Read Online Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin - Free Book Online

go another way. And I think… yeah, now.
    I sucked in my breath and screamed, "Oh, God! Something bit me!" I grabbed my right ankle, hopping around as much as Graybeard's grip allowed.
    "What do you mean?" he demanded, looking from my pain-contorted face to my ankle and back again.
    "A snake," I gasped. "Look, there it is!"
    I pointed at the feet of the Suit, who immediately backed up and looked down.
    "It's too cold for snakes," Graybeard was saying, but too late. Vayl had seen his opening. He shot his scabbard at the Suit, knocking him sideways. The bolt from his crossbow flew off into the bushes. Vayl's blade flashed and the Suit dropped, holding his left arm and groaning as blood spurted from it in steady bursts. I didn't wait to see how Vayl dealt with JESUS SAVES and Praying Hands. The confusion that had delayed Graybeard's reaction was clearing. In moments he'd be putting his Magnum into action.
    I attacked. My first move, a knife-hand to the elbow, made him drop the gun. He blocked the fist I aimed at his groin, blocked my next two moves as well. He'd been trained, and well. But he was still slower and older than me, and I made it count.
    The kick I connected to the side of his head put him off balance. He countered with a punch that would've broken my ribs if he hadn't been backing up. Even so, I'd be feeling that blow for a week. I took him down with a hook kick to the back of his knee. Two more hard kicks to the temple did the trick. He fell to his side and stayed there, quietly bleeding into the brush. I grabbed his gun and stood back. A bullet to the brain would've been easy and I was sorely tempted.
Bang, bang, bang
. But it wasn't my place to decide. Vayl would choose whether he lived or died. Ironic, huh?
    The boss had done pretty well for himself. Apparently JESUS SAVES and Praying Hands had tried to run for it, because they stood about 50 yards away, gazing at Vayl like a couple of trapped rats as he circled them, his sword hovering inches from the crosses they brandished like pop guns. I could feel his power build as he circled them. JESUS SAVES could too, and neither his shaking arm nor his bladder seemed to be able to hold up against it. Vayl spoke a single word and Praying Hands crumpled to the ground.
    JESUS SAVES, being a Sensitive, just stood there shaking. Like me, he was much less susceptible to Vayl's hypnotic suggestions. Fear had a bigger influence, however. When Vayl made a move toward him he screamed like a little girl and ran off into the trees. When they found him in the morning I suspected he'd be gibbering like a Blair Witch escapee.
    The Suit moaned weakly. I went to check on him. He'd squirmed out of his belt and was trying to cinch it tight enough over his bicep to stop the fountain that had drenched his shoulder, sleeve and half his face. "Here," I said, "let me help you with that." I jerked the belt tight, and he yelped in pain. The bleeding slowed to a trickle. "You want to watch who you ambush next time," I told him. "There's a lot worse monsters than vampires wandering the world."
    "I know," he whispered, looking straight into my eyes as if he could see my secret life spread before him, a horrific map of violence and destruction justified—
maybe, maybe, maybe
—by the violence and destruction it had prevented.
    Vayl came closer, leaned over Graybeard and whispered in his ear.
    "You've only got a few seconds left," I told the Suit. "Soon he'll be crouching over you, speaking in your ear, scrambling your brain. Is there anything you want to tell me before your mind goes as soft as frozen yogurt?" Okay, I was exaggerating. Most likely Vayl was suggesting to Graybeard, as he had to Praying Hands, that if he ever tried to kill anyone again, even a vampire, his heart would burst. Maybe the Suit sensed that.
    "No," he answered.
    "Vayl likes to mess with people's minds," I told him. "Literally. He might go easy on you, leave the memories of your wife and kids, your childhood. If you tell