Blood of Gold (16 page)

She left the room and started back toward the den. As she passed a second door, she heard a faint scuffling coming from the room behind it. If she hadn’t been vampire, she probably wouldn’t have noticed it.

She opened the door. It was completely dark, but she could see clearly. A girl of about seventeen was on the bed, naked. She was spread-eagled, her hands and feet tied to the bedposts, and she was gagged. Her eyes met Patty’s, and they recognized each other as vampires. The look in the girl’s eyes wasn’t fear: it was a cold, calculating anger.

Overwhelming rage washed over Patty. These boys were doing to this girl what the Monster had done to her. She raised her finger to her lips and the girl nodded. Patty closed the door and tiptoed back toward the den.

“Damn, man, your parents are really starting to stink, Kerry,” one of the boys said. He was small, with long, floppy black hair and a narrow face. His chest seemed to hunch in on itself, as if he didn’t have any shoulders.

The boy in the middle scrunched up his face. He was opposite in appearance to the first speaker, tall and broad and blond. “We got to wait, Sam. Make sure it looks like vampires did it.”

“It’s not like there’s going to be any doubt. How are you going to explain not reporting it sooner?” the third boy said. He was a good-looking kid with a well-manicured appearance. Even his T-shirt seemed to be free of wrinkles; his tennis shoes were bright white.

“We were out of town, you know? Camping? That work for you, Dennis?”

“That might work. I haven’t been home for days.”

“I called Dad,” Sam said. “But I didn’t tell him where I was.”

“Besides, all you have to do is show the cops your sister,” Dennis said. “After we kill her, of course. I kind of hate to do it, you know. I never thought I’d say it, Kerry, but your little sister turned out to be pretty hot.”

“Yeah, I’d like one more go at Kate,” Sam said, “before we turn her in for the bounty.”

Kerry kept playing his video game, barely paying attention to his friends. “Sure. Whatever. Have at it.”

Dennis and Sam got up, and Kerry turned his head slightly. “But I warn you, I’m turning her in to the cops today, ‘cause I want to get some brew.”

His friends’ faces lit up with anticipation.

“You go first,” Dennis told Sam. “I’m going to see if I can find any more liquor bottles hidden away in the kitchen. Kerry’s mom was pretty good at concealing them, but I know how drunks think.”

“You just like sloppy seconds!” Sam taunted, and started walking toward the hallway.

Patty retreated into the shadows and stood still. The boy walked right by her. She waited until he was past, then grabbed his head and twisted it as hard as she could. There was a grinding snap, and Sam went limp. Patty lowered the kid to the floor, then had second thoughts and picked him up and carried him to the parents’ bedroom, where she deposited him on the carpet.

Dennis came along about five minutes later, probably figuring his friend was done by then. This time, Patty hid behind the master bedroom door and waited until the boy actually entered Kate’s bedroom. She followed silently and came up behind him as Kate’s eyes grew wide. She bit into the boy’s throat, making sure she tore out the vocal cords, then dropped him onto the floor and put her foot on his neck until he stopped struggling.

Patty went over the girl’s bed, took out her gag and started untying the ropes. She fumbled with the knots and finally leaned down and severed them with her fangs.

“What do you want me to do to your brother?” she asked.

“Kerry’s only my half brother,” Kate clarified. “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to take care of him myself.”

“I thought you might,” Patty said.

As soon as Kate left the room, she turned to the boy on the floor. He was still alive, barely, as Patty started eating him. In the background, she heard the full-throated screams of a young man, which were abruptly cut off.

I think my dream house is now mine
, she thought.
That is,
if Kate doesn’t mind sharing.

Chapter 15

They were alone together. That fact was pretty hard to ignore. Rod was still waiting for Simone to make the first move, if she ever did. She was beginning to seek him out as soon as they woke up, staying at his side until they went to bed in separate rooms. He was pretty sure she liked him. Rod had upended his hours for her, staying awake during what he thought of as “vampire time,” sleeping during “human time.” He didn’t mind. He just wanted to be with her.

Patty had left more than a day ago, and there was still no word from her. Dusk was approaching, and they had just gotten up when they heard an insistent knock on the door. They looked at each other. “What do we do?” Simone asked.

