Crimson Debt

by Evangeline Anderson

  As fast as vamps move, I shouldn’t have been able to get off a single shot. But for some reason—maybe because he was wounded or maybe because he wanted to play with me—Roderick was just slow enough for me to squeeze the trigger.

  At the same time I shouted, “Corbin, down!”

  The gun roared. Corbin dropped like a stone just in time for the bullet to whiz by and bury itself in Roderick’s left shoulder.

  Now, a bullet to the shoulder isn’t normally a killing shot. But as I’ve said before, my bullets are special—hollow points filled with liquid silver nitrate that acts like acid once it touches vamp flesh.

  So what should have happened was this: the bullet should have ploughed into Roderick, exploding and expanding, vaporizing his shoulder and a good part of his chest. Then the silver would spray everywhere, eating into his flesh like a fast acting acid, gouging holes in his face and arms and hands—everywhere it sprayed on impact. At this point, Roderick should have fallen to his knees, screaming and clawing at the burning silver that continued to eat its way into him like a rat gnawing cheese. He should have continued in agony until the silver reached his heart or brain or I had mercy on him and shot him again—this time in the head.

  That is not what happened.

  Oh, the bullet did plough into him and it made a very large hole—one big enough to see through, actually. I knew because I could see the tasteful Klimt painting Corbin had hanging on the wall behind his desk through it.

  But then, instead of expanding, the hole began to shrink. And instead of eating into his skin, the silver nitrate seemed to dissipate. It was as though he was somehow repelling it. Or maybe his flesh was actually taking it in—ingesting it and neutralizing it, somehow.

  For whatever the reason, shooting Roderick did nothing—well, nothing but enrage him.

  “You little cunt,” he snarled. “That hurt!”

  His face grew white and frightening and his eyes, already blood red, blazed like flames. Looking into them, I was sure I could see my death—the only bright side was that I had probably pissed him off enough to kill me immediately instead of toying with me first. Still, I wasn’t going to stand there and wait for death to come to me—I was going to fight it.

  I fired again and again, squeezing the trigger reflexively, but Roderick was too fast. He dodged around the room as I shot, always one step ahead of my bullets. One of them went wild and I saw the priceless Ming vase, which Roderick had put carefully on a chair earlier, shatter as a result. Oops. Well, that was probably the first and last time I would do over a million dollars' worth of damage with one shot. Too bad I was too busy trying to stay alive to enjoy it.

  I kept squeezing the trigger until suddenly the gun clicked instead of roaring. I stared at it, uncomprehending at first. Finally it hit me, empty—it was empty. I had nothing to defend myself with now.

  Roderick realized it too. Suddenly he was right in front of me, leering like a death’s head, his face a white horror mask of rage and greed.

  “Well, my dear, it seems you’re all out of ammunition.” His voice was distorted to a weird, shrieking howl and the breath blowing in my face smelled like the snake cage at the zoo. Ugh.

  “Looks like it.” I looked at my gun. Well, even without bullets, it could still be a weapon, though I doubted Roderick realized it. And he was so busy leering at me, he probably wasn’t expecting another attack.

  If you’ve never pimp-slapped a vampire with an empty Glock, well, I can’t say I recommend it. It might break their nose—I heard Roderick’s crunch as I slugged him with the gun as hard as I could. But that doesn’t help when they heal almost immediately—it only pisses them off.

  “Little bitch!” he hissed, coming for me again. “You’ll regret that—for a thousand years you’ll regret it.”

  “Roderick!” Corbin called from behind him.

  Looking over the angry vampire’s shoulder, I saw Corbin pulling something out of his inside suit jacket. Something long and sharp and lethal looking—a black metal stake. My eyes had a brief instant to notice that the stake was carved all over with intricate silver curlicues and markings, almost like runes—and then Corbin plunged it into Roderick’s back.

  The vampire Inquisitor gasped, stiffened, and dropped to his knees. Such was the force of Corbin’s blow that the black and silver stake protruded a full three inches from the front of his chest.

