Page 19 of Evil Hearts

As we make our way down the street, I slide my hands into my pockets and skip alongside her like a puppy. “Soooo … you wanna catch a movie after this little excursion of ours?”

No answer. She stares straight ahead, then sniffs the air. I stop and do the same. Yeah, no. I don’t know why I did that. That was totally pointless.

“What is it, girl? Did Timmy fall in the well again?” I tease, but Juliette gives me one of her signature glares. Okay, yeah, she doesn’t understand pop culture references, so I don’t know why I keep trying. “No, but seriously. What’s wrong?”

“They’re close,” she mutters, then takes a sharp turn around the corner of a boarded-up restaurant. I follow behind her, trying my best to slink away with her as she sticks close to the shadows. Luckily, my leather jacket obfuscates me well enough anyway, so I don’t need to worry about standing out. Some vamps actually wear Day-Glo when they go out—a decision I’ll never understand, because it’s ugly as sin, even under the bestconditions. The stereotype that vampires are terrible dressers is spot on most of the time.

We stop abruptly behind a truck parked next to a couple of trash cans. A fuzzy raccoon pops its cute little head out of the trash, clutching a half-eaten loaf of bread in its paws.

“Aww,” I say, and crouch down in front of the critter. “Juli, we can’t eat him. He’s just a little guy.”

Juli whirls around and presses her finger to her lips. “Shh! Be quiet for once, you … youandouille!”

I blink. “Andouille? Why are you calling me a sausage?”

There’s a loudbang! bang! bang!not too far from us, and we both jerk our heads up. Juliette shuffles over to one side of the truck to look around it, and I rush forward to put my arm around her like a shield.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice muffled against my jacket.

“I’m protecting you, of course. Isn’t it obvious?”

She pushes me away and grumbles. If this woman could be any animal in the world, she’d definitely be a cat. “Well, stop it. This is why I wanted to leave you behind. You’re only getting in my way.”

I’m pretty sure that’s the longest sentence she’s said to me since we met, and it was to tell me I was in her way. Go figure. She pushes me away with strength I didn’t know she even had, and I fall back onto my ass, spraining my tailbone. Okay, not really, but it sure felt like I did. Juliette goes back to perch behind the truck like Batman while I decide to be a good boy for two seconds and hobble next to her and wait for her signal.

“There are three Helsings standing guard by that door,” she whispers. “I can take care of the two of them easily. But I will need to lure the third away to kill him separately. You wait here, and do not get involved. Do you understand me?” She turns to look at me, and I feel something inside wither up and die. Hereyes turn molten, ready to incinerate me should I step a toe out of line.

I gulp. “I-If there are Helsings here, maybe we shouldn’t be? You know, because they have crossbows,” I say, and rub the back of my neck again.

Juli rolls her eyes. “Merde, what a coward. It is fine. I do this every night.”

I heard a rumor once that the Helsings were constantly recruiting because their soldiers kept dying, and no one knew who or what the cause was. Most vamps I know can’t take on one, let alone three of them at a time. But if the legends about the Nosferatu are true, then…

“Stay. Put,” she says, pointing at the ground. “Here. I will return for you.”

Juliette pulls her cloak snugly around herself and races off into the darkness, leaving me behind. She’s so quick, I almost don’t notice she’s gone until I open my mouth to reply. Now it all makes sense, how she’s lived for so long by herself. Juliette is like darkness itself, blending into the shadows without a sound.

The squelching of a man dying is the only thing I hear, followed by the panicked “Fuck!” of another. And then he, too, presumably dies by the little unholy terror’s hands.

Tiny and lethal. My kind of woman.

I creep around the side of the truck to chance a glimpse of her, but all I see are two dead bodies lying in front of a door. The only light around is the lamp plastered on the side of the building, moths fluttering around the bulb.I’m not sure why the Helsings insist on wearing Kevlar uniforms. It’s not like we’re shooting bullets at them. If they were smart, they’d cover their major arteries in barbed metal instead. But the Helsings aren’t smart, they’re just armed

My bloodlust is immediate, followed by the pounding headache that makes me double over my knees in agony. Notonly that, but the erection that follows is so painful it feels like my cock is going to explode. Literally.

I’ve heard of some younger vamps having this problem. The bloodlust that urges us to feed also makes us horny as hell, and some have died from it getting too extreme because they’d rather end their un-lives than endure the temporary discomfort.

Without thinking, I make a mad dash for the corpses lying on the ground and immediately start lapping up the blood weeping from the one guy’s stomach wound.

I don’t see Juliette anywhere. Come to think of it, I don’t see that third Helsing she mentioned, either. Maybe she’s already pulled his sorry carcass off into an alleyway somewhere to snack on him. Either way, the bloodlust throbbing in my veins and cock can’t be ignored anymore, so I drink deeply from the gash in the man’s chest.

Suddenly, white-hot pain lances through my body as stars burst across my vision. Someone’s taken a boot to my temple, and I’m laid out on my back in the street, spread eagle. Fuck.

“Get up!” I hear Juliette cry.

Moaning, I roll onto my side and spit out a blood clot, along with one of my teeth. Thankfully not one of my incisors, but still. Whoever kicked me lands another blow to my side, sending my body flying like a rag doll through the air.

When I hit the pavement again, I hit it hard. So hard, I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get back up without my ribs crumbling to dust.

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