DUSTED by Declan Sands

DUSTED by Declan Sands

Blood-Hound Book One

Bounty hunter Matthew Blood is a Bloodhound shifter, so tracking things comes naturally to him. But when one of his skips gets blasted out of a fourth floor window, Matt goes after the only other person in the vicinity, and gets fairy-smacked himself.

Rum leaves the safety of the mound to bust a fairy dust ring and rescue some captured fairies. In the process, he quickly finds himself the target of the sexy bounty hunter tracking one of the dealers. Trapped and being pursued on multiple fronts, Rum asks Blood for help.

Blood is happy to lend a hand, but he soon discovers fairy dust isn't the only addictive thing about a fairy.

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Blood-Hound 1: Dusted
Declan Sands
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2012 Declan Sands

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Earthbound recruit 56741 daily report. Missing subject not found. Search continues. I'll keep you apprised.

* * *

The dog snuffled him, whining as he flicked a hand to send it away. Bail Enforcement Agent Matthew Blood was on a case, and he didn't have time for the usual displays of canine worship.

The man across the street climbed out of his car and stretched. He'd been on the road pretty much all day. He'd gone north again -- Matt suspected he'd gone to Michigan, though he'd lost him around South Bend.

The little dog licked Matt's arm and he growled, low and deep in his throat. Yelping with alarm, the cute bitch scurried away. But she didn't go far. She dropped to her haunches beneath an abandoned car, her eyes periodically glowing red in the headlights arcing into a turn at the nearby intersection.

Matt returned his attention to the skip and found the street empty. "Fuck!"

Glaring at the little dog, he quickly stripped, dropped to all fours, and shifted. He slid from the shadows and padded across the street.

Scenting the area around the car, Matt took care to keep his long ears out of a shiny puddle of dirty oil as he gathered as much information as he could from the odors surrounding the car and the spot where the skip had been standing.

The car was covered with a variety of aromas, many of them from another place. The salty tang of Great Lakes sand overlaid the smell of asphalt and rich, black earth trapped in the tire tread.

He padded around to the car door and focused on the bail fugitive's scent. The man was tired, nervous -- evidenced by the strong odor of sweat -- and he'd had chili for dinner. The chili wasn't sitting well in his stomach. The bail fugitive also smelled like the product he'd been illegally carrying from Indiana to Michigan for months. The reason he'd been arrested. He'd never stopped his illegal activities, and he'd proven himself to be a runner. He should never have been let out on bail in the first place.

But Matt wouldn't tell the cops that when he brought him in. He'd just take the certified copies of the arrest warrant and the undertaking and get paid for snagging the guy. If the guy ran again he'd get paid again. And there was no danger he'd escape Matt. With his special qualities and off-Earth monitoring technology, Matt could find and bring any skips he wanted back to jail. If his employer wanted to bond them back out again it was no skin off his talented nose.

Said nose led Matt to the front door of a soot-stained brick building, where the skip's scent trail was cut off. He shoved at the door with his nose but it was firmly shut. He'd have to shift back to follow the skip inside.

Matt loped back toward the alley where he'd shed his clothes, thinking that a race of creatures which could trace its roots back millennia, with technology allowing them to travel the universe to distant planets, should have come up with a fix for the opposable thumb issue.

He rounded the corner to the alley and the little bitch lifted her head, wagging her grubby tail happily. She gave him a single bark in greeting. Matt's bark wasn't quite as happy. But it served to get her off his pile of discarded clothes.

There was a soft sound, like a gasp of supercharged air, as he was pulling on his last shoe. Matt's head shot up. Glass shattered out into the night, followed by a dull, meaty thud. Still working his way into his sneaker, Matt hobbled back out to the street and found his skip, lying in a spreading pool of his own blood on the glass-strewn sidewalk.

A sharp intake of breath from above drew Matt's gaze, four stories up, where a pale, handsome face was outlined by the jagged remains of the broken window. A terrified gaze locked onto his.

"Well, shit!" Matt started running even as the face disappeared from view. It looked like he'd be bringing a murderer to the police, rather than a lowly, dead drug smuggler.

* * *

Matt hit the locked exterior door and reared back, kicking it hard. The flimsy door slammed inward and he hit the stairs, moving at superhuman speed toward the floors above.

Footsteps pounded over his head, accompanied by the sound of terrified breathing as, presumably, the man he'd seen in the window above was making a run for it. A slim, dark form flashed by the top of the stairs as Matt hit the fourth floor landing and he leapt, hitting the runner mid-body and sending him sprawling sideways with a yelp of alarm.

They skidded across the thin, dirty carpet and hit the wall opposite the stairs. The man beneath him started swinging, his fists glancing off Matt's face and shoulders as he fought desperately to get free.

Matt struggled to hold him down while trying to still the man's flailing arms and legs. The man's breath wheezed in and out of his chest and beads of sweat flew as his desperation increased. Matt's sensitive nose scented ozone, and he registered a flash of energy just before one of the flailing fists connected to his temple and his head snapped sideways. It was a good shot for such a slender assailant, and it caught Matt off guard.

Blood ran from his nose, and he saw stars. Light flashed, heat flared, and Matt flew backward and hit the wall hard. The edges of his vision folded inward and turned black as he slipped down the wall and passed out.

* * *

Dust clogged Matt's sinuses, feeding the mother of all sneezes in his sensitive nostrils. The sneeze almost ripped his head off, sending shards of pain slicing through his brain from its impact. A moldy, aged scent accompanied the dust. His nose twitched as he fought another sneeze.

A rough tongue bathed his face, the ministrations more painful than they should have been. He struggled to open his eyes and found himself staring into the bright, brown gaze of the little bitch from the street below. When she saw he was awake she barked in greeting and stood, wagging her tail happily.

Matt tried to sit up and pain sluiced through him. He groaned and rolled to his back. He lay there for a moment, gathering his senses and trying to catalogue the pain. He decided he didn't have any specific injuries, just an overall feeling of having been bludgeoned.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Matt grimaced. His skin was hot and sore, like a bad sunburn, and he was gritty. When he looked at his fingers, there was some kind of residue on them.

Sirens sounded in the distance, bringing Matt back to the reason he was in the building. He ground his teeth and rolled, standing. Moving stiffly down the hall, he headed for the front of the building, where his skip had fallen to his death. A door at the end of the hallway was open. Matt pulled his compressed oxygen gun and stuck his head through the door. "Hello? Anybody in here?"

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