Taming the Night (Creatures of the Night Book 1) (3 page)

He turned away and realized
too late that he had just left his neck open and exposed for the creature to rip out. This was it. This was the end of his life here in this old broken down cruiser with this big stinky freak show chomping on him like a buffet. Just when his strength was going to give out the creature burst into flames on top of him. He hurried to push it out and slam the door. The biker woman slid into the passenger side and closed the door behind her.

He was about to ask her if she was all right when he noticed the smooth skin of her face. Hadn’t he seen a big gash there a few minutes ago? She took one look at him and then reached for his shirt. She unbuttoned his unifor
m shirt and began to pull it from his pants. And then down his arms.

“Is this the part
of the dream where we make out?” he asked. Why he had said it he didn’t know. Maybe his brain had shut down with shock.

She laughed with a husky laugh that did all
sorts of things to him. He had too many emotions running through him all at once. Adrenaline, fright, arousal. He didn’t know what to latch on to so he found himself focusing on her beautiful face. She was more beautiful than any woman had a right to be. Her beauty was at odds with the hellion that he had just seen standing on the hood of his car looking like an Amazonian princess.

“I’m afraid that this is n
ot that kind of dream shug.” She pulled a knife and began to cut his shirt into strips. His arousal turned to trepidation as he saw the size of the knife. At that moment he realized that his police issue pistol was lying out on the ground and he had only his flashlight and baton for defense. He was a flashlight cop at the moment. He swallowed hard to which she chuckled again.

“Not to worry mon
petit. It ain’t that kinda dream either.” She slipped the huge knife back in her boot and he was surprised that it fit. The thing didn’t look like it should be able to fit next to the slender ankle.

She leaned forward and quickly bandaged the wounds on his shoulders and forearms where the animal had torn into his flesh with its nails. He hadn’t realized how much blood he’d lost until that moment and he was suddenly light headed.

“It’s okay if you want to sleep now,” she said.

“Sleep? Are you crazy?
What the hell were those things?” he asked. He was trying to keep his wits about him as her hands brushed him in certain places where she tied bandages. When she was finished she looked away from him out the passenger side window. She said a curse as she reached across him and buckled his seat belt. Something hit the car with the force of a jumbo jet.

He saw dirt and then sky and then dirt and then sky as glass shattered and seemed to rain all around him. When the car finally stopped he felt blood trickle from his nose. He blinked a few times as his ears buzzed. He wanted to sink into darkness but the cop in
him wouldn’t allow it. His first thought was for the woman who had reached across him to buckle him in, forsaking her own safety. His head neck and shoulders screamed against the motion but he turned to the passenger seat.

He nearly threw up at what he saw. She was draped across the back of the bench seat as if she were l
ying on her stomach slung over someone’s shoulder, only she wasn’t on her stomach. She was on her back. There was no way that she survived. Just as that thought hit him he saw her foot twitch. When she lifted her arms and pushed her broken back up off the chair he leaned far away from her against his door and stifled another unmanly scream.

He wanted to scream like a little girl
this time. Instead he said, “What the hell is going on?!” The quiver in his voice would have to suffice in conveying his unease. A growl outside the front windshield, which was now shattered into a million pieces, took his attention. Just as he turned to look, the monster crashed down on his hood. There was blasting from her side of the car and he watched the mutated beast burst into flame.

“I crashed
... I was chasing you on your motorcycle and I ran right into a tree and I’m dying on the side of the road. I should have given more to charity. I should have helped old ladies across the street or something. This is my penance, purgatory, whatever, right? Or maybe it’s just a joke. I-is my uncle watching somewhere? Are there cameras hidden because I-” He stopped rambling when the beautiful woman with the violet eyes reached across the seat and slapped him across the face.

He paused for a moment to collect himself. He forced his racing thoughts to settle down. He couldn’t handle trying to think of what was happening. He had enough just dealing with the moment. He looked out towards the woods and his heart nearly stopped. The red glowing eyes were everywhere. He swallowed all his fright and attempted a clear thought.

“Okay. You’re right. I deserved that. What the hell is going on?” he asked her again in a calmer tone.

*

Al watched him. So far he’d kept a far cooler head than some of the other innocents she’d dealt with.
Most of them would be passed out cold by now, especially at the sight of their own blood. She had really been impressed by the way he’d handled himself with that wolf. Most she had come across wouldn’t have even tried to fight back, not against such a grossly grotesque looking beast. It was like they knew they would be ripped to shreds and didn’t even try. Those who did fight back usually didn’t have the strength to hold them off.

It was amazing that he hadn’t been bitten and she was grateful for that. He was way t
oo beautiful of a man to turn into one of the ugly creatures. Had he turned, she would have had to smoke his ass. “This is not a joke and you have been in a car crash,” she answered both honestly and evasively.

