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  I opened my eyes and looked at the real Eric as he roughly undressed me.

  He met my gaze. “These clothes are ruined. You won’t be able to get the smell out.”

  I closed my eyes again and resumed my fantasy. In my mind, we made love passionately, more passionately than ever before and as we reached climax, Eric said he loved me again and again. He whispered it in my ear and then we both sank our fangs into each other, our minds touched, we were one.

  In reality, I could feel him rubbing a bar of soap over me. It might have been sensuous except that his touch was coarse and businesslike. His hands did not linger and no gentle kisses were forthcoming. He washed my hair three times and I began to smell blood. I’d started crying without realizing it. I was getting tired of crying.

  “Stop crying,” Eric ordered. Out of reflex, I did. “It’s called corpse sweat,” he continued. “Did it happen last night? I mean, last day…” Frustration filled his voice. “I mean when you woke up last night did you stink?”

  At first I didn’t answer. Talbot’s voice was playing in my head repeating all the things he had said the night before and I didn’t like what he was saying. I must have started moving my head from side to side, because Eric took it as a response and continued talking.

  “Good. Then it might not happen again. You were probably playing with your powers. Most vampires only get the sweats when they discover new talents. Some get them every night. I don’t get them at all. Anybody I’ve ever heard of that had corpse sweat on the first night has to deal with it every night. Still, it’s too early to tell. You probably ought to sleep naked on a plastic sheet or get one of the girls to move you once you fall asleep. Otherwise you might get corpse sweat on your sheets and whatever you’re wearing.”

  He picked me up in his arms and carried me to the bed. Thankfully, someone had already changed the sheets. The Eric behind my closed eyelids made love to me again on that bed and promised to never leave me. In reality, though, I felt myself being toweled off and opened my eyes. The look on Eric’s face said everything I needed to know. There I was, naked, in all my glory. According to the other girls, I looked better than I ever had, and he looked at me like I was a chore. There was no hunger there at all. He turned away from me and dropped the towel on the floor, then began to remove his shirt, peeling the wet cloth from his body. I guess that was a chore too.

  Rage came over me. He’d treated me and the shirt with equal disdain, as if I were no more than an article of clothing to be tossed away and forgotten. Nobody forgets me! I leapt at him, my vision tinting red, claws and fangs at the ready.

  One moment he was there and the next he wasn’t. I had no idea where he had gone until I felt him behind me. Both his arms went underneath mine and he locked his fingers behind my neck. Smiling, I popped my claws and scratched his face, opening four short furrows in his cheek. He released me more out of shock than surprise and I snarled at him.

  The wounds on his cheek healed as he began to do his little fast-moving trick, only this time I did it too. He was still faster than me, but I was quick enough to keep him from getting a good grip.

  “You do look nice,” he told me.

  “What?”

  “You look very pretty.” He looked deep into my eyes, and suddenly I couldn’t move; I couldn’t react. I was frozen, staring into his eyes, mesmerized like any number of Dracula’s victims in the movies. Had Talbot told me vampires could do that? I couldn’t remember. I pushed back, tried to grab Eric the way he had me, but either I was too inexperienced or he was too strong. Those beautiful blue eyes sucked at my mind, pulling me deeper. They seemed to glow and flash, not a red glow, but a strange warm blue overwhelming color. I struggled, but his hold on me felt like a vise. He moved with casual menace and the look was back…that look that said I was no more important than ruined bedsheets, possibly less.

  He wrapped his hands around my throat and squeezed. I couldn’t move. He forced me down onto the clean silk sheets, never breaking eye contact. Inside I was screaming at myself, trying to move a finger, a toe, anything.

  “In case you have forgotten,” he began in a calm and steady voice far more frightening than any time he’d ever yelled, “I am the biggest, baddest motherfucking vampire that you will ever meet. Nothing has changed just because you have claws. Any stupid crap you think up has already been tried. I created you. I made you undead and I can make you ‘dead’ dead, too. I am your vampiric father or sire or whatever lame-ass little tagline you wannabes use. Any vampire power you can think of, I have it and I either use it better than you or I don’t need to use it because I have a better way of doing the same thing. Do you understand me?”

