Crimson Rush A Vampire Romance (Crimson Book 1) (9 page)

“What about her?” Marcus asked, a disinterested tone to his voice.

“I want you to leave her alone.”

Marcus smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That is going to be tricky. She works here.”

“I’m sure you don’t fuck everyone who works for you.” Luke’s reply was equally as sarcastic.

“No … but I do like to sample once in a while.” Marcus chuckled, apparently amused by Luke’s distress.

“Just don’t.”

Marcus pushed his long hair behind his shoulders and stood up, as if preparing to do battle. “You could ease your mind and simply give her to me.”

“No,” Luke said through clenched teeth.

“Why do you care? Marcus asked. “She’s just a woman.”

“I could ask you the same thing. Why do you want her, when you can have any woman?”

A strange light entered Marcus’s eyes and he bowed his head so that his face was hidden behind a curtain of golden hair. “That will be all,” he said, dismissing Luke.

Luke started to say something, but the scene blanked out. I found myself back in my shower. I was on my back with ice-cold water spraying down on me.

I felt disoriented. When I grasped the side of the tub to pull myself up, the room started spinning.

What the hell was that?

Had my beer been drugged?

I wasn’t sure if what I’d just experienced was real, or some kind of dream, but it had sure felt real enough.

Crawling from the tub, I dried myself off quickly and went straight for my bed.

I needed some sleep.

I wasn’t getting enough sleep. That had to be the problem.

As soon as my eyes closed, the dream started.

I was sitting on the porch swing with Max. He looked exactly the same as he had before getting sick. His dark, curly hair peeping out beneath the beanie hat he wore, even in hundred-degree weather. He had on old blue jeans, and his favorite Black Sabbath T-shirt.

“Max! I’ve missed you so much.”

I leaned over to give him a hug, but he held up a hand to stop me. “I’m not really here, Star.”

“What do you mean you’re not really here? I can see you just fine,” I told him.

“You know that I’m not really here.”

But it was so real. I could feel the summer breeze cooling my skin and hear the chirping of birds in the nearby tree. I could even feel the warmth of sunlight streaming onto the porch.

Panic swept over me. “Max are you dead?”

He shook his head. “No … not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is the only way I can talk to you Star… the only way you can hear me. I’ve tried talking to you when you’re awake, but you can’t hear me.”

“I still don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “What happened to you? Did the vampires do this to you?”

Max shook his head. “The Reapers did this.”

Frowning, I told him, “I know you’re into the whole dark - cryptic thing, but can’t you just cut it out this time, and tell me what you mean?”

“It was the Rush.” Max’s image began to fade.

“What are you talking about?”

“The vampires know,” he said, and then began to fade from my dream.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the sun coming in through my bedroom window. Glancing at my alarm clock, I saw that it was nearly noon. I never slept that late. Not even after a night out.

Rolling over, I snatched my phone from the night table and dialed Max’s number.

“Hello.” Mrs. Parker answered.

“How’s Max doing? Is he okay?” I asked, the anxiety in my voice made it tremble.

“He’s about the same as yesterday. What about you Star? Are you doing okay? Is something wrong?”

“No … I’m fine,” I told her.

“I’ll tell Max you called.”

“Thanks,” I said before ending the call.

Maybe it had just been a dream, and the shower incident a bizarre hallucination. I couldn’t imagine someone could go from being a somewhat normal person, to dealing with vampires and ghosts, without suffering some ill effects. After all, a girl could only take so much.

After brushing my teeth, I dressed in shorts and a yellow blouse. My hair was long, so it would probably hide the bite marks. Just incase, I decided to put it in a braid and let it hang to the side.

I was barely down the stairs when someone knocked at the front door. At least with it being day, I knew it wasn’t Luke. Not that I didn’t want to see him again, jut not yet. I needed some time to work through what happened between us, and what I’d experienced in the shower.

When I opened the door, Daya was standing there with a bag in her hand from Jose’s Rio Grande Grill.

“I brought us some breakfast burritos,” she said with a bright smile that revealed even brighter teeth.

Daya Berry was gorgeous. In school she’d been the girl everyone wanted to be, or date. Daya had big brown doe eyes that were deceptively innocent. Her wavy brown hair had natural red highlights that you’d pay big money to get from a salon.

I gave her a hug. “It feels like you’ve been gone a year.”

“Well it’s nice to be missed, but I’ve only been gone a couple of weeks,” she said over her shoulder, as she led the way to the kitchen.

Had it really only been a couple of weeks? So much had happened that it really did feel like a year.

“I love your dress,” I told her.

The knee length peach - colored sundress did justice to Daya’s perfect complexion.

“Thanks. Brian got it for me in Oklahoma City.”

Daya absolutely beamed when she spoke of Brian. He didn’t thrill me as much, though I was happy for her. She was obviously in love.

Brian Miller’s family was new in town. Well not real new. They’d lived in Cookson Springs for a couple of years, but by local standards, that was still new. Brian had latched on to Daya a few months ago, and hadn’t let go since. In fact, I was a little shocked he’d allowed her to come and visit without an escort.

“I didn’t see your car. How did you get here?” I asked, as I put a pot of coffee on to cook.

“Brian dropped me off. He and Chase went to get new tires on the truck. I didn’t want to go, so he dropped me here.”

Chase was Brian’s brother. Alone they were trouble enough, but you got the two of them together, and double trouble didn’t even describe it. For a while, the two of them were spending more weekends in jail, than out.

“Well I’m glad he did.” I offered her a smile, and sat at the kitchen table.

“How’s Max doing? “ she asked. “I haven’t had a chance to get over there yet.”

“The same.”

For the next few minutes we ate while she chattered about the concert she went to while in Oklahoma City, and visiting Brian’s relatives down in Norman. When the coffee was done, I poured us both a cup and went to get the milk out of the fridge. I changed my mind when I saw the expiration date.

