Sketched

by David Alan Jones

Piper Ross, the self-styled vampire queen of South Carolina, stood before the throne, menaced by an aged man dressed in chinos and a Grateful Dead t-shirt. Two wights fought by his side, their clothes moldered nearly to the point of decomposition. Piper moved with unnatural grace and speed, but though she could have easily bested any one of her attackers, the three together were getting the better of her. A shotgun lay on the ground near her feet.

  “The old one is Felix, I suppose?” Rose asked.

  Olivia nodded as she took in the sprawling battle.

  Four of Piper’s daughters were likewise engaged with wights or one of the five full-blood vampires, or both. Though they put on a good show, Rose could tell Piper and her girls were on the losing end of the conflict. They lacked the numbers to survive this battle.

  Without warning, Olivia sprinted across the room, emitting a banshee wail, a splintered coffee table leg brandished in both hands. She fetched the nearest wight a blow to the head, and the creature flew ass over crown into the raised platform where her mother fought.

  Matt met Rose’s eyes, brows raised.

  She grimaced but nodded. “We promised we’d help Piper. We can’t stand here and let her die.”

  Rose and her people threw themselves into the fray. While Matt, Tanner, and an older op named Landis joined Olivia by slamming into the rearmost rank of wights attacking Piper’s daughters, Rose, Myra, and Grace jumped onto the platform.

  Though he appeared wizened, Felix moved with almost as much speed as Rose.

  Almost.

  He spun about, letting his wights continue their attack on Piper, and hissed as he attempted to punch Rose in the jaw. Infused with speed and discernment, she saw the blow coming and rocked back enough to let him swing wide. Drawing strength to bolster her speed, she smashed Felix’s jaw with a looping left hook and followed up by clubbing him on the back of the head with the table leg. The wood made a satisfying CRACK when it connected, but the concussion split it in half and sent the top portion flying.

  To Rose’s surprise, her successful attack had little effect on Felix. He staggered a step, regained his balance, and, baring blood-tinged teeth, flew at Rose with all the melodrama of a low-budget movie bloodsucker. She expected another rake of his claws. Instead, he got a hand about her neck, his grip like a great white trying to crush her larynx, and dove for the side of her neck with his double row of serrated teeth. The vampire’s frail appearance masked his incredible strength. It was all Rose could do—all she could draw—to keep him from sinking his fangs in her unprotected flesh. His breath smelled of blood and rancid coffee. The stench made her gag.

  Felix’s teeth scraped the skin where Rose’s shoulder became her neck. She cringed, bracing for the inevitable puncture, when a shaft of wood speared past Rose’s face to pierce the vampire’s eye. He screamed, his steel grip gone from her throat, and fell against the throne at the center of the platform, one hand plastered to his face, hot blood gushing between his thin fingers.

  Rose turned to find Grace behind her, the young vampire baring her fangs. Her savage expression softened, replaced by doubt and worry. “Was that good?”

  “That was perfect.”

  Grace beamed, sharpened teeth gleaming.

  Rose spun back to Felix, heart singing in her chest. Sometimes, though she would never admit it aloud, she loved a good fight. It had been months since she had last drawn this much from her votaries—last pitted herself against enemies out to take her life. Not since the night she and the others overthrew the fear factory had she felt this alive.

  Felix, hissing and groaning, withdrew the long splinter from his eye. Vampires could absorb a lot of damage. So long as their hearts kept beating, they could recover from incredible injuries. But doing so took a toll, both on the vampire and his votaries. Tied by blood, the vampire’s victims provided him access to myriad talents, much like a succubus with her acquaintances, friends, and lovers. Except a vampire’s blood ties, so far as Rose could tell, delivered a lot more bang for the buck.

  As she watched, Felix’s damaged eye transformed from a gaping hole surrounded by rapidly swelling flesh into a pale blue orb free of injury. He dropped the makeshift weapon by his feet in a splatter of blood before looking down at his shirt.

  “That,” he said in a faint German accent, “was my favorite Dead shirt, you succubus whore.”

