First Class [Diablo Falls]

by Damon Kinney

  “So what do you do for a living, Sagan?” Terrance asked.

  “I’m a teacher. Eighth grade, world and American history.”

  “And how long have you been teaching?”

  “About a month. I just started in August after graduating in June.”

  He laughed and said, “You sure you’re old enough to be drinking that beer?”

  “More than old enough; I turned twenty-two over the summer.”

  “Are you from here originally?” he asked.

  “Born and raised. And you? Where are you from?”

  “I’m from all over,” he said in a world-weary tone.

  “Army brat?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “And you came to Diablo Falls for…?”

  Terrance finished off his mug and looked down the bar for the bartender, but she was tied up in what appeared to be a serious conversation with someone.

  “Haven’t quite figured that out yet,” Terrance said without taking his eyes off her.

  “You don’t know why you’re here?” I asked.

  He finally got the bartender’s attention and raised two fingers for another round. “Let’s just say I heard about the place and decided I needed to visit.”

  “How long will you stay?”

  “Until something tells me it’s time to leave.”

  His cryptic smile told me I wasn’t getting the whole story. Fair enough. He was only a distraction, so I didn’t need to know much.

  “And what about work?”

  “I’ve made some smart investments over the years, so I don’t have to work.”

  “Google? Amazon? Microsoft?”

  “Real estate, mostly in France and Italy.”

  We continued with the small talk, and after two beers I was feeling better about my night. Terrance was a fascinating guy. There was the hint of an accent in his speech, but I couldn’t quite place it. Vaguely European, maybe. And that devastatingly handsome face, those espresso-dark eyes. His clean-shaven face was showing signs of razor stubble, but it just made him look… sexier.

  Midnight arrived too soon. I wasn’t Cinderella, and it was Friday night, but I still felt strange about continuing to drink in a bar with a man I’d just met when my date flaked out on me a few hours earlier.

  “I should be going,” I said.

  Terrance looked at his watch. “Yeah, me too.” That watch looked expensive. Besides, who the hell wears a wristwatch these days?

  The bartender was still talking to the man down the bar, so Terrance took a couple of bills from his wallet and tucked them under his empty pint glass.

  We walked out into the crisp early autumn night air. I always loved this time of year. Sweaters are my second skin.

  “You said you’re renting a house?” I asked as I requested an Uber.

  “Yeah, near the base of Clearspring Mountain.”

  “That makes you a mountain man,” I laughed. “Temporarily, at least.”

  “I guess it does. I think I’ll walk home once your ride shows up.”

  “That’s a long walk, Terrance. A couple of miles, at least.”

  “Gotta stay healthy,” he said. “Maybe we could go out for a real dinner while I’m here? I hear the hand-rolled blistered watercress croquettes and locally sourced essence of lemon at The Moirai are to die for."

  I giggled and he looked me over intently, his eyes piercing and probing. It should have felt uncomfortable, but I was fine with it.

  “I’d like that,” I said. Maybe a date with a sexy older guy could be interesting.

  “It’s a date, then.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder whether he meant a date or a date date. He handed me his phone and asked me to enter my name and number in his contacts. My Uber arrived just as I was handing it back to him.

  Glancing at my entry, he said, “Sagan Rafferty, it was a pleasure meeting you.”

  Before I could respond, he leaned in and planted a gentle kiss on my cheek. His lips were soft, but the razor stubble was rough and manly, and I felt myself flush.

  Climbing into the car, I said, “You too, Terrance… um, I don’t know your last name.”

  “Delacroix,” he said with a smile. “Terrance Delacroix.”

  As we pulled away, the flush continued. It was like a menopausal hot flash had hit me a few decades early.

  At home, I changed into my pajamas, wondering about this mysterious guy. He tried to be sly about it and probably thought I hadn’t noticed, but those were a couple of hundred-dollar bills he’d left on the bar to cover a twenty-dollar tab. What kind of man gives a tip of almost ten times the amount owed, at a dive bar no less?

  I guess it didn’t really matter anyway. Terrance was charming company and succeed at making me forget all about Brian. He was so handsome, so elegant and charming, so mind-bogglingly sexy. I’m a big believer in fate and had to consider the possibility that something compelled Brian to bring me to The Moirai so that I could meet Terrance. Stranger things had happened, right?

  Now the fact that my virginity had driven Brian away didn’t feel so bad at all.

  Besides, I’m sure there was someone out there more deserving of being my first.

  Terrance

  I made my way downstairs to the kitchen to make coffee, only to remember the previous day I had discovered that coffee beans might be the only thing lacking in this well-appointed kitchen.

  The house was great, especially for an indefinite-term rental. The owner was a human named Winston Berringer, an oilman who lived just east of Denver. He spent a month every summer in Diablo Falls, though God only knew why. The town was crawling with supernaturals and it was hard to imagine that even a moderately perceptive human wouldn’t have realized that. I thought perhaps the humans there had an inkling about those in their midst; I’ll made a mental note to figure out an unsuspicious way of asking Sagan next time I saw her.

