Page 35 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood (A Paranormal Halloween #5)

Ryan

She didn’t finish her sentence, but that was okay. I got the gist of what she felt. The vampire renowned for killing with fear was full of righteous indignation over a vampire who’d debilitated human children.

Marco was pissed because Leesa had gone against orders to avoid drawing attention, but he didn’t seem particularly outraged about the children she’d sexually molested and then fed from. Or perhaps I was reading him wrong. I needed more time around him to be certain.

This vampire, though, was incensed about the fact children had been harmed.

I looked back to the vampire in the cage. “What will you do to her?”

“Are you asking if I’ll torture her?”

“No, I’m asking how you will torture her.”

“You’re so certain I won’t just drink her down?”

“Yes.”

I turned back to Etta and saw her lift a single brow before I focused on her chin once again.

“Would you like to help me torture her to death, slayer?”

The question caught me off guard and I nearly looked into her eyes, but stopped myself at the last micro-second. She might be able to see my deepest fears if I met her gaze, and that was personal.

I’m immune to most learned vampire powers, but the ones given to them upon turning sometimes work on me.

Not always, and not usually at a high level, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance.

This vampire had so much power. So much more than I’d expected.

In fact, I was certain she’d easily be stronger than Marco if he weren’t Master of a city.

There was much about Etta I didn’t understand, and this was new to me. If she were human, or a Slayer, I’d have wanted to take her to bed. Not my bed, but another bed would’ve been more than welcome. A luxurious hotel bed, for instance.

But she’s a vampire. A monster. I didn’t feel the same about the monsters as I once had, but acknowledging that some are capable of toning down their basic nature isn’t the same as mixing bodily fluids with them.

And yet, I’d found her appealing even when I’d watched her from a distance, and now that I was in the same room with her, talking to her, the attraction was even stronger.

It was as if my soul recognized her, when I’d never felt the existence of a soul within me before, and I’d wondered if Slayers had them.

I looked at Leesa while my thoughts wandered, and I kept my eyes on her to answer Etta’s question. “I’d just take her heart and head. Torture isn’t my thing.”

I felt Etta’s power grow, which meant I’d scared the vampire in the cage.

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.

I’d never understood how she could sleep with the monsters until I’d met this particular monster.

Etta, the vampire most of Europe was terrified of, seemed more kindhearted than many humans I’d saved.

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