  Felix attacked again. This time he feigned a blow at Rose to get her attention and throw off her balance. Instead of striking her, he caught Grace with a kick to the ribs that sent her sprawling. She fell with an audible “oof,” and slid a couple of feet on her back. Felix used Rose’s momentary surprise to smash her with an elbow, followed by sweeping her legs out from under her. Apparently, with thousands of years to live, some vampires learned to fight.

  Felix slammed Rose to the ground and was atop her before she could think to defend herself. He obviously meant to make short work of her, and with his incredible strength, she wasn’t certain she could stop him. A moment of genuine fear washed over her, whether from the vampire’s charm or originating inside her, she couldn’t tell. And, in the end, did it matter?

  “Felix, you son of a bitch, get off her!” Piper shouted her war cry at top volume, an earsplitting sound incongruent with her petite frame. Like her volume, her strength also contradicted her short stature and alluring curves. The vampire queen possessed a huge votary count, and her physical prowess proved it.

  She seized Felix by the ankles, arresting his attack before he could get his feed on and, with a guttural scream, whipped him away from Rose as if he weighed no more than a bed sheet. The hapless vampire sailed over Piper’s head to collide with the stone floor behind her. His head made a sound like a bowling ball hitting the pins.

  He struggled to rise, but Piper was already there, scrambling across his body like a spider. Before Rose could utter a word, she sank her fangs into his neck with a squishing sound that turned Rose’s stomach. Felix struggled the way a gazelle might once the lioness has set her teeth, but his feeble attempts at pushing Piper away, or even gouging her with his nails, gained him nothing. In less than ten seconds, his limbs fell still, his life’s blood drained from his corpse.

  Piper rolled off the body onto her knees with a satisfied groan of pleasure, her chin covered in crimson gore. Head leaned back, fangs exposed, she stared at the ceiling without moving. Her eerie stillness reminded Rose of the first vampires she had met in Mexico, the ones who made a show of freezing in place like terracotta warriors.

  Rose shivered and shared a glance with Matt, who shrugged and shook his head. He had never seen this sort of behavior before either.

  The battle below them had come to a similar end. The full-blood vampires—distinguished by their clean clothes and proper hygiene—lay dead on the floor with their wight cousins. Piper’s daughters, including Olivia, wore fresh bloodstains around their mouths. Two of them bore gashes on their cheeks and arms, but the wounds were rapidly disappearing.

  Piper shuddered and jerked forward like a woman snapping awake from a deep slumber. Her green eyes roamed to Felix, and she nodded once, her lips curving up in a crimson grin. “That old shark almost had me there for a moment.”

  “I know the feeling.” Rose rubbed at the spot on her neck where Felix had nearly made a meal of her.

  “Thank you for coming, especially when you did.” Piper turned an intense gaze on Rose. This was a side of her Rose had never seen, not even the night of the fear factory battle. The otherwise diminutive vampire looked more than lethal; she looked like a sentient killing machine hunting for a new target.

  Drawing calm, Rose met Piper’s eyes and steeled herself for what she would say next. She didn’t relish an argument when the vampire’s blood was up but now was the best time. “You should have waited.”

  “I did.” Piper’s expression showed not an ounce of remorse or even concern.

  “No, I mean you shouldn’t have attacked Felix at all.” Rose couldn’t say for certain if Piper deli
berately misunderstood. Vampires put the dead in deadpan. Either way, she wasn’t about to let Piper slide. “We had an agreement: no fighting the other coven kingdoms until we’ve established our place in Society.”

  Piper pushed effortlessly to her feet. “Your place in Society is at the top. I don’t see why you haven’t established that already.”

  “Society doesn’t work that way,” Matt said, his tone guarded, though Rose could hear his irritation buried within. “There are thousands of succubi in this town, all of them running their little piece of the whole. We can’t barge in and expect them to step aside. We have to win approval.”

  “Strength needs no approval.” Piper wiped her mouth with the back of her jacket sleeve, which did little more than smear the blood. “Look at Felix here, almost a thousand years old, and he spent the last fifty keeping me chained up in a little corner of the world. Now he’s dead, and I’m free. Why? Because I was the stronger between us. You’re stronger than the rich bitch phonies who lord over the regular succubi. There’s no reason to let them put you down—put them down instead.”

