She had the ability to calm his animal nature which was becoming more and more dominant every day. His panther side struggled for control of his body and soul. The constant close association with Targ, the vampire, only made it worse. He wanted to kill Targ almost as much as he wanted to fuck Lorelei’s brains out.
They crossed the causeway into the small town of Flores and pulled into the parking lot of the Jaguar Inn as the sky to the east grew orange and purple, announcing the coming dawn. He and Lorelai dove into their room and locked the door. She was naked before he could drop their suitcases.
“I’m incredibly horny,” she moaned touching herself. “I need you to spank me. I’ve been such a bad girl.”
Just the thought of spanking those plump butt cheeks had him raging with desire. She opened her bag and pulled out a ping-pong paddle. When he grabbed her and pulled her tight against his body, she giggled. “I’ve been a very bad fairy. You must punish me.”
He wanted to fuck her, not play games, but he complied. The thought of the paddle on her round ass was exciting. He sat on the bed and pulled her across his lap. “How bad have you been, little fairy?”
“Very bad.” She covered her face with her hands.
The first slap of the paddle on her white rump seemed loud in the small room. She squealed as he laid it across her butt again and again. The rough surface of the paddle left red marks on her flesh. She squirmed and wailed as he paddled her.
After ten swats, he could stand no more. He threw the paddle aside and reached between her legs. She was dripping wet, her slick mound swollen with desire. Instead of satisfying his immediate urge to throw her on her back and pound her into the bed, he kneaded the firm globes of her ass in his hands. She moaned as he squeezed and stroked her reddened flesh.
Picking her up, he tossed her onto the bed on her face and fell on her biting and squeezing her ass. She writhed beneath him, panting and groaning. “Oh, Tuco, you know what I need.”
Her buttocks were like giant sex organs, red and swollen beneath his hands. He opened them and closed them glimpsing the tiny mouth of her anus, pink and private, hiding between the tight globes. He knelt on the bed and shoved his cock into her from behind while he continued to massage her ass. Her sex was on fire, hotter than a volcano. His dick swelled as he shoved it into her and she clamped her passage tightly around it.
With his hands clenched around fistfuls of ass, he pumped in and out of her. The sex was wildly erotic. Lorelai rose up on her elbows, arched her back, mouth open, eyes closed and pulled her nipples. He longed to release her ass and grab her breasts but knew the butt massage was what had her so turned on. Her rear was a gigantic erogenous zone.
When she climaxed, she screamed. He grinned, briefly wondering what the neighbors were thinking, and finished with her; releasing a huge load into her sucking passage.
Afterwards, Lorelai passed out on her face with the pillow over her head and Tuco got up to pace. It was daylight. He didn’t want to sleep. Instead of laying down next to the fairy, he slipped on his clothes and left the room.
Wandering the familiar streets of Flores eventually brought him to his aunt’s house. Grandmother was gone, but Aunt Cecilia would want to see him, so he knocked. The elderly lady answered, dressed from head to toe in black. She fell on his neck. “Oh, Enrique, I’ve been so lonely since your grandmother passed.”
He kissed her fuzzy cheek and pushed her away. “Aunt, I’m Tuco.”
Her face reddened. “Oh my, well, I never could tell you two boys apart. Come in. Where is Enrique?”
What could he tell her that wouldn’t upset her? “He’s tied up right now and couldn’t get away. I’m here with a group of…uh, of fellow professors. We plan to examine the caves at Naj Tunich.”
She nodded as she ushered him into the tiny kitchen and made him a cup of coffee. The strong local brew filled the tiny kitchen with delicious fragrance. As they sat sipping from fragile, bone-china cups, Aunt Cecilia’s face cleared.
“Your grandmother is gone,” she began. “She kept more secrets from you that I discovered only after her death. Finish your coffee and I will show you.”
He swallowed one final sip and followed her into the living room. An ancient brick-and-mortar fireplace had been built into the west wall of the room centuries before. She pressed a gray brick and a door slid open next to the fireplace. It was low, opening in the dark wainscoting. “This has always been here. I never knew.” She beckoned to him to follow as she disappeared into the dark behind the open door.
