Page 8 of Hot for Slayer
“I’m familiar.”
“Right. I was wondering: Do you think they really exist?”
He stares. Stares.Stares.And right when I’m sure he’s going to end me, he says, “Ethel?”
“Yeah?”
“I know that I hit my head. But what happened toyours?”
Chapter 4
Exhibit number thirty-six that Lazlo Enyedi is not faking the whole amnesia thing: He takes a nap.
In the middle of the day.
Three feet away from me.
One second I’m making up wild facts about swallowtail butterflies to salvage my already-in-tatters entomology cover, and the next he’s lying back to “rest for a minute,” throwing his elbow over his eyes, and breathing quietly. Sleeping off the concussion—big no-no for humans, but a nonissue for slayers. His chest rises and falls in a slow rhythm, and he has to be fucking with me.
No trained fighter lets his guard down this irresponsibly with someone he barely knows. Slayers are never this vulnerable. It can only be a trap.
So I decide to kill him.
I set the blade of my stolen dagger horizontally and lower it to his Adam’s apple, guillotine style. I’m strong enough to cut through the muscles and bones and tendons, and— Where is his self-preservation? Why thehellis he not stopping me?
I slink back to my shadowy corner to sulk, convinced that he’s well and truly asleep. Okay. So his memory is gone. But shouldn’t there be some trace of an instinct, some emotionalresidue, an inkling that I am his enemy and that he shouldn’t trust me?
Lazlo begins snoring softly.
Clearly not.
I lean back and study him, wondering about his life outside our centuries-long game of hide-and-seek-and-stab. Does he have a family? A girlfriend or a boyfriend? A polycule? Slayers are immortal until they’re beheaded. They are incredibly strong and enhanced in every conceivable way, sure. Deep down, though, they are still human. They long for connection.
I bet he does have a family. They must be who he spends time with between hunts. After all, I don’t see him a lot. We usually only cross paths once a decade or so. Before Berlin, there was that Pink Floyd tour in 1980, and that David Bowie concert in the seventies, and ...
Now that I think about it, by liking live music as much as I do, I may have made it a bit too easy for him to find me.
I chew on my lower lip, remembering 1964. My one-night-long career as a singer-songwriter. Does taking advantage of an open mic night at a seedy underground club qualify as “working in the music industry”? It should. I certainly had fun singing about youth counterculture. Even more so after Lazlo appeared in the audience.
“Aethelthryth,” he whispered the second I spotted him in the crowd, his yellow eyes glowing even through the cigarette smoke.
I strove to remember what weapons I’d stuffed into my go-go boots, and thought,Come on, Enyedi. Stop ruining my fun. Next song up is about how lonely I am, and how sad that I haven’t gotten laid in at least three hundred years.
But Lazlo didn’t jump on the stage. Didn’t throw a hatchet at me, either. He simply let me croon on for a while,with my tritefire/desireandlove/aboverhymes. Patiently, he stared with that icy, unsettling gaze as I sang something cringeworthy about howno one understands, I just want to feel his hands. When my masterpiece ended, everyone applauded except for him.
It seemed rude. Much ruder than the usual assassination attempts. So I decided he needed to pay for that.
“Thank you, thank you, everyone. That last song, it’s very personal to me. I wrote it for the man I love.”
The crowd cheered and whistled. Lazlo’s jaw hardened, probably in disgust at the thought of vampires having feelings. Or smooching. Or, even worse, fucking.
“I haven’t seen him in ... ten years or so? And I was heartbroken when he left me, which inspired me to pour my emotions into some music.” I lowered my eyes. Pretended to sniffle. “But, good news, he came back to me.”
More scattered, good-hearted claps.
“And he’s here tonight.”
The crowd looked around, breaking into excited murmuring.
