“Yes. I think so. He cares too much for Nikki to put her in any kind of danger.”
“I see.”
Moorcheh seemed to consider this. Jill knew that if Jason had have been a human, Moorcheh wouldn’t be able to sense him—to “see” him. Yet, Jill thought that maybe Moorcheh was testing her. Maybe Jason was now picking up on The Guard’s radar and they were here to check him out…or to test the honesty of the Bentons.
Either way, Jill was not pleased. And she was suddenly furious that Saul was not here with her.
“I trust that you will keep us informed of any developments?” Moorcheh asked.
Jill spoke before she was aware of what she was going to say. But when it was out, she was glad that it had been unfiltered. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But it’s my brother that you have running your errands. It is my brother that you have taken under the wing of The Guard. Why can’t you have him keep you informed of this matter?”
“From what I can gauge—and a few of the other members as well—Saul is not particularly concerned about what happens to Jason Eastman,” Moorcheh said. “It seems that Saul sees him as nothing more than a connection to Nikki’s mortal life that somehow slipped over into this new life of hers.”
“He’s told you this?” she asked.
“No. But you must remember…we have ways of seeing into vampires. Saul has worked with us long enough to be seen clearly by us. We feel that he might be falling in love with Nikki. And because of that, he sees Jason as nothing more than a threat. A nuisance at best, really.”
Jill thought about this. She almost asked Moorcheh if he was able to “see” Jason. But if he was leaving that part out for some covert reason, she thought it best to leave it untouched. She’d rather let him believe that she felt he had taken her word for it when she had said that he might very well be on the way to becoming human again.
Then again, if Moorcheh could sense Jason’s Turning, he knew that she was lying. Damn, it was all too confusing.
Jill really started to hate Saul in that moment, holed away in some backwoods inn and probably bending Nikki over a mattress.
“In that case,” Jill said, “I will certainly keep you informed.”
“You know how to contact us, yes?” he asked.
“Yes, I know.” This was true, although she had never had any reason to summon The Guard on her own.
“Thank you Jill. You know, it is nice to see you and Saul back together. You bring out the best in each other.”
“That’s what Dad always used to say.”
“A smart man indeed. We miss him.”
“Thanks.”
“We always did find the Bentons clan to be remarkable, you know.”
Jill only nodded. She couldn’t place her finger on it, but something about this entire conversation was starting to feel and smell very heavily of bullshit.
Then, without any sort of warning at all, Moorcheh’s form was once again enveloped in that ethereal fog that seemed to come out of nowhere. He did not say goodbye and he did not even acknowledge that the conversation was over. He simply began to make his departure.
Good riddance, Jill thought. She watched him evaporate and fade into nothing. When he was gone and the yard was empty once again, she opened the front door and stepped inside.
The cabin was quiet. Jason was asleep; even if he had have been awake, he would have probably been staring off into space again. Jill sat down on the couch, massaged her head, and did her best to send Saul a message.
She projected an image of Moorcheh in their front yard, fog and all. And behind it, a simple thought: He’s asking questions about Jason. I think you need to get your priorities straight, big brother, and bring your ass back home.
3
Larry was beginning to like the nights more and more. He could see in the dark now—even sharper than he could during the day. He had remained in Filth Camp, even when the police had come, found their dead officer and his car, and scoured the area for clues. Larry had gone into the woods and found a tree to hide in.
He’d had to fight the urge to attack the stupid policemen. His throat clenched and unclenched and he could feel his new teeth trying to spring from his gums. But as he stared the policemen down from above, he could hear the tall dark man’s voice in his head—the voice of Gestalt.
Do not invite more trouble, he had said. Not yet, anyway.
So Larry had watched the police come and go. He had taken an odd sort of satisfaction in watching the coroner’s van arrive and even more enjoyment when they hauled the badly mutilated body of Morel into the back. He stayed perched in his tree until the last of the police cars were gone.
Two days had passed since that afternoon and Larry had remained at Filth Camp. He’d spent a great deal of that time simply sitting in the field and listening to the occasional train pass through, heading to the train yard in the neighboring town of Waltman, thirteen miles to the east. When Larry really concentrated—when he was really in the zone—he could hear the squealing of the train brakes as it came to the yard. And beneath that, there were the movements and noises of every woodland creature between the two towns.
Larry had begun to suspect that his new talents had no limits.
On that second afternoon after watching the police haul Sheriff Morel’s body into the coroner’s van, Larry began to sense that something was approaching; some big event was on the way. He felt this in the same way that his mortal shell could once tell when rain was coming due to the arthritis in his left wrist. When he’d felt that inkling stirring in his gut, he had begun pacing the trampled field of Filth Camp anxiously, waiting for a sign of some sort.
It didn’t take long. The two men came walking into Filth Camp from the vestiges of what had once been a dirt road, its beginning somewhere far into the outskirts of Red Creek. It was the very same road Larry had used to get here. It was also the last road that Sheriff Morel had ever driven down.