He ducked into a short corridor leading to narrow stairs that plunged down into darkness. Aunt Cecilia found a switch on the wall and flicked it. Old light bulbs hung on gray wires from the rough plaster ceiling. The corridor and the stairway were walled in old bricks. The deeper they got, the damper it smelled and felt. They were below the level of the nearby lake.
The stairs opened into a small room lined in wood, stained dark by time, and with a bumpy stone floor. In the middle of the space a crude stone altar held a stand. A sword rested on the forks of the wooden stand. Hanging from the hilt was a roughly-molded Celtic crucifix on a silver chain. Tuco scooped it off the hilt and held it draped over his hand. He thumbed the crude depiction of Christ on the cross worn almost flat by centuries. The cross itself was five inches long and heavy. It looked and felt like silver. This place had been built by his father or his father’s ancestors—vampire hunters.
“I thought the cross had no power against vampires. That’s what the diary said.”
Aunt Cecilia crossed herself. “Vampires! Dios mio.” She looked over her shoulder and up the stairs. “There are vampires?”
Tuco cursed under his breath. He shouldn’t have said anything to his aunt. He hung the cross around his neck and hefted the sword. It was a two-handed crusader-type, the blade too shiny to be iron or even steel. It might be silver.
The hilt was a black, screaming-panther head with a blood-red stone in its open mouth. He thumbed the stone. It gave off some kind of energy. Weird.
Both items were obviously some part of the Sangue Cacadore so Tuco took them as he hustled Aunt Cecilia up the stairs. He wished he could share his finds with Enrique. He kissed the terrified Cecilia on the cheek and left her home, walking slowly back up the hill in the bright sunlight to the hotel. Rays of sunshine glinted off the blade and he stopped.
Enrique was awake. They were moving him.
Chapter 21
Targ stirred inside the body bag. He tried to sit up and smacked his head on something. He tore the rubber open and saw they’d stuffed him under the bed. Far to the west, the sun was setting. Would he always know the position of the sun now that he was a vampire?
After rolling out from under the bed, he saw they were still in the hotel room and everyone was asleep. He was hungry—really hungry. The need for blood ate into him like a huge gnawing cancer. And this time there was another underlying need, the need to kill and drink the blood from a living victim—no blood bags, a pumping heart.
He shook his head. He couldn’t, but he wanted to. He shouldn’t, but he needed to. He glanced at the bed. Jax was sleeping next to Al. Lorelai and her man must be in their own room. Thinking about Tuco made his fangs come out. He’d love to drink the shifter’s blood; all of it, drain him dry.
Thinking about Tuco brought his thoughts to Enrique. All he wanted was to be with Tuco’s brother. He searched with his eyes shut for some sign, some feeling of where his maker was. A clear vision of a long, black limo popped into his head. It drove through moon-drenched jungles down a narrow road heading north. Targ could find him easily if he wanted to. Did he?
He shot one more look at the bed and slid out the door. They didn’t need him, Enrique did. He’d find him and get something to eat on the way. He’d had it with blood out of a bag. He wanted warm blood from a living victim. He knew it was wrong but what he’d become was wrong. His nature was to drink blood. He was an apex killer and he allowed these people to shove him aroun
d.
The moon rose over the dark lake. He clearly saw the towers of Tikal rising above the treeline. Enrique was the other way, south, heading this way. Jax was probably right about the Mayan taking Enrique to the caves.
Running faster than humans could see, Targ raced through Flores and into the countryside. He saw a drunk, unconscious beside a building in the tiny village on the banks of the lake. He stopped, stared with his fangs out and inched forward. The drunk never stirred as Targ bent over him, smelling the luscious scent of pumping blood. He heard it swishing through the man’s veins. As though in a dream, he lifted the unconscious man, pushed back a strand of filthy hair from his brown neck and buried fangs in flesh.
He felt like he was in a bad movie, the evil vampire drinking the blood of his victim, slurping away like some kind of madman. But the hot blood tasted fantastic. He drank, horribly aware of the drunk’s fragile humanity. He didn’t want to kill so he forced himself to stop, laid the man on the dirty road and backed away. The blood raced through his system. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. Nothing in his previous life could compare to drinking human blood as a vampire.
