define a monster, Ailward?”
I didn’t know how to answer. So I did the next best thing; I moved on. “Why am I here?”
“Well, spoken plainly, you are here because I’ve blackmailed you.”
Blackmail. It was an ugly word and an even uglier concept. “That’s not what I meant. What purpose could you possibly have for me?”
The car moved like a silent animal. I couldn’t even hear the engine. Could only tell the car was going from the occasional stops and acceleration. That and the sound of the wind whipping through the tiny gap in the window that let in the cold.
“Ah, well, in that case…I must admit to a certain curiosity,” he said, elbow on his knee, chin braced on one hand. The streetlights bathed his face in light, then darkness, then light again. He was beautiful. Beautiful in the way a tiger prowls through the underbrush, beautiful like the sheen and angle of a blade. “I’ve heard some extraordinary things about you. Is it true that you can see the future?”
My laugh was hoarse, rough. “I am not a fortune teller.”
“A pity,” he replied, voice lingering. “But you’re a human. Who can fight toe to toe with one of my kind. I’m told you eliminated an assassin the first night of your Master’s turning. How did you do that?”
Was it wise to tell him? I thought not. “I would rather not talk about that.”
“Hm. In that case, I suppose I could always threaten you with the death of your Master.”
How could he smile?
Vampires were monsters. Not a shred of humanity between the lot of them; I had forgotten.
I had forgotten. “Is this how you get what you want? By threatening?"
He tilted his head to one side. "Pardon?"
"Have you ever considered asking, perhaps even offering something in exchange for whatever it is you require?"
The vampire let out a slow breath and then lifted one hand, staring at it intently, as though he could read his fortune in the lines. "Do you know how I've survived as long as I have?"
"You're avoiding the question."
He looked at me, eyes completely black. I wished he was looking back at his hand. "You dare ask me such a thing? Tell me, Hunter, aren't you afraid of me or are you just too stupid to be afraid?"
A combination of both. But I wanted to live, so I kept my mouth shut.
He opened his mouth to say something, but then held up a finger. “Wait.”
I watched him pull a cell phone smaller than the palm of my hand from the flannel jacket that looked and smelled like it had come from a discount clothing warehouse that specialized in keeping beggars from going nude.
“What?” he answered.
He stilled and his lips pursed. “I see.”
A pause.
“Have Vincent notified. Tell him we are headed his way and will pick him up at the club. We should arrive in the next ten to fifteen minutes.”
Instinctively, my muscles twitched.
Vincent? In here? I would share a car with Centennial City’s two most powerful vampires. Panic made my breath come up short and when he snapped the phone closed, I jumped at the sudden, sharp noise.
He rolled his shoulders back and sighed, a startling sign of humanity I hadn’t expected to see.
“We have a…problem.”
I felt the almost unstoppable urge to laugh like a maniac. “I cannot imagine something possibly going right.”
“Fate does seem to have a way of making sure to frown upon you, doesn’t she?’
This time, I did laugh. I couldn’t have stopped it for the world. “I can only wait and see what she has planned.”
The brackets between his thin lips deepened. “You will not like this piece of news, I fear,” he said and sighed. “On second thought, there can be only one person who could rejoice at this news and that would be the one who took him.”
The one that took him.
Something tightened in my chest. “Who took who?”
He shook his head. “Jason. No one can say. Well, no one who can speak, that is.”
“What happened?”
His fingers tapped wildly on his thighs. Was it a sign of his disquiet? It was clear this was extremely worrying to him, although how it could worry him more than myself, I could not understand. “There was an attack at my estate after I went to intercept you. From what I can gather, someone or something simply walked into my home and demolished it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Demolished it,” he said again and to my most abject horror, found myself sitting only three inches away from