Zen and the Art of Vampires

Chapter 6

"Sign."

"No. I'm not going to do it."

Kristoff's hand tightened around my throat. "Sign it or I will break your neck."

It wasn't easy to swallow with him half throttling me like that, but I finally managed it. "Look, I don't know why you want to marry me—"

"I'd as soon as marry a viper," he interrupted. "Alec agreed to do it, but since he conveniently disappeared last night when I went to arrange for the license, I am the sacrifice instead."

I bristled a little at the word "sacrifice."

"Well, I don't particularly like you, either! Alec is much, much nicer than you. He actually smiles."

"Sign the damned things so we can get out of here." Kristoff growled, indicating the two copies of marriage forms he'd produced.

I had discovered he'd spoken the truth about the elderly clergyman. Not only was he deaf to all pleas to save me, he performed what I had a horrible feeling was a marriage ceremony while I tried to reason with the insane man next to me. "This is ridiculous. This is 2008. You can't force someone to get married. There are laws."

"There are also bribes, and as I spent the night getting the correct documents and asking my old friend here to conduct the official ceremony, it will be completely legal and binding. As soon as you sign."

"But we're in Iceland! I'm not a citizen. Surely it can't be legal for noncitizens to be married without a ton of paperwork. And don't I have to be present to get a license? Surely I have to have been present!"

"There are ways to make it possible," he said grimly. "Sign the damned things."

"No," I said, folding my hands. "And you can't make me. Kill me if you want, but I'm not signing."

Kristoff snarled something rude that I chose to ignore, yanking a small blue object from his pocket.

"Hey! Where did you get that?" I tried to grab my passport back from him, but he held it out of reach, flipping through the pages until he came to the one with my signature.

"Your precious Alec gave it to me last night, when you were asleep," he said, snatching up the pen and thrusting it into my hand. Before I could throw it away he yanked me backward against his body, one hand clamping down on mine as he consulted the passport.

"Stop it!" I yelled, struggling as he forced my hand to write a scraggly version of my name. "This isn't legal! You can't do it!"

"It's done," he snapped, forcing me to sign the second form before releasing me. I jumped away and rubbed my abused hand.

"You don't have witnesses, Mr. Smarty-Pants," I pointed out. "You may have your buddy there falsely conduct the ceremony, and you may have a version of my signature, but there were no witnesses to the ceremony, and I'm sure that even in Iceland you have to have witnesses."

Kristoff put two fingers to his mouth and blew a piercing whistle that seemed earsplitting in the confined space of the small church.

Two men emerged from what I assumed was a back room. They both eyed me as they came forward, speaking in a language that I didn't understand.

"Do either of you speak English?" I asked sweetly.

"The one on the left is my brother Andreas. The other is my cousin Rowan," Kristoff said, almost smirking at my look of consternation. "They both speak a dozen languages, English included."

My hand itched to slap that look off his face, but I hung on to my temper.

"I don't suppose it would do any good to tell you that your brother is insane?" I asked the man named Andreas. There wasn't a lot of family resemblance, although he, too, was the sort of man who made women stop and stare.

"No more so than any one of us," Andreas answered, then signed the forms.

My heart sank as the second man did the same. The three of them spoke quietly for a few minutes while I contemplated my choices. I'd run for it, except Kristoff retained a hold on my arm, not to mention the fact that I wouldn't stand a chance of outrunning any one of the men present—other than the priest, and even he looked unusually spry for someone his age, laughing at something that the vampire named Rowan said.

That thought struck me oddly, somehow.

"Do you have… you know… fangs?" I asked Kristoff, making a little fangy gesture with my fingers. "Like Dracula fangs?"

The three men all stared at me as if I'd just turned into a giant ice-skating sloth.

"You don't, then? So the whole fang thing is a myth?"

The look of disbelief on Kristoff's face was almost worth the experience of being there.

Rowan burst into laughter. Andreas frowned, saying something in what sounded to me like Italian.

