The security footage bothered him. Aaron moved way too fast. And he had that look about him, a ferocity matching his speed and force. It brought to mind a quote from Shakespeare: “Imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage and lend the eye a terrible aspect.”
He had a hunch Aaron was probably a killer. He decided right then and there he’d never be foolish enough to face Aaron Pilan without first stacking the situation in his favor. Fifty yards of distance and a good sniper rifle oughta do the trick. Any closer and that kid would surely get the best of him.
* * * *
Chapter 25
“I’m supposed to sit here and wait for you to get off work to go see this cabron? No. We go now. I want to know where the fuck he is and what the fuck he’s doing with my money.” Juan Carlos sat there tapping his fingers in irritation on Kramer’s desk.
He had surprised Kramer, showing up at the Caesar’s Palace unannounced at 4:30 in the afternoon, far earlier than expected.
“I got you covered on the other fifty. Forget him. Deal with me. I can have the other fifty thousand by tomorrow. Fuck Demarco.” Kramer spoke boldly, but he had no balls to back it up. He thinks I’m lying to him. He doesn’t believe me. I’m so screwed.
“You know what gringo. I’m not worried about the money. I know you got money. In your house. In your Lexus. In your retirement plan. I wanna know who dis estúpido cabron is buying from. If I find out you playin me, I’m gonna fuck you up gringo.”
His stomach flopped, butt-hole puckered. I’m gonna shit myself.
Kramer flinched as Juan Carlos slammed his hand down on the desk. “Okay! I believe you. Come on. We gonna go check his house, inside and out. See what we gonna find. Vamos a ver!”
* * * *
Anastasia awoke an hour before sunset. Her head pulsated with a throbbing pain. The slightest move pounded a tiny little hammer against the insides of her temples. As soon as she sat up she broke into a cold sweat. I need to throw up. The punishing synergy of hang-over, extreme anemia, and withdrawals was worse than any sickness she’d ever known. It took her several minutes to untangle from her lover’s limbs. Moving presented an almost insurmountable challenge.
After what seemed like an hour, she made it off the bed and dragged her sorry ass to the kitchen.
Her eyes scanned the contents of the refrigerator. Apple juice, yeah, that’s good. Now something to eat, maybe that cheese. She rifled through the drawers looking for a knife to cut off a hunk of the cheddar cheese, latching onto a short paring knife. The stiff block of cheese resisted the small blade.
Ouch! God damnit! She watched the blood well from her slashed fingertip. She giggled. “Where’s a vampire when you need one?”
The food and drink settled her stomach, but now the aches set in. The very marrow of her bones radiated an ache throughout her whole body. She needed their bite. NOW. She stumbled to the bathroom, smearing blood all over the medicine cabinet from her cut finger as she dug frantically for the Oxycontin.
“Thank you God, oh thank you, thank you, thank you!” She tore open the bottle of Oxy’s and downed three forty mg. pills. The effect of withdrawals still strong as ever, she headed straight out to the back patio to grab another bottle of merlot. In minutes she had guzzled over half of it, belching and smiling as the buzz overtook her jitters and anxiety. The opiates started kicking in nicely as well. Bottle in hand, she sashayed back to check on her lovers who were still out cold in bed.
She crawled in to cuddle up against her new husband’s cool, naked body, feeling no pain, and quite happily sedated on Oxy’s. Just as she drifted off to sleep on the haze of strong drug and drink, a powerful hand seized her foot and yanked her out of bed to fall on the floor in a thud.
“What the fuck?”
Two sets of hands jerked her to a standing position. She could barely see through her blurry focus.
“What the fuck is going on? Who killed all these fuckin people?”
The man had a thick Spanish accent, and he was very angry. He smacked her hard. She squeaked. Her head rocked back from the blow. It didn’t really hurt. Her face felt like rubber. She was way too high to feel much pain.
She saw two faces. Whoopsie! He looks so funny, angry and stuff. She giggled. “You like it rough tough guy? So do I!” She laughed in his face.
“This fuckin puta is high! Isidro––get her dressed. Take her out to la trocka.”
