Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter

  His eyes raised to me through a mask of blood. He finally said, "Nothing a few stitches wouldn't cure." He was trying to make a joke. I wanted to hug him and promise the worst was over. Never make promises you can't keep.

  The vampire didn't exactly move, but something brought my attention back to him. He stood knee-deep in autumn weeds. My eyes were on a level with his belt buckle, which made him about my height. Short for a man. A white, Anglo-Saxon, twentieth-century man. The belt buckle glinted gold and was carved into a blocky, stylized human figure. The carving, like the vampire's face, was straight out of an Aztec calendar.

  The urge to look upward and meet his eyes crawled over my skin. My chin had actually risen an inch or so before I realized what I was doing. Shit. The vamp was messing with my mind, and I couldn't feel it. Even now, knowing he had to be doing something to me, I couldn't sense it. I was blind and deaf just like every other tourist.

  Well, maybe not every tourist. I hadn't been munched on yet, which probably meant they wanted something more than just blood. I'd be dead otherwise, and so would Larry. Of course, I was still wearing blessed crosses. What could this creature do once I was stripped of crosses? I did not want to find out.

  We were alive. It meant they wanted something that we couldn't give them dead. But what?

  "What in the hell do you want?"

  His hand came into view. He was offering his hand to help me stand. I stood without help, putting myself a little in front of Larry.

  "Tell me who your master is, girl, and I won't hurt you."

  "Who else will, then?" I asked.

  "Clever, but I swear you will leave here in safety if you give me the name."

  "First of all, I don't have a master. I'm not even sure I have an equal." I fought the urge to glance at his face, see if he got the joke. Jean-Claude would have gotten it.

  "You stand before me, making jokes?" His voice sounded surprised, nearly outraged. Good, I think.

  "I don't have a master," I said. Master vampires can smell truth or lies.

  "If you truly believe that, you are deluding yourself. You bear two master signs. Give me the name and I will destroy him for you. I will free you of this . . . problem."

  I hesitated. He was older than Jean-Claude. A lot older. He might be able to kill the Master of the City. Of course, that would leave this master vampire in control of the city. He and his three helpers. Four vampires, one less than were killing people, but I was willing to bet there was a fifth vamp around here somewhere. You couldn't have that many rogue master vampires running around one medium-size city.

  Any master that was slaughtering civilians would be a bad thing to have in charge of all the vampires in the area. Just call it a feeling.

  I shook my head. "I can't."

  "You want free of him, do you not?"

  "Very much."

  "Let me free you, Ms. Blake. Let me help you."

  "Like you helped the man and woman you murdered?"

  "I did not murder them," he said. His voice sounded very reasonable. His eyes were powerful enough to drown in but the voice wasn't as good. There was no magic to the voice. Jean-Claude's was better. Or Yasmeen's, for that matter. Nice to know that not every talent came equally with time. Ancient wasn't everything.

  "So you didn't strike the fatal blow. So what? Your flunkies do your will, not their own."

  "You'd be surprised how much free will we have."

  "Stop it," I said.

  "What?"

  "Sounding so damn reasonable."

  There was laughter in his voice. "You would rather I rant and rave?"

  Yes, actually, but I didn't say it out loud. "I won't give you the name. Now what?"

  There was a rush of wind at my back. I tried to turn, to face the wind. The woman in white rushed at me. Fangs straining, hands clawing, spattered with other people's blood, the vampire smashed into me. We fell backwards into the weeds with her on top. She darted towards my neck like a snake. I shoved my left wrist into her face. One cross brushed her lips. A flash of light, the stench of burning flesh, and the vampire was gone, screaming into the darkness. I had never seen any vampire move that fast. Had it been mind-magic? Had she tricked me that badly even with a blessed cross? How many over-five-hundred-year-old vamps can you have in one pack? Two, I hoped. Any more than that and they'd have us outnumbered.