She was taken
aback by the look he gave her. It was a look that said she was full of shit and they both knew it. “I haven’t been in a crash. My car was sitting still when one of those… those… whatever they are hit it, so I ask again. What the hell is going on?”

She shrugged as she dug in the pocket inside her jacket. She found what she was looking for and then held it out to him.

*

Jerry looked at the devise she held out to him. He wasn’t a bomb expert but it looked like a detonator, complete with cheesy red button. There should
have been a little sticker around it that said ‘push here to blow shit up.’ He looked at her and the number of grenades she had strapped to her chest. He then looked back out to the glowing eyes that were stepping out of the woods and taking shape in the darkness.

“You may do the honors if you like mon cher.”

He turned back to her and gave her his best ‘do I look stupid to you’ stare. “No thank you. I didn’t sign on for the death then forty virgin package deal. Some men go for that sort of thing but… I’m good.”

She looked like she didn’t follow for a moment until he motioned at the grenades on her chest. She laughed then. It was a husky sultry laugh that whispered to his senses. “Honey. You get the strangest ideas about thangs.
I aint gonna blow us up but I’ll have to remember that whole forty virgins line.”

“T
hen what-”

B
efore he could say another word she pressed the button. The entire clearing was suddenly filled with a blinding light. He closed his eyes but not before the light had filled his vision and all he could see was white. He felt searing pain as he clutched his eyes.

“My eyes,” he cried out. He heard the creatures scream out from around the car and smelled that putrid smell of death as they fried. When the light finally dimmed he tried to open his eyes but to no avail.

“I can’t see,” he screamed to the woman that had been in the car. There was only silence. He pushed past the pain and did his best to open his eyes. He managed a small slit only to find himself completely alone in the stark silence.

“536,” the radio blared and he nearly jumped out of his skin. “This is 519 attempting to raise 536, respond.”

He picked up the mike with a shaking hand. “This is 536.”

“Your thirty minu
tes is up. You better be here in the next ten seconds or-”

Jerry stopped paying attention as he searched the floor board for her gun. It was gone. Even though he wasn’t steady on his feet he opened his car door and stumbled forward. He went to where her motorcycle had been parked when he’d pulled her over. There were so many crisscrossing tracks it was hard to say how many people had been dirt b
iking back here in recent days.

He found his gun and holstered it b
ut that was pretty much all he found. There were a few piles of burnt ash here and there, but at worst it looked like any other area where teens would come to have bonfires, perhaps a hang out for the local drunks. People would laugh him all the way back to Durham if he told them…

Suddenly his he
ad was spinning. He sat down in the dirt and tried to right himself but before he could stop he was falling. Down, down, down, into sweet oblivion. His last thought was of her smell. A phantom woman couldn’t have a smell that would linger. Vanilla and… maybe a hint of lavender.

Chapter Two

Jerry came to in stages. First he became aware of the sawing in the next room. Then he felt a jack hammer beneath him. He groaned as he tried to move. He felt like he weighed a solid ton. Why was there construction going on in his house? Didn’t they know he had to work tonight? Plus, why would anyone be jack hammering in his house at all? And why was he so thirsty?

He tried again to lift his arm and was a little more successful this time. He froze as he realized why his arm weighed so much. It was cast
ed. He opened his eyes fully and tried to sit up. There was no hammering or sawing. He was hooked up to some machines that where beeping and whirring and his head was pounding. He groaned again at his failed attempt to sit up.

“He’s awake. Go get a nurse.” He heard the words and recognized his Uncle Victor’s gruff voice. He tilted his head to see his uncle unfolding from the ridiculously small hospital chair. It looked as if he’d slept there.

Tonya Mahan, his Uncle’s Secretary, rose from the chair she’d occupied on his left side, and gave his hand a squeeze. There were tears in her eyes. “Thank God you’re all right. We tried to call your mother but I guess she’s still on her cruise. I’ll be right back with a nurse. Do you need anything? How about some juice. Yes. Orange juice will fix you right up. I’ll be right back.”

All Jerry could do was smile in her wake. Tonia thought that everything could be fixed with juice. Bad day? Have some juice. Sore throat? Have some juice. Nearly bitten by a deranged wolf
bear… He closed his eyes with that thought. What the hell had happened out there? He couldn’t say for sure. Vanilla and lavender… had it all been a dream?

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and he flinched involuntarily as he opened his eyes. He saw care and concern in his uncle
’s gaze. He had never seen that look in his uncle’s face. “You okay son?”

Jerry swallowed and realized that his throat was parched. “Nothing a little juice won’t fix.”

