Blood Groove (11 page)

During one yawn she felt a hand slip around her waist, and she was pulled close to Billy. He pressed his lips to hers more insistently this time, and his tongue sought its way into her mouth. She felt so disconnected from the actual sensations that she opened her mouth to him, and when his other hand clumsily kneaded her breast through the halter, she thought nothing of it. She lifted one leg and draped it over his lap, going with the movement until she was straddling him, still kissing him, his hands now beneath the halter.

Well
, this
isn’t very smart
, she thought remotely.
Sixteen can still get you twenty, even if the jail bait’s a boy
.

She broke the kiss and shook her head to clear it. “Whoa, shotgun,” she murmured, and pulled his unresisting hands away. “Slow down a little.”

“Hey, sure, whatever,” he said, feigning nonchalance. At least he wasn’t the kind of guy who took re sis tance personally. She climbed off his lap and sat on the steps, although she did allow herself to lean against him. She adjusted the halter and decided she’d better stay on topic before she became a child molester. The joint came her way again, so after the next fake toke she asked, “This is the best stuff you got? This is okay if you’re killing time before a concert, but what do you do for a
real
party?”

Ling snorted. “We don’t do no smack or nothing like that. That stuff’ll kill you. Killed my cousin out in San Francisco.”

“Well, I hear there’s something new going around,” she insisted. Her skin still tingled where Billy had touched her, and it was hard to concentrate. “Something that’ll knock your socks off.”

Billy nudged her with his shoulder. “Hey, you ain’t a narc, are you?”

“She’s a
narc
?” Ling almost shrieked.

Oh, shit
, Danielle thought. Leslie had told her many stories about the undercover cops who ended up dead in a variety of creative ways after blowing their covers. Now she had to get these boys back on her side before they pursued that line of thought any further.

“Jeez, do I
look
like a narc?” she said dismissively, and then added with faux sophistication, “I’m just
bored
with this. I can get weed anywhere, I thought you big-city guys would have the latest shit.”

Billy’s slack face fell at the idea she thought him uncool. She felt a twinge of guilt for hurting the poor sap’s feelings, but Billy’s broken heart would heal a lot faster than her slit throat.

Luckily, thanks to the provincial weed, the moment passed as if Danielle had not spoken. Mike and Tom returned to their rambling dissertation on the merits of the Electric Light Orchestra. “Like I was saying, the point is, they bring the whole orchestra into the rock scene, and use it to illuminate their songs,” Mike said. “That’s why they picked the name. They
are
the electric light, showing everyone how the orchestra can be as rock and roll as anything else.”

Danielle looked at Billy. He ignored the argument and stared down at the ground, his shoulders slumped. He looked almost ready to cry. She took his hand. “Hey,” she said softly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything personal by it.”

“That’s horse shit,” Tom snapped to Mike. “They’re just copying Zeppelin. Jimmy Page was using strings and shit way before Jeff Lynne.”

“And Page, he just copied all the old nigra blues players,” Ling added, desperate to be included.

Then a new voice said, “You keep talking like that and we just might go find some new friends.”

“H
EY
, L
EO
, I was stickin’ up for you black folks,” Ling said. “You didn’t think I meant anything bad by calling you nigras, did you?” He held out his hand for a soul shake, which involved many back-and-forth slaps and grips with the new arrival.

The black boy looked a little older than the others, and wore a Dallas Cowboys sports jersey. He had a big Afro with a pick comb on the side and eyes that seemed to catch the light even when there wasn’t any. “Hell, no,” he said, grinning. “Just like I can call you a chink.”

“Damn straight,” Ling agreed, a little too emphatically; he clearly relished being able to use the word “nigra” with impunity.

Another new arrival appeared beside the first. She was also black, younger and heavier, yet with that indefinable sexiness some big girls possessed. Leslie had it, and so did this girl, in spades; Danielle giggled in her head at the mental pun.

The girl turned sharply and looked at Danielle as if she’d heard her laughter. Christ, had she done it out loud? Danielle was too stoned to remember. She pinched her thigh through her jeans, hoping the pain might clear her head.

