Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Done?

  She hesitated for a moment, not sure whether to head straight for the phone and call Amarillo or wake Zeb and Coyote first. A sour feeling rose in her throat, insisting that when he said he didn’t want to go down alone, he wasn’t talking about the vampires he had already killed. That he was talking about her.

  But he couldn’t expect to burn them out when it was raining…

  Something shuffled across the floor behind her, and she turned, and she understood.

  “Oh, honey,” she whispered.

  Rocky stood there between the kitchen and the tiny living room, bracing himself on the wall, watching her with fiery intensity. She didn’t have to check twice to know that no one was home; he was too dry to be lucid, whatever mental block had kept him from feeding was gone, lifted, and Kim was the closest living thing. She was dinner.

  Her gaze darted from him to the countertop, hoping to find something big and blunt she could use as a weapon, but she had never been one of those women who kept decorative rolling pins. There was a coffee mug beside the sink, across the kitchen, and she stepped toward it, but he stepped toward her, and suddenly her only defense was behind him.

  Her pulse accelerated, and she could see that he heard it. He shuffled toward her, left hand outstretched, the right hanging useless by his side, and she swatted him away. He was slow, much slower than she had expected, and he was still weak. He moaned sorrowfully and came at her again, and she sidestepped. She really didn’t want to hurt him, but hurting him was better than having to kill him, so she caught his right arm by its dislocated elbow and yanked. He gagged and went to his knees.

  “Sorry,” she gasped, “I’m sorry, but you can’t have my… Oh.”

  There were leftovers in the fridge, a few bags of packaged blood that hadn’t been consumed a week before. It was gross, having them there between the orange juice and the macaroni salad, but she had thought they might come in handy. She had almost forgotten that.

  “Don’t move,” she commanded. She stepped around him to reach for the refrigerator.

  He grabbed the leg of her pants. Her socks slid on the linoleum. The edge of the counter rushed at the side of her head, and it occurred to her that a crabby shaman and a buff cowboy were a room away, waiting to help her take care of situations exactly like this one. She drew a breath to scream. Her head hit the counter, tracing a line of fire just above her left eye.

  “Gk,” she said, and the floor knocked the rest of the air out of her.

  I know how this goes, she thought. The venom they secrete is a combination anticoagulant and muscle relaxant, chemically similar to some barbiturates. Once it’s in you, you’re done, because almost no one has the discipline to fight something that feels good.

  She made an uncoordinated attempt to get herself standing again, but her head pounded, and her limbs wriggled aimlessly, deprived of strength. She flapped against the kitchen floor.

  A weight settled on her chest, and something cold moved against her throat. The cluster of medals on their chain around her neck had slid around to hang down her back. They pressed into her shoulder blade. Her vision began to clear a little, and she could vaguely see the top of his head. She had seconds, at best.

  It only takes a few ounces of pressure to dislodge an eyeball. He would recover from losing an eye a lot faster than she would recover from dying. She reached up and around, thumbs probing. An ear, a nose – anything would do, any handhold to pull him away, any bit of damage that would convince him his survival was better served by leaving her the hell alone.

  His weight settled onto her left arm and he caught hold of her right and pinned it to her chest. She brought a knee up hard, willing to hit anything she could reach, but no part of him was close enough. A light sharpness pressed into her skin.

  At least it won’t hurt.

  She was wrong. He was dry, dry and injured, all his strength focused on putting himself back together, too dry to waste energy trying to make her hold still. His teeth pierced her skin, sans anesthetic, and it felt like being stabbed. She made one more frantic attempt to get away, but something tugged dangerously, and she went still.

  It wasn’t like Kim had expected, not that she had ever really expected to die by vampire. For one thing, it hurt like hell, like that time in second grade she had accidentally pushed a pencil through her hand. For another, there was nothing even slightly sensual about lying on a cold kitchen floor while someone sucked the life out of her. Worst, though, was the fact that she couldn’t hate the person doing it. She was ticked at him, and she was scared, but the joints in his crippled arm popped loudly back into place, and he lifted her up and supported her cautiously, meticulously minding her comfort while he killed her. Her hands and lips were numb. There wasn’t even gross slurping and smacking to give her an opportunity for disgust. He stroked her back with deep affection, with gratitude, humming contentedly like a nursing infant.

