Depraved (Tales of a Vampire Hunter #2) by Zander Vyne Read Free Book Online

while.”
    Oliver was happy the car started on the first turn of the
key and reminded himself to check the oil next time they stopped.
    Miranda pulled the map and guidebook out of the glove box
and then rummaged around in their bag. Finding the broken bottle weapons, she
put one on the dash and tucked the other into the center console between them.
By the time they’d skirted town and headed south she’d peeled an orange and was
feeding him segments as he drove.
    “Aren’t you stopping to buy weapons? After the dreams I had
last night, I like the idea of silver bullets a lot more,” she said, licking a
bit of orange from her mouth.
    “I talked to the hostel lady. She told me about a pawn shop
outside of town that will be fair with tourists. They’ll have what we want.”
And, he thought, we’ll get the hell out of here and away from whatever it is
that’s making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and stay up.
    Despite Miranda’s jolly morning mood, Oliver’s anxiety
hadn’t diminished. Something was wrong; he just didn’t know what.
    It was easy navigating the straight streets of Oaxaca armed
with the hostel owner’s excellent directions. He tried to relax, concentrating on
simple things like how luscious Miranda’s lips looked when she licked them, but
uneasy thoughts battered their way through.
    “Tell me about your dream,” he said, afraid he already knew
what she would tell him but needing to know for sure.
    She scrunched up her nose and finished the last orange
segment. “That wolf-thing or something like it. It was like this weird mix of
all the stuff we talked about.”
    “Like?” He scanned the street ahead, looking for the pawn
shop sign.
    “You know how dreams are sometimes; it was sort of a
collection of scenes like the opener of a TV show. The wolf thing was there and
a pack of black dogs.”
    “Vampires?” He saw the place they were looking for and
pulled over, parked and turned off the engine, but didn’t get out of the car.
    “Yeah, but not like ones I’ve seen. It must be because we’re
in Mexico, but these were more . . . I don’t know, Aztec looking. They had
long, black hair, and there was a stone pyramid like thing with torches on top
of it. Weird, huh?” She laughed softly, but despite that seemed unsettled by
what had filled her dreams.
    “What’s really weird is that I had dreams with the same cast
of characters and setting. A Full moon? Black dogs howling? Vampires dancing on
top of the stone structure. Blood?” He decided not to tell her about the girl
he was pretty sure the vampires in his dream had been sacrificing. Maybe she
hadn’t seen that part.
    “Yes!” Her nose scrunched up again. “I know we don’t want to
assume anything, but my guess would be there are vampires around here. Ones
powerful enough to make us have the same dreams, but far enough away so we
don’t sense them.”
    “Or, blocking us somehow and closer than we think,” Oliver
said. “I’ve had a bad feeling all morning.”
    “Me too. And it’s not just the dreams I had. It’s like at
the club in Paris when it turned out the place was full of vampires and hunters
we didn’t sense either until it was too late.” She shivered even though he’d
rolled up the windows, turning the little car into an oven.
    “Let’s go deal with this. Think about ways you know to block
vampires from reading and putting thoughts into minds.” Not giving her time to
stew, Oliver climbed from the car after grabbing their bag and stuffing one of
the broken bottle tops in the side pocket.
    The pawn shop could have been any pawn shop anywhere. Behind
a long counter sat a large man wearing a hula-girl covered Hawaiian shirt and a
straw cowboy hat.
    “You buyin’ or sellin’?” he asked in a drawl that was more
Texan than Mexican.
    “You must be Al. Shelly over at the del sol hostel told me this was the place to
come to buy unusual items.” Oliver leaned over the counter, checking out the
pistols