Prologue
New Year’s Eve - NYC
BASH
New Year’s Eve was a real bitch for the undead.
The amber colored whiskey in my glass tasted like bitter water inside the crystal tumbler, or at least how I imagined it might taste. It wasn’t my taste buds that were affected as much as it was my state of mind. My fingers numbed holding the cut crystal with enough effort so as not to crack it. I swirled the liquid around the rim listening to the echo of whiskey rocks made from lava, perhaps even older than myself clink against the glass.
I didn’t know.
The rocks came from Iceland and that place was like a newborn screaming of fire and ice, unpredictable, barren, and soulless like myself. I had a fondness for the north end of the island country in winter. Nothing but grey ice and the stormy sea for as far as the eye could gaze. Not to mention the delicious lure of natives with Viking blood and a hint of magic that spanned longer than my turning lifetime.
Unfortunately, in this century, I’d chosen to live like a recluse inside my brownstone mansion that faced Central Park West. I’d filled the walls with priceless paintings and antiques, but nothing sparked joy. If Marie Kondo came to my place, she could fill a museum, a treasure trove for Aladdin, but my heart would remain stone cold.
Tonight was typically another night in an endless cycle of nights. One after the other as the Earth spun rotations around a dying sun. Mortals didn’t feel the slow drag as their lifespans where short, a mere spec in the sands of time. My kind, and the world of supernaturals felt it with the diminishing of our magic. Bites turned humans less and less, and killed more often than not leaving us lonely if we had beating hearts to feel the pain of isolation.
But tonight was different, beside the exploding fireworks and chants of people walking down the street, drunk and exuberant for a new year, another chance to fuck it up. Sound permeated the stone and mortar walls thanks to my exceptional hearing. Nothing seemed capable of soundproofing and subduing the cheering idiots. My plebian neighbors were throwing a party.
Amateurs.
I’d partied with Napoleon, Capone, Churchill, and a few questionable presidents better left unsaid. The jokers next door must have been part of some fraternity living it up in real-estate they had no business owning. Rich assholes with even richer asshole parents who felt they were entitled to the world, whiskey, and women. If they only knew the power coursing through me could bleed them dry quicker than a shattered decanter and a snap of my fingers.
I rolled my eyes focused on shutting them out and flicked my fingers starting the fire in my fireplace. I was lucky that the witch who gifted me my daylight tattoo also tasted delicious and of fire. Once she branded me, I siphoned her elemental magic as my own. The parting gift of her lifeforce allowed me to make the flames burn bright, though they struggled to warm the drafty mansion.
Boredom was a terminal condition for my kind.
The party kept going and I heard everything right down to the speculative and dubiously consensual acts. A blessing and a curse as I listened to whiney co-eds utilizing their shoddy whoring skills to capture a Wall Street destined boy with their Mrs. degree. This night would only get better when the ball finally dropped and the children next door paired off for fucking, drinking, and reminiscing how they wasted the last year of their parent’s money. All the gym memberships in the world wouldn’t save this generation. They were too stupid and foolish to see their politics were nothing more than history repeating itself again and again. The top one percent were a joke. They barely tolerated immigrants and gays, could you imagine their shock if the supernatural world was introduced to them? Our power alone would make them piss their training pants.
Fools.
All of them.
If they didn’t try to become us, they would go to any lengths to snuff us out.
I just so happened to live next to the rowdiest bunch for the next sixty odd years or so.
Personally, I’d exhausted all the typical New Year resolutions fickle humans made and a few others my well-meaning brethren tried and failed. I’d spent the better part of the last two centuries amassing a fortune and art to make the Hermitage weep and the MoMa look like child’s play. My attic was a treasure trove Interpol would love to get their hands on. Jewels from Queens, lost relics the Church would send Templars to recover, and art stolen in the midst of Wars. There was nothing I couldn’t acquire or hadn’t touched, and yet it left me unsatisfied.
I stood at my window, peering between the thick velvet drapes watching the full moon, round and plump in the sky glowing a bright white. Not a single cloud marred its beauty even with the crisp scent of snow in the air.
I bet the werewolves loved this shit.
The grandfather clock would strike midnight in fifteen minutes and then the howling would begin. New Yorkers would brush it off as coyotes, blame sound pollution from New Jersey, or some such nonsense. By morning, all would be forgotten as if it hadn’t happened at all. Hangover brunches would be the prelude to a new work week. Their naivety made me crack an ageless smile judging the never-ending cycle. I moved to sit back in my chair in front of the crackling fire when I heard it.
My head cocked closer to the direction of the window and listened as a pit unfurled in my abdomen. Rank and acid like, I hadn’t felt this way since before my turning. It was the anxiety of fear reflected in pure sound. A sharp sour scent burned in my nostrils as the ribbon of doubt honed my attention toward the window whence it came.
A faint whimper.
A terrified plea.
A cry for her life.
My super speed had me sprinting out the front door of my mansion, the door swinging wide open and onto the sidewalk before I could stop myself and think this through. Chilled air made puffs of fog as I breathed in the ice and exhaust of a taxi that sped by as I dashed into the grove of the park. I sniffed the air to find my quarry. Wet rust stung my nose and my canines descended hungry and lustful. Fresh blood had been spilled. I fingered the leaf of a tree and tasted the spatter.
