Birth of the Vampire (The Vanderlind Realm) (14 page)

I started to run. “Get away from me, you psycho,” I shouted over my shoulder.

“Haley! I am your maker. I command you to stop. You must obey me,” he insisted, chasing after me.

“Help!” I shouted as I stumbled out of the woods and onto the road. “Help!” I waved desperately at the headlights of a car. It whizzed by, not even bothering to slow down. I hoped the driver would at least have the decency to feel guilty when the newspaper headlines announced that my mutilated corpse had been found by the side of the road.

“Haley, stop!” Dorian shouted, although he clung to the shadows. “You are a vampire. You cannot get into a car with mortals. Not until you’ve at least learned how to control your hunger.”

I was going to have to report Dorian to the police. I didn’t care how hot he was, he couldn’t be allowed to run around the streets shouting about mortals and controlling my hunger. Yes, I was hungry. Yes, I might have killed a chipmunk and drank its blood for some crazy reason. But it wasn’t like I was going to suck the red, succulent juice out of a human. That was just insane.

“Help!” I shouted as another set of car headlights came into view. “I need help!” I ran into the center of the road and waved my arms frantically. The car kept on going.

A brown pickup truck slowed down, and the driver’s side window opened. “What seems to be the problem, little lady?” a man asked. He was probably in his forties with salt and pepper in his beard.

“There’s some creep hiding in the woods, and he won’t leave me alone,” I told him although Dorian had instantly disappeared from view.

“Well, climb on in. I’ll protect you,” the man said with a smile.

If I was being honest, there was a bit of lechery to my savior’s grin, but no one else was stopping, so it wasn’t like I had a choice. I could only deal with one weirdo at a time, and I was very focused on getting the hell away from Dorian. So I ran around to the passenger’s side and climbed in.

“Thanks,” I told the man, once I’d yanked the door shut.

He started driving.

“I live in Tiburon. On Elm near Twentieth,” I told him.

“Uh-huh,” was his reply.

“So you’ll want to make a left soon,” I said. If he kept heading the way he was heading, we’d be getting on the highway.

“Uh-huh,” he said again.

“Or you could just let me off anywhere in town.” I was starting to get the distinct impression that he had no intention of letting me out of his truck anywhere near Uncle Kevin’s house.

“I don’t blame whoever was after you,” the man said, looking over at me. “You are a pretty little thing.”

Shit
, I thought. This was not good. I’d just spent the night in a hole with an aspiring vampire and somehow managed to keep my almost-virginity intact only to climb in a pick-up with another weirdo. I would have opened the door, but he’d really put on the speed. I guess that was to keep me from jumping out.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Cat got your tongue? Didn’t your momma ever teach you to say thank you when someone pays you a compliment?” He reached over, put his hand on my knee, and gave it a squeeze.

“Leave me alone!” I hissed at him through gritted teeth. I grabbed his hand and bent the fingers back, peeling it off my leg.

I guess I kind of surprised him because he let out a howl of pain and yanked his hand away. “You bitch!” he said and then went to slug me.

I guess dodging Uncle Kevin for the last few months had heightened my reflexes because I caught his hand in midpunch and squeezed it as hard as I could. The man let out a horrendous shriek and let go of the wheel, sending us lurching over into the oncoming lane.

“Watch it!” I shouted, grabbing the wheel and jerking it the other way so that we were back on the correct side of the road. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Let go of my hand,” the man wailed. “Just let go of my damn hand.” I let go of his hand, and he cradled it like an injured bird. He looked over at me, and I could see anger flare behind his eyes. He muttered another curse word at me and then said, “You have no right to do something like that. Get the hell out of my truck.”

“Fine,” I told him. “I’d love to get out of your truck. I don’t know if anyone has ever explained this to you before, but you’re really a sick jerk. You know that?”

“Get out!” he bellowed, lurching the car to a halt. When I just glared at him, he repeated himself. “Get out.”

“No,” I said, glaring right back at him. He was angry, but I was damn angry, too. I felt a ferocity that I had never felt before. I suddenly knew what it was like to be a rattlesnake when it was ready to strike. “You get out.”

“Whah …?” he said, caught by surprise. “But this is my truck,” he stammered, sounding almost like a young boy who thought he was being treated unfairly.

“I don’t care,” I said. “You don’t even deserve a truck.” What kind of sick weirdo offers someone in trouble a ride and then tries to take advantage of them? He made me so angry I wanted to rip his throat out. Not only did I want to punch the guy in the face a few times, but then I wanted to lick his blood from my knuckles. Actually, making the guy a little bloody sounded like a good idea. Just the thought of it started my stomach rumbling. I smiled in anticipation of filling my belly.

But then I caught myself. What the hell was I thinking? I didn’t want to kill the guy. Not really. I just wanted a ride and for him to keep his damn hands to himself. But that didn’t seem to be in the cards. Still, I didn’t want to get out of his truck. I didn’t want to walk home by myself. The way my luck was going, if I got out of the truck, I would probably run into a serial killer like Ted Bundy or something.

I suddenly felt like if the guy didn’t get out of the truck that very instant I was going to do something drastic. “Get out!’ I screeched at him.

I guess my voice conveyed my stress level because the guy practically fell out of the driver’s side door. I slid over so that I was behind the steering wheel. “I’ll leave your truck at the corner of Elm and Fourteenth,” I told him. “Don’t go to the police, and don’t ever perv out on another female ever again. Got me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said from the street, one of his pupils shrinking down to the size of a pinhead and the other expanding wide as a salad plate.

