DD Barant - Death Blows

All-Out Raves for

Snappy writing, a page-turning story, and fresh world-building make Dying Bites a satisfying meal of a book.

Kelley Armstrong,

New York Times bestselling author of

Men of the Otherworld and The Awakening

Dying Bites is wacky, unpredictable, fresh, and amazing. I would kill to write as well as DD Barant. Seriously.

Nancy Holder, author of Pretty Little Devils

This engrossing debut adds another captivating protagonist to the urban fantasy ranks...Barants well-developed world offers intriguing enhancements to mythology and history. Jace is remarkable, strong-willed, and smart, and she sets an unstoppable pace. Look for the Bloodhound Files to go far.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A heroine with plenty of guts, moxie, and a sense of the absurd. [A] fresh and original take on urban fantasy...Huge kudos to Barant for spicing things up with a story that expertly integrates detective work, kick-butt action, and a wacky sense of humor. Make sure you get in early on the outstanding new Bloodhound Files series.

Romantic Times

DD Barant builds a strong world and fills it with fascinating characters that will delight and entertain. Dying Bites is a well-written urban fantasy with a gripping plot and a heroine who is quite believable with her very human flaws. Im looking forward to seeing more in this captivating world.

Darque Reviews (starred read)

Five stars. An exciting new series. It has humor, mystery, and adventure. A great book!

Affair de Coeur

Barant does an excellent job introducing a whole new world where vampires make up the majority of the population...quick and engrossing...a great new series.

Romance Reader

St. Martins Paperbacks Titles

by DD Barant

Dying Bites

Death Blows

DEATH

BLOWS

THE BLOODHOUND FILES

DD Barant

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright 2010 by DD Barant.

Excerpt from Killing Rocks copyright 2010 by DD Barant.

All rights reserved.

For information address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 978-0-312-94259-5

Printed in the United States of America

St. Martins Paperbacks edition / April 2010

St. Martins Paperbacks are published by St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

On the day I write this, my dear friend Jeanne Robinson goes to her first session of chemotherapy. A few days ago her friends and family threw a benefit to help defray costs of treatment, and the item I donated to the auction was the choice to either appear as a character in this book or the right to dedicate it to whomever you chose. Stevie McDowell won the bid, and her dedication appears below.

For Jeanne Robinson, someone who I am proud to call my friend. Jeanne has managed to touch so many people during her years as a dancer, choreographer, Soto Zen monk, author, wife, mother, sister, daughter, and friend. A lifelong artist and whirling vortex of organizational energy known as Wired Buddha, Jeanne is a fearless and fierce champion to her friends and family as well as all others who are lucky enough to enter her sphere. Jeanne Robinson is one of those old souls that make the rest of us poor mortals better for having known her. Thank you, Jeanne, for being a true heroine and keeping so many of us safe from the things that go bump in the night.

ONE

All I can see through the night-vision goggles are the eyes of the vampire Im pressed against; the rest of his face is kind of obscured by the large-caliber handgun I have jammed up his nose. It makes his voice sound extremely nasal.

I dode know why I shouldund just rip your priddy liddle throde oud, he says. I really dode.

Well, then, let me explain it to you. My name is Special Agent Jace Valchek and I work for the National Security Agency of the Unnatural States of America. I am a bona fide, one hundred percent real human woman, Im not from around here, and the shiny piece of metal currently deviating your undead septum is a Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan .454 chambered with silver-tipped, teakwood bullets. I know that last piece of information doesnt mean a whole lot to you since guns never really caught on in this particular reality, but you saw what it did to your two friends from twenty feet away. Im a whole lot closer. So unless youre ready to pay the Grim Reaper the time-debt you owe his bony ass, Id suggest you think of my weapon as a glorified crossbow that shoots very tiny arrows very, very fast.

He thinks about it. He stinks of fermented blood and Cloven, the pire equivalent of methactually methamphetamine cut with just enough garlic to let it affect his metabolism. His breath, which technically he shouldnt have, is terrible. Im going to have to disinfect the gun later just to get the smell off it.

Whad do you wad?

Aristotle Stoker, I hiss.

Nebber heard ub hib.

Sure you have. AKA the Impaler? Leader of the Free Human Resistance? Same guy that released that video on the net that turned a few million hemovores and lycanthropes into living mummies for a while? That Aristotle Stoker.

Im getting real tired of Guss bloodsucker-with-a-head-cold routineplus, my trigger fingers a bit too close to his fangsso I ease up, just a little. He takes this as a sign that I was kidding about blowing his head off, and grins. Hes short, pudgy, and balding, and no casting director in my world would ever have hired him to play a vampire. Here, hes just one more neckbiter on a planet full of the living-challenged.

Hey, take it easy. I got no reason to stand up for that guywhy would I want to get in the middle of some human thing? I mean, I dont know much, but you dont have to go all Lugosi on me.

Stoker. Where is he?

If I knew, Id tell you. But I only saw him for like ten minutes, okay? And that was over a week ago. He picked up a few things he had on order, then took off. No idea where he went.

Gus is a blackmarket dealer in various esoteric itemscharms, weapons, the occasional shipment of Cloven or Bane. Right now, were in a shipping container buried in the middle of a bunch of other shipping containers in a storage lot just outside Seattle. A real rat-in-a-woodpile kind of office, but pires didnt need things like light, air, or heat. The only way to get in or out is a tunnel that connects to a sewer outflow pipe, and he keeps guards posted on that. Luckily, I havent come alone.

What did he pick up?

Couple of books and an amulet. Amulet was kind of pricey considering that it doesnt even work, but he paid the bill without haggling.

Yeah? Whats it supposed to do?

Detect rockheads. Uh, no offense.

I can hear my partner clear his throat behind me, a noise a bit like gravel in a coffee grinder. None taken, he grunts. Charlie Alephs a golem, three hundred or so pounds of black volcanic sand poured into a human-shaped, thick-skinned plastic bag and animated by the spiritual essence of a prehistoric tyrannosaur. Not offending him is a good thing. I know people whove made whole careers out of it.