Blood Groove (19 page)

Z
GINSKI UNLOCKED THE
motel room door. It was hotter inside than out, although heat had no effect on him or Fauvette. Lee Ann sat in the middle of the bed still naked, the sheets wrapped around her, crying softly.

He closed the door and said sternly, “What’s wrong? Why are you still in bed, we’ve been gone for hours?”

“Because I can’t get out of it,” she whined. She had the collapsed, defeated look of a prisoner of war.

“What do you mean?” he snapped, and she winced as if from a blow.

“I
mean
, you didn’t tell me I could get up,” she whimpered. She glowed with sweat and the smell permeated the room. “I’m starving, I’m dying of thirst, and I
really
have to pee, but I can’t get off the bed.”

“Attend to yourself,” he said absently, closing the curtains. Although the sun was now behind the building, the early-afternoon light was still intense and he was weary of it. Lee Ann clutched the sheets around her and rushed into the bathroom; a moment later they heard her immense sigh, followed by the sound of her urination.

Fauvette crossed the room, closed the bathroom door,
and stood against the wall, arms folded. She was truly tired as well, but there was no way to return to her coffin and rest. “You’re mean to her.”

“Yes, that was thoughtless,” he agreed. “I had no idea her will was so weak. Perhaps she will not do as a long-term companion after all.”

“What will we do until dark?”

“First we will feed,” Zginski said. “Then we will rest.”

“Rest here? What, in the
bed
?”

He nodded. “It has its dangers, but with Lee Ann on hand, we should be safe enough.” Anyone discovering them in true rest would think that they were dead bodies, so it was useful to have a mortal human to stand watch. Not that he could count on Lee Ann’s resourcefulness or initiative, apparently.

Lee Ann emerged from the bathroom, the sheet now tied under her arms. She was still sniffling, and her eyes were red from crying. “So where did you go?” she asked demurely.

“You do not question,” Zginski said, and Lee Ann’s demeanor again crumpled. She sat on the edge of the bed, head down, her shoulders trembling.

Fauvette scowled at Zginski and went to Lee Ann. “I’m sorry. We went to a movie. We should have left you . . . freer.”

Lee Ann nodded. “It would’ve been nice. Is this what it’ll always be like?”

“I don’t know,” Fauvette said.

Zginski took off his shirt. His skin was pale, his body lean and hard. There were rapier scars from his mortal life across his chest, and what looked like a burned emblem, a brand, that had been obliterated by a second, later burn. “Come, Lee Ann,” he said as he sat on the other side of the bed. His meaning was instantly clear.

“Oh, God,” Lee Ann whimpered.

“Not yet,” Fauvette said. She traced a finger along Lee
Ann’s still-perspiring face and neck, around the bite she’d left there earlier. “She needs a shower.”

“What?” Zginski said blankly.

“Look at her; she’s been sitting in her own sweat all day. Let her clean up a little first.” She took Lee Ann’s hand. Lee Ann looked apprehensively at Zginski.

Zginski shrugged. “If you wish.”

Fauvette pulled Lee Ann to her feet and into the bathroom. “And turn on the air conditioner,” she said before the door closed on them.

Fauvette pulled off her own shirt. “Set the water however you like, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“You can’t tell the difference between hot and cold?” Lee Ann said, twisting her hands together nervously.

“I can, it just doesn’t matter,” Fauvette said, slipping the jeans down her legs.

Lee Ann started the water and, as they waited for it to warm up, said, “Are you going to kill me?”

Fauvette shook her head. “I’m just trying to be nice. You were nice to me before.”

“B-but you . . . you
drank my blood
before.”

“Did it hurt?”

“A little, at first. Then I felt really tired afterward.” She stuck her hand into the water to check the temperature. “But you . . . I mean, vampires . . . you kill the people you suck blood from, don’t you?”

“I always figured we did,” Fauvette said wryly. “But lucky for you,
he
looks at it differently.”

