Staked Read online

  “Holy shit! And you really are a vampire? What are you doing here? Is Tab with you?” Rachel asked. She’d gotten closer to me in the brief moment I’d been lost in thought. I shook my head, backing toward the door.

  She continued to walk toward me and I considered running out the front door and into the sunlight. She had the same look in her eye that Tabitha had had when she’d first approached me at the club. Maybe one of the other houses had a pack of werewolves in it or a few vampire hunters…something safe. Anything but this. My eyes were glowing against my will and my fangs had dropped down in full-on vampire munch mode. She should have been running away at this point. Instead, she was taking off her tank top. She was certainly pierced in interesting places.

  Closing my eyes, I fought back either a yawn or a snarl. I could not eat, sleep with, or otherwise enact upon Tabitha’s sister. Even though I couldn’t see her anymore, her scent still plagued me. There hadn’t been any cinnamon rolls in the oven when I’d passed, yet their tantalizing aroma mingled with hers. What was I doing here?

  With supreme effort, I mustered enough concentration to turn back into a cat. Lower to the ground, I struggled to keep my gaze on her ankles. A low rumbling echoed from my chest. I was purring at her. Damn it.

  Sunlight was beginning to reach the side windows of the house, so I darted past her and up the stairs. She yelped as I brushed by her in transit, and if cats could smile, I would have. Now all I had to do was figure out a way to call Talbot and explain my situation without being the jumper or the jumpee with regard to Rachel.

  My memory really sucks, but even so, I knew that I had never encountered this kind of problem in my living years. What was it about vampires that attracted these women? Surely they couldn’t all be necrophiliacs. When I’d died I had been in my thirties. I didn’t remember much, but I did recall that I hadn’t been particularly handsome. I wasn’t Quasimodo either, but…

  Focus, Eric. Drowsiness was making me punchy. I skidded on the hardwood flooring at the top of the stairs and slid into the wall. Rachel sprinted up the stairs behind me. A phone and a door, that’s what I needed.

  Mom must have been a great housekeeper, because I couldn’t smell anyone but Rachel. Everything else smelled new. Maybe they’d just redecorated?

  Photographs of Rachel, Tabitha, and their parents lined the hallway in cheap frames, plastic that was meant to imitate wood. I passed the bathroom in my mad feline dash down the hall. There were two bedrooms upstairs, one with a “No cats!” warning symbol and the other with a two-drink-minimum sign.

  I surmised that the second room might have been Tabitha’s and darted toward it. Changing back to human form felt like coughing up the world’s largest hairball, but without thumbs, I couldn’t turn the doorknob. I vaguely remembered Tabitha having told me once that she spray-painted her windows black when she was a teenager. They must have been the windows I’d noticed from outside.

  “Thanks for not scraping the paint off the windows, Mom,” I muttered. Rachel reached the top of the stairs as I closed the door behind me and locked the dead bolt. I hoped she didn’t have the key. Why had Tabitha needed a dead bolt on her bedroom door? Rachel slapped the door with a perturbed grunt, then her footsteps disappeared back in the direction of the stairs.

  Tabitha’s room was done in black and crimson. No wonder she liked the color scheme at the Demon Heart. She had crosses mounted to the walls and a blacklight bulb hung in the overhead lamp. Little Goth dolls lined a shelf on her wall where I still laughably expected a teenage girl to have wooden horses, old Barbies, and pretty glass knickknacks.

  It looked like Tabitha had cleared out all of the stuff she really wanted and left the junk she didn’t want for her parents to throw away. That sounded like the Tabitha I knew. When I saw her queen-size bed, piled with fluffy black pillows, I almost went to sleep on it. Instead, I slapped myself a few times. I heard Rachel’s footsteps pounding back up the stairs. Either she was quicker than I thought, or I’d just spent a minute or two staring into space.

  Phone! There didn’t seem to be a phone. In one corner, I saw a huge pile of books and an empty cordless phone charger. All the books appeared to be about vampires. That explained a lot. I heard a key in the exterior lock on the dead bolt and leapt for the door. It was impossible that Rachel could have been fast enough to open it before I could reach her, but it happened anyway. There was probably a fancy psychological term for it, but the only way she could have been faster than me was if I subconsciously wanted her to be faster. Then again, maybe it was just sleep slowing me down.