“We answer the door.”

“But what if it’s the cops?

Rod didn’t have an answer for that. He knew he’d try to talk his way out of whatever situation they found themselves in, but he wasn’t sure what her reaction would be. He’d already seen that a vampire’s response to danger was more antagonistic, less predictable than a human’s. He was lucky to have survived his initial encounter with the girls. He was certain that Simone was trying hard to control her aggression, but he wasn’t so sure about Laura and Patty.

The man at the door was either a well-preserved ninety-year-old or a badly preserved seventy-year-old; Rod couldn’t tell. Smelling the alcohol on the man’s breath, he suspected the latter. He was overweight and sloppy-looking in dungarees and a dirty linen shirt, and had a full white beard and long hair.

“Who are you?” the man demanded without so much as a greeting.

“What?”

“I said who the
hell
are you?” the man shouted as if he thought Rod might be deaf.

Rod smiled uncertainly and put out his hand. “My name’s Rod Parker.”

“You know what? I changed my mind. I don’t give a damn
who
you are, what I want to know is
what
the hell are you doing here?”

“Yeah? Well, who are
you
?” Rod demanded in an equally strident voice.

“Name’s Lee Awbrey. Mean anything to you?”

“Should it?” Rod answered. He’d decided to answer belligerence with belligerence. In response, the man was already lowering his voice.

“Seeing as how my nephew Stephen Awbrey owns this house, it ought to. He asked me to look after this place, and he hasn’t told me any different.”

Actually, now that he thought about it, Rod had heard the name Awbrey. The street they were on was Awbrey Lane. When he’d gone around to the neighbors to introduce himself and try to buy livestock, more than one of them had said not to bother with the guy at the end of the street, that he’d just slam the door in his face. “Lee Awbrey thinks he owns this street because it all used to belong to his family,” one of them had said. “It’s nobody’s fault but his own that he sold everything to buy more booze.”

Rod had taken their advice and had never gone to the house in the overgrown lot at the dead end of Awbrey Lane.

“Oh, Stephen!” Rod said, as if he’d just remembered the name. “He’s the guy renting this place to us.”

Lee Awbrey had calmed down a little, and now looked slightly puzzled.

“Who is it, dear?” Rod heard a voice call from the other room. Simone came around the corner, and Rod saw her as Awbrey must have seen her: tall and sleek, with shining black hair and dark eyes, looking like an exotic flower in the dirt and grime of the countryside. She walked up beside him and took his arm, as if they were a long-established couple. Rod really liked the sensation. It was easy for him to imagine it was true, that they were a comfortable couple who could read each other, who could finish each other’s sentences.

“This is our neighbor, Lee Awbrey. He’s the uncle of the fellow who rented this place to us,” Rod explained.

“Nice to meet you, sir,” she said sweetly.

“Like hell!” Awbrey was flaring up again. “He’d have told me.”

Simone’s voice hardened. “I don’t see what business it is of yours, mister.”

At the tone of her voice, Awbrey seemed to go a little crazy. “It is my business, you little bitch!” he shouted. “As soon as I can get ahold of Stephen, I’m coming back. And next time I’m bringing my shotgun!”

“Hey, hey, no need to call her names,” Rod was saying when Awbrey surged toward him, all two hundred fifty pounds of him, and pushed Rod against the door. Rod heard a hiss, and saw out of the corner of his eye that Simone had extended her fangs and claws, then quickly retracted them.

The big man let go of him abruptly. “I… uh, I’m sorry,” he said to Rod. His eyes flicked toward Simone in fear. He couldn’t have seen her split-second transformation, but he must have sensed something.

Awbrey backed away. “I’ll get ahold of Stephen and see if we can’t clear all this up,” he mumbled, then turned and hurried off.

“Do you think he saw?” Simone asked.

“I don’t think so,” Rod said. “But I think humans have a sense of when something supernatural is happening.”

“I’m sorry. I think I made things worse. I saw how, when you confronted him, he seemed to back down, so I tried the same thing.”

“Yeah, but the difference is, you’re a woman. I don’t think this guy likes women.”

