“Holy crap, this is high up, isn’t it?” I inched closer to where he stood on the beam. “Help me!”
“Help yourself. Can you not see I’m planning to kill myself here?” the man said, looking down at the dark water far below us.
“Help me first and then kill yourself,” I reasoned.
I was close enough to glimpse his face. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and was dressed from head to toe in black. If I actually had a moment to consider his looks in my current life-or-death situation, I’d say he was really hot. But he looked completely miserable. Whether he looked miserable because he wanted to kill himself or because he’d been interrupted, I wasn’t sure.
“A friend of yours?” White-teeth’s voice came from behind me, just on the other side of the veil of bars.
I braced myself and turned my head to look at him. “A good friend. And he’s going to kick your ass if you don’t leave me the hell alone.”
He gave me a very unfriendly smile. “That I’d like to see.”
From his perch, the stranger glanced at us without much interest. He seemed oblivious to the fact that we were hundreds of feet in the air. I saw his gaze move to my neck, and I touched it gingerly.
“Vampire hunters,” he said.
“Who wants to know?” White-teeth took a cigar from his leather jacket pocket and lit it. He must have felt he had all the time in the world.
I carefully inched even closer to the stranger. Even though he was suicidal and therefore probably just as crazy as anyone else I’d had the misfortune of meeting that evening, he was currently my best bet to get out of this in one piece.
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” the stranger replied to White-teeth. “You are invading my personal space. Kindly take your business elsewhere.”
White-teeth glowered at him. “We’ve just come to claim this little piece of vampire ass and we’ll be on our way, so you can get back to”—he looked around— “whatever it was you were doing.”
I grabbed the hem of the stranger’s coat and held on for dear life. “Don’t let them hurt me. Please.”
He yanked his coat away from me. “I don’t want anything to do with this.”
“Too late.”
White-teeth had started to squeeze through a section in the cement at knee level that wasn’t protected by the veil, his cigar clenched between his teeth. “Here I was going to be a gentleman and kill you quick. Well, sort of quick. Now I’m going to take all the time in the world to tear you apart. You’re going to feel every second of it.”
White-teeth was halfway through and reached out for me. I yanked away from him, spun around, and kicked him with my bare foot. There was a sickeningly wet squish as my big toe met his left eye. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever felt. He screamed in pain and clutched at his face. The cigar fell out of his mouth and down to the river below. I lost my footing, but before I could fall, the stranger reached out and grabbed me around my waist, pulling me safely against him.
“Thank you.” I barely got the words out, my teeth were chattering so hard. “I thought you weren’t going to help me.”
“Reflex,” he said.
The two vampire hunters who weren’t currently howling in pain—although Stringy-hair looked a little tender from the groin incident—pulled their injured friend away from the opening and started to climb through themselves.
The stranger looked down at the black water. “I suppose we’ll have to jump.”
I raised my eyebrows and clung to him as the hunters grabbed at my legs. “Wasn’t that your original plan? And wasn’t your original plan to kill yourself?”
“With my luck tonight, the fall won’t kill me,” he replied, bringing an arm around my waist. “But you just might.”
He pushed off from the bridge and we fell for what felt like a very long time before disappearing into the cold black water.
I struggled to keep up with the stranger after we scrambled like drowned rats out of the freezing-cold Don River and up a steep grassy hill. He walked so fast it was as if he didn’t want me to follow him. But what else was I supposed to do? He’d just saved my life. The least he could do was make sure I was still in one piece. One scared, shaking, drippy piece. So far there hadn’t been any sign of the creeps who’d tried to kill me. Maybe we’d lost them. I guess they didn’t want to jump into the water after us. Can’t say I blamed them for that. That was one hell of a fall. How we’d survived was another story, but it didn’t really matter. I was okay. Now I was in need of a phone, a taxi, a police report, and a long, hot shower. Not necessarily in that order.
“Hey, wait up!” I called after “Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Dripping-Wet.”
All I’d seen of him after our impromptu swim was the back of his head moving swiftly away from me, so I was surprised when he actually stopped in his tracks. His broad shoulders went up and down as if he’d just let out a long sigh.
He turned to face me. “What now?”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. I suggest you do the same. Go find your sire and be on your way.”
“My what?”
“Your sire.”
“What’s that?”
He nodded toward my neck. “Whoever gave you that hickey there. You’ll need your sire to show you the ropes.”
I touched my neck and winced. “Those bastards killed the guy who did this.” I got a lump in my throat as I said it. What they’d done to Gordon played like an instant replay over and over in my mind. A few tears made a reappearance and I wiped them away with my wet sleeve. “He was a jerk, a total nutcase, but he didn’t deserve… that. They killed him and they were going to do the same to me. It was horrible.”
“They killed your sire,” the stranger repeated. He didn’t say anything else. He just stared at me.
I began to feel uncomfortable. Well, more than I already was, that is. I decided that going home was an excellent idea. I could call the cops from there.
“Did you drink from him?” he finally asked.
“What?”
He sighed. “Did you drink from your sire before he was slain?”
“I had a few margaritas with dinner.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I blinked. “Then no. No drinking was done after dinner. Look, thanks for…” I didn’t know exactly what to call our plunge to safety. I glanced back in the direction of the bridge. “For the thing back there.”
He didn’t answer.
I shoved my hands into the soggy pockets of my leather jacket. Dirt was one thing, but water was another. It was probably ruined now, too. Just my damn luck. I forced a feeble grin before I started walking away from the stranger.
“Wait,” he called after I’d gone half a block. “Are you certain that your sire is dead?”
“Positive,” I said grimly. I pictured the empty clothes in my mind. What had happened to the body? Probably just my eyes playing tricks on me. It was a dark night, and the margaritas with dinner had been doubles.
“What’s your name?” He walked toward me.