Vampaholic

“As if I didn’t have enough to worry about right now,” I exhaled. “Rawls, lower your weapon! If he doesn’t think you’re a threat he won’t attack—”

The rest of my warning was drowned out by the stacatto coughing of the nail gun as he opened fire. The gray shape abruptly swerved, but it didn’t change course and when it got to within leaping distance of Jack it launched itself into the air.

“No, Mikhail!” I screamed out the command but like my warning, it was ignored. The huge wolf crashed into Jack and the two of them went down. The pickup truck screeched to a halt. Its door burst open and Megan flew out, dressed in de rigueur Daughter of Lilith black. All that was needed to complete this French farce of a scene was a scantily clad blonde, I thought before remembering that I was playing that particular role.

“Megan, call off Mikhail—” I began, but like everything else I’d said in the past minute my words had no effect. Megan shot one appalled look at me and then brought her stake into throwing position. “Don’t!” I yelled.

She froze. I felt a moment’s gratified relief that someone had finally listened to me before I realized that my command hadn’t been what had stopped her.

Mikhail, still in wolf form, stood over Rawls, his bared teeth inches from his neck. Rawls, his face a grim mask, held his finger on the trigger of the nail gun that was jammed into Mikhail’s thick ruff. It was the classic standoff, but how long it would remain that way I didn’t want to guess.

A pale shaft of light had fallen upon Rawls’s upturned face, intensifying the green of his eyes so they looked like blazing emeralds. Megan drew in a harsh breath and slowly lowered her stake.

“Stand down, Mikey baby,” she said hoarsely. The wolf immediately went to her side. Just as swiftly, Rawls got to his feet and Megan spoke again, her voice cold and hard. “You’ve got five seconds to explain why my sister’s cuffed to your car and why you were holding a weapon on her when we drove in. Make it good, because this stake works just as well on human creeps as it does on its usual customers.”

I was beginning to feel invisible. I opened my mouth to tell Megan I was perfectly capable of telling her myself what had happened to me, but the words died in my throat. Slowly I raised my uncuffed right hand and stared at it, horror rising in me like bile.

Where the morning light fell across it my skin was smoking. Even as I watched, a couple of heat blisters bubbled and popped…and the gory rip that had been between my fingers only moments ago was now perfectly healed.

I raised my eyes and saw Jack Rawls looking past Megan at me. “If you need an explanation, just look at your sister, slayer,” he said thinly. “Your vamp sister.”

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