Half Past Hell

by Jaye Roycraft

War is hell, even when you're already dead. The vampire-mortal war nicknamed Hell ended twenty years ago, but old hatreds die hard, especially in Chi-No, Wisconsin. Many of the young vampires living in Chi-No's old inner-city are mysteriously dying the true death. Chi-No Police detectives Kilpatrick and Duvall have been assigned to the latest case. Human John Kilpatrick isn't happy about being partnered with a vampire. Master vampire Wulf Duvall isn't thrilled to be working with an ignorant human, but he'll be doing something more important than checking taverns for illegal blood whores. When a mortal makes an assassination attempt on Duvall, he suspects the Brothers of the Sun, the zealot vampire hunters who started Hell years ago. War is brewing again, but the police department seems to be covering up the truth. Even the vampire doyens of both Chi-No and Chicago don't seem to care about sucklings dying in Little Transylvania. Duvall, scarred by 300 years of betrayal, and Kilpatrick, whose black and white world has been turned upside down, race against time to discover the true power behind the conspiracy to destroy the peace that no one seems to want.

Softbound ImaJinn Books (April 2007)