He shut the door. His mind spun. He knew he needed to get out, but he couldn’t do that without gathering up a few things first. He stuffed his camera and two of his most recent binders of work—negatives, thumb drives, prints—into his gym bag. He dressed and collected the extra money he had hidden in his apartment for emergencies.
By the time he opened his door again, the hallway was silent, empty; except for the thick, dark smoke that hung at the ceiling like storm clouds. Jackson could feel the heat now; the fire was close.
He ran to the elevators first, but the moment he pressed the button, he realized the error in his judgment. The diagram in his apartment, the one he looked at every day, showed there was an escape route, and it was not the elevators.
He turned and looked down the hall to where the stairs were. I gotta get out of here fast.
“Weston!” he shouted as he sprinted down the hall. Where the hell is he?
Jackson threw open the door and started to race down the stairs. He was down three flights when he finally started to cough and wheeze. The smoke in the stairwell had grown much thicker than he could manage.
He decided to open the door on the next floor to see if the air was clearer there, but the door would not open—it was jammed.
“Fuck!” he screamed. “Help! Help!”
There was no response.
“Weston! Sabrina!”
Still nothing.
Jackson’s heart sank. I’m gonna die here…
He ran down another couple levels to the second floor. He tried the door. It was cold to the touch, filling him with hope.
He jiggled the handle, pulled at it, pushed at it, even gave the door a light kick, but it would not budge.
“Weston! Sabrina! Anyone! Help! The door won’t open!” he shouted. “Anyone!”
He tried again and again until he realized more smoke rose from beneath him. Jackson peeked down the stairwell and spotted flames for the first time since he began to flee. It looked almost like the fire was walking up the stairs.
“Shit!”
He dashed back to the door and shoved it with all his weight. Fear that he might soon die made him feel like he could break the door down with his fists, so he pounded at it until his knuckles began to bleed.
“Let me out!”
He heard a sudden knock from the other side of the door.
“Hello?” he called out. “Someone there?”
“Stand back,” a woman’s voice replied.
Jackson took several steps back, and when he did, the door crashed open, nearly broken off its hinges.
From the smoke on the other side emerged a young woman dressed in a Black Swan ballerina dress with black feathers in her golden hair.
“Don’t you worry. It’s gonna be all right,” she said as she reached her hand out to him. “’Cause I’m always ready, I won’t let you out of my sight.”
In that moment, Jackson recognized her—it was Cade’s clan mate Natalia. “I know you.”
“And I know you, darling.”
“Was…was that the old Baywatch theme song?”
Natalia smiled. “I’m thrilled you recognized it. Now—come on, let’s get you out of here, pretty boy.”
“How are you here? Why are you here?”
“Dunyasha woke me from my slumber. Moments ago. Just long enough for me change into my black dress.” She waved a hand at him as she spoke. “You know she prefers me as the Odile.”
Jackson reached out and took her hand. It was cold but soft and entirely welcome in his. “Who’s Odile?”
“The Black Swan, of course.” Natalia sniffed and smiled at him. “Dunyasha gave me two tasks. One was to save you.”
“Thank God.”
“Please follow me. There’s a window at the end of the hall and under it there is an awning. We’re gonna jump.”
Jackson could barely see the other end of the hallway through the smoke. “What did you just say?”
“We’re going to jump through that window and land on the awning. Just like in the movie I watched with Dolby before going back to bed months ago.”
“We’re jumping?”
“We’re only on the second floor. Don’t be a pussy.”
Natalia grabbed one of the large lounge chairs that sat in the hallway and began to drag it behind them as they ran. “Hold still.”
She let go of Jackson’s hand and threw the large piece of furniture. Jackson watched it sail through the air until it vanished in the thick smoke. Moments later, he heard it crash through the window.
“Hold on, Jackson. We’re almost out.”
The hallway cleared almost instantly, allowing him to breathe better.
“Sun,” he coughed. “The sun…”
“I know, darling. I have my glasses.” Natalia pulled a pair of old welder’s goggles out from seemingly nowhere and put them on her head. “Ready?”
Jackson nodded.
“Good. I need you to run—run as fast as you can and when I tell you to jump, you better jump.”
“Like in the movie…”
They sprinted down the hallway. Jackson tried to keep up with her but felt as if she had to drag him like she had the chair.
“I remember!”
Jackson looked at her. What a sight she was in her black, feathered ballerina outfit with the goggles on; he wished her could have taken her picture.
“The Other Guys! ”
“What other guys?”
“The movie. That was its title.”
Jackson had seen that movie, and if he remembered correctly, those guys didn’t survive the jump.
Oh God. We’re gonna die.
“Jump, Jackson! Jump!”
“No!”
“No,” she moaned. “Don’t stop.”
Jackson snapped out of it. The pleasure of fucking Polina was just too good. Refocused on the present, he read the words tattooed on her back, nearly obscured by the costume fairy wings she wore.
Polina was tight—incredibly tight. Jackson gazed down at himself and watched his cock go in and out of her. So, fucking tight… He repeated in his head.
“I know that look,” Natalia purred from across the room. “Don’t you come yet, Jackson.”