"You know, I'm normally a pretty circumspect person," I told Andreas. "But since I woke up this morning, I've found a murdered woman in my bathroom, run away from the police, been kidnapped by a vampire, and been forced to participate in a pretend wedding, so what inhibitions I normally hold are pretty much gone. I'm sure you'll excuse me if I say that it's very rude to speak in a language that not everyone can understand."

Rowan laughed even harder.

Andreas's frown darkened for a moment, then he suddenly smiled. Although his face wasn't nearly as hard as Kristoff's, his smile was just as chilling. "I told my brother that he should have simply killed you rather than wed you."

"We're not married," I said, crossing my arms over my chest in a show of what I hoped looked like bravado. Surrounded as I was by three tall, extremely handsome bloodsucking fiends, I certainly felt anything but brave, but it wouldn't do to let them know that. "It wasn't a legal ceremony."

The two men looked inquiringly at Kristoff.

He gave me a bitter look. "It was entirely legal."

"It was not! I didn't understand anything that priest said, let alone agree to it! He could have been performing the last rites for all I know!"

"No, but I can arrange for that, if you like," Kristoff said with smooth menace.

I raised my chin. I may not be the bravest of women, but I hate being bullied. "You didn't even kiss me. Weddings always end in a kiss. So there!"

Silence filled the church for a moment before Kristoff made a low noise deep in his chest and yanked me toward him.

"Are you growling at me—?" I just had time to say before he kissed me.

My mind, never the most reliable of organs in times of stress, shut down and left me flailing in Kristoff's arms. This was not the same sort of kiss that Alec had pressed all over me the night before—this was a kiss of aggression, a punishment, an invasion. He didn't even wait for me to invite him in, his tongue was there, inside my mouth, sweeping around as if it owned the place. Not even Alec had kissed me so intimately!

I shoved hard on Kristoff's chest and jerked out of his grip, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "If you ever do that again, so help me god, I'll… I'll… I don't know what I'll do, but you can bet your butt it'll be horrible!"

"The marriage is legal," Kristoff said, shoving one of the signed sheets into my hands. His eyes glowed from within, looking oddly lighter than I remembered them. "Complete with kiss. Tell that to your reaper friends."

I opened my mouth to tell him that they weren't necessarily my friends, but he didn't wait around for me to answer. He just turned on his heel and marched out of the church. I stared in surprise for a few moments before I turned to the other two vamps. They watched me with eyes filled with malice and suspicion.

"He left," I said, too surprised to care that I was stating the obvious.

"If you even think of using your powers against him, I guarantee that you will pay in ways you cannot imagine," Andreas threatened before he, too, marched out.

Rowan said nothing, just gave me a long, hard look, shoved me aside, and left as well.

"Good riddance!" I yelled after them, going to the door to watch as two cars backed out and sped off up the winding road. It was at that moment that I realized I was stranded, alone, without money, identification, or even a clear knowledge of the name of the town in which I'd been dumped. "Hey? Anyone? I don't have a car. Hello?"

I turned back to the clergyman, but he'd disappeared as well, leaving me standing on a windy cliff, outside of a cold, dank little stone church, clutching a marriage certificate that I knew was false… but I had a horrible suspicion no one else would see it that way.

"Married to a vampire," I said out loud, the words whipped away on the wind. "Oh, joy. Now what am I going to do?"

"I don't suppose you know the way to Ostri?"

I turned my head and stared with absolutely no surprise at the translucent figure that stood there. I raised an eyebrow at the spectral horse next to him, but I didn't say one word about the fact that yet another ghost had descended upon me. "I'm afraid I'm new around here. You're… er… dead?"

"As you can see." The man, who was dressed in what looked to be Victorian wear, frowned. "You're the reaper and you don't know where Ostri is?"

"Afraid not, but since I'm evidently now the ghostly information office, I guess I'd better find out. What's your name?"

"Ulfur."

