Never Have A Vampire's Baby (8 page)

              “Then why don’t you listen to the words I’m saying?” Luke took a step back, and she realized she must have taken a step forward. “
I don’t care what my family thinks.
I’m in love with you, you idiot! Why would I want to throw that away? We have a child together, and I want him to know you. I had your
baby,
Luke, why would I put more weight in their opinion than what’s best for our son?”

              “You say that now,” Luke said, drawing himself up taller. “You say that
now
, but you have
no
idea what it’s going to feel like. It will be too much for you to bear, and I don’t want to keep hanging on to you if I know you’re just going to leave--”

              “
You don’t know that!”
Kim was yelling now, and she was dimly aware that someone might call the cops if they kept fighting, but the front of her brain wasn’t in charge right now. “You don’t know me, Luke.
You don’t.
Stop pretending to know what’s best for me!”

              Luke set his jaw, a steely glint in his eyes. “Maybe I do.”

              Kim wasn’t aware of raising her hands and placing them against Luke’s chest.  She wasn’t aware of pushing him as hard as her arms could manage. She felt white-hot rage tearing through her body one moment, and the next moment she was watching Luke fly into the wall opposite her, limbs flailing like some kind of morbid cartoon.

              His body crashed into the drywall, knocking several pictures down as his shoulders dented the slick white surface. He slid to the floor, stunned, his mouth wide open – and a look of pure fear on his face. He didn’t move, and a moment of impenetrable silence followed. 

              Kim finally absorbed what she’d done. She clapped her hands over her mouth and rushed over to him, kneeling in a small sprinkling of broken photo glass as she cradled Luke’s head, looking for bumps or gashes.

              “Oh my God, I’m sorry,” she whimpered, running her hands over the back of his head. “Luke, baby, I’m so, so, sorry.”

              Evan had begun to wail, but so had she. Luke shook his head roughly, his eyes coming back into focus. He stood and extricated himself from Kim’s grasp.

              “I’ll get him,” he said softly.

              Kim didn’t respond, she just knelt on the ground, crying.

              I
am
a freak. I’m a monster. What the hell was that? 
She’d never been a violent person, but she’d never been so angry in her life. Why did everything intensify around him? She couldn’t get his expression out of her mind – he’d never looked afraid in front of her before, and she never wanted to see it again.

              You won’t,
she thought mournfully.
He’s leaving. He’s definitely leaving now.

             
She managed to slow her tears by the time Luke came back in. Surprisingly, he walked over to her, lifting her from the glass with both hands and carrying her to the couch. Kim looked up at him as he set her down, not daring to trust his sudden tenderness.
This guy changes tact like the fucking wind.

              He brushed her hair from her eyes and kissed her temple softly. Kim felt a shiver of delight roll through her despite herself, and she swung her legs over his lap, desperate to be close to him. It was like three months had passed without contact, instead of just three days.

              “You’re right,” he said finally. “I can’t predict the future. I shouldn’t be thrusting assumptions on you. I have to trust your word just as you trust mine.”

              Kim blinked. “I threw you,” she said thickly.

              Luke smiled faintly. “Yeah, you did.”

              She looked at him seriously, unsure how genuine his flippancy was. “Are you hurt?”             

              Luke chuckled. “God, no. Don’t get me wrong – you’re stronger than a human should be, obviously. I’m sure it’s the bond.” He looked at her, a sense of curiosity in his gaze. “But it wasn’t hard enough to hurt me. You just shocked me, is all.”

              Kim gripped the lapels of his jacket. Something that had been growing in the back of her mind for a week finally felt ripe enough to spring from her lips. “Luke. Is there something in your past that makes you not want to do this?”

              Luke didn’t seem surprised by the question, but he was clearly uncomfortable. “Is that what’s been bothering you? My hesitancy?”

              Kim nodded. “Well, yeah. For one, it’s not any girl’s dream to be jerked around like this. Also, Su...someone told me that vampires usually jump at the chance to be with humans, even casually.”

              Luke smiled, amused. “I know your best friend means well, but I’m afraid that’s a stereotype. There are vampires that fetishize humans, just like there are humans who fetishize us, but I’m not one of those vampires.”

              “Okay,” Kim said. “So...what about you? Do you have something against humans?”

              “Not exactly.” A shadow passed Luke’s eyes. He took her hands and held them in his. “Kim…”

              A shrill ringing noise interrupted his speech.
Dammit,
Kim thought.

              “Dammit!” Luke pulled his phone out, and his apologetic tone seemed genuine. “I’m sorry, vampire business. That’s the boss’ ring.”

              Kim swung her legs to the floor as he stood and walked to the kitchen, muttering into his phone rapidly. She wanted to follow and listen – then remembered that her senses had been growing sharper since she met Luke.
Maybe I don’t need to follow.
She strained to hear, but was only able to catch a few words.

              “...outpost...second time...kiwi…”

              Kim frowned.
None of that means anything to me.

              “
...heart...pronto…busy...girlfriend…”

             
That
word meant something. Her heart did a wobble of happiness in her chest.
He mentioned me!

             
Her joy deflated when he came back into the room. His face was a mask of terror, and his voice was frantic.
What now?

             
“Dougie is dead,” he said bluntly. His mouth twisted in anguish, and Kim’s heart broke for him.

              “Dead?” she echoed. “But--”

              “I have to go,” he said hollowly. “I’m sorry, babe, I have to. He didn’t die in a battle or of natural causes or anything like that. This is bad, and it might even be dangerous.”


