Tainted Blood

by James M. Thompson

  Shooter moved up behind TJ and pressed himself against her while he circled his arms around her over her breasts. “Great, ’cause I’m definitely ready for action.”

  TJ grinned and said to the others, “See, Shooter’s already getting another idea.” She wagged her head. “I don’t know if I’m ready for two ideas in the same night.”

  “Are the rooms you booked connecting?” Matt asked Sam.

  “Yes, they are.”

  He grinned. “Then I don’t see why we can’t all get in on the action. It’s been a couple of days since we shared blood, and I feel about a quart low.”

  Sam laughed. “Hotels always did make you horny, you dog.”

  Ed glanced around at the metal tables parked against a side wall. “We could just start right here,” he suggested, waggling his eyebrows at Kim.

  “No you don’t buster,” she said, hands on hips. “I am not about to attend any orgy in a crematorium. Don’t you have any respect for the dead?”

  Ed shook his head. “Nope, but if you’re going to be squeamish, let’s get going. We’re wasting time standing around here talking about it when we could be on our way to doing it.”

  Elijah pulled the keys to the SUV out and said, “I’m ready.”

  TJ put one hand through his arm and the other through Shooter’s. “Come on, boys, you’ve got work to do.”

  Matt yawned. “Now that I think about it, it’s been a long trip. I may be too tired to party.”

  Sam put her arm around his shoulder and leaned her face in close to his. “Want to bet?”

  Chapter 34

  Theo Thantos was sitting staring out of the window of their suite on the top floor of the Washington Ritz Carlton Hotel when Christina came out of the bathroom. She was naked and was rubbing a towel vigorously through her long, black hair. She was trying to get it dry without using a blow-dryer, which tended to make it look more like an African Bushman’s hair than the sleek runway model she aspired to.

  She moved over to stand behind Theo. As he continued to stare out of the window without acknowledging her presence, she rubbed her breasts against his back in a suggestive manner before she caught his emotional state—dark and disturbed.

  Quickly stopping her flirting, she moved around to kneel in front of him and looked up into his eyes. “What is it, darling? Why are you so upset?”

  His eyes looked cold and flat and dangerous. “I’ve been thinking about our last conversation with John Ashby and Marya Zaleska.”

  Christina’s eyes narrowed at the mention of Marya’s name. She hated that bitch and didn’t want Theo to ever think about her, no matter the context.

  “Oh?” she asked, stroking his thigh with her hand to get him to look down at her body, and hopefully to drive all thoughts of Marya out of his head.

  “Yeah,” he answered, his eyes finally moving down to glance at her naked breasts. Almost absentmindedly, he reached down and began to slowly stroke her right breast, but it was clear his mind was elsewhere since his eyes didn’t soften with lust as they usually did but remained as hard and cold as granite pebbles.

  Realizing she was getting nowhere, Christina stood up and draped the towel over her shoulders and put her hands on her hips and spread her legs. “Well, what about it, Theo?” she asked. “What exactly about Marya and John has you so upset and angry?”

  He looked at her. “I don’t like the way he talked to me, and I especially don’t like the way the two of them acted when they started to talk about treating Normals as equals when I finally get control of the country.”

  Christina noticed Theo’s use of the word “I” instead of “we” but decided not to make an issue of it—yet. There would be plenty of time later to remind him that she was an equal partner in this take-over-the-world scheme of his. So, she just nodded her head slowly. “Yeah, they were kind’a wishy-washy about how we needed to take care of the poor Normals and not use them for food, weren’t they?” she asked. After a moment, she added, “But, isn’t that why you said we’d get rid of them later, when we were further along in our plans?”

  He stood up and moved closer to the window, staring down at the people on the street, dozens of stories below. They looked like ants, he thought, realizing that he had about the same amount of feeling for them as if they were insects.

  “Yes, but now I don’t think we should wait until then. I don’t like the way he challenged me about what I intend to do once this is all over. Ashby and Zaleska are not in charge of this coup, I am, and the sooner they find that out, the better!”

  “Of course you are, dear,” Christina said, sidling over to put her arm around his shoulders. “No one disputes that this takeover was all your idea.”

  “Damn right they don’t, and I intend for everyone to obey my orders once it has been accomplished, without hesitation or second guessing!” he exclaimed. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to calm himself. “But I think it’s time we taught John and Marya it’s dangerous to underestimate me, or to try and tell me what to do with my country.”

  Christina felt elation that Theo was finally going to teach that bitch Marya a lesson, even though she was getting a little tired of his continual use of the singular instead of the plural in discussing who would head the country and make the decisions. “What are you going to do, darling?” she asked, rubbing the back of his neck with her hand.

  “I’m going to kill the son of a bitch!”

  “What about Marya? Are we going to kill her too?” Christina asked, hoping the answer was yes and that he would take note that she was including herself in his murder plans.

  “Of course we are. She’d be much too dangerous to leave alive after we kill her mate.”

  She smiled—he had noticed and he had taken the hint. “How are we going to do it . . . and when?”

  He put his arms around her and leaned down to kiss her lightly on the lips. “Very carefully, and right now.”

