puked up black magic, while being stalked by a vampire who believed that my little trinket could kill someone.
“The trinkets have no power —”
“They are magical.”
“No, the items I collect have some glimmer of magic. That is what you feel.”
“I’m not a sensitive like you. I would not be able to feel a glimmer.”
“Then someone else has somehow harnessed this tiny bit of magic and turned it.”
“Yes, but it should not be possible to harness minor glimmers — as you call them — this way. The trinkets must be far more magical than you let on. Why do you make them? For profit? Do you tailor them to certain spells? Who are your customers?”
I just stared at him, mouth wide open and everything. What he was suggesting was ridiculous. That I could make objects of any power … the trinkets were worthless decorations, wind chimes —
“Answer me,” the vampire said, more inflection in his voice than before.
I eased away from him, looking over my shoulders both ways. A few cars were on the bridge, but I wasn’t about to get anyone killed. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about. If you would just wait until my grandmother —”
“I know who your grandmother is —”
“Well, then you know she’d be better equipped to help you —”
“I have no need of help. I just want answers. Give them to me now or wait until I get the clearance for the blood-truth letting.”
“Are you going to kill me, then, for making trinkets?” I sneered.
“What’s the fun in that?” He didn’t leer, but his tone was just as obvious. He planned on getting pleasure with his blood. One-sided pleasure, I was certain.
I had my knife out and an inch away from his right eye almost before I made the decision to draw. He looked as surprised by my action as I was. I’d never drawn the knife in self-defense before; I’d never needed to. I knew I had to be prepared to use it once I drew … so I never had.
“You think that blade will cut me?” he asked, cool and collected now, looking at me rather than the knife.
My hand was steady. My stomach settled as if the knife soothed it. “Hand hewn in jade by me. Took me a year to shape it. And another year of strengthening, sharpening, and accuracy spells. It will cut you. It will take out your eye.”
“You made this?”
“God, you really need to get your hearing checked, old man.” I sneered, then quickly learned that sneering at a vampire was a bad idea. Or maybe it was the age slur.
A sheen of red rolled over the vampire’s eyes. He knocked my knife hand away with the side of his arm and stepped into me. I shuffled back a panicked half step and found myself pressed against the concrete wall. I had a brief moment of contemplating the suicidal bridge jump when he brought his hands down on either side of me on to the concrete wall. His eyes were squeezed shut, but whether in rage or in an attempt to control himself, I didn’t know.
I moaned in fear, as he sucked in a breath through his teeth — I’m not sure he’d even been breathing before — and turned toward the space between my ear and my neck.
“You will not bite me without permission,” I spat, and my fight-or-flight instinct kicked in — finally. I thrust the knife I still clenched in my right hand into his stomach.
Chunks of concrete snapped — yes, just snapped — off in his hands as he stumbled away from me. He looked confused by this for a moment, staring down at the concrete in his palms. Red still tinged the edges of his eyes, and he didn’t seem remotely bothered that he’d just been stabbed.
And me … well, I ran.
He let me go.
∞
I wasn’t a runner. I baked cupcakes for a living, tried to not eat too many, and took a yoga class once in a while. But, nevertheless, I ran.
I could feel muscles I never used lengthening and stretching as I sprinted the second half of the bridge. Thank God it was downhill. I tried to block everything, every thought
Robert & Lustbader Ludlum