Vampire Night

by Alice Bell

  VAMPIRE

  NIGHT

  Alice Bell

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the author.

  Copyright © 2020 Alice Bell

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Dark Ink Media

  Cover Art by Cormar Creative

  Portions of this book were previously published in Alice Bell’s Dark Enchantment Series, A Dream of Darkness and A Night of Darkness.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  A Note

  PROLOGUE

  Ten Years Ago

  Zadie swam as if her life depended on it, though she had no life. Not yet.

  It was like before when she was swallowed by the lake. Only this time she was coming up, and up, her inhumanly strong legs kicking, her powerful arms pulling through the dark water.

  Nausea hit as soon as she gulped air. Such a terrible sickness, cured only by a warm human body, she remembered.

  The volcanic lake and its strip of white sand, the clouded sky overhead, was so timeless, she couldn’t tell if she’d gone backward or forward in time. Fat raindrops pelted the water around her. Mist swirled.

  It must be evening, she thought.

  The beach was deserted, except for a couple running toward the shelter of trees that once hid thatched roof casas and a tiki bar.

  Her clothes were in tatters and she had kicked off her slippers light years away.

  Of course she had no idea how far she’d traveled.

  She crossed the sand, holding her arms over her exposed breasts, shivering and trying to think past the throbbing pain and cold raindrops.

  The path was familiar and rough and there ahead were the casas, as if no time had passed at all.

  Hope surged inside her, a raw human emotion kept alive by a love she couldn’t forget.

  Light came from a window and she slid into the shadows, too weak to make herself invisible. She kept going, her bare feet scraping over rocks and thorny tree roots.

  She stopped to rest and peered through the trees. One casa caught her eye. It was set back from the others. It had a purple door, red trim. An orange sarong hung over the porch railing along with a black string bikini and men’s swim shorts.

  She stared, wondering: Could this be it? Where she had held him in her arms for the last time? The clothes weren’t hers and yet they were the type of thing she would have worn. Her fingers twitched.

  She was like a cat, a jungle predator, silent and graceful, even while ravaged by fever and weak with hunger.

  Her actions were instinctual. She peeled off what was left of her clothes and snatched the sarong to wrap around her long body. Her hair was a white flame in the bruised twilight.

  She threw open the door.

  He was the first person she saw; his bare back, tawny skin, broad shoulders, the curl of dark hair at the nape of his neck. His Bermuda shorts had slipped low on his hips.

  Devon…

  Her memory of him was carnal, more lust and possession than love, but she didn’t know the difference. Anymore.

  And then her gaze landed on the girl who gaped at her. “What?” the girl’s voice was light and fluttery, nervous. “Who are you?”

  They had been embracing, she realized, before she entered and ruined the moment. A smile curved at her lips.

  But when the man spun around, it wasn’t Devon.

  This man was crudely made by comparison. “Whoa, hey,” he said, a twist of humor in his voice, as if it was funny. “Wrong casa.” Like he thought she was high. Or stupid.

  Pain scalded her vision. She advanced.

  The girl screamed and the sound hurt Zadie’s ears. She lashed out, sending the girl careening across the room. The girl’s head smashed into the edge of the table. There was a thunk. And then beautiful quiet.

  The man lunged at Zadie. His breath was tinged with beer. The scent of terror wafted from his pores. He tried to pin her arms but even in her weakened state, she was too strong. She slammed him against the wall.

  And then she was on him, kissing his neck, and his mouth. Her hands moved down his body, inside his shorts.

  In a burst of ecstasy, she bit his neck.

  He whimpered. God, he was sweet.

  It was too bad about the girl.

  She would have to hightail it off the island before the authorities got involved.

  She wore the man’s clothes because the girl was a tiny thing. His jeans were loose but the right length. She knotted a red T-shirt at her waist and slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops that were only slightly too large.

  Before leaving, she bent down and checked the man’s pulse. He was still alive. They’d probably blame him for the girl.

  Contents of a money belt spilled out on the table. Zadie grabbed a wad of cash; cordobas and a few US dollars. It wasn’t much but she didn’t need much. She could already feel her powers growing, straining at the seams.

  It was an easy walk into the village. As quickly as it had come, the rain had ceased. Whenever a car went by, she hid or made herself invisible. She would have to lie low until she could get off the island.

  When she got to town, it was dark and the streets were lit by shaky streetlamps. The first thing she did was steal a newspaper. Her heart hammered, as if she was human.

  She stared at the date. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  She would never forget the last time she’d seen her sire, Inka. The date was carved into her memory. She’d made it her mantra, the one thing she had to remember.

  She shook the newspaper, disbelieving.

  Could she be so unbelievably, stupidly lucky? Barely a year had passed since she’d been caught, tangled up in that poisonous net. Inka was the fish who got away.

