It was a garlic dart. Garlic worked as a tranquilizer for vampires and was one of the weapons in the arsenal of your average hunter—let alone the leader of all of the hunters, who had, for weeks, wanted to come to Toronto and kill me himself.
I began to fall. Gideon moved forward to catch me before I hit the ground and then the world faded to black.
My eyes snapped open. The room I was in was dim but not dark and I lay on a hard floor.
I sat up quickly, immediately panicked, and my head swam from the movement. The last thing I remembered was being shot with a dart by Gideon Chase.
Gideon freaking Chase.
But I was still alive.
That was a good start, I guess.
"You're awake," Gideon said, and my head snapped to the side to see that he was sitting in a nearby chair.
"Wh… what the hell is going on?" I managed. "Where am I?" My mouth tasted like I'd been sucking on moldy cotton balls, although I certainly hoped I hadn't been. I looked down at my hands to see that they weren't restrained. I wasn't tied up. That was also good.
At this point, I mentally latched on to any positive sign.
"We're in an abandoned factory close to your boyfriend's vampire club," he said. I must have looked at him with shock because he continued, "Yes, of course I know where
Haven is. It always amazes me when people underestimate me. There are ways of knowing anything you want to know, Sarah. About anything or anyone."
He stood up. Damn, he was tall. I wouldn't be surprised if he was six-foot-five. As quickly as I could I also got to my feet and I looked erratically around at my surroundings. It was all dark and unfamiliar. A huge space. There was a single light shining above us that lit a ten-foot-by-ten-foot area.
I looked at him without saying another word. His face was so scarred, it looked like raw hamburger. That was from slaying a demon? And the entire casino burned down and everyone thought he was dead. He'd allowed his funeral to happen without letting anyone know he was okay. How many kinds of crazy was that?
He flinched a little at my stare and touched the damaged side of his face. "I had a witch attempt to heal me as best she could, but the damage has already been done. Burns, especially from hellfire, can't be fixed with only a simple healing spell."
I swallowed hard. "Does it hurt?"
"For as long as I have it, it will continue to cause me great and constant pain. An unfortunate side-effect of such an injury."
I shoved aside any feelings of empathy I had. This wasn't some poor guy who got a raw deal. This was the leader of all hunters. He was a mass murderer. A glorified serial killer.
"Are you going to kill me?" I hated asking it, because I actually didn't want to know the answer. But I had to know.
"Kill you?" His lips curled into a smile. "Why? Should I?"
"I'm going to have to answer that with an emphatic no."
"You are the Slayer of Slayers, right? I've heard many interesting things about you, Sarah.
For weeks now. There are hunters in my ranks who are deathly afraid of you."
"I can be scary when I want to be."
"I did plan to kill you," he said. "I worked out many different scenarios. I believed that perhaps you would be an interesting prey for a change. Do you know how easy it is to kill a vampire?"
My hands trembled, so I squeezed them together. "I have no idea."
"It's easy. Trust me. Most will practically bare their chests to my stake to help make their deaths as quick and painless as possible. It has been extremely disappointing time and time again."
Despite the waves of panic I was feeling, I gave him a withering look. "Are you kidding me?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"What are you telling me this for? Because you expect me to feel sorry that vampires aren't more of a challenge for you? Do you know how sickening and completely disgusting it is that you take pleasure in murdering living breathing people who have lives and hopes and dreams?"
He cocked his head to the side. "How can I possibly take pleasure from something that is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel?"
"Then why the hell do you do it?"
"Because it is what I was born to do. I am the last in a very long line of hunters, Sarah. I went to Harvard and was first in my class. I could have become anything I wanted, but I chose to stay with the family business. Does that make me a bad person?"
"No, it makes you a sick, evil bastard."
He laughed. "A tongue as sharp as her reputation. And you feel no fear of me right now?
I'm very impressed."
A line of perspiration slid down my spine. "No, you're wrong. I'm scared completely shitless. But if I'm going to die, I want you to know exactly what I think of you."
He sighed. "Sarah, how many times must I tell you? I don't plan to kill you."
"You don't?"
He shook his head slowly. "No."
"Then what do you want from me?"
He drew a sharp, silver-bladed knife out from the back of his pants. My eyes widened as the metal caught the light. He took a step closer to me and I took an immediate step backward. Then he smiled and leaned over to place it on the ground between us.
"Pick up the knife, Sarah," he said.
I stared at it, then at him, but I didn't make any moves.
His smile widened. "Your heart must be beating very quickly right now, isn't it?"
I frowned. My heart. It… it wasn't beating at all. I placed my palm on my chest, but felt nothing. My gaze snapped back up to his. He had his hand out, and dangling on his index finger was the gold chain.
"Took this back when you were snoozing," he said. "Hope you don't mind me borrowing it for a minute."
"Give that back to me."
"Here's the scenario, Sarah. And this should be interesting." He twirled the chain around his finger. "Pick up the knife. And then come over here and kill me. Then you can take the chain back. I even promise not to fight back at all."