A very small part of Larry, the part that had been pushed to the dustier corners of his mind, related to these men. He could tell right away that they were vagrants. One of them walked with a slouch, probably from some physical ailment that he couldn’t afford to have looked at properly by a doctor. The other was rather tall and was twisting absently at the top of a glass bottle. From the other side of the field, Larry could clearly see that it was cheap malt liquor.
The ghost of his former self was roused at the sight. God, it sure would be nice to get drunk in this new reincarnation, wouldn’t it? It would probably taste so much better.
The two men noticed him, stopped for a moment, and then headed further into the field. They both wore ragged jackets; the taller man’s looked to be nearly an entire size too small for him. The cuffs stopped midway down his forearms and one of the pockets was nearly ripped completely from the side.
Despite the distance, Larry could smell them. They gave off a scent that was a pungent mixture of body odor and urine. There was a peculiar smell coming off of one of them and Larry was pretty sure it was some sort of sickness or disease. He also knew that this was not a scent that he would have been able to pick up if he were still nothing more than a man.
The two strangers were well in the weeds now, walking slowly towards him. The one with bad posture raised a hand and waved at Larry. “Hey there,” he greeted.
Larry waved back. His stomach was churning and his mouth was filling with saliva. The energy that began to sizzle softly inside of him was nearly of an erotic origin. It was very similar to how he had once felt when seeing a bar after he hadn’t had a drink in a few days.
“I know it’s a hell of a long shot,” the tall man said. “But would you happen to have anything to eat?”
Larry shrugged and put on a frown. “I wish,” he said. “No luck.”
He realized there and then that these two men had no suspicions about him. He looked like one of their own and they felt an instant sort of kinship with him.
“Figured we’d stay here tonight,” th
e man with the slouch said. “It’s the only damn place in this side of the county where it’s safe to stay. The police give you shit if you sleep in alleys.”
“Yeah,” Larry said. “I know all about that.”
“How long you been out here?” the tall man asked.
“Three nights,” Larry lied.
“No problems with the law?”
The irony of having watched Morel’s body get hauled off of this very field only two days ago almost made him break out into a grin. But he kept his mirth down and simply replied, “None. Not at all. The cops basically just ignore this place.”
“You don’t mind some roommates, do you?” the tall one asked.
“Of course not.”
The two men sat down their meager belongings—they each carried just one bag—and then stretched out in the field. The stench of the men slapped Larry in the face once again and he had to fight his urge to attack them—to feed.
But again, he heard Gestalt’s voice in his head: Wait. Test your patience. You need to adapt.
A small growl rumbled in his throat. Neither of the new men heard it. They were looking towards the train tracks as night settled down. Larry did his best to blend in with them. They talked to one another about their hard times and how they had come to be in the state they were in. Both men shared their stories but Larry barely heard them. He was too busy focusing on the intense need to tear into them. He was focusing on it and bringing it to the center of himself, doing his best to understand it and suppress it at the same time.
Larry even shared his own story as the night deepened. It was a great way to exorcise the still-human part of himself. Speaking that part of his life out loud was cathartic. He told the tall man and the slouching man about losing two jobs in a row –one because of budget cutbacks and the other because he’d showed up for work drunk one too many times. He told them how he had reached a point where he couldn’t function on any mental or emotional level without at least a case of beer in him. He told them about giving up, about not giving a shit about his life or what became of it. He delved into matters of politics, knowing that these two probably blamed Washington for most of their problems, just as Larry had once done, and even religion. Religion was always a good way to make friends when living on the streets; even atheists needed to hear that there was something better, especially if it was something that was out of their reach. Hope, Larry knew, could damn a man.
The two strangers took it all in and lay back in the grass, readying themselves for sleep. They had found another man just like them—a man that life had chewed up and spit back out. They were in good company and had found a kindred spirit.
Larry felt their ease. He felt their tepid peace and it ate at him like acid in his stomach. And then he heard Gestalt’s voice in his head, clear and sharp like a church bell.
Now.
The anxiety and energy he’d been suppressing for the three hours since the men had arrived at Filth Camp caused him to spring up as if he were pushed forward by a piston. He took a moment to look around and noticed just how crisp everything seemed—how new it all felt to him. The trees seemed to be watching him, their branches applauding. Even the slight night breeze that crept through Filth Camp seemed to be holding its breath, waiting to see what he would do.
Larry looked to his left. The tall man was closest to him, sleeping in a drunken state. Larry grinned. His knees bolted him up and when Larry threw his own body on top of the man, he let out a huge whoof of breath. He reeked of cheap liquor and the sick scent Larry had been smelling all night; it was the smell of rot and death, of human flesh going to waste as the man’s insides were spoiling.
Larry snapped the man’s neck and the pop of it louder than Larry imagined it would be.
The smaller man had leaped at the commotion. He was backing away and screaming. He was crawling away slowly, not yet able to get the full control of his wobbling knees, but when Larry raised his head, fangs exposed and his eyes glowing red, the man finally was able to get to his feet. He ran with a fury, the smell also coming from him. Larry watched him go, enjoying the sport of it all.
The man tripped over his own feet and went hard to the ground. He moaned and tried to get up again but it seemed that his body simply had no more energy.
