Have Teeth, Will Bite

by L D Marr

  But now, with his enhanced powers, Buttons was able to calm the emotions of his lady loves. As he approached, he’d stare into their eyes and mentally speak his hypnotic message.

  “Relax. I won’t hurt you. I’m here only to love you,” and so on.

  Things had been much improved in the love department since then. Of course, the females weren’t acting like their usual selves because they were hypnotized. But Buttons knew that hypnosis only worked when the subject wanted to take the suggestion at some level. So, he didn’t feel guilty about what he was doing. Cats seldom felt much guilt anyway.

  Miss Gray purred as Buttons groomed her neck to seal the bite holes he’d just made. Leaving an open wound to become infected would be just as deadly to her as if he’d drank all her blood. Once again, the thought of the short life she was destined for and her eventual loss gave him a sharp stab of remorse.

  What would it be like to be a human and be able to stay with one mate all the time? he wondered. To have an ongoing relationship with just one who you know so well instead of having to find strange new ones all the time? Why do humans have the advantage of females who can mate all year round, but cats don’t?

  Then Buttons thought of Cowboy Bob and chuckled.

  Even though humans have that advantage, a lot of them toss it aside and go from one mate to the next. But is Cowboy Bob a good example of a typical human? he wondered.

  “You have such deep and philosophical thoughts tonight,” said Miss Gray, who had been reading his mind.

  “Yeah. I’m just that kind of a guy,” Buttons answered her mentally.

  She curled up into a ball. He wrapped his larger body around her and enjoyed the feeling of fur blending with fur. A sweet bliss that humans could never know.

  Humans have a lot of disadvantages, but they also have some advantages, Buttons thoughts continued. But now, I can do lots of things I couldn’t before I became a supernatural being. I wonder if I should make Lady Gray a vampire too. Then I could have a forever mate. The kind of mate that Roz wants. The kind Cowboy Bob says he wants too. But will they ever get what they want?

  Miss Gray nestled against him, but she didn’t say anything in response to those thoughts. Either she didn’t hear, or she didn’t understand.

  Buttons thought some more about transforming her. It seemed like the pros outweighed the cons, but could he be missing something?

  Now an odd sense of anxiety began to creep into his awareness. Buttons tried to ignore it, but it grew. Then an image of Roz formed in his mind.

  Roz is in danger! he finally thought. I must get back to her!

  Button’s loud, anxious thoughts had stirred Miss Gray.

  “What? You’re leaving me?” she asked him mentally.

  “Yes. I need to go now, but I’ll be back for you. I promise,” said Buttons.

  Then he dashed away from her at a speed too fast for her eyes to see.

  Chapter 24

  Outside on the street across from the saloon, Jonah stood looking up at Roz’s window. The second floor of bedrooms was quite high up because of the barroom’s tall-ceilinged first floor.

  The night’s dark shadows hid Jonah from view, but the street was empty anyway. He’d been standing there for hours. Roz, her disturbing revelations, and the recent murder of Gertie were all on his mind. Jonah had been avoiding the noisy bar. It was hard to think in there, and there was no reason to watch Cowboy Bob anymore. Roz had explained the mystery of the man’s strangeness.

  With Madame behind bars, the saloon dancers were safe. But Jonah wasn’t completely satisfied with the situation. His gut told him there was still a missing piece to the puzzle. He just didn’t have any idea how to find it. And now his complicated feelings for Roz were making it hard to focus on that mystery.

  I might be wrong, but I feel like the unsolved questions about this murder and what Roz told me about herself and Cowboy Bob are related, he kept thinking over and over. Could Roz still be in some danger? Then I need to keep watching her. Or am I just using that as an excuse to spy on her?

  In any case, Jonah was glued to his spot on the street. Something compelled him to stay there for whatever reason. Watching. Waiting. For what, he didn’t know.

  He saw when the light in her room went out. Around the same time, the lights in the other rooms went out too. The occasional soft sound of voices carried by the wind—both male and female—reached him for about an hour after that. Then there was complete silence.

