couldn't help but groan a little with how much it hurt.
The vampire was pacing back and forth now, muttering to himself, while his buddy tried to calm him down a little. I didn't want him calm though, I wanted him to panic. Maybe he would do something stupid, and I could make a getaway. Not likely, but I would never stop trying to survive.
"Have you ever seen what happens to a vampire that has werewolf blood in them when there's a full moon?" I said. I hadn't either, but I'd heard stories. "The vampire blood and the werewolf blood fight it out in your body. Your blood boils in your veins. It cooks you from the inside out. The last vampire I cut with that knife screamed so loud and so long that he destroyed his own vocal cords. He lay on the ground, wheezing and shaking until it was over. It took all night, and I enjoyed every second of it."
"I'm gonna kill her," the cut vampire said, still frantically wiping at the cut on his hand.
"While your friend here is skinning me," I said, "I'll be listening to you die in agony. You'll be in even worse pain than me."
"You fucking bitch!" He lunged at me and locked his hand around my throat and I prepared myself. It was my ending. If I couldn't escape, then a quick death was the next best thing. But his friend dragged him off of me before he could snap my neck or rip my throat out or whatever he was going to do.
"You seriously gonna kill our meal ticket? You have any idea what a female is worth? How rare they are?" He gripped the vampire I had cut behind the neck, to try and focus him, "hey, we don't have to skin her you know, we could sell her. You know we're in Seattle right? You know who runs this town?"
The cut vampire laughed, "you think I give a shit?" He shoved his cut hand in the other vampire's face, "I'm dead!"
"She's messing with you!" the vampire said to the one with the cut. "She wants you to kill her. That knife probably doesn't even have werewolf blood on it."
"No no no," the cut vampire said, "I can feel it already, it's in there, her filthy fucking blood is inside of me, I know it."
"You're going to die screaming," I said.
The vampire I had cut gave me a baleful look.
"Don't listen to her, she's just trying to get in your head."
"Fuck this," the cut vampire said, "she's all yours, I'm going to open a vein and go drink a whole fucking sorority or something. Maybe I can drain her blood out of me. Or I'll go out in a blaze of glory. Or something. Fucking dogs." He started walking off.
He wasn't going to kill me then. Worse, he was going to go kill a whole lot of other people. And when he didn't start dying on the full moon he would come back and join his friend, and help him kill me, slowly and painfully. I wanted to scream but I didn't want to give them the satisfaction.
"You're a real fucking piece of work," the other vampire said, grabbing me by the upper arm and dragging me to my feet. "Good news is I can sell you for five times the price of a pelt for what's between your legs. And now I don't have to split it with that moron either."
What did that mean? Werewolves were hunted for pelts. And I had heard rumors of fighting werewolves against each other, but those were only rumors. Why was I suddenly worth five times the price?
He was just starting to push me forward, towards the mouth of the alley, his friend a dozen feet ahead of us, when two big, hulking shapes emerged out of the darkness.
"Who the fuck is this now," the vampire holding me said to himself.
"Oh shit," the vampire I had cut turned around and came running back towards us. "They're wolves man, they're fucking wolves!"
"In the middle of the city?"
"No werewolves, they're werewolves!"
The vampire holding me laughed, "damn, she really did a number on your head. It's not even the full moon. Get your shit together. Probably just some stray dogs."
But up ahead the two shapes slowly came out of the darkness. The first thing I could make out were the eyes, glowing golden even in the dark,
Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Joyce Carol Oates
William Bernhardt
Jenna Howard
Lisa Kuehne
Holly Madison
Juliet E. McKenna
Janice Hanna
Denise Grover Swank
Marisa Chenery