Cameo the Assassin by Dawn McCullough-White Page B

an old mattress, but the prodding continued, under her back and legs, and then under her head as well.
    She sat up and could see fingers poking through the linen from within the mattress.
    “What the—”
    Then a hand broke through, and another—
    Cameo drew a dagger.
    Haffef’s entire body pulled through the mattress, and yet the mattress was undamaged.
    “Master!” she gasped.
    “How dare you!” He roared and woke Opal from his spot on the floor.
    “How did you find me?” Her voice was that of a child’s.
    He took the blade from her and launched it through the window behind him.
    The dandy leapt to his feet, rapier in hand.
    Haffef turned to look at Opal. The intruder’s face was ashen, and his hair touched the ground as he spun to meet the dandy’s gaze. Haffef looked like a man who had just been cleaned and dressed for his own funeral.
    “Ah, the man you’ve been traveling with. I see.” When he spoke, Opal could see he had fangs.
    For a moment, Opal looked from Cameo to the vampire bewildered.
    “You’re not planning on using that toy on me, are you Black Opal?”
    “You...know me?”
    “He’s reading your mind,” Cameo warned.
    Haffef turned to face her now. “This does not look like Lockenwood. You have not done as you were told!”
    She backed away from him as he crept closer.
    “Why, you have a whole collection of new friends, don’t you, Gwen? Do you know what could happen to them if you don’t do as I wish? I could kill them, Gwen. Every...last...one of them, and then I could kill you, too.”
    He seized her neck and shook her violently.
    “Not very likely,” Opal swung his rapier so fast Cameo didn’t see it connect with Haffef, but a moment later the vampire was just holding it in his hand. A drop of blood dripped down the blade. He grinned at Opal and tossed him to the floor with a flick of his wrist. He released her and was about to send the rapier across the room like a spear when Cameo tackled Haffef, and he knocked her back and sent her flying onto the mattress.
    Opal scrambled over to his rapier, which lay discarded near the vampire’s feet.
    “You dare attack your Master?!” He grabbed her by her hair and dragged her to him.
    Black Opal thrust his blade at the undead creature before him, but Haffef merely turned and looked deeply into his hazel eye. “Put your foot there,” he pointed to a spot on the floor in front of Opal. “Now,” his voice went from sheer anger to a rather lazy tone, “take that rapier, and pin it to the floor.”
    The highwayman was compelled to do as he asked. In one swift motion he drove the rapier through his foot and embedded it into the dirty, wooden floor.
    “No!” Cameo screamed.
    Opal gasped.
    Someone scrambled up the stairs.
    “I could have killed your little friend. You see, I can be merciful, Gwen. I have always shown you mercy now, haven’t I? Even though you were a nothing when I found you, half dead...clinging to life. And how do you repay me?”
    She couldn’t take her eyes from his.
    “You don’t do as I ask.”
    Bel lifted his pistol.
    Haffef turned around annoyed. “Put down that pistol, sit down, and be silent.”
    Bel set down the pistol, and sat down on the floor.
    “Forgive me,” she breathed, “I’ll finish the task—”
    “I know you will. Why you put yourself through all of this, I have no idea,” Haffef said.
    “Just leave them out of it, they are innocent.”
    “So?”
    “Please, Master—”
    He struck her face hard with the back of his hand.
    “Don’t touch her!” Opal wrenched the rapier from his foot.
    Haffef nearly laughed, “Thinking of attacking me again... you mutilated coxcomb?! You incendiary! You’ll die trying.”
    Cameo lunged at him again.
    Haffef took a swing at Opal, but she grabbed his wrist and forced his arm down, exerting all of her strength to do so.
    “Gwen, Gwen,” he chided her for her efforts and threw her violently into a wall, making a depression in which she hung for an