Siren Nights (Series Part 1) (The Lure) (2 page)

Without my makeup on, I looked and felt
ordinary. So why had I been stalked and attacked by three vampires in less than
a month? I was too tired to think of an answer.

After briefly checking to make sure there
was nothing lurking in my room, I swept a pile of dirty clothes aside and
flopped into my bed.

My alarm clock read one thirty four am.
Well, that wasn’t so bad, I thought drowsily. If I didn’t have a seven am
double shift tomorrow, it’d be perfect. I faded out without so much as flipping
off the lights.

***

The diner was so crowded at lunch I could
barely hear myself think. But I wasn’t paid to think.

I set a tray with drinks down on the table.
“Diet Coke, iced tea, and a bottle of Sam Adams. Are you ready to order?”

After the diners gave their answers, I
straightened and returned to the kitchen to put the orders in. On my way back
out to the floor, I paused. Was it just me, or were there fewer regulars here
than usual? Its seemed like everyone was a stranger.

Maybe one of them was a vampire, I thought
with a shiver. Like “Darian,” if that had even been his real name. It was only
yesterday that he had sat at the back table by the window and professed his
admiration of me. The seat was empty now; recently vacated as it still had to
be cleared before someone else could move in.

I quickly made my rounds, and the first
chance I got, ducked out into the back of the kitchen into the narrow hallway
between the kitchen, staff room, and bathroom. There I gathered my thoughts and
straightened my outfit, a pink tight blouse drawn low to expose cleavage and a
red skirt that was even shorter than the one I had worn last night. Tan sheer
stockings and all, but painful black heels completed the ensemble.

I knocked on the door of the staff room. It
opened and Brett popped his head out. “How are we doing out here?” I asked, a
little anxiously.

Brett glanced at his phone and squinted.
“Don’t worry, we’re clear.”

I nodded, rubbing my eyes. “Good. Don’t
think I need anything more to worry about tonight.”

“Tired? Yeah, same here. Three vamps in two
weeks, that’s a new record for us I think.”

I shuddered. “How many are there, anyway?”

“Hmm... Good question. My estimations
suggest there could be a few hundred. A city this size is like a playground to
them.”

I sighed, feeling weary. “So we’ll be doing
this hundreds of times more?”

“No, I think only a few dozen more in this
city. Kill too many of them and they’ll start to realize something’s going on.
Lucky for us, vamps are pretty cliquish. If you tried to take out shifters this
way, they’d probably sniff us out by the third or fourth kill.”

I shook my head. Shifters, vampires... I
was still not used to the knowledge that legendary monsters stalked the streets
at night.

But that was my reality now. “Right... by
the way, you done with my upgrade yet?”

“Sure thing,” Brett handed a black box back
to me, an ugly electronic rig that seemed to be made of microphone foam and
lenses. “Don’t worry, I tested it first. The GPS shouldn’t cut out as much now.”

As I took it, his hand closed over mine.
“Uh... thanks,” I muttered. Was it just me or did he seem unwilling to let go
of it? I pulled away and put the device back into my black purse, carefully
arranging the camera lens so it peeked out the translucent flap on the side.

It was probably my imagination.

“It’s all because of you, Anna,” Brett said
with a grin. “Those vamps just can’t seem to stay away from you.”

I shrugged, “Seems I’ve been attracting
creeps all my life. About time it finally paid off.”

Brett laughed. “And it’s not just creeps,
eh? Tony seems to like you a lot too.” He smiled, but it seemed his lips were
too tight to be genuine.

“Yeah... I guess so.” I continued to keep
my voice level and disinterested, an attempt to be nonchalant. “I should head
back to the floor.”

He wasn’t done. “You know, I found some
interesting things when fixing your GPS. You really shouldn’t stay logged into
your email.”

A chill ran down my spine. “Beg your
pardon?”

“I saw you had a... rendezvous... with Tony
last week, right after that last incident.”

My jaw clenched. How did he..? “It was
nothing.”

“Nothing,” He eyed me suspiciously and
commented “Even when he said ‘you were great’ afterwards?”

I didn’t respond.

“Look, I can see how you’d want to get in
good with him. Totally,” Brett said with a forced laugh. “Tony and Tara are the
ones with the real jobs and the cash flow, not to mention the strength and
skills for all this danger. For them, it’s all part of the ‘family business.’
But that just means normal losers like you and me... we gotta stick together,
right?” He placed a hand on my arm and this time it was no accident. His greasy
hair stank, like it hadn’t been washed in a week, and his gaze remained fixed
on the low neckline of my blouse.

“Don’t... do that...” I managed to whisper,
shying away.

“Oh yeah?” Bet you didn’t say that to
Tony.”

Actually, I had. He didn’t really listen.
He was also the kind of guy who ripped doors off their hinges with one hand, so
“no” didn’t work very well.

Not that it was working out well here. I
had to get the situation in hand.

“You’re very nice...” I began, a little
shakily, “But like I said before, I don’t really think--”

“Nice, huh? Maybe that’s the problem.” He
tightened his grip. “Maybe I should stop being so nice.”

“Let me go.” I said again, this time with
no trace of fear or hope. My mind was strangely clear and detached, as if
watching a movie in a theatre or maybe as if I was watching one with my arms
bound to the chair and my eyelids taped open.

Or maybe it was that I was in another
place, another time with a man twice my size towering over me and holding me
down and claiming a selfish love. No word or action would stop him. 

The door banged open and broke the spell.
It was Mina, my manager. “What the hell are you two doing?” she said with a
scowl. “Stop making out and get back to work.”

I wrenched my arm out of Brett’s grip and
fled out the back door instead, forcing it closed. The sky outside was clouded
and threatening rain.

