Free A Vampire's Christmas Carol by Karen McCullough Page A

nothing else will do.”
    “Would you truly be Antoine’s servant? Even
after you became a true vamp?”
    “Yes. He couldn’t completely control me, but
he could exert a strong influence. He already can if I forget and
look into his eyes. Like I did that night at the feast.”
    “And you’d never be free of him?”
    “Until I or someone else disposed of him and
took his place.”
    The clock chimed five o’clock and they both
listened to the five bells toll.
    “How could you get rid of him?” Carol
asked.
    “Staking is the usual way, but if you want to
be sure it’s permanent, beheading is better. Or burning. Otherwise,
if the stake is removed, the vamp can rise again.”
    She shivered. “I think I’m sorry I asked. Can
we talk about something more cheerful?”
    Michael nodded. A red flicker came and went
in his eyes, so quickly she barely saw it. “What do you do for a
living?” he asked. “Since you’re not married, I assume you have a
job?”
    “Yeah, but it’s really not exciting. I’m a
junior accountant.”
    “Do you like it?”
    “Actually, I do. Everyone thinks I’m kind of
weird. No one’s supposed to like spending your time buried in
numbers and reports. But I like making things add up properly and I
like finding hidden meanings in the numbers. They can tell you a
lot more than you think.”
    “Such as?” he asked.
    Pinpoints of red continued to flash off and
on in his eyes, but for the most part, the irises remained deep
blue. The tension of his body didn’t abate, however, and she could
see the effort it cost him to fight the need wracking him. His
fingers were about to poke holes in the recliner’s leather arms and
his long legs stretched out rigidly. His ankles were crossed and
pressed hard against each other. Every now and again he winced,
though he tried to suppress it, and an occasional small gasp worked
its way past his control.
    “You can tell a lot about a company by
reading the financial reports closely,” Carol aid. “I once caught
an employee of one of our clients embezzling. It wasn’t even all
that cleverly done. I’m not sure how he got away with it for as
long as he did.”
    “How did he do it and get away with it?”
    “He was in charge of accounts payable. He and
a friend created a dummy company that sent in fake invoices. Of
course, the invoices were always for expenses that looked
realistic. For a long time nobody questioned them. Until I noticed
that the company seemed to be spending a great deal more than usual
on fuel. It was a trucking company and, of course, they used a lot
of it, so an increase of a few percentage points didn’t really
register with them, though it meant quite a nice bit of cash for
the perpetrators.”
    “Why wasn’t that clever?”
    “Most companies try to stay on top of costs
and keep them as low as possible. If anyone had taken the trouble
to look at fuel costs, they’d have seen right away something was
out of line. Apparently no one did, though, until I called their
attention to it.”
    “How often do things like that happen?”
    Carol shrugged. “Not that often really. Most
of what I find that’s out of whack is the result of honest mis—“
She broke off when Michael started to shake again.
    Moments later, he lay on the floor, writhing
and twisting. Teeth snapped together like castanets as he shook,
while incoherent moans escaped him to rasp along her nerves.
    She hadn’t thought anything could be worse
than the last episode, but this one was. For a few minutes, he
thrashed around so hard he knocked over an end table and threatened
several others. His body bent into positions the human frame wasn’t
meant to attain. All the while he grunted and gasped.
    How aware was he of what was happening to
him? The sounds he made were almost animal-like and the spasms
clearly out of his control, but when he opened his eyes, there were
shreds of consciousness alternating with the red glow that
indicated his vampire hunger taking