Page 20 of Slayer Mom
He nodded slowly. “That was weird. She must have tracked you from Gloria’s place.” He scowled and looked unhappy about the state of things for the first time. “I’ll have to check on her after I get out of jail.”
“If they don’t just drink all your blood and throw you in the river if they realize that you’re a slayer.”
He patted my hand and climbed back into the driver’s seat. “I’m one of the last of my kind. They’d probably put me in a museum before they killed me.”
“That does sound fun.” No, it didn’t, at least not to me. Tom, on the other hand, seemed to have a too-casual attitude about near death situations, unless Gloria was involved. That was interesting, but not interesting enough to distract me from my insane and reckless mission. Still, my cheek was starting to throb, and I wasn’t looking forward to the hallucinations. Nutmeg was bad enough.
six
. . .
He droppedme off outside a nondescript warehouse with his lock pick set and a ski mask to cover my light hair and face. A black coverall went over my red pleather pants and purple fairy tank, with rainbow fur straps.
I hadn’t used a lock pick for years, not since I worked at the theater and had to pick the lock on the storage room every time I needed to get the popcorn out. I guess that was early slayer training.
It took me a few minutes fumbling with the kit before I got the door open. My cheek pulsed to every thump of my rapidly beating heart as I slipped inside. It was typical of my new life that I’d been poisoned by the vampire. Of course it was. It totally made sense for someone who had been in an explosion and barely escape a falling building to immediately steal from a vampire lord. Grand Master. Wasn’t that a chess term? Maybe he played.
I was starting to feel played by Tom. Not that he’d set me up to get marked by a zombie. He hadn’t known that I was coming, but once I got one foot in, he helped me in all the way so cheerfully, because being a solo slayer was alonely job.
I crept down the aisle until I got to the refrigerated section and found the neatly labelled numbers on the frosted glass where the antidote was. I opened the door, grabbed a bottle, replaced it with Tom’s bottle and then turned to run back out the way I’d come. I hadn’t taken two steps when a siren blared, and a black bag came down over my face. I struggled to get it off, and then something wrapped around my ankles and I was jerked off my feet and into the air, so fast that my head didn’t even hit the ground.
I struggled to get the bag off, but one of my hands held onto the antidote, and I wasn’t about to drop it.
Something jabbed my chest and then the bag was pulled off, leaving me in my ski cap and dangling high above the floor, only a metal platform beneath me with the aisle far below. I glared at my captor, and then I saw his face and shrank away instead. He had pointed ears, pointed teeth, enormous eyes filled with nothing but darkness, and a snarl that was both terrifying and cruel.
“Do you think that I wouldn’t notice a thief in my house, even if it was only one bottle of my most valuable serum that he took from me? I’ve been waiting for ten years for you to come back for another taste.”
He’d been waiting ten years to catch Tom? This guy needed a life. He must take his job as storage guy very seriously, or it was incredibly boring. Tom had said that I was dead if I was caught, and since I was swinging from the ceiling, I was definitely good and dead. Oh well. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with zombies ever again.
“Hate to break it to you, but no one cares about how your potion tastes. I just want the antidote to the poison.” How long was I going to swing upside down? I was already starting to get a head ache.
“Antidote to what poison?” He ripped open theside of my ski mask and then stared at my cheek in silence for less than a heartbeat before he pinched it. Man, never thought a vampire would pinch my cheek. So many things I’d never thought. “Who cut you?” He sounded confused, irritated, and extremely dangerous.
I was definitely going to die. Somehow, I was past caring. “I don’t know her name. For some reason, she didn’t seem to think we needed an introduction. I guess that makes sense. I don’t introduce myself to the chicken I’m about to eat, either. Maybe I shouldn’t eat chicken.”
His nostrils flared. “You’re heavily marked. It’s revolting.”
“Thank you. I work hard to be revolting to all the vampires I meet. Pity I don’t always succeed, but I guess fifty-fifty isn’t too bad. Are you going to kill me already, or what? If you’re going to torture me, you should know that I’m a crier. I have absolutely no stiffness in my upper lip. No idea where that saying came from. Maybe army people who have mustaches? You should grow a mustache. A villain vampire should have a long flowing stache.” I was rambling from fear and a strong sense of the ridiculousness of the situation.
He ripped off my ski mask then stared at me for a frozen moment before he turned and stalked off, leaving me hanging there, hair hanging down towards the floor. It was a nice sensible mom bob, but maybe I should get a more wash-and-go hairstyle if I was going to be hanging in warehouses, like you hang animals to drain their blood. But he hadn’t taken my blood. Was he waiting for it to pool, or was I really unappetizing because I was marked?
Either way, he’d left me with the bottle of antidote, and if he wasn’t going to torture me, I was definitelygoing to drink the stuff before I started hallucinating. It was awkward opening a bottle upside down, or right side up, because I was upside down, but I got the lid off and then put it on my lips and started chugging.
It wasn’t good, it was amazing, like all the delicious things, plus happiness, love, sex, and absolute bliss. I’d never done drugs before, other than the odd aspirin and a few pain killers when I broke my arm one time, but this was everything I’d ever heard about people getting addicted to. How had Tom not finished the bottle?
I screamed and dropped the bottle as pain replaced the pleasure. My entire body from head to toe started convulsing and the screams, and the pain until everything went black.
I woke up still hanging from the ceiling, but a light was coming in a single window that had been cracked open. It was morning. They’d just left me here on this metal platform, dangling, like I was completely forgettable. Perfect. I still had the lock picks in my pocket, but I had to crunch my way to a sitting position so I could work on the chains locked around my ankles. Who seriously chains people to the ceiling? A rope would have been just as effective at keeping me secure, but probably they weren’t counting on weak humans. With lock picks.
In a surprisingly short amount of time, I got the lock unsnapped and then instead of falling on my head, I caught the chain and then dropped to my feet, like a half competent slayer. Weird. I left the bottle and its coagulating dark contents where it was, soaking into the criss-cross texture of the metal. My cheek wasn’t hurting, and I didn’t need another taste of that pleasure and torture.
I headed for the window, climbed up on a sturdyshelf, and then slipped out. It was barely big enough for me to squeeze through. The drop outside wasn’t a short distance, but when I gripped the edge and dangled down, I only had six feet or so. I let go, hit the pavement and rolled to my feet then took off at a jog, feeling almost good, like I’d been training hard for a triathlon.
For a second I slowed down, but I thought I heard a door creak open behind me and took off at a full sprint, heart pounding as I realized that I’d actually done it. I’d actually escaped from the evil villain’s lair. If the monster hadn’t gotten distracted with finding out who was running around poisoning people, I’d definitely be dead.
But I wasn’t dead. I really, weirdly, had lived to see another day, and it was a beautiful day! I leapt off some steps and spread my arms. For one glorious moment, everything was perfect, but then I came down and rolled my ankle. I spent the next few minutes limping, but little by little, it felt better until I was once more running fast and feeling amazing.
It had to be the antidote, serum, whatever it was. It had cured my poisoning, and healed my ankle, and when I touched my cheek, not so much as a scratch. The stuff was magic. Hey, if there had to be zombies and vampires, there should be magical potions that bring you up to level ten. I wasn’t sure where to go. I was still wearing the outfit, the one that was so hideous under the coverall, and also smelling strongly of nutmeg. I wasn’t about to run down by the river to get my car, because zombies.
