Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires (48 page)

Besides, I needed to eat. No vampire is hungry and nice. Nice and hungry, sure, but…

“Look, just hunt away from the club tonight, okay?” he said.

“I was planning to.”

“Oh, you were planning?” Roger smirked. “Where were you planning on going then, if I might ask?” He emphasized
planning
like it had air quotes around it. Still, I'd asked for it, by mentioning Froggy.

“North Side,” I blurted.

“Any particular spot?”

“I'll figure it out when I get there.”

“Right, ‘cause you're so good at winging it. Why don't you come inside and drink some blood from the fridge, just to take the edge off? The way you look, you might go all Black Out Boy any minute and—”

“‘Bye,” I said brusquely. I slid into my Mustang and started her up, gunning the V-8 before peeling out toward North Side. I don't normally hunt over there, but I craved a change of pace and it was the first place that had come to mind when Roger asked.

A vampire can get tired of eating the same old people. Tonight I wanted to eat someone upscale who worked out every day and smelled like expensive perfume. By the time I reached the tony neighborhood, my head had cleared a little. I parked my car on the street and began prowling the specialty coffee shops.

I passed up two college students and a cop before I started to get desperate. I had to pick a victim soon or I might not have much of a choice—sheer need would make me grab whoever was closest. Just then a woman in a Jag pulled up and parked in front of the hydrant across from Starbucks, then got out of the car. Her perfume smelled like heaven, and her skin looked soft and supple. Finally. The street was empty for a moment and I dashed out from my spot in the shadows.

Everything dropped into slow motion. I was glad now that I'd decided to hunt away from my normal territory. Basically all vampires are monsters and I'm no exception. I'm not proud of it, and I try to keep myself well fed so that most of the time my prey are spared the worst of it, but bad nights do happen. Feeding was going to be bad tonight and I knew it. Roger might have known it, too. Maybe he'd been trying to help in his own weird passive-aggressive way. I was too hungry to hunt carefully.

She barely knew what hit her. I had her back in the alley and on the ground in the twinkling of an eye. The perfume was expensive stuff: delicate, but arousing. She'd even dabbed a little down below, on the nape of her neck, and between her breasts. Someone called a woman's name, so I leapt to the fire escape, dragging her up to the roof in spite of her struggles. She bit me, which always pisses me off (I'm the biter, not the bitee), so I slapped her. I didn't want to, but it happened. The worse the hunger is, the less time there is for thinking, and the more primal those few thoughts become. The slap dazed her, but she still tried to scream when she saw my fangs. Fingernails clawed at my face, hard and lacquered. I threw her down on the roof and unwrapped her like a Christmas present, shreds of fabric scattering as I ripped and tore.

Her lingerie told me I was screwing up someone else's evening. It was a lacy purple number, expensive and luxurious. She'd shaved her legs for someone who would never know. Some vampires like the jugular, but I prefer the vein at the inner thigh when I'm drinking a woman. Another hunger stirred and I fought it like a drowning man.
No
, I told myself.
Finish it
.

Normally I would have broken her neck first, but right now I wanted the blood hot and alive. She screamed so loud my eyes crossed. I wish I could say she tasted special, but the truth is all blood tastes the same. She bled out in little under a minute. When I was sated, I ripped her head off to make sure she wouldn't rise as a wampyre.

My memory's not great, but I did remember reading about wampyres—they're what happens when a human dies from a vampire bite. Wampyres are mindless rotting corpses that drink blood. They're kind of the black sheep of the undead family, just above zombies.

I dropped her body down a city drain and left her car illegally parked. It wasn't smart, but then again this wasn't my week for smart. In the end, all I'd done was kill her. I'd roughed her up some, too, but as hungry as I'd been, not doing more was a victory. A hungry vampire is capable of anything.

I was willing to forgive myself a little carelessness. Besides, in a town like Void City, you can get away with being careless if you've got the money. Despite the enchantment over the city, most of us take additional precautions. Various flesh-eating types can be brought in for corpse disposal. Some pay to have the norms' memories professionally rearranged, just in case. We can even get a mage or shaman to come in and move along any angry spirits we leave behind. It's a hassle and it costs more than I like to think about. In my case, it would also result in a few hours of listening to Roger bitch and moan about the expense.

