by Dani April
“Ain’t no one going to hear you, bitch!” One of the evil men mocked her attempt at bravery. “You got no one, bitch! No one is going to save you tonight…”
Suddenly a gust of wind swept down from above, and a blur fell down from the heights. The fog made way for it and blew out of the alley as if by magic. The three men turned away from Rebecca to investigate the mysterious phenomenon behind them.
Emerging through the fast retreating fog was the form of another man. Rebecca would have recognized the self-assured gait anywhere.
“What seems to be the problem here?” he asked them. There was a dangerous edge in his voice.
“Peter!” Rebecca screamed.
“Hey, idiot, this isn’t any of your business over here. Just go on your way, man, and we won’t mess with you.”
Peter continued to pace toward them. His eyes were glowing red with anger in the dark.
“I said back the fuck off, man!” One of the men pulled a gun out of his jacket pocket and aimed it at Peter. “Who the fuck are you anyway?”
“Death,” he told them simply.
“Get the fuck out of here, man!”
“I’m going to kill all three of you.” Peter kept his voice calm. He kept walking closer to them.
“Look at me, moron! I’m the one with the gun. Now back the fuck away before you get yourself hurt!”
“I haven’t been involved in mortal combat in over a hundred years. That means I haven’t killed a man in that time. Real men don’t attack women. I’m going to enjoy slaughtering you three. You are human sewage and don’t have the right to live.”
“Man, this dude’s psycho…”
“Okay, buddy.” The man with the gun held it out at Peter’s approaching form. “That was your last warning.”
He fired three shots point blank into Peter’s body and a fourth shot aimed at his head. Each of his rounds hit their target. The rapid fire of the shots was rolling thunder down the alley.
Peter kept walking forward, never changing his pace from the attack. He opened his mouth and spit out the bullet that had been aimed at his head. The metal shell clattered on the concrete at his feet and went lifeless.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Peter asked the three attackers. When he opened his mouth again, his incisors had grown three inches from his gums. His eyes were glowing an angry red. He was every inch the vampire.
Now the tables were turned, and for the first time, the attackers were starting to feel the fear they had come into this alley to inspire in Rebecca. They looked at each other as if they had all gone into a daze at what they were witnessing.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, man!” One of them broke away from the others and started to run down the alley.
In a blur of motion, Peter was upon him. He had him by the scruff of the neck and threw him against the same wall he had thrown Rebecca against only moments before. He threw the man face first into the brick wall, and the crack of his nose breaking resounded down the alleyway. This all happened in a second. Peter had already recovered his former position in front of the other two.
The remaining two were quick to act. They struck out at Peter in unison. The one holding the gun now used it to try and batter Peter’s skull.
In several effortless motions, Peter had them both immobilized and wreathing in agony at his feet. He broke the first man’s arm and the gun he was holding fell uselessly out of his hand. The second man’s leg snapped with a loud crack. He gagged on the pain and fell backward onto the pavement.
“Are you hurt, Rebecca?”
“No,” she said. “I’m fine now.”
Peter turned back to regard the men sprawled at his feet. “Back in my day, men lived by a code,” Peter told them. “Real men fought each other on the field of valor, but never harmed women or children. They never stole from the weak or took advantage of the old and sick. How could you people of the modern day have risen so high in your technology, but fallen so low in your chivalry? Sometimes I think that you people have a worse illness plaguing you than that which torments me.”
Peter raised his hand up to strike. One blow from his powerful arm would have been enough to bring instant death. The man squirmed at his feet and begged him for mercy.
“Peter! Don’t kill them!” Rebecca screamed at him, moving to his side to grab hold of his powerful arm. “This isn’t a war. No one should die here tonight.”
“But this scum hurt you, Rebecca.”
“Not really. I’m fine now.” Rebecca ran a hand over her face to try and clear the clouds from her mind. “Come on, Peter…This isn’t a battle we’re fighting here. So why don’t you just let these men go? All right?”
Peter hesitated. He let his glowing red eyes linger over the intended victim at his feet a moment longer. Then he allowed Rebecca to take his hand in hers, and he lowered it back to his side. His eyes ceased to glow and returned to their normal dark blue hue. When he opened his mouth again, his fangs had receded back into his gums.
“Very well…For you, Rebecca, I’ll do as you ask.”
Peter reached down and picked one of the struggling men up by his shirt collar. He held the struggling man out at arm’s length in front of him and examined him like he was an insect.
“What’s wrong with you, man?” the frightened man asked Peter.
“I’m a vampire.”
“Oh my God!” The man made another effort to get away, but to no avail as Peter held him securely.
“You see this woman over here? The woman you tried to harm tonight?” The man looked over at Rebecca and nodded. “She just saved your life. She is the only human being in the world who could have stayed my hand in killing you three tonight. You owe your life to this woman. I want you to look over at her and tell her thank you.”
