Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five (44 page)

He tried not to laugh, because that might just piss her off even more, but the irony of her as student and him as teacher wasn't lost on him. Just the fact that he was once again in a school building was ironic enough.

“I'm sure I can find you something. Gym mats maybe? Make you a bed.”

“I will be just fine in this chair, thank you.”

Billy took his pack off his shoulder and laid it on the desk. “Are you sure? I don't mind.”

“Just close the door on your way out.”

Billy drummed his knees and thought about just leaving her there, but that thought only lasted a few seconds.

“Why are you so angry with me all of a sudden? Is it because I talked you into leaving and didn't let you run off and hunt?”

“I'm not angry with you, I'm just adjusting to new surroundings and this new way of living we've been forced into.”

Billy stared at her. “You're not angry with me?”

“I'm angry. I can't say that you're the primary cause of said anger.”

They'd had a rough few days and had moved a lot. She hadn't changed clothes since their stay at the garage in Colorado. Her hair was tangled, and she was tired, noticeably hungry, and disheveled. She was still beautiful to him though, more so than he felt was safe for him to admit.

“Anastasia, I'm sorry that I'm such a pain in the ass to be on the run with.” He had meant to say it sarcastically, but in spite of his best efforts, it had come out sounding more sincere.

She looked up at Billy,
really
took him in with her eyes, for the first time all night. Neither one of them were really sure what they were looking for, or why they were studying one another so intently. They didn't let that stop them, though.

Was all of this really necessary? Were they prolonging each other's pain by running and hiding together while the world around them
became less a thing that made any sense to them? Would they be better off if they went their separate ways and had one less adversary to contend with as days grew darker?

Were they one another's roadmap towards something beyond all of the pain and turmoil that they had endured? Could they read the way ahead if only they kept studying the riddled expressions that painted one another's faces?

Billy broke their stare down first and unzipped his pack. He retrieved the IV bag of crimson from it and set it in the center of the desk. He had wrapped it in a cold pack he'd looped surgical tape around.

“I hope it's okay. The clinic didn't have much to choose from.”

Billy Purgatory closed the door to the classroom as Anastasia had instructed. Even in the pitch that had overtaken the room, the package he had left on the desk for Anastasia was as clear to her eyes as a bonfire.

The glowing bag of stolen blood.

II.

It had taken Billy an hour digging through the AV room of the school to find an audio cassette player. The thing was a dinosaur. He threw it on to a metal cart and rolled it out of there, into the school library. He commandeered a table, plugged the cassette player in, and inserted his mix tape of the blues.

Then he pressed play.

It all began with a hiss and static. This hadn't been a professional recording in some fancy studio, this sounded like it had been recorded in a motel room on the cheapest equipment available at the time. He turned up the volume on the hissing and noticed that sound only came from the left speaker on the tape player; it had been recorded long before the advent of stereophonic sound.

Billy wasn't at all sure what he was about to hear and was almost scared for the music to start. Everything about what he was about to
listen to, and how he was listening, was so alien to any concept he had ever had about music. How was any of this going to turn out to be important, anyway?

The voice which finally crawled up from the well of background noise was simple and to the point:

“Walter ‘Hoof Scratch' Hatchett. Out'a Demopolis, Alabama. Found me a hotel that'd take me lost deep in Canebrake. Had to play the man at the desk a song, then pay twice.”

When the guitar chords started and the speaking voice of the bluesman turned to a singing voice, Billy found himself scrambling to the librarian's desk to find something to write on. He overturned the contents of a drawer and dug for a ballpoint pen as the shoe tapping gave simple time for the music.

It was at once simple and complex, and the humming that went with the chords was mesmerizing. Billy began transcribing the lyrics which presented themselves in his own quick Hoof Scratch handwriting:

Knew a girl, she won't let me know her more
Know'd this girl, said I jus' can't know her more
Point a pistol when I follow
Won't let me sing a song outside her door
Knew a man, I don't like him none at all
Rich talkin' man, he ain't no friend that I recall
He done talked that good love poison to her
Now every time my heart try an' get up, it gets dizzy then it fall
Girl done bought a white dress, Rich man bought the preacher
My heart keep thumpin' telegrams, ain't loud enough to reach her
She say she see everything, but I ain't the everything she see
She say she know everything, but don't know nothing if she won't be with me

Billy leaned back as she stared at that last line. “This dude knows everything there is to know about chicks.”

His eyes rose from the paper and there was Anastasia, standing on the other side of the table. Billy almost jumped, and had to press down with his fingertips to keep himself from going the rest of the way back in his chair.

Anastasia's arm extended and flung the IV bag of blood at Billy's head. The bag hurt when it slapped him square in the face. Inertia
was on the side of the blood as Billy went crashing backwards in his chair and slammed into the floor of the library.

Billy stared up at the ceiling. The bag of blood slipped off his face and landed on the floor beside his suddenly aching head. The music went to zero volume, and then Anastasia was standing over him and glaring down.

“What the hell, Anastasia?”

“I don't want your bag of blood. I'm not some zoo animal that you're charged with taking care of. I am a huntress.”

She spoke with her fangs extended. “Are we clear?”

Billy started to pull himself up from the floor, dazed. Anastasia's cowboy boot heel found his chest and pressed him back down, hard. “Answer.”

“Yeah, we're clear.” Billy turned his head and stared at the blood bag next to his head. “I was just trying to help out. I should have known better than that.”

Billy's arms flexed and spun with his neck as he looked back to her and his hands clamped down on her legs. Anastasia's eyes went to shock and then joy as she welcomed the direction the conversation had taken.

“We should just get this over with.” Billy pulled and sent her tumbling down towards the floor.

