Guilty Pleasures - By Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,32
as down. I didn't want something sneaking up on me from below while I was looking upstairs. I wanted my gun. It was locked in my trunk, where it was doing me a hell of a lot of good.
We were standing just below a landing, a turn in the stairs. There have been times when I wished I could see around corners. This was one of them. The scrape of cloth against stone, the rub of shoes.
The man who walked around the corner was human, surprise, surprise. His neck was even unmarked. Cotton-white hair was shaved close to his head. The muscles in his neck bulged. His biceps were bigger around than my waist. My waist is kinda small, but his arms were still, ah, impressive. He was at least six-three, and there wasn't enough fat on him to grease a cake pan.
His eyes were the crystalline paleness of January skies, a distant, icy, blue. He was also the first bodybuilder I'd ever seen who didn't have a tan. All that rippling muscle was done in white, like Moby Dick. A black mesh tank top showed off every inch of his massive chest. Black jogging shorts flared around the swell of his legs. He had had to cut them up the sides to slip them over the rock bulge of his thighs.
I whispered, "Jesus, how much do you bench press?"
He smiled, close-lipped. He spoke with the barest movement of lips, never giving a glimpse of his incisors. "Four hundred."
I gave a low whistle. And said what he wanted me to say: "Impressive."
He smiled, careful not to show teeth. He was trying to play the vampire. Such a careful act being wasted on me. Should I tell him that he screamed human? Naw, he might break me over his thigh like kindling.
"This is Winter," Zachary said. The name was too perfect to be real, like a 1940s movie star.
"What is happening?" he asked.
"Our master and Jean-Claude are fighting," Zachary said.
He drew a deep, sighing breath. His eyes widened just a bit. "Jean-Claude?" He made it sound like a question.
Zachary nodded and smiled. "Yes, he's been holding out."
"Who are you?" he asked.
I hesitated; Zachary shrugged. "Anita Blake."
He smiled then, flashing nice normal teeth at last. "You're The Executioner?"
"Yes."
He laughed. The sound echoed between the stone walls. The silence seemed to tighten around us. The laughter stopped abruptly, a dew of sweat on his lip. Winter felt it and feared it. His voice came low, almost a whisper, as if he was afraid of being overheard. "You aren't big enough to be The Executioner."
I shrugged. "It disappoints me, too, sometimes."
He smiled, almost laughed again, but swallowed it. His eyes were shiny.
"Let's all get out of here," Zachary said.
I was with him.
"I was sent to check on Nikolaos," Winter said.
The silence pulsed with the name. A bead of sweat dripped down his face. Important safety tip: never say the name of an angry master vampire when they are within "hearing" distance.
"She can take care of herself," Zachary whispered, but the sound echoed anyway.
"Nooo," I said.
Zachary glared at me and I shrugged. Sometimes I just can't help myself.
Winter stared at me, face as impersonal as carved marble; only his eyes trembled. Mr. Macho. "Come," he said. He turned without waiting to see if we would follow. We followed.
I would have followed him anywhere as long as he went upstairs. All I knew was that nothing, absolutely nothing, could get me back down those stairs. Not willingly. Of course, there are always other options. I glanced up at Winter's broad back. Yeah, if you don't want to do it willingly, there are always other options.
Chapter 14~15
Chapter 14
The stairs opened into a square chamber. An electric bulb dangled from the ceiling. I had never thought one dim electric light could be beautiful, but it was. A sign that we were leaving the underground chamber of horrors behind and approaching the real world. I was ready to go home.
There were two doors leading out of the stone room, one straight ahead and one to the right. Music floated through the one in front of us. High, bright circus music. The door opened, and the music boiled around us. There was a glimpse of bright colors and hundreds of people milling about. A sign flashed, "Fun house." A carnival midway, inside a building. I knew where I was. Circus of the Damned.
The city's most powerful vampires slept under the Circus. It was something to remember.