  * * *

  John Ashby was just coming awake when the phone on the bedside table of their hotel room rang. “Hello.”

  A whispered voice said urgently, “John, it’s me, Christina! I need to talk to you right now. It’s about something that Theo has planned that I think you need to know.”

  John came instantly awake. “Sure, Christina, come on down to our room.” John and Marya were also staying at the Ritz Carlton, though on a lower floor and in a regular room, not a suite.

  “I can’t! Theo might find out, and I need to meet you alone, without Marya around.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t stand the sight of her, that’s why. Now, do you want to hear what I’ve got to say or not?” Christina said, her voice suddenly hard and harsh instead of soft and sultry.

  John grinned. This was more like the bitchy Christina he knew. All the fake sultriness had disappeared from her tone. “Sure. Where do you want to meet?”

  “Meet me at cabin number four out at the Rejuvenatrix Spa in two hours. It’s the last cabin on the trail down to the river. We can be alone there.”

  “Okay.”

  Suddenly, her voice warmed a few degrees and became husky, as if with desire. “And Johnny, I want you to know I’ll make it well worth your while to meet me. I’ll do things to you that Marya’s never even heard of.”

  “All right, I can hardly wait,” John said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  After she hung up, he sat there in the bed thinking. Something was wrong. In the first place, Christina had never shown the slightest interest in him sexually, and she was much too shrewd to risk her position with the powerful Theo Thantos to have a fling with someone as low down on the rungs of power as him. Christina was as ambitious and power hungry as she was beautiful—and that was very.

  The sound of the shower in the bathroom stopped and moments later Marya came out. She was wearing the white cotton robe provided by the hotel and she looked magnificent, with her brilliant red hair glowing and shining as she ran a brush through it.
/>
  He patted the bed next to him. “Come here, sweetheart, we need to have a talk.”

  “What about?” she asked, sitting next to him on the bed, a puzzled frown on her face.

  “About a couple of snakes,” he answered.

  * * *

  Precisely two hours after his phone call, John walked down a gravel path to the cabin with the number four on its door and he knocked.

  Christina, wearing only the sheerest of nightgowns, answered the door, opening it only an inch or two and elaborately looking around to make sure he was alone before opening it wider.

  “Come in, Johnny. Quick before someone sees you,” she said, pulling him inside and shutting and locking the door behind him.

  Once she’d shut the door she turned and threw herself against him, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her breasts against his chest, grinding urgently against his groin with hers as if she’d been waiting for him all of her life.

  He inhaled the musk coming off her body. Damn, she does smell good, he thought. He didn’t have to fake the heaviness in his loins her actions were causing.

  He took her by the shoulders and held her out away from him. He was having trouble thinking with her attacking his groin and he needed some space between them. He tried to look into her eyes but his gaze kept straying south, to the sight of her dark, brown nipples straining against the nightgown.

  She smiled when she saw where he was looking. “Hurry, Johnny, get out of your clothes,” she said, reaching down to give his erection a quick caress. “I can’t wait to have you,” she urged, releasing him to pull at his belt.

  While she was undoing his pants, he glanced quickly around the cabin. It was one room with a bath off to one side. The only furniture was a bed and night table, and there was no closet, only a small chest against a far wall where clothes could be hung up. There was no place for anyone to hide.

  “Okay,” he said, feigning excitement. “Just let me go to the bathroom first, then I’ll come out.” He leaned down and kissed her, running his hands over her breasts lightly. “Will you be ready for me?”

  “Oh, yes, yes I will, Johnny,” Christina gushed, though he noticed her lust never made it to her eyes.

  He nodded and stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. He carefully took his clothes off and draped them over the shower curtain rod over the bathtub. There was no need to get them stained with blood.

  Then he began to change into his Vampyre form, getting ready for what he knew was waiting for him on the other side of the door.

  When he was fully ready, he came through the door crouching low and moving fast. The machete that Christina swung whistled inches over his head and embedded itself in the door jam with a loud thunk.

  He whirled around to find himself confronted with two people, also already changed into their Vampyre forms.

  Sammy Akins was crouched near the front door, a long sword in his hands, drooling and grinning around large fangs as he moved slowly toward John. “Say good-bye to your head,” his hoarse voice rumbled as his eyes danced with the desire to kill.

  Off to one side, Christina also smiled as she jerked her machete out of the door jam and circled around to try and get behind John.

  “Sorry, Johnny,” she growled. “I always kind’a liked you, but you had to go and get hooked up with that bitch and then you dared to question our leader. Now, we have no choice but to kill you.”

  “So that’s what this is all about,” John said, moving slowly backward, his eyes flicking back and forth, trying to keep the pair in front of him.

  “The boss don’t like traitors,” Sammy Akins growled, waving the tip of his blade back and forth slowly, bloodlust making his eyes look crazy in the low wattage lamplight of the cabin.

  “And,” Christina said, her eyes full of good humor at the thought of the death of her nemesis, Marya, “he’s on his way to point that out to your mate right now.”

  Christina glanced quickly over her shoulder at the clock on the wall. “In fact, the bitch is probably already dead.”

