Vamp-Hire (5 page)

Lucky reached into the crock pot and produced
an egg.

“Try this.”

It was so startling and so mundane at the
same time that it surprised Nick out of whatever state his mind had
entered into. He looked at the egg sitting in Lucky’s palm for a
moment before taking it. He held it between his fingers as if
puzzled what to do with it. Lucky smiled at him and made a gesture
as if to say ‘go on’ and Nick reached over to the counter to
lightly tap the egg, cracking the shell.

He peeled it, still eyeing the thing
suspiciously as if he weren’t totally familiar with what he was
holding.

“Go on, take a bite.”

Nick did so, lopping off the top and getting
a mouthful of egg-white. It tasted like nothing at all, but his
stomach groaned. Nick hadn’t eaten in hours and this little bit of
food had awakened his appetite. Part of his therapy had been to eat
on a regular basis and he hadn’t had a bite since lunch.

He popped the rest of it into his mouth and
bit down, immediately regretting it. Thick, cold liquid exploded
across his tongue, running to all corners of his mouth. Nick barely
managed to get to the sink before retching and spitting. He turned
on the water and rinsed his mouth several times.

“What the hell was that?” Nick asked.

“It was a boiled egg.”

“I know that. It was raw inside.”

“You like it?”

Nick stared at him.

Lucky didn’t miss a beat; he left the
kitchen, Nick dragging behind. There was a big, official-looking
cardboard box on the of the dining room table, strips of tape
dangling off the sides.

“What’s that?” Nick said, his hunger and
anger instantly forgotten.

“That’s a box of bananas.” For Nick to say it
wasn’t would put his response in the running for obvious statement
of the year. It looked like papers had exploded out of it—they were
strewn about the table, save for the few dozen on the other side in
neat, overlapping columns. Nick lingered a moment, reading a few of
the non-redacted lines before Lucky spoke.

“Say, what happened with Nancy?”

Nick looked at him, remembering Lucky was the
one who had set that whole thing up.

“What do you know about her?” he asked.

“Nothing. She wanted the vampire experience.
She contacted me through my website. Did you do the do?”

Nick narrowed his eyes. Lucky didn’t appear
to notice.

“She tried to kill me.”

“What?” Though Lucky looked legitimately
shocked, Nick couldn’t say he knew him well enough to know if he
could fake such a reaction. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, she led me upstairs and… we started
to do things when she told me her husband was coming home.”

It was Lucky’s turn to narrow his eyes.

“She has a husband? Then what the hell did
she want with you?”

Nick gave him his best ‘you tell me’
face.

“Okay, so she’s some kind of swinger. Did you
misunderstand her or something?”

“No, no. It was perfectly clear. Fenton has
always wanted to kill somebody and they thought I could be a treat
for the both of them.”

“That’s sick! So you did it or no?”

“Hello? Am I not walking and talking right
now? I almost got shot!”

“Almost?” Lucky raised an arm and pointed at
something on Nick’s body. He looked down at himself, his hands
reflexively rising to pat down him down. There was something wet
and thick and tacky between his fingers. When Nick looked, he saw a
big patch of red high up on his thigh that he was certain hadn’t
been there before. He felt a buzzing sensation in his head and his
fingers looked a thousand miles away. It didn’t seem as if he was
looking at his hand, like he was in the passenger seat of his own
brain.

His vision blurred and he felt the brief rush
of wind in his ears.

Night wrapped a blanket around him and for a
brief flash, the stars came out.

* * *

“Holy—I did that?”

“Shut up and get over here and help me.”

“Where’d I get him?”

“In the thigh there. It went clean
through.”

“Nice—I mean, dang.”

“Earl, if he dies, we’re in it huge.”

“Well, yeah. If there’s a body. Okay, okay.
So, you say it went through, right? Then all we have to do is feed
‘im and he should come right out of it. At least, that’s what I
read.”

“We’re not supposed to feed them.”

“Come on, Lucky. You’re the connection man.
Even if you ain’t done it before, I know you know how to get it
done.”

