Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires (51 page)

“I hope you're right, little girl.” In an unexpected move, Talbot put his arms around me and gave me a hug. The warmth of him encompassed me as if his heart beat inside my own chest. I fought the urge to sink my teeth into his flesh, but it was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. The hug must have lasted less than a second, but when he stepped away I was trembling. He looked into my eyes and I saw what I thought was compassion.

“Very good. You pass.”

“Pass?” I asked, confused.

“Do I look like a touchy-feely guy to you?” His eyes went slit-pupiled again and he roared at me, his bestial fangs looming large and dangerous between his jaws. This time he flashed claws, too, curved feline things, sharper than mine, with needle-thin points. His other smell resurfaced, too: jungle cat musk. “If you'd bitten me, I'd have ended you and told Eric you were too stupid to keep around.”

“I'd like to see you try,” I shot back with more defiance than confidence.

“I'd succeed.” He chuckled and let his features become human again. “I don't know why I'm trying to impress you. I've been humanoid too long.” He sighed abruptly. “We'll pick this up a little later. Why don't we see if we can round you up another couple pints of blood and then you can experiment with your powers.”

I nodded and followed him back across the street to the club. Powers. I'd show him powers.

LITTLE SISTER

D
awn was beautiful. The fiery tendrils of morning crimson bathed me in their warm glow. The sun, with typical brilliance, cast its loving gaze in my direction. Had I been alive, I would have turned to face it with joy, or more likely put on my shades to prevent my usual hangover from getting worse. Either way, I wouldn't have fallen out of the sky and into the woods on account of it. I told you my time sense sucked. Admittedly, being ignited two mornings in a row was a bit unusual for me. It wasn't my record—there had been a really strange week in El Segundo—but it was unusual.

Flailing my fiery bat wings wasn't helping the situation, so I turned human again as I fell. Strictly speaking, I suppose I should have been naked since I'd certainly been a naked bat, but it never works that way for me. I re-formed with all my clothes on just before I hit the root system of an oak tree. Fortunately for me, the trees would keep me shaded from the sun until it rose higher…a couple of hours, at least. My eyes started to close and I shook myself awake.

Shit like this never seemed to happen to vampires in the movies. Where were my vampire groupies, my loyal henchlings? Where was fucking Renfield? I didn't want to break into anyone's house, but I didn't want to be burned to ash, either.

There were other options. I could hide under a car, or in a doghouse, or in a mailbox. I could dig a hole and bury myself, technically, but what I really wanted was for Talbot to somehow sense that I needed him and to come pick my burnt ass up and take me home.

I walked through the woods, grateful that I lived in the South, where civilization and forest intermingle from the mountains to the beach. Lots of subdivisions extended right into the woods. Through the trees up ahead, I could see a long line of houses, the leading edge of suburbia.

It had recently become highly fashionable to cut down as few trees as possible; in some areas, contractors built sidewalks and even porches right around existing trees. This subdivision was older, but at least the contractor had let the trees run right up to the property line of the houses, especially where the natural slope of the terrain made building a little more difficult.

One guy was starting his car on my side of the street in the shadows while a woman was doing the same thing on the other side of the street in full sunlight. There were people in the houses. I could sense them. Some were asleep and others were waking, showering, getting ready, brushing their teeth. There were two people still in the nearest house, the one the man had just left. Both of them sounded female, one younger than the other: a mother and daughter.

I moved from house to house along the shady side of the street, concealed by the trees. The houses were all two stories, most with vinyl siding, and each house had somebody home.

I looked at my watch. It was 6:50 on a nice Sunday morning. Didn't any of these assholes go to church? Back when I was alive, it had seemed like I was the only one who didn't go to church on Sunday. How long had this been going on? What time did church service start now? Eight o'clock? Nine? I couldn't wait that long; the sun would be really most sincerely up and this whole stupid subdivision would be bathed in light.

I started toward the closest house, even though it had a family of four inside, but the same strange vibe I'd gotten last night, the odd discomfort that kept me from flying across the county road, repulsed me. It wasn't the same feeling a blessed house gives off, it was something else, and it almost had a smell, like badly burned toast. It could have been anything, an amateur mage, a botched breakfast attempt…I was too tired to figure it out.

Through the haze, one of the houses suddenly looked perfect. It smelled like freshly baked cinnamon rolls, and the aroma drew me closer nearly against my will. I'd never liked cinnamon rolls in life, but this was intoxicating, almost as much as pizza. If I'd been a cartoon, the scent might have lifted me off of my feet and carried me along.