The man hesitated for a fraction of a second. Peter bent back his arm and caused him to cry out in pain. “Thank you…Thank you, miss…”
“Now I want you to listen to me carefully.” Peter stared into his eyes. “You and your friends are going to leave this city and go far away because if I ever see any of you again, I will kill you. Do you believe me when I tell you that?”
“Yes, sir…” The man nodded his head weakly, leaving no doubt that he believed every word Peter spoke to him.
“Now get out of here quickly before your presence makes me angry again and I change my mind about you!”
Peter dropped the man to the ground. He fell on his backside, but quickly picked himself up. His friend, the one with the broken nose had come over to his side. Together the two men helped the man with the broken leg to stand up, and they quickly ushered him back down the alleyway. The fog moved back in, surrounding everything once more, and the men were lost from sight forever.
Peter turned to Rebecca. She hadn’t seen him in over a year. A million emotions flooded through her. At the forefront of those feelings was relief.
“Are you really okay, Rebecca?” Peter reached out to examine her. “Perhaps I should take you to the hospital?”
“I’m really fine.” Rebecca couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you, Peter. If you hadn’t come along when you did…”
Her words sent a rush of anger flaring back through him. “I still want to go back and kill them for you!”
She put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “No.” She turned him back to her. “Right now I need you to walk me back to my apartment.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”
“I’m positive. Come on, my apartment is just over on the next street.”
Peter took her by her arm and protectively escorted her the remainder of the way home.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rebecca opened the door to her apartment and reached around the corner to turn on the light in the front room. She stepped across the threshold and threw her keys down on a door-side table. She placed the shoulder bag with the thumb drive inside on the coffee table in the center of the small room. Behind her, Peter waited out
side.
Rebecca turned back to him. She realized he was waiting for her to invite him inside. He was a vampire and could not enter her home without an invitation. She motioned for him to enter.
“Come on in, Peter.”
“Thank you.” He walked inside, and she closed the door behind him.
Here he was, Peter von North the vampire, standing in the middle of her living room. She never thought this day would come. For the last year, she had tried her best to forget about Peter and her week with him and his friends in the desert. She had not done a very good job of doing so. It seemed like every day during that time something had served to remind her of Peter or his castle. She thought she would never see him again. Now here he was standing in front of her in her home, and he had just saved her life.
“Why are you in San Francisco?” she asked him as questions started bombarding her mind. “How did you know where I was tonight? How did you know I needed help?”
He looked down to the rug covering her floor. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I do not mean to bother you.”
“Well, you’re not bothering me right now. You just saved my life. But I’d still like to know what you’re doing here.”
“I’ve been following you.” He hesitated and looked away from her again. “I’m sorry, Rebecca.”
“You’ve been following me?” She narrowed her eyes and looked at him. “For how long?”
“Tonight I started following you when you were at the bar.”
“So I did feel someone watching me in the bar?”
“Yes, it was me.”
“I should have known only a vampire could move away that quickly.” Then she brought up her courage and stepped up close to him. “Wait a minute, how long have you been following me?”
He hesitated again. She imagined that he even looked afraid of her. “It has been awhile now.”
“How long?”
“It was not my intention to ever make myself known to you unless it was absolutely necessary.”
“How long, Peter?”
“Ever since you left me in the desert last year,” was his sheepish reply.
Rebecca threw her arms in the air in exasperation. No wonder she had been thinking about him every day for the last year. No wonder she hadn’t allowed herself to be with another man or even so much as go on a date in the last year. He had been right there with her staring over her shoulder, and somehow she had felt his presence the whole time.
“How am I ever going to get rid of you?” she shouted at him. At that moment, she wanted to strangle him, but since he was a vampire, that probably wouldn’t work on him.
“I am sorry, Rebecca. I have sworn to keep out of your life, and I will keep that oath.”
She took a deep sigh and allowed herself a minute to calm down. If he had not been following her around, she would probably be dead by now. Suddenly with Peter standing here inside her apartment, he did not seem scary any longer.
“No, it’s all right,” she told him. “I’m just unnerved from everything that just happened.”
Peter walked around her apartment, and she saw him taking everything in with his keen vision. Rodney, her old and very fat cat, came scurrying out of the bedroom to see what was going on. Peter and Rodney eyed each other for a minute. Then Peter bent to the cat and picked him up in his arms. He petted the cat, and Rebecca heard soft purring.
“You have a nice home, Rebecca,” Peter told her in a polite manner.
“I would offer you something to drink,” she said. “However, considering you’re a vampire, I guess that’s probably not a good idea.”
“I just want to make sure that you were not injured tonight and that you’ll be safe.”
Rebecca rummaged through her shoulder bag resting on the coffee table and pulled the thumb drive from it. She went over to her desk by the window overlooking the street outside and flipped open her laptop. She plugged in the thumb drive to the USB connection and began to off-load the files onto her hard drive.
“Look, Peter, I’m fine. I appreciate you worrying about me, but you really don’t have to.” She started opening some software on her machine. “I’ve got everything I need right here to keep me safe. Once this story I’m working on breaks tomorrow, I don’t think the people who sent those thugs after me tonight will try anything again.”
