Guilty Pleasures   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“You said chickens weren't enough, so we got you a goatto kill. But no zombie. I thought you were good at this.”

I found a gate in the opposite side of the hedges. Metal, rusted, and crooked in its frame. It groaned, a metal scream, as I pushed it open. More than a dozen pairs of eyes turned to me. Pale faces, the utter stillness of the undead. Vampires. They stood among the ancient grave markers of the small family cemetery, waiting. Nothing waits as patiently as the dead.

One of the vampires nearest me was the black male from Nikolaos's lair. My pulse quickened, and I did a quick scan of the crowd. She wasn't here, Thank you, God.

The vampire smiled and said, “Did you come to watch … animator?” Had he almost said, “Executioner”? Was it a secret?

Whatever, he motioned the others back and let me see the show. Zachary lay on the ground. His shirt was damp with blood. You can't slit anything's throat without getting a little messy. Theresa was standing over him, hands on hips. She was dressed in black. The only skin showing was a strip of flesh down the middle, pale and almost luminous in the starlight. Theresa, Mistress of the Dark.

Her eyes flicked to me, a moment, then back to the man. “Well, Zach-a-ri, where is our zombie?”

He swallowed audibly. “It's too old. There isn't enough left.”

“Only a hundred years old, animator. Are you so weak?”

He looked down at the ground. His fingers dug into the soft earth. He glanced up at me, then quickly down. I didn't know what he was trying to tell me with that one glance. Fear? For me to run? A plea for help? What?

“What good is an animator who can't raise the dead?” Theresa asked. She dropped to her knees, suddenly beside him, hands touching his shoulders. Zachary flinched but didn't try to get away.

A ripple of almost-movement ran through the other vampires. I could feel the whole circle at my back tense. They were going to kill him. The fact that he couldn't raise the zombie was just an excuse, part of the game.

Theresa ripped his shirt down the back. It fluttered around his lower arms, still tucked into his waist. A collective sigh ran through the vampires.

There was a woven rope band around his right upper arm. Beads were worked into it. It was a gris-gris, a voodoo charm, but it wouldn't help him now. No matter what it was supposed to do, it wouldn't be enough.

Theresa did a stage whisper. “Maybe you're just fresh meat?”

The vampires began to move in, silent as wind in the grass.

I couldn't just watch. He was a fellow animator and a human being.