Larry hardly noticed this. He was too busy tearing into the tall man’s neck with his teeth. This was a totally different experience than what he had felt when he had killed the owl. This was more final—more damaging and real. The blood was good, but it was the act of tearing the flesh between his jaws that did more for him. It made him feel more powerful than he had ever felt in his life. He felt the man’s pulse beat, beat, beat, and then die out.
Behind it all, there was still the sense of being watched by everything around him. Nature seemed to be urging him on. And mingled in with it all, there was a voice that settled him a bit—a voice that he wanted to please very badly.
Keep the other one for us, Gestalt ordered inside his head.
Larry’s head snapped up and spotted the scurrying shape of the man with bad posture. He was still on the ground, trying to carry himself forward. Having been a drunk before, Larry knew what the man was feeling. But Larry had found a way out now. He could finally leave this miserable life, the life that had gone to ruin. Perhaps that was why he had given up so easily – why he had let Gestalt in his mind.
Larry was a bit disappointed that there was no chase. He was on the man in less than two seconds. And with the taste of the tall man’s blood still thick and rich on his tongue, he sunk his teeth into the smaller man’s neck.
He had to restrain himself not to tear the man’s throat out completely. He allowed himself to drink deeply from the man’s blood, keeping tabs on the amount of pressure he applied. He could feel a transfer of…of something between them. Not power, not life, but something that he could not find the words to describe.
This man would be like him soon. Larry knew this as he forced himself to pull away. He wiped stray rivulets of blood from his chin and sucked them from his fingers greedily. He then pulled the shorter man into the woods, smiling as he worked.
You did well, Larry, came Gestalt’s voice.
Larry could not see him, but he knew Gestalt was nearby. And he had done well. This made Larry smile even harder. Had anyone in his life ever told him that? He didn’t think so.
With night sitting heavy over Red Creek, Larry sat by the comatose body of the slouched man as a train rumbled by on the tracks by Filth Camp. Larry let out a laugh that was drowned out by the engine and the clatter of the train’s wheels. He felt that laugh filling the hollow place where his self-pity once reigned supreme.
4
Jason Eastman sat up in the bed he had been confined to for the last several months. In his head, he thought he had heard someone laughing. And he also caught the phantom scent of something…something almost like an old copper penny. He got out of bed and exited the room he had been given by Saul Benton – a token of gratitude for his part in the fight against the Greelys.
The cabin was quiet. He could hear Jill sleeping in the small guest room. Other than that, he sensed that the place was empty. Saul had been sleeping on the couch when he was in—which wasn’t that often due to the trips The Guard constantly kept him on.
But Jason knew that Saul was not on The Guard’s business right now. No, he and Nikki had gone away somewhere to fuck each other senseless. Something about it didn’t seem right. While Jason really felt nothing more for Nikki, he had loved her first. The fact that she had so easily slipped into Saul’s life and bed still infuriated him. Whatever change he had undergone had not taken that sense of jealousy away.
The nights he had spent with her, trying to figure out some way to make a move that would seem both sweet and aggressive stirred in his mind. He had wasted so much time wondering what it might be like to kiss her thin lips, to pull her close to him and feel her against him. As far as he was concerned, that had all been for nothing.
&n
bsp; Jason stood motionless for a moment, thinking. He knew that moving through the cabin too much would wake Jill. So he walked to the bathroom and stood there for a moment, getting his thoughts in order. Had he really heard that weird laughing? And what was that smell? Was it—
Blood, he thought. It’s blood.
At that thought, his body seemed to tremble. He was filled with a yearning like he had never felt before—not in watching porno as a teen, not on those nights where he and Nikki had watched movies on the same bed and he could smell her hair and see the outline of her bra. This was a need that went beyond lust. This was something stronger, something he was not prepared for.
Still, thinking of Nikki and the missed chance he’d had with her in their other life filled him with anger. He’d had fantasies about her—some sweet and some deranged. He’d spent far too much time trying to sneak peeks at her cleavage or admiring her tight jeans against her bottom only to later dream of her straddled on top of him, crying out his name and begging him for more. He had once seen her in a light cotton tee shirt with no bra underneath and it had been so sexy that he had not been able to will his erection away for an entire hour.
Now he’d never have her. And it was mostly because of Saul. He thought of what she must feel like, what it would be like to be inside of her, to touch her breasts and feel her squirm in anticipation at his touch.
He was growing hard just thinking about it. Apparently, even as a vampire urges of the flesh were hard to ignore.
Slowly, quietly, he opened the bathroom window. There was a screen on the other side, but the night air came through easily. He took a deep breath of it and shuddered. Blood, he thought again. So much blood.
He wanted to go out. He wanted to hunt. He wanted blood. There was no denying that. He also knew that to admit this would cause serious problems and that Saul would see to it that he was stopped.
What to do?
He closed his eyes and thought about his options. Thankfully, there was something else beyond this insatiable need for blood. There was something else…the feeling that he had heard that laughter and that it meant something. He thought it meant that there was something happening and that he was likely supposed to be part of it.
VEILED Complete Boxed Set Page 28