The door twisted as Brett tried to open it,
but it held firm. I threw a crate in front of it, then bolted down the alley
and kept running. I took the first turn I saw -- and then the next one, and the
one after that, until they all blurred together.

I kept running. Burning lungs and leaden
legs were nothing compared to the sheer throbbing agony my feet were in.
Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer and staggered to my knees, kicking my
heels off. I closed my eyes and listened for the sound of pursuit.

A voice came, but it wasn’t Brett’s. “Whoa,
where’s the fire?”

My body shook, but it knew it couldn’t run
any further. So it straightened despite the burning pain in my feet and thighs
and I faced the source of the voice.

The source was a young man wearing a
wide-brimmed fisherman’s hat and a long black coat. Leaning against the wall,
he had his hands shoved into his pockets. Short, wavy dark hair haphazardly
framed piercing brown eyes. Even in casual dress, he cut a striking figure. He
looked as if he was waiting for something.

He stood only a few feet from my position
and I realized I must have run right by him without noticing. I must have been
pretty intent on evading Brett.

“Oh…uh... nothing. Nothing’s the matter,” I
replied weakly. “I’m fine.”

The man nodded. “Okay then.” He returned to
staring at the alley wall.

He didn’t seem inclined to say anything
else... or do anything else. He just leaned back and stared at the window
opposite him. Dare I hope that he wasn’t here to make a bad day even worse?

I picked up my shoes in my hands and began
to leave the alley before realizing I had no idea where I had escaped to. The
alley way behind and in front of me lead nowhere. Limping slowly, I followed
them to the next intersection, but from there I only saw another dumpster and
the locked back door of a Spanish grocery.

Well, there was one lead. I walked back to
the stranger. “Uh...Hi again. Sorry to bother you, but do you know the way back
to Elm Street?” That was where I worked. I figured I should probably apologize
to my manager unless I wanted to lose the first job I was able to swing in this
economy.

“Hmm.... Elm, huh? We’re a bit far from
there” he looked back and forth, although it didn’t seem like there were any
landmarks to navigate with. “I guess the best way is to get to East Second and
then to follow it down. If you take a left down there and then your second
right, you should come out on Maple and from there...” he shook his head. “You
know what? I’m not doing anything important now. I can show you.”

My body tensed. “Um... that’s fine, I don’t
want to be any trouble.”

He laughed. “Be trouble? Or find trouble?”
He said it with a glance at the direction I had run from.

I flushed. So he had figured something out,
though it wasn’t hard to tell. “Well... okay. Thank you very much.”

“I’m Jason, by the way.”

“...Anna.”

I put my shoes back on reluctantly and we
started walking towards the alley exit. “You new here?” asked Jason.

“Yeah,” I replied, “Just moved here last
month.”

Jason nodded. “Yeah, it takes a bit to get
used to. This part of town’s pretty old. Heard it used to be the poor district,
centuries ago. Guess it hasn’t changed much from then.”

“Have you lived here long?” I asked. Keep
the conversation on him and he wouldn’t think anything of me, I thought.

“Just moved here a year ago myself... Me
and my sister, we don’t really stick around in one place for long.”

I could sympathize. It was only recently I
could afford to pay even shared rent. Until then, I had gone from couch to
couch, at least the times I could find someone willing to put me up for free.
The rest of the time... well, the rest of the time, I made do.

He misinterpreted my apparent discomfort.
“It’s not so bad, really. Each city has its own... I guess you could call it
its own spirit. My sister loves it here especially... did you know there’s a
street here with four independent bookstores? If not, I’m sure she’d be happy
to tell you,” he finished with a laugh.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t really read
much.”

“Fair enough. But if you did, the place she
works at is right near where we’re about to come out... here.”

They left the alley into a narrow one-way
street with a row of parked cars on one side. Sure enough, they were right next
to a bookstore called Vyce Books.

“Hers is across the way.” Jason pointed to
a glass-fronted store with the words “Apple and Bookworm” frosted across the
window and a picture of the same right below.

“I see. Thanks,” I said, turning to go.

My legs turned to ice as I saw Brett
peering into a window on the street. Numbly, I managed to stumble behind a car.
Fortunately, he didn’t appear to notice me.

He swept his gaze up and down the street,
appearing to be searching. Searching for me? I clenched a fist. Maybe if I
stayed here long enough, he would go somewhere else. I went to my knees again,
mostly because my feet still hurt. I was still in no shape to run.

My heart clenched as I realized that
instead of going away, he was actually walking right towards me. Just as it
made a bid for freedom out my throat, I saw Jason walking down the street
towards him.

I groaned. What if Jason told him where I
was? Or that he had met me? I swallowed helplessly as the two men conversed,
straining my ears in vain to hear what they were talking about. Then, I saw
Jason point down the street, in the exact opposite direction from where I hid.
Brett nodded and turned away. I watched him go with a surge of relief.

Had Jason... just saved me? Brett
disappeared down the street and I cautiously crept out from behind the car.

Jason was waiting for me. “It’s all right. 
He shouldn’t be back for a few minutes. Told him I saw you duck into a nearby
alley... which happened to be the truth,” he added with a grin. “Then I saw a
pigeon and thought to point it out. He disappeared before I could explain,
though.”

That was an odd technicality, I thought.
But I supposed it didn’t matter. Something else seemed off.

“Wait, you said he went down the alley?
Will he be back?”

“Maybe… That one doesn’t go very far before
it ends.”

I considered my choices. Going back to the
restaurant was definitely out and I was probably fired already anyway for
leaving during a rush. Jason seemed decent. Maybe I could stick with him, at
least for a few hours.

Finally, I licked my lips and spoke, mouth
still slightly dry. “So, where did you say that bookstore was?”