The Comanche Vampire (34 page)

Ned
wanted to shout with joy and he wanted to weep. If he did, he would have Anne
with him forever.
 
But if he bit the
third time, she’d become what he was, a creature existing on blood and living
in the shadows.
 
She’d brought sunlight
back into his life so he hated to rob it from her. “I won’t now,” he
stated.
 
“You’d have to understand all it
means, what it’s like, before I would.
 
Do
you have more questions?”

“How
do your wounds heal so fast?”

Anne
asked good questions, but most he couldn’t answer. “I don’t know.
 
I just do.
 
And I don’t get sick – or at least not any other time but when I really
need blood.
 
I don’t catch colds or
measles or chicken pox.
 
I have no idea
how or why I do, just that it happens.
 
I
figured it out the first night I became.”

Her
eyes narrowed. “How?”
 

A
sigh rushed upward and out. “I tried to end it with a knife, but the gashes
healed up same as the ones you saw.”

Anne
moved to the sofa and put one arm around him. “I’m sorry, Ned, but I’m glad
your attempt failed.
 
And although it
took me awhile to get my head wrapped around it, I’m actually happy you’re a
vampire.”

Surprised,
he asked, “Why?”

“I
wouldn’t know you otherwise,” Anne told him. “There’s so much I want to know
about being a vamp and a lot about when you were
Pea’hocso
.
 
But there’s something I want you to know
first and then we’ll see about getting you some blood.
 
Ned, I love you, no matter what you are, I
love you and I’m not running away any more.
 
I brought half my stuff in the car and unless you don’t want me around,
I’m moving in.
 
I hope you do because I
already gave notice on my apartment, told the landlord I’m leaving.”

Anne’s
announcement stunned him but it pleased him more. “Good,” he said. “Without
you, this place sucked.”

“C’mon,”
she said. “I’ll drive you into Lawton so you can get some blood. Tell me where.
 
Then you can buy me a steak.”
 

Her
words floated with a surreal quality but he nodded. “All right, let’s go.
 
I haven’t eaten much lately.
 
I don’t even remember when I last did.”

She
paused in offering him a hand up. “Don’t you have to eat?”

Ned
shook his head. “It helps, sometimes, to get me through until I can drink blood
but it’s not necessary.”

In
town, Ned directed her to a rundown tavern on the far southern edge of
Lawton.
 
“Stay here,” he told Anne. “It’s
not somewhere you should be.” Despite being afternoon, a fair number of
vehicles, all older and in poor repair, ringed the place.
 

Anne
shook her head. “I’m coming too. I want to see how this is done.”

“Anne,”
he began but she put a finger over his mouth.

“Hush.
I’m coming along.”

Inside
the dim bar, Ned led Anne to a table near the rear.
 
Beside it, a dingy hallway led to the
restrooms.
 
He’d been here before
although he didn’t like it much.
 
A thick,
sour smell hung in the air, a combination of stale beer, spilled whiskey, and
too much smoke.
 
Ned caught a few stares
from the mostly redneck clientele but he ignored them.
 
Anne’s presence and attention made him
nervous as hell, though.
 
He’d never been
scrutinized in the act before and with her attention riveted on his actions,
Ned grew increasingly ill at ease.
 
Under
normal circumstances he’d never bring her to a place like this and he couldn’t
guess how the other customers might feel.
 
Although aware a white woman with a Native American man didn’t generate
much negative interest the way it once had, this might be one place it would.

Ned
ordered a beer, one he’d never drink and Anne asked for a soda. As they waited
for the beverages, Ned glanced around for a likely prospect.
 
Daytime wasn’t the best time to try for blood
but he had little choice.
 
He spotted a
mature woman, more than a little worn around the edges with bouffant hair and
dangling earrings.
 
She appeared to be in
her late forties, but the way she flirted with the men at the bar marked her as
easy prey.
 
Ned waited until she headed
for the restroom and nudged Anne.
 
“There’s my donor,” he said in a low voice. “Stay here while I take care
of business.”

He
figured she’d jump up and want to follow him, but Anne nodded. “All right,
Ned.”

He
rose and walked with slow steps into the hallway.
 
The woman’s scent lingered and he loitered
until she emerged from the ladies’ room.
 
Ned blocked the hall and smiled at her, hoping he didn’t look too
nightmarishly pale he might spook her.
 
“Hey, aren’t you Loretta Jones?” he asked, using a made-up name.
 

She
halted and stared at him with hungry eyes. “My name’s Sandi,” she told him with
fluttering eyelids. “Forget about Loretta, sugar.
 
I wouldn’t mind taking you home with me.
 
Buy me a drink?”

“I
might,” Ned lied. Then he stepped forward and seized her as if he meant to kiss
her.
 
Hoping no one else decided to take
a piss he leaned in tight and bit her behind and just below her right ear.
 

She
giggled with delight and he drank all he dared.
 
“You don’t mess around, do you?” the woman said. “I may not need a drink
after all.” As Ned stepped back, she locked her arm with his and hung on with
the power of a snapping turtle. “Let’s go home and see what happens.”

Shit
. If he untangled now, she might
protest or scream.
 
Ned preferred no
audience and he didn’t want any trouble.
 
But if they walked out through the bar, the patrons would notice and so
would Anne.
 
I can’t leave her alone in a hellhole like this.
 
 
“Maybe you should meet me at the truck,”
he said, aware he’d come with Anne.
 

“Lead
me to it,” his donor said with a leer.
 
Her beer flavored breath rushed over him in waves as he tried to pull
away.

“Just
a minute there, bitch,” Anne said as she crowded into the narrow space. “He’s
my man, so let go.”

“Who
the hell is she?” the woman wailed.