  She was so tired.

  * * *

  THE LIGHTS WERE too bright.

  Something wasn’t quite right with the pit of her stomach or behind her eyes; it might have been a hangover or the leftovers from a nasty flu, but that wasn’t right. She hurt, and her head hurt, and moving hurt, and her neck felt like someone had taken a sizable chunk out of it…

  Oh. Right.

  She tried to roll over, but something restrained her, and she fell back only to whack her already-pounding head on the cabinet. She squinted up reluctantly, already knowing what she would see. It was him, sure enough, not looking a whole lot better than he had… How long ago? Everything was more than a little fuzzy, after the point she had become a juice box.

  She meant to say something like “How long was I out?” but “Geh” was all she could manage at the moment.

  Rocky looked down at her. His eyes were still red, still empty of intelligence, still desperately hungry. He grimaced at her, showing fang. Even suffering head injury and hypoxia, Kim could tell he wasn’t in any fit state to decide to let someone live. She squeezed her eyes shut again. Some nonsense about love and the power of friendship crossed her mind, but she pushed it away. Whatever Rocky was, Broken or not, he was gone for the moment, lost under the instinct to end that thirst. For a time, at least, he wasn’t capable of love.

  So something else must have made him stop. Self preservation? But what about her kitchen could possibly be that threatening? She didn’t have a clue, though, until a throat cleared itself about six feet above her.

  “So,” Zeb said, standing there in his boxers and socks, revolver cocked and resting on his shoulder, “I was sorta thinkin’ ‘bout shootin’ him, but then I thought, if he jumps, might tear somethin’ an’ then you’d bleed to death. So I was thinkin’ maybe I oughta have woke up Coyote. Could maybe, I dunno, freeze him or somethin’. Guess not.”

  “Mm? Huh?” Kim scooted away from where she had been propped up on Rocky’s legs. She felt like she might be sick. “What did you do?”

  “Came in. Thought ‘bout shootin’ him. Stood there a second. Then you kinda blacked out maybe a second, an’ he stopped. What did you do?”

  Only a second? It felt much longer. Like days, perhaps. When she thought about it, Kim was genuinely surprised she hadn’t woken up in a hospital bed. She was even more surprised that she had woken up at all.

  “I didn’t do anything.” Except flail uselessly, of course. She grabbed hold of the countertop and dragged herself to her feet, and from the corner of her eye, caught a flicker of movement. The vampire was standing too, moving closer for a second go.

  She didn’t try to duck around him, this time. She didn’t try to get away. She drew her fist back to punch his damn lights out. He cringed away, shielding his head with his arms, and cowered against the cabinets. It was tragic. Tragic and pathetic. She lowered her hand with a groan.

  “Zeb, would you get the bags out of the fridge? Might be enough that we don’t have a repeat of this.” She edged out of the kitchen, supporting herself on counter and w
alls, and took an end of the couch. A year of following one of the most dangerous creatures in Texas, and it was a sad, sweet, damaged little weenie who got her. The rank irony hurt almost as much as her throat.

  She caught a twinge of resentment in that thought and did her best to crush it. It wasn’t Rocky’s fault that Duran could turn anyone into a weapon. It wasn’t his fault that he’d been bled out beyond all hope of self-control. He couldn’t be held responsible for his actions any more than – she hoped – she could be held responsible for shooting Itzli. But no amount of rationalization could get rid of her sudden desire to kick him out of her apartment.

  The refrigerator door opened and closed, and there was the sound of a short scuffle and a high yelp. Silence.

  Zeb plopped down on the opposite end of the couch and twisted to look at her, elbows propped on his knees.

  “Ain’t no doctor,” he said, “but it looks to me like you need to see one.”

  “I’ll be okay,” she told him. She prodded at her wound and winced, but most of the pain seemed to be bruising. The punctures felt small and neat, their clean edges already swollen shut. She wouldn’t be bleeding to death any time soon. Of course, she wouldn’t be running on all cylinders any time soon, either.

