Page 13 of Hot for Slayer
It’s a truly terrible idea, but my thumb and forefinger are already inside my mouth, licked clean, before I’m even aware of it. The taste of the blood, even just a few scantdrops, awakens my sluggish, dormant body in a way gallons of plasma could never accomplish. Heat blooms and fires through my nerve endings. I feel the telltale itch of my fangs pushing against the roof of my mouth, elongating, and I have to grab the edge of the sink so tight, I’ll never get my security deposit back.
Then Lazlo comes to a stop beside me. “Already feels better,” he’s saying. “Thanks.”
Before turning around, I beg my fangs to retreat. Promise them lots of firm necks to bite into, very soon, if they behave. “You’re welcome.” I take a fortifying breath and then face him. “I’m going to make food now. Hope mac and cheese is all right. I also got you spare clothes, they’re in that paper bag over there.”
“You are getting warmer,” he murmurs. Not suggestively. An observation, followed by the back of his hand tracing my cheek. As if to probe a portentous flush with his knuckles.
I swallow. “Yeah.”
“Good.” His hand lingers. When it finally drops to his side, his mouth curves downward, like he’s displeased to no longer be touching me. “Your body found some B12.”
“Guess so.” I try for my most triumphant smile and start puttering around the kitchen, letting out a relieved breath when he leaves to get dressed. The apartment came furnished, which is the only reason I have kitchen utensils. Unfortunately, by the time Lazlo comes back wearing his new and annoyingly flattering clothes, the stove looks like it just hosted a rave.
“I’m sure you’re good at other things, Ethel,” he says with an undertone of warmth. He wrestles control of the pot so effortlessly, I’m still wondering what happened ten minutes later when we sit at the table with steaming plates in front of us.
There is no damn way my kind and his have ever done this before. Sharing a meal, that is. Talking politely. Even justnotkilling each other. I wish I had a group chat to share this fantastic occurrence with. Even a single friend would do. Maybe I should yell it out of the window and hope the raccoons will hear.
“So,” he asks while demolishing the food, “where did we meet?”
“Me and you?”
He nods.
I play with a few shells trapped within each other. “Well, we ... I’m a little older than you.”
“By how much?”
“Not sure.” Lazlo appeared during my third century, and was relatively easy to overpower in our first few encounters, which I attributed to him not having fully grown into his slayer strength.
How I miss those days.
“You were just doing your job,” I add.
“Here in New York?”
No, because at the time I wasn’t aware of the existence of this continentis not the best answer. I lived in Córdoba back then, because it was one of the largest cities in the world, and I desperately tried to go unobserved. By then, I was very much an adolescent vampire, still sorting myself out. I had retained an appreciation for human life, was years from deconstructing the Christian notions of good and evil the abbess had inculcated, and after every meal I drank, I spent several regretful weeks in feverish prayers for forgiveness. I hated killing people so much, I’d resorted to skulking around places where healthy humans might drop almost-dead at any second, in the hope of finding a guilt-free meal. Jousting tournaments, for the most part.
Pathetic, I know.
“In the suburbs,” I lie. “You were with your ... boss.” Or mentor. Orsomething. An older slayer whose name I never learned. “He quit shortly after.” I killed him. But hesohad it coming.
“Were wenemesesfrom the start?” It’s obvious that the question is meant to make fun of me, and it’s obvious that he wants me to notice. So I pretend not to.
“Pretty much.”
In fact, I remember his eyes on me from across the square, constant, never leaving. I thought—stupidly, mistakenly, disappointingly—that maybe that handsome young man was attracted to me. In less than two minutes, not only had I concocted a backstory for us (he had seen me at the market and become infatuated despite my intimidating riches and beauty) but also a future (I would reassure him that his lack of wealth mattered nothing to me; we would talk for hours and fall deeply for each other; I would confess my vampiric nature, and after a brief spell of appalment, he would realize that not even my monstrous character could stand in the way of our love; then, forever would begin). As I said, I was very much an adolescent. Still, this was an uncharacteristically pipe-y dream, even for me.
But when Lazlo came after me brandishing one of his favorite weapons, two sickle blades tied together with a metal chain, I wised up real quick.
“It was one-sided,” he tells me after he’s done chewing. “From you.”
“What?”
“The dislike.”
“I assure you, it wasnot.”
“And I assureyou, when I look at you, I feel anything butthat.” A pause. “Why are you not eating?”