* * *

He climbs out of the cab of the truck and
gently closes the door. He takes a moment to sniff the crisp night
air. It is thick with life. He can smell them all, believing they
are safe inside their cozy little homes. They are sleeping, or
eating, or watching TV.

Though they all smell delicious, there is
only one he wants. He tips his head back and breathes deeply,
employing a sense beyond smell. An extra canal opens in one ear and
he can feel the low susurrus of heartbeats, conversation,
footfalls, and many other routine actions going on. One by one, he
begins shutting them out as he searches for her.

This is as much natural sense as it is
preternatural, evolved over a course of centuries to make finding
humans easier. He has never used this sense before, but it feels
natural. He pulls himself deeper into the sense, becoming
completely still save for the shallowest of breaths taken only
every fifteen to twenty seconds. He could go on in this state for
hours if necessary, but at tremendous risk. It is a near hypnotic
state, leaving him highly vulnerable to physical and percussive
attack. If someone were to scream in his face at this distance he
would be deafened and probably would lose this extra sense
forever.

That will not happen tonight. The curfew
keeps the cattle off the street. He finds her and immediately
blocks out all the other noises the humans are making and focuses
on her. He lets his mouth hang open, the trace few elements of her
collecting on the back of his lolling tongue and throat.

He can tell she is sitting. Can almost feel
her as if his arms are around her like a lover. There’s something
in the blood that changes between a supine and lupine position. She
is confused, frightened, not because of him, at least directly. She
has spent a great deal of time being afraid. Has run for reasons
she has never tried to understand. He understands and soon her
worries will all be over.

He presses deeper into his sixth sense. If
any passersby were to see him they might mistake him for a
mannequin dressed in clothes, so deep is he in this trance-like
state, that if someone were to scream at this moment it would
probably be fatal, like submerging hot glass in water. An essential
part of him might shatter if he were disturbed now.

His mind reaches out to hers, touching it
cautiously, carefully, so as not to alert her of his presence,
though he suspects on a subconscious level she already knows. He
imagines her subconscious as rooms in a house and he quietly
searches each one until he finds the core of her. He makes contact
ever so slightly, ever so gently, giving a one worded instruction
then immediately withdraws, coming fully back into his own
oxygen-starved body, gasping for air.

Come.

He waits by his truck patiently while the
minutes pass. For the briefest moment he doubts even though the
master has not lied to him yet. Soon he sees her. He knows it is
her as soon as he sets eyes on her. She is more beautiful than he
would have imagined, though his desire for her is not sexual.

Her gait is unhurried, automatic, as if she
were a robot. She steps into the street without looking in either
direction, without slowing, walking in a line straight toward
him.

The streetlight reveals what he should have
already seen. She is naked. She closes the last few feet between
them. No recognition crosses her eyes that he is there. She could
just as easily walk past him and continue down the street. She
stops in front of him, although it seems she still hasn’t seen him.
She tips her chin up then cants her head to the side, offering her
neck.

For the first time tonight he feels nervous,
excited. Even though he was told this is exactly what would happen
he still can’t fully believe. Then the fangs spring out from behind
his canine teeth and he rears his own head back. He feels the
muscles up the center of his back tighten, winding his head back
like a spring being pulled taut. This part is truly frightening, as
he is not in control of these actions. His body shoots forward in a
blur of motion and the fangs fasten onto the artery in her
neck.

It is more delicious than he would have
believed had he been told. It is more than words ever could have
described.

Chapter 2

Monday

Nick opened his eyes. He didn’t move immediately,
taking his time feeling his body. He felt so loose, so free, like
he was wading into Emerald Lake.

“Oh, crap. Lucky, I think you gave him too
much.”

Nick turned his head to see the man Lucky had
called Earl, several feet lower than he should have been. Nick
figured he was either in a bed or on a couch. Perhaps this was a
bunk bed.

“What?” Lucky said, coming into the room. His
mouth dropped open when he looked at Nick.