  At first I couldn’t speak, and then it was like a ghostly force had relaxed its hold on my body, but just enough for me to answer the question. “Let me go, you…you bastard!”

  “Say, ‘Yes, Eric.’ “

  “Yes, Eric.” I replied. What was I doing? I felt my jaws lock again, but I tried to scream anyway. Nothing happened.

  “Now I want you to pay attention to what I’m going to tell you.” His words trailed off; sadness suddenly filled his eyes. As quickly as he had evaded my claws, he was on the other side of the room. He leaned up against the dresser, cursing. After testing myself gingerly to make sure I could move, I sat up slowly, confused.

  “This is not how I want to do this, Tabitha.”

  I got up and walked toward him. He tensed, but I kept coming. When I reached him, he glared at me.

  “Look, Tabitha, just back off.”

  “You’re standing between me and my underwear, Eric. Do I have to be naked the whole time I listen to you? If I am, will this end differently?” I tried to keep calm, but I was certain he could hear the anger in my voice. That sorry son of a bitch was going to dump me. What the hell was wrong with him? Hadn’t I performed every sick act that his dirty little mind could think of? Did I do too much, too little? It was beyond me. The idea of it was too much for me to wrap my brain around. I felt like this all had to be happening to another person.

  Eric slid away from the dresser and I opened the top drawer, my panty drawer. The smell of lilacs hit me as I opened it. I kept lilac-scented sachets in my underwear drawers to keep my underwear smelling nice. With my heightened senses most of them now smelled too strongly of lilacs for me to put on.

  I stopped, taking a good look at the open drawer. It was filled with panties that were exactly what a man would like to see me wear. None of them were comfortable. They were lingerie, not real underwear. Digging through them, I found one pair of white panties that weren’t crotchless, lacy, or a thong. I put them on. The next drawer down had my bras in it. It was like déjà vu. I had the same problem with the bras. They all seemed to have snap-off cups, too much lace, or no support whatsoever. A little digging revealed one plain beige bra. I put that on too.

  “Your underwear doesn’t match.”

  I glared at Eric; my expression must have spoken volumes because he literally flinched. “What the hell did you just say?”

  He flinched again and walked to the far side of the room. I suddenly realized this was no different from all the times he’d insisted he wouldn’t turn me, sworn that he didn’t make vampires anymore. I knew exactly how to handle him. I grabbed a see-through bra out of the second drawer and threw it on the bed. I grabbed the matching pair of panties out of the top drawer and threw them on the bed too. I added a pair of black high-heeled shoes and a little leather choker the same color. “Is that what you want me to put on? What you’d like to see me in? Is that what you want?”

  Eric shrugged.

  “Because all you have to do is say it. You don’t even have to tell me you’re sorry. You just have to tell me what to do!”

  I started crying again, this time on purpose, though the smell made me hungry. Streaks of red ran down my face and onto the bra. I took it off and threw it down on the floor. His eyes went involuntarily to my breasts. Poor Eric.

  “Tell me you want
me to wear something sexy tonight! Tell me you want to screw me, to sink your fangs into my jugular and drink my blood when you come. Tell me why we can’t do that anymore. The only thing that’s changed is I’m like you now. I’m a vampire. I’m not warm and alive, but I am still here. If you want a living girl to join us so that there will be some body heat, tell me and I’ll go out and find one. You can pick one, it doesn’t matter…just tell me…”

  I threw myself into his arms, half worried he would push me away, but some emotion, some feeling of shame or guilt, possibly even some strange version of love kept him from doing so. He closed his arms around me.

  His chest was damp and cold against my skin, but I didn’t care. The world was a cold place anyway now that I was a vampire. I had thought it would be the other way around despite what Eric had always said, that I’d feel hot because I was at room temperature, but it definitely didn’t work that way and I didn’t know or care why. After a long moment, he kissed me on the forehead.

