Misty (3 page)

Speaking of cell phone calls, her Blackberry rang. She didn’t recognize the number but answered it anyways. A professional woman’s voice identified as the local blood bank asking if she could set up an appointment to help donate again.

“Look, I just came in with a friend. It was a onetime thing. Please take my name off your list.”

Misty let out a long breath as the woman explained how all the blood banks where very short and how important it was for everyone to do their duty and help in these times, etc., etc. Finally, Misty broke in. “Look, I don’t like needles, I had to get drunk afterwards and it is not going to happen again. Take my name off your list and don’t call me again or I will report you to the state and the local medical association. Now goodbye.”

Misty could not believe she had let a group of guys talk her into giving blood. They had all got together on their usual chat room and were talking about some guys who were in Iraq. The next thing she knew she had met a couple of them at an Internet café and they went to a local blood bank. It hadn’t been what she had expected. Actually it was just a big storefront with the glass windows painted with signs and pasted with paper posters. The desks inside were old and scratched. The chairs were behind curtains that did not go all the way to the floor, but everything was clean, thank goodness. She would have left if she hadn’t been with the group.

The nurses were nice and they insisted that everyone stay to eat the cheap snack bars and drink the juice before they left. The entire bunch of online friends went to the nearest bar and got drunk. She had trouble with one of the guys who wanted to go home with her, but she was able to take a taxi. She left him at the curb in front of the bar. So never again
—
someone else would have to give blood.

After the phone call, her cell was mostly quiet. For the next few days she got a lot of work done. She researched on the computer, went to the drafting table and added color to drawings that she printed out. She found that she could control the colors better using this system. She used the watercolors to blend in what she wanted and then scanned the painted works back into the computer. She sent a lot of the projects off to the clients and her agent. Thank goodness her agent was used to working on line and did not want to have long in-your-face conversations.

It was getting late, after 11pm, but she was hungry so she looked in the empty kitchen cabinets and refrigerator. She had finally eaten her way through what little she kept in. She knew it was too late for delivery. After picking up her keys and stuffing her wallet in her pocket of her jeans, she took her hair down and ran a brush through it. She went out to walk to the corner
gas slash food
pick up store that was open all night.

She picked up a few items, paid for them, and took the two plastic bags by the loop handles. She was just around the corner from her home when a large man came out of the shadows. He stepped in the middle of the sidewalk. Shit
—
no mace, no cell phone. She was going to be in tomorrow’s news. He was only about five or six feet away from her and she had no doubt that he was there to rob her or worse.

She stopped, not about to get any closer. She looked both ways but did not see any help. The houses nearby all had their lights out. Everyone was either gone or they were in bed. Suddenly he was holding her. How had he moved that fast? She let out a yell and started kicking. He lifted her up and was looking directly into her eyes. He was unbelievably strong as she twisted and screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Look at me, you don’t want to yell, you don’t want to escape.” He kept saying over and over in a deep voice.

“Like hell I don’t.” She screamed and continued to yell and kick. He seemed surprised and almost lost his hold on her. Over her screams she heard another voice
—
a strong, low, deep voice that still could be heard in the night air.

“I think the lady would like to be set free,” the deep velvet voice said. The man holding her seemed to freeze. She stopped screaming. If someone was coming to her rescue, she wanted to be able to hear him.

The man holding her said, “I found her first.”

Suddenly there was a swirl. The man holding her was swung around. She flew from his grasp and slid into the neatly trimmed grass of someone’s front yard. She rolled over and sat up in time to see what was happening. She did not understand it. It was a fight of some kind
—
there were two men, but they were moving too fast, and sometimes they were in the air, not touching the ground. It was over and one of the men was down on the ground. The other one pulled out a knife and plunged it into the chest of the downed man.

She sat there, nausea building up in the back of her throat as she watched someone being brutally killed in cold blood. But it got worse. The man drew out his knife and the body on the ground turned to dust, the clothes flattened out to lie against the ground and the breeze stirred the dust.

The winner stood and in the dark night he looked very big. He glanced around and found her two bags. He picked them up and started to come over to her. In panic she started to scramble backwards in an awkward crab crawl, keeping her eyes on his dark silhouette but trying her best to keep a distance between them.

He stopped and looked at her for a long moment. He laid her two bags on the ground and walked back to the dust and cloths. He gathered up the clothes, shoes and all that remained, and walked away. She sat there on the damp earth clinging to the clumps of grass she had in her hands. She could feel her whole body shaking and knew it was adrenalin racing through her entire system. She got up slowly, not sure her legs would hold her.

She looked around but did not see anyone. No one was looking out any window, no one was walking down the street, no mysterious man lurked in the shadows. She reached down and picked up her bags. She couldn’t help herself, she walked over to the pile of dust in the dirt and grass between the sidewalk and the curb. It was still there. Some of it was swirling, picked up by the soft breeze. She knew by morning there would be nothing, as the dust was so fine that any passing car would also spread it into the road and away from the site.

* * * *

Strange, he had been irritated by the request that he couldn’t turn down. The gold amulet hanging against his chest had put him into a position of owing a tithe to the Council. Normally he would have expected to have been sent into a war zone, or after someone of danger. He had faced many in the past and had scars to prove it. He did not fear such assignments, but now had the power to refuse or accept what he wished, taking only what kept him interested.

Being a guard over a female wasn’t something that would have normally fallen to one of his status. He wouldn’t have found any interest it the duty. But it was necessary, due to his obligation, and he thought it would be only be for a short time. He decided a few days, or better yet, nights, and he could go back to the risks, fights, and items in life that he put check marks in front of, to keep him going forward. His life had been too long and it now took a lot to keep his interest. But
—
surprise, a mortal female
—
hmmm, perhaps there was some interest.

