Skindancer, Tome 1 : Frost Moon

Then he pulled a pair of pruning clippers from his long black coat.

“Oh, God—”

Transomnia backhanded me casually with the hand holding the clippers, gashing my forehead. “I want some souvenirs,” he said, grabbing my fingers within the V of the clippers and squeezing down so hard I squealed in pain and twisted my head into the pavement, bawling.

“Look at me,” he said. I twisted my head away, and his grip tightened, making my trapped knuckles pop. Then he squeezed again, and I felt the clippers draw blood. “Look at me. Do it, or lose them.”

I looked up, saw my fingers in the curved beak of the pruner, and his unsmiling face. His makeup was gone, making him look older, leaner, meaner. I looked into his cold red eyes—and knew he could do anything.

“That’s right,” he said, releasing his grip on my hand but keeping my fingers trapped between the blade and hook of the pruner. “According to this little thing—” and he grabbed my protective collar so hard I began choking “—I supposedly ‘can’t’ even maim you. But I can. I can walk away from here with ALL your fingers and leave you with stumps. I’ll put them in the blender when I get home, one by one, and think of your stumps. You’ll never tattoo again.”

He released my neck, and I croaked: “Duh-don’t take my haands—”

He backhanded me, hard, and I felt a tooth loosen in a warm, metallic flow of blood. “Don’t speak to me. Don’t ever presume to speak to me again. Got that, bitch?”

I nodded, slumped on the pavement, staring at his boots.

He twisted my hand back and forth a bit, squeezing experimentally. I cringed. Finally he said, “You’re not worth it,” and released me—kicking me, vampire hard, in the gut.

My dinner spewed out onto the sidewalk. I alternately coughed and gasped for breath. Finally I just lay there at Transomnia’s feet, dry heaving staring at my bloody, twisted hand.

Distantly I heard voices, running, shouting—and the savage barking of a dog.

“‘Oh, look, the cavalry!’” Transomnia mocked, pocketing the clippers, looking off in the distance. “But if I’d meant to maim you for life, you’d be lying there wearing a bloody pair of meat flippers now. And I can have you again, anytime I want, and nobody can stop me—not that dandy or his maid or her Queen of de Nile. You’re my bitch, anytime I want—bitch. And next time I will get creative. So never cross me again. Ever. Ev-er.”

I let out a low moan. But I nodded.

The barking dog was almost upon us now, but I never saw it arrive: the last things I remember were Transomnia casually kicking the side of my face, a spray of blood, and one of my teeth skittering out across the pavement.