The wooden privacy fence was short enough to jump and there was an obliging shade tree that completely bridged the gap from fence to garage; only one person was home, plus the house had blacked-out windows in one of the second-story rooms. An amateur photographer would have just the sort of room I could use as shelter until Talbot could come pick me up.

The door to the garage was locked. Rather than force it, I turned into a mouse and crawled under the space between the garage door and the concrete. I turned human again on the other side and looked around for a light switch. The garage smelled of old gasoline and bagged grass. Despite the noxiousness of the smell, I felt a twinge in the back of my throat. I was getting hungry. In the warmth and humidity of the garage, I caught myself falling asleep again. Being exposed to the sun by a goofball with a garage-door opener didn't sound like fun to me, though, so I shook myself awake again.

I usually go to sleep a few hours after dawn, but I can make it to early afternoon if necessary. Once or twice I'd managed to stay up all day, but each time, I'd passed out at sunset and slept clear through to the next one.

The bulb blew when I tried to turn the lights on. I had almost been expecting it. It was the way things had been going since Friday night: one big fuckup after another. The inside door was locked. My foot did a pretty good job of opening it before I remembered that I was trying to be sneaky. Upstairs I heard a girl sit up in bed. It sounded like she was grabbing something off of the floor. “Mom?” she cried out. “Dad?”

“Nope,” I said under my breath. “Not quite.”

I heard footsteps. Hungry though I was, I didn't want to eat this teenage kid, home alone on a Sunday morning. Wasn't she supposed to be watching cartoons? Or was that Saturday? The door from the garage opened up into a little eating space adjoining the kitchen. I sped across the linoleum and into a sitting room that had been converted into a home office. Hanging blinds over the bay window were all that stood between me and an instant sunburn. A small stream of sunlight scorched my leg where one of the blinds was askew.

Where to hide? I considered my options quickly, racing the footsteps overhead. There were no good hiding places. I could smell her now. Her scent was familiar, somehow, and afraid. She also smelled a little excited, which got me a little excited, too, but if I wasn't going to kill her, it was unlikely that I was going to force myself on her either.

I'd always thought vampires turned into black cats, but it never seemed to work that way for me. Slowly but surely she came down the stairs. A white long-furred kitty waited for her. Of the various creatures I could turn into, it was usually a good bet that the cat would get the most sympathetic reaction. She came around the corner, saw me, and shrieked. Now, what kind of person is afraid of cats?

She was a beautiful girl, dark haired, with smooth skin and bright green eyes. She looked like a younger, more attractive Tabitha. She was wearing a white tank top and panties. Despite the baseball bat in her hands, I was noticing things that I shouldn't have been. And then I recognized her. She was the girl in the battered photo Tabitha carried in her purse. I cursed in whatever language it is that cats speak and turned into myself again.

She froze, midscream. “So,” I said casually, “you must be Rachel.”

She cocked her head to one side and began slowly backing away from me. “I'm Eric,” I offered lamely. “Your sister's boyfriend?”

She stopped and looked at me. Her fear was subsiding and I smelled something that it would have been better if I hadn't. Was Tabitha's whole family a big mob of vampire junkies? I wondered what would happen if I got Tabitha, Rachel, and their mother all in a room together. It was yet another image to be added to my internal wall of shame. Did all men have thoughts like these? If so, why wasn't I smart enough to keep them to my subconscious?

Roger had once told me that all I had to do if I wanted to rule the world was keep my mouth shut, my pants on, and my temper under control. “What about sunlight?” I'd asked him. He'd laughed at me and said that if I was strong enough to rein in the first three things, he was pretty sure even sunlight wouldn't be a problem for me.

“Holy shit! And you really are a vampire? What are you doing here? Is Tab with you?” Rachel asked. She'd gotten closer to me in the brief moment I'd been lost in thought. I shook my head, backing toward the door.

She continued to walk toward me and I considered running out the front door and into the sunlight. She had the same look in her eye that Tabitha had had when she'd first approached me at the club. Maybe one of the other houses had a pack of werewolves in it or a few vampire hunters…something safe. Anything but this. My eyes were glowing against my will and my fangs had dropped down in full-on vampire munch mode. She should have been running away at this point. Instead, she was taking off her tank top. She was certainly pierced in interesting places.

