Min's Vampire (3 page)

He could hear their every word, though
the blonde kept her mouth shut, and the witch was busy keeping an
eye out for him. He could still hear the blonde’s heart inside her
chest, racing still with fear. Its beat fluttered at every stray
sound.

But he couldn’t hear the
witch’s heart. She was human, he could smell that clear enough. But
somehow her heartbeat was mute to him. He shook his head.
Unimportant. What is important is following her
home to watch her there
. The better he knew
her, the better he could hunt her, the better he’d be at seducing
her when the time came.

~*~

Min stood at the door to the blonde’s
apartment building. A rundown husk of a building, yet the walls
were of stone, and the windows were good. It would keep its
inhabitants warm and safe, if nothing else.

Blondie took her keys out of her purse
and then hesitated before walking up the steps to the front door.
“What if he’s waiting for me?”

“
His kind can’t get in if
they’re not invited.”

The blonde looked at Min
mystified.

“
Just don’t invite him in,”
Min snapped. “You’ll be fine.”

The blonde shook her head and grasped
the sleeve of Min’s jacket. “I saw what he can do.”

You have no
idea...

“
There’s no way I can defend
myself against that.” She wouldn’t let go of Min’s
sleeve.

Min reached out and pried the blonde’s
hand from her jacket and then handed it back to her. “Just stay in
at night for a week or two. By then I’ll have taken care of
him.”

“
But how can you
know—”

“
He’s after
me
now.” The prickling
truth of what she’d just said froze Min to the core.
What have I gotten myself into?
“So, don’t worry. You’re safe. Just stay inside
for a while and it’ll all blow over.”

“
Really?” The blonde sounded
so relieved.

I should belt you in the
teeth right now!
But instead Min said, as
reassuringly as she could, “Really.”

The blonde threw her arms
around Min and pulled her tight into an uncomfortable yet heartfelt
embrace.
Ah, cripes. Next she’ll be naming
her cat after me!

~*~

The vampire watched as the witch left
the blonde at her apartment building, watched as she strode quickly
yet elegantly along the sidewalks. Her boots clicked neatly as she
crossed streets. Her dark silk skirt billowed, and her long leather
coat whipped behind her like a cloak. Her gait never lengthened,
her pace never quickened. She wasn’t acting afraid. But, then
again, she hadn’t stopped to call him out from the shadows,
either.

Luca moved in behind her, maybe twenty
feet back, and fell into step with her as she turned a corner and
headed heedlessly down a long, dank stretch of urban jungle. He was
not the only monster out that night: drug dealers, pimps,
gangbangers, corrupt cops.

Luca picked up his pace. He wanted to
reach out and shake her. It was fine for him to want to kill her;
he was almost positive he was going to bring her back as one of the
undead. He would have to work fast—ridicule her and dodge her
fireballs…and anything else she could find to drop on his
head.

But as he picked up his
pace, so did she.
Odd…
He hadn’t expected her to bolt. She seemed so self-possessed
and bold. Rushing away from a pursuer, even a killer vampire,
didn’t seem like something she would do.

He started to run, using his
preternatural speed to catch up to her. But still he could not
overtake her. She didn’t seem to be running, merely walking at a
normal gait. Luca stopped and listened. The witch’s breathing
hadn’t quickened. And then he sniffed the air.

Nothing.

He stopped and gritted his
teeth. No perfume, no flesh,
no
blood
.

Whatever it was he’d chased, whatever
it was that walked away from him even now, it wasn’t
her.

A glamour!
He chastised himself.
This
one is tricky...

Chapter 4

When Min got home she pulled her thick,
oak front door closed and threw the latch, the dead bolt, and the
chain. But it would take more than just that to keep a persistent
vampire at bay. Sure, if you didn’t invite them into your home they
couldn’t just come in. But they could throw things through
windows—burning, smoking, poisonous, exploding things. And then
your house would be on fire, and when you ran out to escape the
flames, voila! They got you.

So she had to think up some protective
spells, and quick. Maybe conjure up something big and mean and
wolfy to play watchdog. Could she create a bulletproof, twenty-foot
high wall around the house on the fly?

Maybe I should
move?

But then she took a deep
breath and sighed. She’d never leave this house. And no blasted
vampire was going to drive her out of it either.
After all
, a twinge of
excitement ignited in her heart, making the back of her neck
itch,
he’d look so good naked, up in my
room, on my bed. Damn good.

You’re really going to do
this—this astonishingly stupid thing—aren’t you?

Min stopped and looked about her, at
the house she’d grown up in, the house she now lived in all
alone…practically.

Yep, she was going to do it.

Min walked back to the kitchen and into
the pantry. There, behind the Oreos and the belladonna, she found
the family “Recipe Book,” otherwise known as the grimoire.
Grandmother had called it her Cicatrix. But her mother had thought
calling it a scar was nasty, so she renamed it the “Recipe
Book.”

Min thought of it as her best friend,
something that never let her down, that had taught her so much more
than even her grandmother and mother, and that had saved her life
on twenty-six separate occasions.

As she rubbed her neck and found a thin
line of her own blood on her fingers, she was praying to the
pestilent gods that tonight it would be twenty seven.

~*~

Luca doubled back to Vine Street, and
then started off in the direction the witch had been headed before
her glamour had led him astray. And at first he did smell the
witch’s scent, her hot blood. But not even a block later he lost
it, the trail going cold as his mind raced for an
explanation.

Maybe she had magicks that could cloak
her scent?

No. She would have used it all along,
or might have doused her glamour with her scent to keep him running
after her.

