My Vampire Assistant - Chapter 206
“So, what should we do with him?”
“That’s an interesting question, ma chèrie. Since he targeted you foremost, it should be for you to decide, I believe.”
I gave Desmond another look. He looked like a rag doll right now, just sprawled around, with his mouth open a little and his eyes staring blankly into nowhere. This stare… it unnerved me.
Desmond wasn’t dead—I could tell a dead vampire from alive now—but like that, he looked very much like an ordinary corpse. It differed from the way JJ looked when he slept. I supposed it was the pose—and the eyes.
I knelt next to him and closed his, just like they did in the movies. With closed eyes, Desmond looked like someone in a very inconvenient sleeping pose.
“When would he wake up?” I asked, standing up again.
JJ shrugged. “It’s impossible to tell for sure. Say, from ten days to ten years—that’s the most precise I can tell. Physical injuries heal fast, but I pushed hard at his mind, and Desmond now would require years to put together back what I broke. He will, I know—but I don’t know if he will put it back the same as it was before.”
I pursed my lips. “This doesn’t sound any better than death.”
“It shouldn’t. The only meaningful difference, truly, is that we didn’t demolish the room and the house with a physical fight. I can’t think of many vampires who prefer mental fights to physical. There’s too much risk in that, including the aftermath.”
I stayed silent for a moment, mulling over JJ’s words as the both of us stared at Desmond. What could we do with him? Keep him stored somewhere, so he would wake up one seemingly normal morning and bite our heads off? Throw him away, so someone mistook him for a corpse and buried him somewhere and he woke up one seemingly normal morning and went to bite our heads off? If no one makes him for a vampire and finishes him off before.
Of course, there was an option of us finishing him off by ourselves and sparing ourselves the uncertainty, but this was…
“It would be safest for us in the long term to kill him now. Merciful, too, if you look from a certain point of view. After all, even I can’t say how much damage I did to his mind exactly. He might end up a raving lunatic. I never before had an opportunity to wait for someone I defeated in a mental duel to wake up. Even better yet would be to film him so we could show other people who’d like to have our skins what would happen with him, then kill him. Or film killing him…” He waved his fingers in the air. “There are many ways to make this macabre show.”
“And this will happen with anyone who dares.” I nodded, not looking away from Desmond. To kill him, just like that? Even if it wasn’t my hand doing the kill, it still was mine making the choice.
What was more important, my morals or my peace of mind? How long would I be able to stick to said morals when people kept trying to kill me, anyway? This wasn’t my friend, or a good person at all. In fact, the world probably was much better without him.
Then again, start thinking “it’s okay to kill bad people in self-defence”, then you think “it’s okay to kill bad people”, and the next thing you will be thinking is “all Jews are bad”.
“But if you don’t want to kill him, I understand why. Morality is a slippery slope, Diana, and you should carefully measure every step you take on it. If you choose to keep him Desmond stored somewhere, or leave him to his fate, I will just fight him again if he returns.”
My head snapped to JJ. Was he reading my mind?
Whether or not he did, there was a solemn understanding in the eyes that met mine. Not just understanding of a person who had to kill in the past, enough that he grew used to it, but understanding of a person who also stood on that slippery slope. Maybe in the beginning of it, and maybe in the end… But he stood, and he knew how hard it was to not roll down.
It was a small revelation for me, that knowledge that I caught in that single stare, and I stored it close to my heart even as I turned back to Desmond.
I realised I didn’t want to keep him alive if it meant putting JJ in danger again. Mental duels were risky, he said. What if Desmond would be the one to win next time? And more, as he was my protector, it would be a shitty thing from me to not spare him as much protecting as I could.
Yes, it became crystal clear to me. Desmond won’t be left alive. But… I looked at him again, calculatingly now. Since I was doing a bad—from one standpoint—thing anyway, would it hurt if I added another notch of badness?
“You know, JJ, I wonder if Desmond had his own enemies. With that charming personality, I’m sure he had.”
“That’s true. Why it interests you now, ma chèrie?”
I sighed. “I just had that idea, but now I’m unsure if it’s so good. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s bad, but… I had it.”
JJ leaned to me. “Please, do share what that creative mind of your came up with now. What sort of idea can put that crease between your eyebrows?” JJ rubbed his thumb over the spot.
I shook my head. “Well, I was going to say that we should shoot something threatening and kill him, but… why not profit from the bastard, too? I don’t know where would go what he owns—”
“To the servants and thralls it belongs to on paper, I imagine.”
“—but not to us. So I thought… we could just sell him to someone.. Probably someone who will enjoy killing him more than we ever could.”