Page 5 of Hot for Slayer (Scared Sexy Collection #1)
My first instinct is to agree. Eagerly. I let myself contemplate the bliss of dropping him off at the ER, where he’ll become someone else’s problem.
But given Lazlo’s not-quite-human biology, being examined by a doctor could get him in serious trouble.
I want to get rid of him, and I’m ready to murder him in a me-or-him situation, but I wouldn’t wish being stuck in some underground lab and experimented upon on my worst enemy.
Which, coincidentally, is what Lazlo is.
“Are you sure you want to go?” I ask. “You may not have insurance, and hospitals are very expensive. Your memory will probably come back on its own now. But I’ll still help you out. I could just take you to your home and—”
“Where do I live?”
Shit. “That, I’m not sure.”
He stops in his tracks, right in the middle of a busy sidewalk, forcing the people behind us to sidestep him.
If he were anyone else, New Yorkers would be pushing him into traffic.
But Lazlo is tall; covered in striking, unique tattoos; built like a small skyscraper himself.
He doesn’t exactly ooze agreeability. The most they level at him is a side-eye.
Meanwhile, he is ogling me like I should feel guilty for not knowing where his house is.
“Honestly, I’m not even certain you have a place in the city,” I say defiantly. “Told you—nemeses.”
“Sure. What about my work?”
“The Guild?”
“Is that what the pest control company is called?”
“Yup. No Pest for the Guilded is your slogan.” I nod. Surely it’ll make the weirdness I just spewed much more convincing. “As far as I know, they don’t have a physical HQ.” Which is true enough.
His eyebrow lifts. “Let’s call them, then.”
“I don’t have their number.”
“I’m sure we can find it online.”
My snort is artfully disdainful. “They are a boutique pest control company, Lazlo. They are not on the interweb. ”
He folds his arms over his chest, clearly ready to throw me into traffic—which, somehow, seems preferable to the sly grin he breaks into a moment later. “Okay. Since you can’t take me to my home or to my workplace—”
“A hotel is the only—”
“I accept your offer.”
I blink. “What offer?”
“To help me out.” His eyes gleam. “Lead the way, Ethel. I’ll follow you to your home.”
“What is this gluten that everything seems to be free of?” “This is the fourth store that claims to sell the best bagels in New York City,” and “The two things might be unrelated, but I noticed fewer rats in places with more hot dog carts” is only a selection of the commentary Lazlo treats me to on the way to my place.
I find myself having to school the equivalent of a Martian dropped on Earth on the treachery of agglutinating proteins, but I don’t mind, because it’s better than dwelling on the insanity of my own actions.
I am taking.
A vampire slayer.
To my home.
No: I am leading the oldest and most feared vampire slayer in existence to my place. Despite being a vampire myself.
What a time to be undead.
At least you still have a home, I tell myself, hoping for a positive spin. Teenage Dirtbag burst into flames when Lazlo shoved him into the sun, which means that I won’t have to move out of my beloved apartment.
The thing about immortality is, it’s almost impossible not to build vast amounts of generational wealth.
Money hasn’t been an issue for me since Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as the Roman emperor, and I’ve circled through several accommodations and living arrangements throughout the years, including manors, Transylvanian castles, penthouses, parsonages, farms, temples, cabins in the woods where the mosquitoes tried to drink my blood, casino hotels, lighthouses, nuclear bunkers, and McMansions with more chimneys than bathrooms. What I have learned is that less is more.
Well, not true. Less is less. But that’s okay, because less is a good thing. Having an arcade room doesn’t much enhance my enjoyment of existing, so in the last few decades I’ve been gravitating toward small, cozy apartments.
Even smaller and cozier now that Lazlo is standing in it.
“I live alone,” I say.
He nods distractedly, leaning forward to take a close look at the fern I’ve been schlepping around from residence to residence for the last ninety years. “I know.”
“You do? How?”
“Hmm?” He glances at my pile of frayed sudoku magazines, then turns to me.
