The Vampire's Betrayal (12 page)

The framing on the multistory building was almost complete, making it look like a monstrous skeleton lying bleached and motionless in the moonlight. I made my way down the basement steps to the spot where Eleanor had erected her voodoo altars in the old house. As I hung my head and remembered my lover’s horrible suffering in the underworld, I felt my old familiar death wish rear its head. I deserved to be in hell right along with Eleanor even if it meant being tortured for all eternity with some foul punishment fashioned just for me. If I had only left her alone, or at least refused her pleas to be made a blood drinker, she would be alive and well and mistress of this house right now.

I spied a pile of scrap lumber and sawdust that some worker had piled up in a corner and seized a three-foot-long piece of two-by-four. It made a satisfactory splintering sound as I broke it over my knee, wood shards flying. One of the fragments had come away with a sharp point, producing the pleasant fragrance of timber. As I tested the weight of it, switching it from hand to hand, I heard footsteps on the new subfloor above me.

“What on earth are you doing down there?” Ginger asked as she made her way down the steps in four-inch spike heels—not an easy task even in the daylight, but she did it with grace by the light only of a nearby streetlamp. I noticed, not for the first time, how shapely her legs were and couldn’t help but imagine them wrapped around me.

“Just…thinking,” I said. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep after seeing you tonight. I missed you so much while you were away.”

Ginger’s behavior toward me this evening was totally uncharacteristic, but the change wasn’t surprising. She was no fool, and when she heard that Eleanor wasn’t coming back, she evidently decided to waste no time making her move on the richest man in Savannah. What was a whore if not opportunistic?

“That’s kind of you to say,” I stated, tossing the wood back onto the pile. She was near enough to me now that I could smell her perfume as well as the sweet, heady odor of her humanity. “So you decided to take a walk, did you?”

“Yes, and I’m glad that I did, because now I get to see you again. Alone.” She stepped closer to me and put her small palms against my chest. I wondered if she noticed I had no heartbeat. Her own heartbeat called out to me like a siren song. “This is very naughty of me, but I’m glad that Eleanor’s not coming back,” she said.

I captured her hands with my own, squeezed them gently, then brought them to my lips, first one, then the other. “Oh? And why is that?”

“Because I can seduce you,” she whispered. I released her hands so she could put her arms around my neck and press herself against me. I was quickly aroused by the feel of her firm, round breasts rubbing my chest. Now, here was something to live for, at least a little while longer.

The chivalrous thing to do would be to take the young woman to a proper place for our very first encounter—the nearby Hyatt perhaps, or at least back to my home. But I wasn’t feeling particularly chivalrous this evening. “Let’s get on with that, then,” I said.

My hands roamed down her body, pausing briefly to squeeze her breasts, then her buttocks, and on to the hem of her black leather miniskirt. I reached underneath it and up to that magical place at the apex of her thighs. My fingertips found a fine barrier of silk and teased their way across it, eliciting a moan of pleasure from the lady. I covered her painted lips with my own, kissed her deeply, and pulled her more tightly against me. I blazed a trail of kisses down her neck while fingering aside the strip of fabric between her legs.

She was dewy with need and shuddered when I penetrated her, stroking the sensitive forward wall of her passage with one finger. What was it the moderns called that magical area? Ah, yes, the G spot. When I touched the swollen bud of her clit with my thumb, her body shuddered with release. I carried her to a makeshift table made up of planks suspended side-by-side between two sawhorses. A circular saw had been set up at one end.

I ripped off her panties and set her bare bottom on the edge of the table. Glancing at the saw, she said, “You’re not going to saw me in half like a magician, are you?”

I laughed hoarsely. “I’m not that kind of magician,” I said. “Besides, I want you in one piece.”

I let go of her long enough to unfasten my pants and free my erection. Meanwhile she threw off her sweater, revealing a lacy bra, and shivered briefly in the winter chill. I saw her squint in the darkness to see me better, but I was blocking her light. She reached out for me and wrapped both hands around my cock.

