Less Than Human (8 page)

"I should cut your throat right now," Billy T said. He was breathing heavily.

Juliana' s eyes focused and she wiped the corner of her mouth, leaving a red stain on the back of her hand. "That's not what you really want to do." She licked the blood off her hand, reminding him of a cat grooming itself. If she was afraid, it didn't show. In fact the rougher it got the more she seemed to enjoy it.

"I want some answers." Billy T grasped her by the hair and pulled her to a sitting position.

"What do you want to know, Billy boy?"

"Just one thing. How do you know about Abilene?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me," he answered, showing her the knife. "You'd be surprised at what I believe."

She smiled and he cut her to show that he meant business, nothing personal, just a small cut on her face. Women didn't like to have their faces marked. The cut should have been enough to wipe that smug smile off her face; instead it only made her smile wider. She leaned forward and placed her mouth against his, and Billy T felt the heat from her, rolling off in waves. This woman was like nothing he had ever known; she was musk and exotic perfume, overpowering, and it was making the blood thunder inside his head, carrying him along on a tide of desire to some distant, unfamiliar shore.

He fought. Struggling like a rabbit in a snare.

Billy T had never wanted a woman the way he wanted this woman. He answered her kiss and tasted the blood in her mouth from where he had struck her.

Her legs locked around him as she pressed herself closer. They were almost melded together.

There was something frightening about her need, something that went beyond mere sex. He tried to pry her loose, but she was too strong. Her long legs easily held him, tightening, until he realized she might break his back. He was having trouble breathing. She wouldn't release him from her kiss, holding his tongue with her teeth.

He jabbed her with the knife and she released his tongue, laughing. Her hands slid beneath his shirt, tearing at it, stripping him to the waist.

Billy T wanted to be inside her, but she held him at bay, handling him as if he were some inexperienced teenager.

Her teasing was driving him wild. The radio was playing heavy metal, all bass and drums, pulsing to the blood tides that were crashing inside his head, so loud that he barely heard her when she spoke. "Do you know where sex takes place, Billy T?" She grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back so she could look into his eyes. "Where it really takes place?"

Billy T could only look at her, unable to speak.

"In your mind." She stroked his dark hair. "It's all in your mind."

The cold night air caressed him, drying his sweaty skin, causing the cuts on his throat to sting.

Still gripping him by the hair, Juliana pulled his face close and placed her mouth against his mouth, biting his lip. Her mouth moved down. More bites.

For a moment, he thought something was wrong with her teeth. They were too long. Too sharp. Must be the light, he told himself. She smiled, opened herself.

Billy T entered her.

And found she was cold inside.

No, not really cold, just cooler than a woman should be, and Billy T felt a slight shock. Her skin was feverishly hot to the touch. He didn't find the contrast pleasant. If he wasn't more than a little drunk, he might have wondered why that was. It was like making love to a dead woman.

Then her hands were on him, touching him, driving all conscious thought from his mind. Her tongue probed his throat. Going deep. Deeper. And then still deeper. Warmth and ecstasy flowed into his body, causing him to groan. This was pleasure beyond drugs, beyond sex, beyond anything he had ever known or could imagine. Even killing didn't compare.

Voices he had never heard before cried out inside his mind as wave after wave of sensation shot through him. This was the best sex he'd ever had, multiplied by thousands, building, building, as though he were picking up on orgasms from the biggest gang bang in history, and it was all happening right inside his mind, that somehow he was wired into all of their nervous systems at one time and he was feeling everything they were feeling.

The pleasure fed itself, eating him alive.

Then it was beyond pleasure, beyond pain. He was drowning in a white-hot pool of sensation, of desire. Of insatiable need. His mind overloaded, began shutting down, and still there was no escape. His heart fluttered, stopped.

Her tongue went deeper still, bringing him back from his dark shore. Bringing him back from death.

Billy T gagged, tried to pull back.

But something connected him to Juliana.

Something black and shiny.

It had that bright, copper smell that Billy T had smelled on the women he had killed.

