Angel's Kiss (28 page)

“
His army!
” I laughed mockingly, “You call that ragtag bunch of vampire misfits
an army?
Not interested.”

“He has someone with him that might make you change your mind.”

“And who might that be?” I asked.

The only person of interest to me was Danny, and Drake didn’t have him.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

I was curious who it could be. Maybe he was offering up the preacher as a sacrifice, if I would make the switch. Shae would have told him about the preacher, and how he used women. Drake would’ve wanted to find out everything he could about me, and Shae was as good a source — if somewhat vexed and biased — as any.

“What if I told you the information may save your life, if I thought it was useful — for now at least?”

“If I talk, Drake will hunt me down and kill me. If I don’t talk, you’ll kill me. Better to get it over with now, hey?”

Why would he give up without a fight?

“For an immortal, you don’t place much value on your life.”

“I used to gamble, when I was human. One too many bets and here I am. The odds changed as soon as you set foot in the forest. I don’t want to gamble on being given a quick death by Drake if I talk. It’s likely to be a drawn-out and painful affair. I’d rather take my chances with you.”

“So that’s it?” I asked. “You’re just giving up?”

“Make it quick,” he pleaded.

A quick death — how long did it take to decapitate a vampire? I hadn’t paid much attention to how much time passed when I used the knife. I was too enthralled by the singing of the blade. It had to be quicker than draining a vampire dry. So be it, a quick death.

I let go of his leg, placed my knee in the small of his back and unsheathed the knife. My free hand was already entwined in his hair, pulling back his head. It was over before he’d had the chance to ask how long it would take. I fell backwards, the force with which I’d completed the task causing me to overbalance when his head separated from his body. The momentum caused the head to be released from my hand like a poorly thrown bowling ball. It landed on the ground with a thud and rolled over a few times before coming to a stop, the dead eyes staring up at the sky.

The blade was still singing, and I took the time to enjoy the moment before it would end. The song was slightly different, but engaging all the same. As the final notes died down I sheathed it and looked from the head to the body, and back to the head again.

I wonder what would happen if I put his head back on his shoulders?
I thought.

I walked over to the head and kicked it towards the body, lining up the kick as best as I could. One final nudge with my foot and apart from the three-sixty incision all the way around his neck, the vamp looked as good as new.

Just another dead body,
I thought.

I brushed myself off. The ash clung to my clothes and despite my best efforts half of it remained. I was about to leave when I heard a gurgling sound. I looked down at the body in front of me. The skin was beginning to heal around his neck, his body repairing itself. A hand twitched and a leg kicked out reflexively.

“Now
that’s
interesting,” I said.

The gurgling continued, along with the occasional cough. I crouched on my haunches to watch what was happening. His eyes implored me to finish him off yet again. I imagined that having your head reattached to your body the wrong way around would be difficult to live with.

Almost half of his neck had healed. At this rate it would take less than a minute for his neck to heal over completely. How extraordinary!

At least now I knew
why
the body had to be burned. It would be best to keep heads far away from bodies until I could burn them. That raised another interesting question. Could a vamp’s head attach itself to another vamp’s body? Maybe I’d check it out one day, to see what happened. For now I had to deal with the problem lying in front of me.

I unsheathed the knife, wrenched back his head — or was I technically pulling his head forward — and removed it once more. I tossed it some metres away and kicked the body, to make sure it was still.

A couple more trips and that would be enough for today. Danny would probably be wondering why I was taking so long. Could I risk two at once? Would I take the chance? I thought about what some of the vamps had been wearing. Most were in short sleeves. If I could grab two at once, get one on the ground beneath me and take out the other one first … too risky, I decided. I’d be better off waiting until I was more experienced.

When I returned to the shelter again I caught Drake watching me. I poked my tongue out at him as I snatched another of his soldiers, and he smiled. I hesitated for a moment. There was something in that smile, like he knew something I didn’t. It was almost as if he was biding his time, that he knew one day I would come to him.

I was tempted to find out what was behind the smile. If I could back into a corner, using the vamp I had a grip on as a shield, maybe he’d open up and let me in on the secret.
Why, oh why did I always have to give in to my curiosity, of all things!

I moved too late and someone lunged at me from the side, all three of us tumbling to the ground, me in the middle of a Helena sandwich.
Flash!
We were gone.

The vampire who had charged me sunk his teeth into the back of my neck, near the spine. The one underneath me couldn’t move, the weight of both our bodies pinning him to the ground. I reached back and clasped the arm of my attacker, thankful he was wearing a t-shirt. My lips and other hand sought my originally intended prey. I hadn’t planned on taking out two at the same time, though fate seemed to have other ideas.

My attacker struggled wildly when he realised what I was doing to him. He couldn’t disengage my hand. He clawed at me with his free hand and applied as much pressure as he could to my wrist. I heard a snap and felt a twinge of pain, but my grip on his arm remained true.

After the struggling ceased I released his body and rubbed my wrist gently. The bones had already mended! That was much faster than when I’d had my fall. Did smaller or fewer breaks heal quicker? Would my body adapt and heal all breaks faster and faster, until the only thing to indicate a break had occurred was the sound the bones made upon breaking?

I guess only time will tell.

