Fatal Sight (Harbingers Of Death Book 2) by LeAnn Mason (book club reads .TXT) 📕

If I was the last fucking banshee, I was going to do everything in my power to keep my race alive. My parents had obviously sacrificed themselves trying to keep me safe, keeping me ignorant, moving me around constantly, teaching me.

This pale dead-dicked asshole wasn’t going to add me to his kill count.

“Don’t move, Ms. Grey.” The cold voice — a new one — had my head cranking over my shoulder for the briefest of seconds, trying to assess the danger to my six. A man in a trench coat with a glinting badge at his hip had me at gunpoint. Red and blue lights flashed through the front door to the druid’s dwelling, which I’d left open.

Not a vamp, but another enemy. I was surrounded.

But when I looked back, the vampire had vanished. “Shit! Come back here! Come back here, you bastard, and face me!” Swiveling around, I could see nothing in any of the kitchen’s crevasses or the adjoining rooms.

“I said, don’t move!” said the guy who now had my full focus.

I huffed, but the fucking vamp was gone, and I’d just sworn to myself to do my best to stay alive. That meant not getting shot for defying legal orders. My hands raised slowly, the dagger still prominent in one fist.

“Very good, Ms. Grey. Or whatever pseudonym you’re using at present.” A smile curved the man’s mouth. “I finally got you.” His green eyes flicked to the body I had been skirting around in pursuit of the vampire. “And red-handed at that. The Shrieking Killer — finally brought to justice.”

Fuck me. I’d thought supernaturals were my only problems these days.

14

“You have the right to remain silent, though you seem to lack the brains to do so. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?” The cop spewed in a tone that was far too eager for my liking.

I’d been frozen in shock and disbelief when he’d appeared. His gloating Miranda speech didn’t break me loose from petrification either, but when he started forward with a pair of glinting silver handcuffs pulled from the small of his back, I finally thawed, backing away.

The rush of several additional officers through the door, spreading out in every conceivable direction, halted my breathing yet again. The well-oiled team moved swiftly through the house, calling out “clear” every so often, their sounds moving further away.

Looking around the no longer intact abode, I searched for the team of harbingers I assumed waited in the wings. Was that who the cops were searching for? Were they aware of supernaturals? Of the function of the Harbingers of Death?

Can’t be. Get a grip, Aria.

I saw no one as my eyes flitted to light on every possible nook and cranny I could fathom, but no.

Panic really set in as the cold metal clamped painfully around my wrists, pinching the skin in its chilled teeth and forcing my shoulders together. I’d wanted to forget this particular feeling and everything associated with it, but it all came rushing forth.

Just like the lessons.

Where there is death, there are harbingers. Created solely for this purpose, the Harbingers of Death will be there. No soul left behind.

Seke’s words, the organization’s mission, ran through my mind. And with my new realization that hellhounds may be in abundance, it made me wonder...

It’s worth a shot!

“If any harbingers are here, tell Seke what happened!” I screeched as the cop pushed me forward, ahead of the returning law enforcement squad that coalesced behind my new captor. They coerced me away from the random HD team I’d not yet met, couldn’t now see, and wasn’t entirely sure was actually there. “Tell Seker in the HDPU!” I bellowed one last plea to the invisible supernaturals, hopefully, waiting in the wings during this episode of Arresting a Banshee.

“Shut up. Don’t make me bag-and-gag you. Lock up your crazy while you’re in my presence if you don’t want more trouble,” the cop threatened as he steered me down the front steps and out to the array of squad cars haphazardly parked.

We headed to the only unmarked unit, a dark blue sedan that looked like a normal car, excepting all the hidden reds and blues flashing from various places like the headlights and front grille. In fact, the blacked-out windows looked too dark to be legal.

Go figure.

“I haven’t done anything. Why am I under arrest?” My mind reeled as I dropped into the back of the car, pushed none-too-gently onto the seats that were probably stained with too many various fluids to count.

A shiver of revulsion crawled up my spine, and I rerouted my thoughts. “How are you here? How do you know me? How did I get here again?” The last I mumbled disbelievingly to myself as I tweaked my position enough that I wasn’t entirely uncomfortable.

Don’t get caught.

It was several more minutes before the — officer? Detective? — slid into the driver’s seat. As an ambulance arrived and an empty stretcher was rolled without hurry into the house, he went about getting out of the driveway without paying me any mind.

Apparently, the car ride wouldn’t be for answers. It would be a time for reflecting… reflecting on how it all went wrong again.

Seke couldn’t push through the precinct fast enough to calm his racing heart. He prided himself on his composure and level head — having had millennia to perfect it — and it had all gone out the window the moment he had met that girl.

Normally, he would cringe at the stench of stale coffee, sweat, and more than a little desperation, but not this day.

Shadows thickened in his wake, and people moved aside like he was Moses and they the Red Sea. It didn’t matter that they were authority figures and this their proverbial house. They were smart enough to realize that