American Vampire (4 page)

“That all kind of ties into the story of me being in the woods with a gun.” She laughed nervously, hating that she cared if he would be mad at her or not. She rubbed her face and took a deep breath.

Derek turned, his confusion increasing by degrees, as evidenced by the frown that drew his eyebrows down. “You don’t look so good, Jessa.”

“Thanks. I’ve been up all night.” She swallowed. Saying it out loud made her more tired, just like the
part that followed made her more scared. “Running from It.”

His expression frozen in shock, Derek looked to the house, then back at her. “Again?”

She nodded, and felt her face crumpling before she realized she was about to cry. It didn’t even matter that she was crying in front of Derek, the one thing in the entire world she hated the most.

“No, no, no, come here,” Derek said, pulling her into his arms before she had a chance to object. Not that she was entirely sure that she wanted to resist him. The instant she was there, in the comforting familiarity of his embrace, she knew it was a mistake. It was too easy to pretend again, to fall back into the fantasy that always hurt her more than it salved her wounds. More than once she’d given in to temptation with him, and it always felt wonderful until reality crashed down on her once more. She pulled away. “How’s Becky?”

Derek couldn’t stand feeling guilty. It was his biggest weakness, and Jessa wasn’t afraid to exploit it. He knew that, and he looked away, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Damn it, Jessa…” His voice trailed away, and he glanced again at the car parked in the driveway. “Are you going to tell me where the hell that car came from?”

She followed him as he stalked across the lawn, relieved for the change of subject. She’d brought up his wife as a stalling tactic. She hadn’t really cared
to hear about her, or his kids, at all. Before he could change his mind and start telling her all about them, she started explaining. “You’re not going to believe this, but someone actually stopped at Dale Elkhart’s service station last night.”

“Really?” Derek stood beside the car, hands on his hips. He tore his fascinated gaze away from the sleek black machine to look at her. “Why were you all the way out by Dale’s?”

That, she didn’t want to get into. “It chased me, and that was the way I ran. I got a shot off, though. Hit it right in the chest. It just kept coming.”

“Hell of a car,” he said, as though it didn’t matter that she’d been chased down by a monster and barely escaped with her life. That was Derek, in a nutshell. Easily distracted by shiny objects.

She was grateful for the change of subject, though, and gestured to the open driver’s side window. “Take a look. The guy was on his way to some party or something and got lost, I guess. I don’t know why he would have stopped at the service station, though. It doesn’t exactly look like it’s in business.”

“I’m wondering how the hell he managed to stop at all.” Derek leaned in the window and gave a whistle of appreciation. “All-leather interior. This is a hell of a car, whatever it is.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he did stop. Otherwise, I would have been It’s dinner.” She wondered if those terrifying words would come back to haunt her in
the night. And she tried not to dwell on the fact that she’d brought It up again. A hot flush flamed in her cheeks, embarrassment at herself for wanting him to acknowledge the danger she’d been in. She didn’t want to be scolded, but a sick, jealous part of her wanted him to care.

“Hell of a car.” Derek looked around the yard, an increasingly agitated expression on his face. “So where’s this guy, now? You didn’t let him stay here?”

“I did.” She drew herself up to her full height, which was pretty impressive for a woman, or so she’d been told. She was still shorter than Derek, but he would damn well listen to her. “I’m a grown woman. I can have anybody stay the night that I want to.”

Derek gave her a sideways look that said,
Over my dead body.
“Nobody ever said you couldn’t, but how did you know this guy wasn’t dangerous or something? I mean, he could stop here…how do you know he wasn’t sent here?”

“Sent?” She hadn’t thought of that. Maybe she should have. The creature had never sent anyone into their midst before, and it didn’t make a whole lot of sense that it would now. Such a complicated strategy for a basically ragtag monster, but then, It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, period. Nothing in Penance did anymore. “You think so?”

“Could be. Don’t know until we talk to this guy.” Derek started for the house, and Jessa followed. “We can’t. Not now. He’s sleeping.”

“Well, I guess we’re gonna just have to go and wake him up,” Derek said, his worn-out boots striking a determined rhythm on the porch.

Jessa hesitated. It wasn’t that she wanted to protect the guy in the basement from Derek, but she didn’t want the two to meet, either. Something about the guy reminded her of the reality of her—and the whole town’s—situation. If she stood in the same room with the both of them, the safety and familiarity of another aspect of her pretend world would be fractured. If she kept losing pieces of her fantasy refuge, where would she go to escape the here and now?

