Chapter 1

How can something so beautiful be so evil?

"I'm not evil, you know," she said.

Great, now the bitch is reading my mind, Clark thought.

"And I can't read your mind. I've just been around for a very long time. I've met a lot of your kind."

It took a considerable amount of Gabrielle's will power to keep her fangs from growing at the sight of the dark-haired beauty. She could feel them wanting to grow from beneath her upper lip to extend over her bottom lip, but she tamped down the desire.

"And I've killed a lot of your kind," Clark sneered.

"I know. Many of my kind abuse their powers. But I really don't blame them. They think like you do, that the power is evil, that they have no choice in the matter. But if you really sit down and think about it, there's no reason why my powers can't be used for good."

"Oh, spare me your rationalizations. You're a fucking vampire. You feed off humans like cattle," Clark said, not taking her eyes off the beautiful blond for even a moment as she inched her way forward, her two-handed grip leveling the wooden spike at her quarry. Though, at the moment, she wasn't quite sure who was the hunter and who was the hunted.

"That's just it. I only need to feed once every few days. Humans slaughter cattle by the thousands to feed themselves several times a day. Or if they don't eat cows, then they're killing some other animal or laying waste to crops. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge you your sustenance, but I question your equation that because I feed on humans that I am somehow evil in comparison with the mortal practice of eating animals. Why is it that you think you're above nature?"

"This isn't going to work, you know. I've killed dozens of your kind. I've heard all the lines, all the reasons, all the justifications. It doesn't matter what you say, I'm still going to kill you."

"You would only be able to kill me if I let you," Gabrielle told the tall woman and then proved it by moving faster than the light impulses could register in the woman's brain and snatched the wooden stake from her hands before Clark could even inhale her next breath. Gabrielle looked as though she hadn't moved; even her long black cloak was still. The stake simply appeared in her hand. "I find it ironic that your Order has chosen to exterminate us. You have vampire blood running through you now."

"Yeah, right," Clark scoffed.

"How do you think you and the others in your Order are able to track us? You're attempting to wipe out your own ancestors in your desire to rid the earth of my kind."

"Nothing you say is going to change my mind."

"My kind could be very beneficial to your kind, if we weren't constantly being hunted by you."

"Oh? And how's that?" The sarcasm dripped from her lips.

"We could act as a kind of ultimate police force. I know you've been watching me. You know I only feed on rapists and child molesters. I've probably saved this city millions of dollars in court costs and jail fees, not to mention the time that would have been wasted on bringing them to trial to prove their guilt of crimes I witnessed them perform. However, you're right in that many of my kind are abusing their powers and they must be stopped."

Gabrielle paused. She really wished she could read the woman's mind, wished that particular power wasn't a myth. There was no reason in the world for her to trust Clark, but she did. Oh, she wouldn't turn her back on the woman if she was holding a stake in her hands, but she was almost positive that she could persuade the dark woman to help her.

"You're turning against your own kind? Figures," Clark snorted in disgust. Traitorous demon.

"You have an entire class of people that purposely goes out and kills others of your kind so that those who value life and love can live in peace. I see nothing disloyal in wanting to rid my society of its degenerates."

"Your society?" That had definitely sounded like ownership rather than belonging.

"Yes. My society."

"You're old. One of the oldest I've ever met."

"I'm the oldest you will ever meet."

Clark started laughing. She knew she was considered the best in the Vampire Hunters Association, but no one in the VHA would believe her if she told them she'd actually hunted down the mysterious leader of the vampires.

"I'm glad you find the thought so amusing," Gabrielle smirked. She didn't really know what had tickled the woman's funny bone, but it was delightful to see her laughing instead of wearing the more usual scowl.

"I can help you find those of my kind that have chosen to dishonor life and abuse their gifts," Gabrielle stated.

"And what would I have to give you in return?"

"Just do what you do best. Kill them."

Clark tried to hide her surprise. This deal sounded too good to be true and, when making a deal with the devil, too good to be true usually was. There had to be a catch. Then she realized what it must be.