He handed her off to another short dark-haired Hispanic guy.
“Noooo. I’m not going with you!” She slurred, trying to push him away as he dragged her off.
He tightened his grip, locking down on her wrists. “You can go nice, or you can go the hard way. A mí no importa.” She got the message.
* * * *
JC turned on Kramer with menace in his eyes. “Who the hell did this? Esa chingadera está bien malo! This is some fucked shit! What the hell you gettin’ me into?”
Kramer shook his head looking clueless. JC pointed to the bed where the two pale naked bodies lay, seemingly asleep. “Those motherfuckers are dead! Some overdose or somethin, and you got them other two in the garage!”
He stammered, “I don’t know! Oh God, I don’t know anything! You gotta believe me. I had nothing to do with this! The whole world has gone insane!”
“Are you settin’ me up? You got the cops waitin for me outside?”
“NO! NO! NO!”
“Cálmate guey! Tell me who could do this. Somebody into serious shit here. You know something puto. Tell me!”
“I don’t have a clue! But I bet she does!” He pointed to Anastasia dressed in her navy blue Gucci dress from the night before. “Those two must have killed Demarco and Oso, and then she poisoned them or something, I don’t know. Maybe they overdosed. I do not know! We’ll get some answers when she comes out of it.” He kept pointing at Ana, who stuck her tongue out at him.
“Fuck you too Kramer.” She giggled at her own snarky reply.
JC grabbed Kramer to pull him up close nose to nose. “Listen to me pinche gringo motherfucker. We gonna talk to this puta. We gonna find out what happened. We gonna find out where the fuck my money is. And if you lyin to me, I’m gonna cut off your balls and shove em up your ass.”
He let him go, shoving him off and turned to yell at his other sidekick Pedro. “I want her purse, her cell phone, everything. Vamos a ver!”
* * * *
Aaron awoke to the lingering scents of sweaty bodies, old blood, and the familiar, noxious odor of ‘Nautica Oceans’ aftershave. He and Michelle looked at one another, “Kramer,” they said. “Recently.”
Michelle spoke what he already suspected to be true, “Anastasia’s gone.”
His jaw clenched, a grinding snap-pop sound. He glared at her and spoke what they both knew to be true. “Someone’s with Kramer, and they’ve taken her.”
“I promised I’d never leave her. There’s no way she’d ever leave me. It’s not possible.”
“She will need you now. Her withdrawals would be severe.” Michelle’s eyes held understanding.
She reassured, “We will find her. Don’t worry. She is your bloodslave and she cannot be hidden from you. You have a very special connection.”
He never realized the truth of it, but now that she said it, he knew it to be so. He did have a feeling. “She’s still here in Las Vegas.”
He reached out with his mind, picturing Anastasia in all her brilliant glory, her smile, her laughter. She was there, not far away. “They’re moving north, heading out of town.”
He sensed her mind, a foggy haze. “She’s heavily drugged, but unhurt.”
“We will find her, I promise.” Michelle hugged him close, lending strength with her love and support.
He tensed up in her embrace. “She is much more than a bloodslave. She’s my wife. We’ll get her back tonight. If I have to kill every man in Vegas to find her, we’ll get her back!”
* * * *
>
Kramer’s cell phone buzzed. “Hello?”
“Bonjour. Monsieur Kramer?”
“Yes! Michelle? Is that you? You’re alive? We … I thought you were dead!”
“Non. I am very much alive and well. What are you doing with Anastasia?”
“Uh …” Juan Carlos snatched the phone out of his hand.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Michelle.”
“Chingao madre. What the fuck is going on? I want answers! We got a big problem. I don’t get the truth, some people gonna get hurt real bad.”
“I want Anastasia alive and unharmed.”
“Ala verga. Dis bitch está bien brava! Everybody wants something. I want something too. I want my money and I want some answers. If I don’t like the answers, I’m gonna start cutting little pieces off dis bonita putita with the pretty black hair. Me entiendes?”
“There is no need to make threats. We will cooperate as you say. How much money? Where?”