"How do you do? I'm Pia, and yes, I'm the Zorya." I held up my hand. The moonstone had once again converted itself into a small lantern. "But I'm afraid I'm new to the job, and don't know all the ins and outs of the whole thing yet. So you'll have to join the others while you wait for me to figure out what's what."

"Others?" he asked.

"Three other ghosts. They're back in town. I don't suppose you have a magical way of transporting us there?"

He pursed his lips and eyed me curiously.

"No? I didn't think so. Well, I guess we'd better go see if there's a bus or something. You can come with me."

"And the others?" Ulfur asked, falling into step with me as I started to pick my way down the rocky hillside to the fishing village below.

"I told you—they're back in town. I think. I didn't actually see them when I left them, but that could be because Anniki had the stone."

"No, I meant the others here." He waved toward the shore.

I cautiously moved over to the edge of the cliff and looked down. Along the craggy shoreline, a group of about twelve ghosts roamed aimlessly. They looked up as I stood staring down in increasing despair. More ghosts. Just what I needed to complicate things.

"This is the reaper," Ulfur bellowed down to them.

They waved.

I lifted a wan hand and waved back.

"You're all ghosts?" I asked Ulfur.

He nodded and patted his horse's head. "Landslide. Wiped out half the village. I had been in college in Reykjavik but came home for my father's birthday."

"Ouch. You speak English really well," I said, curious about that fact.

Ulfur smiled. "There is not much to do with our time but watch and listen to people. A company runs tours from here to local fjords, so we get lots of tourists. It provides us all with an excellent means of learning other languages. English was the first we learned, and now that the Japanese tours have started, we're hoping to learn that language next."

"I suppose it would provide for entertainment." I thought for a moment. "Maybe you'd all better stay here until I can figure out how to get you to heaven. Er… Ostri. Whichever."

"I don't know that we're safe staying here," he said, his face becoming serious. "An Ilargi has been seen."

"One of those bad-reaper, soul-eater guys?" A little shiver zipped down my back. "They don't sound good at all. Well, I guess you'll all have to come with me."

He nodded and bellowed out orders to the folks below.

I looked out at the sea, bluey grey and wind tossed, and wondered what on earth I was going to do now. "Could my life get any stranger?"

The sound of the wind and the mournful cry of gulls wheeling overhead were the only answer to my question. I took one last look at the sea, then gestured to the waiting ghosts below and pointed to the village. A faint hurrahing cry met my ears as I jammed my hands in my pockets and started down the path into the village, Ulfur and his horse on my heels.

What on earth had I gotten myself into? And more importantly, how was I going to get out of it?

It took the better part of the day to get back to Dalkafjordhur. I didn't want to encounter the police, so I took the only bus that ran from the fishing village, praying the police wouldn't stop people going into town. There was a bit of a tussle when the driver found out I didn't have the fare, but I succeeded in returning to Dalkafjordhur by dint of clinging with desperate stubbornness to the railing on the back of one of the seats. Since none of the five passengers on the bus spoke English—or wanted to get involved—I don't quite know what threats the driver was using, but in the end he gave up trying to root me out, and let me ride without further harassment.

Ulfur, his horse, and the twelve other ghosts didn't raise a single complaint, but that's only because no one but me saw them. The ghosts were all polite, however, men, women, and children dressed in clothing from a hundred and fifty years before, all of them pathetically grateful I was taking them under my wing.

"I can't guarantee anything, but I suppose there's safety in numbers," I told them after the bus driver, giving up on me, drove us up the track to the main road.

A woman who was seated near me gave me an odd look from the corner of her eye. I smiled at her but didn't have the energy to try to explain that there was, at that moment, a ghost sitting in her lap, while a horse nosed her bag on the ground beside her.

"You are the reaper," an elderly male ghost said, nodding at Ulfur. "He says you will take us to Ostri."

"That's the idea," I said, gnawing on my lower lip.

The woman shot me another look, then got up and took a seat closer to the driver.