  I scrambled to my feet. The master vampire was on his hands and knees beside the remains of my car. Larry was nowhere in sight. A flutter of panic clawed at my chest; then I realized Larry had crawled underneath the car so the vampire couldn't make him a hostage again. When all else fails, hide. It works for rabbits.

  The vampire's blistered back was bent at a painful angle as he tried to pull Larry out from under the car. "I will pull this arm out of its socket, if you do not come here!"

  "You sound like you've got a kitten under the bed," I said.

  Alejandro whirled around. He flinched, like it hurt. Great.

  I felt something move behind me. I didn't argue with the sensation. Say it was nerves; I turned, crosses ready. Two vampires behind me. One was the pale-haired female. I guess the shot had missed her spine; pity. The other vampire could have been her male twin. They both hissed and cowered from the crosses. Nice to see someone was bothered.

  The master came at me from the back, but I heard him. Either the burn was making him clumsy, or the crosses were helping me. I stood halfway between the three vampires, crosses sort of pointed at both groups. The blonds peered over their arms, but the crosses had them well and truly scared. The master never hesitated. He came in a rushing burst of speed. I backpedaled, tried to keep the crosses between us, but he grabbed my left forearm. With the crosses dangling inches from his flesh, he held on.

  I pulled, getting as much distance from him as I could, then hit him in the solar plexus with everything I had. He made an "umph" sound, then flicked his hand at my face. I rocked back and tasted blood. He'd barely touched me, but he'd proven his point. If I wanted to exchange blows, he'd beat the crap out of me.

  I hit him in the throat. He gagged and looked surprised. Beaten to snot was still a hell of a lot better than being bitten. I'd rather be dead than have pointy teeth.

  His fist closed over my right fist, squeezing just enough to let me feel his strength. He was still trying to warn me off rather than hurt me. Bully for him.

  He raised both his arms, drawing me closer into his body. I didn't want closer, but there didn't seem to be a hell of a lot I could do about it. Unless, of course, vampires had testicles. The throat shot had hurt. I glanced at his face, almost close enough to kiss. I leaned into him, getting as much room as I could. He just kept drawing me closer. His own momentum helped.

  My knee hit him hard, and I ground it up and into him. It was not a glancing blow. He crumpled forward but didn't let go of my hands. I wasn't loose, but it was a start, and I'd answered an age-old question. Vampires did have balls.

  He jerked my hands behind my back, pinning me between his arms and his body. His body felt wooden, stiff, and unyielding as stone. It had been warm and soft and hurtable only a second before. What had happened?

  "Take the things off her wrist," he said. He wasn't talking to me.

  I tried to crane my head around to see what was coming up behind me. I couldn't see anything. The two pale vampires were still huddled in the face of the naked crosses.

  Something touched my wrist. I jerked, but he held me still. "If you struggle, he will cut you."

  I turned my head as far back as I could, and was staring into the round eyes of the boy vampire. He'd recovered his knife and was using it to poke at the bracelet.

  The master vampire's hands squeezed my arms until I thought they'd pop from the pressure like shaken soda pop. I must have made some sound, because he said, "I did not mean to hurt you tonight." His mouth was pressed against my ear, lost in my hair. "This was your choice."

  The bracelet broke with a small snap. I felt it fall away into the weeds
. The master vampire drew a deep breath, as if it were easier to breathe now. He was only an inch or two taller than I was, but he held both my wrists in one small hand, fingers squeezing to make the grip tight. It hurt, and I fought not to make small, helpless noises.

  He stroked his free hand through my hair, then grabbed a handful and pulled my head backwards so he could see my eyes. His eyes were solid, absolute black; the whites had drowned. "I will have his name, Anita, one way or another."

  I spit in his face.

  He screamed, tightening his grip on my wrists until I cried out. "I could have made this pleasant, but now I think I want you to hurt. Look into my eyes, mortal, and despair. Taste of my eyes, and there will be no secrets between us." His voice dropped to the barest of whispers. "Perhaps I will drink your mind like others drink blood, and leave nothing behind but your mindless husk."

  I stared into the darkness that was his eyes and felt myself fall, forward, impossibly forward, and down, down into a blackness that was pure and total, and had never known light.