“How did you know that I don’t have two spouses and three sets of quintuplets?”
“I just do, Ethel. Just like I know”—his mouth twitches—“other things.” His smile vanishes when he catches sight of his own face in a mirror.
He stares, perhaps shocked by his own good looks—because, sadly, they are good.
And he is handsome. Grossly so, despite the broken lines of his nose, the scars lining his skin, and his face that’s not fully symmetrical, like he was painted by an artist self-assured enough to bend the basic rules of anatomy.
“Did you not remember?” I ask. “What you looked like, I mean. You seem disturbed.”
He turns to me and blinks in confusion. “Not by my face. Just my eyes.”
“Oh. Well, that expression right there, the glare? It’s by far your favorite. Your only , some would say.” He treats me to a particularly nasty one, and I can’t help but chuckle.
“The color, I meant. I thought they’d be .
.. I don’t know.” He sounds more hesitant than I’ve heard him before, ever , and I am tempted to tell him that I know why: All slayers have yellow eyes.
It’s a by-product of what they’re put through to become what they are, which I’ve heard includes yearslong training by teachers who are not particularly nurturing, and a final rite that often ends in a massacre.
Amber is the mark of a full-fledged, immortal slayer, whose eternal mission is to destroy vampire bloodlines.
Something else I’ve heard: The H?llsing Guild has been struggling to recruit new members, because becoming immortal no longer feels like a privilege, especially if given in exchange for spending several lifetimes going after creatures who are likely to stuff your left foot up your ass before snapping your head off.
I try not to think about it too much: that slayers, just like vampires, were once humans.
We both had to adjust to becoming something new, to the idea of infinity, and that’s no easy feat.
Maybe Lazlo’s self-image is tied to what he looked like before becoming a slayer, and his little brain is still buffering over it.
But it’s going to catch up any second now, and when it does, he needs to be gone .
He can stay the night, sure, but tomorrow I’ll kick him out and—
“Ethel?” he asks like he’s been saying my name for a while.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“Is it okay if I take a shower?”
Is it? Who knows what kind of tattoos he’ll find under that shirt and jeans. Maybe his inner thigh is where he keeps a tally of all the vampires he’s killed. Inked on his chest, he could have a photorealistic rendering of himself throwing someone who looks eerily like me into the sun.
Guess I’ll have to run that risk. “Sure. Towels are in the bathroom.” He heads in the direction I’m pointing, and the breadth of his shoulders makes me think of something. “Are you hungry?”
He stops. Nods.
Shit. “Great. That’s just great .”
“It’s great that I’m hungry?”
“Only in the sense that I’m hungry, too. So hungry. I’ll go down to the store and pick up something.” I dash out of the door like it’s being firebombed and head to the Duane Reade downstairs.
I am, of course, not hungry. Because vampires don’t eat.
Our bodies reject food in a spectacularly cinematic fashion that would find itself well at home in a vintage horror movie.
This is true about any solid or liquid item that isn’t human blood—no matter how close they may approach it.
I once took a sip of a bonobo, and hurled intermittently for the following six months.
Our species has a clear case of hot-girl tummy, and I’m grateful to the twenty-first century for giving us a final diagnosis.
Back in the nunnery, though, I used to be able to cook.
Quite well, according to Sister Wihtburh, even though the abbess would always find some reason to publicly bitch about my meals.
Oversalting will not bring you closer to godliness, Sister Aethelthryth.
If you are trying to hide your sins behind a curtain of rosemary, you have nearly succeeded.
Unfortunately, my last pantry and scullery duties were so many centuries ago, I’m not sure I even remember how to boil water.
Which is an issue, since all I can think of purchasing is several boxes of mac and cheese. I add a clean T-shirt and a pair of sweats to the basket—the largest sizes I can find, yet somehow unlikely to fit Lazlo. I run back to my apartment, and step inside just as he walks out of the bathroom.
Naked.