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I knelt by her chair and set to work untying her. "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here."
Before I finished, the door opened. I rose to my feet and turned to find Harvey pointing a gun at me.
If there was one thing that the PR about vampires and werewolves was not overhyping, it was their magical resistance to harm. I envied that. It wouldn't take a wooden stake through the heart or a silver bullet to kill me: plain old lead bullets would do the trick. I raised my hands in surrender.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Ahsani," Harvey said, "but I couldn't have you ru
"People already have the wrong impression," I said. "They're calling you a ghoul when you're actually a serial killer. It's very bad PR for—"
"I'm a vampire hunter, not a serial killer," said Harvey, still pointing the gun at me.
"What?" I said.
He motioned with his gun toward the girl. "Go ahead, check her pulse."
I put my fingers to her throat. There was no heartbeat, and her skin felt cool to the touch. "You really are a vampire," I said.
She glared at me. "So what? You're a—"
I stuffed the gag back into her mouth. "So why haven't you killed her yet?" I said as I backed away from her, which took me closer to Harvey and the door.
"I don't want the meat to go bad," he said. "It's much better when you slice it off fresh."
I didn't bother to express my disagreement verbally. There's no accounting for taste.
"Fortunately," he said, "vampires stay alive a lot longer than humans after you start cutting chunks off them."
"How do they taste?" I asked.
He smiled. "Much better than chicken."
For a moment, as I stood next to Harvey and we both looked at the vampire, I thought he and I could come to a culinary arrangement. I could eat the bones for him, at the very least. I guess the serial killer mentality made him taunt the police by leaving the bones lying around for people to find, but it really wasn't very smart.
However, before I could say anything, he added, "Vampire flesh isn't really human anymore, so it's not like I'm a ghoul."
Being looked down on by a serial killer was the straw that broke this ghoul's back. In one smooth motion I transformed my head into my hyena form and tore out Harvey's throat.
Hey, we may not be hunters, but that doesn't mean we're not dangerous when provoked.
After I untied her, the vampire and I looked down at Harvey's body.
"I suppose I should call the police or something," I said, "and let them know the serial killer is dead."
"Are you kidding?" said the vampire. "Let's just leave him and get out of here."
If I left the body for a few days, sealed up in this room, it would get nice and ripe. And unlike my usual food, it wouldn't taste of formaldehyde. My mouth watered just imagining the meal. "Let's go," I said.
As we got to the living room, she grabbed my hand and pulled me close. My heart beat faster.
"I've heard that werewolves are the greatest lovers in the world," she said.
I was about to express my a
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Sherrilyn Kenyon
"From humble begi
His stomach clenching in dread of the latest complaint, he picked up the receiver and glanced around his pale gray cube walls where he spent an average of fifty hours a week. There were times when he swore he could hear his life ticking away with every swipe of the second hand on the Transformers clock he'd inherited from his older brother. Optimus Prime stared at him from his perch next to Zeke's drab gray monitor.
"Good afternoon. Taylor Transportation. Claims Division. Zeke speaking. How may I help you?" The worst part of the job ... he sometimes heard those words even in his sleep.
The irate woman on the other end laid into him over the fact that he'd rejected her dubious claim that their delivery truck had mowed down her mailbox and kept going. If she'd spoken to the driver the way she was speaking to him, she was lucky the driver hadn't mowed her down first.
Her voice held that high-pitched, nasal quality that went down a man's spine like a shredder. "You're a pathetic idiot if you don't believe your driver did that."
Zeke didn't speak as she continued shrieking at him.
And for the glorious honor of being bitched at constantly and the esteemed title of Claims Investigator, he'd given up five years of his life as he went to college, created a debt his great-grandkids would curse him over, and got the holy honor of MBA. More Bullshit Allowed. Unlike his more intelligent counterparts, he'd actually studied and graduated with honors, thinking he'd have a bright future ...
Yeah, this was his life and he hated every minute of it.
Well, not every minute. But enough that he dreaded what more wondrous developments the future would hold.
You know, as a kid, I just didn't see this one coming.
When he'd dreamed of his future, never once had he seen himself sitting in a cube ten hours a day having people yell at him while he glibly took it for fear of losing his thirty-thousand-a-year salary.
The highlights of his life? Drinking beer and playing basketball on the weekends with his friends.
Damn, the woman's right. I am apathetic idiot.
"Are you even listening to me?" she droned.
"Yes, ma'am. I understand what you're saying. But there's no evidence that our driver did that. I have a sworn statement from him that he didn't hit the mailbox."
"Fuck you, you stupid bastard!"
"Yes, ma'am. You have a good day, too."
She slammed the phone down hard enough for it to ring in his ear.
Zeke sighed before he put his head to his laminated desk and beat it against the cold, granite-look finish. Maybe I'll get a concussion ...
The phone rang again.
He lifted his head to glare at Optimus Prime. It was only eleven in the morning. Was it too much to ask for one little brain aneurysm? Just one.
His stomach churning, he picked the phone up and repeated his work litany.
"Am I speaking to Ezekiel Malachi Jacobson?"
Zeke cringed at the name with which his grandfather, a devout Baptist preacher, had cursed him, the only grandson, at birth. God, how he hated hearing all that said at once. It was a name that had gotten his ass kicked on many an occasion at school. It had even caused one college roommate to move out of his dorm room before he arrived.
"That would be me." God, don't let this be someone I owe money to.
"My name is Robert West. I'm the attorney for your granduncle Michael Jacobson."
"Who?"
"He was your grandfather's youngest brother."
That was weird. He'd thought all of those relatives were long gone.
"I'm sad to say that your granduncle passed away a few weeks ago and named me as the executor of his will. Since he wasn't married and didn't have children, he's left everything to you."
"To me? What about my sister?"
"He only named you."
Oooo-kay . . . Zeke listened as the lawyer gave him more details.
"Can you imagine how lonely he must have been?" ,
Zeke paused at his sister Mary's question. At five ten, she was only a couple of inches shorter than him. And like him, she had straight black hair and creepy topaz-colored eyes that their grandmother used to call "the devil's gold." He indicated the brass bed behind her that was covered with an old-fashioned quilt. "Yeah. The lawyer said he died in his bed. Three days before anyone found the body."