Misty (13 page)

He turned in anger, lifting the young man off his feet to search his mind to find how he had obtained the card. He found another young man, an expensive car and hookers. He came very close to throwing the mortal across the alley but restrained himself and left the kid to his vices that would soon kill him.

He tracked the hookers, suggested to them he had money that would be of interest to their pimp. Once they had called the pimp, he gave each of them a couple of hundred, sending them home for the night. He waited for the SUV. It rolled up and the driver’s window rolled down. He walked over to look at the smirk on the young face. There were three young men in the car
—
the driver, who was the so called boss, and two kids who saw themselves as his team.

“So, what do you need?” The driver spoke, but there was a snicker from the back seat.

Rad’s anger level hit a very high mark. Without hesitation he reached over, grabbed the door by taking hold of the open window, and gave a solid jerk. The large vehicle rocked as the door crumpled, coming away in his hands. He pitched it sideways. Before the young man could recover from the shock he snapped the seat belt, had the man out and up against the back door with his feet off the ground. He decided it was time to let this worm see real danger. He let heat glow from his eyes, the long teeth pushing down.

The kid started screaming and he recovered enough to try to reach the gun in his back waistband. Rad shook him, almost knocking him out and pulled the gun and pointed it in the car.

“Get out and run or you both are dead.” He did not shout but the two others heard him plainly. They had already been trying to get their seat belts off. They had the other back door open and were out on the street, their Nikes raising dust. He added a mental burst at them to give them an extra push, then turned his attention to the young slime ball he was still holding off the ground against the black SUV.

“I’m sorry, don’t hurt me. I don’t know what I did. But I can make it right. Look, I have money. I can fix it. I have women, whatever you want.” The kid was whining as his legs bounced against the bottom of the vehicle.

“Shut up.” Rad ordered him in disgust. He lowered the kid to his feet. “You bought some credit cards from a girl a few weeks ago. Her name was Misty Bower. Tell me about it. Think.” He ordered the kid to think so he could sort through the memories, but this kid was so screwed up it was like walking through a sewer. The stink, slime, and cobwebs made everything swirl together. He saw Misty and he went in sharply. He heard the boy let out a moan, but he did not care how much damage he did. He bent down and with disgust he bit the boy’s neck to draw blood to make the memories of contact more vivid.

At last, he knew he had all the information that was left in the brain of this boy’s miserable memory. He lifted his head and licked the two little bleeding points to seal the damage. He released the boy, wiping his mind of the whole incident. He left him leaning against the damaged vehicle.

He had to leave the boy immediately because he wanted to do a great deal of damage to something, anything. Fuck, she was so brilliant. He stopped and smiled. He was a hunter. This was turning into the best hunt in all his long years. Not only that, there was going to be a very special reward at the end of this hunt, Council or no Council.

Chapter Ten

She woke smelling the chickens all around her and realized the truck had stopped. She climbed up the crates and got to the top to discover it was daylight. She flattened out on top of the crates and crawled to the edge to look around. They were in an industrial area with a lot of other trucks sitting around, loading and unloading. There were a lot of workers and a lot of people loafing around. She went ahead and dropped down off the truck. Misty walked around like she knew where she was going.

She saw a group of people that looked down and out gathered around a corner, so she just went over to stand around with them for a while. With the smell from the restaurant and the chicken shit, she fit right in. She listened as the day drifted to evening. The people came and went in the little group.

Finally a church group came by to hand out sandwiches, offered free condoms and clean needles. One of the nuns looked over at her. “Don’t be bashful, be safe, please.” She held out a basket with condoms and needles all wrapped individually. She was going to say no but she had an idea. She took a couple of both and ducked her head down. She walked away and watched until she saw a couple of kids take needles. She hung back and followed them. They wandered down alleys, going into an abandoned building. She took her time following them, waiting to see if in the dark there was any
Vamp tingle
. All she got was a bad smell of urine and old building, unwashed bodies topped with vomit.

She heard faint voices and went down a hallway that led to a room that was lit by flickering lights. When she got close she took her time to look in. She had seen such scenes on TV or movies, but it was different in real life. The first thing was the smell. All of the bodies in the room were dirty. Some of them had not been near water for weeks. There was the smell of rotten flesh and some smells Misty could not identify. Mixed among the resting bodies were an amazing few who were clean and dressed well. These few were totally out of it, due to the drugs.

She watched as the two she had followed took rubber and tied up to insert needles. One did the arm and the other looked like he was going to do his leg or foot. She went down the hall to a darker spot. She pulled out a rubber tie she used for her hair pulling everything up on one arm she double looped the band on her arm and waited for a vein to show in her inside elbow. She inserted a needle, missing the first try that brought a tear to her eye, but hit the vein, then drew the needle full of her blood. She filled the second needle. Misty finally straightened herself up and took the two needles back to the room.

She hesitated, then walked in, but no one paid any attention to her. She looked around trying to decide which one she needed to inject. She needed someone who was healthy enough to move around for a few days, but she also knew she was risking that person’s life if a Vampire smelled her blood on them.

She sat and listened to the little talk that was going on and it did not take long to find the first asshole. She was trying to impress a couple of guys who were so out of it on whatever they had shot up with, that whatever she said they just laughed. But Misty saw her reach over and go through the pockets of a guy who was passed out next to her. She found a few bucks and some pills that she put in her pocket but kept on talking the entire time.

She saw Misty looking at her. “What you starin’ at, bitch? I’m not sharin’ so if you don’t have enough, tough shit.” She kicked one of the guys near her and he turned around and laughed at Misty.