With one glance at his victim, he shot down the road, allowing the gentle pull of his maker’s presence to drag him in the right direction.
* * * *
Enrique sat in the back of the limo next to Moon Man as they hurtled down the narrow Guatemalan roads. They headed north toward the border between Guatemala and Belize and the small city of Poptun. It was as Jax said, Balam intended to take him to Naj Tunich.
The horrible vampire sat in front next to his driver, a stalwart Indian who spoke no English; in fact he rarely did anything but grunt. He drove at a frightening speed down the narrow road with the big car’s headlights illuminating the highway like a long dark tunnel.
When they turned off the main road at Santa Rita headed for Finca Semanzana, Enrique collapsed against the leather seat. This was the way to the cave system. He’d been to the entrance once before with his brother. Tuco—Enrique sent a thought toward him and gasped. Tuco was in Guatemala. Oh, no, that was just what Balam wanted. He desired to sacrifice both of them at the same time, twin sacrifices to the jaguar god of the underworld.
He closed his eyes and tried to block his thoughts so his brother couldn’t find him. Tears leaked out of the corners. It wouldn’t work. He felt Tuco getting closer and closer. His brother was coming to save him.
* * * *
When Jax woke up, he knew they’d overslept. There was no light coming in around the curtains. It was well after dark. He nudged Al. “Wake up, man. We’re late.”
He leaned over and looked under the bed. The body bag where they’d stashed the zonked vampire was empty. Targ was gone. Jax leaped out of bed and started pulling on his clothes. “We lost him,” he said to Al. “Wake up the lovers, will you?”
“Why me?” Al made a face. “Lorelei’s making an idiot of herself over this guy.”
“Just do it, please. I have to pack up and go pay the bill.”
Al left the room while Jax was stuffing the body bag and toiletries in his pack. This was awful. Targ had escaped. Had his vampire self taken control? If so, he could be killing people and Jax was responsible.
With the pack slung over his shoulder, he ran from the room. In a manner of minutes, the four of them were driving down the road toward Poptun and the caves. “Tuco,” Jax said. “Can you feel Enrique?”
Tuco sat in the back with one arm casually draped over Lorelei’s shoulder. Jax eyed him in the rearview mirror as Tuco closed his eyes and concentrated. “He’s not far,” Tuco announced. “But he feels strange. I think he’s trying to block me.”
“He must know we’re here and he’s afraid Balam will catch you as well.”
“The twins,” Tuco said. “It’s because of the damned hero twins. Balam must believe sacrificing twin shifters will increase his chances of gaining favor with the gods of the underworld. Twins have always been revered by the Mayans.”
The farther into the countryside they went, the worse the road became. Tuco was straining to read a map in the back. “I don’t remember the road being this bad. We could be lost.”
“You’re insulting all roads when you label this thing a road,” Jax snarled as he guided the Land Rover around a pot hole big enough to swallow it. “It’s a goat track. Read the map. Tell me we’re going the right way.”
“I think this is right. Dolores should be ahead about five miles.”
“What’s a Dolores?” Al asked.
“A sleepy little town.” Small houses and a market appeared out of the dark. “And this is not it. Somehow we got on the Belize road. This is Sabaneta.”
“How can you tell?” Jax’s voice was a snarl.
Tuco pointed to a squat building. On the front it said La Tienda de Sabaneta.
“Can we still get to Poptun this way?”
“Eventually,” Tuco said. “But it’s raining. This road gets pretty bad when it rains.”
The addition of water to the dirt road created a swampy mess. The Rover dived in and out of holes filled with dark water and thick mud. When the Rover bogged down and got stuck, Jax climbed out to switch it into four-wheel-drive. Lorelai got out with him, walking around the edges of the road sniffing.
“I smell big cats,” she said to Tuco. “Your cousins, the jaguar.”
As if to illustrate her statement, from deep inside the jungle, they heard the scream of a big cat. Suddenly, Lorelai froze. “What’s wrong?” Tuco asked.
“Can’t you sense it?”
“I can,” Jax said as he sloshed around the front of the Rover. “Smells like the mother of all vampires.”
