if you mean your words. For tomorrow, if the hunters do not listen to reason…I will destroy this city of yours and all who dwell within it. And we shall see if your sentiment holds true.”
She reached for him, but something held her back. Something heavy and strange was around her wrists.
She heard the sound of metal sliding on metal.
Maxine awoke in chains.
She was lying on a dirt floor. A pillow was under her head, and there was a blanket underneath her. She was still in her dress from the opera. When she looked down at her hands, she found them chained together with a foot of thick, iron links. Shackles were locked tightly around her wrists. A long, winding length of chain ran from one of her wrists and off across the dirt floor. It wound around a column, and a simple lock held two links together.
She knew this place.
It was her own basement, after all.
She sat up, confused and disoriented for a moment. And oh, how her head hurt! She placed her fingers to her temple and found she was still not wearing her gloves. She had taken them off before—oh. Now she remembered. Alfonzo and the hunters.
She sighed.
“Morning. Er. Afternoon, rather.”
She looked up, surprised, and only then did she notice Eddie sitting by the wall in one of the chairs she had tucked away in the basement long ago. He was leaning against the stacked stone wall, the wood furniture up on its hind legs. On the table next to him was one of his revolvers intact, and the other disassembled. He was picking up a piece of the dismantled gun, piece by piece, and polishing it off with a cloth.
She shuffled to sit more comfortably against the wall. She was shackled in her own basement. She assumed she was going nowhere anytime soon. “I’m surprised I’m not dead.”
“We don’t want to hurt you, Maxine. We don’t want any of this. Alfonzo thinks if we kill the vampire, you’ll be freed of whatever spell he’s put you under. He’s done this before. Kept human…pets. Has he hypnotized you?”
“Once. Briefly. Perhaps twice. That’s not what this is.”
“Then it’s something worse.” Eddie put down one piece of his revolver and picked up another, cleaning it with the cloth. “We’ll fix it. I promise. You’re chained up for your own good. So you don’t run off.”
They fell silent for many minutes. They hated Dracula. Yet the vampire seemed to not know them save by reputation. There must be a reason they would not listen to her. “What happened to you, Eddie?”
“Hum?”
“Nobody picks your life for fun and profit, I assume.”
Eddie laughed, grinning. “No, ma’am.”
She wanted to remind him not to call her that, but decided she was better giving up trying. “My father died from injuries he incurred in the Civil War before I was born. I never knew him. My stepfather tried to…he tried to hurt me. And when I tried to push him away, I tore his soul out of his body and destroyed it. That is why I cannot touch anyone or be touched. My mother—rightfully, perhaps—believed me to be a demon. She attempted to kill me. I ran. I joined up with the Roma and traveled with a circus for many years. And here I am.”
Eddie watched her, wide-eyed. “I…um. Shit.”
She shrugged. “We all have reasons for being who we are. For making the decisions that led us to where we are now. I am merely trying to explain mine.”
“I saw him touch you.”
“He is…not as fragile as a mortal soul. I have, over the years and quite by accident, destroyed eleven souls. I have sent them to the void. Not to Heaven, or Hell, or whatever might exist—but to nowhere at all. With him, it is not the case.”
“But it’s not only that, is it? You sympathize with him.”
“I sympathize with everyone, Eddie.”
“Even us? Alfonzo hit you. We’ve chained you up in your own home.”
“Even you. Especially you. You are trying to save this city and everyone in it. To your own words, you’ve done this to protect me. I disagree, but I cannot fault you for doing what you feel is right.”
Eddie nodded slowly. He moved on to cleaning the next part of his weapon. “My family died. All of them. My ma, pa, my little sister. She was eight. All of them. I…found them. Found what was left of them.”
“From a vampire?”
“I wish.” He paused for a long time. She could sense his