No wonder I prefer to eat in.

On the way home, my cell phone rang and I nearly wrecked the Mustang trying to find the damn thing. It was in the car charger. As I answered it, it occurred to me that it would have really pissed me off to wreck the Mustang.

“What?” I spat into the phone.

“Hey, buddy,” Roger oozed.

“Yeah?”

“Did Brian tell you where he was headed last night?” He sounded concerned and more than a little weird.

“Fuck Brian,” I snarled. “I don't even know why you keep bringing him out with us. If he doesn't learn to keep his mouth shut about the Void City Howlers I'm going to wind up shutting it for“—oh, shit. That was how I knew the headless vampire in the alley's face. It was fucking Brian. Damn it!—“him.”

I swerved around on the road for a minute and slammed my fist into the console.

Roger's voice sounded even more distant, and I could hear faint music in the background. “Okay, well, just let me know if you hear from him. He was supposed to meet me here at the Artiste Unknown.”

“Fine.”

“What?” he asked incredulously. “You wanted to come?”

How the hell had Roger gotten that from “fine”?

“Um, have I even heard of that place?” I asked, trying to figure out how the hell I was going to tell Roger that I'd offed his buddy.

“It's Ebon Winter's club, very exclusive. Vampires have to bring a human date.” He paused. “The only place more exclusive than the Irons Club?”

Have I mentioned that my memory is shit? “Doesn't ring a bell, but you and Brian have fun.”

“I was supposed to meet him at eight. It is now eight thirty.”

“Then I guess he's late.” In the corner of my mind, an alarm was going off. I eyed the spotless white truck behind me, but didn't see anything strange about it. I checked all my mirrors, but still saw nothing suspicious. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up anyway and a cold shiver went down my spine. My body thinks it knows better than me whether I'm in trouble or not. It's usually right.

“I don't think so,” Roger said, sounding pissed. “You're the only one who ever keeps me waiting.”

“Get over yourself.” I laughed. Roger certainly had an ego. If I hadn't known him from my living days, there was no way I would have put up with his crap.

I've always thought it was kind of weird that we both became vampires at about the same time. Roger's never given me a good answer about it either. If we'd had the same sire it would have been less confusing to me, but Roger's sire was from Atlanta and we have no idea who sired me. He told me not to worry about it, but I do. Marilyn tried to explain it away once. She had this whole sob story about Roger being distraught over my death and arranging his own; she seemed to believe it, but I didn't.

In my rearview mirror, the same spotless white truck was pacing me. A red truck pulled up beside it. Same make, same model, same year…my alarm kept going off. I shifted my attention from Roger's past to the present. “Look, he's probably just running late. I'm sure he'll show up. Why don't you go on in and have a good time. I've gotta go.”

“Why? Have some other important werewolves to piss off tonight? Watch out for William, by the way. I hear he's not your average fare.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant while keeping an eye on the trucks in my rearview mirror.

“He's supposed to be a real badass, one heck of an Alpha.” Roger covered the phone for three or four seconds and then continued talking. “He's probably as hard to kill as you are. You'll have to use blessed silver, the whole nine yards.”

I told him to go screw himself and hung up before I meant to, but he deserved it. This wasn't really my fault. If the werewolf from last night was so damn important then he should have been wearing a doggie collar and a tag. And he should have been warned not to hunt vampires so close to my club.

Before I could decide what to do about my suspicious tailgaters, my cell phone rang again. As soon as I said, “Hello?” the shit hit the fan. Another truck, a black one, pulled off of a side street and swerved to a sideways halt in front of me. The other two trucks sped up and rammed me from behind, knocking my Mustang into a skid.