“What is it?” Nick said before crashing to
the floor. He bounced up, startled and off balance, and immediately
went down again. Lucky and Earl watched, that same look of shock on
their faces. He made it to his feet, albeit a little shakily.

“What the hell just happened?” he asked, out
of breath.

“You were—” Earl began, pointing someplace
above Nick’s head and Lucky quickly pushed his arm down.

“Why don’t you come get some breakfast? Take
your time, we’ll talk there.” He herded Earl out of the room ahead
of him and turned back before stepping out. “Take however long you
need to get yourself together, okay?”

Nick nodded, still trying to make sense of
what had happened. He watched them disappear around a corner and
sat on the bed.

“Was I floating?” he said aloud. Assigning
words to the thing he’d just been doing didn’t make it make any
more sense. People didn’t float. “I’m not just people, am I?”

He stood and was surprised at how steady he
was. Nick felt strong. He felt like had he wanted, he could have
run a mile, no sweat, maybe even three or four. He made a fist and
that felt strong too. If he punched a guy right now that guy would
be out cold.

He wasn’t hungry, but it was a good idea to
eat something. Eating a balanced diet on a regular basis was good
therapy too. Nick’s duffle bag was by his feet and he dug out his
prescription, took the top off and dry-swallowed a pill. He wanted
to be in the kitchen right now and took a step toward the door—

—And his thighs were colliding into the edge
of the dining room table, toppling the upper half of his body so he
had to slap his palms down to prevent a face plant.

“Oh, hey,” Earl said in that general southern
twang. “That didn’t take long.” He seemed a little nervous for some
reason.

Nick only nodded, afraid to try his voice. He
felt weak and on the verge of collapse. His thigh ached where he’d
been shot with the arrow. It was all he could do to slide a chair
out and fall into it.

Earl stepped into the kitchen and a moment
later he and Lucky began parading out food. Biscuits came first and
as if the sight of them had activated his olfactory sense, the rich
smell of food came to him. A moment ago he hadn’t been hungry in
the slightest, now he was positively ravenous, though. Food, no
matter what it was, had always had a dull taste for as far back as
his brief memory could recall.

Lucky set down eggs, sausage, and toast, all
on separate plates.

“Not sure what you’d like, so we made you a
little of everything.”

Earl came out with a pot of something whitish
that turned out to be grits and ladled it out into a bowl before
dropping a huge dollop of Shedd’s Spread in it.

“Don’t know if you can have sugar or not,”
Earl said, gesturing to a little bowl within arm’s reach.

“He’s not diabetic, Earl,” Lucky said.

“Yeah, yeah. Speakin’ a’ which, you like
coffee? You like it black or…”

“I don’t know,” Nick said. He was supposed to
limit his stimulants. Had he ever had coffee before? He nodded when
Lucky came back with a cup, steam wafting out of it.

“Oh, I almost forgot…” Lucky held up a finger
as soon as he set the cup down and dashed back into the kitchen and
came out with a big plate piled high with bacon.

Nick’s mouth watered.

He grabbed several strips off the plate, half
hearing Lucky say something about not knowing if he liked it crispy
or soft. Nick gobbled the first three in seconds and was working on
the fourth when his taste buds went dead again. The bacon he was
chewing was like working on a mouthful of rubber. He looked at Earl
and Lucky, who were watching him expectantly, like he was about to
sprout a new head or give birth.

“It’s very good,” he said and forced a
swallow. The food didn’t smell like food anymore. It smelled the
same, Nick supposed, but it didn’t have the same appeal to him. He
picked up the coffee and chugged down half of it.

“Whoa, bud,” Earl said, “that’s still pipin’
hot!”

Nick couldn’t tell if he had scalded himself.
He focused on packing away the bacon because they were watching him
like a couple of mother hens and he probably did need to eat. He
coupled the bacon with two slices of toast, generously smearing
grape jelly on them for show.

How had he gotten here, though? Nick didn’t
want to think about it, he supposed he needed to, though. He’d felt
so strong a few minutes ago, like he could’ve fought a dozen men,
then poof, he was suddenly here and barely able to stand under his
own power.