  “Wear the lacy black set with fishnet stockings and a garter belt. Wear white over the top of it. I know it will show through; that’s okay. Wear those strappy high-heeled shoes you have and that little white jacket thing with the short sleeves. Roger and I are going out tonight. You can’t come. It’s a guy thing, so don’t freak out on me.”

  I didn’t smile, because he might have thought I was laughing at him, at the way he’d given in, but I was definitely smiling on the inside. Talbot could say whatever he wanted, but Eric loved me. He just needed to talk tough, make demands, and be in control…typical male.

  “You may be asleep again before I get back, but if so,” he paused, “if so you’ll wake up next to me tomorrow.”

  Eric could be as macho as he wanted, but when it came down to it, he’d give in. He wanted to give in; he was just afraid…and he loved me. I wanted him to say it, but I knew he wouldn’t. Not yet. He kissed me again. This time he kissed my cheeks where the blood had begun to dry.

  “I want you to help Talbot keep an eye on things tonight. I broke Marilyn’s arm earlier and I need you to help out. You might have to dance tonight because Roger’s happy ass keeps giving Froggy the night off. Can you handle that?”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure if I could or not, but for him I would try almost anything that might give him time to realize what I already knew. It might take longer than it had to convince him to turn me, but I had time, buckets of time. When I was human, time had been the enemy; now, time was on my side.

  He held my arms and pushed me slowly away from him, as far as he could without letting go. “Maybe this will work out, Tabitha. It probably won’t. It never has before, but…but I suppose that it might be possible. We can try a human in the bed with us, but it will have to be a girl. I don’t like to feed on guys.”

  “Fine,” I agreed eagerly. I’m not afraid of other women; the only girl who ever managed to steal a boyfriend from me was my sister Rachel, before she got sick. I felt a pang of grief when I thought of her. If only I’d been a vampire then, I could have brought her over, but it had taken too long.

  “And I get to feed off of the girl. You will have to eat before or after.”

  “Okay,” I said. If he needed to feel like he was in control that was okay with me. He began taking off his wet things and I toweled him off with the driest parts of the towel he’d used on me. “And you don’t get to bite me,” he added. “Ever. Not unless I explicitly say so. I don’t like to be bitten.”

  I helped Eric dress in jeans and one of those Welcome to the Void T-shirts he usually wore; then he kissed me one more time. “Don’t leave the room until you’ve eaten.”

  I nodded. As the door closed behind him, I could hear him muttering, “I bet Dracula never had to put up with this shit.”

  I laughed. “Dracula had three wives, honey,” I whispered. “It was probably much worse.”

  11

  ERIC:

  THE VOID CITY HOWLERS

  My to-do list was a mile long. I needed to look up Magbidion’s number and get him to take a look at the silver bullet I’d dug out of the werewolf skull over at Orchard Lake. Roger might appreciate it if I found a way to tell him I’d accidentally whacked his buddy Brian. Werewolves were apparently out for my blood. If I had half a brain, I would be out there now, looking for a way to get them off my ass.

  With that same half a brain, I should have turned around, walked back into my bedroom, and told Tabitha that it was over. Since I apparently wasn’t going to do that, I needed to put Rachel in a cab and send her home. Yes, there were a lot of things I should have been doing.

  Instead, I was going to a hockey game. C’mon—front row, center ice. Who could turn that down? Believe me when I say that, up to the last minute, I tried.

  “I can’t go to the game, Roger.”

  “What are you even talking about? You know you’re going. Brian already stood me up. I’m not getting stood up by you too.”

  Ah, guilt. “Yeah, sorry about Brian.”

  “It’s not your fault the guy turned out to be a flake,” Roger spat. “Screw him.”

  He trailed after me from the front door of the Demon Heart to the Pollux. Rachel was waiting just inside the door. She’d changed into hip huggers and a crop top. When I was born, seeing a girl in her bloomers was indecent. Now, my girlfriend and most of the women I knew were strippers. You might say that I’ve changed with the times. Even so, I stared at Rachel’s pelvic bone. A hint of her thong peeked out over her hip huggers and the only thing that stopped me from attacking her on the spot was Roger’s hand on my shoulder.

