Frankly, I admire your commitment.

Yeah. That’s not gonna work.

“Am I a criminal?” he asks, sounding intrigued by the prospect. “Is that why you’re withholding information from me?”

“What? No. No, not a criminal. You are just . . .” I rack my brain. “An asshole.”

He snorts. “Don’t spare the feelings of the infirm.”

“Well, you’re an infirm asshole, so . . .”

“I am not.”

“Excuse me? I would know.”

“Why am I an asshole?” He’s scowling now.

“Several reasons.”

“Such as?”

“You . . .” Are a literal vampire killer. “Because.”

“You didn’t list any reason.”

I huff. “You wear sunglasses inside, for one.”

His face falls, mortified. Mafia boss? No problem. Douchebag? A line must be drawn. “Do I really?”

“No,” I say, feeling a little guilty. “I’m not even sure you own sunglasses. But you and I, we don’t get along very well.”

He lets out a single dismissive laugh. “Right.”

“I’m serious. We are nemeses.”

“No, we are not.”

I frown. “Why don’t you believe me? We deeply dislike each other.”

“Maybe you don’t like me, because I clearly . . .” He stops. Shakes his head. Declares, as though the truth exists only to be molded by his words: “We aren’t nemeses. I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Says the slayer,” I mutter bitterly, and when his eyes widen, I want to punch myself.

“Slayer,” he repeats, his voice hushed. I tighten my grip around the dagger, waiting for . . . I don’t know. For him to remember. For an attack. Definitely not for him to ask, “You mean, an exterminator? For bugs?”

My shoulders slump in relief. I hear myself saying, “Yeah. Exactly.”

“And we’re nemeses”—his tone is derisive—“because, what? You had a bedbug situation I couldn’t fix?”

I am the bedbug, Lazlo. “It’s just in our nature. Because I’m a . . . an entomologist.”

“A what?”

This is coming together surprisingly well. “You are a sl—an exterminator, and I am the kind of scientist who studies insects and their behaviors. As you can probably imagine, my existence—my professional existence, that is—is incompatible with yours. You kill bugs. I keep them alive.” Do entomologists really hate pest control? Probably not. Doesn’t matter. “Conflict of interest.”

The head injury must be working in my favor, because Lazlo asks, “Is that why we’re here? Because of pest control?”

I nod enthusiastically. “You were on a job. I tried to stop you. We both stumbled, that’s why you fell and I have”—I point at my cheek—“this.”

The hesitation on his face spells out: You know all of this sounds like bullshit, right? But instead of calling me out on it, Lazlo says, “Sure. Fine. Let’s just go.” With enviable agility, he rises to his feet. “A doctor will know how to help me remember this stuff.” That you clearly made up remains unsaid.

“Agreed. You should check out Mount Sinai, but Lenox is—”

“You’re coming with me,” he says, scowling again. So deeply, I decide to casually remind him that I still have a dagger with a flick of my wrist.

“Sadly, I can’t.”

“Why?”

The trick about lies is, one has to put their whole heart into them. So I don’t let myself hesitate. “I’m allergic to the sun.”

A slow blink. “You are allergic to the sun.”

“Yes. It’s a pretty common condition, actually.”

“What happens if you go outside?”

“Boils. Pus.” Instant death. “You know. I’d rather wait for sundown to get out. Anyway, it was great to hang out with you. Good luck at the hospital, and . . .”

My voice drifts into silence as Lazlo lowers himself back into a sitting position. The tip of his boot brushes against the side of my sneaker.

“The hospital’s the other way,” I joke weakly.

“I’m not leaving you here alone.” He sounds, and looks, equal parts put-upon and determined.

A thought occurs to me: What if he’s faking it? What if he knows that I’m trapped here with him? That he can torture me and keep me at his mercy for the next ten hours? What if he’s just a great actor, toying with a lying mouse?

To test that theory, I ask, “Hey?”

His eyebrow arches: What, now? He must have little faith in my ability to carry out an interesting conversation.

I clear my throat. “Have you heard of vampires?”

“Of course I have.”

My stomach sinks, and I grip the dagger once again.

Until he adds, in a knowing tone: “Like Dracula. Carmilla.”

“Yeah. Or Nosferatu. You know, vampires.”

“I’m familiar.”

“Right. I was wondering: Do you think they really exist?”

He stares. Stares. Stares. And right when I’m sure he’s going to end me, he says, “Ethel?”

“Yeah?”

“I know that I hit my head. But what happened to yours?”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 4

Exhibit number thirty-six that Lazlo Enyedi is not faking the whole amnesia thing: He takes a nap.

In the middle of the day.

Three feet away from me.

One second I’m making up wild facts about swallowtail butterflies to salvage my already-in-tatters entomology cover, and the next he’s lying back to “rest for a minute,” throwing his elbow over his eyes, and breathing quietly. Sleeping off the concussion—big no-no for humans, but a nonissue for slayers. His chest rises and falls in a slow rhythm, and he has to be fucking with me.

No trained fighter lets his guard down this irresponsibly with someone he barely knows. Slayers are never this vulnerable. It can only be a trap.

So I decide to kill him.

I set the blade of my stolen dagger horizontally and lower it to his Adam’s apple, guillotine style. I’m strong enough to cut through the muscles and bones and tendons, and— Where is his self-preservation? Why the hell is he not stopping me?

I slink back to my shadowy corner to sulk, convinced that he’s well and truly asleep. Okay. So his memory is gone. But shouldn’t there be some trace of an instinct, some emotional residue, an inkling that I am his enemy and that he shouldn’t trust me?

Lazlo begins snoring softly.

Clearly not.

I lean back and study him, wondering about his life outside our centuries-long game of hide-and-seek-and-stab. Does he have a family? A girlfriend or a boyfriend? A polycule? Slayers are immortal until they’re beheaded. They are incredibly strong and enhanced in every conceivable way, sure. Deep down, though, they are still human. They long for connection.

I bet he does have a family. They must be who he spends time with between hunts. After all, I don’t see him a lot. We usually only cross paths once a decade or so. Before Berlin, there was that Pink Floyd tour in 1980, and that David Bowie concert in the seventies, and . . .

Now that I think about it, by liking live music as much as I do, I may have made it a bit too easy for him to find me.

I chew on my lower lip, remembering 1964. My one-night-long career as a singer-songwriter. Does taking advantage of an open mic night at a seedy underground club qualify as “working in the music industry”? It should. I certainly had fun singing about youth counterculture. Even more so after Lazlo appeared in the audience.

“Aethelthryth,” he whispered the second I spotted him in the crowd, his yellow eyes glowing even through the cigarette smoke.

I strove to remember what weapons I’d stuffed into my go-go boots, and thought, Come on, Enyedi. Stop ruining my fun. Next song up is about how lonely I am, and how sad that I haven’t gotten laid in at least three hundred years.

But Lazlo didn’t jump on the stage. Didn’t throw a hatchet at me, either. He simply let me croon on for a while, with my trite fire/desire and love/above rhymes. Patiently, he stared with that icy, unsettling gaze as I sang something cringeworthy about how no one understands, I just want to feel his hands. When my masterpiece ended, everyone applauded except for him.