Promises to Keep

Chapter 1
Present Day
Jay's arms pinwheeled like those of a cartoon character as he tried to avoid tumbling backward down the cellar stairs. It looked silly, but it gave him enough momentum to throw himself forward instead. When he fell, his shoulder connected with the knee of the vampire, snapping the joint. An extra twist, and she was the one who fell down the stairs.
He heard the impact of bones and flesh on rough concrete--then no more. Damn. That meant the vamp had disappeared, and would reappear momentarily to--
You arrogant witch.
The hostile thought from behind Jay gave him warning. He spun around, bringing his knife up as he did so.
The vampire's black eyes widened in surprise as the slender silver blade slipped between her ribs and into her heart. A fall down the stairs hadn't hurt her, but even if the knife hadn't had three centuries of witches' power in the metal, this vamp wasn't strong enough to survive a heart blow.
Jay pulled the knife away, and the late shopkeeper fell back, into a display of faux-Native American souvenirs--plastic dream catchers, miniature tepee tents, and other kitsch that had little connection to the Mohawk people this area was named after. A Santa Claus key chain, one of the few nods to the Christmas season, plunked directly into the pool of blood that welled up around the wound.
Jay started to turn away, then hesitated. It was stupid--his kind didn't even celebrate Christmas--but he felt bad leaving the poor Santa sitting in the quickly drying blood.
He rescued Saint Nick, brushed off the powdery remnants left by vampiric blood turned to dust, and returned him to his fellows on the shelf. Then Jay stretched out his senses.
The storekeeper had been the last of three vampires Jay needed to deal with. One of the others was sprawled at the bottom of the cellar stairs, and the third was draped across the cash register. All of them were now permanently dead. From downstairs, though, Jay could sense the rising panic and hope of the victims he had come to rescue.
What's happening? Is it more of them? Who are they fighting with? What's going on? The questions came, rapid and panicked, from two of the three shapeshifters. The third one's mind was sluggish and incoherent. Drugged? Or blood loss?
Jay wiped his knife on his jeans, returned it to its sheath at the back of his neck, and then hurried downstairs, where he found the captives blindfolded, gagged, and bound.
"I'm here to help," he announced as the two conscious shapeshifters flinched from the noise. "SingleEarth sent me."
The SingleEarth organization was a multinational coalition of witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and humans. These three shapeshifters were students at one of SingleEarth's schools. When they had failed to return from a hiking-and-swimming day trip, SingleEarth had dispatched Jay to find them. After all, these woods were Jay's home, even more than the farm his family owned or the room he occasionally used at the local SingleEarth haven.
He had expected to find the shapeshifters lost in the forests of western Massachusetts. He had not expected to find them imprisoned by three entrepreneurial vampires who had decided a supply of shapeshifter blood would be a good thing to keep on hand.
Jay pulled blindfolds off and gags down but ignored words of thanks as he turned to the bonds that held the shapeshifters' wrists behind their backs. The vampires had tied each shifter in a way that held a length of rebar against his back, preventing them from shifting and escaping. No shapeshifter could change form with a line of steel next to his spine.
The unconscious shapeshifter's pulse was slow and erratic, and his skin was clammy. He was close to gone. Jay pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and then shook his head as he realized the battery had died . . . probably days ago, while he had been traipsing through the snowy woods. What time was it, anyway? He had a party to get to.
There was a phone and a clock upstairs. Jay was halfway there before the shapeshifters' anxious thoughts caught up to him: Where is he going?
"Need to make a call!" he shouted back from the stairs. "Lay your friend down, elevate his feet, try to keep him warm." Jay knew the basics of how to treat blood loss, because a vampire hunter needed to, but he wasn't a healer.
Jerky?
The query came from a Canadian lynx who had been waiting lazily outside the front door. He had helped Jay track the shapeshifters here, but he hadn't had much interest in joining the fight itself.
Lynx had been a cub when Jay had met him two years ago. They had bonded swiftly, and now Lynx's presence meant Jay's senses were sharper--the traditional five, as well as his sense of the fluid shifts in the power around him. In exchange, Lynx's life span would be longer, and his body stronger and more resistant to disease and injury. Hopefully that included resistance to the salt and chemicals that packed beef jerky, for which Lynx had developed a ferocious fondness.