  Suddenly, the cabin door splintered and a Vampyre covered with shining red hair crashed into the room, a double-bladed ax in her hands. “Wrong again, asshole!” she screamed at Christina as she swung her ax in a two-handed grip.

  Sammy Akins whirled around just in time to open his mouth in fear when he saw the terrible apparition bounding across the room directly at him. In the blink of an eye the razor-sharp ax blade entered Sammy’s head just above his bottom jaw and took the top two thirds of his head clean off.

  He grunted once and dropped like a stone, his sword clattering to the floor while his head hit, bounced, and came to rest with restless eyes moving back and forth, staring at its body across the room.

  Christina screeched in rage and raised her machete over her head and leapt at Marya.

  In one fluid motion, John stooped and picked up Akins’s sword, whirled balletlike and jammed the point backhanded into Christina’s abdomen, driving her back as the blade lodged in the wall, impaling Christina with her feet hanging two feet off the floor.

  The machete flew from her hands as she threw back her head and howled in agony. She choked and coughed and began to scream again, until Marya moved up and wrapped her claw around Christina’s throat and squeezed off her air supply.

  The two females stood there panting and drooling and sweating crimson, their eyes staring bullets at each other as blood pumped from Christina’s wound out onto the floor.

  Marya held up the ax and slowly drew the blade across Christina’s throat, making a shallow cut that oozed a thin trail of blood. “Should I finish her now?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at John.

  He considered their options for a moment, and then he wagged his head. “No, let’s leave her like this as a message to Thantos.” He bent and picked up Christina’s machete, casually moved to stand over Akins’s body, and lopped off the rest of his head at the neck.

  And then, still moving slowly, he stood in front of Christina, who watched him with wide, pain-filled eyes. “Tell your mate that if he ever tries to find us or do us harm again, ever, I’ll see that he rots in hell!”

  With his final word, he jammed the point of the machete into Christina’s lower abdomen, six inches below the sword and just above her pubic bone.

  When she opened her mouth to scream again, Marya grabbed Akins’s shirt that was lying on the floor and stuffed it deep into her mouth.

  “That’s ought to keep the bitch quiet for a little while,” she said with a smile as she let herself change back into human form.

  His blood still raging with lust and adrenaline, John grabbed her, pushed her down on her back, and mounted her, still in his Vampyre form.

  As he growled and rutted, pumping his erection into her, Marya grinned and looked over his shoulder into Christina’s hateful eyes that were staring at them. “Eat your heart out, bitch!” she mouthed, moaning and gasping as her orgasm began to rack her body.

  Chapter 35

  As they raced away in John’s car, Marya sidled over to sit next to him, like a high school girl out on a date with her boyfriend.

  She placed her left arm around his shoulders and leaned her head to the side, watching him as he drove. She could see his eyes flicking back and forth, alert for any danger.

  “Take it easy, darling,” she said, her voice still husky from the excitement of the kill and lovemaking afterward. “We got away clean.”

  “Yeah,” he said, cutting his eyes at her for just a second. “But Thantos is still out there, and he’s got lots of new friends like that little worm we snuffed back there. And remember, Christina said he’d gone to our hotel room to try and kill you while she and Akins were killing me.”

  He shook his head. “Like Yogi Berra once said, ‘it ain’t over till it’s over.’ ”

  Her brows knit together. “You think he’ll still come after us, after what we did to Christina and in spite of our warning him not to?”

  He shrugged. �
�Maybe not immediately, but he’ll definitely come sooner or later. He’s not the kind of man to suffer a failure like this without seeking retribution, especially not while Christina is there at his side to remind him every day that we got the better of them.”

  She turned to look out the front windshield. “I knew I should’ve gutted that wench.”

  “No,” he said, taking his hand off the wheel and resting it on her thigh. “You did just right, sweetheart. Now she’ll have to live with the fact that you could have killed her but spared her life. I think that’ll bother her more than killing her would have.”

  Marya laughed. “You’re probably right, Johnny.” She leaned over to kiss his cheek. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

  He glanced at her, his eyes serious. “Soul mates?”

  She nodded, one crimson tear forming in her eye. “Soul mates!” she answered.

  “For as long as we live?”

  “For as long as we live,” she answered, snuggling up tight against him.

  It was a ritual they’d started soon after becoming mates, and it never failed to fill him with love.

  * * *

  John drove for another hour, heading north and intending to cross the border into Canada and hopefully disappear off Thantos’s radar screen forever.

  Finally, he took his foot off the accelerator and pulled off the road into the parking lot of a roadside café. “Come on,” he said, getting out of the car. “I need some coffee and I need to make a phone call.”

  It was a testament to their closeness that Marya didn’t question him about what he was going to do.

  John took a booth near the front window so he could watch the parking lot—years of caution ingrained in his being. Once they had steaming cups of coffee in front of them and the waitress was out of hearing range, he pulled out his cellular phone and dialed a number by memory.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Marya asked, but she didn’t try to dissuade him from his course of action. They were so close that their minds were always in tune and she knew what he intended without having to be told.