She crashed with a thud. Billy rolled and was up on his knees, looking down at her, as she too rolled to look up at him. She had that look in her eye, the one she got when she was past angry and had been pushed too far. The look that usually ended with someone getting cut.

Billy's arms were out and toward her, and he used his fingers to motion towards himself and mock her. “Come on, Anastasia. Show us again what a badass you are.”

She was up on her knees faster than Billy's eyes could follow the movement, and she hissed at him. He only heard the sound of the hiss, and wasn't looking at the fangs themselves.

That hint of her tummy was showing again. The cutest belly button imaginable. He saw her hair fly, and it was so dark and soft. She was a blur of curves in motion; he found his focus trapped in a thousand ways that were hers. In every way, save the fangs that bared anger and frustration toward him.

He couldn't focus on them.

He didn't give her a chance to lunge or swipe. He didn't reach for her, he reached for himself. His hand took hold of his shirt and he pulled the black cotton away from his neck. He held it open and craned his head opposite his newly exposed neck.

“I would give you anything. Don't you know that?”

She wasn't hissing anymore when she looked down, and her hair fell about her face like a closing night curtain. She gripped the fronts of her legs tightly, and he could feel the force she exerted manifested into the very air that surrounded them both. They faced each other on their knees. Billy pulled his hand from his collar and crept forward.

Anastasia's hand shot up and her finger pointed at him almost in judgment. “No, don't…”

“Anastasia, come here. I want to.” He moved again and the pointing finger turned into the palm of her hand before his face, her fingertips to the ceiling.

“I don't want you to see.”

She was crying.

Billy Purgatory felt that he might cry too. He had no idea why. “It's okay.”

“I don't want your blood.” She looked up and strands of her hair were in her face. Her tears were pink. “I don't want that.”

“You need it, though.”

She cursed under her breath. “Stupid, vain boy. I hate you.”

“You don't hate me.” He pushed forward more.

“No, I hate that you're so stupid.” She alternated between looking down and caring whether he saw her crying, and not caring if the gods themselves had ringside seats.

“I don't want you to die.” Billy did feel a tear on his own cheek, but figured there was far too much crying going on in her own eyes for her to notice.

“Blood is not what I need from you to not die, Billy Purgatory.” She pushed all the hair out of her face with her hand. She was a mess, and even still, insanely beautiful. “You're more than food.”

Billy stopped moving towards her. He watched her try to stand, and then give up. “Then what am I? Really?”

Anastasia moved, and was closer than Billy had thought she might be to him ever again. The side of her face brushed his, sharing some
of her tears with him in the motion. Her mouth was open and almost swallowed his left ear as she whispered, “You're not the blood, you're my whole heart.”

Billy had his hand in her hair and he pulled her face from his ear. He didn't care anymore. He kissed her, and she'd kiss him back whether she liked it or not.

She must have liked it.

They tore at one another's clothes. The only sounds they made were strings of curses that clothes seemed, at that moment, so difficult to tear at. Anastasia got Billy's shirt off and ran her fingertips over his chest. All those scars and left over battle wounds. Sometimes Anastasia was shocked that there was anything left of either of them anymore. At that moment, as far as both of them were concerned about the other, they were each uniquely and perfectly broken.

Billy held her tightly and ran his hands up her back. Tracing up her spine, one hand stopped at the bra and the other continued into her hair. It was his mouth that was now at her lips. “Anastasia, that thing you said. About me being your heart.”

She didn't answer with words, only with a nod as she caressed her face with his.

“Romance novel called. They want their stolen line back.”

Anastasia's teeth scraped his neck and she hissed, “Bastard. I hate you.”

Billy smiled. “I know.”

~36~

A B
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F
ULL
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OCAINE AND
D
ONUTS

WHEN ANASTASIA FINALLY FELL BACK to the floor, her legs still intertwined around him, her top had been discarded and her hair had a life all its own. Her eyes were still bloodshot and pale, and so was her skin. Billy looked down at her as she looked up at him. She didn't seem entirely comfortable all of a sudden, with the bright lights of the library bearing down on them both.

Billy didn't seem entirely comfortable either. They were both much more exposed than either of them liked to be — especially with each other. He looked away from her breasts and his eyes trailed down her body. The button of her jeans had come undone. He traced his fingertip over her ribs and then onto her stomach.

She flinched, and Billy wasn't sure if that was because vampires were ticklish, or his big man hands were rough against the flawless porcelain that made her up.

“You've got a pretty belly button.”

“Say what? That's disgusting.”

Billy moved his hands to her hips. “Whatever, I'm just saying.”

“You don't have some weird thing with odd parts of women's bodies, do you?”

Billy shook his head and rolled his eyes. “No. Was it weird the last time?”

“Of course it was weird, that didn't make it bad though.”

Billy shrugged and took that as the continue code. “It's just cute.”

“Are you going to talk the whole time?”

Billy fell forward, the palms of his hands on either side of her as he stared down into her questioning eyes. “You don't like me talking afterwards, so I thought…”

“Don't think and stop talking.”

“Okay.”

“That's still talking.”

He nodded.

“Now, bring your scar closer.” Anastasia ran her finger across Billy's face. “I want to taste it.”

“And you're creeped out by your own belly button?”

Anastasia pulled him down to her, and Billy Purgatory finally shut the hell up.

~37~

T
ALONS

MOST OF THE TIMES, the things that humans create are ridiculous and of little purpose. That is how Anastasia had always seen their contributions to the world. Whoever had the idea to put so many shower heads in the same tiled room was definitely one of the craftier humans, and though she would never know their name, she found herself to definitely be a fan of their ingenuity.

Billy had told her that it was so lots of people could take a shower at once before he had wandered out. Having that room all to herself, walking from one spray to the next as she washed her hair and the events of the last seventy-two hours off her, was the most fun she'd had since…