Dressed to Slay

by Harper Allen

  The next few minutes were as bad as I’d feared. On my knees and acutely aware of the tons of rock above me, I inched along the tunnel with my eyes squeezed shut, fighting the claustrophobia that threatened to turn me into a gibbering, immobile wreck. Even when the space got larger I still couldn’t shake off the certainty that at any second the ceiling would give way and crash down on me.

  “What took you so long?”

  I opened my eyes to see Mikhail standing in front of me, his figure bathed in a pale green-white glow. “Nothing,” I lied, getting to my feet. “Where’s the weird light coming from?”

  He jerked the beam of his flashlight up to the ceiling a foot above his head. “Bioluminescent moss,” he said briefly, “but the real show’s behind me.”

  He stepped aside so I could fully see the chamber we were standing in. The dim glow from the moss showed the shadowy bulk of the walls, but as far as I could see, the space was empty.

  “Whoa, cool,” I said, turning to the tunnel. “Wouldn’t have missed this for the world. I’m heading back.”

  His hand wrapped around my upper arm and he shone his flashlight around the cavern. “Check out the walls.”

  “Why, what’s so special—” My words died in my throat as I aimed my flashlight in the same direction as his. Without being conscious of reaching for it, I realized my stake was in my hand.

  The walls were honeycombed with dark openings just large enough for a prone vamp body. Which was handy, since that was what was in them. “Have you counted how many are here?” My question came out in a whisper.

  “Ten.” Mikhail’s voice was equally low. “She obviously likes keeping her current favorites close by, although two of the openings aren’t occupied yet.”

  I already had goosebumps. Now I felt goosebumps on my goosebumps. “One of them was—by Cherry. But you’re right, the twelfth occupant didn’t show up last night as planned.” My voice hardened. “Since Zena obviously meant for me to round out her cosy little slumber party, I don’t feel too bad about crashing it now. How do you want to do this?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “I drag them out, you stake them as soon as their feet hit the floor. You good with that plan?”

  “Totally in bed with it,” I said tightly. “What are we waiting for?”

  He shot me a frowning look but as I squared my shoulders and stared impatiently at him his expression grew shadowed. Without a word he turned to the occupant of the first rock-hewn shelf, grabbed its shoulders, and pulled it from its resting place.

  It wasn’t Zena. I felt a sharp stab of disappointment, but then the same vamplike coldness that had settled on me at the Hot Box Club took over and all emotion drained away. The vampire Mikhail was holding upright had been a man in his fifties when he’d turned. He wore an expensively flashy suit and his hair was expertly cut and styled, but those superficialities didn’t take away from the lurking brutality hinted at in his shark-thin lips.

  His eyes snapped open. “No problem, Tony. There’s a single mother on the jury. We get word to her that either our guy walks or her kid has an accident, and—” He blinked. Comprehension filled his flat black gaze but before he could act I thrust my stake into his chest.

  “From a made man to an unmade vamp in one easy step,” I said, pushing my face close to his. “I guess your guy’s trial is going to have a different outcome now. Ciao, creep.” But my last words were delivered to dust. A flicker of distaste crossed Mikhail’s carved features as he reached for the next vampire.

  His attitude sparked defensive anger in me. “If you’ve got a problem with this, I’ll handle it myself,” I said coldly. Briefly I met his eyes before looking at the vamp he’d hauled to its feet. This one was a woman, younger than the male I’d just staked; probably with her glamyr on full blast she could pass for twenty-three or twenty-four, but if she’d remained human I doubted she would have seen thirty again. Her transition from unconsciousness to total awareness held none of the confusion of the mobster’s, but I thought I was ready for her.

  I wasn’t. Instead of launching herself at me she twisted in Mikhail’s grip and went for him, her fangs slashing across his throat before he could wrestle her away. I saw him fall backward as she went in for the kill.

  “Hold it right there, vamp!” I said hoarsely. I spun her around to face me. “If you want him you’ll have to go through me first!”

  “Where have I heard that before?” the blonde sneered. “Oh, yeah—from the old bag who was my rich husband’s first wife before I convinced him to trade her in for me. You can’t stop me any more than she—” Her boast ended in a gasp as she looked down at the hilt of my stake protruding from her. She raised her eyes to mine. “Shit. You’re a Daughter of Lilith,” she said hollowly.