What she had done, Luca figured out
just before he lost his mind, was double back herself. She’d led
him in the wrong direction, and then she cast her charm, making him
go the wrong way.

That would give her enough
time to get home.
Clever witch.

Once in her own home she would be safe.
He could not enter unless she lost her mind and invited him in. But
there were ways of getting around that. Luca smiled as he
remembered throwing a bag full of live snakes in through the window
of one hapless girl. How he’d caught one delectable widow’s son
just before he made it to his mother’s door. He’d used the yowling
child as bait, and the widow had run out heedlessly to save the
boy.

Luca had eaten them both.

So, clever or not, Luca was sure that
once he tracked this witch down, getting her back into the clear
night air would be easy.

What was hard was going back to the
cold trail to try and follow it again. No sooner had he caught a
strong, fresh whiff of her, than the trail evaporated, and he was
left brooding again.

He turned back around and slowly paced
up the street until it came again. There was fear in that scent.
And something else; pure, unadulterated lust. Luca licked his lips
and inhaled deeply. He would have her, and tonight!

As if the scent of her blood was
pulling him along by his nose, he slipped in through a side yard,
over a gate, down a short, dark alley, and out onto a neighboring
street. The scent became stronger, richer, and his strides came
longer and faster. He was close. The scent saturated the very air
and enfolded him in luscious torment.

~*~

The witch’s house sat on the corner of
Temperance and Independence Avenues: a tall brownstone, with a
wrought iron gate that surrounded its inadequate yard. The roof was
pitched with gables, a widow’s walk and even a turret. There was a
green man carved in stone affixed over the front door. A pagan
touch, a mark of protection—but not from what Luca was.

He stood there in the shadows of a
neighboring house and watched the witch, her unrushed, confident
movements. She was simply getting ready to go to bed. He could see
her in a second story window as she brushed her hair. He could have
watched her for hours. Her every move was addictive to the
eye.

Abruptly though, the witch peered out
at him…from every window in the house. He felt a shudder of
surprise ripple inside him. But he liked surprises. So he smiled
and tipped his head to the cunning witch. He hadn’t taken his eyes
from the building for more than a second, yet when he looked back
there were twice as many windows aglow with light. And each boasted
a lovely vision of the witch.

Fruitlessly Luca realized he
didn’t know where the real windows were now. That would make
forcing her out of the house far more problematic.
Sneaky…very sneaky.

The image of the witch in the nearest
downstairs window brought a telephone up to her ear.

Is she really calling the
police? She can’t honestly believe they could do anything…except
die.
The thought of the witch showing such
disregard for human life excited him.

A phone rang from about twenty feet
behind where the vampire stood. He smiled at the witch—it was her
turn to nod. He slowly turned to find a payphone directly behind
him. Had it been there a moment ago? Was she powerful enough to
conjure things out of thin air?

Probably not. His attention had been on
watching her…or at least the image of her that she had wanted him
to see, that he hadn’t noticed before. He strode carefully over to
the phone and gently picked up the jangling receiver. Luca brought
the device to his ear, yet said nothing.

When he turned back to the house all
the windows were dark, except the one which held the phone-wielding
witch.

“
So what’s your name,
vampire?” Her accent was thicker now. Obviously she’d pared it down
to blend into this new world. But now that she was confronting an
old evil, she let it flow freely.

“
I’m known as Luca…but you
can call me master.”

The witch’s laugh was robust and
infectious, and she had the loveliest smile—so sweet, but her eyes
rolled toward the ceiling.

“
I’m sorry,” she chuckled.
“I don’t mean to be insensitive, but you’re a complete
ass!”

It shouldn’t have made him
angry. He really wasn’t that thin skinned. But she was
laughing
at
him.
That overt slight made his blood burn in his veins.

“
And your name?”

“
Min,” she said.

“
Well, Min…when I sink my
teeth into your lovely neck, you won’t be laughing then. You’ll be
begging for your life!”

The witch stopped laughing, but her
radiant smile didn’t waver in the least. “Maybe…but I’d wager you
don’t have the balls to make me do anything but laugh at
you.”

The witch’s words stung. They made heat
ripple off his cold skin. He hadn’t felt such a hunger for
vengeance in so long he didn’t recognize it at first. She was
baiting him, no doubt. But to his detriment, he was falling for
it.

She shook her head slowly, that
maddening smile still beamed through from the window.

“
It’s too late,” she
protested. “I’m already dressed for bed.” Luca noticed the witch
was wearing a silky blue robe, cinched around the waist. Lace
whispered its secret underneath. “But why don’t you come
inside?”

“
Come inside? Are you
seriously—”

“
Inviting you, a vampire,
into my home? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You’re invited
to come in…” Suddenly there was the crackle of fireworks from
somewhere to the vampire’s left. His eyes only averted for a
moment, and seeing nothing he looked back to find that every window
in the house had disappeared. All that remained was the hard, brown
stone of bricks.

“
That is,” she purred into
the vampire’s ear…the wrong ear to come from the telephone
receiver, “if you can get in.”

The connection went dead.

Luca shook his head wearily, yet he had
a smile on his face. She had more tricks than he’d seen in any one
witch before. She might be even trickier than his own psychotic
sire. A part of him trembled as he thought of his old mistress. She
drank him dry inside the church he had attended since birth—so much
for the protection of his god. She had tucked him away after she’d
forced the blood on him, hiding his corpse in a small crypt, where
the prior occupant had long ago wasted away to dust. She woke him
three nights later by dripping holy water on his bare
chest.