“Differently how?”

“What do you know about him?”

“He left some papers on the nightstand. I got so bored I read them. They talked about how he was killed in Wales or Welshland or someplace. Is that true?”

“As far as I know.”

“Then he can be killed,” she breathed in disbelief.

“Everyone can,” Fauvette agreed.

Lee Ann’s hope faded almost at once. “But not by me. I can’t even fight him enough to go to the bathroom.”

Fauvette smiled faintly. “Lee Ann, I’m sorry. This must all be very difficult for you, and I should’ve stood up to him more for your sake.”

“But you’re just like him.”

“No, we have a lot in common, but he doesn’t care any more about me than he does you.” She ran her fingers through Lee Ann’s hair, longer and finer than her own. “I guess that makes us sisters, of a sort. Now check that water again.”

It was warm enough, so Fauvette followed Lee Ann into the shower. When Lee Ann reached for the soap, Fauvette stopped her hand. “It’s my turn to do you.”

Fauvette picked up a rag and began washing the taller woman’s back. She was careful and gentle, especially around the bites on her neck and thigh, as she continued to the rest of her body. She caressed her with her other hand, not sexually but with soft, slow strokes along her arms, hips, and legs.

“The water’s getting cold,” Lee Ann said finally.

“Then we’re done,” Fauvette said, and stood on tiptoes to kiss her on the cheek. “Let’s get you dried off now.”

Lee Ann turned off the water, and the two women stepped from the shower. Fauvette took a towel from the rack and, beginning with her hair, rubbed Lee Ann dry. “Can I ask you something?” Lee Ann said. “How old are you?”

Fauvette did not pause in her work. “What year is it again?”

“1975.”

“Reckon I’m closing in on sixty, then.”

“How old were you when . . .”

“Fourteen.”

“And you’ll always look like you do now?”

“I suppose.”

“That’s pretty cool.” She said it in the same defeated, limp way, but her admiration was apparent.

“I suppose,” Fauvette repeated after only a slight pause.

“You’re real pretty.”

“Thanks.”

When they were both dry, Fauvette again took Lee Ann’s hand and led her into the other room. The air conditioner had made little dent in the heat, but for Fauvette what was important was that Zginski had turned it on at her command. The two naked women stood before him holding hands while he inspected them with blatant appreciation from the bed. He was still shirtless, and had also removed his shoes. Fauvette suddenly recalled the forced kiss in the alley and realized, despite herself, that he was a supremely attractive man in ways that had nothing to do with his ability to overpower her. Her body tingled in response to his scrutiny.

In her mind, she repeated a phrase she’d heard Leonardo use on occasion.
Eyes on the prize, girl
. He’d kill her in an instant if it suited him. Right now she wanted him to think her as weak and helpless as Lee Ann.

“This is a sight many a man would savor,” he said. “Alas, my need is too great for such a luxury.” He gestured to the bed. “Come to me, Lee Ann.”

“She needs to eat something,” Fauvette said. “Look at her.”

“No, that’s okay,” Lee Ann said to Fauvette. Then she crawled onto the bed and stretched out beside him. She snuggled into his embrace, and he brushed the hair from her neck, revealing Fauvette’s earlier bite mark. She ran her hands over his chest and shoulders, suddenly breathing heavily.

“You are a beauty, Lee Ann,” he whispered. “You command the attention of all men who see you. All would envy me if they knew of your presence in my arms. Your beauty gives you such power.”

“You’re so cold, Rudy,” she whispered. “Can you feel me touch you?”

“I can feel every living inch of you,” he replied softly.

She sighed with arousal. His hands traveled lightly over her skin.

“I chose you for your exquisiteness,” he continued, but his eyes met Fauvette’s. She remained beside the bed, heedless of her nudity, working hard to keep her expression neutral. “I treasure your charms because they are given freely, without any resistance.”

“Yessssss,” Lee Ann breathed in response. “Oh, yes . . .”