Misty smiled, trying to look like she was totally spaced. “I am on some new stuff and it is great. I am feeling so good I want to share.” She held up the needles. The guy close to her grabbed the needles, but the woman slammed him with her foot. He handed them over with a hungry look. Misty started a crazy laugh, turned weaving, and went out the door. She leaned in the dark against the opposite wall, watching as the woman shot the entire needle of blood. The young woman smiled and looked between the two men. She then threw the full needle into the air. The two guys scrambled for it but Misty decided not to stay around to see what happened. She got out fast and decided it was now time to find a place to clean up and change clothes.

She knew that only one Vampire would be looking for her by her blood and smell. She was not sure if the diluted blood in the two addicts would attract him, but if it did it would delay him and send him in a different direction.

She wanted to find a safe place to sleep so she went back to where the trucks were loading. She put her backpack on and walked up to a trucker who was cussing as he was loading a small box truck. It was evident that he could not get help loading the small shrink-wrapped bundles into his closed truck, as the few helpers were loading the bigger rigs.

She walked up and started pulling bundles, stacking them for the man. He gave her a look but did not question as he ran his hand dolly up under her stack, turning quickly to rush it to his truck tail that had a power lift. He unloaded the pile and came back to pick up the next pile she had stacked. After the third load, he used the power lift to pull the stacks into the truck. She continued to work with the bundles until they were gone, making only four more stacks.

He let the power lift down and she followed him onto the lift as he moved the first stack over the metal drop tail. She boosted herself up into the truck where she began pushing the other stacks farther back into the truck to make room for the new loads. He continued to bring the other three stacks and with no room for himself he pushed the button and the lift brought the stacks up to her level. The last load still was on the hand dolly so she just twisted it around, pulling that load into the truck. By that time he had scrambled onto the tail, took over pushing the load off the dolly and going back after the other loads. She did what she could to push everything together to make a neater tighter load.

Finally, with the last load he looked over to her as he pushed the dolly against the wall and tied it into place. “I got no money.”

Misty leaned against the boxes. “I need a ride.”

He stopped and looked at her for a long moment. “How do you know where I am going?”

She smiled. “Okay, where are you going?”

He finally relaxed and returned her smile. “West into New Mexico.”

“Great, I need a ride west into New Mexico.” She patted the box she was leaning against.

He smiled broader. “Get in the truck.” He waited for her to get down before he closed up the back doors, jumped down and pushed the button that put the lift up flat against the back doors. They were on the road for about fifteen minutes before he spoke. “Thanks for the help back there. You’re a pretty lady to be taking on heavy work like that.”

She looked over at him. He was watching traffic and did not seem to be hitting on her. The thanks seemed to be genuine, so she relaxed. She had put her backpack between her feet, now she pushed it further forward and settled back to rest. “I am not afraid of hard work. The smell from me is from my last job. Wish I could get rid of it.”

He nodded. “I’ve had those type of jobs. I need gas and we can stop at a truck stop. They have the private showers for five bucks. If you can make it a fast one you should have time and still get back for the rest of my trip.”

She nodded, watching the road. As they got close to the truck stop she got out the dollar bills he told her she would need for the shower. She pulled out clean clothes so that she could change quickly. She jumped from the truck while it was still rolling, found the stalls and was surprised how clean they were. There was soap and shampoo, Dial but it worked. She made it quick, first with all her clothes on, then stripped down and rinsed without drying. Misty changed, grabbed the wet clothes, and ran out to the truck.

He was still filling up so she worked her wet clothes through slats and tied them so that they would not blow away but would dry. She got up in the cab put on dry socks, then shoes. She was starting to work on her hair when she saw the driver come out of the store with a bag.

He got in, dropped the bag between them and started out on the road again. She worked on her hair. Without conditioner it was hard to get the tangles out but finally she had it all combed. She divided it and put it into two braids. She knew that as her hair dried in the braids she would have lots of waves, but that was okay.

“Open one of those sandwiches for me, there’s a couple. Have one for yourself.” She reached in found several of the usual plastic wrapped sandwiches also a couple bottles of water. She opened one and since they were cut in half, she pulled half out, then handed it to him. There were loose napkins inside the bag so she took one and opened it and laid it next to his leg. She started eating the other half. When he finished his half in three bites she opened another one, handed him another half. When he finished that one she handed him another half that he finished. She opened a water to hand him. He took a long drink without taking his eyes off the road and set the bottle in a cup holder.

“Another sandwich?” She asked him.

“No, thanks.” He turned the CD player on and the reasonable country western music played softly on the speakers. Yep, she could handle that. She finished the half sandwich and opened her water. After a long drink she found a cup holder and settled down to rest. She woke up a couple of hours later.

“Weigh Station. Usually we don’t have to stop, but they are checking all trucks right now. Some scare. We have everything in order so this won’t take long.” He pulled in line and the truck slowly moved forward. They were directed into a separate line from the big rigs, not having to go across the large scale. Finally they reached a point where a uniformed inspector came up to the driver’s window, requesting the log, his CDL and some other paperwork.

It was obvious that the inspector was overworked, so he just did a quick look, passed everything back up and waved them on through. They had to pull around a couple of other trucks before they were back on the highway and settled down to a steady routine. They both took long drinks of water but there was no conversation, and that suited her just fine. They drove through the setting sun and through the night until almost three in the morning. They pulled into an alley and stopped behind a large building that had back doors with a loading dock.