  “If she’s why you can’t go to the hockey game, you have my blessing,” Roger whispered.

  “Hockey?” Rachel perked up. “I love hockey.”

  Roger bit his lip. “Brian’s a no-show, so we do have an extra ticket.” He’d bought one for Brian and one for me, so he wasn’t just giving me Brian’s unused seat. I suddenly felt better about having accepted.

  “I thought you liked high society gals,” I teased.

  “Just because you like orchids,” Roger said, taking Rachel’s hand, “doesn’t mean you ignore the wildflowers.” She blushed when he kissed her hand. The light in the room took on a crimson tinge and Roger backed off.

  “Don’t go all flashy-eyes at me, buddy.” He held up both hands in supplication. “I was just being friendly.”

  I counted to ten in my head and reminded myself that Roger was my best friend. Slowly, the red receded. Rachel looked on with a bemused pout. I didn’t like the look of accomplishment that I saw blazing in her eyes. At least with Roger, we’d have a chaperone along.

  I should have sent Rachel home and invited Tabitha to the hockey game, but there just wasn’t time. We’d miss the whole first half arguing. So I went to the hockey game with Roger and Rachel.

  The Void City Howlers weren’t all that good, but they were the home team and they could usually be counted on for a fight. They didn’t win very often, but when they took to the ice someone always got hurt, and that’s all I wanted to see anyway. My favorite player was Sparky Parker, the Howlers’ power forward. Without fail, he always started a fight in the last seven minutes of the game. He used to do it at five minutes until the NHL screwed it up with all those crappy penalties. Even so, he was the king of the Gordie Howe hat trick, pulling off the goal, assist, fight trio in most matches to the exclusion of all else, even winning.

  Roger led us down to the front row, where the cold from the rink seeps up through the floor. Rachel was already freezing when we got to our seats, and the souvenir jersey that I’d bought her wasn’t helping much. I took off the jacket I always wore to hockey games and hung it on her shoulders.

  “Thanks.” She touched my hand and the world went black, white, and red. It can happen when the bloodlust gets bad. Thing is, I didn’t think I was hungry enough to justify it. Before I had time to give it much thought, Rachel whispered, “Later,” in my ear and snuggled up under my arm, a warm little cinnamon-scented ang
el. Her proximity, the sheer physical closeness, should have made things worse, but color slowly bled back into my vision. That was weird.

  “How did you—” I began to ask, but Roger cut me off.

  “So, does Tabitha know about your new girlfriend yet?” asked Roger.

  “No.” I looked down at Rachel. “She’s not my…look, just drop it.”

  Roger just smiled and scanned the crowd.

  “Looking for someone?” I asked.

  “Something like that.” He waved at a blond guy who was dressed to the nines. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty. The blond came over, carrying two boxes carefully in his arms. He handed the boxes to Roger with a curt nod.

  “With Lady Gabriella’s compliments, Lord Roger.”

  “New boyfriend?” I asked Roger.

  “Yeah, yeah. Go screw yourself.” Roger slipped him five one-hundred-dollar bills, holding on to his hand when the boy accepted. Five hundred dollars and Roger didn’t even flinch. Must not have been his own money. I wondered if I checked the receipts back at work, whether I’d find a five-hundred-dollar payout with Roger’s name on it. “And, Dennis, the other thing?”

  “It’s been arranged, Lord Roger,” Dennis responded. “If there will be nothing else?”

  Roger barely noticed him. He had released Dennis’s hand and was busy opening one of the boxes. “Huh? Oh, yeah, we’re good. Run on.”

  “Seriously,” I continued, “you pitching or catching, Rodge? I bet you’re catching.”

  “Shut up.” Roger pulled a dark bottle out of the box and handed it to me. It said Horace Gibson—1922—AB negative on the label. “If you keep giving me the business, I won’t share.”

  “Giving you the business? Who the hell says that anymore?”

  “I’m serious, Eric.”

  “Fine.” I handed the bottle back. “I can get my own blood. I don’t need to have it delivered.”

  “Yeah, but can you ferment yours?” He broke the seal and popped the cork.