  “You know how to make tea?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Small box, cabinet to the left of the microwave, says ‘IntensiTEA’ in big letters on the side. Please and thank you?”

  Zeb slid off the couch, and Kim watched him step over the vampire, who was making a dent in the small pile of packages Zeb had left in the middle of the kitchen floor. She couldn’t really help picturing herself in their place, and had to look away.

  The microwave whirred while Zeb nuked a mug of water. There was a rattle – filling the tea ball – and after a few minutes, the scent of magical caffeine began to filter through the apartment. It was a little like matches, a little like mint, and a little like old books.

  Zeb passed her the cup and she took a sip, making a face at the amount of sugar he had added.

  “How much is left in the box?” she asked.

  “Almost full.”

  “Good. That’ll get me through long enough.” A cup or two would get her functional again, but a daily regimen would amp up her metabolism, replacing what she had lost over a course of days instead weeks. It was a better option than trying to explain what had happened to a hospital staff.

  “I almost didn’t hear over the rain. That boy is damn lucky Coyote didn’t wake up. Woulda put a knife through his heart.”

  Kim grimaced and nodded. “Not like we can keep him from finding out, though. But we still need him to take a walk, set stuff straight. Duran said – Oh, crap, right, Duran was here. No, it’s okay, just outside the window, and then he left. The note must have washed off. He said he let Rocky go – that must be why he was able to come after me – but I’ll bet you anything he left some way to take control again, and I don’t know anyone else who can, y’know, uninstall psychic switches.”

  “He won’t be real keen on helpin’ someone as tried to kill you.”

  “You said he stopped. Just stopped?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Then he wasn’t trying to kill me. If he was, I’d be dead. Or at least brain damaged. I’m not dead, so no one’s taking anything out on Rocky.” It shouldn’t have happened. She had looked into his eyes and seen nothing but thirst, but somehow, he had stopped, and that meant something.

  “You sure?”

  “Look, if someone slipped you a roofie and you were high as a kite, freaking out, seeing things, and you attacked someone, that would be bad, but not your fault. It was just an accident. Duran’s the bad guy. Can’t forget that, okay?”

  A low, inhuman wail drifted out of the kitchen, raising the hairs on the back of Kim’s neck. She threw back the rest of her tea, savoring the little jolt it sent through her bones, and walked over to the doorway. The vampire was pressed against the cabinets, his back hunched and his face in his hands. He rocked forward and back, forward and back. The sound continued unbroken long after his lungs should have been empty, a muffled cry of inarticulate terror.

  And Kim realized abruptly that she could feel it. Part of her was inside him, enveloped in that fear, carrying that resonance back to her, distinct and foreign. It wasn’t her fear, didn’t touch her, but she felt it all the same.

  He had her blood. And that thought brought with it real fear, her own fear.

  The smart thing would have been to kill him right then. Even if she could be sure that he would never knowingly use the control that could afford him, there was no telling what Duran might be able to do through him. Maybe that had been the whole plan. Maybe Duran had known that poor, broken Rocky wouldn’t kill her – either couldn’t or didn’t have the heart, not that the reason truly mattered. Maybe the point hadn’t been to take her out, but to establish a connection, another link in his chain of control. He couldn’t get to her directly, but if he could control Rocky, and Rocky could control her… Did it even work like that? Was it even possible? Her throat closed.

  “Zeb,” she whispered. “Go get Coyote.”

  Zeb shot her a look of confusion and concern, but he and his socks and boxers disappeared into the bedroom, and Kim crossed the kitchen to crouch in front of the cowering, keening Rocky. She grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands away from his face. His eyes were blue once more, wide and frightened, and it only took her a glance to see that he didn’t know her. Duran had wiped him out again.

  His gaze flicked to the marks on her throat, the horrible sound wavered, and he made a frantic attempt to pull away. He had gotten stronger, almost too strong for her, but she held him still.