“Oh. My. God,” she said breathlessly and, I thought, a little fearfully. Not an uncommon reaction to my size, even for an experienced whore. She began to stroke me and gasped when I dug my fingers under the brassiere and ripped it off.

“I’ll buy you another,” I said, pausing to admire the way her nipples rose. I circled them with my thumbs while cupping her breasts. Her skin was the color of ivory, so pale she looked almost like one of my kind.

I slid my hands underneath her bottom and leaned into her body, penetrating her only a little at first. I enjoyed the sound of her feminine sigh and savored the feel of her slick, welcoming heat. Then, in one long, hard stroke I rammed my cock fully into her. The invasion caused her body to stiffen at first, but when I began to work in and out of her, she clung to me like a woman drowning and matched me stroke for stroke. There was something in her movements that reminded me of Eleanor. Perhaps the madam had taught her protégée some of her techniques.

I bent my head to her breasts to suckle there, pulling on her rosy, taut nipples and laving them over and over with my tongue, allowing the serrated inner edge of my fangs to graze them ever so lightly.

The temptation to bite was strong enough to make me quake. Perhaps if I only took a little blood, she would just assume it was one of my individual kinks. She must have regular patrons whose peccadilloes were stranger than that. On the other hand, I didn’t want to frighten her away. She might prove to be a satisfying regular plaything. There was time to initiate her into the life of the swan later, if she was amenable. With effort, I sheathed my fangs.

She began to whimper when I changed our rhythm, speeding my strokes until I could feel the crescendo building toward our mutual release. She moaned and arched against me when she came, and my own climax convulsed me to my core. We clung writhing together, wringing every last spasm of satisfaction out of each other.

When I’d separated from her and clothed myself, I gathered the shredded bits of her underwear while she put on her sweater. She let me help her down from the table and onto her feet. I steadied her when she swayed a bit, and then led her by the hand back up the basement steps.

“Well,” she said tentatively. “That was—was amazing. If I’d known seducing you would be this much fun, I would have done it a long time ago.”

“Indeed,” I said. “We must do it again soon. Very soon.” I kissed her hand and led her to my automobile to drive her to her apartment.

One night. One reason not to stake myself, for now.

Jack

I stood outside Connie’s apartment building and looked up at her window, feeling like Romeo staring up at Juliet’s balcony, and just as doomed. Star-crossed lovers, they’d called them, and they both had wound up dead. So much for happy endings.

At least Romeo hadn’t had to kill Juliet, but himself. If only that were one of my options.

If I couldn’t bring myself to kill Connie, William would do it. I was starting to understand William’s death wish. He’d spared me from the worst of what it meant to be a vampire for as long as he could. Coming-of-age was a bitch.

I had to save Connie from both of us—all of us. But how? I’d bought myself some time with William by promising to keep an eye on her while Melaphia figured something out. But what if Mel’s research turned up a goose egg? We’d be back to square one. Even if I could talk Connie into running away with me, where would we run?

As a last resort, I supposed I could tell her the truth. What would happen then? I tried to imagine how a conversation like that would go:
Listen, babe, I just found out the damnedest thing. You know how I’m an evil, bloodsucking vampire and all? Okay, well, here’s the funny part.
You,
are a vampire
slayer.
And you were put here on earth to kill me and my kind. Now, is that ironic or what?

My cell phone rang and I unclipped it from my belt and noticed that the charge was almost gone again. I had to get a new battery.

It was William. He had the power to speak to me psychically, but I routinely blocked that intrusion into my mind. He’d long ago stopped bitching about it. A man had to stand up for his rights of privacy. I was blocking him out constantly now so I could mask my thoughts and feelings about Connie.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I forgot to tell you earlier, Jack. Be here tomorrow at sundown with Werm. I’ve called a meeting with the clan heads so we can share the information we’ve learned.”

“Is everyone coming?”

“The westerners will be here. Gerard and Lucius are attending by phone conference. Make sure you and Werm are here promptly.”