They went back to the kitchen and sat down at the table. They sat in silence for a few moments, then Simone reached out and took Rod’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “For everything. I never should have dragged you into this. You should get out of here while you can.”

He squeezed her hand. Her expression made him wonder. She didn’t look like she really wanted him to go, he realized. She looked like she wanted him to…

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She grabbed his neck and kept him there, pressing her mouth more tightly to his. Rod didn’t know how long they spent awkwardly bent toward each other, kissing; it seemed like hours, but when it was over, it seemed like only a moment had gone by.

Simone smiled. “I’m glad we finally did that.”

“Me to,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been wanting to.”

“I know, Rod. Thanks for waiting until I was ready.”

There was nothing to do after that but to stand and hug, and the hug turned into another kiss. Rod was holding Simone so tightly that he was lifting her an inch off the ground. Realizing this, he started shuffling toward the bedroom, his lips still locked on hers. She started to guffaw into his mouth, and he began laughing too, their lips still locked together as they trembled with laughter.

He stumbled to the bedroom and fell backward on the bed with Simone on top of him. They stopped laughing then and looked deep into each other’s eyes. To Rod, it was if they were one set of eyes, their souls mirroring each other.

We really should get out of here,
he thought.
We don’t have time for this
.

But when she pulled at his shirt, he let her draw it over his head. Then it was his turn to take off her shirt. They fondled each other for a while, bare skin to bare skin, then broke apart and eagerly scrambled out of the rest of their clothing.

The bed was old and it creaked, and they started laughing again, at the absurd rhythm of the squeaks, but they didn’t stop.

#

“What do we do now?” Simone asked after a long silence in the afterglow of their love.

“I think we’ll have to leave,” Rod said. “As soon as we can.”

There was, of course, another solution. They were both thinking it. Rod was proud of her for not mentioning the option of tracking down Lee Awbrey and silencing him. Rod could never have followed through with that, but he didn’t know about Simone. He loved her with all his heart, but she was a vampire, and though he felt safe with her, he couldn’t be completely sure how she might react to anyone else.

“What about Patty and Laura?” she asked. “What if they come back?”

“We can try to leave a note. Somewhere only they could find it.”

Again they fell silent, both of them racking their brains trying to figure out a solution.

“All right,” Simone said finally. “I think you’re right. We have to leave. But where do we go?”

“We’ll go to my house,” Rod said. “We’ll be left alone there. I hardly know my neighbors.”

Simone got up and started putting on her clothes. Rod watched her, still not believing his luck in finding such a beautiful girl. She glanced back at him shyly. “I’ll get ready. We can leave tonight.”

He nodded reluctantly, then followed her example and started dressing.

#

The knock at the door came before they were ready to leave. Simone wanted at least a couple of hours of darkness to escape in, but they were still scrambling around for a place in the shadows where they could leave a note. They had just decided on the closet, which they knew Laura would check if the two girls returned together. At the sound of insistent knocking, they exchanged glances and, without a word, moved quickly and quietly toward the back door. Rod opened it, and they headed for the stand of trees. A voice out of nowhere spoke directly into his ear. “Hey, don’t leave yet.”

They whirled around. A young man––or rather, a vampire who looked like a young man––was standing only a few feet away. Simone snarled, which made the stranger jump back. “I’m not here to fight,” he said, stepping out of the darkness of the trees. He was kind of nerdy-looking, with dark, shaggy hair and heavy black-rimmed glasses. “No need for violence!” he said. “We’re on your side!”

From the direction of the house, a second vampire emerged. Even in the darkness, Rod could make out her features. She was tall, with long, wavy blonde hair, and pale skin and eyes. She looked grim, and when she tried to put on a reassuring smile, it was anything but. “Terrill sent us,” she said.

“Terrill?” Simone looked puzzled, but Rod quickly broke in.

“Thank God you came!” he said with relief.

“Don’t thank God,” the male vampire said. “Thank Terrill.”

The tall female vampire rolled her eyes. “Yeah, thank Terrill, who had to be convinced by me that we needed to investigate. Could you give it a rest, Marc? Terrill isn’t some revered being, he’s just like us.”