He slid down the bed until he was on his stomach between her legs. She moaned and tossed in anticipation. He lifted the thigh he’d bitten before and positioned himself over the same marks. When his mouth closed around it Lee Ann’s body jolted like she’d been shocked and her hands clutched at the mattress.

Whether deliberately or not, Zginski’s seduction of Lee Ann had also affected Fauvette, and she now needed the same thing he did. Her plan, tenuous at first, began to coalesce as she crawled onto the bed and reclined beside Lee Ann. The girl looked at her with wide eyes, breathing in rapid gasps as Zginski’s mouth made soft, wet sounds against her thigh, and Fauvette’s cold body molded itself against her. She was both terrified and aroused at being the center of all this attention.

Fauvette stroked Lee Ann’s face and smiled. “You won’t die, I promise,” she whispered to the fear in the girl’s eyes. “We both need you too much right now.
Sister
.”

Then Fauvette gasped, too, as Zginski’s hand traveled up her leg. In the tangle of limbs he might have simply mistaken her for Lee Ann, but knowing that did nothing to still the unfamiliar tremor that ran through her. His power was so great she responded even when it was inadvertent.

She turned Lee Ann’s head to one side, exposing her
neck. The tiny scabs were soft now from the shower. “He’s right, you
are
beautiful . . .”

“Are you going to bite me, too?” Lee Ann managed to ask.

Fauvette pressed herself against the girl’s hot, full body. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.

And when Fauvette put her cold lips to her own previous bite, Lee Ann experienced a sexual release greater than her simple mind ever imagined.

   Danielle awoke again. The light was no longer shining directly on her through the broken glass, but the heat was murderous. She was thirstier than she’d ever been in her life, and weaker than she would’ve thought possible. Yet this time she was able to get her hands beneath her body and lift her torso enough to look around.

She met the eye sockets of the dead hobo, fiddle still clutched in his hands. She’d seen many corpses in a similar state, so this did not frighten her. Nor did the flies buzzing around it, or the maggots visible in places where the skin allowed access to what remained beneath it. The stench made her gag, but that was a response to her overall nausea more than anything else.

She turned her head the other way. The wall beneath the window was streaked with old, dried blood in a pattern she easily recognized as an arterial spray. Someone’s throat had been cut near the very spot she now occupied, and she grabbed her own throat to verify the wound hadn’t been hers. But her skin remained intact.

The agony had now localized in her hips, specifically the big gluteus muscles of her rear end. She looked back and saw that it was literally purple, a mass of bruises radiating out from central spots on each cheek. Those spots each sported two holes, puncture wounds that were now scabbed over.
The bruise pattern directly around those pairs of holes looked familiar, like . . .

A mouth.

And then it all came back to her. And she tried to scream, but her throat was so dry she managed only a pitiful croak.

L
EE
A
NN STOPPED
her car in the overgrown field behind the warehouse just as the radio played the intro to “Kung Fu Fighting.” After spending an hour relating what little she knew of the historical facts behind “The Night Chicago Died,” she was relieved she wouldn’t have to also explain Asian martial arts.

Zginski rode in the passenger seat, while Fauvette sat in the back. Lee Ann drove with one hand, while the other picked tiny Krystal hamburgers from a bag between her knees and shoved them greedily into her mouth. She was weak and still shivery from the hours spent between the other two, a passive plaything for their sensual, but not carnal, pleasure. She had felt like taffy being slowly and deliciously pulled in two different directions, her life incrementally drawn from both her neck and thigh. Now both the girl and Zginski seemed to have power over her, to the point that even their slightest request felt like the most important task in the world. She wondered if she’d ever feel normal again.

Gnats swirled through the dust disturbed by the car’s arrival. Mark’s truck was parked in its usual spot, which told
Fauvette they had returned the previous night early enough to take the standard precautions. Had they not even bothered to look for her? Surely Mark wouldn’t just abandon her.