Page 34 of No Rest for the Wicked

“What the—” He clutched at my arm, trying to pry me off, and found my grip rigid as steel. “How?”

A glance over my shoulder revealed Zee dancing with the remaining two vampires, using his tail and wings to whip up a violent whirlwind of claws and punches.

“Uh, so . . . alright. Let’s talk about the pixie?” Ingo suggested. “What do you wanna know? Huh? I’ll tell yah.”

“We could talk.” I studied his face and its little ticks of fear. Sweat beaded at his hairline. “Not so long ago I killed an ancient, powerful vampire. A duke, in fact. Do you want to know how I did it?”

His throat moved as he gulped. “I’m sorry. I got you all wrong. Thought you were human⁠—”

“And that makes it okay? You go around threatening to murder humans and drink their blood? You think that’s your right?”

“I mean . . . I am a vampire, so . . . it’s kinda what we do.” He bared his fangs. “Grr?”

Yeah, I wasn’t believing Ingo’s whimpering nonsense. This was his back yard, and there was no doubt he’d killed to keep it that way. “I took the duke’s head in my hands . . .” I cupped the side of Ingo’s head in my left hand, keeping my right clamped around his neck. “And I squeezed . . . Do you know what happened?”

Ingo gulped.

“It popped, like an overripe melon. But that wasn’t enough, you see. I needed him to disappear. It’s difficult to make a whole vampire corpse disappear. Do you know what I did?”

“No.” Ingo trembled.

“Take a guess?” Trapped inside, chained under layers of glamor and the curse, the real me shifted—realigning, waking up, stretching to the surface now it scented blood and violence.

I leaned down, putting my mouth close to Ingo’s ear, and whispered, “I ate him.”

Ingo panted, breathing so hard that his whole body had gotten in on the act.

“It’s not easy, and it’s super messy. But no body, no murder. Who is going to suspect little old me?”

“P-please?” Ingo stuttered. “I’ll tell you anything you wanna know. You wanna know about the pixie? The stupid vermin attacked Armin.”

That was new information. “Who’s Armin?”

“He’s royal security. Works the mansion. Comes by here sometimes to gamble on the fights.”

“Can you take us to Armin?”

“I uh . . . I don’t know. That’s like . . . That’s like next level, top-tier royalty shit.”

“Then I guess you’re of no use to me.” I massaged his skull, getting my fingers right in there to muss up his hair, finding the perfect position to dig my fingers in. “The human skull—vampire skull too, since you started out human—is made up of plates that fuse as they get older. I just have to find the right angle. Find the weak points, you know?”

One of the other vampires flew overhead and hit a tree. I glanced over at Zee who had the third vampire pinned under his boot. “You good?”

He grinned and gave me a thumbs up. “Fucking great! You?”

I mirrored his thumbs up with one of my own, then clamped onto Ingo’s skull again, keeping hold of his neck the entire time.

“Awesome.”

The vampire he’d flung away lunged back at him.

“Help!” Ingo screamed, seeing his chance. “Get this psycho off me!”

Zee’s pair of vampires perked up, responding like dogs to a whistle. The one nearest me turned toward us.

Oh dear. “Call him off or you both die, and I really don’t want to get messy.”

Ingo clamped his mouth shut and shook his head.