I spun sideways, smashing into the truck in front of me. My Mustang flipped up and over. Metal scraped on concrete as it cartwheeled down the street. Loud music was coming from the cell phone. As the car rolled, I was dumped unceremoniously onto the concrete (seat belt anyone?) and the cell phone flew out of my hand. Through the crunching death knell of my Mustang, I still managed to hear Sheena's whiny voice. “Boss, did Veruca say anything to you about coming in late, or taking the night off? Oh, and Talbot said to warn you…”

MIDWIFE

W
hen I awoke in Eric's bed, the first thing I felt was hunger. I was also cold, colder than I'd ever been. Nothing felt right. Noises were too loud, my skin felt too tight, and there was a really strong odor. It smelled like crotch. I realized Talbot was standing over in the corner. I snarled at him without meaning to, and suddenly my gums felt like they were on fire. The sensation was a cutting, jabbing, tearing feeling. I fell off the bed and smacked my head against the floor. That hurt, too.

I was on my feet again in an instant. The pain left, but my mouth still felt strange. Frightened, but excited, I ran my fingers along the inside of my mouth and there they were—fangs! Oh my God! He had really done it. I was a vampire! I looked back in Talbot's direction; he was still there, silently watching.

Low, thumping, and filled with what I needed, Talbot's heart called to me. All other sounds faded into the background, a distant buzz. Talbot's features blurred until I recognized him only by his scent. I'd always thought Talbot was human, but no human could have a scent like his, tangy and wild. His skin grew semitranslucent and I don't know if it was an illusion or not, but I seemed to be able to see the blood coursing through his body. It wanted out. I wanted in.

So I charged him. Surely Eric wouldn't mind if I ate Talbot. Eric loved me and I was hungry. Thoughts that were not mine warred in my brain. Thinking rationally hurt. I didn't need to think, I needed to feed.

I can't eat Talbot,
I told myself unconvincingly.

Of course you can,
I disagreed.
He's food.

No…he's…
I wasn't even sure it really was Talbot now; his scent was gone, replaced with an odor that I couldn't describe. It was what food smells like, what blood smells like.

Talbot lashed out with his right hand and knocked me to the floor. I reacted instinctively, trying to scratch him, bite him, anything that would draw blood. He just laughed. God, how that pissed me off! Faster than I could understand, he was on top of me, straddling my thighs. One hand was on my throat and the other was on my chest pushing me down. He was so warm. My emotions went wild. Images passed through my head that would have made me retch the night before. I wanted him. I wanted him inside me and at the same time I wanted to rip his throat out. I wondered if I could have both if I was on top.

I don't know how long it took me to recognize the sound of my own name, but from the look on Talbot's face he'd been using it for a while. I opened my eyes, not realizing that I had closed them, and saw fresh scratches on his face. He was holding both of my wrists in one hand above my head while he squeezed my throat with the other. I was writhing and bucking under him trying to get free. He was surprisingly strong. I could smell his excitement; the scent mingled with that of the blood pumping through his veins…so close, just under the skin. I think I started screaming then, because he tightened his grip on my throat and told me to stop.

“One more scream out of you, Tabitha, and I don't care how put out Eric will be, I'll abort this little experiment. Now please try to be quiet. My hearing is better than yours and you're hurting my head. I'm going to feed you.”

I went still, but I was keening. I think that's the word for what I was doing. I couldn't help it. I was so hungry. “I need it,” I gasped. It was hard to speak with him choking me.

“I know you do.” He sounded almost sympathetic. “But you have to be a good girl, or I really will kill you.”

Staring at the slight trickle of blood running down his cheek, I strained to try and reach it with my tongue, even though his face was a foot or more from mine. I was vaguely conscious of a stream of babble coming from somewhere, as I stared at the blood. Someone was offering to perform a string of sexual acts ranging from simple to wild to outright depraved. Then I realized I was doing the offering. I would do anything for blood, or at least promise anything. I made myself stop. I hadn't expected it to be like this.

Talbot's light brown eyes turned green; the pupils became slits again. I remembered walking outside the lion cages at the zoo, the smell of the great cats. That was the smell of him. Shock flooded me at the realization he wasn't human, but then I was overcome by new images, dead lions, me crawling naked in their blood, lapping it up on all fours.

I shuddered in revulsion. “What's happening to me?”

“You're a vampire, princess, just like you wanted. You ever read ‘The Monkey's Paw'?”

