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  Sleeper

  Hunter: A Thieves Novel, Book 3

  Lexi Blake

  Sleeper

  Hunter: A Thieves Novel, Book 3

  Lexi Blake

  Published by DLZ Entertainment LLC

  Copyright 2015 DLZ Entertainment LLC

  Edited by Chloe Vale

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-937608-68-2

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements

  I can’t tell you how happy I am to get back into this world. Life and work has kept me from it for a while, but slipping into Kelsey’s skin was like coming home. I want to thank everyone who helped bring Sleeper from a plan sneaking around in my mind to words on a page. This book went through several iterations as I found my way. Thanks to Kim for all the breakfast planning strategies and Kori for having to read more than one version of this book. Thanks to an amazing group of beta readers—Jennifer Zeffer, Diana Merritt and Riane Holt. Thanks to my family for their tireless support. Whenever I talk about Thieves, I have to thank the reader who was there first, a reader who became a friend and a friend who became family. I love you, Liz Berry. If no one else ever read these books, I would still write them for you!

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Author’s Note

  An excerpt from At Your Service by Lexi Blake

  About Lexi Blake

  Other Books by Lexi Blake

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  Chapter One

  I knew the minute the world around me cracked and that horrible stench of brimstone and BO hit my nose that I’d fucked up yet again.

  Eight months and I still couldn’t get it right. It was frustrating as hell, but the good news was I would probably get to kill something real soon. I always feel better when I kill something.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Casey backed away.

  For a vampire, he was pretty freaked out by anything that wasn’t human, and he was scared of some of those as well. Casey was a young vamp, having only turned two years before. In his previous life he’d been a wannabe pro skater and one of those dudes who thought he should express himself through song. While he no longer carried a skateboard around at all times, I could practically hear him writing a song about the nasty, twisting thing that had come through when my spell had gone awry.

  Again.

  I glanced over at the other two people who had joined me in forming the circle that should have produced the demon named Nemcox. Liv, my witch best friend, and my brother Jamie were currently on the other side of the room, forming a triangle outside the circle we’d created in an attempt to keep Nemcox trapped until I could kill him. And by kill him, what I honestly meant was slice that little fucker open, play in his entrails, and generally torture his nasty ass until his body couldn’t handle it any longer.

  Nemcox. I’d known him as Matthew. My father had known him as Stewart, and my former lover and brand spanking new dark prophet, Grayson Sloane, called him brother.

  I was going to murder him because he was the reason my true father no longer walked the earth.

  Liv shook her head, a frown on her face. Her skin had gone pale, as though the act of calling forth the demon had drained her. It probably had. Before the last few months, she’d been all about the white magic and the loving goddess and shit. I needed a bad goddess, unfortunately. “I have no idea. I might have mentioned that calling demons wasn’t my major in witch school. I was really more about the white magic. That thing is definitely evil.”

  She wasn’t wrong about that. Look, I’ve seen some ugly things that turned out to be quite nice. You can’t always tell a book by its cover in the supernatural world. Like the troll I had to go and talk to because he was scaring the shit out of tourists in Montana. Dude was simply upset because he’d gotten kicked out from under his nice, out-of-the-way bridge in Canada. Was he twelve kinds of nasty looking? Hell, yes. But after a chat and a couple of hot dogs that I did not eat because I’m pretty sure they were actually made of dogs, he turned out to be a pretty chill guy.

  The thing in front of me wasn’t ever going to be anything but evil.

  There was a terrible crack of thunder that seemed to shake the house to its foundation and then I heard the sound of something slap against the roof as the thing in the circle hissed and snapped its spiny tail.

  Yeah, it was one fugly critter.

  “Any idea what it is?” I asked, trying to view the situation from an academic standpoint. I tried to shove down the need to punch through a fucking wall. How was Nemcox managing to do this? I had his name. I should have been able to call the fucker to my hand, at which point in time I fully intended to use that hand to chop his head off and mount it on my wall.

  Five attempts. Five failures. Nemcox had found a loophole in the demonic laws apparently.

  “I’m trying to Google it.” Jamie had to yell because it sounded like there was a hurricane outside the house. He had his phone out. My big brother was damn cool under pressure, but then he worked as a consultant with law enforcement on some of the creepiest cases they saw.

  “It’s an Ala!” Casey screamed. He’d gone even paler than usual. “I didn’t get it until the storm started up. It’s sort of a demon from Bulgaria and it likes to cause hail storms. Your insurance premiums are going to go sky-high. This is serious, Kelsey.”

