Playing along, I asked in a dead pan voice, “Yes, what are we to do?”
He clapped his hands. Was that glee on his face?
“I’m so glad you asked.”
Oh boy, I didn’t have a good feeling about this.
“You see, even though you failed to deliver my package, and then left it behind, I’m willing to overlook everything as long as you’re willing to perform one minor service for me. I’d even be willing to forgo the punishment clause and put a good word in with your boss.”
I perked up at that. Maybe this situation could be turned to my advantage after all.
“What would I have to do?” I asked.
He smiled at me. “Nothing much. You just need to help me recover an item and find a murderer.”
“A murderer? Oh no. You’re on your own with that.”
Who did he think I was? The police? No way did I have the skills or physical power to apprehend a murderer. Most spooks in this world could tear through a baby vamp like tissue paper.
“Is that so?” he asked.
“It is.”
He nodded and the green lights winked out. I let go of the breath I was holding. I didn’t think it would be that easy. I thought there would have been a bit of an argument from him. Pushing, slapping, and maybe zapping me with that green lightning from before.
A slicing pain radiated from my chest, coursing down my limbs, paralyzing me with agony. The pain froze my arms and legs and I fell onto my back jerking slightly. I couldn’t move no matter how I begged my body to obey me. All I could do was gurgle. A high-pitched whine escaped me.
“I guess I’ll take my fifty years of service—beginning now.”
What was he doing to me? It was difficult to think with the pain ripping my senses apart.
“I’ve never kept a vampire before. I’ll have to think of the best ways to put you to use. This will take some thought. You’re so young, and you don’t have much power. It would be entirely too easy to break you. Yes, this is going to take some considerable thought.”
He smiled down at me, delighting in all the plans he had going on in that little sorcerer’s brain of his.
The pain abruptly shut off. I drew in a sharp breath. Even the absence of pain hurt in a weird, aching way.
He crouched down next to me. “Of course, you can make this all go away by agreeing to help me out.”
Yeah, and I could just give up on living a long and healthy afterlife while I was at it.
“No?” he asked.
The fingers of his hand flicked. The pain turned back on, made more intense by the absence of before. I shook and whined as it coursed through every nerve ending. It was akin to the feeling of being hit by a thousand lightning bolts at once. Blood trickled out of my ears.
It turned off. I sobbed for breath.
“How about now?” he asked.
“You’re crazy,” I gritted out.
His eyes were deadly serious as he said, “What I am is desperate. You help me out and this can all go away. Otherwise—”
The pain came back, the strength of which bent my back nearly in half as I arched and jerked. It dissipated almost at once.
“Okay, okay,” I shouted when he lifted his hand again.
I couldn’t take fifty years of this. I had to take the offer and hope the added time would give me a way out of my predicament.