I shook my head. My books were about vampires, not monkeys. My sister had been the bookish type, not me.

“Why am I not surprised?” He laughed. I kept expecting his eyes to change back. They didn't. Instead, I watched fangs grow in his mouth, uppers and lowers, different than Eric's and mine. Ours were uppers only. Talbot's fangs looked like an animal's teeth had grown in, replacing his canines. It was hard not to keep staring at the blood on his cheek.

“Here's how this is going to work,” Talbot said. “I'm not going to release you until I can trust you not to go into a feeding frenzy….”

His voice faded away as I turned my attention to the door. Outside I could smell more blood. I could hear it calling me. There was a heartbeat to go with it and another smell, a bathroom smell that was dreadful. It reminded me of the women's restroom when I'd worked retail. Those women had been real skanks, but this smell was worse. My nostrils flared and I curled my upper lip. Another delicious heartbeat joined the first, but it brought with it even more yucky smells: age, smoke, and something else, something that reminded me of a hospital…some kind of sickness.

Talbot slapped me. I tried to bite him, but his hand was off my throat and back on it before I could react.

“Smell bad?” he purred. I nodded. I started keening again in spite of myself. So hungry. “I bet I smell pretty good, don't I?” I nodded again. I was having thoughts about Talbot that I'd never had before. If I could have put those thoughts on film I was pretty sure a whole lot of horny guys would have ordered it on pay-per-view. Talbot shifted his grip from my throat to the top of my head and slammed it into the floor two quick hard times. I saw stars, but I tried to bite him anyway, so he did it again. Dazed, I simply lay back and waited for what would happen next. I'd be damned before I let myself cry in front of him.

“It's simple, Tabitha. Marilyn and Desiree are each outside with a pint of blood. They are going to come in one at a time and feed it to you. It will be cold.”

I began to shake my head violently. “No. Hot! I need it hot! I want it from the vein. Let me rip their throats open. We can share. I can drink them and you can fuck them—or me if you want. You can take me from behind and—”

“Shut! Up!” Talbot screamed and I tried to cover my ears. It was as if a gun had been fired next to my head. My ears rang. I thought he'd deafened me. I realized I was crying. The tears came rushing out and I couldn't stop them. As I cried, I could smell more blood, and I knew it was coming from me.

“Where's Eric?” I whined. “I want Eric! He'd feed me. He wouldn't let you do this to me. Let me go! When he finds out what you're doing—”

Talbot shouted again and all I could do was cry harder. Bastard. Didn't he know how it hurt? Couldn't he feel how I needed warmth as badly as I needed blood?

“Eric knows what I'm doing. He sent me in here to feed you because all it would take is one slipup from him and you'd be one short-lived little vampire. You get two pints of blood and you get them cold because if you had it warm you'd lose control of yourself and I might have to kill you in self-defense. Two pints ought to dull the pain and clear your head. Then I can educate you a little and answer your questions, but here's the thing. You have to keep the blood down and you have to drink both pints. Once the hunger starts to fade you're going to want to stop drinking, but you can't. I need you to have both pints in you so that you'll have a little self-control. Okay?”

I nodded. Two pints? God! Give me three pints. Give me a gallon! Let me drink the whole bar, every patron. Two pints. Ha!

Talbot called for Desiree and she came in. The smell of her grew stronger. She really did smell like a bathroom stall that needed cleaning. I realized that she must have just finished a set, because a sickening sweet smell of sweat and deodorant rolled off of her in waves, but as she drew near, the scent of the blood overwhelmed all of that. It wasn't that it smelled good or bad, it was just blood and blood was what I needed more than any junkie has ever needed any drug. My muscles strained as I tried to pull free of Talbot to get to the blood.

Desiree kept walking. In her hands, she held a blood bag. It moved back and forth, almost hypnotizing me as it bounced gently from side to side with the rocking motion of her strides. Talbot must have been giving her instructions, but I couldn't hear them. Everything, my entire being, was centered on that pint of fluid. She knelt next to Talbot and opened one end of the bag before placing it over my open, eager mouth. I barely even tasted it. It didn't matter that it was cold or what type it was, all that mattered was that I needed it.