Finding a mortal or a Vampire with unusual traits was something that one heard about in rumors. They were talked about in gatherings and he often thought they were probably exaggerated, greatly out of proportion. He had found the topic of not much interest. He knew that there was a mortal male who was reputed to have had a rare blood serum about two hundred years ago. The poor man had been held a prisoner for a few years and drained almost to death by various parties, testing and tasting. He had finally succumbed to some type of disease, due to his weakened body. But times had changed. Like the mortals, those of his breed had learned a lot, and if a mortal were to be found with unusual blood they would be kept alive in a most comfortable mode and not be abused. At least he hoped that would be the plan.

So he watched her from a distance, until he tried their first meeting in a casual way. She was wary and smart. The Council had forgotten to mention that she was up there in the intelligent range. Or maybe they just weren’t aware of how bright this female was and what she was capable of doing. He also became aware of Vamps around. Shit, this was going to become a fucking war zone. He wondered if Chasim had knowledge of this. This area of the country, Louisiana, had a lot of night dwellers and he felt that some rumor of rare blood was already being whispered from ear to ear.

He let her see him in the mall, although he had been watching her for several days. He leaned against the railing when she went into the art store, knowing that she would come back out towards him. She approached and he smelled her. Damn, sweet ripe rich calling, whatever was in her system. He knew she reacted to the previous entanglement, and that she was worried. She showed her smarts and she did not panic, just swerved and headed for the stairs instead of the escalators. He did not move until she got out of sight. He hurried down the moving steps and out the door to his car that he had parked next to her truck.

It was only two nights before he had to make his first kill. Fortunately, he was able to convince four others to move to another area and listen to the decree of the Council. Okay, the Council was right, it was a good idea to send someone as strong as an enforcer to handle this protection.

She went out at night for a walk. Fuck. She had seemed to be so smart, had stayed within her home doing whatever it was she did there.
But one night, she just goes out for a walk to a local store and buys some items. Then she starts to walk back.
Sure, even if a Vamp was not in the area, she was asking for a local druggy who needed funds for his next buy to do a hit on her. He’d stayed dark and just a shadow, but the Vamp didn’t. The Vamp tried to influence her but that had no effect. She was one strong mind with a vault door and no code. He was a lot stronger than this local midnight locked soul, and had tried and met a cement wall. Vasa was right, she couldn’t be influenced.

The Vamp was resorting to force and would soon do her harm. He had no choice but to expose himself. He freed her and the fight was short. Unfortunately, she was witness to the final burst. He started to approach her with her food and was wise enough to back off as she showed fright. He just gathered up the evidence and left. He dumped the hard items, followed her to her home, and settled down in the shadows to think this through. He was going to have to meet with her, and that would really be interesting.

* * * *

Okay, this was a dream, a hallucination, a bad trip. She would wake up soon and find that she had fallen asleep at her computer. She would have a sore back, stiff shoulders, and she would have to do a lot of exercises to work it off. But that made her feel better. She took the two bags and walked home, waiting to wake up. She put the food away without eating, waiting to wake up. She took a shower waiting to wake up. Finally, she went to bed and fell asleep and woke up the next morning.

Chapter Three

She woke up and began to realize that last night hadn’t all been a dream. Somehow, some of it had really happened. But she wasn’t sure what was real and what was not, so she got dressed, ate a bowl of cereal, and gathered up a couple of items. She went out for a walk. She would be damned if she was going to sit still and decide whether she was going nuts or dreaming and sleepwalking. She was going to try to find some evidence from last night’s fight, or whatever it was. Before leaving, she stocked up her little fanny pack with several things she thought she might need.

She thought things would look better and probably a lot less insane in bright daylight. She took the same direction she had walked last night. She went around the corner and approached the place of the fight. Walking with her head scanning back and forth, she managed to trip and fall on all fours. No one could call her graceful. She looked around to see if anyone saw her fall, and was thankful that this time she was alone. Not much damage done, a scraped knee that didn’t bleed and a scraped palm that did start to leak through several scratches. She unzipped the fanny pack and pulled out a tissue and clinched it in her hand. There was no real evidence to be seen in daylight. No holes, no scuff marks, but she walked over to the point where the body had turned to dust and sat down on the curb with her sandals in the clean gutter, looking closely.

There was still a light trace of dust in some of the areas. She felt a buzzing in her head and put her head between her knees, taking deep breaths. Okay, most of what happened seemed to have been real. She was not sure she wanted to actually go into this. But she was here and she needed to follow through, so taking a deep breath and with shaking hands, she pulled out a small plastic envelope. She had these in many sizes as she used them to save all kinds of items in her drawing and computer work. It was the normal type with the top that would zip together. Sitting on the curb, she leaned down and shook a little of the dust from a couple of grass stems that had been pressed flat during the fight. The dust settled down into the little pocket and she leaned back to close the envelope. But as she was pressing the two sides together she became aware that there was a large boot resting next to her leg on the curb.

She had been so involved in not fainting and not throwing up breakfast that she totally had lost track of the world around her. She had not heard any cars going by, any birds in the trees, or anyone approaching. She froze, just holding the envelope between her two hands, one awkwardly still holding a tissue within the palm. She took another deep breath, slowly letting her eyes travel up the long leg covered in dark jeans. There was a heavy hand on the waist that had a large ring on the first finger. The wide chest was covered in a tight tee shirt and there was a gold amulet on a chain hanging against impressive pecs. She was looking at the man who had been in the mall, leaning against the rail, also parked next to her in the expensive sports car. This close, she also saw that he had the most unusual eyes for a Latin-looking man. His eyes were pale blue, almost without color except for the iris and an outline. He had heavy eyelashes and his dark eyebrows were drawn into a frown.