“Hay que bueno. I want my fifty thousand, all of it. Then we gonna have a little talk about you, and the people you workin for. We gonna get dis shit straight or somebody’s gonna get real fucked up. Meet me at the Truck stop on Highway 15 and 93.” He ended the call.
JC tossed the cell back at Kramer and turned around in the front passenger seat to face Anastasia in the back seat. He reached out and brushed his fingers across her cheek softly.
“I know you got something to tell me. You talk to me now, and you can go home all nice and pretty. You keep quiet … ain’t gonna be so good for you.”
Anastasia looked him in the eye, her gaze dilated and glossy. “He’s coming for me. He’ll be here soon. You guys don’t even know. You’re so fucked.”
He smacked her across the face with a backhand. Her head snapped sideways, a trickle of blood sliding down her lip. She licked it away and smiled. “I can forgive you, but he never will.”
* * * *
Aaron and Michelle arrived at the truck stop in Demarco’s black Tahoe at precisely the appointed time. An arm reached out the driver’s side of a white extended cab truck, waving them to follow.
They followed the truck onto a dirt road turn-off until the gravel path hit a dead end. Like a scene from a gritty Hollywood film, Juan Carlos stepped out of the white truck with a semi-automatic pistol held to Anastasia’s head. His two sidekicks Pedro and Isidro were heavily armed with AK-47’s, standing to either side. Kramer slinked out last, hiding behind JC and Anastasia.
Michelle stepped out first, then Aaron. They had dressed simply, Michelle in a sleeveless top and cutoff shorts, he in a white t-shirt and blue jeans. They could have been a young couple out for a day at the beach, surfers, tourists. They had purposely dressed not to impress, wolves in sheep’s clothing.
JC sent Pedro to frisk them. Pedro shoved both of them against the Tahoe.
“Stay there, puta, if you know what’s good for you.”
He ran his hands over Aaron briskly then turned to Michelle with a salacious smile.
“Now you, conchita. Spread your legs.”
Pedro’s hands lingered at Michelle’s breasts and crotch. Pedro finally nodded to JC indicating they were clean.
“Where’s the money?” JC yelled as Pedro returned to his side, sniffing his fingers with a smirk.
“Ana first, then the money.” Aaron yelled back.
“No te pases la verga cabron! The money or she dies!” JC cocked the pistol against Ana’s temple.
Aaron grabbed a black leather briefcase from the front seat, and walked towards them.
“Ala verga! No! Throw it to me! You stay right there puto!” He turned to Pedro with smirk. “Somos Colombianos guey. No te juegas con nosotros!” We are Columbians, don’t play with us.
Aaron caught Ana’s eyes. She felt an impression. Drop now. She dropped.
Aaron flung the suitcase hard and fast, nailing JC solidly in the face. Pedro and Isidro raised their assault rifles and opened fire on nothing but air. Aaron and Michelle were already gone, closing the distance inhumanly fast.
As JC tried to draw down on him with his pistol, Aaron tore out Isidro’s throat, knocked the rifle from his hands, and lashed out at JC. He smashed JC hard in the left side of the head. He went straight down onto the truck, head bouncing off the wheel well.
Michelle hit Pedro with an open-handed slash, tearing into his belly and tossing him back three feet to land in the dirt. He lost the rifle struggling to keep his guts from spilling out.
As soon as the shooting began, Kramer screamed like a girl and took off running the opposite direction, deeper into the desert. Aaron hesitated for a couple seconds, debating whether or not to give chase. Michelle decided it by taking off in pursuit of Kramer. Ana rose up from the ground, rushing to be reunited with her husband. As he intercepted her, JC regained his senses enough to take aim and fire off four shots at Aaron.
He dodged the first three shots, twisting out the way. The fourth shot hit him in the back shoulder through and through. The bullet continuing on through Anastasia’s left breast and heart, and exited, leaving a gaping wound out her back.
Aaron dropped to the ground sheltering Ana. He rolled and leaped up to slice through JC’s torso from pubic bone to sternum, claws fully extended, cutting his belly open wide. JC’s intestines snaked out, coiling about his feet. Juan took two steps forward and tripped over his own intestinal tract, falling to his hands and knees. The remainder of his internal organs poured out onto the dirt. His hands worked frantically, cramming his guts back inside, dirt, sand, mud, and all.
