Мишель Роуэн - Stakes & Stilettos

He reached up to his scarf but then his hands froze as if he'd had second thoughts.

"Perhaps you're right. Tonight is not a good night for this."

I rolled my eyes. "What? Chickening out? That is so not something I'd expect from the Red Devil."

He laughed a little at that. "No, I don't expect that it is. But… but I've been through a great deal recently that I doubt you'd understand."

I frowned. "What does that mean? A great deal of what?"

"I was involved in a horrible accident recently. My face… it's not what it used to be."

I raised my eyebrows at that. "Your face? Is that why you're wearing the scarf? Some sort of Phantom of the Opera role-playing thing?"

"That's one way to put it."

"Look, I saw the movie." In fact, I used to own the DVD until my apartment went up in smoke. "The phantom was a good guy who bad things happened to. I promise not to scream or freak out. As long as you don't start singing everything is going to be just fine."

His green eyes took on an edge of amusement that chased away the doubt that had been there. "There will be no singing at any point of this evening. That much I can promise you."

I was warming up to the guy again. Just a little. He was one of the good guys, he just had a little facial disfigurement going on. And the phantom thing was so Gerard Butler, and that was a very good thing indeed.

Besides, at the moment I was only screaming distance away from Haven's friendly neighborhood bouncer coming to my rescue. I allowed myself to relax a bit. Just a bit.

"All right, here it goes. At your insistence, remember," the Red Devil said out loud, and then slowly began to unwrap the black scarf from his face to reveal his true identity.

My now regularly beating heart picked up pace. I couldn't believe he was actually going to do it. He was going to show me who he was.

I pressed my lips together as he uncovered the damaged flesh. His face, on the entire right side, had been horribly burned. The damage trailed down his neck and, I assumed, continued along that side of his body.

"Oh, my God," I managed, feeling a huge swell of pity for the poor guy. "What happened?

What caused that?"

"Hellfire," he said simply.

I frowned and my gaze moved to the good side of his face and my heart began to make an impression of the Titanic and sink like a stone into the cold dark depths of the night.

"Oh shit!" I said out loud as the untouched, handsome side of his face helped me click in to his actual identity—after all, I'd recently seen a picture of him from a computer print out.

Amy's words from earlier began to ring loudly in my ears.

"Hellfire. Apparently it completely and totally incinerated his body. There was nothing left behind. It was a closed casket with only a picture inside."

"Gideon," I said out loud, and my voice was barely audible. "You're supposed to be dead."

"I am, aren't I?" He studied me as a slow smile grew on his damaged face. "Now remember, you promised not to scream."

Every muscle in my body had tensed up. "A woman's prerogative is to change her mind."

"That is true."

I staggered back a step and held my hands up. "Don't come any closer."

He raised the only eyebrow he had left. "If you scream, I will start singing. All bets are off."

My throat felt so tight I wasn't sure I could scream at all. But I was willing to give it a try.

I opened my mouth.

Before I could let out a single sound I felt a painful stinging sensation. I looked down at my chest and pulled out the small dart. I stared at it with wide eyes and then looked at

Gideon, who now held a gun.

"This would have been much easier if you'd simply come with me when I asked, Sarah," he said. "Now I'm afraid we'll have to do it the hard way."

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?"