Free Slayed by Amanda Marrone Page B

tomorrow. I was even toying with the idea of having one specially made.” She grins. “How
awesome
would it be to have a stakecarved like a
unicorn’s horn
? Every time I plunged it into a vampire’s heart it’d be like—
take that, Mom and Dad. I don’t need your stinking television show!
”
    I stare at her. “Wow. That’s just … disturbing.”
    She puts her hands up and nods. “Okay, maybe that’s going a little too far. I guess I have some unresolved issues with my parents.”
    “Yeah. In the meantime, do you think you could stomach using one of the
boring
stakes?”
    She picks one up and pumps her arm up and down like she’s plunging it into someone’s chest. “It’s a little heavy, and a rounded handle would be a little more ergonomic, but I guess I can make do.”
    “Glad to hear it.”
    She opens her notebook and takes out a pen. It looks like she has a bunch of notes under the heading “Vampires” written in purple ink. “So about sunlight—scorching end to vampires—true or false?”
    “False. A vampire’s powers are greatly diminished during the daytime hours, though. That’s why we house-clean during the day and go street hunting at night when they’re more likely to be trolling for victims.”
    She makes some notes and then looks up at me. “Silver bullets good for vampires as well as werewolves?”
    “Only werewolves—but they’re a dying breed and notworth worrying about. Nowadays lycanthropy is easy to keep under control with drugs during the time of change so their population is declining rapidly.”
    She bites on the pen cap. “So you’re telling me I’m not going to get any hot wolf action from the alpha male who battled his pack to win me as his mate?”
    I laugh. “Sorry.”
    She clucks her tongue and crosses out something in her notebook with bold strokes. “Okay, what’s the scoop on garlic?”
    “They don’t like the smell and stuffing it in the mouth of a decapitated head helps prevent it from …” I pause when I see her rolling her eyes.
    “Really? The undead are that bothered by garlic? Even the decapitated heads?”
    “Tradition says they are. And you said you’d cut the heads off—that’s the only reason I agreed to work with you.”
    “I thought it had to with the money,” she shoots back. “But you’re the boss.” She puts her pen to paper. “Put garlic in the mouth of
severed
head so vampire with
stake
in its
heart
won’t
somehow
magically reattach it.” She marks the sentence with an exclamation point and then looks up at me innocently. “Can they really turn into bats?”
    “I’ve been told it’s possible for them to shape-shift butI’ve never seen it happen. It could be only the really old ones can do it.”
    She smirks. “So you’re admitting you don’t know everything about vampires?”
    “Kiki, we’re cutting the heads off.”
    “Yeah, yeah. What’s next?”
    “For this job we had to split the houses to be cleaned with the Harkers—that’s that Tyler guy you met in the parking lot and his whack-job father. The police divvied up the houses believed to have vampires in them and we each have our own lists. There’s been a large migration of vampires into the area recently, so at night we’ll patrol the downtown area for vamps looking for dinner and preying upon the kindness of strangers in hopes of getting invited into a home.”
    “So they have to be invited in?”
    “Yup.”
    “Must be invited in,” she says as she writes it down.
    “These roaming vamps are up for grabs, and any one you kill counts for Team Van Helsing.”
    “Wait, if I kill one, why don’t
I
get to keep the money?”
    “Because you’re my apprentice.”
    “Fine, it’s not like I need it anyway.”
    “Must be nice,” I say under my breath. I drag a duffel bag out of the closet and heft it on to my bed. “Let’s loadup.” I unzip it and reveal my supply of stakes and garlic. “We have a skeleton key that will open just about any lock,