Page 93 of How a Vampire Falls

“Hey.” Ryker held her for a long minute until she no longer felt the desire to hurt the humans on the floor. “There you are,” he said, somehow knowing when she was okay again.

Slowly the henchman woke up. He blinked up at her and Ryker in the soft lamplight, another prop Ryker had employed to draw them to this room.

“Hi,” Ryker said.

The man flinched.

“Care to explain yourself?” He sounded almost friendly.

“What…happened?”

Ryker darted to the man with unchecked speed. The man shrieked as Ryker grabbed his shirt by the collar and lifted him off the floor with one hand, forcing him to make eye contact while Ryker’s eyes sparked, so much silver moving through them they appeared like two disco balls. The man whimpered.

“What’s your name?” Ryker said.

“John Doe.”

Ryker shook him by the collar, and a few threads snapped in his shirt. “Try again.”

“Okay, okay! It’s Billy, Billy Ellis.”

“Did Frederick Angstrom send you to kill me, Billy Ellis?”

“No, no, we were just going to scare you.”

Ryker brought his face close to Billy’s and gave a long, loud hiss. With a yelp, Billy began kicking and clawing at Ryker’s iron grip on his shirt. After about half a minute, during which Ryker let him struggle like a fish on a line, he went limp. His body was hot and rank with the sweat of terror, which always smelled worst of all human odors. Leslie wrinkled her nose, but she stayed put and kept an eye on Billy’s cohorts. None of them had moved yet.

“Please don’t bite me,” Billy wailed. “Please, vampire, don’t bite me and kill me.”

“Then don’t lie to me,” Ryker said.

“Okay, okay. Yeah, Angstrom wants you dead. We were supposed to tase you, keep you immobile while we tied you up, so you couldn’t dodge the bullet. Then we were supposed to wreck the house. You know, to confuse the motive.”

Of course it never would have worked. A vampire could snap ropes without effort, and a human-strength Taser—or even two or three—wasn’t likely to stop them either, though Leslie didn’t know the precise voltage required for that. But hearing the plan put into words, imagining the man she loved lying dead… The deep-freeze rage seized her body again. She fought it, didn’t allow it room to control her, though everything inside wanted out, wanted to unleash at Billy in hisses and snarls and blows. Terrifying Billy Ellis to death might be satisfying right now, but it would be revenge, not justice.

Ryker glanced toward her, sensing her struggle. He gave a slight head shake, and she nodded. She was okay. She wouldn’t interfere.

Billy noticed their wordless communication and began to flop around in Ryker’s grip.

“Stop it,” Ryker said.

“Please don’t bite me.”

“Nobody’s going to bite you, idiot. How did Angstrom identify me?”

“It was in the news.”

Ryker brought him in close again, face-to-face, inches apart. Billy was on the verge of hyperventilating when he extended his arm again, giving the human a break. “It wasn’t in the news, Billy. It’s probably not going to be; I’m a behind-the-scenes role. So how does he know me?”

Billy stared past Ryker, making eye contact with Leslie for the first time. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know.”

Why was he talking to her now? She stepped closer. Maybe Ryker had scared him too badly. Maybe speaking to her would calm him, get him to talk. She said, “You’re not a very good liar.”

“You want me to come clean to him?”

What? “Obviously.”

“You won’t bite me? We didn’t know you’re a vampire too.”

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