I felt, rather than heard, a presence. Being upwind no scent reached me, so I wasn’t sure what was there. I spun around quickly, ready to pounce or flee, depending on the foe —
am I ready to face a werewolf on my own yet?
It was Danny, come to investigate what was taking me so long.

“I see you’ve been busy,” he said.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I thought I’d practice a little more. It was easier to focus … afterwards.”

Danny smiled and crouched down, touching each body in turn.

“I’m beginning to understand how mortals can be so …
distracted
. Next time just tell me if you think that sex will help you to focus.” His smile widened and his eyes held a mischievous glint. “I don’t mind.”

I gave his arm a gentle whack. “For an angel you’re as devious as any mortal I know.”

I leaned over his back while he was still crouching, wrapping my arms around his neck —
piggy-back, piggy-back, I want a piggy-back
— and took us back to the cottage.

He chuckled. “Two on the last foray?”

I let go of him and headed towards the bathroom.

“How could you
tell?
” I yelled back at him.

“The kills were very fresh,” he called out.

“Yeah, well, I’d been toying with the idea, but decided against it. As usual, things didn’t work out as planned. I think they’re trying to goad me,” I called out over my shoulder.

Danny followed me into the bathroom.

“What makes you think that?”

“One of the vamps said Drake was interested in me even more now, and that he wanted me to swap sides.”

I slipped out of my dirty clothes and stepped into the bath.

“He seems to think that Drake has someone that would be of interest me. I can’t for the life of me think who it would be … unless you’re a double agent.”

Danny snorted. “Not likely.”

He rolled up his sleeves and knelt down next to the bath. Picking up the cake of soap, he gently nudged my shoulder — an indication I should lean forwards so he could lather my back.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Before I was jumped — the last time I was at the apartment — Drake was smiling at me, like he
knew
something.” I was still itching to know what it was.
Damn curiosity!
“I hesitated, and that’s when I got jumped.”

Danny gently massaged my back.

“It was probably a diversionary tactic,” he said, dismissing it as anything more than that. “They can be quite cunning.”

His hands relaxed the muscles on either side of my spine. I shivered.

“I’ll say!” I grumbled. Shae
must
have told them that my curiosity was always getting me into trouble. That had to be it.

Danny sponged off the remaining soapsuds and I leaned back, more relaxed. He splashed his hand in the water, making little whirlpools.

“Hey, guess what!” I said.

“What?”

“That last one broke my wrist —”

“That’s something to get excited about?”

“No, let me finish. He broke my wrist, but it was healed by the time I’d finished with him. Sure, I felt a twinge of pain. Nothing major though. Nothing I couldn’t deal with.”

I leaned over and rested my chin on the side of the bath.

“I know I’m different to them, but you know how everything works for them, don’t you?” Danny looked puzzled. “I mean the healing thing.”

He nodded his head.

“So do smaller breaks heal faster or does the body adapt and with each break it learns how to heal itself faster and faster?”

“For them the number of breaks doesn’t matter. It’s the severity of the break that does. If the bone has been pulverised it can take anywhere up to six hours. Clean breaks heal within minutes.”

“I swear it only took around thirty seconds for my wrist to heal, once the vamp had stopped trying to crush it.”

Danny’s hand trailed in the water and he flicked water in my face from his wet fingers, grinning like a naughty little boy.

“I don’t doubt it,” he replied.

I blinked the water away from my eyes and retaliated by splashing handfuls of water over the side of the bath until he was thoroughly soaked. As I was laughing at him, water dripping from his hair down his face, his clothes and hair dried, like he’d never been wet.

“No fair!” I complained, still laughing.

His fingers splashed gently about in the water again

“So how did you like your first bliss-creek?” he asked.

“My
what?
”

He flicked more water at me.

“Your bliss-creek. You remember — roughly translated it means something like thunderbolt, or lightning strike.”

I stepped out of the bath and tackled Danny to the ground, pinning down his arms and shaking my head so droplets of water rained down on him. The water on my body trickled down to soak through his clothes where I straddled his abdomen.

“You mean
blitzkrieg
. It was fun. You should have seen the looks on their faces.”

I giggled as I remembered the comical looks of surprise. Only Drake had appeared cool and calm, that knowing smile touching his lips.

“I appeared in a different part of the apartment each time. It confused the shit out of them. I think I’m going to enjoy doing this.”

Danny slipped his wrists out from under my hands and rolled me over onto my back, our positions reversed. I didn’t even put up a playful fight. I was too engrossed in the fact that
all
of my fingers had made contact with his skin and nothing had happened. My mind went back to other times, when my hands had caressed his body or we’d held hands to journey through the lights. I realised, then, that on a subconscious level I must be able to control it.

“Helena, are you with me or have you drifted off?” Danny whispered in my ear, his hot breath distracting me from my thoughts.

“I was wondering about my hands.” I wiggled my fingers, stained red from another day of hunting, in front of my face. “My fingers hold any vamp they come in contact with in a death grip. I don’t need my entire hand to make contact, only my fingers. Anyway it’s a death sentence. Yet I can touch you and hold you and nothing happens. Why is that do you think?”

Danny creased his brow, thinking of a reasonable explanation. “Psychological perhaps. Maybe you don’t
want
to hurt me. Or maybe you can’t use your death grip on those that aren’t evil? Or maybe,” his voice hinting at something more, “you just like
touching
me.”