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I may not look like much, but I don’t have my job based on my appearances. I kill vampires, it’s what I do, and not just any five-four blonde girl could pull it off. I get why he’d laugh, because at first glance I might come across more like a damsel in distress than a killer. In most cases it worked in my favor, but it got frustrating trying to intimidate vampires who refused to take me seriously.
In the distance I heard sirens, and I hoped to hell it meant the girl had made it to a pay phone or had at least found someone to call the police for her while she cried. And she would cry, for days most likely.
In the meantime, if those sirens were in fact for the girl in the broken heels, I didn’t have much time to play games with Henry. Human police officers didn’t handle supernatural stuff all that well.
The word denial comes to mind. They were always so willing to ignore the most obvious explanation in lieu of overly contrived answers which shut out the option of the irregular. Occam’s razor did not appear to apply in the case of humans, especially human police.
“Henry, we don’t have time for this. I need you to tell me who made you, or I let that girl identify you to the police and you spend the night downtown in a cell. ” This particular threat held more weight with new vampires. I didn’t think Henry would really get it, but it was worth a shot.
“I’m not afraid of the police,” he said with a snort. In this instance he was justified in his dismissal of law enforcement, and he and I both knew it.
Henry had a lot of cocky swagger for a new vamp, and it was beginning to narrow down the options in my mind for his sire, but I needed a name if I was going to get a warrant. Killing rogues was an awful lot like bringing down drug kingpins. It was one thing to get the lowest level thugs, but quite another to get the master sire. It’s almost impossible to find a master’s master’s master. The council and I were both looking to find the names of the old ones, the ones we suspected but dare not accuse without evidence.
“You might want to consider the fact that all police-station cells now have windows. ”
“So?”
“So, you’re not immune to sunlight anymore. And telling me what I want to know is going to be a hell of a lot better than waking up as nothing more than a pile of ashes. ”
Henry was starting to get bored with our conversation. His eyes were wandering and he was licking his lips. Then a dark shadow of a thought crossed over his face, stirring the inky depths of his black eyes, making them glimmer in an unpleasant way. His brows narrowed, and he turned his attention back to me, smirking.
Henry chuckled. “He told me about you. Secret McQueen, big bad vampire hunter. He told me I shouldn’t cross you. He said that you were dangerous. ” He was laughing with unrestrained scorn now, amused by his own joke. But he was also giving me clues. His direct sire was a rogue who knew me. Probably one I’d crossed before.
“You have a wise sire, Henry, now tell me his name. ”
“No. ”
In a flash Henry went from aloof to attack, and he had my free wrist in his hand, his gaping mouth going for my throat.
Idiot, the throat was such a clichéd move. Had he bitten into my wrist while he had the option, I might have been in trouble. The intensity of his attack did, however, manage to topple us, and his weight landed on me with hefty force once again. Henry, with his solid mass of vampire hunger, outweighed me by about a hundred pounds. I used a considerable amount more strength than he probably anticipated I had to bring the arm he was holding across my chest to block his attack on my neck. He was so certain of himself he bit his own arm by accident while gnashing for my skin.
He howled in sudden shock.
“Hurts doesn’t it? Being bitten by a vampire when you’re not in the thrall. ”
“You will know soon, girl,” he snarled, spit flying from his mouth, his eyes deep black with rage.
He dove in to bite me again, but I dodged faster than he was prepared for. As he lunged to bite, I jammed my gun into his open mouth, a bullet loaded in the chamber and my finger trembling on the trigger.
“I already know what it feels like, asshole. Now tell me the name or I pull this trigger. ” I knew I was going to do it whether he told me or not.
His lips moved around the barrel. I pulled out the gun and pressed it in one swift motion under his chin. Henry licked around his mouth, tasting where my gun had been. He touched his fangs with the tip of his tongue, as if savoring the memory of something delicious, and choked out a laugh.
“My master will be thrilled to know that one of his own was responsible for the death of the great Secret McQueen. And he will be even more impressed to know that you died without ever knowing who he was. Because I will never tell you, not even when I eat your still-beating heart right out of your chest. ”
And then he spit in my face.
Chapter Four
The one benefit to having someone else’s saliva on your face, if it’s possible to find one, is that it makes it a lot harder for the blood to stick.
When the back of Henry’s head came off and rained its contents over us, I was able to wipe the worst of it out of my eyes. I shoved his now literally dead weight off me and knelt next to the corpse.
If his sire was who I thought it was, there would be another way to tell. I only knew of one master sire who would be exceptionally thrilled to see me dead. I tugged down the neck of Henry’s shirt, and sure enough, though scabbed over from healing, there was my proof.
A set of bite marks, ragged and painful looking, but with an unmistakable gap where one of the fang punctures should be. A gap which would match to a missing tooth. One that I had knocked out six years earlier while fighting for my life against the first master vampire I’d ever tried to kill.
“Son of a bitch. ” I sucked in a breath of cold air and cast a look behind me, a paranoid but somehow necessary gesture to confirm he wasn’t there.