  She glanced around, looking for the dark shadow of Angel wings. She even went into the tienda and pointed at the date on the paper. Though she spoke atrocious Spanish, “Es hoy… today?” the woman understood. “Si, si!” she answered, with a beatific smile.

  It was good to be back.

  She sat on the damp sidewalk and pored over current events. She understood a few words in Spanish and proper names. The gist of what was going on in the world was evident in the photos; Senator Passwater caught with another bimbo, nuclear waste running amok, go figure, uprisings in the middle-east. Same shit, different day.

  She was intoxicated by her heightened senses, the smell of ink on the pages of the newspaper and rain moistened earth, the cheap sugary sundries lining the shelves of the tienda.

  Around her, nightlife began to stir. Two young girls, arm in arm, walked past, giggling over some shared secret. Many blocks over, on the edge of town, a bottle shattered in the street. The sound pierced her eardrums. She cast the paper aside an
d stood up. Her powers needed tuning, but another feeding and she’d be as agile and powerful as ever.

  She headed down to the dock.

  Taco meat sizzled on a grill. The scent was glorious. Music thrummed from a nearby bar. She reveled in the familiar sensations as she walked.

  Hands in the pockets of her jeans, she gazed at the ferry schedule and saw there was a midnight boat to Granada.

  Imagine.

  The stars were aligning for her. Centuries could have passed. Or turned back. But they hadn’t.

  When she boarded the ferry, she didn’t have a ticket. All it took was her smile; wide and lovely and bewitching.

  She didn’t feel gratitude though. Humility was too human. Too pathetic. She was a lion among lambs.

  * * *

  A few days later, she found the bar in Queenstown. It was just as Inka described with choppers lined up out front. She admired the statue of Yshtan, the goddess of sex and war, with her bare breasts and small pointed dragon wings, perched above the flashing neon sign that said, “Babylon.” She felt proud, like seeing her own flag on the moon.

  Inside, the owner knew Inka well. He handed Zadie a creased, beer stained envelope with Inka’s writing on the front: FOR ZADIE BLAIR ONLY. Do not open if you are NOT ZADIE BLAIR. If you do, you will DIE. It was Inka’s dark humor, though not altogether a joke.

  Just a short note was inside. “On the run and headed north. I’ll hang around the portal for a while. Hope to see you there. Someday.

  “PS. Devon is turned! But not with me. Had to keep moving. Angels on my back.”

  PART ONE

  ONE

  Devon

  It was after midnight and I was on my way downtown. I saw the car first—a pink Cadillac de Ville with jutting fins, one of those monsters from the last century. It had a rear flat. And then I saw her.

  She wore a short black dress, black stockings. Platform shoes added about six inches to her height, and she pulled a pink suitcase. Her hair was big, piled up and ratted into a bright red cloud.

  I slid into the shadows, wanting to watch her for a minute, without her knowing. But she whirled around, her eyes probing the length of the block, before she headed straight toward me.

  When I stepped out into the moonlight, our eyes locked.

  “Wh—what are you doing?” she said.

  Her fear leapt into my veins. Strange. Women were never afraid of me, even if they should be. I was built to rip bodices. “Just headed home,” I lied. “What are you doing?”

  She opened her mouth to answer but checked her watch instead. It was a slender gold bracelet. “I have to go,” she said.

  I watched her walk away, pulling the suitcase. Weirdo, I thought, intrigued. For the longest time I’d been sure I was the weirdest thing on these streets at night.

  “Hey, wait up,” I called out.

  She stopped but didn’t turn right away. With my heightened senses, I was able to catch what she whispered under her breath—numbers. She was counting. And only when she’d stopped at the number six, did she turn around to face me.

  I guessed it was her car with the flat. “I can change a tire,” I said.

  She studied my face with a puzzled expression and I figured she was trying to decide if she could trust me, which I didn’t recommend, but she said, “I’ve seen you before.”

  Unlikely, I thought. I would have noticed her with her Kool-Aid hair and platform shoes.

  “You look like someone,” she said.

  Oh, that again. People always wondered if I was a movie star. “Who do I look like?” I expected her to name a celebrity.

  “Like Heathcliff,” she said.

  “Heathcliff?” That was a new one.

  “From Wuthering Heights?” she said. “It’s a book.”

  I remembered the story about star-crossed lovers Heathcliff and Catherine. It was a classic, one of those books that appeared on required reading lists everywhere. No one could get out of high school without writing a paper on it or some other clunker, like Moby Dick. I remembered everything about books and culture. It was my own personal memories that escaped me.

  “You’re exactly the way I always pictured Heathcliff,” she said. “In my mind,” a tremor had crept into her voice.

  That was another thing I got a lot. I was most women’s fantasy. “Well nice to meet you,” I stuck out my hand. “I’m Devon.”

  She shook my hand but didn’t tell me her name, naturally. That would have been too normal.

  “Don’t you want help with your car?” I said.

  I watched her struggle to decide, shifting her weight, before she nodded.

