“You guys have lost me,” the killer interrupted. “You’re mad because of the girls? What, you had your eye on one of them? Because if I crossed territory, I really apologize.”
“I guess they aren’t people to you,” Liam said. “They’re…what? Sheep?”
The killer laughed. “Not hardly! You’re supposed to cherish and protect your sheep. The girls are more like…hors d’oeuvres.”
Betsy carefully pushed the sleeve of her sweater up, almost to her elbow, then socked the killer in the face.
“Ow!” he cried, clapping a hand to his nose. “What was that for?”
“Where to begin?” Sophie replied.
“That was a good start,” Sinclair said, “but start in the groin area next time. And use knives instead of your hands.”
Betsy shuddered. “Ick. Though if anybody deserves it, it’s this punk. So, what? Do we arrest him? Can we do that?”
“Can this wait until after Theresa kills herself?” the killer asked nasally. “I was leaving to go watch, but—”
“You mean you’re doing it again? Right now? But Shawna’s barely a week in her grave!”
“Yeah, well, I thought it’d be fun to do a two-fer, you know, play them off each other, but Shawna was a little more fragile than I thought, she kind of jumped the gun on me—” Then he stopped, because Sinclair had picked him up by the throat.
“Where does Theresa live?” Silence, followed by Sinclair adding, “Oh, good, I can beat it out of you. Several times.”
“Sinclair, he can’t talk, you’re squishing his vocal cords,” Betsy pointed out. “Not that we want you to stop or anything.”
Sinclair let go, and the killer fell to the lawn and gurgled a street address. “We’ll tend to the girl,” the king said, grabbing Betsy’s hand and pulling her toward the car. She yelped, but let herself be dragged away. “You two take care of him. Frankly, if I have to look at him for another ten seconds…. you two deal with it.”
“What’s that mean?” Liam asked as Sinclair tore out of the small driveway.
“Drown him, stab him, choke him, slice him, squeeze him, starve him, burn him,” Sophie suggested.
“What is everybody’s problem tonight?” the killer bitched, standing and trying to brush grass stains off his pants. “You’d think this was about something important.”
“Oh, boy,” Sophie said. “You’re a disgrace to all of us, you wretched horrible thing, and it will be the greatest pleasure of my life to kill you.”
“The greatest?” Liam asked.
“Not now, Liam.”
“If you saw Shawna’s mother,” he told the killer, “you might not be so, what’s the word?”
“Cavalier,” Sophie suggested.
“Asshole. You might not be such an asshole about it.”
“I don’t have to talk to you, sheep.”
“Don’t you call him that.”
“Don’t sweat it, darlin’,” Liam said. “I’ve kind of changed my mind about a couple of things in the last five minutes. I thought you had a thing. Well, you don’t. This guy does. Whatever problems you and I have, we can work it out.”
“That’s really touching,” the killer said. “I haven’t puked in eighty years, but I might right now.”
“Oh, Liam, really?” Try to stay focused, you silly cow, she told herself, but it was impossible to deny how incredibly happy those words had made her. “You don’t think I’m some vampire snob who can’t relate to a mortal because she’s seen too much?”
“I do still think that,” he admitted, “but, like I said, we can work it out. Doncha think?”
“I do think,” she admitted. “I agree, comparably speaking, our troubles don’t seem so insurmountable now, do they?”
“I’m still here, you know,” the killer reminded them. “Shit, this is why I’m up here in the first place. Decades of being the go-to guy, the guy who can get you what you need, but nobody ever saw me. I was just one of Nostro’s stooges.”
“I’m sorry for the mean things I said,” Sophie said, looking up into Liam’s blue, blue eyes. “I was angry, and I was afaid.”
He smiled down at her. “That’s okay. I said some things, too. Mostly because I was mad.”
“Will you guys pay some attention to me? Don’t you remember? I’m the guy everybody’s mad at?”
“Think they’re still holding our room downtown?”
“Probably not. But we could get one up here,” she said, reaching up and stroking the new bruise on his neck. Liam shivered and she smiled back at him.
“Dammit!” Abruptly, annoyingly, the killer lunged at them, interrupting what was going to be a wonderful clinch. Liam put up an arm to fling him off…and the killer lunged again.
“Ow! Little son of a bitch bit me.” Liam was staring at his now-bloody arm. “Broke the skin, too. Can vampires transmit rabies?”
“How dare you touch him! Nobody bites him but me!”
“You tell him, honey,” he added, shaking the blood off his wrist.
Screaming, the killer lunged at them again. Liam, who had been digging in his pocket for a clean handkerchief, again warded him off.
Sophie didn’t understand until later what happened next; it was too quick, and it hurt her to watch. Liam had swiped back at the killer, and the killer’s screams heightened in pitch until she thought her ear drums might rupture. The killer had actually staggered back—why, Sophie didn’t know—and Liam followed up, this time swiping down.
The killer looked down at himself, which was understandable, because he was glowing. Sophie looked at him, and the light hurt her…it had been like trying to see into the middle of the sun.
Liam, either by accident or design, had drawn a line on the killer: from nipple to nipple. And then, from neck to belt buckle.
A cross.
The killer watched in horror—Sophie felt a little horrified, too, in truth—as the lines Liam had drawn on him first glowed, then sank into him, like a foot into mud. And, five seconds later, the screaming was cut short as the killer’s vocal cords turned into ash…as the killer’s entire body turned to ash.
“This never happens,” Sophie said, staring. “It’s just a movie legend. I’ve never seen anybody turn into dust before. It just doesn’t happen these days.”
Liam held out…a necklace? A fine gold chain, with a cross—a cross! Sophie hurriedly looked away from it. “I took it from Betsy. Promised to fix it for her. And I will, too,” he added. “Just as soon as we finish some other business.” He kicked through the three-foot mound of ashes, scattering it. Then he took her into his arms. “So, I guess I’m your sheep.”
“No,” she told him. “You’re…yourself. Liam. You’re Liam.”
“I’m a lucky fellow, is what I am.” He kissed her.
She kissed him back, then looked at the foot-wide black smudge on the grass, all that was left of Shawna’s tormenter. “I’d say so, yes.”
Epilogue
“LET me get this straight. You drew a cross on the bad guy with my cross? And he turned into dust and went to Hell, or wherever bad vampires go when they turn into dust?”
“Yup.”
“Well, shoot. And we missed it!” Betsy dumped more sugar in her coffee. They had come, by mutual agreement, to the Country Kitchen on Highway Six. “Though, we did save Theresa,” she admitted, brightening. “That was pretty cool. Sinclair zapped her with his mojo. Made her forget she’d ever met Fuckface. And a good thing, too, because she was starting to get into her dad’s gun collection in a really unhealthy way.”
“Excellent,” Sophie said. “Just excellent.”
“And you fixed my necklace! What, you found an all-night jewelry store?”
“I had some tools in the truck,” Liam said, looking modest.
“Thank you again for bringing this distasteful business to our attention, Dr. Trudeau,” Sinclair said. “If not for your conscientiousness, he might have done a great deal more damage.”