  Matt started to say more, but Rose placed a restraining hand on his arm.

  “You might be right, but we’re not looking to start a war. That would cost lives, and in the long run, it would delay the help we’ve promised you. I know you want revenge on the vampires who’ve held you back all these years, but Society’s going to take notice if you go around executing them like this. That sort of scrutiny will make things harder for us.”

  “Because you’re slumming it with bloodsuckers?” Piper’s southern drawl held no heat. In fact, she smiled when she said it, an expression that might have been sweet in other circumstances—her fangs had retracted into her gums after all—but instead struck a gruesome chord for the bloodstains on her teeth.

  “The only thing worse to Society thinking than a slinker succubus is any sort of vampire,” Rose agreed. She put a hand on Piper’s shoulder. “Can’t you cool it just for a little while? We’re doing everything we can to secure our place. Once that’s done, we’ll help you any way we can, just like we promised.”

  Piper gave Rose’s hand a squeeze, her face all but human now. “Yes, okay, but hurry. I have family to protect.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  3

  The Discarded

  The sound of a roaring engine and the monotonous drone of tires on asphalt threatened to lull Rose to sleep. She drew alertness to stave off her doze, and her eyes popped open. Better than two cups of coffee, and it wouldn’t leave her spazzing out later when she went to bed.

  They had departed Washington at nightfall more than seven hours ago, following I-85 South and lately turned onto US-77 headed through Charlotte, Matt at the wheel the entire time—the man loved to drive. In a few minutes, they would enter Sharon Woods, a nice, but not too nice, neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, where Rose had placed her parents and brother, Troy, after their harrowing stint in the fear factory.

  “Any sign of Piper’s car?” Rose twisted about in her seat, scanning the road, though all she saw were headlights.

  “Nope. I wish she would share locations with us on the phone, but you know her,” Matt said.

  Piper and her daughters, each driving a different super car, had followed close behind the van for a couple of hours out of Washington. One by one, however, they had passed or else dropped away until Rose and her people lost sight of them. That hadn’t been the plan. Their little caravan was supposed to remain close for mutual support. Piper had assured Rose and Matt she and her daughters were close by at all times, but somehow Rose doubted the vampire’s word.

  Not that they could do a thing about it. In general, America’s old school vampires didn’t have it out for Rose so far as she knew. That may have changed after helping Piper defeat Felix, but Rose doubted they viewed her as a bigger target than Piper. By going it alone, Piper split their combined forces and weakened her position. Should some five hundred-year-old bloodsucker with a vendetta against her and a slew of minions at his back go after Piper, she would have to face them alone until Rose could find her.

  Fool.

  “How are you feeling?” Matt asked, dragging Rose out of her reverie.

  “I’m a little nervous,” Rose said. “Isn’t that stupid? Nervous to see my own family.”

  “It’s been three months,” Matt said. “And the last time wasn’t exactly pleasant.”

  “No, it was not.”

  They turned onto a wide two-lane road lined on both sides with modest houses, most built in the late nineties or just after the turn of the century. Even after nightfall, Hinsdale Drive struck Rose as a respectable, safe place, the sort she rarely lived in growing up. Some of the lawns even sported white picket fences. The Carver residence, a split-level home with a brick first story and siding up top, looked no different from any other on the street. Never mind the insane succubi inside.

  Matt woke Tanner, who would set up a perimeter guard to watch the house for the night. Though Matt and Rose alike had argued he and his security team should find a hotel and get some rest, Tanner had refused to leave, and Matt seemed disinclined to renew the argument.

  “I’ll join them for a bit,” Olivia said as she climbed out of the van. “Sun won’t be up for a few more hours.”

  “We’ll be glad to have you,” Tanner said as he set about unlocking a weapons safe in the back of the van. He offered her a pistol, but she shook her head.

  “Thanks for helping out.” Rose gave Olivia a quick hug. “You don’t have to, you know. It’s not your job.”