It was blood.

Billy T tried to scream. He wanted very much to scream. But he couldn't utter a sound. His throat was paralyzed like the rest of him, coated with fire, ice, and the taste of dead things. Whatever was inside his throat was alive. And now it was moving. Coursing through his veins. He could feel it. Like fire ants, it now left agony in its wake. It was alien and it was crawling around inside him, reaching up into his brain, exploring, reading all his secrets, knowing everything that made Billy Two Hats who he was. He tried to pull away, to hide.

There was no place to hide.

Finally it found what it was looking for.

The part of Billy T's brain that held the memories of the nine women he had raped and murdered.

For the next hour, in the front seat of his stolen 'Vette, he relived those memories with whatever was inside him.

There was no pleasure this time. At least not for Billy T. This time, Billy T was the one being brutalized as he played the woman's part. He felt the laughter of whatever possessed him.

Inside his mind, he felt the violation, the humiliation, the incredible pain, as his insides were invaded, torn, and each time, at the end of the sex act, he begged for his life, but no matter how hard he pleaded, the knife always sank into his body, burning agony that took his life, time after time, until at last, his mind could no longer function.

While his thoughts retreated toward darkness, trying to escape, the thing that called itself Juliana raked razor-sharp fingernails down his back.

Leaving long bloody furrows in their wake as she finally climaxed.

Her body arched and she cried out. If Billy T had been capable of hearing her, he would have thought the words were merely the product of passion, instead of what they were. A language that hadn't been heard in over three thousand years.

They lay together the way spent lovers do after hard lovemaking. The night breeze dried their sweaty skins with gentle, cool fingers.

"You were the E ticket ride, Billy T," she said. "You didn't disappoint me."

Billy T looked at her with unseeing eyes. A small string of saliva trailed from the corner of his mouth, ran down his chin. He made no effort to wipe it away.

She lifted his face and their mouths joined in a final lingering kiss. Something convulsed in her throat, causing it to bulge like a snake that has tried to swallow an animal that is too large. The substance, dark red, shiny, left her and entered the Navajo. His neck swelled. Receded.

Their kiss ended.

Juliana fell back. And every drop of Billy Two Hats' blood vacated his body.

It exploded from the scratches on his back, exiting through the car window in eight streams that stretched out more than thirty feet. Propelled by incredible pressure, the slightly less than eight pints of blood hit the plate-glass window of an abandoned laundromat across the street with the force of a fire hose, and cracked it. The sign above that promised to get your clothes snowy white was hit, rocking back and forth, slowly coming to rest. The sign had a picture of a little girl in her snowy white dress, except now the dress was spotted with red. The little girl was oblivious. Her smile never wavered. Then the blood began its steaming descent toward the street, looking, in its evenly spaced rows, as though something had clawed the glass itself, causing it to bleed.

Flexing his powerful hands, Billy T slowly touched his body, exploring it as though for the first time. He stared at his chest and concentrated for a moment. A rippling occurred just beneath the skin and something red began forming just beneath his left breast, finally emerging into the light. It was a small, feathered serpent. "A little something new, a little something old," he said, looking at himself in the car mirror.

Billy Two Hats raised himself up and stared at the unmoving body of the dancer. "Good-bye, Juliana," he said, "I'll never forget you." He leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. "I hate to leave you like this, but I've got to go." Pulling on his shirt, he gathered her into his arms. "It's a nothing little place, name of Carruthers, Texas. Something has happened there, something I need to look into. Maybe Billy boy, here, can help."

He sat Juliana down in front of the laundromat and knelt in front of her. A breeze ruffled her blond hair. The face of the dancer was calm in death, but whatever controlled Billy T saw a trace of sadness in the beautiful, composed features. "You won't ever get old or die now, Juliana," he said. "You'll always be beautiful." He arranged her so that she looked as though she had stopped here to rest and had somehow fallen asleep. "You're with us now. You'll always be with us." He stroked her face. "Always."

