Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead Read Online Free Page A

say anything, the girl yanked a knife from her boot.
    Goth Girl leapt at Brittany. I shoved my protégé aside and told her to get Adair out of here. I kicked Goth Girl’s feet out from under her. She stumbled, but didn’t go down. When she spun, knife out, she nearly nicked Adair. That got him moving. Got Brittany moving, too, hustling him to open ground.
    Goth Girl ran at me. I waited until the last second before spinning out of the way. My jacket caught on the tip of her blade. Put a nice hole in the leather. I stopped playing then, and took her down with a high kick to the chin. Another kick sent the knife flying.
    When she fell, I pinned her. She snarled and thrashed and tried to bite me with a set of really awkward silver teeth.
    “I hope you didn’t pay much for those,” I said.
    “It’s not fair,” she howled. “I belong on that list.”
    “Yeah?” I curled back my lip and let my fangs extend. “Well, so do I.”
    I didn’t hurt the girl. No reason to. I wasn’t hungry. I gave her a stern warning about curses and revenge and the incredible psychic powers that would tell me if she spoke of this to anyone or contacted Adair again. Total bullshit, but if you’re crazy enough to believe in vampires, you’re crazy enough to believe that crap, too.
    She ran off after that. Probably to change her panties. The smell was … not good. I got the idea she’d had enough of unholy bloodsuckers to last her a lifetime.
    Next I found Brittany waiting with Adair at a bench. She mouthed an apology and I made a mental note to add “keeping your attention on your opponent” to her future lessons.
    For now, it was Adair who got the stern warning. If he was going to work in this field, he needed to be more careful about following people into dark alleys. A canister of pepper spray might be wise, too.
    “Y-you’re right,” he said, as he rose unsteadily from the bench. He looked around, blinking. “Now I really need that drink. Do you know anyplace quiet? Out of the way? Where I won’t bump into anyone like…” he shuddered, “that?”
    “I know just the place,” I said as I took his arm. “In fact, the bartender is the one who told me about your lecture. Huge fan. You’ll have to tell him all about your work. He loves meeting new people.”
    “Rudy hates meeting new people,” Brittany whispered as she fell in step beside me. “Especially mundanes.”
    True. Which meant, when I left Millers tonight, I’d be the one laughing.
    * * * * *
    Kelley Armstrong is the author of the Women of the Otherworld paranormal suspense series, Darkest Powers YA urban fantasy trilogy, and the Nadia Stafford crime series. She grew up in southern Ontario where she still lives with her family. A former computer programmer, she’s now escaped her corporate cubicle and hopes never to return.

Nosangreal
    By Ivan Dorin
    If she had begun her death spiral, its completion was years away. She was about seventeen, a little overweight by modern standards, and plain to view at a glance, like the prairie itself. I could see her married and running a farm like her ancestors might have done. She just couldn’t be a farmer in Nose Hill Provincial Park, especially by gazing out over the lights of the city at three o’clock in the morning.
    “Heritage Park is that way,” I said, walking up in front of the bench, then pointing south past the downtown skyscrapers.
    “Do I look lost?” she asked.
    “Only misplaced,” I said. “You just seem like such good farming stock. It would be a shame to waste the look.”
    “Well, I never was one for being on display.”
    “Neither were they. Have you seen how the old pioneers looked in pictures?”
    She smiled at that. “And where do you belong?”
    “I’m still trying to figure that out. In the meantime, I walk around here. I’m a sort of self-appointed, unofficial guardian, I suppose.”
    “Of what?”
    “Not of. From. Not that it’s that dangerous, of course. It can take years before a