“I’m
his woman,” Anne said, sounding more like a cowgirl than a history professor.
“So hit the road unless you want to tangle with me.”

For
a tense few moments, Ned feared Anne might get into a catfight with the
woman.
 
He imagined scratching, kicking,
slapping, and screaming.
 
He prepared to
break up any altercation but the woman twisted her face into a frown. “Oh, piss
on it, honey, he’s not worth the trouble, on second thought.
 
Take your red man and get out of my way
before I kick the ever-
lovin
’ shit out of you just
for fun.”
 

She
released her hold and when she did, Anne grasped him tight. “Let’s go,” she
said, voice harsher than he’d expected. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do,
mister.”

Anne
fussed at him all the way past their table and outside.
 
As soon as she climbed into her car and Ned
followed, she burst into laughter.
 
After
a stunned moment, so did he.
 
She whooped
until she paused to catch her breath. “Do they always want to take you home?”

“Hardly
ever,” Ned said. He hadn’t been able to figure out how she’d respond but he’d
never expected her to save his ass or finding it amusing.
 
But he liked both. “Usually, I do it quick
and they never know what happened.
 
Thanks for helping.”

She
flashed him a quick grin. “You’re welcome.
 
I enjoyed it.
 
I didn’t expect
this to be fun.”
 
Neither had Ned but he
nodded.
 
As the blood he’d taken moved
through his veins and gave him strength, he chuckled.
 
Whatever happened, he was glad to be with
Anne and to experience a rush of life. “It’s not usually,” he said. “Honey, I
love you.”

“I
love you, too. Are you ready for steak?”

He
hadn’t eaten in days and couldn’t remember when he’d last had an appetite but
Ned realized he was hungry. “Yeah, let’s go.”
 
Ned savored the steak, tender and delicious but he enjoyed Anne’s
company more. Conscious of the public place, their conversation kept to the
ordinary.
 
Anne chattered about things on
campus, a movie she’d seen during their separation, and shared the latest
family gossip from Texas. After they’d finished, they walked hand in hand to
her car.

“You
look so much better,” she commented. “You looked terrible when I came to the
house earlier and I was worried.”

“Let’s
go home.
 
We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“I
want to make love,” she told him.
 
Ned
knew it.
 
The way she moved, the look in
her eyes, even her scent confirmed it.
 
He craved Anne’s body but he restrained himself.

“We’ll
talk first,” he told her.

And
once they got back, they did.

Chapter Seventeen

“Tell
me how you became a vampire,” Anne said once they settled down.
 
She sat cross-legged on the floor by choice
near his feet.
 

Ned
gazed at her still surprised she’d come around and accepted the reality.
 
He shared his story, how he’d come to
surrender at Fort Sill with Quanah Parker and the last of the free
Comanches
. “I couldn’t stand being inside any longer,” he
told Anne. “So I went outside and after a time, a woman came to me.
 
She called herself a
Romany
and she kissed me.
 
I
was too numb inside to think about why she did or what she wanted but then she
bit me, three times.
 
Then she told me in
a rage that
Comanches
killed her family and she’d
done it for revenge.
 
I had just
surrendered and come into the agency, then I’m a vampire. It took a lot of
getting used to, Anne, and it wasn’t easy.
 
Still isn’t, most of the time.”

“But
you’ve managed to exist for more than a century.”
 

“Almost
a hundred and forty years,” he replied. “Until I met you, every day, every
night was like the one before, empty and meaningless.
 
I’ve drifted through it because I had no
choice, but you do.
 
It’s no way to live,
Anne, and as much I want to be with you, you deserve better.”

“Maybe
and maybe not,” she said. “I choose to be with you, Ned, whatever it takes.
I’ll stay with you and stay human if you want.”
 

He’d
thought about it so often and knew, unlike Anne, it wouldn’t work. “It’s
impossible.”

Anne
jutted her chin out at him in protest. “Why?”

“You’d
grow old, I wouldn’t change.
 
Right now,
we’re about the same age.
 
In five years,
you’d be older, but I’d remain like this.
 
It’d show a little by then, a lot more in ten years or twenty.
 
Sooner or later, you’d become a gray-haired
old lady hanging around a man in his prime.
 
People would talk.”

“I
don’t care.”

“You
would,” Ned told her. “Your family would.
 
They’d notice, Anne, and ask questions.”

He
watched as she digested the idea, her thoughts almost transparent as her
expression changed as she considered each different idea.
 
“I imagine they would.
 
Mom would ask if I’d found the fountain of
youth or some excellent cosmetics,” Anne said with a light laugh. “But if I
become a vampire too, then neither of us would age.”

“That’d
be just as hard to explain to your folks,” Ned said. “Or your colleagues.
 
I move about every five years or so to keep
people from wondering.
 
This house is my
home, all I’ve had for a long time, but I keep leaving, then coming back when I
think it’s been long enough for people to forget.
 
I’ve used different names, claimed to be my
son or grandson.
 
It wears out quick,
honey.”

Anne
put her hand on his knee and directed her gaze upward toward his face. “I’m
sure it has, Ned, but it’d be different if we were together.
 
You’ve been so alone.
 
I know that now and I can hear how lonely
you’ve been.
 
I hear it in your voice and
see it in your sad eyes.
 
I have a lot of
feeling for my family, but I could live without being as close.
 
We’ve grown apart over the years anyway and
being with you would make up for it.
 
I’ll do it either way you want but what I won’t do is leave.
 
I love you and I won’t walk away from the
best man I’ve ever found.
 
These last two
weeks have been awful.
 
Nothing seemed
right and I hurt in ways I’ve never before.
 
I’ve thought all this through and I know.
 
I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you,
even become a vampire, but I’m here to stay.”