(SPECTR 1) Hunter of Demons Read Online Free PDF

NHE stared at him unblinking. “Gray,” it said, and this time there came the flash of fangs behind its lips.
    Fucking hell. Of all the times for Sean to be right. Drakul indeed.
    “Gray?” he repeated stupidly.
    “Everything was gray.” Oh. Not a name, then. “Muted. Even the memories of the dead were faded and ghostly. Now there is color. And smells. So many. I never knew there was any scent except for demons.”
    Stranger and stranger. “You mean NHEs? Non-Human Entities? We, er, don’t call your kind demons anymore.”
    The drakul—Gray, he couldn’t help but think of it now—shot him an annoyed glare. Apparently, John had a talent for pissing it off. “They are not my kind. Demons are food. I am not food. Therefore, I am not a demon.”
    “Demons—I mean, other NHEs—are…food?” Goddess, he sounded like an idiot, just repeating things back, but this entire conversation was crazy. Maybe this was a dream. Maybe he’d wake up in bed, and Caleb would turn out to be some completely normal, non-possessed hottie he’d picked up in a bar.
    Except the crackle of energy rolling off Gray, vast and dangerous as a thunderstorm, was too real to be part of any dream. Let alone the hard-on John was still sporting.
    “Of course.” Irritation again, as if John were a particularly stupid child. “I hunt them. I eat them.” Gray raised one hand, fingers curling, each one tipped with a retractable claw, like a cat’s. “There was one here. I have been tracking it, but it found me first. The mortals got in my way. They destroyed the body I inhabited. So I took the nearest one.” Confusion crossed over the impassive features. “But he did not remain dead.”
    Ah. Was this why it bothered to talk to him in the first place? Was he—it—whatever—looking for answers?
    “Someone gave him CPR.” John hesitated, but what else was he going to do? “Leave him. If you truly only hunt, uh, demons, then leave Caleb’s body and find another.”
    A low growl issued from Gray’s throat, like a rumble of thunder. Then he was only inches from John’s face, and oh fuck how had he moved so fast? His black hair whipped around his head like angry snakes, snapping in the wind, and his lips drew back to expose the jut of fangs. Adrenaline sent John’s heart into overdrive, but he forced himself not to flinch, not to even blink.
    “I cannot.” Anger in the words now, and fear. “I leave when one body is destroyed, to the nearest suitable. But I do not choose. I did not intend for this to happen, but it has, so—”
    A shudder ran through the drakul suddenly. The storm front of energy beating against John’s skin shivered—and vanished, collapsing inward.
    Caleb staggered, his brown eyes blinking in terror. His hair hung tangled around his face, and the hand he lifted to brush it away had no trace of claws.
    “Oh God,” he whispered, in an ordinary voice without fangs or a bass roll of thunder beneath it. “It didn’t work, did it? It didn’t fucking work!”
    *   *   *
    John stood on the half-collapsed porch, wishing he had a stiff drink. Maybe he could take up smoking; at least he’d have something to do other than stand there shivering from a chill which had nothing to do with the pre-dawn air.
    “Your assessment, Agent Starkweather?” Kaniyar asked, calm and collected. As if she hadn’t been standing in the shadows just behind him during the attempted exorcism. As if she hadn’t felt the incredible storm of etheric energy boiling out of Caleb’s slight frame.
    He forced his back straight and met her gaze. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “Told you,” Sean muttered.
    Kaniyar arched a brow. “I need more to go on.”
    “I don’t have any more!” He caught himself, then went on more calmly. “Gray—the NHE—is powerful. Beyond anything I’ve ever seen or read about. Right now I don’t have anything to call it other than what Sean did. A vampire. Drakul.”
    “You think it has enough