Chapter 11
eleven
. . .
“Do you want to talk about last night?” Gloria asked, sipping champagne from her teacup the next morning. She had stopped to get the champagne out of Hazen’s car last night before driving home with me in the passenger’s seat while Tom took Hazen to the movie theater.
I was curled up on her green velvet chaise lounge in front of a fire. I wanted to find a grave and bury myself twelve feet under, but I had a bone to pick with the Grand Master first. This was all his fault. I was almost positive about that, but that was the only thing that I had any certainty of.
Hazen was still with Tom, being treated to make sure that he didn’t turn from my bite. He claimed he was fine, that it wasn’t a big deal, but Tom had had to wrestle me off my husband last night, because I’d been killing him.
“You weren’t killing him. He had good color. You were just caught up in the moment. I mean, him reaching into the monster’s mouth with his pepper spray was so brilliantly stupid. You can’t help but love someone who would do something so senseless for you.”
“And love equals biting. I don’t think that Tom’s reaction was the same as mine to the Grand Master’s serum. Maybe it’s because I don’t come from a long line of slayers. I’m just a normal human.”
“Not normal, Lucky, but who wants to be that boring? Oh, I remember, you want to be that boring, but you see what happens when you repress your natural impulses? They explode in wild sex in the back of a van. Hm. Maybe we should all be more repressed.” She wiggled her brows at me.
“Did he get a good salt soak?” I asked, sitting up and grabbing my phone. I texted Tom for the twentieth time. As I was texting, my phone rang, and I dropped it with trembling fingers.
I checked the number, and it was no one I knew. I answered it cautiously. “Hello?”
“This is the Grand Master. Why are you killing hounds of death? That isn’t extermination. That requires skill, skill that you don’t have.”
I scowled at the fire and wanted to punch the Grand Master’s face until he had to keep his nose taped like Gloria. “Do you want to take it out of my wage? Do it. I don’t care. I want to talk with you and renegotiate the contract.”
“I see. Along the lines of…”
“Medical care. Supplies, maybe a medic.”
“Oooh, I could be the medic,” Gloria called, raising her teacup.
“Someone to train our current medic-in-training,” I added so that she smiled and blew me a kiss.
“And your husband?”
I hissed, but I didn’t tell him what I really thought. That was better to do in person, because it could contain threats of violence, or acts of violence. “Yes. I would like to discuss our current situation with you.”
“Very well. Dinner on the hotel roof. Come as soon as is convenient for you. That means now.”
He hung up, leaving me with the urge to strangle someone. Him.
The phone rang again, loud and harsh. I jumped and then fumbled, barely snatching it from falling to the ground.
“What?” I demanded.
“Lucy?” Hazen sounded so uncertain.
Right. His wife didn’t strangle people. Or rip their throats open. “I’m so sorry, Hazen. I know that explanations won’t really help, but if I could take it back, I would.”
“What are you talking about? Oh, the biting? I didn’t lose much blood, much less than you did.
That’s what Tom said, that you lost a lot of blood and so instinctively, you were searching for the nearest source, but of course, you don’t have fangs, so you didn’t do much damage.
It’s a little sore, but well worth the rest of it.
I called to ask about you. You were seriously injured. Are you at the hospital?”
“Ah, no. I’m going to get a checkup from a doctor pretty soon. Actually, right away. You must have a lot of questions.”
“Tom has been regaling me with slayer stories. Are any of them true? I was there last night, and it was pretty indescribable, but some of his stories…”
I sighed heavily, but listening to his voice, hearing that he was okay, that he wasn’t angry, even though he should be, I couldn’t help but almost relax.
I hadn’t slept much, and I was still in a lot of pain.
I was so tired, and I’d tried so hard to keep Hazen out of this mess.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore. What were you doing there? ”
He cleared his throat. “I was following you. Not to be rude, but you’ve been acting really off lately. I was worried that you got caught up in something dangerous, gangs, drugs, I don’t know, but I didn’t expect… whatever that was.”
“Hounds of death, apparently. Well, now you’ve seen what I’m involved in, so you understand why I can’t be with you anymore.
I’m marked by the zombies, so everywhere I go, they hunt me down.
They took Gloria and Tom, but you’re still off their radar.
I want you to stay that way. Go home once everything’s secure, okay?
