Page 51 (1/2)

THE GIRL WHO WAS

INFATUATED WITH DEATH

Laurell K Hamilton

This short story occurs in the interval between BLUE MOON and OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY

IT was five days before Christht I should have been asnooze in arplu acrossa box of Kleenexes tofor nearly the entire , so that she’d wipedher eyes pale and unfinished, younger, like what she h school The dark, perfect lipstick made the eyes look emptier, more vulnerable

“I’ woman” Her voice took on a tone that said she believed this, and it ht even be true She raised those naked brown eyes to ht have h-as-nails vae in those eyes

“It’s alright, Ms Mackenzie, you’re not the first client that’s cried It’s hard when you’ve lost someone”

She looked up startled “I haven’t lost anyone, not yet”

I satfrom it and stared at her “I’m an aniood enough I assurief was because you’d come to ask me to raise someone close to you”

She shook her head, her deep brown curls in disarray around her face as if she’d been running her hands through as once a perfect perhter, Amy, is very much alive and I want her to stay that way”

Noas just plain confused “I raise the dead and aal vampire executioner, Ms Mackenzie How do either of those jobs help you keep your daughter alive?”

“I want you to help me find her before she commits suicide”

I just stared at her,my boss He and I had had discussions about exactly what hters weren’t part of that description

“Have you gone to the police?” I asked

“They won’t do anything for twenty-four hours, but by then it will be too late”

“I have a friend who is a private detective This sounds much more up her alley thanfor the phone “I’ll call her at home for you”

“No,” she said, “only you can help me”

I sighed and clasped my hands across the clean top of my desk Most of my asn’t indoor office work, so the desk didn’t really see hter is alive, Ms Mackenzie, so you don’t need ue vampire, so you don’t need an executioner How can I be of any help to you?”

She leaned forward; the Kleenex waded in her hands, her eyes fierce again “If you don’t helpshe will be a vampire”

“What do you mean?” I asked

“She’s deterht”

“It takes three bites to become a vampire, Ms Mackenzie, and they all have to be froht, and you can’t beco casual with more than one”

“She has two bites on her thighs I accidentally walked in on her when she was getting out of the shower and I saw them”

“Are you sure they were vampire bites?” I asked

She nodded “I rabbed her, wrestled with her so I could see them clearly They are vampire bites, just like the pictures they passed around at the last PTA nize it You know one of those people lecturing on how to know if your kids are involved with the monsters”

I nodded I knew the kind of person she meant Some of it was valuable information, some of it was just scare tactics, and some of it was racist, if that was the term Prejudiced at least

“How old is your daughter?”