This brought the customary smile back to his uncle’s face and Jerry could see some of the tension visibly lift from his shoulders. “You are okay if you can joke. You gave me the scare of my life. It was a bad crash.”

Jerry felt as confused as he was sure he looked. “
There was… what happened to the… I… I mean there was a crash but... What about the… the biker. Was there any evidence of the biker fleeing the scene?”

“Nothing. There were tracks crisscrossing that field. I heard the tape
of your pursuit but you didn’t give much of a description of the perp. We have been searching for days and-”

“Days?
” Jerry asked flabbergasted.

“You’ve been asleep nearly two days. Sarah will have my head for not getting in contact with her. She’s on one of those damn Alaska
n cruises and-”

“There has b
een no information on the biker in days?” Jerry asked in frustration.

“Nope, even if there was I wouldn’t give him a hard time. I wanted to simply talk to him about the nature of the accident you were in. It looks like you took impact on the passenger
’s side door, but there was no other car at the scene when we got there. Your car flipped six times so there should have been some paint transfer, metal transfer, perhaps even transfer from the other guy going through his windshield and smacking into your unit on impact, but there’s nothing.”

“Nothin
g at all. No blood besides mine?” he asked incredulously. He tried to get a clear image in his mind of what happened but it was all… fuzzy.

“Boy. This aint CSI. Even if we could pull some blood up besides yours
, who’s would we check it against? The biker data pool? The guys who run into police cruisers data base?”

Jerry wanted to grumble and argue but he knew that his uncle was right. This was as close to Mayberry as they’d get without the theme song. Tonia was working hard to bring the department up to date
, but she had only been around a few months. She was fighting against years of the old school of thought, and that was a thing that couldn’t be changed overnight.

“What about the perp? Why do you say you woul
dn’t give the biker a hard time?” he asked instead.

“Well the only thing I can think is that he gave you a fighting chance at least. When Gerald found you you had already been bandaged up and stabilized. It was as if the bastard had felt bad and wanted to make
it up to you for having to chase him in the first place.”

“And how do you know it wasn’t the biker who hit me?”

“Son. You show me a motorcycle that can get goin’ good enough to flip a Crown Vic six times, and I’ll show you a dead motorcyclist.”

All Jerry could do in response to that was huff.

“So how about you?” his uncle asked.

“What about me?”

“You gonna tell me what happened out there?”

“Chief Hernandez. I’m gonna have to ask you to not harass the patient right now. He did just come out of a comma.”

Victor Hernandez took a step back and Jerry saw him almost turn beet red. “Doctor. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. He just seemed up to it is all.”

“Well until I release him I don’t want anymore talk of what happened before he got here. He needs to heal.” Trudy Lana eased up to th
e side of the bed. She had a soft smile on her reed thin face that had been putting patients at ease for years. She was like a breath of fresh air. Jerry had to wonder why she and his uncle seemed so adamant about avoiding each other when there was obviously something there.

“Hey Doc.”

“Well. I did tell you to stay out of trees ever since that summer you came to me with a broken leg, but now I suppose I will have to tell you to stay away from charging cars,” she said as she gently stroked the hair back from his face. She had a way of looking him directly in the eye that made him feel more confident in her abilities as a healer.

She had always been very motherly to him and all her patients.
It was the type of thing most big city doctors avoided for fear of law suites, but they hardly had a lawyer here in Taming let alone law suites. “How are you feeling?”

He did a quick mental check and then smiled. “I can still wiggle my fingers and toes. Someone upstairs must like me.”

“I’ll say. You were thrown from the car and it looks as if it rolled right over the top of you, tearing at you as it did. It must have been quite some accident.”

Jerry saw the hesitation on her face as she said the words. Was there something she wasn’t saying? Had the car torn at him or had if been
a big hairy monster? Surely a doctor could tell the difference. Where was the biker woman? Was she alright? Had one of those things carried her off? If that was the case where was her motorcycle?

The second thing he’d noticed
the other night, right after how beautiful she was, was her bike. It was a Harley with a purple flame hugging the tank. It looked like it should be too big for her but she had ridden it like they were twins in the womb.

The woman, the monsters… if he wasn’t mistaken… she had saved his life. Had one of those things gotten her? Was she even real? Why couldn’t he
focus, remember things clearly? His head began to hurt the harder he thought about what might have happened.

“Did you hear what I said?”
Jerry gave his attention back to the Doctor. She immediately pulled a little light from her pocket and checked his eyes and then made him follow her finger as she moved it. Once she was satisfied she asked him again. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I was hit by a truck, but besides that I’m okay.”