  24

  I was staring up into a face I didn't know. The face was holding a bloody handkerchief to its forehead. Short hair, pale eyes, freckles. "Hi, Larry," I said. My voice sounded distant and strange. I couldn't remember why.

  It was still dark. Larry's face had been cleaned up a little, but the wound was still bleeding. I couldn't have been out that long. Out? Where had I been out to? All I could remember was eyes, black eyes. I sat up too fast. Larry caught my arm or I would have fallen.

  "Where are the . . ."

  "Vampires," he finished for me.

  I leaned into his arm and whispered, "Yeah."

  There were people all around us in the dark, huddled in little whispering groups. The lights of a police car strobed the darkness. Two uniforms were standing quietly next to the car, talking with a man whose name wouldn't come to me.

  "Karl," I said.

  "What?" Larry asked.

  "Karl Inger, the tall man talking to the police."

  Larry nodded. "That's right."

  A small, dark man knelt beside us. Jeremy Ruebens of Humans First, who last I knew had been shooting at us. What the hell was going on?

  Jeremy smiled at me. It looked genuine.

  "What makes you my friend all of a sudden?"

  His smile broadened. "We saved you."

  I pushed away from Larry to sit on my own. A moment of dizziness and I was fine. Yeah, right. "Talk to me, Larry."

  He glanced at Jeremy Ruebens, then back to me. "They saved us."

  "How?"

  "They threw holy water on the one who bit me." He touched his throat with his free hand, an unconscious gesture, but he noticed me watching. "Is she going to have control over me?"

  "Did she enter your mind at the same time as she bit you?"

  "I don't know," he said. "How can you tell?"

  I opened my mouth to explain, then closed it. How to explain the unexplainable? "If Alejandro, the master vampire, had bitten me at the same time he rolled my mind, I'd be under his power now."

  "Alejandro?"

  "That's what the other vampires called the master."

  I shook my head, but the world swam in black waves and I had to swallow hard not to vomit. What had he done to me? I'd had mind games played on me before, but I'd never had a reaction like this.

  "There's an ambulance coming," Larry said.

  "I don't need one."

  "You've been unconscious for over an hour, Ms. Blake," Ruebens said. "We had the police call an ambulance when we couldn't wake you."

  Ruebens was close enough for me to reach out and touch him. He looked friendly, positively radiant, like a bride on her big day. Why was I suddenly his favorite person? "So they threw holy water on the vamp that bit you; what then?" I asked Larry.

  "They drove the rest of them off with crosses and charms."

  "Charms?"

  Ruebens pulled out a chain with two miniature metal-faced books hanging on it. Both books would have fit in the palm of my hand with room to spare. "They aren't charms, Larry. They're tiny Jewish Holy Books."

  "I thought a Star of David."

  "The star doesn't work, because it's a racial symbol, not really a religious symbol."

  "So it's like miniature Bibles?"

  I raised my eyebrows. "The Torah contains the Old Testament, so yeah, it's like miniature Bibles."

  "Would the Bible work for us Christians?"

  "I don't know. Probably, I've just never been attacked by vampires while carrying a Bible." That was probably my fault. In fact, when was the last time I'd read the Bible? Was I becoming a Sunday Christian? I'd worry about my soul later, after my body felt a little better.

  "Cancel the ambulance; I'm fine."

  "You are not fine," Ruebens said. He reached out as if to touch me. I looked at him. He stopped in mid-motion. "Let us help you, Ms. Blake. We share common enemies."

  The police were walking towards us over the dark grass. Karl Inger was coming, too, talking softly to the police as they moved.

  "Do the police know you were shooting at us first?"

  Something passed over Ruebens's face.

  "They don't know, do they?"

  "We saved you, Ms. Blake, from a fate worse than death. I was wrong to try and hurt you. You raise the dead, but if you are truly enemies with the vampires, then we are allies."

  "The enemy of my enemy is my friend, huh?"

  He nodded.

