B007XKEWAE EBOK (26 page)

Gabriella knew from long experience that there was no need for her to take an active part in hunts like this. All she had to do was wait and eventually her meals would come and seek her out.

It took only a couple of minutes after she entered for the first candidate to approach her. He was quite old compared to the age Gabriella appeared to be, though she was actually a great many years his senior, he looked to be in his early forties. Gabriella generally preferred them to be somewhat younger but clubs had restrictions that prevented some of her favourite foods being able to enter. The only reason she had been allowed in herself, in spite of her youthful appearance, was because of the sum of money Francesca had passed off to the doorman.

The man who approached her wore his long, slightly faded hair pulled back in a ponytail. He wore tight black jeans with studs running up the sides of the legs, a dark T-shirt and a leather jacket with more studs. He eyed Gabriella unashamedly, anyone who dressed as she did was asking to be checked out.

He took his time bringing his eyes back up to her face but when he did he offered her a smile. Gabriella half closed her own eyes and averted her gaze just slightly giving him a shy smile in return that didn't quite correspond to the personality her outfit advertised.

The music was too loud to allow for any proper exchange of words between them but when he asked her to dance with him his intention was plain enough.
She displayed her acquiescence by sidling close to him.

She danced in front of him with her back to him, she looked back and up at him over her shoulder as she ground her behind against him. He reached around her and let his large hands explore.

Fulton let the young woman's body fall to the street. Whatever she had expected when she agreed to come out around the side of the club he doubted it had been that. He casually wiped her blood away from his face onto the inside of his jacket before it could start to dry and become sticky. He kicked her body closer to the wall beside some old crates and left her there.

That old remorse he used to feel, that what he did was somehow wrong,
had faded into the background since he realised that there was nothing wrong in what he did. It was natural behaviour for his kind and he couldn't keep his mind set that of the human he had been. He had to revaluate his belief system in response to the change in his circumstances. But the feeling hadn't left him completely. A certain amount of regret at having to take an innocent life remained with him like an afterimage of what he had once felt.

Fulton was nearing the end of the alley by the side of the club when he heard breathless voices. In a heartbeat he had hidden himself in the shadows.

A single sniff of the scents carried to him on the air told him there was no need to remain hidden. Gabriella led her victim a short distance down the alley. They
stopped a few meters from where Fulton remained watching, just far enough inside the alley that Gabriella could conduct her business in private.

The young-looking vampire, who must have been a few years younger when she was turned than Fulton himself had been when Francesca turned him, let the much older looking man she had brought with her push her up against the outside wall of the club. The human sandwiched Gabriella between himself and the brickwork and his body blocked the vampire from Fulton's sight.

Leather creaked and groaned. Fulton heard the distinctive rip-like sound of zips being undone. The breathing grew heavier. The human hoisted Gabriella up and Fulton could see her head above the human's shoulder. He didn't particularly
want to keep watching but he could not look away.

The human lifted her up into a more accessible position for him and got on with what he had come out here for. Gabriella let him get on with it she had some residual tension to relieve and while this wasn't how she preferred to do it, it would do.

The human was breathing heavily and Gabriella played along as though she was enjoying it as much as he was. That was when she caught the smell of fresh blood that permeated the alley. It took only a moment's concentration to identify the scent of the vampire who had spilled the blood.

And he was still close by.

Gabriella had had her eyes closed as though in pleasure, now she opened them to slits. Her vampire eyes had no trouble locating Fulton where he lurked in the shadows. Watching her.

If he wanted a show she would give him one. She clung to her victim with her bare legs wrapped around his waist and used her arms to undo her small leather top. She cast the garment down to her other clothes. The human immediately bent his head down and forwards to have his own fun.

She placed her hands on his exposed neck that showed above his jacket. She slid her hands down his shoulders and onto his arms, pushing the jacket down along with them. The human hefted her first with one arm and then the other as he let her push it off him. She
trailed her hands back up the length of his wiry arms. Goose-pimples erupted under her fingertips.

The human's movements grew increasingly urgent and his breath came in ragged gasps. She clamped her legs more tightly around him and squeezed the air out of his lungs. The human struggled to get a breath and looked at her with his face going pale. Gabriella maintained her hold until she saw unconsciousness sweeping into his eyes.

The man lay gasping on the cold concrete of the alley floor, gulping for air like a fish out of water. She paid her victim no attention as she adjusted her clothes. Like all vampires she had urges it was better to indulge whether she cared for the act or not. Personally Gabriella much preferred to let
Francesca take care of those details but since that bastard Fulton had taken up with them Francesca had been splitting her time between the two of them. It wasn't like it was when Xavier had been with them. Gabriella wasn't so naive as to believe that Francesca had never had Xavier when she wasn't with her, and she had taken part enough times when he was there but this was different. This time Francesca was spending almost as much time being intimate with Fulton as she was with Gabriella. Gabriella didn't mind that Francesca kept Fulton out of the way whenever the two women were together but it worked both ways and Gabriella was excluded whenever Francesca chose to be with Fulton.

Why couldn't he just have pissed off? Then things could have gone back to
how they were before. Before the nest, before Xavier, back to when it was just the two of them and that was enough for both of them.