              Kim ran to the door before he could reach it. “You told me you wouldn’t leave me out of the loop again,” she said sternly. “What’s going on? And if you’re in danger, I want to come with you.”

              Luke looked like he was going to say no, but he seemed to decide there was no time to argue. “Okay, but the baby--”

              “Suzanna can be here in five minutes,” Kim said stubbornly. “I can tell something is going on that you’re not telling me about. We just had our first fight, and I need to prove to you I’m not going to run when things get sticky.”

              Luke looked touched, but the mountain of fear was still there. She fired off a text requesting her best friend’s assistance and looked him solidly in his eye. “I’m going to change. Stay here. When Suzanna gets here, you’re taking me with you. You can brief me in the car.”

             
Ten minutes later, Kim was speeding down the highway, almost wishing she’d stayed out of the loop.

              “So,” she said slowly. “You’ve been training your group against an enemy...that you don’t know exists?”

              “We know it exists now,” Luke said impatiently. “Vampires started dropping dead a few months ago with no clear cause of death, and at first, we thought it was a new plague.”

              “Vampires have plagues?”

              “Yes,” he said, exasperated. “Just like humans, we can get sick. Then it started happening to specific vampires. Powerful ones, ones in line to be president of their territory.”


              “And they were all….like Dougie?” Kim asked weakly. “Completely bloodless with no sign of puncturing?”

              “Yeah. Turn here.”

              Kim turned onto a dirt road not far from where she’d come upon Luke’s band of vampires fighting. They were going to one of their outposts – buildings that used to be used when vampires had feuds with others vampires, or even with other creatures. This one was a nondescript shack, Luke said, like most of the ones out west; some of them even looked like outhouses, meant for only one vampire at a time.

              “This outpost was used for storage?” she asked again.

              “Most of them are,” Luke said. “They’re guarded by magic so humans and non-vampires can’t cross the threshold, but there’s only stores of blood and a few living essentials in there. Some outposts have weapons, but nothing illegal.”

              Kim’s headlights finally found the dusty brown building, roughly twenty feet long with a low, sloped roof badly in need of repair. The curly haired woman – Sonia--was standing outside of it, arms crossed in front of her as she awaited their arrival.

              “Are you sure it’s okay to be here?” Kim asked nervously. “For me, I mean?”

              Luke turned and gave her shaky smile. “Are you afraid of Sonia? She’s harmless, I promise.”

              “You said she’s stronger than you,” Kim protested. She didn’t mention the look of disdain Sonia had shot her the last time they met.

              Luke laughed. “She’s about fifty years older than me, so she’s stronger. Not by much, though.” He squeezed one of her hands. “If you can handle me, you can handle Sonia.”

              They got out of the car, and Sonia nodded curtly to Kim before turning to Luke.

              “Are you ready? I removed the barrier, so she can come in if you think she handle it.”

              Kim bristled, unhappy with being spoken about instead of spoken to.

              “I can handle it,” she said tersely. Sonia looked at her in surprise, then smiled.

              “Well, you really are spunky, aren’t you?” she asked. “Let’s go then.”

              As they entered the shack, Kim was less sure that she could handle it. Dougie was lying flat on his back, his left arm bent over his head, his right bent back behind his body. His legs were at odd angles on the dirty floor, and his eyes were open. Those were the least unsettling details, Kim thought. The rest was harder to take in, but she kept looking as Luke and Sonia bent over his body and began to talk quietly.

              His skin wasn’t white, it was gray--the color of ash as it tumbled from the end of a burning cigarette. Kim watched Luke touch Dougie’s face, and the flesh was hard and unyielding, almost waxy in its appearance. His chestnut eyes were no longer flecked with gold; in fact, they were solidly brown, with no hint of an iris or even the white that should have been surrounding them.  Kim felt bile claw up her throat, and she fought to breath around it.

              “Look at his tongue,” Sonia said.

              Kim’s eyes drifted to Dougie’s open mouth. There was a small flap of pink flesh a few inches behind his teeth, ragged and raw.
What tongue?
She felt dizzy.

              “It’s gone,” Luke said, his voice hushed. “Like the others.”

              The two vampires looked at each other over the body, and understanding passing between them.

              “So it’s probably a message,” Sonia said, talking more to herself than to Luke. “The others were also vampires who had voiced their suspicions. Clark in Anaheim, Alicia in Rockford, even Dale had been building a line of defense with the handful of vampires in Black Oak.”

              “This isn’t something you can fight, though,” Luke said softly. “This isn’t a normal hit man. There’s no sign of trauma beside the tongue, and that was taken post-mortem.” He paused. “How is he doing it?”

              Sonia shook her head. “We don’t even know it’s a
he,
or even if it takes a humanoid form. This could be a demon.”

              Kim felt as though she were going to faint.

              Luke shook his head. “We’d feel it if it were a spirit. They always leave footprints.”

              “True,” Sonia said. “Werewolves leave clues, too. It’s not a chimaera, not messy enough.”

             
Chimaera? Maybe I should have stayed home.
This was the first dead body she’d ever seen in real life, but the novelty was fading fast.

             
Luke stood and passed a hand over his eyes. “We have to double our patrols. Make sure no one is out here after dark, that’s when all the hits happen. Tell other bands in other cities, maybe they can send along other information we missed. And tell Anton, he’s our third in command. He should be caught up before the others.”