Page 4 of Bumpy, the Gargoyle Slayer

I step in close to Bunny. She stops squirming so she can glare up at me through narrowed eyes that shoot a hail of blue fire. I take her chin in my fingers and lean in. Slowly. Carefully. Giving her time to protest. And she should protest. She thinks I’m a vampire, after all.

But I reach closer and closer, and all she does is part her lips. And so, I almost, but not quite, brush her mouth with mine. It’s not a kiss. It’s intimidation. “This isn’t over, little one,” I whisper against those soft pads.

Her knee comes up again, but even though I’m enchanted, I’m prepared. I evade her blow with ease.

“Bite me,” she snarls.

I certainly want to.

CHAPTER 2

Bunny

Bumpy. What a jerk. What they say about vampires is true. They’re seductive, sure, but they’re also assholes down to their… well, assholes.

Despite my inner bravado, a shiver of fear traces its way up my spine. I was fine right up until his, “This isn’t over, little one,” said in that sexy deep growl of a light French accent. And what was that not-really-a-kiss about? All gentle and enticing and terrifying… no wonder vamps are so successful in luring women to their destruction. They’re… I don’t know. Seductive is too small a word for what Alain D’Ange is.

Did I really tell a vampire to bite me? What is wrong with me?

But as I stare at the bars of the jail cell in which I’m currently imprisoned, I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that question: grief is what’s wrong with me, along with a misplaced need to show my dead parents that I can take care of myself, and a lack of interest in memorizing all the wisdom my tutelary tried to drill into me before I leapt into the fire.

Poor Morrie. I should have paid better attention, but I never considered my parents could die so soon. Neither did they. They were cornered by vampires in a shipping yard warehouse a year ago, dead before they finished drinking coffee and preparing for a slay fest. And after, well, I upped my training, but my heart wasn’t in it.

And here I am, duty-bound to take up the stake, and I’ve made a mess of my first assignment. If only Morrie had come with me… at least he’d be able to tell me why my stake splintered instead of finding the vamp’s heart. But no, my tutelary’s too busy giving a lecture series on Mystical Harmonization Across America at our local university, where he works as a professor.

I can’t believe he trusted me to get the job done. Time to be honest: I suck at being a slayer, though that’s probably because what I really want to do—I think—is to be an actress… though that profession isn’t going all that well, either. Nor is my survival waitress job at Café, the aptly named coffee shop on Franklin Street, where I’ve learned to sling a mean coffee and muffin, but little in the way of making my mark on the world.

Until I was pouring my zillionth-and-one cup of extra-whip-no-fat-extra-fat-no-cream latte. That’s when I overheard two economic students talking about the great billionaire, Alain D’Ange. One joked about how he’s probably going to be invisible to the cameras on Finance Now since he’s a vampire. I realized that I’d just been handed my first slaying job. Reclusive billionaire wrapped in mystery and into world domination? Please. It was like he had Bunny’s First Kill tattooed on his forehead.

So, sure, maybe I was a little over-zealous and under-prepared when I made my way to Manhattan to slay him. I just never expected a vampire to be so… hard. Or… compelling. Or strong. I should have listened better when Morrie told me how vampires could fuck with a person’s mind. I should have asked questions rather than imagining myself pirouetting out of danger, courtesy of the many dance classes I’ve taken.

I thought I’d have my parents’ wisdom to fall back on for more years. A lot more years. Hell, I thought I might never have to pick up a stake.

A great big thump of grief lodges in the center of my chest. It’s been a year. I should be over their deaths. Somehow, though, it’s just gotten worse. And the cold, damp jail cell in which I’m currently lodged, adjacent to a cell that homes a bunch of perverts who catcall me, isn’t making me feel better.

I turn my face up to the ceiling as I clasp my hands around the edge of the frigid metal bench on which I sit. Luckily, I’m separated by bars from all the others since I’m the only woman currently imprisoned. “Alright, Mom and Dad, this is go-time. If you want me to succeed in The Great Fight, you’re going to have to send some heavenly aid my way.”

“Go fuck yourself, girlie, or better yet, let me do it for you,” a drunk in the next cell shouts over at me before chortling like a lunatic.

“I’ve got dibs,” a male prostitute calls. “She don’t even need to pay me.”

I mean, I think I could take them both down? I might not excel at fighting vamps, but people? Please. My training is good enough for that. I hope.

I sigh. “See what I’m putting up with?” I ask my dead parents. “You told me I could be a famous slayer, like the one on television that you sort of named me for, but how am I supposed to stake a vamp if I don’t have magical strength? Because like it or not, Buffilda Bunny Winters is just an ordinary woman with inadequate training, and sure, that’s on me. I own it. But I still need help.”

“That you do.” The deep voice breaks through all the chatter and whistling like it’s a barge cutting through choppy waters. “And now you have me, the answer to your prayers.”

“Ooh, I wouldn’t mind lying under you, big boy,” the prostitute says, addressing, presumably, the voice I already recognize.

A shiver runs through me. That voice is going to haunt my dreams for as long as I’m alive to have them, which, judging by the vampire’s presence outside my cell, won’t be long.

He's come to kill me.

“Missing me, little girl?” he whispers.

Damn, Morrie should have warned me about rich treacle tarts and bourbon, and what a voice like that could do to my treacherous body. Even on the verge of death, I’m thinking of life.

When I drop my gaze from my prayer and the ceiling, I see Alain D’Ange, arms folded over his chest, leaning carelessly against the metal bars of my cell. His posture illuminates the muscles in his arms, his broad chest, and his power. And damn, he looks like a thirst trap dressed in custom tailoring.