Hot for Slayer

by Ali Hazelwood

I try not to think about it too much: that slayers, just like vampires, were once humans. We both had to adjust to becoming something new, to the idea of infinity, and that’s no easy feat.

This is true about any solid or liquid item that isn’t human blood—no matter how close they may approach it. I once took a sip of a bonobo, and hurled intermittently for the following six months.

Yikes

I run back to my apartment, and step inside just as he walks out of the bathroom. Naked.

On his chest, right on top of his heart, is an ornate Venetian eye mask that looks eerily familiar, but I cannot place it.

I wonder if you wore it

“Sorry, I was just . . . admiring.” His eyebrow rises. “The artwork,” I hurry to add. “Sure. Right. Because it’s the first time you’ve seen it.”

God, I’ve always hated arthropods.

Same

but there is something here. Something that jumps from me to him, that flows from him to me. A current, a heat, a moment of confusion and deluge that clogs my senses, and . . . You’re just not used to touch, I tell myself.

I’m not an unfledged youth. My bloodlust is long quenched, and I can control my impulses even when I’m injured or hurt or approaching starvation. The scent of Lazlo does not make me lose my mind, because I’m better than that. But God, it’s sweet.

I’ve injured and killed plenty of slayers before him, and they all repulsed me, but Lazlo . . . I have no idea why his specific blood feels so overpoweringly, mouthwateringly delicious,

It’s a truly terrible idea, but my thumb and forefinger are already inside my mouth, licked clean, before I’m even aware of it. The taste of the blood, even just a few scant drops, awakens my sluggish, dormant body in a way gallons of plasma could never accomplish.

Heat blooms and fires through my nerve endings. I feel the telltale itch of my fangs pushing against the roof of my mouth, elongating, and I have to grab the edge of the sink so tight, I’ll never get my security deposit back.

His hand lingers. When it finally drops to his side, his mouth curves downward, like he’s displeased to no longer be touching me.

There is no damn way my kind and his have ever done this before. Sharing a meal, that is. Talking politely. Even just not killing each other. I wish I had a group chat to share this fantastic occurrence with. Even a single friend would do. Maybe I should yell it out of the window and hope the raccoons will hear.

“Well, we . . . I’m a little older than you.” “By how much?” “Not sure.” Lazlo appeared during my third century, and was relatively easy to overpower in our first few encounters, which I attributed to him not having fully grown into his slayer strength. How I miss those days.

“It was one-sided,” he tells me after he’s done chewing. “From you.” “What?” “The dislike.” “I assure you, it was not.” “And I assure you, when I look at you, I feel anything but that.”

“It wasn’t my decision,” I tell him instead. It wasn’t my maker’s decision, either. Even vampires are not sure why some people turn and others don’t.

There are necessary conditions—the person has to be on the brink of death but strong enough to sustain the transformation and some of the vampire’s blood has to be ingested by them, but it’s not as simple as that. Many tried and failed. Many didn’t mean to welcome new souls into the night, but . . . here I am.

I found it so easy, falling into the day-to-day. The humdrum. Staring out of the window with an empty mind. A crossword, a walk in the rain, a well-written book. Flowers blooming.

Perhaps the abbess was right, and I romanticize insignificant things too much—although, if I recall correctly, the way she put it was more like, Life is not a brightly painted knight’s tale, Sister Aethelthryth. Stop wasting time on fancies and follies, and go scrub the privy, child.

Still, I’ve learned to live in the moment, and to be happy, even on my own. I’ve learned to treasure little joys, like making other people’s lives better by lending a hand or ...

“No. But what you said about becoming something without wanting, and still trying to make the best out of it . . . It makes sense. On a visceral level.”

Vampires don’t sleep. It’s part of the whole curse thing—no rest, no quiet, no respite from our evil deeds. We are condemned to an eternity of staring at empty walls and reflecting on what we have done, all in the hope of atoning for our very existence. The possibilities for self-flagellation are endless.

But my white-hot take is that I’ve done nothing wrong, at least not since I began observing a strictly asshole-tarian diet. So I politely excused myself from the pity party and retooled that time for playing sudoku.

