Vampire Blood (26 page)

The great wolf stood a second glaring at the cowering prisoners in the cages, its eyes intelligently malevolent as it grinned evilly, its jaws home to razor sharp teeth. It raised its muzzle and howled. The sound was eerie and heart-stopping in the dank dungeon.

One of the prisoners, a teenage girl with curly red hair and frozen eyes, began to sob hysterically as she crawled as far back in her prison as possible. “Please, let me go. My mom’s waiting at home for me and she’ll be so worried when I don’t come home,” she pleaded over and over, wringing her hands. “I won’t tell nobody. I promise. Just let me go. Please ...
please ... please!”

The wolf’s soulless eyes fell warningly on the girl’s face, and the pleading stopped. Then, with a toss of its huge shaggy head, the wolf loped towards the basement steps, up them, through the empty lobby, and out into the night. The others trailed behind like gruesome lemmings.

There was someone she’d been wanting to meet for a while, and now was as good a time as any to introduce herself and her friends.

* * * *

Joey locked up after the neighborhood bag lady, Sophie, shuffled out with her bulging gunnysack.

What with the theater’s grand reopening next door, as Joey had earlier predicted, he’d had an after movie crowd so large, not only had he made money hand over fist, but the scraps and leftovers had been staggering.

Sophie had been homeless for years, yet she didn’t mind living on the street. No one told her what to do or how to do it. Unlike the other restaurant and store owners in town, Joey was known for his generosity, so Sophie was a regular. She stopped by most nights after twelve at closing time, and Joey, no matter how tired he was, had friendly conversation for her, hot coffee and leftovers. Sophie wasn’t picky. She’d eat almost anything and usually did. What she couldn’t eat herself she took along in bags for her street friends. There was now a whole community of them since the economy had tanked and died.

Tonight Sophie had stayed longer than usual. She’d been upset at some new city ordinance or something that would keep her and her kind out of the park. As much as Joey liked being a nice guy, he was relieved when she left. He was tired.

The movie theater next door had been empty and dark for an hour, and he’d sent Laurie home thirty minutes before. She hadn’t been feeling well most of the night. Morning sickness, he’d teased her. Flu, she’d teased back.

He couldn’t wait to join her at their apartment.

Joey was yawning and limping as he pulled down the shades and cleaned the place up. He scraped and scrubbed the grill, put away the dishes that Laurie had washed before she left, swept and mopped the floors, and lastly, wiped off the counters. His restaurant was a triple A, and there was no way he’d allow it to slip below that rating.

Outside, the night, slumbering beneath a full moon, had the first tang and coolness of fall, though fall in Florida was always warmer than most places. Joey couldn’t wait to get out into it. He’d been cooped up all day in the steamy kitchen, and he craved fresh air.

He was on his way out, having already switched off the lights as he went, his lightweight jacket slung over his shoulders and the night’s receipts in a paper bag clutched in one hand, when he first became aware of the unusual sounds outside the large glass window. Shuffling, nuzzling sounds, like a bunch of sheep milling together; scratching, like an ice-cutter gliding across glass.

His body was motionless, his eyes seeking out the window into the night.

A thick whitish mist had frosted the glass, filtered silver gray from the diluted moonlight. With the lights on, he hadn’t been able to see it.

It was there now. Vaguely unsettling, the mist churned against the window’s slick surface. It’d be hell to drive through, if it was that bad out on the roads, he thought, disgruntled.

“
Joey,
” a growl like whisper from behind him.

“Who’s there?” he demanded over his shoulder, his eyes sharply gleaning through the darkness where the sound had originated near the counter.

A musty odor in the air permeated his senses, growing stronger every second. It reminded him of wet dog fur.

A growl startled him, and his body jerked. He’d hoped he’d been hearing things, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“I’m in no mood for games, I’m warning you!” He shifted his body enough so the moonlight coming through the window could bathe the area he was staring at.

There
was
something there in the gloom behind the counter.

He’d never been robbed before, but the thought occurred to him that this might be it. He hadn’t gone to the bank yet. He dropped the paper bag as quietly as he could down by one of the stools and shoved it under the counter with his foot.

A shadow wavered in the corner.

“We’re closed,” he tried to sound brave, reaching over to switch the lights back on. He toggled the switch; nothing happened.

A waft of spectral laughter haunted the room.

The phosphorescent mist had crept inside somehow. It was crawling across the floor, curling up from the space behind the counter, eating over surfaces in its path, until it seemed to be everywhere.

A form began to take shape on top of the counter in the mist.

A grizzled wolf, crouched, watching him with human eyes that gleamed avariciously.
A
huge
wolf.

They grew that big?

He rubbed his eyes with trembling fingers.

It was still there, black-shadowed in the silvery light. Joey couldn’t believe what he was seeing. What he thought he was seeing.

I am real.

The muffled voice came from inside his head as the creature’s eyes malevolently continued to follow him, its black tongue lolling. It appeared to grin then gracefully lifted its monstrous head, jaws snarling back to reveal razor sharp fangs, and howled.

Immobilized, Joey stood not ten feet from the apparition, too damn frightened to move.

It languidly rose, stood and padded towards him with sharp-clawed paws clicking the counter, until it was only a few feet away. It towered over him and its fetid odor was nearly overwhelming.

He stumbled backwards until he bumped against the door. The phantom wolf didn’t move.

“I must be more tired than I thought,” Joey breathed, finally finding his voice, shaking his head. “I’m asleep on my feet; that’s it. And this is a
nightmare.”