  Since I’d begun my campaign against Nemcox, Casey had been studying up because he liked to know what was going to murder us next. He was a technophage. At least that’s what I called him. Technically he belonged to a class of vampires called academics. Vampires develop talents over many years, but they tend to be born with their core talent. Some are impressive fighters. Some can control minds. Casey was incredibly talented when it came to all things electronic. He could hack most systems, fix almost anything, and in addition to those talents he could remember almost everything he ever read. It led to a remarkable amount of anxiety on his part.

  You have no idea how many times I’ve had to explain to him that vampires can’t catch Ebola.

  “It won’t stop,” Casey insisted. “Now that it’s here on this plane, it will try to build storms. It will attempt to destroy everything it can. Starting with us.”

  Yeah, everything always wanted to start with me.

  It was one of the hazards of my job. “Can you get rid of it, Liv?”

  Liv’s hands were out, her eyes closed and mouth moving as she intoned in Latin. She was doing it super quietly though. It was probably one of those things where the “universe” heard her or some shit, but I had to hope the universe had some super sharp ears because it was getting loud up in here.

  “What do we do if she can’t get rid of it?” Casey stood behind me. He wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place, and I would utterly deny his role in this party of mine if asked. Of course, the whole reason I’d selected today to try to get my kill on was the fact that my mentor and the head of the academics, Marcus Vorenus, was out of town on some kind of Council business.

  Still, out of town or not, he would hear about this if the Dallas/Fort Worth area was suddenly inundated with supernatural storms. And he was smart enough to know exactly where to look. “I’ll have to kill it. You go out to the car. You can’t have anything to do with killing a demon.”

  Unfortunately, Casey was bound by the Vampire-Demon Agreement signed many years ago and set to renew soon. One of the tenets of said agreement was for vamps to stay out of demon business and demons to do the same. Casey could get into serious trouble if he got caught.

  I’ve learned a couple of things since I took on the job of Nex Apparatus. It’s sort of the supernatural world’s equivalent of a sheriff. At least that’s what Daniel Donovan would have us believe. He’s the king of this plane’s supernaturals, and for the most part he’s pretty cool. But like I said, I’ve definitely learned a couple of truths about my job.

  1. People are stupid and no matter how many times you tell them that calling out to a demon in some middle-of-nowhere crossroads won’t make you into a fab blues guitarist, they still do it. And boy, do those dudes whine. 2
. No matter how hard you scrub, supernatural blood doesn’t come out of cotton. Don’t wear your fave concert T-shirt when you’re going to have to behead a killer shifter. And 3. This is the important one. Friends are everything. Don’t get them into trouble unless it’s absolutely, save-the-world necessary.

  If Donovan caught Casey here, his ass would be grass.

  Casey held his hands up as though giving up the fight. Which was a good thing since he wasn’t a super fighter in the first place. He was a keyboard warrior, not the guy you tossed a sword to. “All right. I’ll wait in the kitchen.”

  “It’s an Ala demon,” Jamie screamed. Like I said, it was pretty loud. Jamie turned his phone out as though I could see what was on the screen through the chaos of the circle that separated us. Somehow the demon had called a hailstorm right into the middle of my living room.

  I was glad I’d brought this out to the suburbs because Marcus would freak if hail damaged his perfectly hand-scraped hardwoods. Of course, he’d be pissed for numerous reasons, the most important being he’d asked me to stop calling demons in the first place.

  More and more, Marcus seemed disappointed in me. In the eight months since he’d turned to me and said he might be willing to share me with Gray, a distance had opened between us. He’d started traveling more and more without me. Every time he left I felt our connection thin and twist, and I worried we were almost at the breaking point.

  But I couldn’t think about that now.

  “How do I kill it?” I shouted.

  Jamie looked down at the screen again. “I don’t know. I need to read the article. Hey, it’s Slavic and likes to create thunderstorms.”

  No shit. I didn’t need Wikipedia to tell me that. The fact that I had quarter-sized hail on the floor was explanation enough. And unless feeding it borscht somehow placated the fucker, I wasn’t sure how knowing its region of origin helped.

  So far though the circle was holding. The damage inside the house seemed to be confined there.

  Luckily, I had a silver sword. I’ve found most things die when I cut their heads off with a silver sword. I was also wearing a shirt I didn’t particularly like, so I was ready.

  The last few months had been a mix of good and bad, and a whole lot of restlessness. Grayson Sloane, my first love, the half demon I’d never been able to truly get out of my head or my heart, had turned into a dark prophet and was currently hanging out with a heavenly prophet named Jacob, and Gray had forgotten how to use a phone. I didn’t know where he was or if he was okay. He was “on sabbatical” from the Texas Rangers, according to his commanding officer, and I’d been told it was an open-ended leave.

  I spent my time training and working. Working and training. And worrying. A lot.

