THEY RECONVENED in a run-down biker bar off Highway 24 just outside of Woodland Park. Cormac gathered that it was a regular haunt of Layne’s and his bunch. The bartender, a tall, skinny white guy with a beard and tattoos peeking out from under his shirt collar, waved when they came in and greeted Layne by name. After coming in from the bright afternoon, Cormac paused a moment to take off his sunglasses and let his vision adjust to the darker interior, lit by a few overhead lights and sun coming in through a tinted front window. The place was cheap, cheap-looking, fully by intention, with a concrete floor and stale, beer-tinged air. Wood paneling on the walls was decorated with lots of neon beer ads and posters for old promotions, like last season’s Broncos football schedule. A Confederate flag hung on the back wall as some sort of test—if it offended you, you probably shouldn’t be here. He ducked his head to hide a smile at the predictability of it all.
Layne brazened in like he owned the place and couldn’t be at all subtle. He hauled himself onto a barstool and announced, “Hey, Dan! Guess who I found? It’s Cormac Bennett—you know, Douglas Bennett’s kid. The vampire hunter! You’re still into that weird shit, aren’t you?”
About as subtle as dynamite. Bartender Dan stretched out his hand for Cormac to shake, which he did as he joined Layne at the bar.
“It’s not as exciting as it sounds,” Cormac said. “Not like in the movies.”
“And I’m sure you’re just being modest,” Layne insisted. “You know, you might not believe this, but I was just thinking of calling you. I might have a job for you.”
Dan put bottles in front of them, and Cormac sipped. People kept offering him jobs—why didn’t he feel lucky? “Yeah?” Curt, noncommittal.
“How much have you heard about that spot on the plateau?”
Cormac decided to hold out some bait, do some fishing. “Back a hundred or so years ago, a prospector staked a claim up there and ran into trouble. Stories say he killed someone. Stories don’t say whether he ever found any gold.”
“Yeah, I know those stories. Kind of like the ones about your dad. I mean, we all heard about him going after weird shit—werewolves, vampires, you know?—but this was years ago and we all thought that was bullshit, just crazy stories to make him come off even scarier than he was. But then—well, it was all true, wasn’t it? And we heard all the stories about how you picked up where he left off, hunting monsters.” He had a disturbing gleam in his eyes.
Cormac didn’t have a clue what those stories looked like from the outside, or what someone like Layne saw in them. “That was a long time ago. I haven’t been hunting in years.”
Layne clearly didn’t believe him. That grin suggested they were both in on a secret. “Can I ask you something? What if I wanted to get in on that? I figure there are a lot more of them than we ever thought. If you’re not hunting them anymore—teach me to do it. I’ll get in on the action.”
The thought of someone like Layne going after Kitty and Ben made Cormac want to shoot the bastard. And this was why it was probably just as well he didn’t carry a gun anymore.
“Why?” Cormac said flatly, first thing to come into his head. Might even have been Amelia who said it.
Layne shrugged like it was obvious. “Someone’s got to. The more the better, right? It’s them or us.”
In the space of about a second Cormac thought up, mulled over, worked out, and then rejected a plan to agree to teach Layne how to hunt the supernatural—and then teach him flat-out wrong, so that the first time the guy went up against a vampire or lycanthrope it would be sure to end very badly for him.
“You know,” he said, “Some of my best friends are werewolves.” Layne chuckled, clearly not sure whether or not he had just made a joke, so Cormac moved on. “Tell me about what’s up on that plateau. You hunting vampires up there?”
Layne’s grin went feral. “Let me introduce you to the man who’s going to make things happen.” He pointed to the sullen man of the group, still hunched up in his coat like he was out in the cold. He glared back at Cormac. “Cormac, this is Milo Kuzniak.”
Cormac’s first thought: the guy was a vampire. Milo Kuzniak had been in his thirties over a century ago, he couldn’t still be alive—unless he was a vampire. But the broad daylight outside said no, he wasn’t, unless he’d come up with a way to make himself immune to daylight. Now there was an unhappy thought.
Or maybe Cormac had been spending too much time with monsters.
It’s a coincidence. Has to be, Amelia thought.
He hadn’t found any pictures of the old prospector Kuzniak and couldn’t guess if this guy, who appeared to be in his late twenties, had any physical resemblance to him. He had dark hair cut short and a round face, crooked teeth, and a hungry look in his eyes. Even hungrier than Layne.
“I knew another guy named Kuzniak once. You from around here?” Cormac said, offhand, because he had to say something.
The guy licked his lips as if thinking, maybe wondering if he was giving anything away. “Yes. My great-grandfather homesteaded out here. I’m named after him.”
A perfectly reasonable, normal explanation. “You inherit anything else from him?”
He gave a lopsided shrug. “This and that. You really hunt vampires?”
“Once or twice.”
Kuzniak donned a contemptuous grin. “There’s no vampires around here.”
“Then I’ll leave the garlic and holy water at home,” he said. Given the kind of company Kitty and Ben kept, he always had a stake at hand, tucked into a pocket inside the sleeve of his jacket. If he really wanted to be a jackass he could slip it out, twirl it around his fingers a couple of times, make some kind of threat. But this was all just posturing. Instead he said, “You’re going after the gold, aren’t you?”
Kuzniak’s expression shut down, and he looked to Layne, who just smiled. “See? I told you, the guy’s smart. Worth having on our side. I’m telling you, Douglas Bennett’s kid—he’ll know things. He can help.”
“I know everything we need,” Kuzniak argued.