“I’m good,” he said without as much as a glance up.
“Good,” Polina repeated.
“Bring her here,” Natalia ordered with her smooth, sultry voice.
Jackson looked up. Natalia sipped from a bottle of wine as she reclined in her tall-backed chair. She had spread her legs wide and made a come-hither motion the moment he made eye contact with her. The vampire was the most beautiful Russian woman he had ever seen, and in the past few months, he had seen plenty.
“Ah,” Polina moaned in her accent-tinted voice. “I always ache when you pull out, Jackson.”
“Because I’m meant to be inside you forever, Polina.”
“You say that to all the models you photograph and fuck.”
“No, Polina. Only you.”
“YA khochu.[9]”
Polina staggered on her heels to Natalia. The two kissed. Jackson could not help but feel like a rock star. These threesomes he had engaged in with Natalia the last week had made these the best days of his life.
As he stood there and stared at Polina’s glistening wet slit, he thought about what Natalia told him the day she’d saved him from the fire. He had asked her what the second reason was that Dunyasha woke her, and Natalia had told him she was tasked…no—rewarded. It was her time to sire children.
“Join us, darling?” Natalia said.
No sooner did she speak than Polina reached back and spread her cheeks. “I still need your cock.”
Jackson did not say a word. He simply stepped up to where Polina was bent over Natalia. She was wet and waiting; he reentered her easily.
“Fuck me.”
“Yes, fuck her, Jackson,” Natalia purred. “I want you to fuck her until you come.”
Jackson nodded. He wanted the same.
/> With his hands tight on Polina’s hips, he began to plunge himself into her, harder and harder with each thrust. Her tightness massaged him and tickled the head of his cock when it struck its depth.
“You feel amazing, Polina.”
Polina did not answer. Her mouth was already engaged with Natalia’s. Jackson reached up from her hips to her breasts—implants that filled her skin tight. They might have looked and felt fake, but they gave her body the perfect sculptured form and Jackson loved the way they photographed.
With both of her breasts in his hands, and his cock balls deep, Jackson was in heaven. And when Natalia peeked around to give him a nod, he knew exactly what to do.
He grabbed the straps of the costume fairy wings and pulled them tight. Polina arched her back and tilted her head. Damn, you are amazing… Jackson thought of Sabrina, and in that instant, he pretended it was her he was inside.
He continued to thrust as he came and did not stop until he felt the last bit dribble out.
“Wait.” Polina’s whole body tensed under him. “Did you just come inside me? You did! You just—”
Natalia did not let her finish. She struck.
“No!” Polina screamed.
Jackson watched as Natalia latched on and drank from Polina’s neck. It was not the first time he had seen her do this. Natalia, who could be quite blunt at times, called it a “fuck and suck.” It may have sounded offensive, but it was a perfect description. Jackson would fuck the girl and she would suck the girl. The action filled both their needs…but this was Polina. She was different.
Jackson pulled himself out and watched his fluids run down her leg as she twitched.
“Natalia,” he whispered. “Natalia.”
It was like making eye contact with a great white shark, and it sent a shiver down his spine.
“Natalia…”
She disengaged her fangs and licked the tips clean. “What?”
“Don’t kill her.”
“Why?”
“Because I like her.”
“You like this one?”
“I do.”
Natalia grabbed Polina’s chin and turned her head to the side, so Jackson could see her face. The girl looked half-awake and mumbled something in Russian.
“See, she’s alive,” Natalia said. “She’s saying something about a dog…”
“Okay.”
“Tell me, Jackson.” Natalia ran her fingers over the fang marks in the girl’s neck. “Do you like this one, or do you just like fucking this one?”
“I like her, and I like fucking her. She never says no. These last couple months would’ve been terrible without her.”
“Okay. Good. I like her too.” Natalia nodded. “We shall keep her. She will be the first of my twelve.”
“After the other three… I was starting to worry.”
“Are you complaining, darling?”
Jackson shook his head. “No. I—”
“You’ve got to fuck them all. Spill yourself inside each of them,” Natalia said as she brushed Polina’s hair back. “I gave them all to you. Gifts, each one of them plucked off the street like ripe fruit from a tree.”
“Thank you. But Polina… She… I gave her to you.”
“You did.” Natalia looked at the girl. “We make a good team, Jackson.”
“I guess we do.”
“Which is why I must again stress that you become one of my twelve.”
Jackson had heard her reasons before. He had not said no, but he had not said yes yet either. “I know.”
“What’s holding you back?”
“I just need to work through some things first.”
“Well…” Natalia said and then licked Polina’s wounds, “We have time. She’ll be the first, but I want your answer before we reach the seventh.”
“Fine.”
Natalia smiled. “Good. Now…how many more models like this one do you know?”
Jackson pulled up his pants and nodded. “I know plenty.”
“Good, darling. Very good. I’m still hungry. Tomorrow, we shall feast.”
You Can Never Go Home
Cade could not allow Nicodemus to return to the caves alone. Nico was his childe, and the two had always faced the tough times together, side by side. Nico disagreed; he felt this was his mission and had argued the point for several hours of their drive.
Cade knew how the big guy got when he was frustrated so he stopped talking; the silence was welcome and allowed him time to think.