  She was still topless and determined. I tried to ignore her body heat. The warmth of her as she entered the room called to me almost as much as the blood coursing through her veins. I had just healed from major injuries and I needed blood. I needed a phone. I needed Talbot. He could make things simple. He could handle things. That was his job. I needed Marilyn to slap my face for me and tell me to control myself, to act like the man she’d agreed to marry. Every time she told me that I wasn’t a monster, for a few minutes, a few hours, I wouldn’t be.

  I grabbed Rachel by both arms and pulled her against me. She was afraid, but willing, just like her sister. I threw her down on the bed and straddled her thighs. Shifting my grip, I trapped her arms above her head. She leaned up and we kissed. Her tongue was pierced. Roger once told me that it’s always the younger sister that you have to watch out for. He must have been talking about girls like Rachel.

  “I need…” I struggled to find the words.

  “I need you too, baby. It’s okay. I want you.” It was her turn to purr.

  I pictured Rachel lying cold and dead on her sister’s bed or worse, rising the next night, like her sister had, only eighteen instead of twenty-three. It was enough.

  “What I need is a telephone,” I managed.

  “After,” she whispered. She turned her head to one side. “Drink first. I want to feel it. I want to feel the pleasure and the pain.”

  “I need to use the telephone. I need to call the Demon Heart and have someone come pick me up.” I was proud of myself. Total control was mine. I could resist the young woman underneath me. She started kissing me again. Her breath smelled like those cinnamon buns they sell in the mall. Her heartbeat filled my ears and then I did the only thing that I could think of that would keep me from doing exactly what she wanted me to do. I fell asleep.

  8

  ERIC:

  PRICE TAGS

  When I woke up, I was in the back of the party van. The party van had two seats up front and two benches along the sides in the back, with heavy shutters separating the driver from the people in back. It had originally been a paddy wagon, but I’d bought it a few years ago and had it fixed up to suit my needs.

  The shutters were adorned with crosses. It wasn’t anything that would keep a vampire at bay for long, more of an attention-getter to help jar me back to my senses in case I was ever out of control. Talbot had also replaced the rear doors with windowless ones. The other additions we’d made included a good air conditioner and a stereo system.

  I realized belatedly that I was not alone. Rachel was in the back with me; my head was resting on her lap. I don’t know what it is about the hour or two of sleep that I get each day, but I wake up hungry, much hungrier than I am after twenty some-odd waking hours. Combined with the hunger from before, I didn’t stand a chance against it. Rachel was going to get bitten whether I wanted it or not.

  Faster than humanly possible, she found herself on the floor of the van as I spread her legs and bit into her femoral artery. As soon as I started drinking, I was trying to stop. Rachel’s fear was real. It made things harder to control. It was obvious to the thinking part of me that she had expected it to feel good. Why anyone would expect puncture wounds to feel good is beyond me, but I’d been around long enough to know that the pain often takes humans by surprise.

  Fighting the hunger is like being in a wrestling match with a bigger, badder version of yourself;
like getting a starving man to slowly sip broth a little bit at a time, only the starving man is ten times stronger than you and at least twice as mean.

  I tried to hear Marilyn’s voice in my head. You are not a monster. You are the strongest man I know. When you rose for the first time, I was standing right there and you didn’t touch me. Roger himself told you that a newly risen vampire has no self-control. If you could control yourself then, you can control yourself at any time. Over and over, I repeated it in my head like a mantra.

  I still don’t remember rising. Marilyn has told me the story, but I don’t remember doing any of it. According to her, I rose in full daylight. She was standing over my grave, but I did not attack her. I stood there for a minute in the sunlight, thick black smoke pouring off my exposed skin. Then, I took refuge in the cemetery’s chapel. When she followed me inside, I supposedly said, “Am I late for something?” and passed out.