Closing my eyes, I fought back either a yawn or a snarl. I could not eat, sleep with, or otherwise enact upon Tabitha's sister. Even though I couldn't see her anymore, her scent still plagued me. There hadn't been any cinnamon rolls in the oven when I'd passed, yet their tantalizing aroma mingled with hers. What was I doing here?

With supreme effort, I mustered enough concentration to turn back into a cat. Lower to the ground, I struggled to keep my gaze on her ankles. A low rumbling echoed from my chest. I was purring at her. Damn it.

Sunlight was beginning to reach the side windows of the house, so I darted past her and up the stairs. She yelped as I brushed by her in transit, and if cats could smile, I would have. Now all I had to do was figure out a way to call Talbot and explain my situation without being the jumper or the jumpee with regard to Rachel.

My memory really sucks, but even so, I knew that I had never encountered this kind of problem in my living years. What was it about vampires that attracted these women? Surely they couldn't all be necrophiliacs. When I'd died I had been in my thirties. I didn't remember much, but I did recall that I hadn't been particularly handsome. I wasn't Quasimodo either, but…

Focus, Eric.
Drowsiness was making me punchy. I skidded on the hardwood flooring at the top of the stairs and slid into the wall. Rachel sprinted up the stairs behind me. A phone and a door, that's what I needed.

Mom must have been a great housekeeper, because I couldn't smell anyone but Rachel. Everything else smelled new. Maybe they'd just redecorated?

Photographs of Rachel, Tabitha, and their parents lined the hallway in cheap frames, plastic that was meant to imitate wood. I passed the bathroom in my mad feline dash down the hall. There were two bedrooms upstairs, one with a “No cats!” warning symbol and the other with a two-drink-minimum sign.

I surmised that the second room might have been Tabitha's and darted toward it. Changing back to human form felt like coughing up the world's largest hairball, but without thumbs, I couldn't turn the doorknob. I vaguely remembered Tabitha having told me once that she spray-painted her windows black when she was a teenager. They must have been the windows I'd noticed from outside.

“Thanks for not scraping the paint off the windows, Mom,” I muttered. Rachel reached the top of the stairs as I closed the door behind me and locked the dead bolt. I hoped she didn't have the key. Why had Tabitha needed a dead bolt on her bedroom door? Rachel slapped the door with a perturbed grunt, then her footsteps disappeared back in the direction of the stairs.

Tabitha's room was done in black and crimson. No wonder she liked the color scheme at the Demon Heart. She had crosses mounted to the walls and a blacklight bulb hung in the overhead lamp. Little Goth dolls lined a shelf on her wall where I still laughably expected a teenage girl to have wooden horses, old Barbies, and pretty glass knickknacks.

It looked like Tabitha had cleared out all of the stuff she really wanted and left the junk she didn't want for her parents to throw away. That sounded like the Tabitha I knew. When I saw her queen-size bed, piled with fluffy black pillows, I almost went to sleep on it. Instead, I slapped myself a few times. I heard Rachel's footsteps pounding back up the stairs. Either she was quicker than I thought, or I'd just spent a minute or two staring into space.

Phone! There didn't seem to be a phone. In one corner, I saw a huge pile of books and an empty cordless phone charger. All the books appeared to be about vampires. That explained a lot. I heard a key in the exterior lock on the dead bolt and leapt for the door. It was impossible that Rachel could have been fast enough to open it before I could reach her, but it happened anyway. There was probably a fancy psychological term for it, but the only way she could have been faster than me was if I subconsciously wanted her to be faster. Then again, maybe it was just sleep slowing me down.

She was still topless and determined. I tried to ignore her body heat. The warmth of her as she entered the room called to me almost as much as the blood coursing through her veins. I had just healed from major injuries and I needed blood. I needed a phone. I needed Talbot. He could make things simple. He could handle things. That was his job. I needed Marilyn to slap my face for me and tell me to control myself, to act like the man she'd agreed to marry. Every time she told me that I wasn't a monster, for a few minutes, a few hours, I wouldn't be.

I grabbed Rachel by both arms and pulled her against me. She was afraid, but willing, just like her sister. I threw her down on the bed and straddled her thighs. Shifting my grip, I trapped her arms above her head. She leaned up and we kissed. Her tongue was pierced. Roger once told me that it's always the younger sister that you have to watch out for. He must have been talking about girls like Rachel.

“I need…” I struggled to find the words.

“I need you too, baby. It's okay. I want you.” It was her turn to purr.

I pictured Rachel lying cold and dead on her sister's bed or worse, rising the next night, like her sister had, only eighteen instead of twenty-three. It was enough.