I mulled over my options on what ended up being an hour-long drive into town. I didn't have the faintest idea how to help the ghosts, but the Brotherhood people at the church must know something about it. Clearly, I'd have to go to them to get specifics. Maybe one of them could even take over and lead all the ghosts on to their reward.

Cheered by that thought, I sat back and tried to think positively.

The sight of a police car slowly patrolling the streets of the town as we approached ended that happy mood. Wary of being caught in a police cordon, I got out at the first stop, taking a good twenty minutes to carefully make my way through as many backstreets and alleys as I could find, a parade of ghosts trailing after me.

"Where are we going?" one of the ghosts, a petulant-looking teenage girl, asked in a grating, whiny voice. "Are we going to have to walk all the way to Ostri?"

An older woman shushed her with an anxious glance my way. "Do not speak so to the reaper. She will show us the way."

"So we hope," I muttered. The sun was low in the sky, sending long, inky shadows from the buildings, making the alleyways particularly dim.

I kept an eye peeled for any tour members who might suddenly spot me and set up a hue and cry, but the streets were bare of lonely American tourists.

"And a good thing, too," I said as I cut behind a row of buildings to avoid a busy intersection. "All we need now is to run into someone I kno—oof!"

A dark shape loomed up out of nowhere, as hard as brick, and a million times scarier.

Teal blue eyes glowed at me from the depths of the darkness.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, too annoyed at having been dumped without a ride to be frightened of Kristoff. Behind me, the ghosts gathered. Ulfur's horse whinnied.

"Who's he?" the elderly male ghost asked.

"I don't know. I think she knows him, though," Ulfur answered.

"I do, not that it's here nor there," I answered.

Kristoff's eyebrows rose.

"Sorry. Talking to my ghosts.'"

He narrowed his eyes. "Ghosts, plural?"

"Yes. Thirteen of them. Fourteen if you count the horse."

Kristoff was silent for the count of ten. "Where's Alec?"

I put my hands on my hips, more than a little peeved. "Do you seriously think I'd be skulking around back alleys with a herd of ghosts if he was with me?"

"He said he was going to find you. He hasn't?"

"No." I glared at Kristoff as he emerged from the shadows, taking care to avoid the dim patch of sunlight that filtered down through the buildings. I hesitated, feeling unsure of what my emotions were with regard to Alec. I had a whole lot of questions to ask him, starting with Anniki and working down to why he had skipped out, leaving me alone without a word. "You spoke to him, then? Did he say anything about Anniki?"

"Oh! It's a Dark One!" Ulfur said behind me. There was a murmur of agreement.

"He's ever so handsome. He can bite me any day," the whiny girl said. I shot her a look. She smirked at me.

"What is there to say?" Kristoff answered, his scowl truly world-class. "I suppose I will have to take you to him."

"You don't have to sound so disgusted," I snapped, my pride stung yet again by the fact that he obviously disliked me intensely. "It's not like I have cooties or anything! And just for the record, I don't like you very much, either. You're not at all what a vampire should be like."

That took him aback for a few seconds. "And just what do you think a Dark One should be like?"

"Sexy! Like Angel and those guys in the vampire movies. Well, except the bun-head version, but that wasn't meant to be sexy."

"You don't think I'm attractive?" he asked, an odd expression flickering across his face.

"I do!" the teen ghost said.

I ignored her and made a big show of examining Kristoff from head to foot. If I thought he had been eye candy before, he definitely improved with nearness. His hair was sort of a chestnut reddish brown, with curls that looked as soft as satin. His face was hard, as I've noted, but it was a hard beauty, with a cleft chin that somehow kept drawing my eye. Like Alec, he was several inches taller than me, but where Alec was bulky with heavy muscles, Kristoff possessed a leaner frame that reminded me somehow of a big cat, like a lion or panther. I ignored the breadth of his chest, telling myself that Alec's was just as broad. His legs were longer, however, and filled out his faded jeans in a manner that left me admiring his obviously muscled thighs. I had a sudden urge to go peek at his behind, but quickly squelched that. The ghosts, I had a feeling, would never let me hear the end of it.

