Guilty Pleasures - Laurell K. Hamilton [85]
And I remembered Beverly Chin beating the vampire’s head in with a silver candlestick, while he crouched over me, breath warm on my neck. Her shrieks echoed through my dreams for weeks, as she beat the thing’s head to pieces until blood and brain seeped out onto the floor.
All that passed between us without words. We had saved each other’s lives; it is a bond that sticks with you. Friendships may fade, but there is always that obligation, that knowledge forged of terror and blood and shared violence, that never really leaves. It was there between us after three long years, straining and touchable.
Ronnie is a smart lady. She caught on to the awkward silence. “Would anybody like a drink?”
“Nonalcoholic,” Bev and I said together. We laughed at each other, and the strain faded. We would never be true friends, but perhaps we could stop being ghosts to each other.
Ronnie brought us two diet Cokes. I made a face but took it anyway. I knew that was all she had in the office’s little fridge. We had had discussions about diet drinks, but she swore she liked the taste. Liked the taste, garg!
Bev took hers graciously; perhaps that was what she drank at home. Give me something fattening with a little taste to it any day.
“Ronnie mentioned on the phone that there might be a death squad attached to HAV. Is that true?” I said.
Bev stared down at the can, which she held with one hand cupped underneath so it wouldn’t stain her skirt. “I do not know positively that it is true, but I believe it to be.”
“Tell me what you’ve heard?” I asked.
“There was talk for a while of forming a squad to hunt the vampires. To kill them as they have killed our . . . families. The president of course vetoed the idea. We work within the system. We are not vigilantes.” She said it almost as a question, as if trying to convince herself more than us. She was shaken by what might have happened. Her neat little world collapsing again.
“But lately I have heard talk. People in our organization bragging of slaying vampires.”
“How were they supposedly killed?” I asked.
She looked at me, hesitated. “I do not know.”
“No hint?”
She shook her head. “I believe I could find out for you. Is it important?”
“The police have hidden certain details from the general public. Things only the murderer would know.”
“I see.” She glanced down at the can in her hands, then up at me. “I do not believe it is murder even if my people have done what the papers say. Killing dangerous animals should not be a crime.”
In part I agreed with her. Once I had agreed with her wholeheartedly. “Then why tell us?” I asked.
She looked directly at me, dark, nearly black eyes staring into my face. “I owe you.”
“You saved my life as well. You owe me nothing.”
“There will always be a debt between us, always.”
I looked into her face and understood. Bev had begged me not to tell anyone that she had beaten the vampire’s head in. I think it horrified her that she was capable of such violence, regardless of motive.
I had told the police that she distracted the vampire so I could kill it. She had been disproportionately grateful for that small white lie. Maybe if no one else knew, she could pretend it had never happened. Maybe.
She stood, smoothing her skirt down in back. She sat her soda can carefully on the edge of the desk. “I will leave a message with Ms. Sims when I find out more.”
I nodded. “I appreciate what you’re doing.” She might be betraying her cause for me.
She laid her purple jacket over her arm, small purse clasped in her hands. “Violence is not the answer. We must work within the system. Humans Against Vampires stands for law and order, not vigilantism.” It sounded like a prerecorded speech. But