  It’s strange how supernaturals dwelled totally undetected in a city in one location, while in other cities the humans had partial, or sometimes even full, knowledge of them. One of life’s little mysteries, I guessed, but it had been that way for centuries.

  Anyway, there was no coffee, so fuck my life. Now I would have to wait until sundown to get some, so I headed back up to the bedroom and dropped onto the comfy king bed. For an hour, I lay thinking about the previous night and how a simple kiss on the cheek had made me burn with desire.

  I would definitely enjoy both of the things I had planned for Sagan, but the one I was looking forward to the most required my cock, not my fangs.

  I finally drifted off to sleep, despite a raging hard-on.

  When I awoke, the sun was setting. I took my time slipping into some jeans and a T-shirt. Not my normal attire, but I didn’t want to stand out, and at my height blending in was difficult, even in the dark of night.

  Walking back into town only took about twenty minutes, but by the time I got there I was badly in need of that java. I spotted a coffee shopped named Hellspresso and knew I’d found the right place. A small purple-haired demon named Tallie took my order and handed me back a large coffee with a large dollop of unnecessary attitude.

  Fuck this town, I thought. The sooner I get out of there, the better. During my walk into town I had seen what I was pretty sure were shifters and witches, along with a definite angel. Now a demon with a nasty personality. All they needed were elves and faeries to complete the entire supernatural set.

  When I first started feeling the need to come to Diablo Falls, I googled the town’s name and learned that legend said it was founded by witches over a century ago. Witches building a town in the Wild West of early America was patently ridiculous, but Google was run by humans and those creatures will believe anything, no matter how outlandish.

  I took my coffee and sat on the outdoor patio and watched the deep lavender sky turn indigo. I pulled out my phone to check the news, then remembered I couldn’t seem to get a fucking signal in that hellhole.

  Al
l in all, I would much rather have been in my Paris mansion.

  Sagan’s face suddenly popped into mind, and I spent the new hour drinking my coffee and remembering every moment of the previous night.

  I made another mental note, this time to ask her about her name.

  A conversation across the patio caught my attention. Two women were speaking in hushed tones, but one of the voices sounded frightened to death, which was probably what alerted me to them in the first place. I focused my attention and heard a horror story.

  “This is the third time this week. But the other two were just urgent care.”

  “And this was the ER. Didn’t the doctors ask about the injuries?”

  “Of course, but Lucinda told them the pit bull had accidentally pushed her through the sliding door.”

  “Dios mio. You should go to the police, Elma. She’s your sister.”

  The first woman just shook her head sadly. “What does it matter. They won’t press charges unless Lucinda tells them he did it.”

  “If she won’t leave, you need to get out of that house and protect yourself and Lupe. Don’t risk your daughter’s safety.”

  I listened to them lamenting the tragic situation, one they obviously thought was hopeless. I knew it wasn’t, and I’d already heard enough to make up my mind.

  Now all I needed was an address.

  I didn’t need a picture or even a name because you could smell the cruelty on that type of guy.

  When they left, I followed from a distance, careful not to look suspicious to them or anyone else. Lucky for me, they were on foot or I would’ve had to get a taxi or an Uber, which would have complicated matters because of the driver. Instead, I watched them hug, then the one named Elma continued on, and I again followed.

  After another block, she turned into a small house on a nondescript street. The paint was chipped and peeling, but it didn’t seem to be in bad shape. A pickup truck sat in front at the curb, the nearly full moon reflecting in its shiny paint.

  I waited patiently near the truck as a cold breeze blew in to animate the still evening. Eventually the door opened, and a man said, “Fuck you bitches. I’m going to El Diablo.”

  I mentally thanked him for making my job easier. Little did he know that he would be indeed going to the devil in a very short time.

  As he opened the driver’s door, I came up behind him, grabbing his head and slamming it into the roof of the truck. The lowlife never knew what hit him. His body went limp and the keys landed on the asphalt of the street. I grabbed him before he fell and quickly tossed him into the bed of the truck, then picked up the keys and drove off into the night.

  * * *

  “Wake up, amigo. I don’t want you to sleep through this.”

  The man, Enrico according to his driver’s license, struggled to open his eyes. I’m sure he had a bad concussion, but that was the least of his problems.

  “Who the fuck—”

  This asshat was shocked to see a nearly naked man in front of him. I grabbed his hair and jerked his head back. “You don’t get to ask questions anymore. You’ve lost your privileges as a human being. I just wanted you to see something, Enrico.”

  “H-h-how do you know m-me?” he managed.

  I put my face right in front of his. “I know everything about you, my friend. And if you ever hit a woman again, or abuse one in any way whatsoever, this is the last thing you’ll ever see.” Then I slowly opened my mouth and bared my fangs.

  The panic was instantaneous. Enrico knew his vampire lore and evidently was a believer. He immediately discovered his hands had been bound and tried to get to his feet, but I easily held him down. He was stocky but as weak physically as he was mentally. Guys like him usually were; beating a woman requires a distinct lack of intellect and deficient empathy. Enrico was a textbook case.

  I yanked his head to the side, exposing a beefy neck. I gave him one last look, eye to eye, as my fangs extended. I wanted him to know beyond a doubt that this was his final moment on the planet.