"Attractive?" I gave a little nonchalant laugh that sounded awfully strained. "No, not at all. Not in the least. That dead rat over there exudes more sexual attraction than you do."

"Is she blind?" I heard the girl ask someone else. "Or just stupid?"

"Hush, child, and let the reaper alone," the older woman answered.

"That's right, miss, you let him have it," another ghostly woman spoke up. "Don't do to let your man think as he can speak to you like that."

"He's not my—" I stopped before I said anything more.

Kristoff just stood there and looked at me with those uncanny eyes, making me squirm a little.

"Oh, all right, I'm lying like hell. Yes, you're very attractive, the kind of sexy that makes women want to rip off their underwear and throw themselves on you. Happy now?"

He didn't even blink, just stared at me for a second or two. "You mean as you did last night in the park?"

My cheeks burned at the memory. I glanced behind me. The ghosts were all gathered together in a half circle, watching me with interest. Even the horse seemed to be waiting to see what I'd say next. "That was a different situation entirely. And I had my undies on, thank you! Regardless of your god-amongst-men status, I don't like you. You have insulted me, deliberately intimidated me, and tried to make me feel guilty about something that is not my fault."

His eyes darkened. I swear to god, the teal color darkened a couple of shades. I watched in fascination as the black spikes from the pupils seemed to elongate and fill the iris. "When have I insulted you?"

The words snapped me back from a reverie about how bad men so often had such pretty eyes. "What? Oh. When haven't you insulted me? You wanted to kill me last night."

"If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead," he said in an even tone. That scared me more than anything else.

"Oooh," one of the ghosts said as there was a general intake of breath.

"Yes, well… that aside, you told me you'd rather marry a viper than me," I told Kristoff, incensed enough that I didn't care if I was arguing in front of an audience or not.

His lips tightened. "You didn't want to marry me, either."

"They're married?" the teen asked in a sulky voice. "That just isn't right."

"No, of course I didn't want to marry you, and still don't. I don't know you, let alone have those sorts of emotions for you that usually end up in a marriage. And there's the little fact that you're an evil vampire, and I'm evidently one of the good guys, so this whole Romeo-and-Juliet scenario isn't going to work."

He took a couple of steps closer to me, his glare menacing. "If you think I harbor romantic illusions about a mere legal convenience, I urge you to rethink. I am not Romeo."

The ghosts forgotten in my ire, I took a step toward him, the toes of my shoes just a hairsbreadth from his as I leveled him a look that told him I wasn't the fool he took me for. "With the implication, I suppose, that I'm no Juliet? Well, thank you, you don't need to point that out any more than you do the fact that you don't like that Alec and I spent the night together."

A bluish fire flared to life in his eyes as he leaned in toward me. "Don't like it? Are you implying I'm jealous?"

"Of course not," I said, gathering up my tattered shreds of dignity. "I'm no stranger to the mirror, and you've made it quite clear you not only think I'm physically repulsive, but that Alec is crazy for not having the same taste as you do."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, his eyes narrowing. "I did not say you were repulsive, and I don't give a damn who Alec sleeps with. His personal life is no business of mine."

"Who's Alec?" I heard whispered behind me.

"Shhh! I think they're just getting to the good part."

"You didn't actually say the word 'repulsive,' no, but you implied that just looking at me sickens you," I said, suddenly feeling like crying. Why did I care that he thought I was a frumpy, overweight hussy? "You can't deny that the only reason you kissed me is because I made you."

"Of course I deny it." He leaned even closer until I could feel his breath. "No one can make me do anything against my will. No one."

I ignored the fact that I couldn't seem to get enough breath into my lungs and gave him a cool look. "Oh, really? So you did want to marry me?"

"I said I was willing to do whatever it took to keep you from gaining the full powers of a Zorya, and I meant it," he answered, his voice low and gritty.