"You're going to make me into one of you," Clark breathed the words out in her hatred.

"No. I have never given the Gift and I don't intend to start now. You will remain as you are."

The way she said it gave Clark the impression that she had just come under this small woman's protection. Vampire, she's not a woman.

"Why should I trust you?"

"You don't have to trust me. I will give you the locations of those who cannot be allowed to live any longer and you will go in and kill them. It's as simple as that. I can see you're thinking I might be laying a trap for you, but that's really pointless. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so already."

Clark frowned. She didn't like that she believed this wo... vampire, but she did. If Gabrielle had wanted her dead, she could have dealt the deathblow when she took the stake. There would have been nothing Clark could have done about it.

That thought made Clark distinctly uncomfortable. She'd never met a vampire as old as Gabrielle. The younger ones could move fast, but she'd always been able to move fast enough to keep up with them.

Clark thought about Gabrielle's revelation that the Hunters had vampires in their ancestry. Unfortunately, it made sense. Something occurred to Clark and she smiled in triumph.

"Why don't you just kill these 'renegade' vampires of yours yourself?"

"Because it would be too easy for the others to be alerted and they could band together against me. I may be the eldest, but against so many, even I would fall. They wouldn't kill me, they would just keep me continually drained. And letting even one of them have a taste of my blood would prove a death sentence for your kind. You would be wiped out in a matter of months. It wouldn't matter that without humans to feed on, our kind would eventually die. The instantaneous power they would gain would drive them insane."

Clark took in this information without even a blink of her eyes. She was learning things about the vampires she'd never even considered before. The VHA had been gathering information about vampires since the dawn of recorded history. They'd figured out that a vampire's abilities grew in strength over time, but they'd never heard anything about transferring that power from one to another. Probably because it was never done.

A stronger vampire would want to keep their advantage over a younger vampire and a younger vampire would find it near impossible to force the issue. At least alone. If a large enough group worked together, they could overpower the stronger vampire and that's what Gabrielle was afraid of.

But why now? What had happened that had caused the illusive leader of the vampires to reveal herself and ask the infamous Dana Clark for help?

The VHA had noticed a trend in the last few decades. The vampires were getting more careless and the number of attacks had risen sharply, especially in the inner cities. Something was changing in the Vampire Order. And now this.

"You're afraid there's going to be a coup. The others don't happen to like your style of leadership?" Clark grinned in sarcasm.

"I've never really exerted my powers as eldest. I've chosen to let my kind do as they wish, the consequences of their mistakes being their only punishment. But they've forgotten what we really are and I can't allow it to go any further."

"And what 'really' are you?"

"I was the first born of a being your people had designated a deity and a mortal by the name of Cora. My father had hoped I would be the link that would bind our two species together. I grew at a phenomenal rate and killed within the second hour after my birth. My father was saddened, but understood that the mixing of our DNA had created something totally unexpected within me. He tried again, many times, but the result was always the same. I am the only survivor of that First Order.

"My brothers and sisters learned through trial and error that the Gift could be passed on if the victim was allowed to live and take in the blood of his attacker. The change that was wrought at conception for my half-siblings and I could take place after birth by simply passing on the blood that flowed within our veins. For a time, my siblings rarely killed their victims and instead worked to increase our numbers."

"You said you'd never passed on your 'gift'," Clark said, trying to keep the disdain for the terminology out of her voice in an attempt to gain more information. This vampire was very talkative and that could prove highly useful.

"No, I've never let any of my prey escape death. And now, to do so would be unthinkable."

"Why me? I've killed more vampires than any other Hunter in the Association. Why would you want someone who so obviously hates your kind working for you? Aren't you afraid I'll turn on you?"