  “Wrong again, bitch,” I said as she disintegrated. Kicking aside the pile of ashy dust she’d become, I knelt beside Mikhail, my heart thudding as I saw the thick ribbon of blood soaking into the collar of his shirt. “Oh, God—hang in there, Mikey-baby. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’m going to get you out of here and to a hospital.” I bit my lip. “Or should I take you to Darkheart? Can you hear me, Mikhail? Does Darkheart know some ancient incantation that will help you heal?”

  “Hell, how could I have been so stupid?” he muttered, opening his eyes. “I told you once before, it takes a lot to kill a shape-shifter.” His gaze narrowed on me. “Are you crying?”

  “Some vamp-dust in my eye, is all,” I said quickly. “I’ll take care of the rest of these undead while you heal up, okay? I’m not wearing a watch but I’d say we’ve been down here almost an hour. The sun’s going to start setting soon.”

  “‘If you want him you’ll have to go through me,’” he quoted with a crooked smile. “You sounded pretty tough when you said that, Crosse, but the vamp-dust excuse doesn’t fool me. I’m glad you felt some emotion when you thought the bitch had killed me. I was afraid you’d moved past that particular human weakness.”

  “Only when I’m staking,” I replied. “I want to take down as many vampires as I can before I turn into one myself, and since Zena’s not here to stake, my turning vamp is a distinct possibility.” My chest felt tight with despair. “You already knew she wasn’t among them, didn’t you? If she had been, her scent would have overpowered everything for you and you would have been more on your guard.”

  I didn’t wait for his reply, but turned to the crypt’s next occupant. This time I didn’t waste time in speculating whom he might have been or how he’d turned. The vamp’s snarling jaws had barely dusted before I gave my attention to my next kill.

  The coldness that had been momentarily interrupted by my fear for Mikhail enveloped me, and although I knew that each time it returned I took another step closer to becoming one of the creatures I hated, I was glad for the unfeeling resolve it gave me. As a Daughter, Kat would never embrace the darkness the way I could, I reflected grimly as I staked a heavily-tattooed biker before his fangs could sink into my neck. But her destiny would be easier if she could bring herself to let the shadows in enough that her kills didn’t tear her apart.

  But what did I know, I asked myself when I finally slipped my stake through its belt-loop holster and wiped my suddenly-clammy brow with the back of my hand. Kat was Darkheart’s pick to be a Daughter of Lilith. I was a queen vampyr’s pick to be her hunting buddy and main squeeze. I was hardly in a position to give destiny-enhancing advice, especially since my plan to find Zena and stake her hadn’t panned out. I turned to Mikhail and saw him watching me intently.

  “That’s right, I forgot you didn’t catch my performance at the Hot Box last night,” I said coolly. “I’ve come a long way since my encounter with the Maisels, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You were still fighting against what you were at that point,” he replied, his gaze flaring gold. “But even then your reactions were well-honed when a stake came flying at you.”

  I stared at him. “You saw that? Why didn’t you tell Darkheart when he was about to kill
you?”

  He opened his mouth to reply but before he could, a noise came from behind us. We both whirled around, Mikhail with a growl and me with my stake drawn.

  “Sorry for startling you, folks!” The red-headed man quickly raising his hands near the entrance to the tunnel looked somehow familiar, but I couldn’t immediately place him. He gave a shaky smile. “I heard voices coming from down here and I thought someone had taken a header through the old well.” He lowered his hands and a puzzled frown creased his freckled face. “If you don’t mind me asking, what the heck are you doing here?”

  I remembered where I’d seen his face—on the faded For Sale signs posted by the road. “You’re Steve Butt?” I asked, stalling for time while I tried to think up some excuse for Mikhail’s and my presence in an abandoned well that wouldn’t sound totally ridiculous. “The Realtor who’s handling this property?”

  His frown disappeared and he stuck out his hand. “No ‘buts’ about it.” He grinned, his salesman’s instincts overriding his puzzlement. “You folks interested in buying?”