Jay grabbed a strip of moose jerky from a box beside the register and tore it open while he held the store's phone to his ear with his shoulder. It didn't count as stealing when you took things from people who'd tried to kill you, right?
Lynx had eaten two strips before Jay had finished calling SingleEarth for medical support and a cleanup crew. By the time the EMTs had arrived and Jay had sponged blood off his skin in the restroom, he was ridiculously late to hook up with his carpool.
"Sorry, I couldn't wait any longer," the bloodbond said when Jay called to ask if he could still get a ride. "I'm almost there now."
"Damn." A bloodbond was a human tied to his or her vampiric master through a blood exchange, as well as what Jay considered an unhealthy level of emotional dependency. He couldn't expect this one to willingly run late to an event her master considered important.
"Is there anyone else I can get a ride with?" he asked. "I was really looking forward to this bash."
If helping SingleEarth made him miss the best vamp-fest of the year, he was going to . . . whine and do nothing about it, most likely. SingleEarth paid pretty much all his expenses. He was obligated to help them out occasionally.
"Well . . ." The bloodbond hesitated. She probably wasn't supposed to let him know precisely where the house was.
"I would really hate to disappoint Nikolas," Jay added. "He asked me to come." Invoking her master's name was dirty, underhanded manipulation. Jay was cool with that.
"I guess I could give you directions?"
"Great! I have a pen right here." Jay knew to accept the offer quickly, and swiped a souvenir pen and a handful of receipts to write on.
Kendra's annual Heathen Holiday was infamous--and extremely exclusive. The celebration lasted from Christmas Eve until New Year's Day and was as much an art exhibition as a social gathering. Kendra's line was primarily made of artists--emotionally unstable, frequently violent artist vampires, specifically. No witch and certainly no hunter had ever been invited. All the most powerful and influential bloodsuckers would be gathered in one place.
Jay changed into a tux featuring a black silk jacket and a green and gold vest. The cashier at the rental shop had assured him that the color complimented his hazel-green eyes and auburn hair, which he brushed and pulled back into a ponytail.
Want to come to a party? he asked Lynx.
The cat merely yawned.
Lynx would be able to make his way home when he wanted to. Jay double-checked to ensure that his knife was accessible but not visible, then got into his car and eased it onto the snowy road.
He hoped he would get there in time. It would be so disappointing if all the good vamps were gone.

Chapter 2
Jay had barely stepped through the front door of Kendra's mansion, when he stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the larger-than-life sculpture that dominated the front hall.
The artist had captured in blown glass the very instant when a proud huntress launched a falcon from her wrist. Her expression held despair, and hope, and pain, and power, all at once. The falcon seemed like her soul, freed of its earthly bonds. Could she fly with it, or was she forever earthbound, cursed to only dream of the skies?
He saw that his hand had risen, and grabbed his own wrist to stop himself from touching the sculpture. Instead, he reached up as if to casually rub the back of his neck, and let the back of his hand brush the silver hilt of his knife.
A hand like iron closed over his wrist, and another twined in his hair as a melodious voice observed, "You smell of dead blood and adrenaline, witch."
The voice startled him--a sensation he didn't often have, since his power gave him an awareness of others that tended to make it impossible for anyone to sneak up on him. Staring, transfixed, at the statue had been stupid, but how could he have avoided it? Likewise, the mind that flowed over his at that moment made his knees weak. It had to belong to Kendra.
"It's remarkable," he said, struggling to focus on the danger and not the power of her. "As are you."
He didn't mean to say the last bit aloud, but he couldn't help himself. Her mind was like a supernova, full of brilliant colors, swirling fire, and enough gravity to pull entire planets in her wake. What made her thoughts burn with such intensity? Was it always like this, standing in the presence of a mind more than two thousand years old? Or had she always been this way, even before the change?
Kendra mentally responded to both compliments while maintaining a razor-sharp focus on his movements. If Jay struggled, she would snap his neck before he could try for a knife or focus his magic to fight.