Before I knew it, I was finished with the bag and Marilyn was walking in while Desiree was hurrying out the door past her. Marilyn looked even more fragile than she had when I had last seen her. Her skin was wrinkled, her gray hair was unkempt, and she was wearing the same old-woman clothes she always wore. Her glasses made her eyes look huge and I could hear her labored breathing and the not quite steady beat of her heart. She smelled like smoke and I coughed as she came near. She gave me a disapproving look.

“You were so afraid of dying that you had him do this to you?” She shook her head, then attached one end of some IV tubing to the blood bag. Unlike Desiree, Marilyn seemed practiced at this. She knelt next to me and gently slid the tube between my lips like a drinking straw. She wasn't afraid at all, but I did notice that she was careful to keep her fingers out of reach. As I sucked greedily at the tube, she took a handkerchief from her pocket and began to wipe the bloody tears from my face. “Are you in love with him?”

A growing calm spread out from the center of my body, slowly moving through each limb, filling me, sating my thirst. It had nothing to do with Marilyn's words and everything to do with the blood. My senses seemed to dim slightly. Smells were still strong, but more bearable. I could still hear the beating of Talbot's heart, but it was a faint rhythm, reassuring in its presence.

Slowly, I began to notice the taste and texture of the blood. Before, I'd needed it and it wouldn't have mattered if it had tasted like battery acid. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good, either; it reminded me of milk, but with a strong copper taste, sort of like sucking on a penny—a cold penny. It certainly wasn't the grossest thing I'd ever put in my mouth, and it definitely wasn't my first taste of the stuff. Vampire boyfriend, remember? I kept drinking and Talbot smiled at me from behind friendly brown eyes. Whatever he'd been expecting, I'd proved him wrong.

When I was done, Marilyn stood back. Talbot was still on top of me and I finally noticed that I was naked, on the floor, being straddled by a large man who was noticeably excited. Oh my God. I tried to cover myself and Talbot laughed as he let me up. “Oh, so now we're modest,” he said jovially. “After all the things you were just offering to do to me?”

I expected myself to blush, but nothing happened. I rushed over to the closet, grabbed one of Eric's shirts, and ran into the bathroom. I looked into the mirror and saw nothing. I gasped. I should have expected this; I knew it would happen. But somehow it's different when it's you.

Marilyn opened the door behind me, carrying my underwear and one of my dresses. “You look better than ever, Tabitha,” she said sadly. “You'll just never be able to look in the mirror for reassurance. You might find your clothes are a little loose.”

I got dressed under her watchful eye. The silence was uncomfortable. “I'll just have to watch Eric's reaction to see how good I look now, I guess. It won't be so bad.”

Marilyn shook her head and left the room. Dressed but shoeless, I followed her. “What? Is there something I don't know? Did something happen to him?”

Marilyn ignored me, walking out of the bedroom and shutting the door behind her. Talbot was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. “What's her problem?” I asked him.

“One thing you need to know about Eric, Tabitha. I've known him a long time and I know you think that this is going to be some wonderful eternal love thing, but I've seen this happen before and odds are—”

“Odds are?” I asked.

He let out a long breath before continuing. “Odds are he'll ask you to leave.”

What? That wasn't possible. Talbot was playing some sort of sick game with me. My fangs came out and so did his. They didn't hurt as much the second time. The sensation was more of an uncomfortable distension combined with a jaw-popping feeling that was nowhere near my jaw.

“I love him,” I said. “I would do anything for him. I did this for him, so that we could be together.”

Talbot's voice was calm and steady like a judge delivering a death sentence. “I've only ever known Eric to love one woman, Tabitha, and she just walked out that door.”

“Marilyn? But he can't even sleep with her,” I argued. “She's old! She's nothing. I'm forever young. Look at me. I've got the body of a goddess. I can do things to him now that no human woman could ever imagine.”

Talbot just stared at me. I tried to convince myself that he was lying, but there was a look in his eyes that wounded me. It wasn't sadness, but a look of familiarity, like he'd heard it all before and some of it twice.

“Did Eric ever say he loved you?” Talbot asked finally.