The air seemed to heat up several degrees in the alleyway. "That would imply that you did want to kiss me," I said, having to clear my throat a couple of times before I could speak.

His gaze dropped to my mouth, and I was suddenly aware of a most appalling fact—I wanted him to kiss me. Right then, right there, in front of the ghosts and anyone else who wandered by. I wanted to feel his mouth on mine, and taste him again, and rub myself against him in a wholly foreign manner. But worst of all, I wanted him to force me into a kiss so that I could pretend to myself that I didn't want it at all.

Shame and disgust tumbled around with confusion and indecision inside me. How could I sleep with one man, and the next day be wanting to kiss his evil friend? What was wrong with me?

"I've never been adverse to kissing mortals," Kristoff said in his deep, unusually sexy voice. I shivered a little despite the sudden heat that was making me very aware of the clothing binding my skin. "And I don't find you repulsive."

"Oh," I said, my brain giving up any attempt at sanity and settling down to providing my mouth with really insipid things to say. "Good. You're not repulsive, either."

I swear his eyes lightened then. They went from teal blue to a light robin's egg blue, the black flares from his pupils even darker. I took a deep breath at his nearness, wondering why I could feel air going into my lungs, but still felt light-headed and breathless. My breasts rubbed against the soft leather of his jacket, the sensation making me shiver again.

"I'm glad you think so." His lips brushed mine, just the lightest of touches, more a little bump than a kiss, but with it, I finally came to my senses.

"I'm not a harlot," I yelled, grabbing two fistfuls of his jacket and shaking them. "I do not sleep with a man one day, and kiss the living daylights out of his friend the next, no matter how much I want to. I'm not that sort of girl! You're bad. You're evil. You're a vampire, dammit! But you're no Angel, and I'm no Buffy, and you can just stop making me confused about everything!"

A puzzled look was followed by a quick spike of anger in his eyes, and then he was kissing me, really kissing me, with his lips and tongue and his hands in my hair, and I lost it all again. His tongue twined around mine in an erotic, sinuous dance that made me aware of all sorts of suddenly erogenous spots on my body. I rubbed my breasts into him, allowing him to taste me, savoring the sensation of his body so hard and hot and utterly masculine.

It's a good thing he was holding on to me, because my legs started to go weak under the effect of that kiss. By the time he pulled back, I was gasping for breath, stunned with the intensity of emotions that seemed to spring from him, but which I unaccountably shared. I stared up at him in unadulterated amazement, not sure what to make of anything anymore.

His eyes were the pale blue of an icy lake. "The discussion of which of us is truly evil will have to wait for another time. You are not safe here. The mundane police are looking for you, and a number of reapers live here."

I stepped back, my face red with embarrassment at his words. I'd become my worst nightmare—a pushy, shameless woman. What must he think of me? I all but seduced him in an alleyway, for god's sake, right in front of a gaggle of ghosts, the very day after I'd spent the night with his buddy. I lifted my chin and tried to regain my composure. "I figured the police would be looking for me. I'm not afraid of the Brotherhood people, though. I know you have issues with them, but they don't pose me any threat."

"Don't they?" The faintest hint of a smile showed on his damned lips. I dragged my gaze up from them and gave myself a mental lecture about morality. "What do you think they're going to do when they find out their precious Zorya is married to a Dark One?"

I frowned. "If the Zorya has to marry one of their own people, as you say, they aren't going to be happy, but they're hardly going to do anything to me other than take away the stone and make someone else Zorya."

"That's not how it works," he said, his face hard and unyielding. Even as I marveled that I had wanted so badly to kiss him, the desire to do the same welled up inside me. I squashed it down mercilessly. "In their eyes, you have been tainted by your marriage to me. The only way they can have a new Zorya is by the elimination of the old one."

I stared at him in growing comprehension. "You mean they'd kill me to get a new Zorya?"

"Uh-oh," Ulfur said. "That doesn't sound good."

