Forever Night Sins
B.J. McCall
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Copyright ©2013 B.J. McCall
BIN: 06299-02024
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Editor: Sheri Ross Fogarty
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Table Of Contents
B.J. McCall
Night is made for sin and vampires rule the dark.
An officer for the Dead Souls Agency, Harper Croix’s job is vampire enforcement. One night her job takes a lethal turn, and Harper has a showdown with an old one. He’s nothing like the rabid bloodsuckers she burns, arrests and destroys. He’s handsome, strong, disciplined and he wants revenge.
Egan wants Agent Croix to suffer for her sins against his kind. Revenge is a dish best served cold, but Croix is hot and tasty. One encounter leads to another. Enemies become lovers.
Harper has sworn to enforce the vampire laws, not break them. An affair with a vampire is reckless. Falling in love is crazy stupid. Egan is irresistible.
“Stop here. I want to walk the street.”
Harper Croix hit the brakes, stopping her patrol vehicle in the middle of the empty street. She looked through the reinforced windshield at the tall, windowless edifice of the Cemetery, and then glanced at her passenger. “You can’t be serious?”
“I’ve done seven episodes in seven cities,” Derek Hays said. “In every city, I’ve filmed the capture of a vampire. After two nights out here, what do I have? A couple of dark shadows, flitting between rooftops. The public wants to see a vampire. They want to see the DSA in action. They want to see sizzling flesh.”
The anchor of the popular cable show called
Lawmen
, Hays had TV star looks and a perfect smile that didn’t touch his blue eyes. The new season of
Lawmen
featured the Dead Souls Agency, and Hays had rolled into town with a full entourage three days ago. The anchor had wanted a young, female agent for the Bright Center episode, someone to represent the agents working the streets of a city once known for its brilliant skyline and now more commonly called Blight.
Not someone who enjoyed being photographed, Harper had unfortunately caught the eye of the show’s producer. With her slim figure, lean face, short spiky brown hair and big green eyes, the producer had picked her out of a room of agents. To Harper’s dismay, the camera loved her and since she wasn’t as pretty as Hays, she’d gotten the assignment. Her watch commander was thrilled. She wasn’t.
Harper just wanted to get back to the job, keeping the streets of Blight safe.
“
You
suggested we come out here alone,” Hays said. “But I still don’t have a vampire.”
Hays and his crew had followed her on patrol, irritating Harper with constant questions, directives and touch ups to the makeup she hadn’t wanted to wear. When Hays had complained about not seeing any vampires, Harper hadn’t held back. She’d told him that the vampires could see and hear his noisy crew coming from a mile away. If he wanted to see vampires, he should go it alone and hang out by the Cemetery.
She thought that would shut Hays up. Instead, he loved the idea. For the last three hours, she’d been driving Hays and his cameraman along the streets surrounding the Cemetery.
“If several vampires attack this vehicle, I have weapons, but out on the street I can’t ensure your safety.”
“I know how to use a light wand,” Hays said, holding up a personal ultraviolet wand.
The size of a flashlight, the personal wands were very expensive, but limited in range and power. If Hays thought his wand would keep him safe from a pack of vampires he had another think coming. There was a reason she was armed with a top-of-the-line UV wand, a gun that shot debilitating silver needles, another that spat out pointed wooden bullets, and patrolled in a reinforced vehicle. Harper hated vampires, but she respected their strength and power.
Harper was tired of Hays. Maybe if he got a shot of a vampire, he’d wrap up the filming and move on. “Good. It’s likely you’ll need it.”
“This is more like it.”
Harper picked up her UV wand and verified the charge. Commonly called a burner, the ultraviolet wand was an effective weapon against a vampire. The stream of concentrated light burned the flesh, subduing the creature until it was properly manacled in heavy cuffs that emitted UV light if moved. A reinforced paddy wagon was used to transport the creatures to a jail facility designed to contain the creatures. The sentence for being caught outside the authorized vampire zone, the Cemetery, was incarceration. The government had a cheap, strong, never aging labor force at its disposal. Little wonder the unemployment rate was so high among humans.
A wall, flooded with ultraviolet light, surrounded the Cemetery. The light was supposed to keep the vampires inside, but the creatures still managed to venture inside the city using old sewer, drainage or rail tunnels. The DSA blocked every tunnel discovered, but the determined vampires dug themselves out.
Harper climbed out of the air-conditioned vehicle and put on her helmet. The sun had set hours ago, but the air was still hot and sultry.
“I’d rather film you without the helmet,” Gus said.
“Helmets are required outside vehicles.”
“It will ruin my shots.”
Harper stepped up to Gus, grabbed the lens of the camera and shoved it aside. “You think this camera is going to protect you if a pack of vampires attack us? You’re on the street in front of the Cemetery. Get real.”
