He had excised two stakes from the bottom board of the stall wall; he hefted them in his hands, feeling for weight and balance. They were short, maybe too short at only eight inches, give or take.
A good stake needed to be wide enough at the base to provide stability in one’s grip and strength in a thrust but narrow enough to slide between ribs. Vamp hunters each had their own preferences as to length and circumference, based on hand and grip size and upper-body strength. For most, fourteen inches was way too long and increased the chance that the vampire might bat the weapon away before it hit home or twist his body and cause the tip to miss the heart. Anything smaller than ten inches was considered too short. Rick’s stakes were only around eight inches long, shorter than most, which put him at a disadvantage. Not that he’d planned it. He had been trying to pry out a single long stake with the objective of making two twelve-inch stakes from the one. It had broken, teaching him patience he hadn’t wanted to learn.
The effect of the day’s labor on his infected wounds was obvious. They were bigger and more painful, and his arm from fingertips to elbow was now a constant throb of infection. But he’d worry about the arm later. If he survived.
He tested the heft of the stakes, making sure he could grip with his swollen hand. The stakes were as big around on the blunt end as his thumb, and nicely pointed. Stakes needed to be about the circumference of a drumstick to pierce through skin, pass between ribs, and puncture a heart without snagging on muscle, cartilage, or bone, and without breaking. His were rough and full of splinters, which might catch on tissue instead of sliding through and between. Tomorrow he would smooth them as much as possible with the few metal scraps he had uncovered.
Rick had never killed a vampire. He’d never killed anything but deer and a few turkeys. He’d never forgotten his first kill—a buck that got hung on a downed limb in a bayou near his house and was being attacked by gators. He couldn’t save the deer. So he’d stolen his daddy’s shotgun and put it out of its misery. It had taken four rounds, and he’d cried for days.
But killing a vampire, killing Isleen, he figured he could do. And he wouldn’t cry a single tear. He’d probably be laughing his head off when he buried his stake in her black heart.
He studied the final stake, now only half-removed from the wall. It was longer, a bit wider, and the wood was paler, with a tighter grain. Tomorrow night Isleen would have a problem when she showed up. Tonight . . . tonight he was going to be in a spot of discomfort. As the sun set and golden rays poured through the slats of the barn, he shook as much of the filth out of the sheet as he could, then used a stake to stretch to the hose and turn on the water Loriann had showered him with. Lastly he hid the stakes in different spots and covered his tracks. When the little witch showed up at his barn door, he was clean and dry and waiting.
? ? ?
That night was worse than the previous one, as much because of his psyche as the fact that the injured skin was being worked on again. And, of course, the throbbing of infection. He bled more, he had to work harder to control his breathing, and Loriann didn’t drug him this time, so he felt everything. Including a whole lot more pissed off.
Somehow it had been easier to accept being tattooed against his will when he’d woken up chained. Having to lie down like a willing sacrifice and be shackled to the black stone sucked, especially when he’d sworn he’d never do it again. The only break the witch gave him was when she transferred her tools to the other side and started work on his other arm. It was some kind of circular design. He’d thought at first that she was tattooing Christ’s crown of thorns on him, but when he asked, she shook her head and said, “Shut up. I’m working.”
So much for casual conversation. There was no more getting-to-know-you conversation either. In fact the only sound was his breathing like a bellows, his occasional gasp, and Loriann mumbling under her breath. Spell casting, he figured.
But at least he knew what the big tat was. Cats. Which made some sense from her original question—cats, horses, or wolves? In her oblique way, she had had been asking him to pick his tat. He could make out a mountain lion and what looked like a house cat.
His mom would be royally ticked off. His parents had long ago proclaimed that no child of theirs would come home with a tattoo. But if he had to have a tattoo, Loriann did good work.