“No.” I halt, momentarily speechless. “No?” “We both sleep on the couch,” he declares. “Together.” “We can’t sleep together.” “Are there laws against it?” “No.” “Then we sleep together.”

He is, quite clearly, gripping my wrist and pulling me toward the couch. It should trigger my fight reflex and make me headbutt him in the nose, but for some reason it doesn’t. A moment 48later, I’m horizontal with him, wedged tight between the length of his body and the back of the couch.

“Oh,” I hear myself say. Just that: Oh. Lazlo’s reply is a vague grunt, followed by a tightening of his grip.

I can feel every cord of his muscles pressing against me, and it should be a new and destabilizing experience, but it seems disturbingly familiar. He and I, after all, have been this close before...

“I don’t think this is—” “Hush,” he...

He’s as hot as the sun’s core. I must be the opposite, because he murmurs something about my icy limbs and how my poor body must have misplaced all its vit...

trying to free myself without too much conviction. The truth is, this is very enjoyable. Being surrounded. Pressed in. Bundled. It’s evolutionary: My kind was programmed to enjoy tiny, suffocating spaces where the sun...

An impatient sigh interrupts me, and he crowds me even more against the cushions, which presses him close enough to me that . . . Oh my God. Is that a stake in his pocket, or is he just glad to see me?

“Ethel, stop it.” “Stop what? I’m only—” “The bugs, the job, the nemeses stuff. You don’t have to tell me the truth, but you can stop pretending.” “Pretending what?”

His chest heaves. “I might not remember my name, or anything about who I am. But I could never be near you and not ...

A second later, he falls asleep, leaving me to stare at the chevron pattern of the couch for eight straight hours as I try not to enjoy the heat of his body against mine, despera...

The following morning I realize that, to my utmost shock, Lazlo will need to be fed once more. And in five hours—perhaps even fewer, considering his size—we’ll be here all over again. Because his kind needs food multiple times a day. Absurd.

lol

Although, something within me asks, wouldn’t a sip of Lazlo be good? Delectable. Thick and rich and unlike anything you’ve ever tasted. It would sit heavy in your belly, power your nerve endings, and you’d finally feel so warm that— 51 I mentally slap the idiotic voice inside my head,

“Thank you,” the girl says solemnly. “I’m going to be a vampire when I grow up.” “And I’m going to be a vampire hunter,” says the boy. “And we’re going to get married.” I try not to choke on my tongue.

like it’s totally normal for him to wait for me shirtless and freshly showered.

I’m starting to find it more amusing than irritating, the way he states things about me instead of asking questions, and that worries me a bit. Only slightly less than the fact that he has already drawn and latched together all the blackout curtains, despite sunrise being five minutes away.

He’s been here for twelve hours, and we somehow have a routine. I need to get him out of here stat.

I throw an apple in his direction—which turns out to be a mistake when, in the blink of an eye, Lazlo grabs a knife from the wooden block and uses it to slash the fruit into four pieces. While it’s still in the air.

The chunks hit the ground with dull thuds, and we stare at them for a long stretch of silence. Then I clear my throat. “I didn’t know that an apple murdered your family.”

“I . . . did not mean to do that.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Right. No, I know. You cut the apple into fo...

There is something painfully heavy about lying to someone who knows that he’s not being told the truth, but . . . what alternative do I have?

His arms bracket me on each side, and his chin brushes the crown of my head as he works with a cursory, expert grace that I find equally pleasing and irritating.

I should stiffen and push him away, but my body has already gotten used to being surrounded by his. The strength. The warmth. The sensation of being part of something. I pretend not to notice the way his lips press against the back of my head

“Anyway, I assume you are eager to return to your own home, so—” “No,” he says, final, happy. At ease. By all means, Lazlo, do overstay your welcome, I think. There’s no real heat in it, though.

The more he sticks around, the better he’ll know me, and the easier it’ll be to track me down once he regains his memories.

I blink. Then ask, pathetically excited: “You like sudoku?” “What?” 55 “The square thing you’re doing.” I lean closer. “I didn’t think you—” I snap my mouth shut. Reopen it. “Did you just write down random numbers?”

I spend the next two hours teaching a vampire slayer who was created to wipe out my bloodline how to correctly fill in a sudoku grid. He’s not at all bad at it, and I hate to acknowledge it.