“Hey, Olive,” Billy said to the new girl. The other boys also turned immediately to her, big goofy smiles on their faces, as if this pudgy black teen was as attractive as Farrah Fawcett-Majors.

Olive showed no surprise at her reception. She wore a tube top and polyester pants, like Cleopatra Jones in the movies. Yet the blatant sexiness seemed incongruous, because she didn’t look even old enough to drive.

She stopped before Billy and ran her fingers through his hair. If she noticed Danielle holding his hand, she paid it no mind. “Hey, there, Billy boy,” she practically purred. “How’s my vanilla shake tonight?”

“Doing better with some chocolate syrup,” he said in his “sexy” voice. Danielle practically sucked her lips into her lungs trying not to laugh.

The boy Leo sat down on the steps and took a hit from the offered joint. Danielle noticed that he, like her, only faked inhaling it. “Well, hi,” he said to her. “Ain’t you a fine little thing. This your new girl, Billy?”

“No, she’s just a friend. She thinks we’re a bunch of hicks.”

“Hey, I never said—” Danielle started to protest.

Olive knelt behind Billy and put her arms around him. Danielle had not even seen her go up the steps. Was she really that stoned? “I’ll be your friend, Billy,” Olive said. “We’ll be an ice cream sandwich.”

Billy turned his head and Olive kissed him, openmouthed and sloppy. The blatant sexuality blanketed them all, and suddenly Danielle felt very alone, and very scared. Only the dampening effects of the marijuana kept her from bolting.

“Hey,” Tom suddenly blurted. “Where’s Fauvette? You said last time you’d bring her along.”

“She’ll be here in a bit,” Leo said.

Olive broke the kiss long enough to say, “I thought she left before we did?”

Leo shrugged. “You know Fauvette. Things to see, people to do.”

Olive nodded, then whispered something into Billy’s ear. He giggled, then followed her off into the dark graveyard. “Me and Billy are going to go look for the moon,” she said over her shoulder.

“The
dark
of the moon,” Ling said. Everyone laughed except Danielle.

Leo turned his odd, almost metallic-looking eyes to Danielle. He touched her shoulder, and his fingertips were ice-cold. “So where you from?” he asked.

“Nashville,” she managed, falling back on her story.

“Here for the summer?” His voice had all the sensuality that had eluded poor Billy.

“Going to school in the fall,” she said, glad now for the dope’s relaxing effect. “Premed.”

“Oh. Smart girl, eh?”

Not at the moment
, she thought, but instead just smiled. His attention, so overwhelming and out of the blue, was shifting the balance between dope-addled lethargy and blind panic. The boys, who had seemed so harmless before, now looked at her with blatant suspicion and desire. She was not racist, but it seemed like the arrival of the two blacks had completely changed everything. Her heart pounded madly and she was sweating.

Suddenly she was on her feet. She pressed her hand against her leg, feeling the dubious comfort of the Mace sprayer. “I have to go,” she blurted. “Thanks for the smokes.”

“You don’t liked hanging out with the coloreds?” Leo asked almost mockingly.

“Hey, now, Leo’s our pal,” Tom said defensively. “Don’t be a Klan Fran.”

“A ‘Klan Fran’?” Ling said. “Did you just make that up?”

“Sure.”

Danielle started to reply, but without a conscious decision suddenly dashed off toward the fence, hoping she could find the exit in her still-dotty state. The boys laughed, especially Leo, whose derision almost seemed to follow her. Tears of fright struggled to burst from her eyes, but she held them in check. Time enough for that on the drive home, assuming she lived to reach her car.

The graveyard became a maze in the dark, and she painfully fell over three tombstones hidden by the shadows. Limping and thoroughly disoriented, she turned a corner around a mausoleum and shrieked in surprise.

Billy and Olive were locked in a clinch against the wall. Olive looked up, startled. Billy, his back against the stone, didn’t move. His pants were unzipped, and Olive’s right hand curled around his erection.

At that moment a breeze rustled the trees shadowing them, and the pinkish illumination from above shone full on the black girl’s face. To Danielle’s trained eye, there was no mistaking the gleam of fresh blood on her lips. Then she glanced at Billy. The girl had
bitten
him in the neck, and two thin trickles bled down onto his shirt and bracketed the “I” in the KISS logo. His eyes were open and glassy, and his mouth worked in soundless gasps.