“Will do, bwana. We’ll be there at dark sharp.” I heard the line click dead, and as I reclipped the cell to my belt, I felt a little hope. If I could just get Travis alone and ask him more about the slayers I might have some clue about how to save Connie. Travis was the only vampire in existence to have any firsthand experience with vampire slayers. He had been killed by a swarm of them, to hear him tell it. I just hoped he had something—anything—useful to tell me.

I looked up and saw a shape move behind the bedroom curtain. I knew that shape. I loved that shape. Connie parted the curtain and looked out.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

Hey, just because I’m a southern-fried good ol’ boy doesn’t mean I’m unacquainted with literature and the fine arts. One of my old girlfriends used to call me the Renaissance redneck. I love me some Shakespeare.

Despite the fact that it was the dead of winter, Connie raised her window and leaned out. Because of the lights on behind her, she still didn’t see me.

She looked like a maiden in a painting by one of the Old Masters, framed there by the ornate window in the soft backlighting from the bedroom. Her beauty recalled the next line of the tragedy:
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

The sun.
Something that was certain death for me.

Hadn’t I always known deep down that Connie would be the destruction of me? The way I’d almost been electrocuted when I first touched her had been a pretty damned good clue.

I sighed, feeling renewed desperation, but I was rooted to the spot. Just when I was thinking I could stand and look at her forever, she noticed me and beckoned like one of those mermaids of legend that drew sailors to their deaths on rocky shores.

I had to go up now, because if I didn’t she would know something was wrong. Besides, how could I keep an eye on her like William said if I didn’t stay close to her? Yep, that was the ticket.

She greeted me at the door in pajamas with bunnies on them. I hugged her hard, thinking how I’d probably never know which hug would be our last. So it was all hard hugs—and hard everything else—from here on in.

“I was hoping you would come,” Connie said. She took me by the hand and led me to the couch. She pulled her legs beneath her and leaned her head on my shoulder. I put my arm around her and pulled her close, feeling her hair as soft as satin on my stubbled cheek.

“I just came by to see how you’re doing,” I said.

“You went through a lot yesterday.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to get my head around everything that happened.”

“Did your memory come back?” I said, trying to hide my alarm.

“No. But I’ve been thinking about what you told me, and it’s given me a lot of peace and some closure, you know? It makes me feel empowered, like I can face things that I couldn’t before.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m glad to hear that.” For a second I thought about asking her to tell me why she needed that closure, but Seth had warned me that his knowing about the murder-suicide had ended their relationship.

“Is William still mad at me?”

“Nah,” I said. “It’s all good.”

“Melaphia didn’t get in any trouble for helping me go…there, did she?”

I wasn’t feeling very warm and fuzzy about Melaphia’s actions, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I supposed I shouldn’t confront her since William had chastised her already. “No,” I told Connie. “Nobody’s mad at anybody, and nobody’s in trouble.”

“Good, because I don’t want to have to think about anything negative tonight.”

“Why’s that?”

“I have plans for you. Wait here. I won’t be long.” She headed toward the bedroom and I watched her perky derriere until she’d turned the corner. When I turned my head back around, my gaze lit on her little shrine on the opposite wall. Religious artifacts give me the creeps under any circumstances, but Connie’s cross had set my hair on fire once and I just wasn’t digging the scene at all. It all reminded me of what I lacked—a soul. The statue of the Virgin Mary gazed demurely downward as if, in her holiness, she couldn’t stand to look at the likes of me.

Connie reappeared in a lacy teddy that made me forget all about religion. She motioned for me to follow her into the bathroom, where she’d set lighted candles all around a deep, narrow tub.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s a Japanese soaking tub.”

The water looked inviting and smelled even better, with the scent of rose oil wafting through the air. A handful of tender pink petals floated on the surface of the water. The light vapor rising from the water fogged the mirror completely.

She undressed me slowly, giving my dangly parts a rub here and a tweak there. The girl knew her way around a man’s body. As soon as we were both naked, we stepped into the tub and sat facing each other, up to our necks in the steamy water, slick with scented oil.

I picked up one of the rose petals, curved inward like a delicate shell, and placed it on Connie’s nose. “She loves me,” I said.