Hot for Slayer

by Ali Hazelwood

The thing about creatures of my ilk is, we’ve seen it all happen already, over and over again. We understand that time is a flat circle. We have witnessed civilizations rise, plateau, fall, then plateau again on their way back up.

Everyone was gifted in their own special way. Enyedi’s skills just happened to be useful.

“Aethelthryth. At last, we meet again.” I beamed up, hoping that it would irritate him. “Hey, friend.”

But, as much as it pained me to admit it, I did have a bit of a parasocial relationship going on with him, despite us having exchanged a grand total of two dozen words, most of which were some variation of die, monster, and no, you die first.

Not that I enjoy relentless harassment, but what’s a girl to do when the only constant presence during the last millennium of her life has been a guy who’s contractually mandated to murder her?

“Look at you,” he murmured in his faded Eastern European accent, those yellow animal eyes raking down my skin. “Flushed and plump and beautiful. You just fed, didn’t you?”

“Beautiful? Aww, Lazlo, I didn’t know you had a crush on— Motherfucker.” He jockeyed the blade back and forth in my belly, which, ouch.

“Hush, Aethelthryth.” His tone was harsh, even through the warmth of his small smile. He was bleeding profusely, and the scent of it wafted up, strong, metallic, divine.

How the hell did a slayer’s blood get to smell this good?

We turned, startled—both by the British-sounding voice addressing us and by the fact that, in the process, my forehead brushed against Lazlo’s lips, a gesture too similar to a kiss for comfort.

“Baby, will you get off me for a second?” I schooled my features into a pout, enjoying his clenching jaw immensely.

So, starting with the twentieth century, the Guild had cracked down on slayers killing us in front of witnesses. And by doing so, they saved my life.

“Come on, baby,” I said sweetly, my eyes meeting the cut glass of Lazlo’s. “We can make out later, no?” Lazlo’s yes was a deliciously disgruntled growl.

As I walked side by side with the journalists, I did look back at Lazlo, once, mostly to treat him to my smuggest, most insufferable grin. He was where I’d left him, still scowling down at his dagger.

When he noticed my eyes on him, he lifted the blade up to his face. And with a smile that did not feel like a smile, he began to lick it clean of my blood. It was . . . Well. It just was.

Today, nearly thirty-six years after that night in Germany, his arms wrap tight around me, his body is a heavy blanket above mine, and his only purpose seems to be shielding me from the sunlight. Today, Lazlo Enyedi saved my life.

Not that I was a rebel or a miscreant. That would have required scheming, hard work, or well-organized defiance, and Little Aethelthryth was too much of an absent-minded, stargazing dreamer for that.

I wished to travel. I wished to laugh. I wished for ballads and dances and tales. I wished for a life that I couldn’t have, which was, apparently, my greatest flaw.

Still, she wasn’t wrong about me: I want things that do not belong to me all the time. Chief of which: companionship.

Vampires suck—no pun intended—and are condemned to an eternity of conflict and solitude. So, of course, a vampire is what gregarious, companionable young me was turned into.

even thirteen centuries into my vampiric tenure, I have yet to accept my new circumstances. That, I fear, will be my demise.

My motto is: If I have to suck someone dry every few weeks, why not make it a Goldman Sachs executive?

More recently, a few small raccoons seemed to have acquired me. They’d climb up the fire escape and stare into my window until I provided them with food, hiss at me while they consumed the fruits of my labor, and then unceremoniously scurry away, no doubt to some other idiot who’d also purchased a bodega rotisserie chicken just for the occasion.

the small portrait of Donna Lucia, a human who correctly guessed that I was a vampire and still traveled all over Europe with me, painted by Botticelli in the 1400s;

Sunlight began to filter through the glass, and all I could think about in my last few seconds was something that hadn’t crossed my mind for at least a decade. As long as you don’t let anyone get to you before I do, Aethelthryth.

Ah, yes. Lazlo Enyedi. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be too heartbroken. If it makes you feel better, I thought fondly at him, willing the universe to pass on the message, I would have preferred it to be you.

“Hey,” I told him with a small, amused smile. “Couldn’t bear to let someone else butcher me, huh?” “I know what’s mine,” he muttered in his usual clipped tone.

Clearly, this slayer really wants me to die on his terms.

What the hell am I doing, pulling Lazlo with me? Propping him up against the drywall? Running my hand through his dark hair to assess the severity of his wounds? He’s a slayer. He only saved me so he could slaughter me himself.

running my hand across an expanse of muscles that I would find more impressive if it weren’t 17exclusively dedicated to murdering me and my bloodline.

The abbess once told me that the real problems are rarely the ones we spend our time worrying about.

Tattoos have been embraced by slayers since long before they became mainstream, but Lazlo’s art has always set him apart from his brethren—and always fascinated me. It’s made of ancient, angular runes that remind me of the Old Turkic script. Distinctively Carpathian designs. Colors and motifs calling back to Eastern European folklore.

The only reason I even know his name is that he was turned into a slayer specifically to eliminate my bloodline.

“Ethel. Pretty.” His nod is pleased, but his tone suggests that he’s not above gutting pretty things. He reaches forward to take a lock of my hair between his fingertips, turning it back and forth.

the back of his hand brushes against my cheekbone, a barely there touch that has me pulling back and shivering at the same time—“specific

I should swat his hand away, but I am paralyzed, unable to recall the last time someone touched me voluntarily without trying to hurt me.

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

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.

Where is his self-preservation? Why the hell is he not stopping me?

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?

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 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.

Lazlo’s jaw hardened, probably in disgust at the thought of vampires having feelings. Or smooching. Or, even worse, fucking.

Lazlo’s eyes were sharper than needles, but no one could pick that up. They would, however, have noticed if he’d chosen to stick a couple of swords through my chest. He had to restrain himself, and wasn’t that fun?

“I accept your offer.” 32 I blink. “What offer?” “To help me out.” His eyes gleam. “Lead the way, Ethel. I’ll follow you to your home.”

I am taking. A vampire slayer. To my home. No: I am leading the oldest and most feared vampire slayer in existence to my place. Despite being a vampire myself. What a time to be undead.

He nods distractedly, leaning forward to take a close look at the fern I’ve been schlepping around from residence to residence for the last ninety years.

Dang good job at keeping it alive that long

perhaps shocked by his own good looks—because, sadly, they are good. And he is handsome. Grossly so, despite the broken lines of his nose, the scars lining his skin, and his face that’s not fully symmetrical, like he was painted by an artist self-assured enough to bend the basic rules of anatomy.

“Oh. Well, that expression right there, the glare? It’s by far your favorite. Your only, some would say.” He treats me to a particularly nasty one, and I can’t help but chuckle.

The Hällsing Guild has been struggling to recruit new members, because becoming immortal no longer feels like a privilege, especially if given in exchange for spending several lifetimes going after creatures who are likely to stuff your left foot up your ass before snapping your head off.