Guilty Pleasures - Laurell K. Hamilton [35]
A man leaned against the door. He was tall and slender, dressed like a riverboat gambler. Royal purple coat, lace at the neck and down the front, straight black pants and boots. A straight-brimmed hat shaded his face, and a gold mask covered everything but his mouth and chin. Dark eyes stared at me through the gold mask.
His tongue danced over his lips and teeth: fangs, a vampire. Why didn’t that surprise me?
“I was afraid I would miss you, Executioner.” His voice had a Southern thickness.
Winter moved to stand between us. The vampire laughed, a rich barking sound. “The muscle man here thinks he can protect you. Shall I tear him to pieces to prove him wrong?”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said. Zachary moved up to stand beside me.
“Do you recognize my voice?” the vampire asked.
I shook my head.
“It has been two years. I didn’t know until this business came up that you were The Executioner. I thought you died.”
“Can we cut to the chase here? Who are you and what do you want?”
“So eager, so impatient, so human.” He raised gloved hands and took off his hat. Short, auburn hair framed the gold mask.
“Please don’t do this,” Zachary said. “The master has ordered me to see the woman safely to her car.”
“I don’t intend to harm a hair on her head—tonight.” The gloves lifted the mask away. The left side of the face was scarred, pitted, melted away. Only his brown eye was still whole and alive, rolling in a circle of pinkish-white scar tissue. Acid burns look like that. Except it hadn’t been acid. It had been Holy Water.
I remembered his body pinning me to the ground. His teeth tearing at my arm while I tried to keep him off my throat. The clean sharp snap of bone where he bit through. My screams. His hand forcing my head back. Him rearing to strike. Helpless. He missed the neck; I never knew why. Teeth sank around my collarbone, snapped it. He lapped up my blood like a cat with cream. I lay under his weight listening to him lap up my blood. The broken bones didn’t hurt yet; shock. I was beginning not to hurt, not to be afraid. I was beginning to die.
My right hand reached out in the grass and touched something smooth—glass. A vial of Holy Water that had been thrown out of my bag, scattered by the half-human servants. The vampire never looked at me. His face was pressed over the wound. His tongue was exploring the hole he’d made. His teeth grated along the naked bone, and I screamed.
He laughed into my shoulder, laughed while he killed me. I flicked the lid open on the vial and splashed his face. Flesh boiled. His skin popped and bubbled. He knelt over me, clutching his face and shrieking.
I thought he had been trapped in the house when it burned down. I had wanted him dead, wished him dead. I had wished that memory away, pushed it back. Now here he stood, my favorite nightmare come to life.
“What, no scream of horror? No gasp of fright? You disappoint me, Executioner. Don’t you admire your own handiwork?”
My voice came out strangled, hushed. “I thought you died.”
“Now ya know different. And now I know you’re alive, too. How cosy.”
He smiled, and the muscles on his scarred cheek pulled the smile to one side, making it a grimace. Even vampires can’t heal everything. “Eternity, Executioner, eternity like this.” He caressed the scars with a gloved hand.
“What do you want?”
“Be brave, little girl, be brave as you want to be. I can feel your fear. I want to see the scars I gave you, see that you remember me, like I remember you.”
“I remember you.”
“Scars, girl, show me the scars.”
“I show you the scars, then what?”
“Then you go home, or wherever you’re going. The master has given strict orders you are not be harmed until after you do your job for us.”
“Then?”
He smiled, a broad glistening expanse of teeth. “Then, I hunt you down, and I pay you back for this.” He touched his face. “Come, girl, don’t be shy, I seen it all before. I tasted your blood. Show me the scars, and the muscle man won’t have to die proving