Wicked as They Come Read Online Free PDF

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    “How have you never heard of vampires? It’s like we’re speaking two different languages,” I said, bemused to see him finally acting anything less than smug.
    “You’re smart,” he said. “And you heard him call me Bludman. Surely you understand.”
    “Fine. You’re a man. But there’s something different about you.”
    “You’re starting to piece it together, love,” he said. “This is a different world from yours, which means that there are different rules. Your world must be a soft one. Nearly everything here runs on blood. That’s why it’s called Sang, I think.”
    “The world is called Sang, or this country is called Sang?”
    “The everything is called Sang. We’re now on an island called Sangland, approaching the city of Manchester. There are villages and cities, mayors and Coppers, Pinkies and Bludmen, but the name of it all is Sang.”
    “Sang,” I mused to myself. “In the past tense. I like that. But what’s a Pinky?”
    “You’re a Pinky, darling,” he said with a fond smile. “You eat plants and animals and drink water, and your blood is all meaty and hot and fragrant, bringing pink to your cheeks. The cities are full of your kind, of all different colors and sorts. But they all taste about the same.”
    “You eat people?” I said with an involuntary shiver.
    “Eat people? Chew them up, like a cannibal?” He laughed, another crystal-clear sound ringing through the silence. “Never. Just drink of them. And not directly, not anymore. From vials, mostly.”
    “So that’s what a Bludman is?” I asked, pronouncing it as he had, like “blood-mun.”
    “I am,” he said with a bow of the head. “My kind can be born or made, and I’m born.”
    “Are you dead?” I asked. I had to know.
    “Do I look dead?” He chuckled. “Honestly, where did you hear such tales? I’m alive; my body just works differently from yours. I’m a predator, see. And you’re the prey.”
    “What about that rabbit?” I asked. “Are you saying that’s a vampire bunny?”
    He followed my pointing finger to the offending creature and held out his finger to it. This one was an albino with bright blue eyes, and in my world, it wouldn’t have lasted five minutes before a hawk or a fox scooped it up. Here, it was bold as brass. The rabbit sniffed him and hissed, then hopped away in a sulk.
    “That was a bludbunny,” he said. “And they start out sucking blood, then eating flesh, then cracking bones until they’re round as balls. There are no real rabbits left, munching on carrots and flowers. But there are bludrats and bluddeer and bludhogs. Pretty much all of the wild animals are blood drinkers, outside of the old-fashioned predators—wolves and the like. They keep the eating animals, the cattle and chickens and pigs and such, contained inside the cities. To keep them pure. And in one piece.”
    “Oh,” I said. I suddenly felt like a bit of watermelon at a picnic, with untold armies of ants marching in, unstoppable and overwhelming.
    “You don’t feel safe anymore, do you?” he asked. “Don’t worry. Nothing can harm you so long as you’re with me.”
    “But what happens when I leave you?” I asked him. “You can’t spend all your time following me around and strangling rabbits.”
    He laughed and pulled at the grass. “Don’t tempt me, woman,” he said.
    I watched him playing with the long blades of grass, weaving them into patterns as he hummed an unfamiliar song, a waltz.
    “What are you doing?” I asked him.
    “I’m letting you get used to the idea of me,” he said idly. “I’m pretending to be harmless. Is it working?”
    “Until you smile,” I said weakly, and he smiled again, his face radiant.
    “Can’t help that, love,” he said. “Not around you.”
    “You sound like a lovesick puppy,” I chided. “Or is it a lovesick bludpuppy?”
    That garnered a laugh, and I felt as if I’d won a prize.
    “Lovesick bludpuppy,” he said. “Oh, I like