Guilty Pleasures   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“Good, animator, we understand each other. You do what we want, or I will peel your mind away like the layers of an onion.” She breathed against my face, voice dropping to a whisper. A child's whisper with an edge of giggling to it. “You do believe I can do that, don't you?”

I believed.



12

I wanted to spit in that smooth, pale face, but I was afraid of what she would do to me. A drop of sweat ran slowly down my face. I wanted to promise her anything, anything, if she would never touch me again. Nikolaos didn't have to bespell me; all she had had to do was terrify me. The fear would control me. It was what she was counting on. I could not let that happen.

“Get … out … of … my … face,” I said.

She laughed. Her breath was warm and smelled like peppermint. Breath mints. But underneath the clean, modern smell, very faint, was the scent of fresh blood. Old death. Recent murder.

I wasn't shivering anymore. I said, “Your breath smells like blood.”

She jerked back, a hand going to her lips. It was such a human gesture that I laughed. Her dress brushed my face as she stood. One small, slippered foot kicked me in the chest.

The force tumbled me backwards, sharp pain, no air. For the second time that night, I couldn't breathe. I lay flat on my stomach, gasping, swallowing past the pain. I hadn't heard anything break. Something should have broken.

The voice thudded over me, hot enough to scald. “Get her out of here before I kill her myself.”

The pain faded to a sharp ache. Air burned going down. My chest was tight, like I'd swallowed lead.

“Stay where you are, Jean.”

Jean-Claude was standing away from the wall, halfway to me. Nikolaos commanded him to stillness with one small, pale hand.

“Can you hear me, animator?”

“Yes.” My voice was strangled. I couldn't get enough air to talk.

“Did I break something?” Her voice rose upward like a small bird.

I coughed, trying to clear my throat, but it hurt. I huddled around my chest while the ache faded. “No.”

“Pity. But I suppose that would have slowed things down, or made you useless to us.” She seemed to think about the last as if that had had possibilities. What would they have done to me if something had been broken? I didn't want to know.

“The police are aware of only four vampire murders. There have been six more.”

I breathed in carefully. “Why not tell the police?”

“My dear animator, there are many among us who do not trust the human laws.