Al stepped out of the vehicle. He stood quietly with his eyes closed. “This is a creature I don’t know.”
Lorelai shivered. “It can’t be Balam. He’s with Enrique headed for Naj Tunich.”
“I feel it now,” Tuco said. “I can smell it, too. It smells…evil.”
Jax scanned the trees flooding water off dark leaves. He half expected to see red eyes gleaming out of the jungle. Whatever was out there had his fangs exposed and his claws out. His skin rippled as he almost shifted. Lorelai laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’s far away. I know it smells strong, but I can’t feel it close by. Unless,” she paused. “Unless it’s so old we can’t sense it.”
“Back in the Rover,” Al snapped. “Jax, drive, brother.”
They all dived back into the Land Rover. Jax slammed it into gear and walked it out of the mud hole. When they were clear, he gunned the engine and they took off at a rocking speed, bouncing across the rutted track, slithering and sliding. The track finally dead-ended in a pot-hole-infested strip of asphalt. Tuco pointed over Jax’s shoulder to the left. “Dolores is that way.”
“Then how far to Poptun?”
“Ten kilometers. Then we have to find the road to Naj Tunich in the dark.”
“Is it marked?” Al asked.
“The property is protected by the government,” Tuco said. “Every time I’ve been out here there’s been a gate and it’s locked. It’s hard to find and there won’t be a sign; too much vandalism took place back when it was first discovered in the late eighties. It’s almost fifteen kilometers outside of Poptun and the road is awful. You have to hike the last few kilometers.”
When they pulled into Poptun, it was almost two in the morning. Jax glanced over his shoulder at Tuco. Lorelai was napping against him. “I’m figuring there’s no hotels, right?”
“Tour buses stop here for gas and head north. There’s a couple of small hotels, but it’ll be a trick to get someone awake this late.”
“Since we don’t have Targ, we can hike out in the daylight,” Jax said. “I’m in favor of catching some zees in the Rover and finding the road out to the caves in the morning. What do you think, Al?”
Al was really quiet. Jax had never seen the elf so quiet and withdrawn.
He lifted his head and stared into Jax’s eyes. “The
re’s something really bad in the jungle around here, really old and really bad. It feels like it’s waiting.”
“For what?”
Al shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I just know it’s waiting and it’s been here a long time.”
* * * *
The road just kept getting worse and worse. The limo driver had to slow to a crawl which suited Enrique just fine. The longer it took to get them where they were going the better.
They stopped in a small town. Enrique saw a sign saying it was Modesto Mendez. He’d been here before with Tuco. They were less than twenty kilometers from Poptun and the road to the caves. He looked at his watch. It was already four in the morning. It would soon be dawn. Would Balam stop to sleep or continue on?
The vampire priest opened the back door and stared at him. Enrique felt his skin crawl. “You are a very handsome man,” he said as he reached out and stroked Enrique’s cheek.
Enrique jerked away.
Balam laughed; an evil chuckle that made Enrique want to kill him. “Do not worry. You are the sacrifice. I would not sully you with my attentions. I merely stopped to eat. Moon Man, find me a meal.”
The small man bolted into the darkness with the sound of Balam’s chilling laugh chasing him. The vampire took his place in the car, sitting next to Enrique. “Can you feel him?”
Enrique’s eyes flew open.
“He’s here, isn’t he? Your brother is close by. I feel my child as well. He’s lurking around the caves, hoping to be a hero and save you.” He broke into his hideous laugh again. “He actually believes he can fight me.”
Moon Man appeared out of the darkness dragging an old man by his filthy white shirt. Balam climbed out of the limo and glared at Moon Man. “This…this thing is not a fit offering for your god,” he roared, his voice so loud Enrique cringed.
Moon Man stood his ground. “It was all I could find at this hour, master. The village is asleep.”
Balam grabbed Moon Man and lifted him. Eye to eye, he glared at his minion. “Then break into a home and find me a meal with some juice in it.” He grabbed the terrified old man and hurled him fifty feet into the darkness. “That shriveled up carcass wouldn’t provide more than a mouthful.”
The Virgin Vampire Page 12