  As we walked back, I offered to carry her suitcase. “Oh, no thank you,” she said, quickly.

  Why wouldn’t she tell me her name? After a few beats, where the only sounds were her breath and the rattle of her suitcase rolling down the sidewalk, I said, “Do you want me to guess your name?”

  She giggled. “Okay,” she sounded as if she genuinely considered it a fun idea.

  “Why don’t you give me a hint?”

  “I’m a color,” she said.

  I glanced at her. “Violet?” I knew that wasn’t it.

  “Nooo…”

  “Azure,” I said, because of how blue her eyes were.

  She shook her head.

  “Are you sure?” I said. She laughed and I liked the sound of her laughter so I said, “Periwinkle,” like that had to be it, but I only said it because it was goofy and got her laughing again.

  “Oh, oh, I’ve got it,” I snapped my fingers. “Puce.”

  “No,” she giggled, and suddenly looked so beautiful I had the urge to drink her in, every drop of her, the way she sparkled like champagne. But I didn’t want this night to turn into every other night.

  “Scarlett,” she said, at last. “My name is Scarlett… with two Ts.”

  “My next guess,” I said.

  When we got to her car, she opened her trunk and I found what I needed. The spare was a real tire, white walled, like the others. There was something else in the trunk under a velvet cover. I lifted it, though I had already guessed what it hid—another tire, ready to go.

  She caught me snooping. “I would hate to drive around with a tire that didn’t match,” she said.

  “Do you get a lot of flats?”

  She didn’t answer, just checked her watch. I said, “Are you running late?” Though it was the wee hours of the morning, the few minutes I’d spent in her company convinced me she had some place to be. Like Dr. Jekyll’s laboratory. Maybe she had specimens in her suitcase.

  Again, she didn’t answer, and I saw her forehead pucker. She tapped the face of her watch. Six times.

  I decided to leave her alone and got busy jacking up her car.

  After I’d finished, she gazed up at me. “Gosh,” she blushed hard enough for the color to show through her make-up. “You’re just so nice. Can I pay you something? Do you need…” her eyes flitted over my faded t-shirt, wandering to my biceps. She flushed an even deeper shade. “Do you need money?” her hand fluttered down to the zipper on her suitcase.

  “No,” my tone was harsher than I intended.

  “Oh, please, let me,” she fumbled with the zipper.

  I grabbed her wrist to stop her. Her pulse beat into the palm of my hand. “I don’t need money,” I said. There was a ringing in my ears, like a warning. I released her.

  “Okay,” she said. “Um,” she licked her lips. “Well, bye…”

  I watched her get in her car and drive off.

  Though I lost sight of her when she turned the corner, I tracked the car’s movement by listening. I could hear for miles, when I wanted to. She turned right at the stoplight, then left. A map formed in my mind. I cocked my head, listening to the car shift down as it slowed. There was a short cut through the park and I caught up to her at a regal Victorian surrounded by a wrought iron fence.

  She waited in her car as a creaky gate opened. Watching the old car glide alo
ng the drive, I felt like we’d gone back in time. She pulled into a garage that matched the house, painted white with black gingerbread trim. The gate clanged shut long after I’d slipped through.

  The yard was vast, thick with thorny rose bushes and a dead lawn overtaken by weeds. It gave me a funny feeling to see all her roses dried on the stem.

  She came around the garage, pulling her suitcase. After snapping the handle closed, she lugged the suitcase up the stairs of the porch. Once she was inside, a thin light seeped from the edges of the curtains.

  I glanced up at the dark windows on the third floor. Did she live alone in such a huge house?

  After a minute or so, I tried the door. It wasn’t locked, not that a flimsy lock could hold me back. I made myself invisible and stole inside.

  I caught mostly her scent in the house. She didn’t have any pets. Maybe a cat at one time, though not anymore. The walls gleamed dark, paneled with hard wood. The floors were covered with red and gold Turkish rugs. I cast a glance through the doorway into the next room where a crystal chandelier twinkled from the cathedral ceiling.

  Scarlett, in her lacy black dress, went around the room lighting tall white candles. She was nicely shaped even though she wasn’t tall. As I watched, she lit the gas fireplace and swept a pile of paperbacks off a red velvet sofa. Books were everywhere.

  There was no TV. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t have one either. A vintage record player sat on a cabinet made of cherry wood. The lid was propped open. Record jackets lay strewn across the floor. She sat down on the sofa, leaning against its arm. A black rotary phone perched next to her on the end table. She stared at it, like it might bite her.

  Finally, she dialed. Her antique phone and the flickering candlelight reminded me of the old black and white movies I liked to watch. At home I had a projector and a movie screen hanging down my wall. I’d wanted the movies to evoke something in me, some kind of human emotion, but they never did.

  Who would she call at this hour? Her lover?

  And what the hell was in her suitcase?

  She didn’t even let the phone ring on the other end before slamming down the receiver.