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"Can you killsoeline knew the priest wasstill in her mouth, she couldn’t even yell at the stupid child

"Can you?" the child persisted "Your priest was too young I kneas, but figured it orth a try anyway If you’re older, eline’s eyes widened as she looked th hair, delicate pixie features The white shift dress she earing sed her, but would have perfectly fit the adult witch the va

But she was dead Angeline had seen it She’d heard her heartbeat slow and stop like butterfly wings on their last flap She’d carried the lifeless body and laid it on the altar

"I’d hoped that death card was forfroeline’s mouth and spoke to her as if she were the child "I want you to try, all right?"

The vampire looked around This had to be soirl, Hadrian would be upset Or would he? He’d killed the girl the first time around, after all

"What are you?"

The witch rolled her eyes "So far older than you But I’ My power needs to die with eline hated when people spoke in riddles

The girl laughed "No, silly So once-over "How old are you?"

Angeline balked at giving the girl her age It was such a personal question for a vampire, filled with so much nuance It was so much more than just a number It was the evidence of how much you’d survived, how much history you’d seen and lived But she relented, curious over where the witch was going with her line of questioning "two hundred and twenty"

"He seeing such a grown-up look on such a young girl "My kind can only be killed, truly killed, by another of our kind, or a very old and very strong being I know because one of us has been killed that way, by a 3,000-year-old vaine, those are hard to find, and they tend to be grueso I’h, but we can try"

The girl sat across Angeline’s lap and pulled her hair back The vaIt was a dream Some crazy daymare Perhaps Hadrian hadn’t woken up yet Maybe she was still in her resting place below ground, dreah the proeline hoped it was a drea the same mistakes Maybe she’d stake Hadrian before he even arose, just in case the chanting was a genuine threat and not just paranoia

The girl cleared her throat "This is theI know my blood is delicious I’ve been fed on by vampires a few times before They went on about eline knew just by the sirl that it was true She wanted to know irl hy she wanted to die sohave you had this death wish?" she asked instead

"Off and on for about a thousand years,more deliberately and the others of my kind have been picked off If he kills reater evil than you’ve ever thought about being I have to break the cycle, and I won’t contribute to the things he wants to do by dying at his hands"

"You little… " Who the hell did this girl think she was? She didn’t kno evil Angeline was or wasn’t

The girl tilted her head again, trailing her index finger up and down the colus, this will be your last ood one"