It took them two nights to return, but they had finally made it.
“Home,” Cade said as they approached the cave.
Joe dashed between his legs, still in the form of a rat. “Yo, we’ve made better time in the past, buddy.”
“I know.” Cade nodded and sighed.
“I could have…flown here…and back,” H.B. added.
“I know.”
“Without special glass on cars—” Nico grumbled.
“I know.” Cade shook his head and sighed again. “We’re here. Okay? And, well, at least it’s early in the evening now, okay?”
“Yo, I’m just gonna say this: I really hope this is the last time we gotta come out here. All this dusty, dry shit. You know—”
“It’s bad for your complexion, I know,” Cade finished for Joe.
“Yeah. Well.”
“Trust me, Joe, I hope this is the last time you gotta come out here too.”
“Nah, man, don’t get me wrong. We’re bros now. But, pal wouldn’t you rather all the sand you’re surrounded by be on a beach somewhere…somewhere with lots of hotties in bikinis?”
Cade looked at Nico; he could not disagree with Joe, and part of him wondered if now was a good time to move their hideaway anyway.
“Rio would be nice right now. You want bikinis, Joe? Wait until you’ve laid eyes on the ones those girls wear day and night. I tell ya, the women from my day would have thought this world was populated by witches and succubi.”
“Well, hey, I mean, like on the way here, you seen ’em—the other vamps. Like, at least a baker’s dozen. Back in Cali…got plenty of youse all around. Succubi would be a welcome change.”
“There are more of us awake,” Nico agreed.
Cade suddenly realized that the pull—it was gone. He felt nothing, not even a little. “No pull.”
Nico shook his head. “Nyet. None.”
“Something’s wrong here. Do you sense it, Nicodemus?”
“Da.” Nico knelt and shifted some sand through his fingers. “Awake. Absent. Gone.”
Cade felt it too. His clan was awake and not all present within the caves.
What’s happening here? Where’s Dunyasha, and why are so many of us suddenly awake? Is this all because of me…or something else?
“You all stay out here,” Cade said. “I’ll go scout ahead.”
“I take point.”
“No, Nico, you stand guard. Don’t let anyone slip in behind me.”
“Da.”
Cade pointed up. “H.B., can you circle the area, see if anyone is nearby?”
“Recon mission?”
“Yes, recon.”
H.B. spread his wings, flapped them, and was airborne.
“What about me, yo?”
“You…you…you do what you do best, Joe,” Cade said.
“Which is?”
“You do you.”
“Ha!” Joe blurted. “Good one.”
Cade nodded to Nico and then entered the cave slowly. The air was still and held a sense of dread in it. This did not feel like a homecoming—it felt like an ambush. Everything Cade had seen and experienced in the past few days felt wrong. Cade just wished he knew why.
Everything is spiraling out of control… Can’t seem to get ahead of it.
When he entered the back chamber of the cave, there were several torches lit and their orange flames illuminating a surprising scene. On the floor in the center of the room were two rotting bodies adorned in old grey fatig
ues.
Cade knew right away; it was the twins: Gerd and George. They had been beheaded, and their bodies—like all slain vampires—had begun to rapidly decompose. By the looks of them, he would say, it happened not long after he awoke.
Who did this? he wondered. Dunyasha, did you do this?
“Hey there, Cade.”
The voice startled him; it was Dolby, the last of his clanmates he’d expected to see awake.
“Dolby, what happened here?”
“Did Dunyasha tell you the good news? You were not home when she told us. Off on another one of your adventures.” Dolby pointed. “Did she find you? “
Cade stepped closer. “What good news?”
“That the slumber is over. The time for our kind is now.”
“The slumber is over,” Cade repeated.
“This is the age of the vampire.” Dolby raised up his arms. “Fellas, shut me in the fridge, cause I’m burning up.”
Cade frowned. “What?”
“Lyrics…you know, my lyrics?” Dolby said. “Never mind. You never got it. You never got me.”
Cade did not disagree. “No. I never did.”
“So, why did you come back here?” Dolby asked as he crossed the space to an old table. “Where’s Nicodemus?”
“What happened to them?” Cade pointed at the bodies of the twins.
“The Germans?” he asked with his back to Cade.
“Yes, Dolby. What happened to them?”
“They answered incorrectly.” He smiled over his shoulder as he picked something up from his table and fidgeted with it. “Dunyasha asked us all a question: Life or Death?”
“And they answered incorrectly.”
“You got it.”
Cade could imagine what their answer was. He could even imagine how irritated Dunyasha must have been, but for her to kill them, her children…that seemed wrong. Nearly impossible.
“Where are the others? Where is Petar? Natalia?” Cade swallowed hard. “Where is the Bloke?”
“Gone.”
“Gone?” Cade repeated. “Dolby, where are they?”
“Everyone has left,” he chuckled. “They all answered correctly. They left.” His laughter grew as he stood and faced Cade. “I…I was left. I am left. There’s nothing left! “
Cade smelled it—battery-warmed electronics—then he saw it grasped inside Dolby’s hand: an old flip phone.
Three Burning Red Runaway Brides Page 16