  My memory has been like Swiss cheese ever since. I’ve always blamed it on having been embalmed. Sometimes I forget what happened yesterday, or five minutes ago, but just then, for a moment, I remembered what it was like to control myself. I remembered the calm and ease of my early days as a vampire. I remembered a different me, just long enough to take my teeth out of Rachel and hold her close.

  “That was so fucking incredible,” she gasped weakly, “and it hurt so fucking much! Holy shit!” She laughed as I held her. The danger was lost on her. She wouldn’t believe how close she had come to death, or maybe she didn’t care. I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. I knew Rachel. I had a connection to her, through our kisses, through her sister. If I murdered her, she wouldn’t be a faceless woman who died in the night, soon forgotten. Knowing the victim makes it more real, makes it harder to forget, and I damn sure don’t want to remember.

  By the time we got to the club, Rachel was sleeping. Talbot gave me the hairy eyeball as I carried her out of the van, under the awning into the club’s rear entrance. Marilyn met me at the door. She looked and smelled old, but if I half closed my eyes, let my vision blur, I could almost see her like she used to be, the red-haired vixen on the motorcycle.

  My Marilyn stared at me from behind a mask of age, her hair cut short and grown gray, the once luscious lips dry and stern. Her eyes were the same, though, blue as an ocean and every bit as tempest tossed. Old as she had become, I still wanted her as badly as I had on the day I’d died, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with me, not like that, not since my death, not once.

  She studied the girl I was carrying. Rachel looked like a trollop in her hip huggers and white tank top. There was a bloody rip where I’d bitten through her jeans. The blood was making the material stick to her leg. “Who is that?” Marilyn asked.

  “It’s Tabitha’s little sister,” I said, handing her to Talbot. That was all I got out before Marilyn slapped me hard across the face. “She…” I let my voice trail off as she slapped me again.

  “For heaven’s sake, what is the matter with you?” she yelled. The pain was nice. It was nice to receive any physical sensation from Marilyn. Not only had she refused to sleep with me since I’d become a vampire, she rarely touched me. A psychologist could have probably written volumes regarding what that said about my getting into trouble. They’d say I was like a child who did bad things to get my mama’s attention. Maybe they’d be right.

  I caught Marilyn’s arm when she tried to slap me a third time. It was something I’d never done before. “The third slap is foreplay, M,” I said. It didn’t even sound like me. It was half growl, half scorn. “Unless you’re up for it, I suggest you leave it to the younger ones.” I let go of her arm. She winced.

  Talbot stepped between us and inwardly I thanked some higher power for small favors. “Where’s Tabitha?” I asked.

  “She’s in your bedroom,” Talbot answered. “She’s a late riser. Most vamps rise early on their first night and she didn’t get up until eight. She went to bed a full hour before sunrise. She’s looking at maybe eight or nine hours of wakefulness a night; more if she manages to break schedule.”

  My short daytime sleep requirement often got me twenty hours or more out of a day-and-night cycle. Maybe I could put up with her for eight hours a night. Maybe not. I checked my watch. It was nine in the morning. I walked back toward the rear entrance and gestured with my head for Talbot to follow me. As we moved past Marilyn again, I could feel anger coming off of her in waves. No fear, though, just anger. When I knew she couldn’t see my face, I grinned. “That’s my girl,” I whispered.

  “We’re going to spend the day over at the Pollux,” I told no one in particular. “Have someone bring Rachel orange juice and a big breakfast.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Talbot said gruffly. As he fell into step behind me, carrying Rachel, he mumbled something else under his breath. “In for a penny…”

  No shit, I told myself. No shit.

  If Tabitha was going to sleep until eight this evening then I had eleven hours to figure out what to do about Rachel, not to mention the damn werewolves. The notion that I was forgetting something rolled around in my head. Talbot helped me get Rachel back into the van and across to the Pollux without incident.

  Of the two movie palaces that had once been in Void City, the Pollux was the only one still standing. The Freemont may have been a little more stylish, but it had been turned into a parking deck twenty years ago, so I guess the Pollux won. The projector still works and I own a large collection of old films.