I really needed to go to the grocery store. Not only was my milk expired, but I was basically subsisting off what others brought me from fast food joints.

“Did you hear about Johnny and Jaycee?” I asked, before taking a small drink of my coffee.

Daya nodded. “It was on the news. I was worried about you. That’s why we came back a little early. I just can’t believe it. Do they know who did it yet?”

I wrestled with the idea of telling Daya the real version of what happened, but thought I’d better test the waters first, just to see how much she was willing to believe.

“I don’t think they have any suspects yet,” I told her, and left it at that.

“I take off for a couple of weeks and the whole town goes to hell. What else did I miss while I was gone?”

She was giving me an opening. A couple of months ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated at all. I would have told Daya anything, but now I wasn’t so sure. I knew she’d started smoking weed with Brian, and that really wasn’t Daya’s thing. There was no telling how much of the old Daya was still around.

“Daya … you know how your grandma talks about weird things … like Big Foot and all?”

“Yeah … why?” she eyed me suspiciously.

“Well do you believe in that kind of stuff?” I asked.

She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know … maybe. There are probably weirder things out there.”

“Well there is.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Vampires.” I put on a smile to lessen the blow.

Daya’s eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding! How do you know this? Have you met one?”

I nodded. “Sure have. But it’s kind of a secret, so you can’t tell anyone. And you have to promise.”

“Oh hell! And I thought Brian was screwing with me when he told me there were really vampires.”

“He knows about them?” I was astonished.

“He says he does. Brian told me that those things were just crawling all over places like New Orleans … and they even had some in Norman and Oklahoma City. Man … and to think that all this time I just thought he was being crazy.”

Brian knowing so much about vampires worried me a little. I wondered if he was one of those vamp lovers who would hang out at the club in the hopes of getting lucky with a hungry - horny vampire. It would be a shame if he hurt Daya that way.

We spent the next half hour discussing my vampire exploits, minus the intimate details with Luke. I wasn’t quite ready to tell her about that, though I still swore Daya to secrecy, even from Brian.

We’d just finished our second cup of coffee when we heard a horn blasting outside the house.

“Brian’s here,” Daya jumped up. “Come out and say hello.”

“Okay, I agreed, in spite of the fact that I didn’t really want to. Brian was in the habit of trying to pinch my backside whenever he thought Daya wasn’t looking. I knew I should tell her, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. It really made me feel like a lowlife bitch to keep something like that from one of my best friends, but she just seemed so happy. I didn’t want to be the one to ruin it.

Brian’s black truck looked great, but sounded like crap. It either needed a tune up, or an entire muffler system. Brian was the type to spend more time worrying about how something looked, instead of how it worked. In fact, he treated the truck better than he did Daya, in my opinion anyway.

Brian killed the engine. “Hey Star,” he said from the driver’s seat.

“My hell Brian! Y’all are determined to wake the dead with this old racket maker. I hear Uncle Basile’s running a special on tune-ups,” I told him, teasing Brian about his piece of junk truck, which I did often.

I admit I’m not perfect. Just like everyone else, I have my dark moments. Some people just had a tendency to bring the bitch out in me more often than others.

Brian threw me a dirty look. “I wouldn’t trust that old man with my grandma’s bicycle. He might hex it or something.”

I smiled coldly. “That could be interesting. Never know … he might come across this old horse of yours at Westland’s one of these days.”

Uncle Basile was known around town as the Voodoo Man. Most people didn’t pay any mind to it, unless something odd happened. Then you would see folks who normally didn’t give a second thought to voodoo nonsense, checking for any signs of black magic around their homes and cars.

Chase jumped out of the passenger side of the truck so Daya could get in. “Would you two stop squabbling? You sound like a couple of old bitches that aint been laid in years.”

Chase was a lot like his older brother, only not quite as much of a jerk. I reckoned if he spent too much time around Brian, it wouldn’t take him long to sink to the same level.

Before climbing into the truck, Daya turned back to me. “What about the Cookson Moon Festival? Are you going?” she asked.

“Probably. You know Dusty is gonna drag me there … kicking and screaming if he has to. He thinks I need to socialize more, so I can pick me up a husband.”

“You better save all that hexing for getting you a man Star,” Brian smirked. “As bitchy as you are … you’re gonna need it.”

“I’m cool with that. At least I won’t be picking up dirty socks and competing with a pile of rusty metal,” I flung my own insult at him.

Daya’s face contorted into a disapproving scowl. She hated these sparring sessions between Brian and me. “Why don’t you go with us?” she asked me.

I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her that I’d prefer to sit home with a tub of ice cream and watch black and white movies, as apposed to spending the evening around Brian, so I just said, “I’m sure I’ll meet up with y’all while I’m there.”

That seemed to satisfy her. She got in the truck and waved. I waved back as Brian was backing out of the driveway.

If I could hex someone, it would for sure be Brian Miller. Maybe I was being selfish, but I would have loved nothing more than to see that jerk disappear from Daya’s life, as long as she didn’t get hurt in the process.

Housework has never been one of my favorite pastimes, but today I forced myself to do it. Now that I was no longer working at Westland’s, I didn’t have much of an excuse for not getting it done.

I hurried through the process as quickly as I could, at least as fast as I could without the place looking as if a five year old had done the housekeeping.

Although Marcus hadn’t given me any specific instructions for the day, I planned to drop in on him after dark. In my dream, Max had said I should ask the vampires, so that’s exactly what I intended to do. I would have preferred to ask Luke, but I still didn’t have a way of getting in touch with him. Marcus was the next best option. This time I would insist on answers.

But Marcus wasn’t the only one I needed to see. I also had a few questions for Uncle Basile.