“When I was changed, the master robbed me of any shot at this glorious afterlife you speak of. I’m deciding how I feel about it. Not that I’m sure I would have gotten in anyway, seeing as I don’t know who I was before all this.”
“Perhaps it’s best not to dig into your past?”
She snorted. “Right, because if I found out I was some Mother Teresa type, I’d be super pissed I’d lost my shot at a cookie-filled heaven complete with pool parties and male go-go dancers.”
Catching the look on my face, she glared at me. “Okay yeah, knowing what we know about me, unlikely I was out on mission trips. But maybe I was a nice baker who gave out free cupcakes to little old ladies, or people who were down on their luck?”
“So you agree, it is a bad idea to dig into your past?”
“What? No, that’s not what I’m saying. More than ever, I need to know who I was. And then when I find this bastard who changed me, I’ll make him pay. Because he either robbed me of my chance at the glorious afterlife, or I’m a sadistic psycho and it’s in my nature to seek revenge. Hello, my name is Vivien. You stole my afterlife. Prepare to die.” She squinted at an imaginary foe and made jabbing motions with her hand.
I shook my head. “Perhaps you were simply mentally deranged.” I stood to go but paused. “If you insist on digging into your past, I think you should be aware of something.”
“Oh yeah?” She looked up at me, expectant. For a moment, she seemed almost childlike, eager to know what I’d share but afraid of what she’d learn.
“You may have gained vampiric strength and senses, but you do not gain other inherent skills.”
She blinked at me.
“Meaning, if you were a baker, you would indeed remember how to construct a cupcake. For all that you have tarried in the kitchen, you haven’t paid attention to your natural affinities.”
“Like what?”
My eyes touched on the elevator. “Why did you know how to seek an emergency key for the elevator? Why do you know how to fight?”
She frowned. “All the other vampires we’ve encountered can fight.”
I nodded. “They can. The master is choosing specific kinds of people to turn. He isn’t turning homemakers, or computer programmers. He wants an army.” I pursed my lips for a moment. “But soldiers are a dime a dozen when you can make them. So, why does he want you so badly?”
She shrugged. “A winning personality gets a person a lot of attention. Not that you would know.”
“If you mean vexing me past my breaking point, then yes, you are indeed winning.”
Vivien shot me two thumbs up. We were back where we started. She was an antagonistic dissenter, and I was her jailer. As soon as we found the master, this tentative alliance would be over, and I’d end her as if she was nothing. I paid no attention to the tightening in my chest that accompanied that last thought.
“We know he wants you. We’ll take you out tonight, and he’ll surely send someone to get you. This time we’ll be prepared.” I sounded back in control. This was business, nothing more. “Get cleaned up and meet me back out here in ten.”
Vivien sauntered up to me, an unidentifiable gleam in her eye as she entered my personal space. I froze, not trusting myself to move. My instinct was to set a hand on her waist and draw her closer.
With a lascivious smile, Vivien stuck a finger in her mouth and slowly dragged it back out.
Every thought I had halted in its tracks as I focused utterly and completely on her. The slide of her finger against her lips caused me to stiffen below the belt, my breath turning shallow. A deep, ancient, animalistic hunger made itself known inside me as I dipped my head closer.
Gods, did she know what she was doing? When that perfect nail emerged from her wet lips, I was seconds away from crashing my mouth over hers and showing her what it was like to feel true hunger and craving. I had a mind to drag her to my bedroom, tie her up and give a taste of the painful desire she evoked in me. I would make her beg and plead for me to satisfy the pleasure I stoked in her. Yet I would deny her release until she was screaming for me to break her.
Then she stuck her cold, wet finger right into my ear hole. I jerked and reached for her wrist, but she’d already flounced away, off to the guest quarters.
I took it all back. Killing her was the only logical conclusion.
21
Thanks to Miranda, my personal GI Jane, I had gotten less sleep than normal. After she woke me up, I couldn’t fall back asleep. Thus my foray in the kitchen during the daylight hours. Between the necklace and my gut instinct, I had been certain I was a Betty Crocker type. It bummed me to learn I wasn’t Ms. Baker extraordinaire, but Grim made it sound as though I was closer to a ninja. I didn’t hate that idea either.
Vivien, vampire, ninja princess. On the prowl to fight the big bad master vampire, kick some butt, and save the day.
I pondered if that was too long to fit on a business card as I got ready. I changed into a red halter top and black leather pants and freshened up. But even after splashing some cold water on my face, my head was still fuzzy from being up during daylight hours. Or maybe the fatigue was from the master vampire probing my brain like a collegiate ET studying for his anatomy final. I hated how he pulled my strings like a puppet. I knew he was in there and I’d tried to stop him. But his grip was so strong, I had reached for the knife and cut away.
As Grim and I stepped out into the lobby of Sinopolis, I wondered if coffee was still something that could get the hamsters in my head off their fluffy butts and turning the wheel again. I hadn’t asked him where he was taking me.