  Jonah kept watching.

  A few hours later, the dark shadows in Roz’s room seemed to shift and change.

  Is someone moving around up there, or am I imagining that? he wondered.

  The faintest sound of a male voice reached his ears, followed by more shifting of the shadows in the room. Jonah tensed up, resisting the urge to rush across the street and into the saloon.

  Could that be Cowboy Bob? Or some other man in her room? he wondered.

  After a few more masculine whispers, the shadows stopped moving.

  I need to know what Roz does with other men if we’re engaged to be married! Jonah decided. But I’m not going to rush into her room in the middle of the night just because I heard some whispers. I’ll ask her about it the next time I see her. I don’t think she’d lie to me, but anyway, I’m good at knowing when people are telling the truth.

  Jonah made that decision, but the disturbing feeling of wrongness and danger was still with him. He stayed put in the dark corner of the doorway—waiting, watching, and listening.

  Chapter 25

  Roz felt the prick of the stake’s sharp point breaking through the skin of her left breast. She grabbed the arm that held it with both of her hands and pushed back as hard as she could. But the man’s wiry strength was even greater than her own enhanced physical power. With rising panic, Roz struggled against the vicelike grip the man’s legs had around her body.

  In response, he gripped her tighter and laughed.

  “Heh heh. You’ll not distract me with the offer of your unclean body, witch!” he said. “And you’ll get no pleasure from me. I’ll have me fun after the deed is done.”

  Anger and disgust burned through Roz, and she fought even harder. The arm the held the stake quavered and shook but kept pressing toward its goal—the center of her heart.

  Not this again! she thought. Why do these people keep using the weapon that will actually kill me? I need to stop him, or I’ll die now. And even though I’m not crazy about being a vampire, I’m not ready to die.

  Behind her, the man kept muttering.

  “Some say it’s a sin to use the dead for satisfaction. But you witches put the devil’s juice in me, so it’s only fitting that I spill it back out into your remains. It’s an exorcism of me own self, so it’s a holy act.”

  Roz was overwhelmed by fear and disgust.

  I won’t let him defile my dead body! she thought. I must do something to stop him!

  But in the position Roz was in, she knew there was only one thing she could do—bite the hand that covered her mouth and empty the man of his blood. She inhaled the scent of his skin so close to her nose.

  Not washed recently, it gave off a personal odor that was both rancid and salty. The skin smell mixed unappetizingly with the overpowering smell of spicy, sharp evil in his blood. Roz gagged behind the hand pressed over her mouth.

  I can’t drink that! It’s disgusting! she thought just as the stake began to sink into her chest.

  Self-preservation overruled Roz’s dietary preferences. Her mouth opened full wide, and she bit down hard into the hand that covered it.

  Instead of just her incisors breaking the skin in two places, all her teeth went into the man’s hand near the wrist. Hot blood gushed into her mouth from the artery that had been pierced by an incisor and several other wounds to smaller veins.

  The man howled, and Roz felt the stake that had been poking into her chest fall away. His legs were still wrapped around her, but their tight grip loosened.

/>   “What’s that? What’s going on?” With her supernatural hearing, Roz heard sleepy female voices coming from the rooms around her.

  Will they come in here to investigate? she wondered.

  But she couldn’t stop herself from what she was doing. To avoid any spills, Roz’s mouth clamped shut. Her mouth was filled with blood. Thick metallic blood ripe with the foul taste of recent evil.

  Ugh! Roz thought. I really don’t want to drink this filthy liquid.

  While she procrastinated, her mouth filled to bursting. Then once again, her instincts took over. A hunger deep inside her woke up and demanded to be satisfied. Roz felt the undeniable need for the full meal of the blood of an entire body, not just the few drinks she’d had from Jonah. She began gulping down the fast-flowing blood.

  Behind her the man moaned. He pressed his body up against hers.

  “Can’t resist me manly body, can you, witch?” he said.