"It was his last work," she replied, "and it may be the last thing you see, unless you explain what brings such a pedigreed hunter to our holiday."
He should probably have started with that explanation.
"Nikolas invited me," Jay answered. "He hoped he could convince my cousin, Sarah, to come if she knew someone else here."
Though he had been assured of Kendra's fondness for Nikolas, the emotions Jay sensed from her in response to his name spoke of possession more than affection. Sarah's name barely elicited a blip of recognition.
"I have not seen Sarah. Nikolas left a few minutes ago. And you still smell of blood."
Honesty was a gamble, but Jay wasn't good at bluffing. "That is why I am late."
With her skin touching his, Kendra's thoughts were as clear as fine crystal as she considered what to do with him. Given the importance of her holiday, anyone of any consequence in the vampiric world was currently in this house. That meant Jay couldn't have killed anyone terribly important tonight.
She could kill him just on principle, but Nikolas probably had invited him, which meant the laws of hospitality applied.
"Well," she said, slowly releasing first his hair and then his wrist, before taking a step back, "I suppose every cherry tree needs its branches pruned now and again to produce the best fruit."
It took him a moment to realize that she had just given approval to his killing her kind.
Moving his hand away from his knife, Jay turned, and found that the woman standing before him was every bit as regal and elegant as the huntress in the statue. Her lush blond hair and generous figure were showcased in a gown where silver and scarlet dragons cavorted on silk damask.
Of course she wears dragons. No lesser creature could do her justice, Jay thought as he tried to untangle his tongue, focus despite the pure power assaulting his metaphysical senses, and say something intelligent.
"My lady," he managed.
Amused, Kendra held out her hand, which Jay nervously accepted. He kissed the back, feeling slightly foolish but afraid to do anything less.
Meanwhile, she sized him up critically. An hour before, he had thought he looked good. Now he was acutely aware that while the tux fit, it was not a handmade one-of-a-kind item, as Kendra's gown no doubt was.
"Your patron has already left for the evening," she pointed out. "I assume you intend to do the same."
He spoke quickly, words prompted as much by the disdain he could sense from her as by his own intentions. "My invitation might have been for Sarah's benefit, but I was still honored to receive it. Your holiday is famous for its art. I would hate to leave without a chance to take it all in."
She was skeptical, but she was also two thousand years old, and confident in her own immortality. She wasn't afraid of him, or for her guests.
"Enjoy yourself, Jay Marinitch," she said at last. "Mind your manners."
She swept away and left him alone in the front hall, and only then did Jay become aware of the thundering of his own nervous pulse. As his family and other vampire hunters often reminded him, Jay had never been a paragon of common sense. They would have told him he had to be suicidal to have accepted Nikolas's invitation in the first place, and that it was beyond insane to stay once he'd learned Nikolas was already gone. But in the moments when Kendra's attention had been on him, Jay had been submerged in the most extraordinary aura he had ever experienced. He couldn't stand to go back out in the cold. Not yet.
Instead, he read the plaque at the base of the statue.

LADY WITH A FALCON ON HER FIST
LORD DARYL DI'BIRGETTA

The vampire known as Lord Daryl had been killed two summers ago, an event shocking enough that news had traveled swiftly.
Hunters frequently took down the young and the sloppy, vampires who had been changed by whim instead of thoughtful intent, who had relatively few connections to others of their kind, and who tended to surround themselves with attention-drawing kills. It was far rarer for a hunter to actually strike at the kind of individual who attended Kendra's Heathen Holiday, who had allies, friends, and political connections throughout the vampiric world.
Lord Daryl had not been an ancient, but he had been a powerful figure in his domain, especially in the realm known as Midnight, an empire where humans--and occasionally witches or shapeshifters--had been bought and sold as slaves. When Midnight had fallen two centuries ago, another group had claimed leadership over all vampires and had supposedly outlawed their slave trade, but Daryl was proof that the laws hadn't entirely worked. It was hard for a hunter like Jay to get solid information, but it had become clear in recent years that Midnight had been reborn and was gaining power once again.