Sundown

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Killing the customers was against Abby’s rules, and though she was not the biggest or the physically strongest vampire in the world, or even in the country, she was the oldest and most powerful for hundreds of miles. At more than four hundred years old, she had powers those who flocked to her had not yet developed. The other vamps were drawn to her, they respected her; they obeyed her. Many newer vampires came here to learn from her, either sent by their makers or drawn by instincts they had not yet perfected and yet could not reject. She helped guide them to control, to hone whatever powers they’d been given. It was only through control and strength that a vampire could survive. The weak were lucky to last a year.

  Her undead customers and students would tell her the truth of what had happened to Marisa, and then she could help Leo with those portraits.

  But not before sundown tomorrow. She could very easily get the sketches done before dawn and leave them at the bar door, but if he insisted on taking them from her hand he would have to wait. She’d only told him she’d consider meeting earlier to get him off her back.

  The hours after Leo left passed quickly, and Abby busied herself cleaning up behind the bar. She might’ve spent some of that time in her office, taking care of the tedious paperwork that went along with owning a business. But she remained behind the bar, keeping an eye on her customers, wondering if one of them was a murderer. As the hour grew late the human patrons left, one or two at a time. The vampires watched those remaining humans very closely, willing them to leave, waiting for the moment when they could have the bar to themselves. Those few lagging customers began to instinctively realize that they were not wanted. They squirmed. Now and then they glanced with trepidation to the silent and too-still group that remained. Remy’s repertoire changed from country tunes to pure jazz, his fingers flying over the keys with inhuman speed. By one-thirty there wasn’t a human left in the place.

  Margaret locked the main entrance after the last mortal patron departed, and then she turned to blatantly admire the piano player. The sole barmaid in this establishment was a young vamp who listened intently to Abby’s lessons. She did her job well, but had an annoyingly obvious crush on Remy, a crush she didn’t even attempt to hide. The piano man continued to play, but the tune he switched to after the last of the humans had gone was softer. Gentler. The notes drifted through Abby’s blood, and if she was not so angry she’d take great pleasure in the tune.

  The vampires who remained looked at Abby expectantly, waiting for her to fetch the blood and warm it properly. This was what they’d been waiting for, after all. A safe feeding. Nourishment. The blood they craved.

  Instead of going to the back room for the pigs’ blood, she walked around the bar and confronted them all. She lifted a single hand and Remy instantly stopped playing. The sound of the last note hung in the air for a moment, reverberating.

  “One of my clientele has been killed,” Abby said, her voice even and cold. She looked from one face to the next, searching for a clue. She couldn’t see visions from the minds of those like her, only from humans, so the thoughts of her vampire customers were black to her. She searched for signs that one or more of them had recently fed well on human blood, but they all looked hungry. They were all anxious for the pigs’ blood, twitching with need, in some cases. If one among them had drained a woman last night that would not be the case. Unless he or she was a very good actor.

  It was Charles who looked expectantly from face to face. “We’re all here, so you must be talking about a human. What’s the big deal? They don’t exactly have a long shelf life.”

  Charles could see snippets of the near future, when he put forth the effort. Usually he misused his gift to choose the mortal women who could give him what he wanted—easy sex and nourishment. He hadn’t killed, though, at least not to her knowledge. Charles, with his long, fair hair and pretty face, had been handsome as a human and was even more so as an immortal. The life agreed with him; he embraced it.

  And he was annoying her. “Short shelf life or not, it is against the rules to kill my customers.”

  He lifted his hands in easy surrender. “Just saying, boss.”

  “It couldn’t have been one of us,” Margaret argued. “I mean, why? We have food aplenty, thanks to you.”

  Remy nodded his head in agreement. “No one here would dare, Abigail.” With his Cajun accent he made the statement sound easy, nonchalant. But there was a fire behind his eyes. Did he believe what he said? His eyes met hers, but she couldn’t decipher any alternate meaning there.

  But they had a point. It was a relief to be able to believe that whatever had happened to Marisa had not originated here, in her place. As Charles had pointed out, all of her regulars were present tonight, each and every one of them, and they were anxious to be fed. Remy, Margaret, Charles, Gina, Dalton—a dozen more. So, had a rogue vampire killed Marisa or had a human done the deed?

  Humans could be as deadly and merciless as any monster.

  She knew that all too well.

  Chapter 2

  A fter the vampires had been fed they peeled away from the place, one by one, or two by two. Abby cleaned, allowing Margaret to help for a little while before she sent the blonde on her way. When the bar was in good shape, ready for the next day’s business, Abby left by the rear door. A very short walk from that back door sat a small, eight-unit apartment building that wasn’t much to look at. It was boxy and faded, as plain as any structure could be. She owned it. For now, that sad-looking beige building was home. Upstairs she’d knocked out a couple of walls and had converted the entire second floor into a very nice place. The building might not look like much on the outside, but beyond those walls the rooms were not at all ordinary. Margaret and Remy each leased an apartment downstairs, and the other two units were usually rented out to a vamp passing through. A couple of times she’d leased to humans, but they never stayed very long. They didn’t know what was wrong with their new home, but their instincts warned them to get out. And they did.