  Finally! I thought with a surge of relief. Something that affects him—something to take the bastard down!

  And he was down—down but still moving, which disturbed me. A stake through the heart—especially one with any kind of silver—was usually the end of a vamp, no matter how powerful they were. But Roderick was still hanging on. His eyes opened and closed and his mouth moved like a fish trying to breathe air instead of water.

  I frowned—he should have been completely dead. I could tell by the placement that Corbin had skewered his heart like a piece of steak on a shish kabob. The silver rune-like markings were covered in blood—blood so black it looked like tar. As I watched, they began to move—writhing like centipedes along the black shaft protruding from Roderick’s chest.

  And then the unthinkable happened—Roderick grasped the stake and pulled it free. He rose to his feet, the jagged wound in his chest sealing itself as I watched. What the hell? Could nothing kill this son of a bitch?

  Turning to Corbin, he began to laugh. At first it was a breathless sound but then, presumably as his lungs healed themselves, it was more full throated.

  “A silver-worked stake,” he cried. “Is that all you could think of? You thought you could kill me with this?” And he threw it point first at Corbin, like an athlete tossing a javelin.

  Corbin caught it in mid-flight and flipped it, turning the point toward himself. It made me nervous to see that wicked silver tip hovering so near his heart.

  “I know I can,” he said coldly.

  And then he drove the stake into his chest.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Corbin! Oh my God, Corbin, what did you do?” I gasped as he sank to his knees. There was red blood on the stake now—Corbin’s blood and, as before, the silver rune snakes were writhing and curling along the black shaft that protruded from his chest.

  “Addison,” he whispered, his voice strained.

  “No!” I rushed to him, heedless of Roderick or any danger he might still represent. “No! Oh, no, no, no.”

  Horrified tears filled my eyes. Emotions were flooding me—regret for all the harsh words that had passed between us, overwhelming sorrow at the idea of losing Corbin, anger at myself for my own stupidity in pushing him away…

  “No,” I cried again. “No, I won’t lose you like this—I can’t!”

  I reached for the stake, prepared to pull it out but Corbin knocked my hands away.

  “Stop,” he muttered. “Must give…enough time to feed. A life for…a life.”

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded, blinking away tears. “What has to feed? These things?” I touched one of the writhing silver runes and pulled my hand back immediately. “Ow! The damn thing bit me! Corbin, what the hell is going on?”

  “Did…what was…necessary.” He shook his head. “Don’t worry…I’ll…be fine.”

  “You’re kidding—you just drove a stake through your own chest! How the hell are you going to be fine after that?” I demanded.

  “Fine,” he insisted and even had the nerve to smile at me.

  “What—?” I began but then a strangled moan from Roderick tore my eyes away. I nearly choked when I saw what was happening to the vampire Inquisitor.

  Roderick had sunk to his knees again and this time he didn’t look like he was going to get back up. His face, formerly white, had turned a dirty gray and veins were standing out all over his body like worms crawling just under the surface of his skin. As I watched, his eyes turned from red to black and then they simply dried up and caved in, leaving empty sockets staring back at me. His skin dried up too—wrinklin
g and sagging before pulling tight to his skull until he looked like something out of a horror movie about mummies.

  As I watched, his whole body seemed to crumble in on itself, putrefying and shriveling up almost instantly like a fast motion film about the process of decay. When he finally fell all the way over, there was nothing but a desiccated husk lying on the floor with a shock of gray-brown hair sticking out of its dried up scalp.

  I stared at the weird thing in awe and horror until a low sound from Corbin pulled me back to the present.

  “Corbin?” I looked down to see that he was pulling the stake out of his chest, just as Roderick had done. What was going on? Didn’t this thing kill anyone? Or did it have a way of killing I didn’t understand? I stared at him, disbelieving, as I saw the black and silver stake come out smoothly. Corbin laid it to one side. The silver runes were completely red now but they had stopped writhing, reminding me ominously of snakes who have become sluggish after having their fill.