She didn’t have much of a choice. Derek was already headed toward the stairs to the upper level of the house.

“Wait,” she called out to him, not sure if she meant to stop him entirely or just stop him from going up. “He’s in the basement.”

“Why would you keep him in the basement?” Derek moved with equal determination toward the kitchen.

First he didn’t want the guy in her house at all, then he wanted her to be putting him in plush accommodations? She rolled her eyes, glad Derek could see her. She didn’t have the energy for a fight about her “tone.” “It was the only place I felt safe keeping him.”

“Don’t you worry about safe,” Derek reassured
her. “I’m about to make sure this creep doesn’t lay a finger on you.”

Yeah, from one creep to another, she thought, but she still had to squash a spark of triumphant feminine pride as she followed him down the basement steps.

W
aking to the disturbing sensation of not knowing where he was or why he was there, Graf sat up on the rickety cot. Someone was coming toward him, but his vision hadn’t cleared enough for him to make out who. He did know that he was naked, and he didn’t want that kind of vulnerability. He put a hand out to reach for his jeans and started to stand.

Someone yelled, “Whoa!” and someone else yelled, “Don’t get up!”

He rubbed his eyes. His skin was on fire, and he felt like he hadn’t slept at all. He was thirsty, parched, in fact. He needed to eat somebody. “What time is it?”

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in Jessa’s basement?”

Graf cracked one eye, but the brightness of the basement made it difficult to focus. “Could you cover
that window over there?” He hadn’t seen sunlight in thirty years—at least, not willingly.

“Hungover?” the male voice asked, kicking the leg of the cot, and Graf put his arms out to keep from tipping over.

“Jesus, Derek, we’re not interrogating a suspect! He’s allergic to the sun. Put that gun away!” The woman from last night—Jessa, apparently—scrabbled through the boxes and camp gear in the corner and eventually found something to block the light from the dirty, ground-level window. A deflated pool raft stuffed into the hole covered the glass, filtering the light through thick blue vinyl.

The male voice spoke again. “Allergic to the sun? That sounds like something a
vampire
would say in a
vampire movie
.”

Very astute. His vision clearing, Graf examined the guy, who certainly did not look like the astute type. Derek, Jessa had called him. A lot of new, human names to remember that he didn’t care to remember. Derek had a college emblem on the hat he wore and a T-shirt with a varsity football logo on it that screamed,
I didn’t willingly leave my high school days behind
. He looked strong. Small-town strong. Farm-chores strong. Not strong enough to take Graf in a fight. He might not win, but he’d sure put up one, and the last thing Graf wanted was any kind of hard work. Derek slipped a handgun into the back of his
jeans. That was another thing Graf didn’t want to deal with.

Jessa stood beside him, not close enough to tell Graf that they were lovers, but close enough that it was apparent they once had been.

“What’s his name?” Derek asked, and Graf let the woman falter for a little bit before he looked up.

“His name is Graf. He was trying to sleep after he was attacked by a monster last night.” Graf rubbed his eyes again. “What is it, 8:00 a.m.?”

“It’s one in the afternoon,” Jessa snapped. “And you weren’t the only one running from a monster last night.”

“I was the only one saving you. I guess I thought that would be good enough reason to let me sleep in!” He thought about standing up and choking her, but then he would be the only naked person in the room, and he tried to avoid that whenever possible.

“Okay, both of you, shut up.” Derek gave Graf what was supposed to be a threatening look, but really just made him look like an angry gorilla.

“Now, listen, Graf.” He leaned on the name like it was an accusation. “I don’t know where you came from—”

“Detroit.” Graf pushed his fingers through his hair. “You can stop your tough-guy act. I’m not going to cause any trouble.”
That you’ll be able to do anything about.

“You’re in my girl’s house. You scared the shit out
of her, and you pissed me off. You’ve already ‘caused any trouble.’” Derek gave the distinct impression that if Graf had been wearing a shirt, he would be yanking him up by the front of it. It was a good thing he’d turned down Sophia’s offer to pierce his nipples.

Graf filed the “my girl” remark in the back of his mind, for later use. If Sophia had taught him any thing, it was that the most effective injury to inflict was to an opponent’s pride. Maybe he would sleep with Jessa, after all.

He leaned his elbows on his knees and let his hands hang between his bare legs. “This isn’t just an inconvenience for you guys. I don’t want to be stuck in some podunk town forever. If I could redo last night, I wouldn’t have gotten all turned around in Cleveland. I damn sure wouldn’t have stopped here.”