  Roz jabbed an elbow back into his ribs. He grunted but barely moved, and she kept drinking. She sensed that his blood loss would soon be fatal, she but didn’t stop drinking—wouldn’t stop until she’d drained him of every last drop.

  Then the man stopped talking, and his body went limp.

  Chapter 26

  Several rooms away down the hall, Cowboy Bob was dragged out of a deep, drunken sleep by the loud noise of a man’s shout. The shout was followed by the sound of women’s voices and the small rustling sounds of their movement. Doors opened. But none of them went out into the hallway. Yet.

  Loretta woke up too.

  “Did you hear a man yell?” she asked him.

  “Yes. I heard it,” he answered. “You stay here. He could be dangerous. I’ll go check it out.”

  After the shout, Cowboy Bob’s acute ears picked up the sound of sucking and a man’s obscene whispers. He smelled the aroma of free-flowing blood—dark murderous blood.

  Cowboy Bob thought he knew what was happening, and he also knew that things could get out of control. He got out of bed in a flash and pulled on his long johns, but Loretta sat up and grabbed onto his arm.

  “No, Bob! If it’s dangerous, you might get hurt. You don’t even carry a gun,” she protested.

  He chuckled.

  “Now don’t you worry, Loretta. I don’t need no gun. And it’ll be a lot more dangerous for him than it will be for me,” he said in his fake Texas drawl.

  Loretta took her hand from his arm and crossed both her arms over her chest, but she smiled up at him.

  “Don’t be long, stranger,” she said.

  Then Cowboy Bob turned and left the room.

  ⌛

  Out in the hallway, Cowboy Bob saw sleepy female faces peeking out of partly open doorways. They all stared in the direction of Roz’s room. Her door was half-way open. The soft noises and blood smell were detected by his ears and nose only.

  “Cowboy Bob! Thank goodness you’re here,” several of the women said when they saw him.

  “Sure. It’s probably just a little man trouble,” he spun around to address them all. “Now why don’t you all just go back inside your rooms and close your doors, so’s Roz can have a little privacy. I know you all wouldn’t want an audience for your own personal problems. I’ll handle whatever’s going on here.”

  The women stared back at him, but none of them moved from their positions.

  Hmm. The lure of a juicy scandal is just too much for them, he thought. But I can’t take the risk of them finding out what’s going on in there and then talking about it. I’d have to move again, and I’ve only just taken up residence here. Roz would have to leave too. And what would happen with Loretta? No. I’m not ready to go yet, but fortunately, there’s a simple remedy to this problem. A bit of a challenge with so many at once, but nothing I can’t accomplish.

  Cowboy Bob paused for a moment to summon the full force of his mental power. Then he pushed it out in a hypnotic message to the entire group.

  “You will go into your rooms and close and lock your doors. You won’t remember that you awakened this night. You won’t remember anything that happened this night. Now go!” he commanded both out loud and mentally.

  In unison, the women backed away inside their rooms and pulled the doors shut. Cowboy Bob heard locks clicking all the way down the hall. Then he heard an unexpected sound behind him.

  “Well I’m not going, and I’m not forgetting,” said a male voice. “I’m engaged to be married to that woman.”

  Cowboy Bob turned and saw Jonah the deputy near the stairs at the end of the hall.

  Curses! he thought. How much does this mortal know?

  Completely absorbed by the extreme concentration necessary to hypnotize the large group of women, Cowboy Bob hadn’t been aware of Jonah’s approach.

  Oh well. Perhaps as the paramour of a vampire, he might as well know everything about her. Maybe that knowledge will make him lose interest in Roz. And that will clear the way for my own advances, Cowboy Bob thought on the bright side.

  “Very well,” he said to Jonah. “If you are Roz’s finance, then you have a right to be here. Come this way.”

  Cowboy Bob gestured for Jonah to go first. But as the deputy walked past him, Cowboy Bob held out arm to stop him.

  “Do you have any silver bullets in that gun you’re wearing?” he asked.

  “No. They’re just regular lead ones,” Jonah answered.