Peter set Rodney down on the floor, and the cat scampered over to hide under her feet. Peter watched her sitting in front of her computer for a moment but did not speak.
“It’s been really good for me to speak with you again,” he finally told her. “I am happy to finally see the inside of your apartment.”
She looked over the top of her computer at him. “Will you not follow me anymore, Peter? Just let me get on with my life? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you were there tonight. Only no more of this ex-lover stalker shit, okay?”
“I know you still have negative feelings for me,” he said. “I promise I will not disturb you again.”
Rebecca never thought a vampire could get a hurt look on his face, but Peter came as close to it as she ever wanted to see.
“Peter, I don’t mean to be rude to you after what you did for me tonight.” She got up from her computer and came across her room to him. This vampire had a way of driving her crazy. “But you have to understand that what you did to me out there in the desert wasn’t okay. You don’t just go around scaring people like that.”
“I know.” He hung his head down. There was no fight left in him.
She didn’t care if she was hurting his feelings. At that moment, it was all coming back to her in a torrent, and she had been waiting the last year to finally get this off her chest.
“Might I remind you that you took me out to the desert with the intention of killing me!”
“Actually to make you into a…”
“I don’t give a crap, Peter!” she screamed at him louder than she had intended. Rodney ran back into the bedroom. “You kept me a prisoner out there! You drugged me! You sucked my blood! It took two months for the bite marks on my thighs to clear up! You got me so horny on your blood that I had sex with every man out there. You even watched Ian and I have sex, you perverted bastard!”
“I’m sorry,” Peter answered sadly. “I didn’t think you minded the physical act of love. The men were accomplished lovers. I thought you enjoyed being taken by them.”
“Do you know I even went to therapy for six months after I got out of your place?” She paced past him and raised her hands into the air. “The only problem with that was the therapist thought I was crazy when I told him I had been injected with a vampire’s saliva, with his blood, and with his sperm. He thought I was just a nymphomaniac who liked to screw cute guys.” She still had to resist an urge to strike out at him. “Do you remember what I told you that night after you and I had sex?”
“Yes. You told me you hated me. You said you would always hate me. Such painful words as those I am not likely to ever forget.”
“Don’t think just because you saved my life tonight anything has changed. I still hate you!”
“I’m sorry I’ve caused you pain.” He held his head down. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible.
“Well, you did cause me pain,” she mocked him. Her anger was racing through her now. “Do you know I haven’t even slept with anyone since I left your castle?”
“I know,” he told her.
She almost lost control of herself then and wanted to run to him and slap him as hard as she could. She forced her emotion down at the last minute. “I forgot you’ve been stalking me all around San Francisco for the last year, so of course you would know if I’d gotten laid or not, wouldn’t you?” Her voice was derisive and hateful.
“Personally, Rebecca, I don’t think there are any men here who are good enough for you.”
She flung open her door and pointed out to the hallway. “You’re a vampire. You can’t be here in my place unless I give you permission, right?”
“Correct
.”
“Then get the fuck out of here!” she screamed at him. “I don’t give you permission to be here anymore you filthy vampire!”
He moved passed her in a blur and was back outside in the hallway. He stared at her with pleading eyes. For a moment she was afraid he was going to try and hypnotize her, but then she knew they were beyond that in their relationship.
“It’ll be getting daylight pretty soon, Peter. You should go.”
“Yes…Well, I don’t have far to go.” He was really shamefaced when he told her the next. “You see, I’ve been staying in the basement of your apartment.”
Then he was gone. An openmouthed Rebecca stared out into the hall after him.
* * * *
Rebecca looked up through the fog to the sunlight above. It was early the next morning, and she was walking down hill to her newsroom. She had barely allowed herself two hours of sleep the previous night. Now this morning she was prepared with a dozen talking points to bring up to her bosses at the network. She had everything in her laptop computer she needed to know about Black Creek Oil, and hoped the brass would allow her to turn all the data into the federal prosecutor’s office this morning. Of course there was also the little matter of the attempt on her life that needed to be turned in, too.
She was lugging the laptop down the hill with her in the shoulder bag. The morning was cool, but a light jacket sufficed to keep her warm. The early morning car and foot traffic was swarming around her on the streets as the city came to life.
Suddenly her mind had become overloaded with new events. It was about time, since the last year of her life had been pretty boring. Today she was going to break the biggest news story of her career, the story that might actually put her on top in her field. Something like that didn’t exactly happen every day. Peter was also back in her life and sleeping in her basement.
“Damn you, Peter,” she swore under her breath as she made the trip down the hill toward her office. “Don’t think about him, Rebecca. He isn’t really in your life now because he has never really been in your life. The guy can’t help being what he is, but he is definitely not a part of your life.” She talked to herself as she walked. There was no chance of anyone hearing her over the roar of traffic on the passing street. Only a single thought of the vampire and it had her so angry that she was talking to herself.