He might have said something after that, but I didn’t wait around to listen. I peeled out, gravel spraying behind the pickup’s tires as I barreled down the road. All I wanted to do was get home, and I had to deal with perverts oozing out of the woodwork. The guy was old enough to be my dad. What the hell was he thinking?

Chapter 22

Dorian

For almost a century I have listened to the undead extol the joys of becoming a maker. Some have described it as love at first sight. I’ve heard a few women say it felt the same as when they were human and had just given birth, seeing their baby for the first time. Most did agree that there was an instant connection and bond that could not be broken in a dozen mortal lifetimes.

I had none of those emotions. What I felt when I first laid eyes on my scion after she rose from the dead was something more like panic. Or regret, perhaps. Or dread. But it definitely wasn’t an emotion that I actually wanted to feel.

What was everyone talking about? A vampire’s love for his progeny was supposed to be the greatest love of all. And here I felt nothing. I felt like I had been swindled. Or at least sincerely mislead.

It wasn’t that I found Haley’s appearance unattractive. If anything, she had unexpectedly transformed into an extraordinary beauty. It was her personality that I found off-putting.

I had thought that Haley would know that she had undergone a change. I thought that she would be happy, even grateful, to discover that she was a creature of the night. I thought she would be thrilled to know that Dorian Vanderlind was her maker. But she was none of those things.

None of the sense that I spoke could persuade her. She was actually willing to expose us to danger by flagging down a passing automobile. The foolishness of a just-born vampire climbing into the cab of a truck with an unsuspecting human left me feeling chilled. Bloodlust would probably cause her to tear the poor driver to pieces. And then she wouldn’t know how to properly conceal the body. She might even leave it just by the side of the road for the whole world to see. That would not serve the undead in any way that was positive. And the Bishops, our ruling family, would not allow a rogue vampire to rampage out of control. One or two indiscretions would be tolerated as Haley adjusted to her new life as an immortal, but if she was to go on a killing spree or allow her actions to become too public, then the Bishops would insist she meet the dawn rather than bring humankind down on our heads.

And I would not be treated so kindly. The Bishops did not approve of a vampire whose progeny started running amok. I would be held responsible. If Haley went unchecked, there was a good chance I would also face the morning sun. Or at least some very painful disciplinary actions. I did not fancy the idea of having my fangs ripped out or being locked in a coffin for the next hundred years. Not for some little girl that I turned because I felt sorry for her. I had to talk sense into her for both our sakes. So I followed the truck, sticking to the tree line, convinced at any moment it would skid off the road as the windshield became splattered with blood.

After only a few moments, the pickup did start to swerve and quickly came to a stop. I knew what would happen next. There would be screaming, the screaming of a human in mortal terror. And then there would be blood. I was glad I had slaked my thirst well before heading to the mortal party. I felt no inclination to join in on the meal.

Much to my surprise, the driver’s side door opened and a mortal man leapt from the vehicle. He stood there for a moment, staring back into his truck, then turned and fled in terror into the woods. The truck started moving again.

I wondered what Haley had done to the man. Had she revealed herself as a creature of the night? Had the man unwittingly become a liability to vampire kind by offering a ride to a stranger? After a split second of deliberation, I kept flying after the truck. The man wasn’t bleeding. Even if he did tell people he had encountered a vampire, they would just assume he was crazy.

Haley drove through the sleepy little town, where I assumed mortals were all sitting around their fireplaces enjoying the afterglow of a good roast and a holiday well spent with loved ones. She parked the pickup on a dark side street, got out, and started walking. I alighted on the other side of the street near a few tall pine trees and followed her at a distance. She walked a few blocks and then climbed the steps to a small, dumpy little house. The roof needed shingling, and the yard was in desperate need of care. I knew that unless Haley was the owner of the house, there was no way she could enter without an invitation. That suited my needs. When she found that she was physically unable to enter the domicile, she would understand that something was different. Then maybe I would have the opportunity I needed to explain about the great gift I had given her.

Haley paused at the door, probably confused as to why she couldn’t move her feet to cross the threshold into a building that she had previously considered her home. I was just about to step out of the shadows when the front door of the house was yanked open. A man somewhere in his forties stood glaring at her through the screen door. He swayed a little like a man who had spent too much time at the bottle.

“Where the hell have you been?” the man demanded, his voice slightly slurred. “I thought you were dead.”

“I …” Haley stammered. “I had an accident.”

The man thrust open the screen door. “Get in here,” he told her.

“Damn it,” I whispered under my breath. The man had put just enough of an invitation into his words that Haley was able to enter the house. I felt my anger rising. I very much wanted to kill the man for being so foolish as to invite a vampire into his home. But in all likelihood, Haley was about to end his life. I was wasting my emotions on the inevitable.

Haley being inside a house was a problem. I couldn’t monitor her there. I couldn’t prevent her from killing the drunk man who had answered the door, and I couldn’t keep her from the sun when it began to rise. She wouldn’t know that she needed to hide away from the daylight. The first rays of dawn would start to burn her. And then she would shrivel and fry before she could find cover. The coroners would probably either blame the man for setting her on fire or attribute it to spontaneous combustion. That was usually how mortals explained away the untimely death of a vampire.