  As I watched, the hole in Corbin’s chest filled in, just as the one in Roderick’s had. And then he was up off the floor and smiling at me as though nothing had happened. As though he hadn’t appeared to commit suicide right in front of me not a minute ago.

  “There, you see, darling?” he asked. “Fine—I’m completely fine.”

  I sniffed and shook my head. “But…how? I don’t understand.”

  Corbin winked at me. “And you don’t need to. Roderick is finished—that is all that matters.”

  “No, that is not all that matters.” I climbed to my feet, ignoring the hand he held out to help me up.

  “Addison,” he began in a placating tone but I held up a hand to cut him off. Earlier when I thought he had killed himself I had been horrified and grief stricken. Now I was just mad.

  “Corbin, what the hell did you do?” I demanded. “How does that stake work? How did you kill Roderick? I want to know and I want to know right now.”

  He frowned. “I got a little help from a business acquaintance, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I do worry about it,” I said. “What acquaintance? Are you talking about that weird Goth girl with the purple hair who was leaving when I came in tonight? Who is she, anyway?”

  He sighed. “Just a witch I know. Her name is Gwendolyn LaRoux and she has a small business here in town. Don’t worry…” He put up his hands. “She hates vampires almost as much as you do, darling. But I made her an offer she could not refuse—in return, she gave me the means to kill Roderick.”

  I looked at Corbin for a long moment but he showed no signs of drying up and turning into a mummy like Roderick had, so maybe everything really was all right.

  “So…he’s really dead?” I nudged the mummified thing on his carpet carefully with one toe. I half expected Roderick to come back to life and grab me. Thankfully, he didn’t.

  “He is.” Corbin sounded serious. “One of his age is extremely hard to kill.”

  “Yeah, that’s the understatement of the year.” I sighed and looked around. “Your office is a mess. And the vase…” I looked at the blue and white shards of the priceless Ming vase lying scattered across the carpet.

  “The vase doesn’t worry me—are you all right?” Corbin took me by the shoulders and ducked his head, peering anxiously into my face. “Do you feel well, Addison?”

  “I’m fine.” For some reason I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Are you certain?” He cupped my cheek and wiped something away with his thumb—a tear. “Then why are you crying?”

  “I’m not.” I swiped at my eyes and tried to smile. “I was just…shocked when I thought you were…were gone.”

  “Shocked, hmm?” He looked at me more closely. “Perhaps you were upset? Could it be that you realized that you could return my love after all?”

  “Nothing like that,” I said, pulling away from him. “More like…I didn’t like the idea of the world without you in it.” I looked at him at last. “Satisfied?”

  Corbin sighed and for one quick instant a look of infinite sadness crossed his face. Then he smiled. “Not nearly satisfied, darling. But it’s nice at least to know that you will miss me when—” He stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. “I mean, that you would miss me if I were gone.”

  “Corbin?” I frowned at him. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Of course not.” He looked around at his ruined office. “Nothing but that you owe me a new office. You’re a real menace with that gun of yours.”

  “I’m usually a really good shot,” I said, stung by his teasing. “It was just…Roderick was so fast.”

  “But not fast enough.” He arched an eyebrow at me, making me laugh despite myself. “Seriously though, darling, do you realize that between Taylor’s bride price and the lovely but now-ruined tribute I bought for Roderick, you have cost me over two million dollars tonight?”

  “Are you serious?” I looked down at the jagged remains of the vase again. “I figured it might run as high as a million but I never thought—”

  “Don’t be sensitive, Addison—I am only teasing you.” Corbin smiled, a bit too brightly, I thought. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get this mess cleaned up.”

  “I can stay and help,” I offered, although what I could do about the bullets embedded in the walls and floors I had no idea. It was a good thing they hadn’t passed right through—maybe they had been stopped by the soundproofing in the panels.