Aaron picked up his beautiful bride from the dirt and held her cradled gently in his arms. He bit her without feeding, solely for the purpose of sharing his venom. Ana gurgled, blood coming out her mouth as she fought to breath.
“Aaron … I love you … hold me … so cold.” Her body temperature leaked out as she bled through his arms onto the desert floor.
He knew she wouldn’t last long. He could smell death encroaching. He saw the acceptance of her fate in her mind and spirit. She was happy, awash in the wonderful euphoria of his bite and the joy of being together with him one last time. As he released his bite, his beautiful wife’s heart beat stuttered.
“Michelle help me! Can’t we save her?” He cried out, speaking both aloud and straight into her mind with his plea.
Michelle, occupied in the hunt, sent him a psychic blast directive, “Feed her your blood now!”
He brought Ana’s lips to his chest, where he bled profusely from his own injuries.
“Drink my blood, Ana. Please, baby, drink it!”
She gasped and choked for air, struggling to breath as he rubbed her lips around on his chest. He pulled her away so she could breath. She spoke in a whisper.
“I … love … you … my husband.” With this exhale her heart stopped completely. He followed her mind as she experienced the sublime serenity of letting go of this existence and all the struggle and pain that came with it. Her parting thoughts were of him, gratitude. She was grateful for the wonderful bliss, floating off in a tranquil sea of venom induced heaven.
“Oh god Anastasia, my wife, I love you. Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.” He held her, rocking her lifeless body, crying tears of blood onto the desiccated Nevada soil.
* * * *
Michelle caught Kramer, slashing at his back with her razor claws. He went down hard, tumbling through the dirt screaming in pain. The skin on his left shoulder flapped, exposing muscle and bone. He tried to get up, but his ankle twisted in the melee. He crawled on hands and knees for a couple feet till she kicked him hard in the gut, flipping him up into the air to land on his back.
She straddled his chest, shoving him flat. Her jaw unhinged, a gaping maw wide open in his face, as though she’d swallow his head whole. Her fully elongated fangs snapped shut with an audible ‘clap’ a scant millimeter from his nose.
He knew true terror for the first time in his life. She read it in his aura as his bowels
evacuated. She smelled it, the scent heightening her bloodlust, driving her instincts wild. She bit down hard into his neck, sucking massive gulps of his lifeblood. Screaming and beating at her head and shoulders, she brought him to orgasm after terrified orgasm. In the middle of his sexual ecstasy, she reached down between his legs, sliced through his designer slacks and seized his convulsing ballsack. His climax wetting her hand, she squeezed and yanked hard and fast, pulling his scrotum and testicles out by their bloody roots. She tossed the useless flesh aside. He didn’t need it anymore.
Kramer screamed till he lost consciousness.
Aaron’s overwhelming grief slammed into her psyche, distracting her from finishing the job. She cried out in the night in anguish, feeling all his pain and sorrow along with her own. Tears of blood running down her face in rivulets, she rejoined him to mourn Anastasia’s passing. They held their dead lover together, each expressing the grief of the two combined via their wide open psychic link.
They stayed there for a time, wrapped in a cocoon of sorrow and shared pain. Seeing Aaron’s growing weakness, she focused on priorities.
“You must feed. You’re too weak. Your wound is serious.” She examined his shoulder.
He cried out in anguish. “I won’t defile her body!”
She pointed to the Colombians. Aaron noticed Juan Carlos was still alive. “He’ll do.”
Juan saw them coming for him and started crawling away frantically. Without his hands to hold them in, his guts fell out into the dirt again, tangling at his knees as he crawled.
“Son demonios. Vete detrás de mí Satanás.” They are demons. Get thee behind me Satan.
Aaron snatched him up off the ground by his hair to pull him up face-to-face with one hand. “You owe me your life for hers. You can never bleed enough. There is not blood enough in this world to make up for her life.”
The Nightlife: Las Vegas (The Nightlife Series) Page 18