Female.
Young.
Vibrant.
Nature called to me and I answered back moving closer. The cry came again and I had a decision to make in that moment. I didn’t have to intervene. I shouldn’t intervene. If I’d learned anything from living for over five hundred years it was better to let nature take its course. Predators hunted prey, it was the balance of things, even if innocents payed the price. It was probably some woman, girl maybe, who led on her lover with her inexperience of things. He probably felt he was owed some compensation for an expensive dinner, a gift, the glamour of his false attentions.
I should walk away.
I turned to leave resolute in severing my ties to this sad situation. A vampire didn’t survive this long saving every Mary Sue we came across from a rapist. Good girls should know that nothing good happens after eleven o’clock at night, especially in a city that never sleeps. It wasn’t blame, I viewed it as common sense. I was the worst predator out there, and this was prime hunting time.
That damn cry came again piercing my eardrums.
I clenched my fists as my nails cut into my palms.
I rolled my eyes and cracked my neck cursing my eternal damnation sprinting like lightening toward the source. Comic book characters had nothing on me. I found the clearing easy enough within the woods of the park. Two men cornered a woman. Her jacket torn, blood seeped from a wound in her chest. A wicked knife protruded from her breast just above her delicate heart. The blood pumped gushing from the wound. I scanned the clearing for others as moonlight reflected off her assailants’ eyes. They moved and my instinct to chase, hunt, and kill overrode my logic. I grabbed them both, but my eyes never left the terrified face of the girl who slid down the boulder behind her as she watched me drain their blood.
They tasted awful, of drugs and disease making me spit out their worthless crimson life force to the dirt. Disgusting what degenerates did to themselves. I made quick
work of them doing less feeding and more ravaging slicing skin from bone. I chuckled and gurgled on blood thinking how the police would report this one. It had been a while since an animal attack occurred in the park and I contemplated dropping them off at the zoo. The tigers could use more protein in their diets anyway.
I tossed their bodies about ten feet away easily. The girl whimpered, weak, and paralyzed locked inside a world of terror. I felt sorry for her knowing I would need to end her life on tonight of all nights. A night when she could be making promises to do better, be a good girl, mind her master. Maybe she’d join that gym. Study harder. Let the nice boy buy her dinner.
She wouldn’t be doing any of those things now.
“Please. Please don’t hurt me.” She squeezed her eyes shut. A single tear escaped as her heart slowed. It wouldn’t be long now. Death was coming for her. Eternal peace from this harsh world that both sadden me and made me roar with a strange jealousy.
“Shush little one.” I gathered her in my arms and settled against the rock holding her steady. “I’ll make this painless. You will never suffer the horrors of this life again.” I brushed her hair back cradling her face in my palm like a broken baby bird taking its final flight. Her free hand grabbed for the lapel of my suit jacket. Her pale shell colored nails gripped me tight and then waned from the effort. All I had to do was lift the knife out of her chest and she would bleed out in my embrace. The guilt of not finding her sooner would keep me from drinking her lifeforce away as much as the sweetness called to my inner demon demanding to be fed.
“Please, I don’t want to die. I’m so cold and it’s so dark.” Her body shivered eyes darting wildly like she couldn’t see. Despite her valiant fight, her body was shutting down as I predicted.
I parted her blouse exposing her to the chilled air to remove the knife. Her fragile chest was home to two perfect yet slim breasts that heaved under my perusal. Cream lace tarnished with rust colored blood cupped the plump flesh and goosebumps peppered her pale skin under the winter moon. A wolf howled. A night owl flew overhead watching and judging me as I slipped a hand under the blood-stained lace cupping her. Her body had just enough warmth left to singe my skin with the connection to her.
“Please, I want to live, my life it’s barely begun.” She had no idea what she was asking.
Her throat choked on the blood that filled her lungs and I shifted her in my arms to make her more comfortable. I would stay with her to the end. A dark guardian guiding her to eternal rest. Her nails made a final grab under my jacket raking down my chest and over my dress shirt. She mewled attempting to crawl closer into my embrace.
I stroked her fear damp locks from her forehead.
“It’s true kitten. Your life has barely begun.”
I didn’t turn her. I couldn’t, and given the state of what I just drank from whilst defending her honor when I thought death would be a kinder ending, it would be impossible. Turning required my full strength, and healthy blood running through my body.
“Please.” Her mewled whimper broke my remaining humanity and my decision was made.
My hands skimmed her body one last time before I tore the flesh in my palm with my teeth lifting her head to my hand. “Drink kitten.”
She refused the sustenance at first. They all did fighting the instinct. Feeding was an intimate thing and I cupped my palm so the blood collected and I could hold it to her mouth. She wouldn’t suck the same way one would if already introduced to the blood sport. I was force feeding her to heal her.
Church bells tolled ringing in the new year like this was some wretched omen. A wolf bayed answering a call, and that damn night owl circled overhead. It was probably a witch seeing as how we had a coven of those nearby. Russian gypsies I sometimes did business with, but never cheated for fear they’d hex me.