The wolf, silhouetted in the moonlight, dropped its shaggy head, its eyes following his every move. It snarled low in its throat, saliva dripping from its mouth.

He was either hallucinating or going nuts.

“I have to go home.” He couldn’t keep his voice from cracking. “Laurie’s waiting for me.”

No,
echoed in his head,
you’re going to die instead.

Not his words.

He found he couldn’t move his feet.

The wolf had insidiously slouched closer. Hate radiated from it, like the foul stench of a dead skunk. Its eyes, glowing orbs in the haze, locked onto his terrified ones.

“What
are you?” he whimpered.

The creature’s fur rippled like velvet over iron. There was the crack of bone, a tearing of skin, as it reshaped before his eyes from a wolf into a sylphlike woman with long flowing blond hair, a stone white face, blood red lips and vicious ebony eyes that narrowed in triumph at him. She spread out her hands and slightly bowed her head, as if to introduce herself.

She was beautiful and vaguely familiar, but evil emanated so strongly from her that it tainted that beauty.

Vampire,
it hissed deep in his subconscious.

“There are no such things as vampires,”
he blurted out before he could stop himself, sweat breaking out on his face. Her fingers pointed at him and began to rise and Joey felt himself lifted from the floor a few inches and gently set back down.

She smiled and bared bloody fangs, and Joey knew without a doubt what she was and what she wanted of him.

In a heart-gripping second, he became a believer.

Then the woman was gone as swiftly as she’d arrived, and the wolf was back, its putrid breath warm on Joey’s cold skin.

“Jesus,”
he prayed,
“help me.”

Nothing can help you now. I killed your friends the Albers. I killed your father.

He screamed with rage and struggled to break the unnatural power it had on him, trying to lunge at it and throttle its wicked throat, and for a moment, he thought he’d torn free.

Something snatched him high up into the air, his feet dangling in nothingness, and slammed him into the counter, knocking the wind out of him and smashing his ribs.

This time he screamed in pain.

His limp body slid from the counter and fell with a dull thud onto the floor. Sprawled between the stools, he cowered in shock, moaning.

He gazed up with glassy eyes, his mind slipping. The monstrous wolf was watching him hungrily, not three feet away through the stools, slathering.

Joey violently rocked his head, his eyes white with fear, and his tongue swelling in his throat.

This wasn’t happening! Any second he would wake up, laugh at all this, and stride out the door on his way home to Laurie.

Any second now.

The wolf inched closer.

Joey’s heart was jumping around crazily like a wild rabbit in his chest; more sweat was pooling under his hair, trickling down his face. He knew he was going to die horribly but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

He thought sadly of Laurie. He loved her, he knew that now, but he would never get the chance to tell her.

Jenny.

His mother.

He grieved knowing what they would go through once he turned up missing, too. He needed to warn them, but he knew he wouldn’t get the chance. Tears brimmed in his eyes and mingled with the sweat. He waited, hardly breathing. Waited for the death stroke.

The wolf scooted even nearer.

More noise outside. Howling.

The wolf’s hellish eyes turned to glare at something behind it through the window.

Outside in the night mist, two other huge wolves with gleaming fangs stood sentinel, growling and whining, waiting also.

The wolf, inches from him, seemed to be communicating silently with them, and Joey, seeing perhaps his last chance to escape, took it.

Forcing his crippled body to move quickly, ignoring the agony, he scrambled on his hands and knees towards the door away from the apparition guarding him.

He had his sweaty hands on the doorknob, and swearing under his breath, had gotten the door open. He’d hauled his broken body to its feet, when the window crashed in. Glass shattered everywhere around him, tiny knives sliced into his skin and drew blood.

Without a look back, he torpedoed himself through the open door and out onto the sidewalk, barely running upright. His only thought: escape.

Run. Run!

He tripped over something in his path and fell to his knees, his hands reaching out on the concrete in front of him so he wouldn’t land face down.

His eyes flew open in horror as he recognized the thing he’d stumbled over. A body.

Pieces of a body
scattered over the sidewalk. His fingers touched the roughness of a gunnysack.

Sophie.

In the bright moonlight, he could see the unattached arms and legs. There didn’t seem to be much blood around.

Joey lurched to his feet and threw himself into the night.

A moment later something landed heavily on top of him, his bad leg gave out, and he collapsed to the concrete like a fly under a flyswatter.

His wail of stark anger and pain crescendoed into the night as jaws pierced through the bones of his left hand and drug him, kicking and shrieking, into the shadows.

* * * *

Later that night, Jenny snuggled up against Jeff’s back, amazed at how good, how right their lovemaking had been.

The trailer was dark, except for the night-light in the kitchen. They were in Jenny’s room, in Jenny’s bed. It was as if they’d never been apart from each other, as if the lost years had been nothing more than a fleeting memory.

For the first time in a long time, Jenny felt whole again. Felt almost safe and right with the world.

She wanted to tell Jeff what she was feeling, but instead, she heard it coming out of his mouth, “Jenny, I’ve found what I’ve been searching for. You. You’re my missing part.” He shifted in the bed and studied her in the half-light, his arms securing her. She could feel his breath warm and sweet on her face. “Jenny, I love you. I never stopped. Years ago, with you, I had what I needed right in front of me, but it took losing you for me to see that. Please believe me?”

There was so much tenderness in his voice it made her want to cry. She’d finally accepted that he did love her, and that she’d always known, hidden in a deep recess of her heart, that someday they would end up back together.