  The police were almost here, almost within earshot. "All right, but you ever point a gun at me again and I'll forget you saved me."

  "It will never happen again, Ms. Blake; you have my word."

  I wanted to say something disparaging, but the police were there. They'd hear. I wasn't going to tell on Ruebens and Humans First, so I had to save my smart alec comebacks for later use. Knowing Ruebens, I'd get another chance.

  I lied to the police about what Humans First had done, and I lied about what Alejandro had wanted from me. It was just another of those mindless attacks that had happened twice already. Later, to Dolph and Zerbrowski, I'd tell the truth, but right now I just didn't feel like explaining the entire mess to strangers. I wasn't even sure Dolph would get the whole story. Like the fact that I was almost assuredly Jean-Claude's human servant.

  Nope, no need to mention that.

  25

  Larry's car was a late-model Mazda. The vampires had kept Humans First so busy they hadn't had time to trash the car. Lucky for us, since my car was totaled. Oh, I'd have to go through the insurance company and let them tell me the car was totaled, but there was something large broken underneath the car; fluids darker than blood were leaking out. The front end looked like we'd hit an elephant. I knew totaled when I saw it.

  We'd spent the last several hours at the emergency room. The ambulance attendants insisted I see a doctor, and Larry needed three small stitches in his forehead. His orangey hair fell forward and hid the wound. His first scar. The first of many if he stayed in this business and hung around me.

  "You've been on the job, what, fourteen hours? What do you think so far?" I asked.

  He glanced at me sideways, then back to the road. He smiled, but it didn't look funny. "I don't know."

  "Do you want to be an animator when you graduate?"

  "I thought I did," he said.

  Honesty; a rare talent. "Not sure now?"

  "Not really."

  I let it rest there. My instinct was to talk him out of it. To tell him to go into some sane, normal business. But I knew that raising the dead wasn't just a job choice. If your "talent" was strong enough, you had to raise the dead or risk the power coming out at odd moments. Does the term roadkill mean anything to you? It meant something to my stepmother Judith. Of course, she wasn't pleased with my job. She thought it was gruesome. What could I say? She was right.

  "There are other job choices for a preternatural biology degree."

  "What? A zoo, exterminator?"

  "Teacher," I
said, "park ranger, naturalist, field biologist, researcher."

  "And which of those jobs can make you this kind of money?" he asked.

  "Is money the only reason you want to be an animator?" I was disappointed.

  "I want to do something to help people. What better than using my specialized skills to rid the world of dangerous undead?"

  I stared at him. All I could see was his profile in the darkened car, face underlit from the dashboard. "You want to be a vampire executioner, not an animator." I didn't try to keep the surprise out of my voice.

  "My ultimate goal, yes."

  "Why?"

  "Why do you do it?"

  I shook my head. "Answer the question, Larry."

  "I want to help people."

  "Then be a policeman; they need people on the force who know preternatural creatures."

  "I thought I did pretty good tonight."

  "You did."

  "Then what's wrong?"

  I tried to think how to phrase it in fifty convincing words or less. "What happened tonight was awful, but it gets worse."

  "Olive's coming up; which way do I turn?"

  "Left."

  The car took the exit and slid into the turning lane. We sat at the light with the turn signal blinking in the dark.

  "You don't know what you're getting into," I said.

  "Then tell me," he said.

  "I'll do better than that. I'll show you."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Turn right at the third light."

  We rolled into the parking lot. "First building on the right."

  Larry slid into the only open space he could find. My parking space. My poor little Nova wouldn't be coming back to it.

  I took off my jacket in the darkness of the car. "Hit the overhead light," I said.

  He did as he was told. He was better at following orders than I was. Which, since he'd be following my orders, was fine.

  I showed him the scars on my arms. "The cross-shaped burn is from human servants who thought it was funny. The mound of scar tissue at the bend of my arm is where a vampire tore my arm to pieces. Physical therapist says it's a miracle that I got full use of my arm back. Fourteen stitches from a human servant, and that's just my arms."