“Well your temperature’s good and you seem to be coherent, but I’m going to keep you overnight for observation. Make sure you wake up after going to sleep and all that. You had major neck and head trauma and now that the swelling has gone down a bit you should be okay.”

Jerry cast his uncle a suspicious glance and
Victor was quick to look away. “Swelling? Give me a mirror.”

“Like the doctor says, a few days and…” Jerry was on the verge of throwing back the blanket and going to the bathroom, IV and all, when the door came open.

“Here we are. Some juice and ice chips. And I have a mirror in my purse, you just stay right there.”

“How did-”

“Oh the whole hospital probably just heard
you screamin’ for a mirror.”

She sat the tray on the little table in front of him and then hurried over to her purse. Apparently she had slept over as well. For the first time e
ver, Jerry saw Trudy loose a bit of her grace as she gave Tonia what appeared to be the evil eye. Tonia floated around as if she didn’t notice. Jerry’s uncle turned an even deeper shade of red as Tonia walked past. What was going on here?

“Here you are,” Tonia said as she opened a compact and held it up to his face.

Jerry nearly swallowed his tongue. The entire left side of his face was swollen and purpled from his hair line, to his neck, to his shoulder, and it felt like a few of his ribs were bruised as well. He turned his head when he was finished inspecting his face and waved the mirror away with his casted arm.

It wasn’t the bruises or the scratches that frightened him really. He’d played football, he knew contact injuries well. No, it was the tan. He was nearly as tan as if he’d been out on the beach for a month. How? Maybe the car had caught fire and burned his skin. He couldn’t even pretend to take that lie. Maybe he could lie
to himself and say that the injuries were not from some wild animal, that they had indeed come from the accident, but what about the tan? A wild woman hit a button that lit the field up like the fourth of July was how.

“Here. Drink some juice,” Tonia offered as she reached
over to help him up. She held his head while he sipped from a straw.

“He should be able to hold his own head up,” Doctor Lana snapped.

They all turned to look at her and she looked down at her clipboard as if she hadn’t snapped at all. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours. If you need something just buzz the nurse’s station,” she said without looking up before she made a fluid exit. The door barely made a click as she closed it behind her.

“What was that all about?
” Jerry asked. Victor shook his head and Tonia quickly went to collect her things.

“I’ll be at work if anyone needs me. I’ll
be back with some real food for you Jerry before I go home,” Tonia said, her green eyes sparkling with a smile, as they always did. Tonia was headed towards fifty but her red hair and green eyes didn’t show a hint of it.

When she was gone Jerry looked to his uncle again. “What is that all about?”

“You’ve got bigger things to be worried about than what old fools will do.”

“Well Unc. You can’t stay a bachelor forever,” Jerry teased with a smile.

“Says what law? I want to see it.”

“How about
the one that says man was not meant to be alone and all that.”

His uncle huffed. “Eve. She started this whole mess
.”

Jerry thought of his own disastrous relationships and had to agree. A wave of fatigue washed over him and nearly carried him away. “I suppose I could sleep a little. Will you let me know i
f anything turns up on the perp?”

“I’ll let you know if anything turns up on the vehicle and driver that hit you or the biker. Don’t think you’re getting out of answering my questions because of any amnesia or that. And… I’m glad you’re okay. If anything happened to you…”

The statement hung in the air and suddenly images of his father’s funeral flashed through his mind. A young boy holding his uncle’s big hand in one hand, and his mother’s smaller one in the other. They all stood there as his father was lowered into the grave, one loosing a husband, one loosing a best friend and brother-in-law, and the other loosing the whole world. A robbery gone badly and his father had been the first on the scene. It hung over this small town like a cloud.

“Naw. I plan on stickin’ around for a while. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

Victor nodded before he turned and headed out of the room. Jerry knew that that was as much of an ‘I love you’ as he would get and he was glad of it. The last thing he needed was to have his uncle hanging over his shoulder acting weird. Something happened to him out there and he planned on finding out what. And he knew exactly where to look as soon as he got out of this hospital.

*
                            *                            *

Alicia pulled
up in the driveway of her rancho style house. By the light of the moon it looked so magnificent, its adobe clay walls illuminated out here in the middle of the desert. She reached across the front seat of her Ford Focus and grabbed the bag of subs that she’d picked up for dinner. She looked up in the mirror to be sure that her scarf was tied in a flattering way around her head to protect her ears.

She hated the cold. She didn’t usually worry about t
he way her hair looked since it wasn’t beneficial to be attractive while being a detective. But when it was time to head for home, she did everything she could to look just that much softer. She loved being soft, comforting, and pretty at home. She just wished she was a better cook. She shrugged it off. Everyone couldn’t be good at everything. When she was satisfied that she looked okay she stepped out of her car and made her way towards the house.