My quarry finally began drinking earnestly, the tug of her mouth on my hand was like a string pulling my face into a smile with marionette strings. I stroked her messy hair out of her face. Her expression was that of a newborn babe first glimpsing the world, bright eyed and hungry.
“Looks like you’ll have another year to make bad decisions, my little one.”
My free hand reached for the knife and pulled it out of her chest slowly and cleanly. I watched it heal sluggishly, blood bubbling at the surface. Pity, I tasted those idiots. She’d bare a scar two inches long over her heart and no recollection how she got it. I licked her wound hoping my saliva would speed up the process, but it was unlikely. It needed time to properly knit itself together which meant I had to take her home.
Closing the wound was my mistake.
Her flavor burst into my mouth like candied apples. Sweet, tart, and unbelievably delicious. Pulling my head back from her breasts I cursed myself snarling. I’d never get her taste out of my mouth now. She continued to struggle in my arms in a way that teased the hunter but in no way invited further debauchery. I was truly cursed.
I disengaged my hand from her ruby stained lips and shushed her whimpers compelling her to sleep. Getting up, I carried her the few blocks to my house and compelled a group of drunken idiots passing by that there was nothing to see. My door opened as I willed it, and I carried her inside my parlor room laying her down on a sofa from the French Revolution. She looked pale against the gently worn icy blue silk brocade.
She didn’t stir.
I paced the room and waited until before dawn. I worried a path in the carpet and drank my whiskey like water. She finally woke looking like something the cat dragged in, though her beauty shined like the first rays of sunlight over freshly fallen snow.
“What happened to me?” She rubbed her chest as she sat up swinging her legs to the side more disorientated than not.
Kneeling in front of her, I reminded myself I wasn’t the hero. I was far from it as her lips licked the droplets of blood endearing her to me more than I thought possible.
“What do you remember?” I asked forcing her face to mine so I could compel her to forget the harrowing tragedy.
Trembling she spoke, “I left the party and was walking home. It didn’t feel right being there. I looked for a cab because my place is in Brooklyn. I should have waited, but I didn’t.” Tears pooled in her unfocused eyes. She wasn’t hysterical, but she would be.
I brushed her hair back behind the shell of her ears fixing the mess of her chestnut locks. My thumb drifted to her lips and rubbed the blood off. “What’s your name, little one?”
“Jane.”
I smiled. She was no plain girl in my eyes.
“I’m Bash.” I said sharing a shortened version of my name, not that she’d remember it.
She returned the smile shyly.
“It’s nice to meet you, Bash.” She finally took in her surroundings. “How did I get here?”
“Well, you had a bit of a rough night. Begged me to live and basically forced me to go against my principals to not intervene.”
Her eyes rounded owlishly.
Sue me, I was feeling snarky and felt the hunger pangs I’d ignored since meeting her.
Her hands reached for mine and I let her hold them unaware of the leashed power she clasped onto. “I’m sorry? What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry too, Jane. I’m sorry you won’t remember any of this.” I brushed a lock of hair from her forehead continuing. I deepened my voice commanding her attention. “You won’t be scared at night and you’ll be a good girl from now on. You won’t stay out late at parties. You’ll finish college and live a happy life.” I kept touching her face, her hair, anywhere to keep my connection to her. “You definitely won’t be with any man who is not worthy of you, but most of all, this will seem like nothing more than a bad dream.”
I ended my spell kissing her soft lips, licking the rusty taste from them, breathing in her scent I wasn’t likely to forget anytime soon.
Compulsion was a funny thing.
One had to be clear in what they said to a compelled witness. You never knew when someone would star
t squawking like a chicken or stripping in a public place. Those news reports were typically one of my brethren poking fun at the mortals.
I wanted better for Jane.
Solace.
“You will sleep like a princess.” I traced her forehead gently feeling the softness of her skin tingling up my hand and through my body. My blood made her glow in a way that only I could see. Healthy. Spirited. “No more bad dreams, my darling girl.”
“A bad dream.” She repeated on auto-pilot, the vacant look in her eyes telling me she was under my compulsion.
“Yes, Jane. Now let me have my driver take you home. You’ll tell him where you live and you’ll spend today resting. Tomorrow will be the beginning of a new day, a new year.” I kissed her temple lingering for a brief moment before breaking the connection between us.
Jane slowly got up with my assistance. I put her in the good hands of my very human driver John. Compelling often left one in a trance like state for hours. She’d go home, live her life, and the balance of nature would resume.
I would never see her again.
1
The Day after, and a hangover later.
JANE
“I can’t believe you ditched my phones calls.” My roommate, Nina, was currently in Miami celebrating the New Year chastised me, again. For someone who was supposed be sipping cocktails in a bikini in the dead of winter, she seemed to have an awful lot of free time to call me complaining.
At least she couldn’t see my shrug through the phone.
“I wouldn’t say I was ditching you. I spent the day resting.” It was as if the entire day was a blur. I dreamed in vivid images that moved too quickly for my brain to process. It was like having a migraine without the pain.
Wicked Love Page 47