  “What else is there for a vampire to do in Charlotte besides guard her succubus overlords?”

  Rose rolled her eyes.

  Floodlights affixed to the carport blinked on, and Troy came out to give his younger sister a hug. “How are you? How was DC?” Troy had put on weight, a good sign considering his emaciated state last summer. At 6’1” and probably 170 pounds, he still looked like a stick figure.

  “Not great,” Rose said. “Torres got some backers, so that was good, but we didn’t have time to make any alliances during the fundraiser.”

  “I thought you were going to see all the high rollers? Schmooze, eat caviar, drink wine, all that sort of thing.” Troy took Rose’s heaviest bag as they headed for the front door, not that he could hope to match her strength. It was a big brother thing. She knew better than to argue.

  “That’s a long story,” Matt said with a huff. “We got called away and couldn’t get back before the event was over.”

  “How are they?” Rose asked as she mounted the steps.

  Troy, his hand on the door, paused. “Good. They get antsy at night sometimes, but things have been better these last few days. Mom’s quiet—watching a lot of movies. Dad...I can’t tell with him. Lately, I feel like he’s been charming me, even though he swears he hasn’t.”

  Rose tensed. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you take care of them alone. I told you we could get someone, one of our kind, to help you.”

  “It’s not as bad as all that. You’ll see.” Troy pushed the door open and held it for Rose and Matt to pass inside.

  The house smelled of fresh-baked cookies and something savory—pot roast? The combination created a surprisingly alluring scent. Rose’s mouth watered.

  Rose’s father, Graylen, stood from the couch, his weathered face splitting into a wide smile that made his dark eyes twinkle. “Anna! Troy said you were coming and I—” Graylen glanced at Troy before throwing his arms around Rose for a stiff hug. “I didn’t believe him, but here you are, and with that young man of yours.”

  “Matt Snow, Mr. Carver.” Matt stuck out his hand as he had the last two times he had met Rose’s father.

  “Matt, that’s right.” Graylen shook enthusiastically, smiling all the more.

  “Hi, Mom,” Rose said.

  Rose’s mother, Sarah, gazed at her daughter, blinking once slowly before something seemed to click behind her eyes, and she perk
ed up. “Anna. Is that you?”

  “It’s me, Mom.” Rose drew calm to combat the lump in her throat. She bent and hugged her mother but kept the contact brief. Touch had a tendency to drive Sarah Carver into fits of hysteria.

  “What are you doing here?” Sarah asked.

  “Just came for a visit. We’re staying until tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll take your bags to your room if you want to sit and chat,” Troy said, reaching for Matt’s overnight luggage.

  “I’ll help you,” Matt said. “Rose, you have a seat.”

  “I made...I guess it’s dinner, even though it’s almost three in the morning,” Troy said.

  “Sorry about that.” Rose took a seat on the couch next to her dad. “One of the drawbacks of traveling with a vampire: nighttime travel only.”

  “Vampire?” Graylen’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows shot up.

  “Yeah, Dad, you remember me telling you, we’re friends with a vampire named Piper, right?”

  “I remember her,” Graylen sounded peevish, as if Rose had challenged his memory. “I thought she was in that comic book of yours. Those two gay fellows drawing that still?”

  Rose suppressed a sigh. “Yeah, they are. But it’s not nice to call them, ‘those two gay fellows,’ Dad. Their names are Luke and Brendan Pruett.”

  “I thought gay was the right term. What? Are we supposed to call them faggots again?” Graylen scrunched his eyebrows. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “Definitely not.”

  “But they’re still making your comic?”

  “One a month.”

  “I was reading them for a while, but I got busy. Troy’s probably got a stack around here somewhere. You still get votaries from them?”

  Rose shrugged one shoulder. “Not as many as I used to.”

  “Life is busy these days. Readership dropping off?”

  “No, Drawn’s still popular, but the boys have had to diverge the story quite a bit from my real life. They say it’s to protect me from people discovering I’m a real person, but I think it’s because my life’s gotten boring. It’s all campaign management and office work now. A lot more calling people and stuffing envelopes than going hand-to-hand with bad guys.”