  She hadn’t taken three steps away from the back door when an unexpected voice startled her.

  “I don’t suppose you have those sketches yet.”

  Abby spun around. Leo Stryker stood in shadow, but she should’ve sensed him there the moment she’d opened the door. The news of Marisa’s murder had her rattled. She never got rattled these days. The fact that a human could surprise and even unnerve her was annoying.

  “No, I don’t.” She gathered her composure. “I believe I told you I’d have them for you tomorrow.”

  The detective stepped out of the shadows. “You did. I just thought I’d take a chance. It never hurts to ask.”

  “Have you been waiting all this time?” she asked, realizing, as she voiced her question that if he’d been here for hours, so close, she would’ve known it. She would’ve felt his presence.

  Leo shrugged his shoulders. “After I left here I went to the office for a while. I did a bit of research online, read the medical examiner’s report for the umpteenth time, and studied crime scene photographs I’ll never be able to get out of my head. I was on my way home, passing by the Sundown Bar, and something just…pulled me in.”

  Marisa’s murder was indeed important to Leo, but when he’d turned into Abby’s parking lot he had not had murder on his mind. Murder was his business; he’d come here for the purpose of forgetting that nasty business for a while.

  They were alone in the dark, without Remy’s music, without the rumbling conversation and laughter of a room full of people—and vampires. It was easy to reach into Leo’s mind and see what he really wanted, what he always wanted. Her.

  “Why me?” she asked.

  “Those sketches…”

  “You’re not here to ask me about the sketches,” she interrupted. “You’re not here to investigate Marisa’s murder at all.”

  In the darkness she could see Leo much more clearly than he could see her. His eyes were lively. His face was friendly and determined at the same time, if tha
t were possible. Had she unknowingly done something to draw him to her? She could and had mesmerized human males in order to get what she wanted and needed from them, but she had not used her influence on this man. If only she could use her sway to make him disappear, to repulse him…and then the truth hit her. She could do just that, could’ve done it at any time over the past three months, and yet she hadn’t. She didn’t now.

  “I want to know why you won’t go out with me,” he said. “There’s not another man, I know that.”

  “How could you possibly know there’s no other man in my life?”

  “You live alone, and there’s never any guy hanging possessively around you at the bar. I thought for a while maybe you and Remy had a thing going, but I’ve seen you two together and you don’t act like a couple. You’re good friends, I suspect, but there’s not a hint of jealousy from either one of you and you rarely touch. Besides,” he confessed, smiling gently, “I asked Margaret.”

  The last thing she needed was a cop taking an interest in her. If he started asking questions, if he got too curious, she’d have to move from this place long before she was prepared to. She liked it here in Budding Corner; she liked her home and her business, and while there was always another home and another bar down the road, she liked this one and wanted it to last. How was she going to get rid of Leo? The truth was disturbing; she didn’t want to hurt him. She would not hurt him.

  But if he learned what she was…

  “Lunch,” he said. “That’s easy enough and really can’t be considered romantic.”

  “No.”

  “A picnic by the lake,” he suggested, undaunted. “More romantic, I suppose, but totally innocent.”

  Abby took a step toward Leo, drawn by his scent and his throat and his heartbeat and the arousing images in his mind. She was a vampire, but she was also a woman, and occasionally she was beset with a woman’s needs and desires. It was a weakness to crave more than blood from a man, and yet she did crave. Humans were food, they were occasionally suitable for entertainment, they were pets, at best. What she was experiencing at this moment went against everything she taught; everything she believed. To become too closely involved with humans meant the very real possibility of exposure. Knowing that didn’t make her want Leo any less.

  “Innocent?” she said. “I do not think you want innocent from me.”

  His heart rate increased. She heard and felt it. He blushed, a little, the blood rushing into his face. And lower.

  “Tell me what you really want,” she whispered as she stopped directly before him. Her hand rose and rested lightly on his chest. Beneath the jacket and shirt and tie she felt his lovely heartbeat. She leaned into him, rested her cheek on his shoulder, moved her lips toward the throb in his throat, testing her own control. “You don’t want lunch.” A need she had not experienced in a long time sprang to life in an unexpectedly strong way. There was no bar between her and Leo now, no audience of humans and vamps watching. Her own body never throbbed, not in the way it once had, but so close, so very close, she felt a growing and urgent need to take what she should not from this man who was so eager to give it. “You don’t want to take me on a picnic. You don’t want lunch. This is what you want, isn’t it?”

  Abby kissed Leo’s throat gently. She could almost taste the blood that raced beneath his skin, and she craved it. She had not yearned so desperately for the warmth of human blood on her tongue in a very long time; she took a taste when she could and she enjoyed it, but she did not yearn. And now she was overcome with excitement and craving and desire. She was being swept away; she was losing control. This was like being new and desperately hungry, but she did have control and she exercised it now.