As Billy T drove away, he saw that the starving mongrel from the alley had returned and was licking the blood from the plate-glass window. Several of the larger dogs had joined the first dog. They were staring hungrily at the blond dancer, waiting for her to move.

When she didn't, one of the dogs darted forward, tore a chunk of flesh from her.

The rest soon joined in.

Billy T smiled. He sure hated to see a dog starve.

Chapter 5

L
eon Francis Wilson, owner of Leon's Pool Emporium, sat upright in his bed, causing the springs to groan in protest. He blinked the room into focus. What he saw didn't please him. There were two guys standing at the foot of his bed, watching him as though it were the most natural thing in the world. He couldn't quite make out their faces in the shadows.

They seemed to be smiling.

One of the figures stepped forward. He was wearing a ratty leather jacket and holding a .38.

"Sonofabitch, I know you," Leon said. "You were in my place earlier tonight."

"I told you he was psychic," Earl Jacobs said to the other man in the shadows. "Let's see if he can guess why we're here."

"How the hell did you get in here?" Leon asked. "There's dead bolts on both doors, bars on the windows. I didn't hear nothing."

"I'd ask for my money back on those locks if I were you." Steven Adler peeled away from the wall and settled on the foot of the bed. "Sorry to come calling so late, Leon, but we need to talk to you about something."

"Look, I didn't mean nothing back there at the pool hall. I thought you was gonna start trouble. I can't afford to have no trouble. The cops told me one more time and I—"

"We understand, Leon, really we do." Steven patted him on the cheek, softly. "And we don't bear any hard feelings, do we, Earl?"

"Not a one. Not even after he threatened me with a gun." Earl smiled. "Not even after he called you a sick son of a bitch who gets his kicks out of scaring young girls. By the way, where is that tasty little daughter of yours?"

"She's staying with a friend. You leave her out of this," Leon said. "This is between us."

"You're absolutely right. We all make mistakes in judgment from time to time," Steven allowed in a quiet, friendly voice. "It's only… human. We've come to help you rectify a mistake you made last night."

"The money's over there on the dresser."

"No, no, Leon. You're not getting the picture here. We're not interested in your money. I want to know where my cue stick went." Steven leaned close and Leon got a glimpse of what Dorinda had seen in his eyes. "That stick means a great deal to me and I'd like to have it back."

"I don't have it," Leon said.

"Who does?"

"I don't know."

Steven rose from the bed, smoothed out the sheets where he had sat. "God, I'm so glad you're going to make this difficult." He traced the scar on the black man's face with his finger until Leon pulled away. "This is a very nice place you've got here. Earl and I were looking around a little earlier and we noticed you have a pool table in the basement. I'll bet it's the same one you taught Dorinda to play on. I'm right, aren't I?" He threw Leon his robe. "What do you say we go down there and play some pool? We can talk."

Leon calculated his chances of getting to the nightstand where he kept his .45. They didn't look too good. He shrugged on his robe and walked to the basement stairs ahead of the two intruders. The stairs creaked beneath his weight as he started descending into the pitch black. About halfway he leaped to the floor and scrambled sideways.

If they hit the light switch, he was screwed before he started. They didn't.

Moving quickly for someone of his bulk, Leon bolted to the fuse box, hit the breaker switch. Then he began feeling his way toward to the small refrigerator where he kept extra beer and snacks for his poker-playing buddies. Way in the back was a .32 stashed behind a jar of pig's feet. It should still be there.

Nobody ever ate pig's feet. If he could get his hands on that little baby, these two assholes would be talking out the other side of their asses. Nobody came into Leon Wilson's house and threatened him. Nobody.

He began edging away from the wall, trying to remember just exactly where the card table was. Didn't want to fall over it. And where were those two boys? What the hell were they doing?

The refrigerator kicked on and Leon nearly filled his size 42 boxers.

"Leon, come out, come out, wherever you are," Steven called from the foot of the stairs.

They were standing in a shaft of light that came from upstairs. They melted into the dark, the young guy in the lead. To get to the refrigerator, Leon had to cross the light.