  Then I clamped down hard, my teeth sinking into his clammy flesh.

  His blood-curdling scream could have been heard a mile away, but we were farther from town than that. I’d driven him to the remote side of Clearspring Mountain, where my rental was.

  The blood surged into my body, my every cell heating up simultaneously. My temperature shot up a few degrees at the same rate his own lowered. It’s simple science: The first law of thermodynamics says that the total energy of an isolated system is constant, the system in this case being our two bodies connected by my hungry mouth. That energy can be transformed from one form to another but can’t disappear.

  Enrico thrashed and squirmed, but not nearly as much as I expected. I loosened my bite, reminding myself that I needed to extend this act, to use this violent motherfucker as practice. For centuries now, I had been able to successfully refrain from giving in and emptying a target while exerting the self-control I had to learn after the long-ago incident in Arelat.

  The minutes passed and Enrico proved a bit stronger than I thought, holding out for quite a while before he rapidly grew weaker. At that point, I know I had to stop. If I ingested too much, I’d risk taking on some random aspects of Enrico’s character.

  I willed myself to pull back, leaving him down a couple of pints, but still very much alive.

  When he was vacant, I untied his belt from his hands and dragged him back to the truck. His skin was cool and clammy as I lifted him into the passenger seat. I found some dirty clothes behind the driver’s seat and used them to wipe the blood from my face and hands.

  I got dressed again, feeling revived and my body tingling with newfound energy, then drove back towards down.

  I parked the truck in the El Diablo Bar’s parking lot. Someone would find Enrico tonight, or he would wake up in a few hours feeling cold and light-headed. He’d probably freak when he remembered my fangs, and definitely would when he saw his blood-covered clothing. But the twin puncture wounds in his neck would be the only definitive proof of what happened, and something told me he would keep those to himself.

  It was nearly 3 a.m. when I finally made it back to my rental. I’d have shaved an hour off of that if my phone had worked and I’d been able to catch an Uber. Again, fuck this shithole of a town.

  There was a distinct spring to my step as I walked toward the front door.

  Enrico would never hurt another woman. In fact, he’d bend over backwards to make them happy. A near-death experience involving fangs tends to have a lasting effect on a person.

  Life was good again, at least until the next hunger. I was free to focus on an equally important task: seducing Sagan Rafferty. I’d had enough fresh blood for a while, now I had a different urge to satisfy.

  I needed to taste some fresh pussy.

  Sagan

  “So how did it go with Brian?”

  Marcie and I had been friends our entire lives, from pre-school all the way up through high school graduation. We attended separate colleges, then this summer we both came back to Satan Stumbles, the nickname for Diablo Falls that Marcie came up with in seventh grade. And of course, we rented an apartment together because it always seemed pre-ordained that we would one day be roommates.

  There are friendships, and there are bonds. Marcie and I had the latter.

  She had been gone for a couple of days, but now she’s back and asking about Brian as we sat at an outdoor table at Hellspresso, nursing our standard Sunday morning fare of mocha lattes with two added shots of espresso.

  “Brian who?”

  I said it like a joke, but the truth is Marcie’s question momentarily confused me because all I’d been thinking about since Friday night was Terrance Delacroix, the mysterious new stranger in Diablo Falls. And he was pretty much all I thought about all day yesterday.

  “Seriously, was he understanding about it?”

  Before she left, I’d told Marcie of my plans to tell Brian I was still holding my V-card. She assured
me that he would love the idea. “What guy doesn’t want to deflower a beautiful young woman?”

  I frowned and recounted the horrible dinner scene at The Moirai. Marcie’s jaw dropped as I told her about Brian tossing his napkin on the table and storming out, as if he’d caught me cheating on him.

  “You poor thing,” she said. “Your heart must be breaking.”

  I thought for a second, then said, “Not really.”

  She looked confused, so I elaborated.

  “It was only our third date, and I wasn’t even sure I was going to eventually sleep with him anyway. I know you think I’m hopelessly naive every time I say this, but deep inside, I’ve always felt like I should wait for the right guy.”

  She reached over to place her hand on mine. “I’m just surprised, because usually it’s devoutly religious girls who think like that, and that certainly doesn’t describe you.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Believe me, I occasionally wonder if I should find someone I like well enough, and just get the first time out of the way. But since you and Jake hooked up the night of senior prom, every time that thought pops into my head, I get a distinct feeling that someone is waiting for me. Someone worth waiting for. I thought maybe Brian was that guy, but thankfully he showed me early on that he was a total asshole.”

  Marcie nodded and we sat in silence for a minute, as Brian quickly drifted out of my mind and Terrance took his place again.

  “I have something else to tell you,” I said.

  Marcie gave me a curious look, likely noticing the excitement in my voice or the twinkle in my eye, both of which would seem out of place, considering the failed third date we’d just been discussing.

  “I met someone. We’re going out tonight.”

  “What? Really? That was fast.”

  “I saw him when Brian and I walked into The Moirai. He was impossible to miss because he was so handsome. It was like my eyes were magnetically pulled to him. Then after Brian threw his little fit and walked out, this guy showed up in the parking lot to ask if I was okay.”