Forget about all of this, about me and—”
He cut me off. “You’re my wife. I’m not leaving you to fight alone. It’s not happening.” His voice was firm, the voice he used to back me up when I told the boys it was time for bed. I missed them so much. I missed him and our stupid, happy life together.
“Hazen, it’s not your problem.”
“We’re in this together. I’m going to train with Tom to be a second tier slayer, or the cook, or the getaway driver, I don’t know, but something. I’m not leaving you to face the monsters alone.”
My heart swelled with hope, but no, I couldn’t do this to him. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“No, we won’t.” He hung up on me, leaving me sputtering and anxious, but also kind of swooning because it’s so good to hear that the one you love wants to be with you, even if it’s facing monsters together.
I got up too fast and then winced and wrapped my arms around my body. I’d never been so badly hurt. Another thing to yell at the Grand Master about.
“Where are you off to?”
“I have lunch with the devil.”
“The vampire? Is he handsome?”
“I’m married.”
“Yes. I always thought he was too boring to survive, but last night, he was absolutely amazing. I finally understand what you see in him.”
“You’re really impressed by stupidity on the field of battle?”
“He didn’t abandon you when things got weird. He walked into the fray and got messy with you. That’s high quality. So, is the divorce still on? I vote no.”
“You don’t get a vote in whether or not I get a divorce.”
“But if you do divorce, you’ll probably fall in love with Tom, and how could I compete with your slayer bond?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going. If you need anything, call Tom.”
She wiggled her brows. “I’ll be sure to think of something I need.”
“Classy, Gloria. Real classy.”
“I save it all for you. You’re welcome, Lucky. Have fun playing with fire.”
I drove across town to the hotel, anxious and in pain the entire way. Maybe I should have taken a bottle of alcohol, but I needed to be sober to face the Grand Master.
Once I got into the elevator through the bedroom with the double entries, I hummed along with the tune playing. What was that song called? Was it a bossanova?
The doors opened while I was still trying to remember. The Grand Master was waiting for me this time, or he was sitting at the table overlooking the beautiful city view and talking on his phone.
It sounded like gibberish at first, but eventually I recognized what was probably a Slavic language. I sat down across from him and started eating while he talked, so hungry, so tired, so hurt.
He finally hung up when I was slightly less likely to die of hunger.
“Who was that? Zombie, vampire, or werewolf?”
“I’m trying to track the origin of the hound you destroyed last night. Those are very valuable creatures. They’re hunters, trackers, can find a trail from the other side of the world, and they don’t get distracted by crowds, not when they have a target. You were the target.”
“Everybody hates me. I’ve got it. Thanks for making sure I understand.”
“Your sarcasm is very unattractive.”
“My husband finds my sarcasm wildly attractive. You just have no taste in humor. I don’t suppose you can help it, since you’re undead.”
“I don’t suppose I can,” he said drily.
I kept eating, and eating, and eating, until I’d eaten the very last bite. The steak was rarer than I usually liked, but I didn’t say anything, and I really enjoyed it. “Why did I bite my husband?”
“Did you?”
“You seem to know everything. Don’t tell me that you don’t know that.”
He yawned, and it wasn’t because he was tired. “I can smell his blood on your breath. You aren’t a vampire, but perhaps you want to be.” He leaned forward and his eyes were suddenly intense and shining. “Perhaps you want me to take you with the kiss of eternal night.”
“Or maybe I’m having a bad reaction to drinking your serum. Just between you and me, I’d rather die after Duke tortured me than kiss you.”
“You are not very polite.”
“But you still haven’t killed me.”
“I changed the contract so that your husband is on the payroll of your little gang of peculiar humans, but from now on, you ask me where to go for your work.”
“I have to exterminate all the zombies in the country. Why does it matter where it starts? Is there some way to reduce the effects of your serum? I bit my husband. It was terrible.”
“For him or for you? You didn’t kill any zombies. You wandered off into areas better left undisturbed.”
“We were trying to have a low-key night.”
“You failed.”
I stood up and gripped the table, glaring at him. “Look, Grand Master, I was a housewife a month ago. Now I’m supposed to be your exterminator, but I have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it, or not do it. My husband is now involved. How can I possibly include him in your madness?”
“I’m not the one who marked you. I resent you conflating myself and the zombie queen. We are quite different.”
I sighed heavily and sat down. “I just want him to be safe.”
“Charming. What does that have to do with me? Would you like me to supply him with some serum as well?”