  Leo wrapped his arms around her and moved her—danced her—into the deeper shadows at the back of the bar. He took her head in his hands and kissed her, and she let him. It had been a long time since Abby had been kissed, and she liked it. She’d missed this sort of touch, the loss of control, the soaring passion. The kiss was more powerful than she remembered any kiss being, more moving and arousing as their lips moved in a magnificent rhythm.

  She tasted Leo’s tongue as it speared into her mouth. He was so warm he felt hot to her, and she knew that to him she would feel cool. Did he like her cool skin or did it repulse him? Did he think it odd or was he already beyond rational thought? He did not kiss like a man who was repulsed. Whatever restraint he’d been exercising was gone, and the images in his mind came fast and furious. They were chaotic and powerful and primitive, and she knew without question what he wanted.

  “You want to be inside me,” she said, her lips still touching his.

  He didn’t respond verbally, but his mouth found her throat and he suckled there as he pushed her skirt high with the intention of removing her panties, only to discover that she wore none. She felt his response and it moved her; his passion, his need rushed through her, as well as through him. They shared a fine, lightning moment of desire and need that wiped away everything else. She lowered the zipper of his trousers and reached inside to touch him, to free him.

  Blood flowed to his penis, making it hard and hot, and she wanted it in a way she had not wanted anything for a very long time. She craved the heat and the connection, she wanted the pleasure she’d denied herself for a very long time. She trembled with need.

  So did he.

  In one smooth motion he lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around him. A muscular man, he did not stumble under her weight or prop her against the wall, but held her steady without any additional support. She liked that he was strong, in body, as well as in heartbeat and desire. He was a fitting partner for a strong woman who had been without male companionship for so many years she could not begin to count them.

  Clutching one another, close to coming together and yet enjoying the delicious anticipation of what they knew was to come, they kissed again. Leo’s tongue speared into her mouth and Abby rocked her hips, bringing him closer, teasing them both, reveling in the unexpected desire he had brought to life within her.

  Leo suffered a troubling thought, an image that flitted through his mind, unwanted but important. She soothed his fears without waiting for him to adjust his stance and fumble in his wallet for the condom he thought he needed.

  “I can’t have children,” she whispered.

  That news came as a relief to Leo, as he did not wish to pause what had begun. Unable to wait any longer he pushed inside her, filled her, pumped into her hard and fast. The sensation of being joined was startling and sharp and wondrous and warm, so warm. She had forgotten the intensity of the pleasure of sex; she had forgotten the sheer force of the urges that drew a man and a woman together. She rode him as hard as he pushed into her, hanging on, reveling not only in the physical sensations but in the images in his head. At this moment she was not a teacher, not a leader. She was just a woman taking pleasure from a man. Completion teased her and she slowed, not wanting this moment to be over too soon.

  She felt Leo throughout her body, she felt him completely, in an intense rush of pleasure that usually only came to her when she took blood. If she could have both…oh, if she could have both….

  With that thought Abby came, the orgasm washing over her with unexpected ferocity. She cried out, she shook, and unable to control herself she lowered her mouth to Leo’s throat. A kiss, a lick, and then, as he found his own release, she extended her fangs and bit down.

  Blood poured over her tongue, and she tasted not only that warm, nourishing blood, but the power of Leo’s pleasure. They were joined entirely, in mind and body, by blood and by lust. He pounded into her and she sucked at his throat, drawing his life into her, tasting all that he was. The world he lived in was filled with colors and beauty and life. She felt that life, she smelled and tasted it.

  Leo took a couple of unsteady steps and rested her body and his against the back wall of her bar. He gasped; he panted; he did not release her as she continued to feed. One more sip, one last gulp. And then
one more.

  Abby felt the weakness that washed over him and she jerked her head away, removing her fangs from his delicious throat. She leaned in for a lick that would cause the wound to heal quickly, but she couldn’t allow herself more than that. What had she done? Instead of enjoying a taste she’d latched on and taken nearly twice as much as she should’ve. If she’d had less control she might’ve drained him while he was still inside her.

  His breath came hard, he shook a little, but he held her. This was what he’d dreamed of, she knew. He’d fantasized about just such an encounter, but she wondered if he’d ever expected they would end up here, like this. She certainly had not. Tempted to distraction by a human. How awkward.

  Abby knew what she had to do. For Leo, this encounter could not have happened. She would remember him for a very long time, perhaps forever, but he had to forget it all. It was easy enough. All she had to do was look into Leo’s eyes and push at his mind, and he’d forget. The conversation, the kiss, the sex…the fact that she’d drunk from his throat…the fact that he wanted her at all…all gone.

  “You’re amazing,” he said, his voice husky. “I always knew you’d be amazing, I knew it from the first time I saw you. Now that I have you I’m not going to let you go. Take me home with you.”