  Something big was coming. I could feel it. Those contracts I talked about earlier were in an odd place. They’d technically run out, but the way they were written, they stayed in place for another year. After that, there would be nothing at all in place to keep the two factions at bay.

  Daniel Donovan wanted a war, but I wasn’t sure he could win it. I wasn’t entirely sure Daniel’s war wouldn’t bring down our whole world.

  Then there was the twitchy feeling I was getting deep in my soul. Marcus used to fill that place, but I’d started to feel more like my old self again, and that wasn’t a good thing.

  Liv was having no luck on the banishment track. It looked like I was going to have to deal with it. It was neatly contained in its circle, but it wouldn’t stay that way forever.

  “Y’all go.” I couldn’t do what I needed to do in such a small space when I was worried about Liv and my brother.

  Liv’s eyes came open slightly. She said nothing; didn’t have to. I know a pissed-off witch when I see one.

  “I have to break the circle,” I shouted her way. “Do you understand what that’s going to do?”

  It would likely send insurance premiums in the county soaring, but it was that or let the fucker rage for days until we found a witch who could dispel it. Somehow I thought a localized, long-term hailstorm that hovered over one house might attract media attention.

  If I was in hot water for calling demons, you don’t even want to know what happens to weird half wolves who find themselves smiling for the evening news.

  “Do it!” Jamie shouted. He’d already pulled his own sword. It was a nice weapon, but it hadn’t been forged in Heaven like the one I was carrying.

  One of the perks of being the Nex Apparatus is a handy silver sword passed down through the generations of vampires who held the title. I was the first non-vamp to piss enough people off that it was either make me a Nex Apparatus or execute me, so that sucker was mine now.

  When Donovan had passed it to me, he’d told me a bunch of stuff about how the sword had been forged in Heaven’s fire and how I had to respect it because like angels kissed it and shit.

  I call her Gladys.

  “All right,” I shouted. “Let’s do this.”

  I like to rip the bandage off. There are people out there who will soak the bandage and then ease it off. They’re pussies and they need to stay far away from my world. In my world, if we leave the bandage on and nurse it and gently try to coax it off, it usually turns out to have been poisoned by some asshole who wants you dead. So tear that fucker off and get the fight started.

  It’s one of my many mottos. My therapist has me trying a few things to ease my anger issues. Needlepoint is one of them. I sewed that sucker on a pillow and I keep it close.

  The Ala seemed to still as I approached. The black fog that surrounded the demon became wary, and then I could practically feel its excitement as it seemed to figure out what I was going to do.

  She wanted this fight, craved it.

  I kind of did, too. Like I said, the last few months had been shitty and tense, and killing a demon always made me feel better. Gladys hummed in my hand. It’s what she does when she realizes demons are near.

  We stared at each other for a moment. We’re natural enemies, the Ala and I, according to everything I’ve read about my species. I’m a Hunter, one of the rarest supernatural creatures on the Earth plane. I’m the product of a union between a lone wolf and a human. Lone wolves are a specialized form of werewolf. They’re stronger, but tend to shun packs. They keep the alphas in check. That was my father, Lee Owens. My mother was a horny, lonely human. Her super powers include calling at the wrong times and constantly being on me to find a man.

  If my father’s place in the natural order of things was to keep the alphas in check, my own job was simple.

  I’m a demon hunter. I was born to track and kill demons, to keep the balance on the Earth plane.

  Which kind of sucks when you’re in love with a demon.

  I brought the heel of my boot down and dragged it back along the hardwood, breaking the circle.

  And was immediately rewarded for letting the bitch out with hail coming down on my head. It knocked into my skull with a force it shouldn’t have since it’s not like I’ve got vaulted ceilings. Those suckers are maybe eight feet high at most. It was apparently enough for a storm cloud.

  I fell back and Gladys clattered to the floor next to me. I felt the demon rush by and then glass cracking as she tried to get out of the house.

  I forced myself up, got Gladys back in my hand.

  “Can you keep her contained to the backyard?” I shouted over the crack of lightning that threatened to shake the walls of the small ranch house my grandmother had left me. It looked like the Ala was choosing flight over fight. It made me think less of her, and I didn’t think that much of her in the first place.

  Liv nodded, her eyes already closing and her hands coming out. A protection spell was in her oeuvre.

  “Watch over her,” I yelled at Jamie. Liv wouldn’t be able to protect herself while she was in that state, and I really needed her to be in that state if I was going to keep the demon close. Otherwise, she would be running around causing storms, and I would likely be convicted of crimes against humanity or something.

  I didn’t turn around to make sure Jamie was doing his job. That was the amazing thing about my oldest brother. He was a great soldier. He took orders well, and I never had to worry about him deciding he knew better than I did. Jamie would watch over Liv and not leave his post for anything. It meant I could deal with the demon in peace.