Кейти Макалистер - Sex, Lies, and Vampires

"Plan schman," I sneered, my lip curling with scorn as I pulled away from her and started toward Christian's house. "We're immortal now, remember? They can't kill us. You can stay here if you want, but I'm going in to kick some serious Nazi butt. And then it's Saer's turn."

"Nell—"

The distress in her voice was evident, but I didn't have time to reassure her. I charged forward, my hands fisted as I tried to decide which of the two curses mentioned in the charm book would be the worst—turning the Nazis into voles, or impotent. I decided that while the latter might keep them from breeding, the former was the way to go.

"We can be killed, you know," Belinda said, deathly white with fear. "If our heads are cut off, that's it."

"Piece of cake. Voles aren't known for their tendencies to gnaw off human heads."

"Voles?" Belinda asked, jogging to keep up with me. One of the Nazis, evidently on patrol around the perimeter of the grounds, spotted us and yelled to his buddies.

I waved at them as they took up protective stances.

"Water voles, to be exact. That's the only curse I can think of that won't actually kill them." I slowed my trot to a walk, slapping a confident look on my face.

"You can't turn those men into water voles," Belinda said, clearly shocked by my intention.

I stopped for a moment and gave her a long look. "If I do not change them into water voles, it will take us much longer to get inside the house, and while I'm willing to bet that we won't actually be killed if they beat us up, it will probably hurt. A lot. Not to mention delaying us helping Adrian. Besides, there's something much worse for you to consider than watching me turn a few lowlifes into voles."

"There is?" she asked, blinking a couple of times.

"Yeah. If they win, you'll be Beloved to the head Nazi."

She grimaced. "It's not that I don't want to help, but… they have terribly large sticks."

I paused, watching men bolt out of the house in response to a warning call. The Aryans stood in a line, each armed with some form of weapon—several baseball bats, one cricket bat, and a couple of tire irons with spikes welded to the end to form a mace—all of them hurling taunts at us. Belinda had a point. I like to think I'm not a coward, but there was no sense in getting smacked around before I could turn them into voles.

"Turn around," I ordered her, raising my hand to draw a ward. I kept her turning until I had drawn protective wards all around her, repeating the action on myself.

"Will this work?" she asked in a nervous whisper as we marched toward the line of Nazis that filled Christian's driveway.

"Of course it will. I'm a ward drawer from way back," I lied, praying the wards might actually hold out if she believed in them.

"What do you two think you're doing?" one of the Nazis stepped forward to ask with a sneer. He slapped his bat against his gloved hand and raked us both with a look so foul it left me craving a bath to wash off the residue.

I stopped and smiled, Belinda bravely beside me. The words of the curse were on my tongue as I took a deep breath, then tapped into the darkness that Adrian carried within him, the darkness that bound him to Asmodeus. I pointed my finger at the lead Nazi, saying in my best Gothic voice of doom," 'The guardians of the four quarters lay open their minds, filled they are with blood, guilt, and fear. Within you, loathsome beast most blind, thy tongue shall taste of… er… shall taste of…'" Crap! I'd forgotten the words of the curse. Desperately I tried to visualize the charm book, now sitting on a shelf in Christian's library.

"What's the matter? Why have you stopped?" Belinda asked me in a worried whisper, one eye on the Nazis as they moved restlessly.

"We have us a witch, lads," the head Nazi snarled, brandishing his bat. "And what do we do to these filthy women?"

"Kill them!" the gang yelled, raising their weapons to pump them in the air.

"I can't remember the rest of the curse," I mumbled to Belinda, running back over the curse in my mind." 'Within you, loathsome beast most blind, thy tongue shall taste'… hell! It's gone! I just can't remember what comes after that."

"Beer?" Belinda suggested, stumbling backward as the men started toward us.

I shrugged. "Works for me. I'll just wing the rest. Halt!" I held up my hand and gestured dramatically. The men ignored me, moving faster now that they smelled fear. I spoke quickly, drawing once again on Adrian's darkness, sketching the symbols of the curse that bound the words to the victims." 'The guardians of the four quarters lay open their minds, filled they are with blood, guilt, and fear. Within you, loathsome beast most blind, thy tongue shall taste of stale beer!'"

The men stopped, looking puzzled. I held my breath, waiting for them to turn into small, furry brown ratlike creatures. Although a couple of them twitched, and one started batting at his ears, they were all still human.

Well, as human as neo-Nazis could be.

"Is that it?" Belinda asked, peering around me at the men. "Is there supposed to be more to the curse? Aren't they supposed to change, or are they more mental voles than actual voles?"

"I think there's more, but I can't remember it. Um. OK, how about this. 'Nazi, Nazi, go away. Become a vole today, I say!'"

Thunder rumbled overhead, a cold breeze whipping around us. Long-dead leaves were caught up in a maelstrom, a veritable tornado of spinning fury. Belinda cried out as she ducked behind me. I covered my face to keep from being struck by the wild leaves. In the center of the windstorm, the Nazis all fell to the ground, covering their heads.

The leaves were so thick, and the wind and cold so intense, that I turned away for a moment. When I turned back, the sudden wind had died. Leaves drifted slowly to the ground in a spiral pattern on the flagstones of the courtyard. Collected in the middle of them was a group of small, squishy brown things.

"Did it work?" Belinda asked, spreading her fingers to peek through them.

"Kind of," I said, prodding one of the small objects with the toe of my boot.

"Those aren't voles," she commented helpfully.

"No, they're not." I sighed, stepping around the slimy mass. "I'm two for two on curses. I guess that's a sign I should give them up, although I think there's a certain amount of poetic justice in this."

"Really? You think so ?" she asked, confused as she followed me up the front steps.

I smiled. "Who better to be a slug than a Nazi?"

The house was strangely quiet as we entered, not a sound penetrating what seemed to be an icy, dense thickness that filled the building.

Squish.

"Ew! Well, there's one Nazi slug less," I muttered as I scraped my shoe on a carton containing several cases of beer. I paused on point like a retriever, trying to open myself up to the house.

"Can you feel Adrian?" Belinda asked in a whisper, her words emphasized by the sight of her breath on the cold air. It was evident by the number of slugs that slid their way along the hardwood floors or down the carpeted stairs that my curse had been all-encompassing, so there was really no reason for us to be whispering, but I felt just as creeped-out as she did. The house was too still. I imagined that with Adrian, Saer, and Sebastian all locked in battle, the house would shake to its foundations, but as we slowly made our way through the hall, peering into the rooms whose doors had been flung open, the house was utterly quiet, as if holding its breath, bracing itself for a blow.

"No, I don't feel him. Can you feel Saer?"

We reached the bottom of the staircase. She shook her head, her face pinched and white.

"Maybe you should try to do the mind-meld thingy with him," I suggested, rubbing the goose bumps on my arms as I looked around. It was freezing in the house, seeming colder than outside. The Nazis hadn't been in possession of Christian's house very long, but long enough for them to spray-paint red supremacist logos all over the lovely mahogany paneling. Nothing but the slugs moved.