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And a human I can deal with.
I squint at him and purse my lips. The sound of running steps is getting closer by the moment. There’s nowhere to go, nothing to do, but await the arrival of backup and then take them all down. In the meantime though, I figure I ought to get the drop on this unlucky bastard.
I gesture to the casket with my admittedly not-so-intimidating bobby blade. “This isn’t your resting place.”
He snarls, trying and failing to appear menacing. “Of course, it is! I’ve rested here for a hundred years—”
“You’re easily in your early forties and not a second older,” I say, frowning at him to show my lack of amusement. “And you’re alsonota vampire.”
“Blasphemy!”
I laugh at that. “In fact, you’re as human as they come, and I have a rule about killing humans.”
“You don’t?” he asks, eyeing me purposefully.
I nod. “I don’t.” There’s a beat of silence between us, so I carry on. “I do have to admit, though, that I’m incredibly curious as to what the hell you were doing pretending to be a vampire.”
He puts his fists up into the air as though he’s going to hit me. I laugh and shake my head.
The footsteps outside have nearly arrived, but I’m not worried in the slightest. They sound like they belong to more humans. When they do finally arrive, I’m a bit surprised to find a whole handful of them and without much ado, one of them barks a command and they slam into me like a barricade.
I’ll give them this: I wasnotexpecting them to form a wall and take me down to the floor as a team. My bravado and confidence takes a bit of a hit as I wriggle against them, but they aren’t budging.
Holding me down, the ugly man from the coffin walks around me until we’re face to shins and then drops down to his haunches so I can better see him. He’s clearly in the midst of a panic, if his wide eyes and worried expression are anything to go on, but there’s also inquisitiveness dancing in his eyes.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Joanna, but I’m known as Jo,” I answer. “Who are you?”
He squints and makes a point of pursing his lips together.
“You can’t skip the introduction!” I manage to say, a task I find difficult, given the crushing weight of the people atop me. “That’s the best part of making an enemy.”
He chews on that for a second, exchanging glances with some of the people above me.
“Kellen,” he says finally as he turns back to face me. “Kellen Caveny. Not that it’s any of your—”
“Listen, Kellen, I’ve just got a question or two and I’ll be out of your hair: if you’re not a vampire, and Iknowyou’re not a vampire—” He bristles. I continue, “then what were you doing sleeping in a casket?”
“Why is it so unusual for a human to sleep in a casket?”
I laugh at that because it’s a stupid question. “I’ve been hunting monsters for over ten years, and never have I happened across ahumanwho slept in a monster’s crypt—”
“He’snot a monster!” the man barks.
I quirk my eyebrow and struggle against the hold his friends have on me. “He?As in… who?”
“Master!” he yells at me with indignation.
“Ah… so… you have some sort of weird little arrangement with the vampire then?” I continue, trying to understand. “You guard his crypt, keep people from getting into hissacred spaceand then, in return, he grants you immortal life?”
Kellen scoffs and crosses his arms over his narrow chest, looking down over me with obvious upset. If I look straight up, I can see that he has slightly bucked teeth that hang out of his mouth.
“You know nothing,” he says.
“Actually, I know more than you’d think,” I respond, eyebrows reaching for the ceiling. “I know that, above all else, vampires are narcissistic sons of bitches who don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves, and they sure as hell aren’t in the trade of making deals with humans.”
“Master isn’t like that.”