"You are wed to me," Kristoff said evenly, his face unreadable. "You cannot assume the full powers of a Zorya now, and thus you are useless to their purpose. It will be for Alec to keep you safe so that they cannot name a new one."

"I don't believe you," I told him, trying to convince myself that he was lying. To be honest, I wasn't sure he was, but something didn't ring true. I just didn't know what was what anymore.

He shrugged. "That's Alec's problem. He'll deal with you now. I've done my part."

"I'm not something to be dealt with, although I would appreciate talking to him," I said with as much dignity as I could muster. Which, given that I had just been sucking on his tongue, wasn't a whole lot. "As it is, I have a few questions for—look out!"

Three shadows rose up behind Kristoff, shadows that quickly resolved themselves into figures. It was a faint flicker of light off a long blade that had caught my eye. Kristoff slammed his hand into my chest, sending me crashing backward into a large stack of wooden crates. I hit my head hard on the wood, but by the time my vision cleared, I realized that he wasn't assaulting me, he had merely shoved me out of the way while he dealt with the attackers.

And deal with them he did. I had no idea where he carried the twin daggers that now flashed in his hands, but he whirled and attacked with incredible grace and power, sending two of the three men flying in opposite directions. One of them crashed at my feet. I snatched up an empty crate and brought it down on his head as he was about to rise, feeling immense satisfaction as the man collapsed unconscious to the ground.

The ghosts leaped around, yelling and calling advice, unable to interact with anything, their ghostly forms adding just another level of surreality to the situation.

Kristoff's fight with the other two men was over almost as quickly, increasing my respect for his prowess. One man he sent slamming into the nearest wall, which was enough to send the attacker sliding uselessly to the ground, where he lay in a motionless blob. The last man, the one wielding a sword, screamed something at Kristoff, and slashed at him with rhythmic strokes of the blade.

Kristoff parried them all, kicking out with one leg, catching the man square in the chest, which sent him, too, slamming against the wall. I was just about to cheer when suddenly I was yanked painfully backward by my hair, a burning sensation at my throat. The man I'd hit with the crate snarled obscenities as he dragged me backward, toward the other end of the alley.

"Touch me and she dies," he spat out, then gave as obscene a laugh as I'd ever heard, and continued in a foreign language.

"He can't kill our reaper, can he?" the elderly ghost asked.

"I don't think so," Ulfur said hesitantly.

"What'll happen to us if he does? The Ilargi will get us!" the teen wailed.

I squirmed, trying to get a purchase on the ground so I could twist out of my attacker's grip, but he kept me too much off balance.

Kristoff said nothing, just stalked toward us, his eyes as black as midnight. I shivered at the sight, understanding now what Anniki had said about the vampires. Kristoff wasn't human. He was something foreign, something dark and dangerous, and every instinct I possessed told me to get away before he caught me.

I screamed, my voice abruptly stopping when my captor wrapped his hand tighter in my hair before jerking me sideways into the brick wall. I saw stars again as pain burst out in red waves that left me nauseous and nearly unconscious. I grasped for something to keep me from falling into a deep, dark pit where I seemed to teeter at the edge, my fingers closing around a cold metal rim.

Air moved past me as my eyes slowly cleared, leaving me with a clear vision of Kristoff calmly wiping a bloodied dagger blade on the prone form that lay at my feet. I clutched the trash bin with all my strength, staring in horror at the body. Although my attacker had fallen facedown, I knew without a doubt that he was dead.

And Kristoff had killed him.

Right there in front of me.

If I needed any proof that what Anniki had said was the real version of what was going on, this was definitely it.

I looked into Kristoff's now smoky blue eyes and saw the rage he felt, saw fury and menace and triumphant victory. I was up and running down the alley away from him before I even knew my legs would still work.

Voices called out my name, one of them his, but I ran even faster, blindly careening off of walls and obstructions and even cars as I dashed madly through the city, sure of only one thing—Kristoff was a killer. Alec couldn't be like him. Could he?