  My hand was halfway to his when I yanked it back and grabbed my stake. “Not from a vamp. Gotta watch out for that hovering-above-the-floor thing, Stevarino,” I added as I swiftly stepped forward to plunge my weapon into his heart.

  Maybe I was tired. Maybe I was overconfident. Or maybe at that moment I was just a klutz, but whatever the reason, at the very second my stake should have been turning Steve Butt into a Mr. Dusty, my foot slipped on a rock and instead of staking him I crashed into him, sending us both tumbling to the ground. I had an instant’s glimpse of a shock of red hair and a Huck Finn freckled face contrasting jarringly with the exposed fangs zooming in toward my neck before Mikhail’s powerhouse kick connected with Butt’s ribs and sent him flying into the wall. I scrambled to my feet, my cool vamp-hunter persona kind of wrecked by the flame of embarrassment I could feel spreading over my cheeks. But my persona was about to suffer an even worse blow.

  “Oooh, a big bad Daughter of Lilith,” Butt was laughing so hard he could barely get the words out. He dodged out of my way. “Watch out for the Daughters, they told me. Those bitches are hell with stakes, they told me. I can’t believe I listened to them!” He went into another round of laughter, rattling me so badly that when I tried to stake him I missed again.

  “How’d you miscount the piles of dust, Crosse?” Mikhail said from behind me. “There’s only nine here. This jackass must have woken up and come out while our backs were turned.”

  “There’s ten piles,” I snapped. Seeing that Butt was still doubled over with laughter, I quickly scanned the floor of the cavern. “See-eight, nine…oh.” I focused my gaze on the ashes of the bitchy trophy wife. “I ran through hers. They’re spread out a bit, and I guess I counted them as two.”

  “Stop, I can’t take any more!” Butt went into a fresh peal of giggles, covering his fangs with his hand. “You miscounted?”

  “You were the kind of kid who pulled the wings off flies, weren’t you?” I said. “Keep laughing, creep. In a couple of seconds you’ll be laughing in hell.”

  But Butt wasn’t listening. He’d stopped laughing and now he peered at me. “Hey, wait a minute—you’re the chick Zena’s been trying to turn, right? Hell, this is my lucky day!” He cocked his index fingers at me as if they were six-shooters and gave me a grin. “Gotta go, Peaches, but I’ll be back with the boss-lady. You know, this undead gig isn’t so different from sales—you see an opportunity to get in good with management and you go for it.” Even as he finished his sentence he was diving for the tunnel. I dove after him, but Mikhail shouldered me aside.

  “I’m faster,” he said tersely as he entered the opening.

  “And I’m smarter,” I said as I followed him into the claustrophobic confines of the tunnel. He was already yards ahead of me, so I raised my voice. “Butt can’t leave until the sun’s completely set, remember? As soon as he’s halfway up the well he’ll realize his mistake and turn back.”

  “Unless he bursts into flame while he’s climbing our rope.” Mikhail’s reply echoed off the stone walls of the tunnel. “Our plastic, meltable rope! I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be stranded here in a vamp hideout with no way of escape.”

  I froze. Then I began crawling faster, but as I burst out of the tunnel into the slightly lesser blackness of the well I realized Mikhail hadn’t caught up with Butt in time. Above me, the yellow beam from the flashlight clipped to his belt betrayed my oboroten’s progress after the undead real estate salesman. I pulled on my gloves and began climbing after them.

  “Maybe it’s later than I think and the sun’s already set,” I muttered as I shinnied upward. “If it has and Mikhail catches the little creep before he can take off, I’m staking him myself. Nobody calls me Peaches and gets away with it!”

  In a moment I was grasping clumps of grass and hauling myself out of the well into the near-dusk. I got to my feet running, but then stopped, a slow smile spreading across my face.

  The sun was no more than a razor-thin sliver on the horizon and the fields were almost completely in shadow. But what Butt couldn’t see, his mocking face turned over his shoulder at Mikhail, was the final weak shaft of sunlight coming through a break in the trees surrounding the property.

  He ran straight into it and exploded into fiery oblivion.