“Well, you’re not here forever. You’re just here until you die.” Derek cracked his knuckles, probably imitating some mobster he’d seen in a movie. “You get my draft?”

“It’s drift, you moron.” Graf lay back down on the cot. At sundown, if Corn-fed was still hanging around with his stupid tough-guy act, Graf was going to drain him dry. At the very least, he would be doing Jessa a favor. If this was the kind of guy she really went for, it would probably be doing her a favor to kill her, too.

“What did you just call me?” Derek demanded, his voice dripping with unspent testosterone.

Graf didn’t bother to open his eyes. “I’m too tired to repeat it. Come back later.”

From the sound of Jessa’s feet shuffling on the dirt floor and the rapid-fire, “No, no, no!” she uttered, Graf knew Derek had lunged for him, and that most likely Jessa had held him back. Though it took considerable effort not to sit up and rip out the guy’s windpipe right then and there, Graf restrained himself. It would be better if he waited, until the sun went down and he had a place to hide the bodies.

“That son of a bitch has a big problem on his hands now, a big problem.” Derek swore, his voice accompanied by the creaking of the stairs.

When the door slammed, Graf sat up and pulled on his jeans. He cocked his head to listen to the muffled conversation upstairs.

“You can’t just go around punching people!” Jessa had a different angry voice with Derek than she’d had with Graf the night before. There was more frustration invested in it. That was interesting.

“There’s something weird about that guy, and I don’t like it!”

“It doesn’t matter if you like it! It’s not like he can leave!” There was a strained silence, and Graf imagined the two humans staring at each other, daring each other to try for the last word.

“And…go,” Graf prompted quietly.

On the heels of his words, Jessa spoke. “Look, I’ll take him over to June’s Place tonight, see if I can’t get someone else to put him up.”

Derek huffed in reply. “Yeah, well, you better take him over to Tom Stoke’s place, too. He’s going to want to know what’s happening, and you don’t want to get Tom pissed off. I might go over there, too, and let him know I’m not real keen on the notion of some guy staying out here with you, alone.”

“Oh, yeah, and what’s Tom going to do? Make me wear a big, red letter
A
on my chest?” She lowered her voice. “Besides, this guy isn’t dangerous. He’s just a prick.”

Graf couldn’t help but smile at that. They were so trusting sometimes. His smile died when she followed up her statement with, “He seems kind of like the whiny type. Not real intimidating.”

“Don’t make me worry about you,” Derek warned, and the implication went beyond fearing for her safety. And…confirmation. Graf had figured there was something going on between the two of them. So, he was a jealous boyfriend? Where the hell had he been when his girl was running from—and being rescued by—monsters?

When Jessa spoke again, her tone was hard and cold. “You should be getting back on home to your wife, shouldn’t you?”

That was interesting. Very interesting. Better than
the soap operas Sophia had forced him to watch with her.

Derek swore, and the floorboards overhead creaked as he stomped across them. The outside door slammed.

Graf expected to hear Jessa crying—the spurned lover, the other woman, reduced to tears by the man she couldn’t give up. Instead, all he heard was an exasperated sigh, then footsteps through the kitchen.

If it hadn’t been so damned sunny out, he would have gone upstairs and shown her exactly how non-intimidating he was. Knowing the way the place was decorated, there were probably yellowing lace curtains on the windows and he’d be incinerated instantly. And a sick part of him still wondered if he’d kill her or have sex with her. If she was getting it from that Derek guy, it probably wasn’t that good. He could do things to her that would make her forget she ever gave a shit about Country Boy.

Thoughts like that made his fangs ache, and other things, too. Hunger, even the sexual variety, was too exhausting to deal with at the moment, so he lay down and went back to sleep.

“Wake up. Allergic to the sun does not mean ‘lazy as hell.’ I saw those girls on 20/20.”

Graf peeled open one eye. Jessa stood over him, scowling.
Be patient,
he urged himself.
You can’t eat
her yet. You don’t know how to find anyone else to eat without her help.

The way he figured it, he could follow her to this Tom guy’s house, and then to June’s Place, whatever that was. He could get acquainted with the town to night and then finish off Jessa and her backwoods Casanova before polishing off the rest of the hillbillies as necessary.

He stood up and reached for his shirt. When he pulled it on, she turned away quickly, a guilty expression on her face. She’d been sneaking a peek, and the hungry look in her eyes told him her opinion of what she’d seen. Very interesting, considering Everybody’s All-American hadn’t been all that bad-looking.

