Read Online (SPECTR 1) Hunter of Demons by Jordan L. Hawk - Free Book Online

subject without protest. Maybe he really was sorry. “Until now, Gray has never taken a live human, correct?”
    Memories flickered, too fast and jumbled to interpret. I don’t understand. Is it correct?
    “Does it matter?”
    Damn it, if you aren’t lying, if you don’t hate me, just answer the fucking question.
    The presence inside him stirred uncomfortably. “Yes. Only dead flesh. I thought I understood.”
    Understood?
    No answer. Just a feeling of unease sliding along his nerves, something which didn’t belong to him.
    Caleb rested his hands on the desk in front of him. He’d bitten his nails to the quick over the last couple of weeks. “Right. There are…memories. Fragments. Lots of them, I think. But they’re weird. Everything feels distant. Muted. There’s no color, no scents, barely any feeling.” He shook his head. “Maybe because the b-bodies were dead? I don’t know.”
    Starkweather leaned across the desk and put his hand on Caleb’s. His fingers were warm and strong. Caleb imagined pulling away, but instead found himself turning his hand palm-up. The touch made his heart race and his breathing quicken, but it grounded him at the same time because it was normal. Human.
    “Don’t apologize,” Starkweather said, his fingers curling gently around Caleb’s. “You’re doing great. Just let me know if you need to stop.”
    He never thought he’d take comfort from a Spec. “I will.”
    “There’s a lot we still don’t know about NHEs and etheric energy. Even now, it’s barely a science and more a lot of wild guesses mixed in with old superstition.”
    Caleb couldn’t suppress a snort. “I’d noticed.”
    “The one thing I do know about is manipulating energy, which is what an exorcist does to remove an NHE. If I’m going to help you, I need to find out if there’s any precedent for this situation, and if there is, how the drakul was exorcised. There are a lot of vampire myths from practically every culture across the world, most of them contradictory. Which means research might not be much help. Since Gray is being cooperative, can you ask him when and how he was first summoned?”
    Impatience. The urge to get out, to run, to hunt.
    Where did you come from? What are you?
    Indifference. Run. Hunt.
    Caleb let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “He doesn’t care. About the past. He’s not being stubborn, he just doesn’t understand why it matters to us. It’s irrelevant as far as he’s concerned.”
    Starkweather leaned forward, those intensely blue eyes focused on Caleb, his fingers tightening gently. “Ask again.”
    “You can ask for yourself. He can hear you. I—”
    Memories, coming in a jumbled torrent. Moving through the storm, within the storm, being the storm. Swooping and hunting and diving, while smaller things scattered at his coming.
    Then, suddenly, a high platform. The dense confines of a physical form around him. Women chanting in the torrential rain.
    Caleb blinked sluggishly. The office felt distant, unreal. “There’s a building…mud brick? I don’t know. Guess I should’ve paid more attention in my ancient history class, huh?
    “You’re doing great,” Starkweather murmured. “Go on.”
    “It’s big, kind of like a pyramid, but with a flat top. And people chanting. And…” he swallowed convulsively, even though the memory held no color or scent, “blood. A lot of blood. And-and bodies.”
    Gray stirred. “This…had not disturbed me before. It simply was. I dislike this questioning. You will stop now.”
    “What else?” Starkweather prodded. “What are the people wearing? Can you see any cars, or power lines, or—”
    “No. The knives—they’re stone. The priests cut their throats, cut out their hearts, and some of them are children, oh God—”
    “Stop this!”
    Caleb reeled, almost falling out of the chair, his thoughts scattered like a stack of papers swatted aside by an angry paw.
    “Caleb? Caleb!”
    He was on