of things to think about later. Right. Truth? I never revisit the things I promise to think about later. With death on the line, I promised myself to work on that minor flaw. Maybe I’d start on Monday. It was time to collect what was left of Sparky and get home. If Soyla killed him? Then I had a new Jaguar. The British version.
Dissed by one beautiful chick. A death feud with another hot but murderous, nearly-immortal chick, an uninvited houseguest who remained alive only because I offered up my own life on what would likely turn out to be a suicide mission. And despite all that, Sparky was certain not to make his bed for however long he decided to stay.
I needed a beer.
Chapter 7
I found Sparky in the obvious spot, lying beside his Jag. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked so hard. You know, pretended like I couldn’t find him and just gone home alone. He’d brought the confusion, no doubt. So typical for him, I suspected he wouldn’t waste our time trying to deny it. But to do that, leave him bleeding, would take a harder heart than I ever hope to have. I’d also need to take the stairs down the hill and avoid the parking lot. Pretty obvious.
Now I could wax a bit poetic here about Sparky’s armless, crumpled body compared to the gleaming, perfect red Jag, but I felt sorry for the guy so I shut down my meager metaphor machine. It looked like it hurt—a lot. Good. Maybe he would think twice before knifing his only freakin’ friend next time.
No, he wouldn’t.
I saw blood everywhere. On his clothes, the ground, and splashed on the lower parts of the Jag. He’d stopped the bleeding, so I assumed he capped the arteries and set the regrowth process underway. That would take at least a week. On the positive side, Sparky could use the situation to break himself of the morning scratching rite. Chicks would dig him more.
Where to start when lifting a man fresh from an arm ripping? The other arm. I helped Sparky into a sitting position. He looked like heck. Kind of reminded how a guy would look if you stuck a knife past his backbone and into a lung. The bastard. But apart from the obvious, Sparky didn’t look as bad as you might expect.
Soyla hadn’t spent enough time with him. The good news. You already know the bad news. A few more moments with the Hungarian assassin-babe would have closed out poor Sparky’s account. Maybe she sensed me nearby and thought she’d incapacitated Sparky enough to finish him after she dealt with me, though something about that scenario didn’t taste quite right. I’d puzzle that one out later. Another entry for the list of never-to-dos.
Pain in Sparky’s face. Here’s another vampire-related secret. Sure, we can regrow our various bits. That doesn’t make us immune to the agony that accompanies the loss of a body part. Try this home-lab exercise: Get a friend to rip off your arm or rub your face in some gravel or maybe stab you in the back. If you want extra credit for the experiment, do all three. Does it hurt? That’s what a vampire feels. So it didn’t surprise me to see Sparky puke his guts as soon as I moved him. No problem. I used my super-reflexes to dodge the chunks.
We sat there like that—Sparky leaning against his car, me up on the sidewalk beyond hurl range—for several minutes while Sparky marshaled the necessary strength and focus for speech. Heaven knows he’d need max brain cycles devoted to healing for days to come. Sparky wouldn’t be his normal, talkative self for a while, so at least some good came from all the bad that night. On the other hand, for the first time in our multi-millennia friendship, I actually wanted to hear what Sparky had to say.
And saying was what he struggled to do. He took in hesitant, raspy breaths. I knew the drill from experience. Suck in a big breath and then spit out the words between waves of pain. I’d used the
Dissed by one beautiful chick. A death feud with another hot but murderous, nearly-immortal chick, an uninvited houseguest who remained alive only because I offered up my own life on what would likely turn out to be a suicide mission. And despite all that, Sparky was certain not to make his bed for however long he decided to stay.
I needed a beer.
Chapter 7
I found Sparky in the obvious spot, lying beside his Jag. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked so hard. You know, pretended like I couldn’t find him and just gone home alone. He’d brought the confusion, no doubt. So typical for him, I suspected he wouldn’t waste our time trying to deny it. But to do that, leave him bleeding, would take a harder heart than I ever hope to have. I’d also need to take the stairs down the hill and avoid the parking lot. Pretty obvious.
Now I could wax a bit poetic here about Sparky’s armless, crumpled body compared to the gleaming, perfect red Jag, but I felt sorry for the guy so I shut down my meager metaphor machine. It looked like it hurt—a lot. Good. Maybe he would think twice before knifing his only freakin’ friend next time.
No, he wouldn’t.
I saw blood everywhere. On his clothes, the ground, and splashed on the lower parts of the Jag. He’d stopped the bleeding, so I assumed he capped the arteries and set the regrowth process underway. That would take at least a week. On the positive side, Sparky could use the situation to break himself of the morning scratching rite. Chicks would dig him more.
Where to start when lifting a man fresh from an arm ripping? The other arm. I helped Sparky into a sitting position. He looked like heck. Kind of reminded how a guy would look if you stuck a knife past his backbone and into a lung. The bastard. But apart from the obvious, Sparky didn’t look as bad as you might expect.
Soyla hadn’t spent enough time with him. The good news. You already know the bad news. A few more moments with the Hungarian assassin-babe would have closed out poor Sparky’s account. Maybe she sensed me nearby and thought she’d incapacitated Sparky enough to finish him after she dealt with me, though something about that scenario didn’t taste quite right. I’d puzzle that one out later. Another entry for the list of never-to-dos.
Pain in Sparky’s face. Here’s another vampire-related secret. Sure, we can regrow our various bits. That doesn’t make us immune to the agony that accompanies the loss of a body part. Try this home-lab exercise: Get a friend to rip off your arm or rub your face in some gravel or maybe stab you in the back. If you want extra credit for the experiment, do all three. Does it hurt? That’s what a vampire feels. So it didn’t surprise me to see Sparky puke his guts as soon as I moved him. No problem. I used my super-reflexes to dodge the chunks.
We sat there like that—Sparky leaning against his car, me up on the sidewalk beyond hurl range—for several minutes while Sparky marshaled the necessary strength and focus for speech. Heaven knows he’d need max brain cycles devoted to healing for days to come. Sparky wouldn’t be his normal, talkative self for a while, so at least some good came from all the bad that night. On the other hand, for the first time in our multi-millennia friendship, I actually wanted to hear what Sparky had to say.
And saying was what he struggled to do. He took in hesitant, raspy breaths. I knew the drill from experience. Suck in a big breath and then spit out the words between waves of pain. I’d used the
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