. Since it was still a little early for guests, the hotel staff were all busy elsewhere and I made it to the empty dining room unchallenged.
    Here, I paused in the doorway, as he had when I had first seen him. If I closed my eyes, which I did, I could feel the same tingle I had then. It could have been memory, just because he’d looked so damned gorgeous standing there proud as a king in his stolen antique kilt…
    Slowly, I walked into the room, following the path I had seen him take before I’d got distracted by Davie and Jackie. The tingle came with me. Gradually, I managed to blot out the hotel noises, the banging crockery in the distance, the shout of laughter from the kitchen and just concentrate on myself, on the air I stepped through. The tingle grew stronger.
    The door to the conservatory stood open. When I walked through it, it was as if somebody hit me. I truly felt his presence like a blow, the same chill of knowledge and recognition that had struck me the moment I gazed into his eyes last night. Only now I was looking for it, open to it, and it felt magnified a