  I’d kept the original glass entryway, even the old-fashioned central ticket booth, but beyond that, the new doors were reinforced steel, well-decorated, but secure. Beyond the doors, the foyer was still brightly lit by the original crystal chandelier, its glow magnified by the mirrors lining both walls. Rachel took in my absence of reflection without comment, paying more attention to the chandelier.

  I’d moved several of the couches and tables from the downstairs lounges to the lobby, creating a sitting area for guests. Rachel plopped down on a burgundy velvet sofa and stared up at the painted art nouveau ceiling. A grand marble stair led up to the mezzanine and my offices. There were more offices and some dressing rooms behind the stage, but I only used them for storage.

  “You like it?” I asked.

  She nodded. “It’s awesome. How do you afford it?”

  “I get by,” I told her gruffly. “Guys like nudity and I don’t waste much money on groceries.” How long would it take Talbot to get breakfast? If he went to Jackie’s on the corner, he could be back in ten minutes. I didn’t want to be alone with Rachel for much longer than that.

  “If you’re thirsty, the soda fountain still works. I only keep the Coke and the lemonade refilled, though. Everything else will get you water. I tried to put in a blood dispenser, but it clogs the machine.”

  Rachel watched me with smug contentment. She had just opened her mouth to speak when my rescue arrived. I could smell the food before Talbot opened the door. He was early. I don’t pay him enough.

  Muscling past the steel doors, Talbot backed into the foyer, carrying two covered breakfast plates. The scent pulled at my stomach. I craved breakfast only slightly less than pizza. One plate had scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and a side of hash browns. The other had two fried eggs (sunny-side up), link sausage, and cheese grits.

  “Rachel, isn’t it? Do you like your eggs scrambled or fried?” Talbot asked.

  “Which does he like?” She asked the question with purpose. To a vampire, that question is a signal, a sign that the woman he’s with knows a little about vampires. Talbot remained valiantly smirkless, but he noticed.

  “You’ll want this plate.” Talbot sat the tray before her, poured some orange juice in a glass, and laid a straw across the top. “I think I’ll take my breakfast at the club,” he said, walking right back out the door with the other tray of food. Bon apéritif.

  Bon apéritif. Happy before-dinner drink. Fucking Talbot. I pay him too much. I wanted to protest, but the words stuck in my thr
oat. In the split second I’d been distracted by Talbot, Rachel had taken the lid off of her tray, picked up one of the sausage links and commenced licking the grease off of the underside. For lack of a better word, she nearly fellated it.

  “Less sexual, more sensual,” I corrected. A rookie mistake most women make is equating eating to sex. For a living, breathing man, that would be correct, but for vampires it isn’t about sex, it’s about the food…about what we can’t have and watching someone else have it. In polite circles, they call it voyeuristic dining, but food porn is more honest.

  Criticism made her nervous. Each bite came a bit too quickly and her mmmms and ahs sounded forced. She had raw talent, though, and unlike Tabitha, she didn’t forget that I was watching her. She purposefully let little beads of egg yolk gather at the corner of her mouth, then asked me to wipe it away. When I did, she seized my wrist, sucking the egg yolk from my finger, peering up into my eyes for approval. Long after the yolk was gone, her tongue danced along the bottom of my index finger, the curious stud on her tongue providing an erotic counterpoint to the softness of her flesh. It felt strange and wonderful. I approved.

  After breakfast, Talbot sauntered back in and cleared away the dishes. For me, the next quarter hour passed like time-lapse photography. I didn’t think there’d been cinnamon in any of the food, but I certainly smelled it. Maybe it was a breath mint or a new perfume. Talbot and Rachel blurred around me, politely avoiding each other in an elaborate dance, while I sat perfectly still, trying to remember whatever it was I’d forgotten. The image of Rachel sucking a little drop of golden egg yolk from my finger haunted my thoughts, making it harder than usual to think straight.

  “I killed Brian,” I said suddenly.

  “What?” Talbot and Rachel spoke in unison.

  “Brian. You know; the guy Roger met through that real estate thing, the one who was always talking crap about the Void City Howlers, trying to start a fight. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I think I ripped his head off.”