“So, what, do you spend, like, forty hours a week at the gym?” she snorted, starting for the stairs.

“No, I don’t work out all that much.” It was true. There was really no point in a vampire working out. For the most part, he looked exactly the same as he had the day he’d been turned. Sure, his muscles had become more toned from the boost in strength, and his wardrobe was a lot different, and he didn’t have a lame haircut anymore, but physically, not much could be changed about the way a vampire looked. A lesson Sophia had learned when she’d stupidly tried to get collagen injections in her lips. At least the plastic surgeon had been delicious.

Jessa made a noise that told him she didn’t believe
him. “Meet me in the kitchen. We’ve got eggs and apples for dinner.”

“I’m not really all that hungry,” he called after her as she jogged up the stairs. He followed, his stomach jerking in response to the smell of the food. Another physical thing that couldn’t be changed. “Eggs and apples?”

“All I can afford.” She shrugged as she scraped scrambled eggs from a large, cast-iron skillet. “We have to make do with what we’ve got.”

He rolled his eyes. “I appreciate that fact. You can stop acting like a dust-bowl farmer.”

The skillet clattered to the stove top, and she braced her hands against the counter. “You have got some nerve, buddy.”

“I have some nerve? You get me trapped here, you let your boyfriend come down to beat my ass—”

“Derek is not my boyfriend!” she shouted as she whirled toward him, the spatula in her hand whipping flecks of egg through the air. Her shocked gaze followed their trajectory.

Graf ducked the flying food and gave a low whistle. “You don’t say?”

“I don’t even know why I’m explaining it to you. It’s none of your business.” She took a deep breath. “What were you doing at the service station? You shouldn’t have been able to stop there in the first place. But couldn’t you tell it wasn’t open, from the fact that it was all dark inside?”

Before he could stop himself, his gaze flicked guiltily to the countertop in front of him, and he knew he was caught. Usually, he could lie convincingly enough to fool a polygraph machine, but for some reason that skill had failed him now, and in front of a woman who was, he had to admit, a pretty smart cookie.

“Oh my God!” She put her hands on her hips. “You were going to rob it!”

“I was not!” The quick denial sealed his fate. He should have laughed it off, like it was the most ridiculous suggestion in the world. “Well, I was going to steal a map—”

“Ha! I knew it!” She pointed at him, like an actor in a courtroom drama who was really enjoying her role. “You were going to rob the place. What are you, some kind of criminal? I should have known you couldn’t afford that car.”

“That car was a gift,” he sputtered, then, realizing that he was defending himself to a woman he planned on making a meal of, stopped himself. “Look, what does it matter? I was there, and I saved your life.”

“And you’re probably going to steal my silverware when my back is turned.” She shook her head, glaring off at seemingly nothing, as though accusing the air of ruining her evening. “This is just great.”

“Yeah, I’m having a hell of a time, myself.”

Her eyes narrowed as she glared back to him.
“You’re out of here tonight. We’ll go down to June’s Place and foist you off on someone else.”

“Foist?” He chuckled. “That’s a pretty big word for a farm girl.”

Ignoring the barb, she dropped a plate in front of him. As she sauntered out of the kitchen, she snapped, “Eat up.”

“Oh, believe me, I will,” he said under his breath, and reluctantly lifted his fork.

They set out right after sunset. Jessa’s understanding of sunlight was that when the sun went down, there was no sunlight. It was a simplistic belief, but he couldn’t really expect much else from someone who was basically a Hee Haw personality. The residual light prickled his skin, but didn’t burn him. It did bring back the unpleasant memories of being nearly roasted alive in the trunk of his car, which he didn’t appreciate.

Before he killed her, he’d have to ask her where he could find a map to get back to the highway, so he wouldn’t get stuck in a similar situation once he got out of here. Who knew how many void towns there were in Ohio?

“You need to behave yourself,” Jessa scolded. He hadn’t even done anything yet. “Tom Stoke is the sheriff here. He doesn’t take lip from anybody, not even guys with fancy cars. And he has a way of dealing with people who don’t fall in line.”

“Tar and feathers?” Graf guessed, but Jessa didn’t smile. She pressed her lips together into an unattractive line and kept walking, head down.

Maybe this Tom person thought he was a tough guy, but most tough guys crumbled like dust when a vampire started sticking their teeth in them. Not dust…more like rag dolls.