  “No.” Corbin shook his head. “This is a job for professionals. And I must dispose of Roderick’s remains myself.”

  “What will you do with him?” I looked down at the dried up mummy-husk again and shivered.

  Corbin sobered. “He must be sent back to the Empress. She will not be pleased.”

  “Will you get into trouble?” I asked anxiously.

  “I’m not worried about it,” he replied, looking away. “As powerful as she is, she cannot hurt me now.”

  “Why not?” I asked suspiciously. “Because of some kind of vampire law? Something about you beating Roderick in a fair fight?”

  Although I wasn’t certain how fair his use of a witchcraft spelled stake was. What did the vampire laws say about that? I looked at it, still lying there on the floor and couldn’t help feeling like I was staring at a bloated snake. Just the sight of it made me shiver.

  “Yes, something like that.” Corbin sounded distracted. “Now, I really must get to work so maybe you should just…”

  “I should just what—run along? Is that it?” I frowned at him. “What’s going on, Corbin? I know when I’m being dismissed.”

  He frowned. “Nothing is going on except what you said you wanted. Roderick is dead and Taylor is free of Celeste—our business is concluded, our relationship over.”

  I stared at him for a moment as the words sank in. Of course I had told him I wanted out as soon as this was over but now that it was…I felt strangely empty at the thought of going back to our former, official relationship of vampire and Auditor. I remembered the feelings I’d had when I saw him plunge that stake in his heart and pushed them away. I had just been panicking, I told myself. Those emotions that had flooded over me—they didn’t really mean anything except that I was freaking out—right?

  I cleared my throat. “So…so I should just go?”

  “Maybe you should go spend some time with Taylor,” Corbin suggested in a condescending tone. “Have a little ‘girl talk’. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “Oh yes. Really nice.” I swallowed and heard a little click in my throat. “Look, Corbin—”

  “Addison, please—I really am busy,” he said impatiently. “I need to get a cleaning crew in here and I have some very specific rituals to go through in getting Roderick’s remains ready for shipment.”

  “Fine.” I shrugged, trying to look like I didn’t care, like his dismissal didn’t hurt. “I guess I’ll see you the next time I come around to inspect the Fang.”

  “About that…” Corbin
looked up at me for a moment. “I really do think it would a good idea for you to find someone else to do that from now on. I mean, given the, ah, relationship we were so briefly in, perhaps it might be more professional if you distanced yourself from my business.”

  “Distanced…myself?” There was a lump growing in my throat now, one I couldn’t swallow no matter how hard I tried. But I didn’t want to let Corbin know. “Sure,” I made myself say. “I can, uh, switch with a coworker, I guess.”

  “Good. I think that would be for the best. Goodbye.” He nodded at the door. When I didn’t go to it, he took me by the arm and marched me to it. “I said goodbye, Addison,” he said, releasing my arm and taking a step back.

  Feeling like I had no choice, I opened the door. Then I just stood there, staring out into the hallway, unable to cross the threshold.

  It occurred to me that this was the same door I had refused to take when I thought Corbin’s life might be in danger. The door I had avoided to stay and help him fight. And yet now that the danger was past, I was letting him force me out of it with banalities and irritation.

  No, this isn’t right. Something about this is wrong! whispered a little voice in my head.

  I turned to face him, looking up into his eyes, searching for something though I didn't know what.

  “Corbin—” I started to say.

  “Goodbye, Addison,” he said firmly and shut the door in my face.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Addison, I think you’d better get over here.”

  Taylor’s voice on the phone sounded worried—it put me on high alert at once.

  “Why, what’s going on? Is that jerk of a werewolf giving you trouble?”

  “Who, Victor? No, he still hasn’t shown up.”

  “He hasn’t?” I was immediately indignant. “Does he want you to starve to death? Doesn’t he know he’s the only one you can feed from? I’m going to call him and give him a piece of my min—”