"I've chosen you because you are the best. And as long as you're getting information on where the next vampire lair is, it would be rather foolish of you to attempt to kill your source for more. I also know that you're an honorable woman. If I asked for your oath that you wouldn't attempt to stake me while we worked together, and you gave it to me, I would trust you to keep your word. But I won't ask you for that. It would give you a false sense of hope that you actually could kill me." Gabrielle grinned slightly and was delighted to see an answering grin on the other woman's face.

"What will you do if I refuse your offer?"

"You can't."

"What do you mean 'I can't'?"

"Whether you choose to work with me or not, if I provide you with the locations of the others' hideouts, you will end up checking them out and then killing those you find there. Your curiosity and need to avenge your family's deaths won't let you do anything else. So, as you can see, the only thing you can refuse is to admit that you're accepting my help."

Gabrielle didn't say it in a condescending manner. Clark had heard that tone of voice in others who had offered her immortality if she'd just spare their lives. Gabrielle was simply stating a fact that Clark knew she couldn't refute.

The first vampire she'd ever staked had been the one that had killed her parents and younger brother. She'd been a Hunter ever since, only getting certification with the VHA so that she wouldn't have to deal with police questioning after a kill. Her ID badge also gave her access to places and files that were normally off limits to regular citizens.

Clark couldn't believe she was actually going to do this, but she'd already made up her mind when Gabrielle had first offered her the locations of the vampire lairs. Now, it was just a matter of saying it out loud, something she knew would bind her stronger than any legal contract ever could.

"I'll work with you for as long as you continue to give me information that leads to vampire deaths. After that, you're fair game just like the rest of them," Clark gave her word.

Gabrielle nodded her acceptance. "There's an old abandoned warehouse on the south side of the railroad tracks near 45th and Grover. You'll find seven vampires and their servants in the basement. They've dug it out considerably; it's much larger than it appears on the outside. The servants are armed, but not very well trained."

Gabrielle looked up through the shattered windows of the broken-down warehouse they were standing in. Her eyes narrowed and then she returned her gaze to Clark.

"It's getting early. I must leave. I will meet with you again once you've used the information. Take care."

And then she was gone. Clark hadn't blinked, the wom... Damn, vampire, had just disappeared. That really unnerved her. Nothing made of flesh and blood should be able to move like that.

Clark turned around and picked her way through the dust and debris strewn about the inside of the warehouse. She got to her car and stashed her gear in the backseat. Driving home gave her time to think about all that had happened in the past few months.

She'd been tracking this particular vampire for weeks. Following her movements throughout the city, even watching a few of her kills. This vampire was different in her hunting habits than any other Clark had come across before. She didn't play with her food for one thing. As soon as she had her victim alone, she went right for the kill. Then she left.

A little background on the victims showed them to have been convicted of rape or child molesting or some other heinous crime against innocents, particularly children. Or if there was no prior, a little investigation into their families showed that abuse had been taking place on a fairly regular basis.

This vampire also didn't seem to have any servants. Most vampires had at least one. The servants made sure that nothing happened to their masters during the daytime when a vampire was most vulnerable and in return were eventually allowed to become vampires themselves.

The sun was just peeking out over the horizon when Clark pulled into her driveway. Normally, she would have just been waking, preparing to begin the hunt again, but she hadn't found Gabrielle's latest resting place until sunset the day before. She'd decided to continue her tracking anyway in hopes of following her to her next resting place and killing her then. Gabrielle had a habit of picking random spots to bed down for the day and only by following her until sunrise would Clark have been able to be sure of where she'd gone.

But instead, after Gabrielle had gone on her normal hunt, she'd led Clark to that warehouse. By the time she'd realized through her sleep-deprived fuzziness what Gabrielle was doing, she'd known she would have to fight her way out if she intended to see the sun again. But Gabrielle hadn't attacked. She'd said she only wanted to talk. And, since Clark was alive and standing in her own living room, she had to admit that Gabrielle had been telling the truth.

Clark took a long hot shower and then curled up on her bed on top of the thick comforter spread across its surface. She hadn't stayed up so late on a job for a very long time. She was exhausted. She let her eyes close and drifted off to sleep.