“This is great,” Hays said. “Would you say that again on camera?”
“Fuck you. Get your heads in the game. Watch and listen. Vampires move fast.”
Ignoring her instructions, Hays turned to the cameraman and began speaking into his microphone. “We’re walking the streets near the Cemetery, the home of a large population of vicious vampires. The brave officers of the Dead Souls Agency face off with these villains every night. Officers like Harper Croix.”
Turning away from the camera, Harper groaned. If they ran into vampires, Harper prayed Hays wouldn’t lose it. Fighting a vampire was a challenge. Add an over-eager newsman and you had a catastrophe waiting to happen.
With Hays and Gus tagging along, Harper walked down the middle of the street. The Cemetery loomed on the left and buildings, long abandoned by their human occupants, stood to her right. Harper’s gaze swept from side to side, looking for a darting shadow and listening for a whoosh of air.
Although it was illegal for vampires to enter the human zones, the bloodsuckers were drawn to the living. Ignoring the tough laws, vampires often interacted with humans, having sex and sipping blood. Only a fool would walk the streets after sundown.
“Where are the vampires?” Hays asked.
“They’re around.”
“Get them to come out,” Hays said. “Your mayor wants me to put Bright Center on the map again.”
Bright Center. The locals never used the official name. After the great economic crash that had taken down the nations of the free world, the lights of Bright Center began to dim, the buildings became dilapidated and the neglected infrastructure began to fail. The street gangs tagged the city signs to read Blight Center. Eventually, the nickname became so common that even the city workers and cops referred to the once proud city simply as Blight.
Hays believed the vampires would be eager to be on television. Harper’s street experience told her smart vampires avoided the DSA at all costs, preferring unarmed citizens.
“The vampires are here,” Harper said.
“So why don’t they show themselves?”
“Maybe they don’t want to be on TV.”
“
Everyone
wants to be a star. Vampires used to run the film industry. They love the camera.”
After an hour of walking, Hays vented his frustration. “This is useless. There must be a way to draw them to us.”
“You could cut your hand and run down the street bleeding,” Harper said. “Every vampire within a mile would smell you.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Are you afraid, Officer Croix?”
Harper wanted to smack Hays in the mouth. “The DSA patrols. If we find vampires, we subdue and arrest them. We don’t troll for them with human blood.”
“Maybe you should.”
Hays pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and called his producer, requesting blood.
When he disconnected, Harper glared at him. “This is crazy stupid.”
“My producer is on board. Money talks. How far to the blood bank?”
Harper shook her head in disbelief. “I’ve got to call my watch commander.”
“Call the commissioner if you like,” Hays said, heading for the patrol car. “But be quick about it. It’ll be light in a few hours.”
Harper followed him to the vehicle. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Not if you do your job.”
“My job isn’t throwing human blood around on the streets. Do you really think your viewers want to see that?”
“Yeah, they do. Your job is helping me do my job. You really don’t think the agency director wants the DSA to look like an ineffective, over-budgeted outfit on national TV. He wants to see what the public wants to see. Vampires getting the hot end of your burner.”
The cable show,
Lawmen
, was very popular, a favorite of law enforcement agencies. Harper’s captain was thrilled to be part of the show. Complaining to the brass about Hays would get her nowhere.
Harper dropped into the driver’s seat, removed her helmet and stowed her light wand next to her seat. She started the engine and welcomed the cool air pouring out of the air conditioner. She glanced at Hays. “I want it on record that this is your idea and that I think it’s dangerous.”
Hays gave her a self-satisfied grin. “Let’s roll.”
* * *
Blood.
Egan’s nostrils quivered. Sweet smelling human blood, not the weak animal blood rations the authorities sent to the Cemetery. The government’s objective was to provide minimal sustenance and keep the vampire population in a weakened state. They were succeeding.
Egan inhaled. The blood wasn’t hot and fresh, but the aroma still had Egan licking his fangs. Another scent teased his nostrils, the tantalizing smell of the living.
Intrigued, Egan followed the scents. Three rooftops later, he slipped over the edge of an abandoned building across the street from the Cemetery, the high-rise complex housing the soulless population of Blight. He hunkered down on the rusted fire escape. The bluish ultraviolet lights illuminating the walls surrounding the Cemetery would fry any vampire attempting to scale them so his kind were forced to use old tunnels or sewer drains like rats. The UV lights cast an eerie glow on the intersection below.
A female agent dressed in the distinctive Dead Souls uniform, red tunic-style jacket and black pants, stood beside a reinforced red and white DSA vehicle equipped with UV spotlights mounted on the roof. Two human male civilians walked around the vehicle. Excited, perhaps a bit scared, the human males were scenting the air with perspiration and a variety of lotions and hair products. The agent had a fresh unique scent all her own, pure female and hot blood.
