Twilight Hunter (The Execution Underground) Read Online Free PDF Page A

single table, several overhead drop lights and the mounds upon mounds of old crates they’d put in to make the place seem more like an actual warehouse. Someone would be hard-pressed to find the switch that opened the door to the hidden room that held the Rochester division’s headquarters, unless they moved a hell of a lot of wooden crates. Even if they located the keypad, they would still be faced with the code and the body scanner.
    Damon spoke. “You’re la—”
    “No.” Jace held up one finger, cutting Damon off. He took a long pull on his cigarette, exhaled, then glanced down at his watch with a smug grin on his face. “ Now I’m late.”
    Damon’s face hardened into a frozen mask, but Jace knew the overwhelming anger that lay beneath that cold, impassive stare. Jace felt rage—it was in his blood—but Damon took angst and made it into a lifestyle. Head of the council and the fiercest vampire slayer Jace had ever seen, Damon Brock never smiled, and he sure as hell couldn’t take a joke.
    “Sit down,” Damon ordered.
    Jace flopped into one of the hard, metal chairs and propped his dirt-covered boots on the table. David sat at Damon’s right side with his large hand covering his black goatee as he snickered.
    Jace nodded in his direction. “How’s it going, Big Daddy?”
    “Not too bad, sugarplum.” A smirk crept across David’s face, reaching all the way to his black eyes.
    Jace had never seen a woman who didn’t give David the “look” as soon as she met him, taking in that dark hair shaved close to his head, near-black irises, golden skin and chiseled features, scanning up and down his tall, massively built body, lingering on his massive shoulders and irresistible grin. But the entire time Jace had known him, David had had only two things on his mind: toasting demons and banishing their sorry asses back into hell, and Allsún, a girl he would never have again.
    Jace and David exchanged smirks. David may have kept Jace in check and coming to meetings, but he wasn’t beyond goofing off a bit to grate on Damon’s nerves. Damon always responded as if they were undermining the entire division, making it almost impossible to resist fulfilling his paranoid expectations at least occasionally.
    A grim look crossed Damon’s face. “What have you two been doing in your spare time?”
    Jace fought not to roll his eyes at the predictable question. Damon was always suspecting him and David of conspiring over something. “Getting more action than you, that’s for sure,” he said. As a matter of fact, he could think of a very naked, gorgeous woman he would like to get some action with at that very moment. He shook his head. Now was definitely not the time. “Of course, none of us is getting as much as Shane over there. Ain’t that right, kid?” He winked.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And if you mean sexual intercourse, then no.” Shane fiddled with the buttons on his dress shirt. Though he was dressed to a nerdy tee, as usual, behind his gold-rimmed glasses and shy attitude there was a fighter in there, and Jace knew that if Shane would just ditch the specs and let loose, his problems with women would be cured.
    “Come on, Shane. One of these days you’ll need to get familiar with the ladies.” David lightly punched Shane’s arm.
    Damon frowned. “If all of you would stop goofing around, we’ve got a bunch of mutilated dead girls to talk about.”
    Like he would ever forget that vicious mess he’d encountered in the alley, Jace thought, and pulled hard on his cigarette. “Mutilated dead girls—way to spoil the mood.”
    Damon’s eyes narrowed into thin slits, his permanent grimace still in place. “Mouths shut and weapons in the bin. You know the drill. McCannon, you first.”
    Damon grabbed a plastic bin from the floor, placed it on the table and pushed it forward. All weapons went into the bin before anyone was allowed to enter the HQ room. Standard protocol given the