Third Strike by Heather Brewer Page B

but Joss was certain that he and his cousin were now standing at the crime scene. Signs of that were all around him. Leaves had been moved away, revealing the forest floor. Small, low hanging branches had been broken free from the surrounding trees. The footsteps of the investigators, and perhaps the victim himself, littered the ground. But the curious thing was that there were no paw prints in the dirt, nothing at all to suggest that a coyote or a group of coyotes had attacked the man at all. If rain had washed away the coyotes’ prints, it would have washed away that of the people, too, and it hadn’t. So Joss’s curiosity level ticked up a notch. Maybe the Society’s instincts were right. Maybe a vampire had killed the owner of the ice-cream parlor.
    â€œWhy didn’t you apologize?” When Joss looked over at his cousin, Henry was standing just a few feet from him, eyes locked on Joss in a way that suggested he wasn’t going anywhere until he had the answers he sought. “You could have at least apologized to Vlad after stabbing him with that thing. But he said that even when you came to see him at the hospital, you didn’t apologize to him. Why?”
    Joss stood his ground, calmly, but firmly. “Because I did nothing wrong.”
    Disgust visibly washed over Henry. “You put a stake through his internal organs, Joss. You nearly killed him. That, at least, deserves an apology.”
    â€œDo soldiers apologize when they take down a terrorist? No. Because they did nothing wrong. They’re just following orders by taking out a threat to innocent people. Which is what I was doing.” Joss was trying everything that he could to keep his voice calm and even, but it was a challenge. Henry was acting like he was some terrible villain, like he was the Joker, when clearly, he was Batman.
    Henry stepped closer and dropped his voice to a near-whisper, holding Joss’s gaze as he spoke. “Have you ever stopped to think about who’s giving you those orders? What if you’re mindlessly obeying the instructions of the bad guys?”
    Joss shook his head, clenching his jaw. “The Slayer Society is noble and right and good, Henry. You have no idea what you’re talking about. They’re good people.”
    â€œVlad’s a good person.” Henry tilted his head. He’d never listen to Joss. He’d never listen to reason. And it was seriously ticking Joss off.
    Without thinking, Joss gave Henry a light shove and then pointed a finger at him angrily. “You only think that because he’s got you under his spell. Your mind is lost in a vampire-induced haze. You’re his human slave, Henry!”
    At that, Henry balled his fist and as he brought it up, Joss dodged out of the way. But it wouldn’t have mattered if Joss had stayed right where he was, because something moved out of the surrounding forest and whipped past Joss’s face, carrying Henry with it. In a blink, Joss saw his cousin slam against the trunk of a white birch tree. His eyes rolled over white, and Henry slid down the trunk of the tree in an unconscious heap.
    Joss immediately reached for the leather holster that was hidden on his hip, beneath his shirt. But before he could grip his stake, the creature rushed by again, knocking the wooden weapon away before he could grab it. Joss scrambled, spinning around, trying to locate his missing stake and get a look at whatever it was that had attacked his cousin and then disarmed him. But he couldn’t see the creature anywhere.
    Which told him that this wasn’t just some lightning-quick animal. This was a vampire.
    Joss braced himself for anything and reached up, snapping loose a section of low-hanging branch. The wood was dead, but solid enough to work. He listened to the sounds of the forest for anything that stood out as unusual. Breathing, footsteps, anything. But there was nothing.
    From nowhere, Joss was slammed against the