Bite of Passage

“You’re not dying on my watch,” Gemma said to the screen as if Skarde, the vampire who roamed his medievalesque fantasy TV world as a sword-for-hire to fight monsters would hear her. The vampire was a brutal killer who never hesitated to do the tough thing, whether it was killing someone infected by evil or fighting dirty to survive. If someone needed a necromancer destroyed or a demon-possessed priestess dispatched, or a mage terrorist executed, people paid Skarde to fix the problem. He claimed he did it for the money, but she thought he liked killing.

Skarde had dropped his crossbow about ten feet behind the wizard in a place the wizard couldn’t see. The vampire needed a partner on these missions, someone to grab the crossbow and shoot this soliloquizing weirdo.

The wizard raised his staff and aimed for the kill shot.

“No!” She pressed both hands on the screen as if doing so might keep her from seeing Skarde’s death.

Something pushed on her from all sides. It wasn’t painful. It felt as if someone had tucked her into bed with the sheets tight.

Then she fell. Fast. Her stomach bottomed out as darkness surrounded her. There was no wind, but she held up her hands and screamed, although it sounded dull.

Was she passing out? Had she whacked her head and put herself into a coma?

Down, down, down she fell until… Boom.

The belly-flop landing knocked the breath out of her.

She pushed to her knees and held up her hands to protect her head, fully expecting to die from her TV crashing down on top of her.

Nothing hit her. Her scrubs-clad legs soaked up wetness from…what?

“What stinks?” she muttered, slowly opening her eyes. The stench, way beyond that of moldy wet leaves, reeked of something dead and thoroughly rotten.

Wet mud coated her hands. She shivered as cold wind whipped through her thin scrubs.

She was in the show.

“Impossible.” She pinched herself hard. Wake up.

Nothing happened. Her hands were still muddy. Her butt became increasingly sloshy. The air still stank of something rancid.

She couldn’t be in the show. She didn’t want to be in this show. Things got killed here. It even smelled like death here.

A scream worked its way up her throat.

Skarde’s gray gaze locked onto her.

Holy mother. That was Skarde freaking Blackman. In the flesh. The scream stalled in her throat. All that came out was a garbled wheeze.

The wizard muttered and paced, breaking her staredown with Skarde. She glanced behind her to see a shimmery area—that must be some sort of magical doorway through which she’d fallen.

Run for the shimmer. Get out of the show.

The wizard’s volume increased.

Skarde should be paying attention to whatever the magical man was doing. Instead, he mouthed to her, “Leave.”

Guess his paralysis didn’t apply to his face.

“You think your spell will work?” Skarde asked loudly of the wizard.

The wizard sounded to be in the final phase of whatever kill spell he was about to cast, undaunted by the vampire’s attempt to stall him. Without thinking, or perhaps with thinking, since she’d already calculated in her mind what someone else—a character actually in the show, not her—was supposed to do, she picked up the wooden crossbow in front of her and pulled the trigger. The weapon’s wicked kick threw her backward onto her back. The arrow wasn’t on it anymore.

A shriek shredded the air. She pressed her hands tight against her ears. The wizard landed back-first on the ground with his wrinkled face inches from her foot. The arrow had impaled his chest. Dark blood spread in a stain across his ratty shirt. The man’s screeching stopped, but his gaze fixated on her.

His mouth worked as if he were attempting another spell, but blood dribbled between his lips. The wizard’s dark pupils dilated in the death glaze. She’d seen life leave a body more than a few times at the hospital.

That had to be a magical crossbow. She hadn’t aimed. In fact, considering the odds and the way she’d blindly fired the weapon, she had a higher chance of hitting Skarde than the wizard. What insanity had possessed her to even pick it up?

The vampire stood. Whatever paralysis spell the wizard had cast must have vanished when he died.

Skarde offered his hand to help her up.

She stared at the for-real, offered hand. As she slid her small hand into his much larger one, the rough and callused skin of his palm surprised her. She’d expected a vampire to have perfect, blemish-free skin. The roughness made him more real.

He’s a vampire. He’s not human. Get that through your skull.

He yanked her upright and lifted her many feet away from the dead wizard. As he removed his huge sword from his back, she backed away. He turned and efficiently beheaded the wizard.

Breath in. Breath out. Steam swirled with her exhale into the frigid air.

She looked up…and kept looking up.

Skarde Blackmann. Everything about him was huge—height, muscles, hands. Big fangs.

I’m in the snow in scrubs. My socks are wet. Skarde is staring at my neck like I’m his next meal.

He stood frozen, sword in hand, but he didn’t move to attack.

The reality of what she’d done settled in. She’d killed someone—no, not a human, but an evil creature in a scripted TV show. Did the creature have to die? Had it been redeemable? Maybe, but it would’ve killed them both long before she could have a chitchat to reason with it. I had no choice.

I killed him. Her stomach twisted with the threat of spewing.

“Are you going to boke?” he asked in that deep accented voice.

Heat blasted her cheeks. “No. I’m good. Won’t puke.”

She gaped at Skarde’s broad shoulders and harsh features. His calm scrutiny scared the hell out of her. Did he plan to drink her blood? Attack her?

Tension swirled around them as they stared at each other in silence. He didn’t make a move toward her.

Don’t say anything weird. She tucked her hair behind an ear. “Stop staring at me.”

“You’re the one staring.”

“You’re from the show. You’re…you’re not real. I have an excuse to stare. None of this is real. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Feels pretty fucking real to me.”