Read Online Hunters of the Dusk by Darren Shan - Free Book Online

covered his lidless eyes with his cloak), breathing evenly, pretending to sleep.
    Seconds passed slowly, taking an age to become minutes, and an eternity to become hours. It had been six years since my last taste of vicious combat. My limbs felt unnaturally cold, and stiff, icy snakes of fear coiled and uncoiled inside the walls of my stomach. I kept flexing my fingers beneath the folds of my cloak, never far from my sword, ready to draw.
    Shortly after midday — when the sun would be most harmful to a vampire — the humans moved in for the kill. There were three of them, spread out in a semicircle. At first I could hear only the rustling of leaves as they approached, and the occasional snap of a twig. But as they drew closer, I became aware of their heavy breathing, the creak of their tense bones, the panicked pounding of their hearts.
    They came to a standstill ten or twelve yards away, tucked behind trees, preparing themselves to attack. There was a long, nervous pause — then the sound of a gun being slowly cocked.
    “Now!”
Mr. Crepsley roared, springing to his feet, launching himself at the human nearest him.
    While Mr. Crepsley closed in on his attacker at incredible speed, Harkat and me targeted the others. The one I’d set my sights on cursed loudly, stepped out from behind his tree, brought his rifle up, and got a snap shot off. A bullet whizzed past, missing me by several inches. Before he could fire again, I was upon him.
    I wrenched the rifle from the human’s hands and tossed it away. A gun went off behind me, but there was no time to check on my friends. The man in front of me had already drawn a long hunting knife, so I quickly slid my sword out.
    The man’s eyes widened when he saw the sword — he’d painted the area around his eyes with red circles of what looked like blood — then narrowed. “You’re just a kid,” he snarled, slashing at me with his knife.
    “No,” I disagreed, stepping out of range of his knife, jabbing at him with my sword. “I’m much more.”
    As the human slashed at me again, I brought my sword up and out in a smooth arcing slice, through the flesh, muscles, and bones of his right hand, severing three of his fingers, disarming him in an instant.
    The human cried out in agony and fell away from me. I took advantage of the moment to see how Mr. Crepsley and Harkat were doing. Mr. Crepsley had already got rid of his human, and was striding toward Harkat, who was wrestling with his opponent. Harkat appeared to be winning, but Mr. Crepsley was moving into place to back him up should the battle take a turn for the worse.
    Satisfied that all was going in our favor, I switched my attention back to the man on the ground, psyching myself up for the unpleasant task of making an end of him. To my surprise, I found him grinning horribly at me.
    “You should have taken my other hand too!” he growled.
    My eyes fixed on the man’s left hand and my breath caught in my throat — he was clutching a hand grenade close to his chest!
    “Don’t move!” he shouted as I lurched toward him. He half-pressed down on the detonator with his thumb. “If this goes off, it takes you with me!”
    “Easy,” I said, backing off slightly, gazing fearfully at the primed grenade.
    “I’ll take it easy in hell.” He chuckled sadistically. He’d shaved his head bald and there was a dark “V” tattooed into either side of his skull, just above his ears. “Now, tell your foul vampire partner and that grey-skinned monster to let my companion go, or I’ll —”
    There was a sharp whistling sound from the trees to my left. Something struck the grenade and sent it flying from the human’s hand. He yelled and grabbed for another grenade (he had a string of them strapped around his chest). There was a second whistling sound and a glinting, multi-pointed object buried itself in the middle of the man’s head.
    The man slumped backward with a grunt, shook crazily, then lay still. I stared at him,