“Sure.” The first guard flicked half a pack of cigarettes through the air, the cellophane side flashing for a second in the light from the door.
“Funny man,” the other said. “What am I supposed to light it with? My finger?”
“You don’t come too prepared, do you?” the first guard groused, reaching for something in his pocket.
“Trying to quit.”
And then, for a split second, both men were watching a lighter follow the same arc as the cigarettes. And I moved, in the instant before it was caught, just a blur against the night, unseen, unheard. Through the door behind the human, and into the brightness beyond.
Strange but true; those creatures that most liked the night, that preferred to shroud their deeds in secret, wanted brilliant light around them. Even those whose eyes didn’t need it. Maybe they didn’t trust their partners, and wanted to see every hand’s turn. Or perhaps it went deeper. An instinctive knowledge that they weren’t the only things that hide in shadow.
Like the one I melted into as a tall figure came down the stairs.
He was human-slow, with a heavy tread: another guard. He sent a disinterested glance around the room, checking everything, seeing nothing. “Clear,” he said, and I mouthed it with him.
Old trick, my heartbeat synced with his, our breathing in time, the same slow, steady aspiration. A clock ticked on a wall, heavy, loud. Outside, the smoking human finished his cigarette and crushed it underfoot, scattering a stale chemical scent on the breeze.
Then there were more footsteps on the stairs, quiet this time, light. Almost silent. Three, the two in front young, bright, warm. The one in back old, dark, like a pool of deep, cold water.
And strangely hesitant, as if he knew something was wrong.
They didn’t get that old by being stupid.
The two vampire guards stopped abruptly, halfway between one step and the next. But nobody spoke, nobody moved. It was as if time itself stood still.
One
second, two.
“Master?” the human said, confused.
The master didn’t answer.
I had done nothing wrong, made no mistakes. But sometimes it didn’t matter. The clock ticked.
Outside, the clouds cracked open and rain began to fall. Light at first, and then heavier, pattering against the roof, plinking off the metal trash cans, causing one of the waiting humans to curse. Inside, the master spoke.
“Danil.”
The human guard looked up. “Master?”
“Leave us.”
The man’s confusion increased. “But, master, the car—”
“Now.”
Danil left.
The two vampire guards leapt over the stairs and, a second later, hit the floor. One still wearing a snarl; the other with a strangely blank expression. Surprised.
Like the master when he spoke again. “Someone paid well. Tell me who it was, and I will make this—”
He cut off as my hand found his throat. From his expression, he hadn’t seen me move. I gripped his flesh, my nails breaking the skin. Thick blood, so red it was almost black, oozed down his neck in rivulets, over my fingers. Didn’t matter.
There was no one left to scent it.
“Painless?” I breathed, and he blanched. His fear flooded my nostrils as he recognized me—not who I was but what. I smiled. I liked that. Wanted more, wanted to close my hand, to jerk back, to tear out his throat in the same moment that I stabbed UP—