Guilty Pleasures   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“No,” I said,and I left it at that. No explanation. If she really wanted one, she could just beat me against the wall until I told her what she wanted to hear. She wouldn't even break a sweat. Of course, Aubrey was being punished for hurting me.

Her eyes narrowed as she studied me. “The rats were supposed to frighten you, animator. They don't seem to have done their duty.”

“Maybe I don't frighten that easily.” I met her eyes without any effort. They were just eyes.

Theresa grinned at me suddenly, flashing fang. “Nikolaos will find something that frightens you, animator. For fear is power.” She whispered the last as if afraid to say it too loud.

What did vampires fear? Did visions of sharpened stakes and garlic haunt them, or were there worse things? How do you frighten the dead?

“Walk in front of me, animator. Go meet your master.”

“Isn't Nikolaos your master as well, Theresa?”

She stared at me, face blank, as if the laughter had been an illusion. Her eyes were cold and dark. The rats' eyes had held more personality. “Before the night is out, animator, Nikolaos will be everyone's master.”

I shook my head. “I don't think so.”

“Jean-Claude's power has made you foolish.”

“No,” I said, “it isn't that.”

“Then what, mortal?”

“I would rather die than be a vampire's flunky.”

Theresa never blinked, only nodded, very slowly. “You may get your wish.”

The hair at the back of my neck crawled. I could meet her gaze, but evil has a certain feel to it. A neck-ruffling, throattightening feeling that tightens your gut. I have felt it around humans as well. You don't have to be undead to be evil. But it helps.

I walked in front of her. Theresa's boots clicked sharp echoes from the hallway. Maybe it was only my fear talking, but I felt her staring at me, like an ice cube sliding down my spine.



11

The room was huge, like a warehouse, but the walls were solid, massive stone. I kept waiting for Bela Lugosi to sweep around the comer in his cape. What was sitting against one wall was almost as good.

She had been about twelve or thirteen when she died. Small, half-formed breasts showed under a long flimsy dress. It was pale blue and looked warm against the total whiteness of her skin. She had been pale when alive; as a vampire she was ghostly. Her hair was that shining white-blonde that some children have before their hair darkens to brown. This hair would never grow dark.

Nikolaos sat in a carved wooden chair.