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Etta took a second to sort the new power into her own, and told me, “That last statement isn’t entirely true, Slayer.”
No, it wasn’t, and now I knew she could sense truth as only a Master usually can. “I don’t enjoy torturing people who don’t deserve it, and I rarely do so even when they deserve it. It’s a tool I sometimes use when I need information, but I don’t use it just for the hell of it.” That statement was as true as I could make it. I do enjoy torturing people who deserve it, but I refrain from it as much as possible.
“Is there information you need from Leesa before she dies?”
Again, this pale vampire with the dark, seductive eyes surprised me. “I’d love to have names of the kids still in a coma, so our people can see if they might be saved.”
“Do you think it’s likely?”
“No, but I’d like to try.”
“What if I could give them back what Leesa took from them? I might be able to for the last three. Their essence hasn’t been used up completely.”
I sat up. “You’d be willing to try?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I’m a Slayer. Suspicion is genetically encoded and then nurtured all through childhood. The monsters are evil. Never trust them. They aren’t capable of doing good. Humans are nothing but food to them.
“She snuffed their life out. I have no way to find them, but if you do and will help me get to them, I will try to undo what she did.”
“Just giving them what you got from her will do it?”
She shook her head. “I’ll have to find each child’s essence. I doubt I can give it all back to them, but if I can gather enough for them to wake and eat, they can grow the rest of it back themselves if they have the loving support of a family around them.” She sighed. “Assuming they have a family who loves them. If any are in foster care, or living in an abusive home, it probably won’t work.”
“You’ve helped humans before?”
She shrugged, and I scented fear.
“I won’t give away your secret,” I assured her. If her former Master knew she’d possibly gone against orders to help humans, he might require she be punished even now, when she was no longer under his demesne.
“And yet you won’t meet my gaze.”
“Do you blame me?” I asked.
“Dawn approaches, Slayer.”
I breathed in, sensing the sun. “We have around fifteen minutes.”
“I’d like to shower and change clothes, so I can rise and meet with someone as quickly as possible.”
Vampires die at dawn, they don’t sleep. This means they can dress before the sun takes them, and they’ll still look fresh when they rise.
“If you’ll give me names, or enough information for me to find them, I’ll pick you up outside the gate twenty minutes after sunset tonight.”
She closed her eyes, probably looking through Leesa’s memories. At first, I took it as a good thing, that she trusted me not to attack, but then I remembered her first question — had I come here to slay her for drinking Leesa’s fear.
She wasn’t afraid of the true death. She’d have let me kill her without a fight.
I made notes as she told me the schools the victims attended and the numbers on their uniforms. Leesa hadn’t bothered to find out their names, but in some cases, she remembered their address.
“My people will be able to find them with this information. Thank you.”
“Death comes to visit me, and I find myself helping him. Thank you for giving me an interesting morning.”
In the supernatural world, I’m known as Death. It was once a nickname I was proud of. Now? I wasn’t so sure.
Years earlier, I’d helped train a Slayer. She’s nearly as good as me, but I don’t understand her because she’s in a poly relationship with the Master Vampire of New Orleans and the local Wolf Alpha. Both vampire and wolf claim the territories of Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. Raw power, and she lived with it every day. She slept with it. She fucked it.
