Page 11 of Vampires Don't Give Hickeys
And ran straight into a mouthful of fangs.
My blood thundering, I leaped back, caught off guard for a split second. Over the tree branches’ thumps, I hadn’t heard the vampire sneaking up behind me.
She lunged at my throat. I adjusted my grip on the slick column of my stake, and she ran right into it, the sucker. That was bloody punny. I’ll stop now.
She disintegrated into a pile of blood on the steps, and I stepped over what remained of her. As I shut the door firmly behind me, a prickle chased up my exposed back. I whirled around, my gaze jerking around the rest of the cemetery. A sigh that sounded almost like a low chuckle rattled through the breeze and slammed my heart into my ribs. The hair along my arms stood on end, and I had the distinct feeling that someone was watching me. Someone who vibrated with power. Waiting. Possibly the devil himself, but I didn’t smell brimstone. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, though.
Regardless, I refused to be anyone’s play toy. Even so, my breaths hitched as I rounded every corner in the path, and my knuckles ached with the grip I kept around my stake because this didn’t feel right. At all.
After two more rounds of the cemetery, I dispatched one more vampire, all the while feeling the power of a penetrating stare scraping up and down my body. Studying me? Searching for weaknesses? I had too many to count, but whatever it was didn’t need to know that.
On my way out, I locked the gate and headed to what was becoming my second home to return another pile of Eddie’s books I’d borrowed.
That same static noise I’d heard outside The Bean Dream buzzed though the air. It grew loud enough to scrape at the inside of my skull. I looked around just outside the cemetery gate, my fingers locked tight around a stake and wincing at the sound. There was no logical explanation for where it was coming from.
“Lovely...night...” That same rusty, disembodied voice floated through the darkness.
Unease seeped deep into my bones. This felt far out of my range of expertise, and I didn’t like it one bit. I got out of there fast.
More than anything, I wanted the soothing balm of the house next door and its inhabitants. Who knew that a vampire nest could feel so much like home?
The front door swung inward before I even knocked, and I practically liquefied inside, my stress and worries already peeling away. I shut the door firmly behind me, though, and locked it.
Jacek stood in the living room just as he had last night—shirtless, thank goodness—and standing barefoot on the blue mat. Sweat glistened on his skin and dripped from his short dark hair. Eddie and Sawyer were nowhere to be seen.
“How’s my favorite slayer tonight?” Jacek asked with his signature grin.
“Oh, the usual,” I said, enjoying the view. “Trying not to become the devil’s bride and looking cute while I do so.”
“We’ll figure out the former, and mission accomplished on the latter.” He winked, and my heart stuttered. But his good humor faded the longer he looked at me. “Are you all right? You look a little pale.”
“Yeah, never better. I just...” I shrugged, trying to form words around what exactly had made me feel so unsettled at the cemetery. “I keep hearing these static noises and a voice, and...I don’t know... It doesn’t feel right.”
Jacek frowned and crossed his arms, making his muscles flex. “Does this voice say anything in particular or...?”
“‘Lovely night.’” The static noise came to me again, sort of like an echo from a great distance. I rubbed at my forehead as if to scour it and the memory away. “That’s it. It seems so silly now that I actually say it.” Yet it felt good to get it off my chest, too.
He shook his head, not a trace of judgement on his face. “You’re the slayer. If it feels wrong, then it’s wrong.”
I took a cleansing breath and nodded as I set down my duffel bag by the door. “You’re right. Which is why I came here, because it feels...right.” I smiled, and his answering grin could’ve rivaled the sun in its cheery brilliance.
He waved me onto the mat. “I could show you some fighting moves really quick. If it feels right.”
Did I dare pass up on an offer for free training from a guy who knew judo? Of course not. The experts who had trained me were myself, YouTube, and action movies. Podunk City didn’t have an official martial arts school.
“It just so happens that it does feel right,” I said.
His amber eyes lit up even more as he backed up onto the mats, and he curled his finger for me to follow. I did, although somewhat reluctantly. Even as the slayer, this was hardly a fair fight, even if it wasn’t technically real. Despite my slayer healing ability, I didn’t have time to nurse more wounds, and if I were being honest with myself, I wasn’t totally sure I could trust my body with shirtless Jacek within touching distance, especially with this house and its rightness heightening all of my senses. Not after last night with Eddie when I’d lost complete control and had loved every second of it.
“Judging from the vampire blood you had all over you the night we met, I would suspect one fought back,” he said, widening his stance.
“You would be right.” A sudden thought jolted me to a stop. “Was it someone you trained in judo?”
He chuckled, and the sound immediately relaxed me. “The vampires I teach are old and smart enough to avoid the slayer. They fear you, and not just because you could stake them.”
“If you say so,” I muttered and stepped onto the mat with him.
“I bet you focus most of your fighting on the offensive, which is good since you’re the slayer, but it wouldn’t hurt to practice your defensive moves. There are two ways to block punches. Elbows up or bob and weave your head to throw your attacker off balance. Like this.” He showed me both, circling around me on the mat, then tapped his perfectly squared chin. “Try to punch me.”
