than any of the other sins, including wrath. That said, if he had the option to actually converse with someone while they were naked or clothed, the choice was clear.
“You want to claim her?” Vlad repeated his question.
“I do. If she will have me.” He sighed and looked down at the naked girl in his arms, her rosy skin a far cry from his strange coloring. His long tail curled around her leg covetously. “I will have to free her from my spell to ask her. I would have her gaze on me such as I truly am and understand what she would become. She will reject me, I am sure.”
“Have you ever tried before?”
“I have never felt the need.”
“For what it is worth, I hope she accepts you.” Vlad turned back out to the moonlight and let out a breath. He had his own hopes for the future that might lay in the arms of a mortal girl.
“How goes your hunt? What a delicious thing that Maxine is. Think you might consider sharing?”
“No.”
“Come, now, not even a trade for a night?”
“No, Mordecai.”
“How about all at once, then?”
Vlad growled angrily in response.
“Oh, well. But perhaps you are right. Once she tasted me, she would likely never want you again,” the demon teased.
Vlad laughed and shook his head. He knew the creature was only half joking, but he took it for the good-natured goading that it was meant to be. His thoughts drifted over Maxine. He wondered how she was faring. Though the sun had not risen, he knew the morning had still come. They would be on the move once more.
“Where is Zadok?”
“Oh, here is the clever bit. He has assumed the form of Bella in order to better tear them apart from the inside.” Mordecai chuckled.
Vlad sighed. It was a dangerous ploy, but he knew the Illusionist did not like a game that came without risks. He also did not enjoy the idea that Maxine was left alone in the watch of his most unpredictable general outside of his direct supervision.
But that was how fate had played out. Replacing Bella was a brilliant ploy, Vlad had to admit. It would be all the more beautiful when they realized she had been missing for days. It would be so easy to kill them. But he did not simply wish them violence. He wished them suffering, and such was a gift he had learned to masterfully craft many years ago.
And oh, the terrors he had planned for the Helsing mortal were truly breathtaking. The girl behind him might be a useful tool, if she embraced Mordecai and chose to become as he.
“Is this love, Master?”
“Perhaps.” Vlad shook his head and looked back out the window.
“It’s terrible. It’s frightening and putrid. It hurts me in my heart when I think about her rejecting me. I despise it so very much. I think I can’t live without it.”
Vlad shut his eyes. “Yes. You are in love.”
Mordecai grunted. “Damn it.”
They had been walking for hours. Maxine, Alfonzo, Eddie…and “Bella.” As they marched, they passed bodies left bent and broken wherever they had been discarded—or whatever had been left of them. Even more alarming than the piles was when there was nothing left, only blood, oozing down walls and across sidewalks, dark but shining in the crimson moonlight.
The moon that never moved, never set, and never gave way to the sun. As the hours ticked by, it remained the constant watcher hanging high in the sky overhead.
She had hoped Zadok’s farce would last a few minutes at most. But it seemed the vampire was an exceptionally good actor. Or his commentary on Alfonzo’s and Eddie’s views of Bella as a commodity and an accessory rung far truer than Maxine would have wished. Perhaps some of each.
Either way, she walked beside “Bella” on their trek through the city. The vampire-turned-huntress had asked to be the keeper of her chains for a turn, to spare Eddie the responsibility for a few hours, and the young boy had agreed.
It had taken every ounce of Maxine’s will to keep from protesting the arrangement. She would have no issue with Bella being the one to hold her “leash,” and therefore it would raise suspicion if she balked at it now. She only spared the vampire a few sidelong glares when she was certain no one was looking.
Meanwhile, Zadok was clearly pleased as punch to stand close to her, smiling, pretending to whisper to her like they were two girls at