The human coughed as his breath came back to him. Gabriella remembered that she was supposed to be putting on a show to tease Francesca's new plaything. With a final tug to put her clothes in place she turned back to look down on her victim. He had managed to pull himself up into a sitting position with his back propped up against the wall of the club. His clothes were still in disarray and he was still exposed, although everything appeared to be feeling the effects of the cold air.

She took carefully measured steps towards him as he struggled to fully
recover. Oh that it were Fulton there instead.

She had closed right up to him before the human even noticed she was still there. He craned his neck to turn his face to look up at her. He sucked in a breath as though to have air in order to speak but Gabriella raised a finger to her lips.

"You'll need that to scream."

Gabriella raised her foot to take another step and she brought it down hard on the most delicate of his exposed parts. As she had predicted he did scream.

Fulton had crawled a short way out of his hiding place to get a better look at what Gabriella was doing. The young vampire, Fulton couldn't help thinking of
her that way even though other than Francesca she was the oldest being he had ever met, had moved back towards her victim. Fulton heard her say something about screaming and then she stomped her foot down on his nether regions. There was a squelch and her victim screamed so loud it could surely be heard even over the din inside the club. Fulton ached in sympathy for the poor man and felt happy for him when the pain forced him into unconsciousness.

He watched Gabriella hoist the man up by his hair leaving a pink stain of blood and pulped flesh on the concrete. Blood continued to flow out through the mangled mess, the smell of it was intoxicating but the sympathetic thoughts
he felt for the human's pain kept the change from coming over him.

Gabriella held her victim up in one hand and used her other to turn him around so she could feed from his neck.

Watching the warm fluid spill from her lips and run down her body, the smell of it so strong he could almost taste it himself, Fulton felt all sympathy leave him. His jaw shifted to accommodate the new length of his teeth, his nose was pulled back and his brow angled to meet it. The slight pain of the change only made him more eager for another kill of his own.

Colin Hawke sat at the desk in the corner of the dining room and tapped at the keyboard. His wife, Katy, hovered over his shoulder like a nervous mother hen waiting for a fox. The twins were long since gone to bed. Colin glanced at the clock in the bottom left corner of the computer monitor and pinched the bridge of his nose rubbing his tired eyes. Katy halted her anxious movements and tried to look closer at the screen.

"You're finished?"

"Almost," Colin answered, his tiredness took away some of his self-control and he couldn't keep all the frustration out of his voice. He returned to his typing and his wife resumed her pacing.

"I know it was him. I
know
it." She clutched a raggedy old stuffed bear by it's neck tight to her chest.

"The police said they hadn't had any more recent sightings," he answered without stopping typing, the keys clacked quietly when he punched them. "They have no reason to suspect he's anywhere near here."

"They have me. I saw him."

"Even so they can't devote resources into looking for a runaway who's been gone over five years."

"That's why we have to do this," Katy said bringing the bear up to her face and holding it even tighter. "We need to get the public to notice him. We need to let Fulton know we miss him and that  it's all right to come home. He could be out there somewhere afraid to come back
because he thinks that we'll be angry or that we've forgotten about him. After we take this to the newspapers we can get in touch with one of those programs on T.V. that do those spots on runaways."

Colin moved the mouse and clicked the save and print icons, as the paper was drawn into the printer he swivelled his chair around to look at his wife. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her skin was drawn taut.

"We tried all this when he first disappeared and it didn't help then," he said.

"Perhaps he didn't see them the first time. Or maybe he wasn't ready to come home then but he is now. Why else would he come to the house?"

"Maybe he didn't."

"I saw him. It was Fulton, he hasn't changed since the last time we saw him."

Through her speech Katy's stance had become more rigid, both defensive and challenging. She placed the bear on the dark wood of the dining table.

"You act like you don't want to find him. Like you don't care if he ever comes back."

Colin stood. "How can you say that? I want him back as much as you do. It's just . . . There have been wild goose chases before. It takes a lot out of you when you invest your hopes in getting Fulton back and they are dashed time and again. I just don't want you to get your hopes up  like that again only to be hurt."

He walked towards his wife and took her up in an embrace. Trying to take some of her pain away by his touch.

"This time it will be different," she whispered. "This time our son will be coming home."

Fulton finished attaching the cable to the junction box in the basement and closed the green metal door. This was the fourth power tap he had run from the neighbouring houses. With the extra power supply being drawn from multiple sources it was less likely the neighbours would get suspicious when their electricity bills arrived.

He made his way back up the stairs and emerged into the kitchen. The
curtains had been drawn over every window in the house to keep the daylight out. Fulton left the kitchen paced through the dining room, although it hadn't been used for dining since they took the house over as they preferred to eat out, and on into the living room.

Francesca was upstairs with Gabriella and he could hear them in Gabriella's room above the dining hall. Since he had decided to stay with them Francesca had divided her days between the two of them. Fulton got the impression that Gabriella was getting jealous of all the time he and Francesca were together. Before although Francesca had had other partners as well as Gabriella they spent more time together than apart. Gabriella was
unused to sharing her lover with another partner on an even footing.

Another difference he picked up on between those times, and one that Gabriella evidently approved of, was that Francesca's two lovers were mutually exclusive. He gathered that before when Francesca had used the vampire Xavier for her male requirements there had been many occasions  where the three of them had taken part together.