Buquet’s eyes widen at first, but there’s an opportunistic glint in them, too.
“Hey, hey now,” he drawls, hooking the measuring tape dispenser onto his work belt. “You’re not supposed to be back here. It ain’t safe. Did you get hurt? I don’t see any cuts or nothing.” His gaze slides along my body, lingering on the exposed part of my right breast.
Any decent man would be so alarmed by my bloody clothes that lusting for my body would be the furthest thing from his mind. Obviously, Joe Buquet is not a decent man.
“I’m fine,” I manage. “I just need…a hug.” It kills my pride to say it, but I have to get close enough to bite him, and I’m weakening fast. I don’t think I can close the distance between us without help.
“Well then, c’mere, darlin’,” he says in an oily tone that’s probably supposed to be comforting. “You bump your pretty head back there? Head wounds can bleed like a sumbitch.”
He approaches, and I collapse against him, clinging for support. At the scent of his thick body and the heated blood within it, my fangs slide out, so I turn my head away, letting my hair hang over my face so he doesn’t see them yet.
I need to bite him now. Rise to my full height and latch on to his neck. Gulp down what I can, use the regained strength to push him down, then take everything he can safely spare. Maybe a little extra.
But a spasm passes through my whole frame, a hideous weakness washing over me.
Shit…I think I’m too late. I don’t know if I can drink from him without help.
“Can you…hold me?” I whisper.
He chuckles with lecherous surprise. “You feelin’ horny, little one? Come to see Daddy?”
He’s pulling me closer, thank goodness. I turn my face toward his neck while his hands grope my ass.
But before I can bite him, he spins me around, shoves my front against the wall, and presses in behind me. “I dunno what kinky role-play shit you got goin’ on, but I’m into it. Had my eye on you since the day you moved in.” His hands fumble along the waistband of my leggings.
Sandwiched between him and the wall, my body racked with cold shivers and waves of nausea, I realize two things.
One, he’s planning to fuck me. And two, I can’t defend myself this time.
I am no longer the predator.
“Stop,” I rasp with a faint attempt at struggling.
“Nah, you can’t tease a man and then back out,” he rumbles. “You take it like a good little slu—”
The last word cuts off, transformed into a garbled chokingsound. Buquet is yanked off me. I slide down the wall and crumple to the floor, dizzy and fading.
A tall, black-clad figure in a white mask towers over him, seeming to fill the entire hallway. The Angel’s jaw is hard as granite, and his gloved hands grip the long black rope he has flung around Buquet’s neck. Is it a rope or a shadow? I can’t tell. He draws it tighter while Buquet tears at the noose with both hands, kicking uselessly.
The Angel gives the shadowy rope a savage jerk, and Buquet sags, his eyes blank and bulging, his face brick-red stained with purple. He makes a sound I’ll never forget…a choked burble, the last tiny bubbles of air escaping his constricted throat in a death gargle.
After several more seconds, the Angel lets the body fall to the floor. The noose vanishes instantly, confirming my suspicion that it was only a shadow all along. A shadow made real, a dream turned into sickening, tangible reality.
The Angel steps over Buquet’s corpse and kneels beside me.
“One of my other ghosts told me that Agnes led you astray.” Rage and sorrow mingle in his eyes. “I have destroyed her for good. She will never find rest, as she no longer exists in any plane of reality.”
“You killed Joe Buquet,” I murmur.
He cocks his head, eyes glittering behind the mask. “He touched you.”
“But I need his blood. I got hurt, and—”
He tears his coat off one shoulder and pulls his shirt aside, baring his throat. “Take mine.”
I try to make myself lean forward and drink from him, but I can’t move a muscle. I’m finished. Dying.
“Help me.” It’s the barest whisper, and it’s all I can manage.