  “I-I-I-I-I…”

  “Yeah. You did that. I’m not going to hurt you, okay? But my friend might, so you’ve got to tell me how I get rid of this.”

  “G-g-g-g…”

  “You took my blood. It’s okay, I get why. I’ll get over that. But now you’ve got my blood, and I am not interested in being connected to you this way. So either you get rid of it, or you tell me how to get rid of it, or we might conceivably have a problem.”

  His eyes grew, if possible, even wider. “I… I-I-I-I-I c-c-c-c…”

  “Oh. Oh, right. If you even knew, he would have blocked that out, first. Well, that’s what we’ve got a shaman for.”

  Right on cue, Coyote tottered in, leaning heavily on his cane. His hair had begun to come out of its braid, and a halo of gray frizz stood out around his head. He zipped up his jeans, surveyed the scene, and his black eyes narrowed to furious slits.

  “Chindi son of a bitch,” he growled. “I knew it.”

  He took a menacing step forward, and Rocky whimpered and shied away.

  Kim moved to stand between them. She toed the remaining bags of blood toward Rocky.

  “Finish those up,” she told him. “I’m not up for round two just yet.”

  Then she turned to Coyote. “You need to find out, right now, whether he knows how to cut through contagious magic. It would also be helpful to know who he is, why he didn’t kill me, and why Duran wants to hang onto him so bad.”

  Coyote gritted his teeth. A vein bulged in his forehead, and he gripped his cane like he meant to crush the handle.

  “Fine,” he snarled. “But no interruptions, this time.” He spun and stomped back into the living room, muttering to himself.

  Kim held out a hand, but the vampire skittered backward. She moved forward, and he moved backward, and suddenly, he was trapped in a corner. His chest heaved in a violent spasm, and he bared his teeth as cornered animals do.

  “Look,” she said, “I’m sorry. Coyote’s old and cranky, but he can be really gentle.”

  “I guess I could,” Coyote called from the other room. It wasn’t an agreement.

  The vampire’s body stiffened. He thrashed once, trying to get away from something inside his own head, and collapsed. Tears welled in his eyes and spilled over onto the linol
eum floor. Tiny beads of rancid sweat broke across his forehead. The keening began again, rose shrilly, and died in a gasp.

  “What…” Kim leapt to her feet to stare at Coyote. “What in God’s name are you doing?!”

  Coyote didn’t answer. He sat stiffly with his eyes closed, the tendons in his neck standing out. “Shut up,” he growled. “You want both our brains fried? There’s more traps now than a week ago. Hard enough shutting this mess down without wiping him clean, and you want I should make it not hurt, too?”

  No amount of delicacy could numb the pain of remembering. All that time under the ground, alone with the whispering. The time above the ground, caught in Duran’s eyes and in his teeth.

  Coyote sucked in a breath, his forehead wrinkling.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said. “There’s some kind of… I don’t know. Some kind of disconnect. Like… There. There we go. I’ve got it.”

  The vampire tried to scream. His chest cramped, but his lungs would not inflate, and the most he could manage was a strangled moan. The wizard girl caught hold of his hands to keep him from clawing his eyes out. There was someone else in his head, and he couldn’t bear it. All that time with someone else thinking his thoughts for him, groping, stretching things out of shape, making him forget, making him remember.

  He didn’t want to come back. He didn’t want to be real again. But the shaman seized him, chained him, and everything closed in tight like a vice. Reality. It hurt.

  Chapter 10

  LENNY SLAMMED BACK down into something that was sort of like self-awareness. It was unfamiliar, and it was uncomfortable. He had gotten used to watching without being, seeing without feeling, slipping away quietly when even watching became too much to take. This wasn’t happening to him, it was happening to someone else, someone artificial, someone who could take it. He wasn’t ready to be real again.

  He tried to escape again, but the shaman wouldn’t allow it. Every time Lenny tried to slide away, back to wherever he had been before, the shaman tore away another layer of lies, unearthed another memory, and tied Lenny down to it. It was violent, almost cruel when compared to Sebastian’s subtlety, but the old man knew what he was doing, and Lenny couldn’t stop him.