  “My hero,” I said admiringly to Mikhail as I walked up to him. “You totally steered him toward that break in the trees, didn’t you? I thought we were in trouble when I saw it was nearly dark, but you must have planned—”

  “We are in trouble.” Mikhail cocked his head to one side, looking way too much like the RCA Victor mutt in those antique advertisements. I frowned at him.

  “Okay, what you’re hearing has to be one of those silent dog whistles, because it’s not reaching my ears. Come on, let’s go—”

  “Look what’s coming out of the farmhouse,” he said tersely.

  I followed his gaze and felt a chill settle on me. “Tell me those are just ordinary bats, Mikey-baby,” I whispered. “Tell me they’re just ordinary bats that happen to be heading our way in a great big flock.”

  “They’re vamps,” he said flatly. “They’ve honed in on your human scent. We won’t make it to the car before they’re upon us.” He turned to me, his eyes glowing more golden than I’d ever seen them. “There’s only one thing we can do to escape them,” he growled.

  The next moment Mikhail’s arms were around me and his tongue was in my mouth in a deep, toe-curling kiss.

  Chapter 15

  As any girl knows, there’s nothing so explosive as having the submerged hots for someone and then finding yourself participating in a triple-X-rated kiss with him.

  Before I go any further I just have to say one thing—God, he was good.

  In fact, that was my first dazed reaction as Mikhail’s mouth covered mine. I felt the tips of my toes brush the ground as he lifted me slightly off my feet—I mean, hand me a fan, somebody, that was a total orgasmic rush right there—and as my lashes drifted down I thought, oh, honey, you are way too good at this.

  And then I heard the wings. They didn’t sound like bird wings, they sounded like great leather windmill sails rustily creaking in the darkening sky over the field. My eyes snapped open and I found myself staring into Mikhail’s brilliant gaze. He spoke against my mouth, his voice hoarsely urgent.

  “Kiss me back, dammit!”

  He knew we were about to die. He wanted to spend his final moment of existence with my arms around him, my taste on his tongue. How sweet, how Romeo-and-Juliet-ish, how flattering…

  How freaking insane was he? Maybe our chances weren’t great, but if we started running for the trees right now we might get out of this alive. I struggled in his arms but with my feet dangling like a marionette’s I couldn’t break his grip on me.

  “Let go of me, Vostoroff!” I ground out. “Remember ancient contract thingy? You’re supposed to protect me, not hand me over
to the vamps with a ‘bon appetit, folks’!” I drew back my foot and kicked him hard in the knee.

  “Kiss me back, Megan!” I knew he’d spoken the words because I saw his lips move. But somehow he’d also pulled the same stunt he’d pulled the night he and Darkheart had arrived, his words resounding in my head the same way they’d done then. Just as I had that first night, I found myself unable to ignore them.

  “We’re going to die!” I screamed into his face. Then I laced my fingers behind his head and pulled him to me.

  He wanted a kiss? I thought in impotent rage. I’d give him such a mind-numbing kiss that when the vamp-bats struck us down Mikey-baby would go to his shape-shifter afterlife in a state of permanent, unappeaseable arousal. I closed my eyes, opened my mouth and angrily pushed my tongue past his, tightening my grip in his hair and feeling it slide like ripped black silk across my palms. I flicked the tip of my tongue against the tip of his, then surged deeper before withdrawing slightly and biting down hard on his bottom lip. The rush of the creaking wings overhead was so loud now that their sound was all-enveloping, and despairingly I kissed Mikhail harder. He kissed me back, every muscle in his body rigid with need, his biceps straining against the sides of my breasts and his hands on my shoulders feeling like steel vises. Through his jeans I could feel the outline of him pressed hard against my thigh, and despite myself and the situation, I suddenly felt a blaze of heat run through me.

  The world seemed to tip on its axis. The heat running through me turned instantaneously to ice and then to flames again. I felt dizzy and sick and as if something were terribly wrong with me, and I tried to wrench myself away from Mikhail.

  He released me. I fell like a lead weight to the ground, but that was wrong, too, because the ground seemed closer than it should have been. I raised myself onto my hands and knees and took a deep, mind-clearing breath of air. Then I opened my eyes and saw Mikhail standing in front of me in wolf form.