Circus of the Damned

If I could make it through the tu

I was covered in mud, hands scraped raw, but I was at the opening. It was a thin crack, but through it I could see trees and a hill. God, it looked good.

Something surfaced behind me.

I turned.

Alejandro rose from the water into the sunlight. His skin burst into flame, and he shrieked, diving into the water away from the burning sun.

“Burn, you son of bitch, burn.”

The lamia surfaced.

I slipped into the crack and stuck. I pulled with my hands and pushed with my feet, but the mud slid and I couldn’t get through.

“I will kill you.”

I wrenched my back and put everything I had into wriggling free of that damn hole. The rock scraped along my back and I knew I was bleeding. I fell out onto the hill and rolled until a tree stopped me.

The lamia came to the crack. Sunlight didn’t hurt her. She struggled to get through, tearing at the rock, but her ample chest wasn’t going to fit. Her snake body might be narrowable, but the human part wasn’t.

But just in case, I got to my feet and started down the hill. It was steep enough that I had to walk from tree to tree, trying not to fall down the hill. The whoosh of cars was just ahead. A road; a busy one by the sound of it.

I started to run, letting the momentum of the hill take me faster and faster towards the sounds of cars. I could glimpse the road through the trees.

I stumbled out onto the edge of the road, covered in grey mud, slimy, wet to the bone, shivering in the autumn air. I’d never felt better. Two cars wheezed by, ignoring my waving arms. Maybe it was the gun in the shoulder holster.

A green Mazda pulled up and stopped. The driver leaned across and opened the passenger side door. “Hop in.”

It was Edward.

I stared into his blue eyes, and his face was as blank and unreadable as a cat’s, and just as self-satisfied. I didn’t give a damn. I slid into the seat and locked the door behind me.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Home.”

“You don’t need a hospital?”

I shook my head. “You were following me again.”

He smiled. “I lost you in the woods.”

“City boy,” I said.

His smile widened. “No name-calling. You look like you flunked your Girl Scout exam.”

I started to say something, then stopped. He was right, and I was too tired to argue.

Chapter 41

I was sitting on the edge of my bathtub in nothing but a large beach towel. I had showered and shampooed and washed the mud and blood down the drain. Except for the blood that was still seeping out of the deep scrape on my back. Edward held a smaller towel to the cut, putting pressure on it.

“When the bleeding stops, I’ll bandage it up for you,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I seem to always be patching you up.”

I glanced over my shoulder at him and winced. “I’ve returned the favor.”

He smiled. “True.”

The cuts on my hands had already been bandaged. I looked like a tan version of the mummy’s hand.

He touched the fang marks on my calf gently. “This worries me.”

“Me, too.”

“There’s no discoloration.” He looked up at me. “No pain?”

“None. It wasn’t a full lamia, maybe it wasn’t that poisonous. Besides, you think anywhere in St. Louis is going to have lamia antivenom? They’ve been listed extinct for over two hundred years.”

Edward palpated the wound. “I can’t feel any swelling.”

“It’s been over an hour, Edward. If poison was going to kick in, it would have by now.”

“Yeah.” He stared at the bite. “Just keep an eye on it.”

“I didn’t know you cared,” I said.

His face was blank, empty. “It would be a lot less interesting world without you in it.” The voice was flat, unemotional. It was like he wasn’t there at all. Yet it was a compliment. From Edward, it was a huge compliment.

“Gee whiz, Edward, contain your excitement.”

He gave a small smile that left his eyes blue and distant as winter skies.

We were friends of a sort, good friends, but I would never really understand him. There was too much of Edward that you couldn’t touch, or even see.

I used to believe that if it came to it, he’d kill me, if it were necessary. Now, I wasn’t sure. How could you be friends with someone who you suspected might kill you? Another mystery of life.

“The bleeding’s stopped,” he said. He smeared antiseptic on the wound, then started taping bandages in place. The doorbell rang.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Three o’clock.”

“Shit.”

“What is it?”

“I have a date coming over.”

“You? Have a date?”

I frowned at him. “It’s not that big a deal.”

Edward was gri

“Edward, be nice.”

“Me, nice?”

“All right, just don’t shoot him.”

“I think I can manage that.” Edward walked out of the bathroom to let Richard in.

What would Richard think being met at the door by another man? Edward certainly wasn’t going to help matters. He’d probably offer him a seat without explaining who he was. I wasn’t even sure I could explain that.

“This is my friend the assassin.” Nope. A fellow vampire slayer, maybe.

The bedroom door was closed so I could get dressed in privacy. I tried to put on a bra and found that my back hurt a lot. No bra. That limited what I could wear, unless I wanted to give Richard more of a look-see than I had pla

Most of the time I slept in oversize t-shirts, and slipping on a pair of jeans was my idea of a robe. But I did own one real robe. It was comfortable, a nice solid black, silky to the touch and absolutely not see-through.

A black silk teddy went with it, but I decided that was a little friendlier than I wanted to be; besides, the teddy wasn’t comfortable. Lingerie seldom is.

I pulled the robe out of the back of my closet and slipped it on. It was smooth and wonderful next to my skin. I crossed the front so the bordered edge was high up on my chest and tied the black belt tight in place. Didn’t want any slippage.

I listened at the door for a second and heard nothing. No talking, no moving around, nothing. I opened the door and walked out.

Richard was sitting on the couch with an armful of costumes hung over the back. Edward was making coffee in the kitchen like he owned the place.

Richard turned at my entrance. His eyes widened just a little. The hair still damp from the shower, and the slinky robe—what was he thinking?

“Nice robe,” Edward said.

“It was a present from an overly optimistic date.”

“I like it,” Richard said.

“No smart remarks or you can just leave.”

His eyes flicked to Edward. “Did I interrupt something?”

“He’s a coworker, nothing more.” I frowned at Edward, daring him to say anything. He smiled and poured coffee for all three of us.

“Let’s sit at the table,” I said. “I don’t drink coffee on a white couch.”

Edward sat the mugs on the small table. He leaned against the cabinets, leaving the two chairs for us.

Richard left his coat on the couch and sat down across from me. He was wearing a bluish-green sweater with darker blue designs worked across the chest. The color brought out the perfect brown of his eyes. His cheekbones seemed higher. A small Band-Aid marred his right cheek. His hair had gentle auburn highlights. Wondrous what the right color can do for a person.

The fact that I looked great in black had not escaped my notice. From the look on Richard’s face, he was noticing, but his eyes kept slipping back to Edward.

“Edward and I were out hunting down the vampires that have been doing the killings.”