  From his towering height of six and a half feet, Cowboy Bob looked down a few inches down into Jonah’s eyes and saw that he spoke the truth. He nodded his approval.

  “Proceed,” he said.

  Jonah walked the rest of the distance and stepped into the doorway to Roz’s room. He stood frozen there, staring inside but not going in. Cowboy Bob approached and stood just behind him, looking over his shoulder.

  ⌛

  Buttons alighted on Roz’s window sill just as Jonah and Cowboy Bob appeared in her doorway. Button’s head swirled around to take in the entire scene. To his sharp eyes with their enhanced nighttime vision, it was all crystal clear.

  It looks like Roz has the one on the bed under control, he thought with approval. But I’m not so sure about the other two in the doorway.

  He glared with eyes that glowed orange in the direction of Jonah and Cowboy Bob.

  They’re both a lot bigger than me, and they think they’re powerful, but they have no clue what destruction a vampire cat can bring, he thought.

  Buttons arched his back. He fluffed his fur up into a giant puff ball. Then he growled low in his throat and hissed at the two intruders.

  ⌛

  At first, Jonah didn’t know what to make of the sight that met his eyes in Roz’s room. She was in bed with another man!

  But what he saw was strangely not what you’d expect with two people caught in an amorous encounter. The man’s legs and arms were wrapped limply around Roz, but they were both fully dressed. His dark clothes faded into the darkness, except for the white collar above his shirt.

  The man wasn’t moving, but Roz held one of his wrists to her mouth. And she was making gulping noises!

  What she told me is all true! he realized.

  When Roz looked up and saw him, she tossed the man’s arm away from her mouth.

  “Are you going to shoot me, Jonah?” she asked.

  The fog in his mind cleared somewhat, and Jonah realized that he’d drawn his gun without realizing it. The safety was off, and his finger was twitching on the trigger. He was holding it pointed in the direction of the bed.

  Was I going to shoot somebody? Who? he wondered.

  But he didn’t know. Then Jonah noticed Roz’s angry black cat on the windowsill. He met Button’s eyes and felt a chill. He put his gun back in its holster.

  “Go inside,” Jonah heard Cowboy Bob say from behind him.

  He felt the man’s large hand on his shoulder pushing him forward. Half unwillingly, Jonah trudged into the room. Cowboy Bob walked in behind him and shut the door. Jonah heard the soft click of it
s lock. He stared down at Roz in a daze, waiting for somebody to explain things but at the same time dreading that explanation.

  Roz gave the man behind her a shove and sat up in her bed. Her movement caused something to clatter onto the floor. She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and delicately wiped drops of blood from the corners of her mouth.

  Jonah looked down. In the room’s dim light, he made out a sharp-pointed stake and a mallet on the floor a few feet away.

  Roz spoke. “He was going to kill me, so I had to kill him instead.”

  Now Jonah took a closer look at the man lying still on her bed. His skin glowed with a ghastly pallor in the dim moonlight shining through the curtain. His vacant eyes stared out above a sharp beak of a nose.

  “I think this man is Brother Thatcher. Are you saying he’s the one who killed Gertie? That Madame wasn’t the killer?” Jonah asked in a confused voice.

  “No. Madame killed Gertie, and she tried to kill Roz too,” said Cowboy Bob.

  Jonah jolted at the sound of Cowboy Bob’s deep voice. He’d almost forgotten that he was in the room.

  “But this man was involved in those crimes,” Cowboy Bob continued. “And when Madame failed to kill Roz, he came here to do it himself.”

  “But why?” Jonah asked.

  He noticed that Cowboy Bob wasn’t speaking with his usual fake Texas accent. That confused him too, but it seemed like the least important issue right now, so he didn’t ask about it.

  “I don’t know the reason behind these killings. Perhaps we’ll never know,” said Cowboy Bob.

  “I believe this man was the same witch hunter who came after me in Salem,” said Roz. “He kept calling me a witch and saying that no witch ever escaped him.”