Olive chuckled, a wet sound as if it came through fluid still in her throat. Billy ejaculated onto her hand.

Danielle was about to scream when a strong, ice-cold palm slapped over her mouth and she was yanked back against a tall male body.

A
T THE SAME
moment Danielle locked her car and began her amateur undercover work, Zginski sat in Lee Ann’s vehicle and stared at the illuminated radio dial. The noise it emitted was second only to Lee Ann’s response to it for utterly inexplicable behavior, and for the first time he feared he might not be able to acclimate to this new world of the future. He had tried every rational explanation and found none applied, so at last he turned to her. “May I ask you a question?”

She stopped tossing her head to the music and answered breathlessly, “Sure.”

“What is ‘the funk’? And why do those singing tribal people want it?”

“Singing tribal—oh, you mean the nigras. Yeah, they’re black, and I guess ‘the funk’ is sort of what they call doing the deed.”

“The deed,” he repeated blankly.

“You know,
the deed
,” she said, trying to sound worldly.

“Ah.”
That
at least he understood.

As she parked her battered ’69 Chevy Malibu outside their destination, Lee Ann wondered for the first time if pursuing
this sudden crush might not be a good idea. “You mean
this
is where you’re staying?”

“It suits my purposes for the moment,” Zginski replied, his voice soft, deep, and smooth. He understood her initial response: even to his eyes, the Graceland Motel was clearly on the low, common end of the spectrum. However, the cash he’d taken from her brother was running out, and this was the only place he could afford. All this would change as he grew more acclimated to this new time and secured funding for the appropriate lifestyle.

She looked over at Zginski, his eyes hidden in the gloom. Red light from the motel’s flashing neon sign illuminated his lips and chin. The image sent a shiver through her, and all her mother’s warnings about strangers, foreigners, and men in general sprang fresh to her mind. But then she remembered how she felt when he looked at her, and everything faded except that. If he wanted her in a ratty motel room, then he could have her there, in any way he desired.

He stepped around to the driver’s side and opened the door for her. For the first time he noticed the “G” was unlit in the motel sign. A glowering black man emerged from one of the nearby rooms, spent a moment staring at the two whites, then climbed into a Dodge Charger and squealed tires out of the lot, fishtailing as he entered the traffic to many disgruntled honks.

The car gave Zginski a rush of visceral excitement unlike any he’d experienced in over two centuries. Mastering the skill of driving looked complicated, but if someone like Lee Ann, a mere woman, could master it, he should be able to do the same. These terrific machines, capable of such bursts of speed and power yet filled with amenities like cool-air generators and small wireless devices that produced music, were the first genuine improvement he’d encountered in this new time. He couldn’t wait to learn the techniques needed to operate one.

Lee Ann took his arm and they entered room 12, downstairs by the pool. Zginski was desperate to feed on the girl, but he knew the benefits of taking his time. First he closed the drapes so she would not notice his unusual pallor. He’d left the air conditioner off so the room would be warm, and thus his skin not quite so cold and repulsive to her touch. When he looked at her again she stood in the middle of the room enveloped in his full influence, trembling so that her legs could barely support her. He held out his hand, and she put her fingers carefully in it. At the moment of contact she made a little gasp, and he knew she’d experienced female fulfillment. Her face flushed with blood, and he found himself trembling as well.

“Come to me, Lee Ann,” he said in a low, deep purr.

“I’m scared, Rudy,” she whispered. “I’ve never felt like this.”

“Is it your first time with a man?” he asked with a knowing smile.

“What? No, don’t be ridiculous. It’s just . . . I never
wanted
it like this. This much. It hurts, almost. Like you’ve put a spell on me.” She managed a smile at her own silliness. “Or maybe a curse. I can’t imagine saying ‘no’ to you.”

He slid a hand around her waist and pulled her against him. Because of her platform sandals he had to look up into her eyes. She was breathing heavily, and her whole body shivered. He could possess her now in any way he chose.

“On your knees, Lee Ann,” he said softly.

With no resistance or comment, she slid to her knees, sat back on her heels, and looked up at him. Her hands rested demurely in her lap.