The Hunter claims his sixth victim.

The Chicago newspapers displayed a variation of the headline last Sunday. Our un-sub began dropping bodies at the start of the weekend to make the Sunday papers.

Around and behind me, women jockeyed for mirror space in an attempt to repair the damage sweat inflicted upon their makeup and hair. I looked up and momentarily caught the eye of one in the mirror. 

We held each other’s gazes long enough to give a sister to sister nod of acknowledgement. Hers ended in a wink. Her deep chocolate complexion kept the black lipstick from looking as shocking as it did on paler female patrons, but not by much.  

Black lipstick befriend no race.

I steeled myself for the emersion that waited outside the door. Closed, it diminished the staccato beats hammering through the speaker enough to provide a needed breather to my overwhelmed senses. However, I hadn’t gone to The Crowto hide out in the bathroom.

The unrelenting bass assaulted me as soon as I pushed open the door. The music grew louder during my respite. Slightly refreshed, I continued my search for one body in a gyrating haystack of bodies. They rubbed against each other. Sometimes they managed to sync their movements to the music. The sheer volume of people on the dancefloor, accompanied by the darkness of the club, and assisted by the deafening music all worked to disorientate me.

Pubs were more my speed. It’d been a couple years since I visited a club, and longer than that since I’d been at a hard core dance club. And never at a Goth club like The Crow.

I paused near the bar. To my right a long dark hallway linked the front dancefloor to an even darker back room. My hand wrapped around the phone in my pocket, but I decided not to call for back up. What would I tell them? Send units based on a premonition the killer might be at the club? Yeah, that would go over like gangbusters down at the precinct. 

Cops often rely on our guts, but most distinguished between instinct and premonitions, or prophetic dreams, or whatever I felt like calling them at any given moment. Only Sigmund knew about them. Being my cousin gave him special privileges.

Frustrated I pushed my way towards the hallway. I had a vague, generic face to put with the profile his victims created.

White male.

Early to mid-thirties.

The condition of the bodies indicated someone proficient in anatomy, or possibly hunting. That helped me none at all. Half the patrons on the club were white men. So instead of hunting The Hunter, I hunted for a woman in a gold dress. 

In my latest dream, the victim wore a gold dress. In the gothic themed club, gold should have stood out as much as my blue jeans and tee shirt. But my hunt turned up neither a gold dress cladded woman, nor The Hunter.

Irritated, I paused and turned in a tight circle. An hour of loud underlining bass beats worked to make the headache brought on by my dream, even more spectacular. Why had I seen the club and the dress clear as day, but not the woman in it? 

I wanted to leave, but I knew I couldn’t. I hadn’t found him but I knew he was there. I tasted his presence like ash on the back of my tongue. He remained somewhere in the walls of the club, I just had to find him before he found victim number seven.

The pending sense of dread prickled the back of my neck and increased my pace. I pushed through the bodies in my journey to the back room.  The smell of pot mingled with the smoke from clove cigarettes until I couldn’t distinguish the two. I turned around again, searching the faces and bodies of everyone. A flicker from the corner of my eye snapped my head to the right. The image so fleeting, had I been a couple seconds slower I would have missed it.

He grinned at me, and in that instant the features of his face flashed. Inky black eyes glared and a row of razor sharp shark teeth replaced the human dental work. He pulled his lips back in a threatening smile, blew me a kiss, and bolted for the back door. 

I moved my legs a split second after his, shoving the bodies in my path out of the way to the door he, or it, crashed through. Everyone assumed The Hunter was a vampire, but I’ve never seen a vampire look like him. The eyes… the teeth…my mind screamed wereshark. If I was right things just got interesting in a very bad way.

He moved fast. Already he put a good deal of distance between himself and the back of the club by the time I burst through the door. Turning thirty-five hadn’t slowed me that much in a few months. This bastard was just that fast. His speed went a long way to confirm my werecreature theory. I encountered a werewolf on another case. He ran like he had two Olympic sprinters for parents and inherited their speed.

I jerked my gun, a 9mm Sig Sauer, free from its shoulder holster as I pursued him down the alley. The silence outside the club managed to feel more oppressive than the thunderous music inside.

“Stop! Police!”

I knew he wouldn’t stop, but the suits in IAB would ask if I issued a warning before I fired.

“Run, run as fast as you can!” Cackles of laughter followed the words.  

Not stopping I expected. Taunts just pissed me off.

He widened his head start as he ducked from one alley to another. The papers got his moniker wrong. They should have dubbed him, The Runner.  

I managed to close the distance by several feet, but the suspect leapt on top of a dumpster and vaulted over an eight foot

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