Cover Copy
Sometimes a vampire’s past can bite him in the ass.
Xan Marcelles–bassist for Crooked Fang, vampire and full-time asshole, is content with his quiet existence in the backwoods of Pinecliffe, Colorado. But life at the Pale Rider tavern is set to become a little more complicated when he gets entangled with a feisty, blue-haired damsel and her abusive soon-to-be ex-boyfriend.
To add to his woes, he’s gone from hunter to hunted, and his past returns to haunt him when a phone call draws him back to New Mexico. With the help of friends from his living past, he must get to the bottom of a murder, and figure out where he stands with his lover and his band, all while keeping one step ahead of his enemies. Hiding won’t be easy for him, especially with a mysterious woman dogging him every step of the way.
WARNING: Cussing, smoking, drinking and hot sex.
Teaser
I kept a lookout for more pet zombies and stake-wielding maniacs in the weeks that followed. Fucking zombie vampires. Wretched, Freddie’d called them. I knew of a couple of types of vamps, and that was more of a caste system than anything else. I wasn’t made a vampire to lie around fancy mansions and wear ruffly shirts while bitching about the meaningless of my existence. I was put to work. I was changed so I could do the work. It was a miserable existence, but I really hadn’t had any sort of choice in the matter. I was told where to get my weapon, where to fire it, who to fire it on, where to sleep and what to eat. There was no glamour in hanging out in alleys waiting for dirty vagrant vampires to bother staggering out the back to retreat before the sun came up. I was working hard to forget that time before. My life was in Pale Rider. I was fucking retired from the extermination business.
Crooked Fang
By Carrie Clevenger
Crooked Fang
9781616503777
Copyright © 2012, Carrie Clevenger
Edited by Nerine Dorman
Book design by Lyrical Press, Inc.
Cover Art by Renee Rocco
First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: August, 2012
Lyrical Press, Incorporated
eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated
Dedication
For Peter and Lyle: may you find the peace you always desired.
Acknowledgements
So much work and energy has gone into Crooked Fang, and certainly not just mine. In order to write a bass player effectively as a non-musician author, lots of questions had to be asked. Thankfully, the music industry is filled with brilliant, kind, and extremely giving people. I tried to pay tribute to the bands and bands of people that impacted me in some way as I worked towards completion of this book.
Some of the people that helped me–in no particular order–are KT, Don, Melissa, Erik, Greg, Sal, Johnny, the Mikes, Justin, Trev, Betty, the Jennifers, Maria, Marie, Derek, Rebecca, Jeff, Jeremy, Toxic Bob, Paul, Adam, Stu, Will, and particularly Stephen Canner, who challenged me to learn for myself about the history and varieties of music instead of just asking him.
As Crooked Fang was being formed into a novel, I had immense support from the writing community at #Fridayflash on Twitter, and others.
Deep thanks to Roland “Bo” Slowman, who answered my queries in respect to the Navajo.
My original readers: MH, Gayla, J.C., Joanie, Paula, Coyote, CV and any others I’ve forgotten.
My beta-critique clan: Missy, Synde, Cat and of course, Nerine Dorman, who is the main woman responsible for this book in your hands at this very moment.
My husband, Lucas, whom I’ve called Luke the whole time, and who has empowered me to pursue my dreams of writing a novel. Maybe someday he’ll read my writing.
My longest-distance friend, Chris, who has always had a kind word of encouragement.
To my father, who said it was a great story, even when it wasn’t, in the early stages. To my mother, who tells everyone I’m a famous author.
To my grandmother, who sang, danced and told me stories as child.
And to you, my reader. Yes, you. I’m talking to you. Enjoy.
Author’s Note
Readers may find that multicultural words included in this novel are missing the appropriate accent marks. This is intentional and not a misprint. As this book is formatted to be read on many types of e-readers, the publisher opts to leave off the accent marks to avoid any unreadable formatting errors. I used an alternative word whenever possible–as in Dineh–that did not require accent marks.
Chapter 1
The week before Halloween was a blur of activity for preparation of one of Crooked Fang’s biggest nights. Bea showed up at Pale Rider a few hours before with half a dozen bags of vinyl ghosts, plastic skeletons and strings of lights shaped like little purple bats, as well as lots of fake spider webs, and other assorted shit. I sat at my usual table, a nice worn square, with a bottle and a scowl.
“Somebody’s not in the Halloween mood,” she said in a singsong voice, dancing over to me with orange and black crepe streamers. I don’t know how she managed to stay so damned cheerful all the time. She was just one of those happy people. She pulled a chair out from the adjacent table and draped her arms over it backward to face me with a festive smile.
Crooked Fang had inherited Bea by the way of her husband, who was our drummer, and she’d fit right in. She was a sweet little woman, and I always thought her freckles were sexy as hell. I don’t know if it was a tattoo or if she drew it on every morning, but she had a pink star under her left eye, just a little one, and with her light brown pigtails and striped stockings, she could pass for a teenager, even though she was pushing thirty.
“I’m just not much into holidays,” I grumbled and shook out a cigarette from the soft pack I had on the table. The gas station down the road was out of hard packs, which sucked because soft packs couldn’t go in my pocket once they were halfway gone. I always ended up with a bunch of broken smokes. She nodded at the cigarette and I offered her one. I lit hers before I did mine and we sat there for a minute or two.
“I’d think the boys with fangs would both be into the creeepiest holiday of the year.”
“Eh, now you’re just stereotyping me, Bea.”
She shrugged and tapped her ashes in my ashtray. “You can’t be Mr. Moody-Fangs every day.”
“Wanna bet?” Sure, she could have left me alone. And monkeys could’ve flown out of my ass. Truth was, all my friends liked to poke at me when I was sitting there at my table, minding my own business.
“Xan, whatever’s got you all grouchy can wait. Besides–” She looked behind her where Serv was untangling the spider webs. “I can’t reach all the high spots.”
Serv was a case in himself. I’d picked him up as vocals after his audition, in which he’d displayed some impressive fucking range. He was young and dumb in the ways of the world, but maybe I saw a little of the old me in him. Besides, a singer had to have some sort of ego. A person had to have balls to get up there behind the mic and face an audience. He took a lot of
care in his appearance too, which according to the females, wasn’t too bad at all. To me, he was another long-haired punk, hell, so was I, really. He had a face made for the cover of Rolling Stone but that probably’d be a bad idea, considering that Serv was a vampire, like me. We were kind of the secretive sort because we weren’t supposed to exist.
“Is that so?”
“And the ladder’s outside, and it’s cold.”
“Uh huh.”
“Aww c’mon, Xan. I wore ballet flats today. You’re really gonna make a girl walk outside in the snow and wrestle a ladder?”
I sighed. “No. Bea, I’m not that big of an asshole.”
“I know,” she said sweetly. “So, when you finish that smoke, come on over. Not before. That stuff is super flammable.”
She stood and pushed the chair back under the table and walked back over to join the others where they shared words in a low voice. Serv looked at me expectantly. I raised an eyebrow, crushed out my cigarette and strode over to the bar.
“Just hang this up there.” Bea pointed up the wall over the bar. I smirked. That’s how it was with me. Just under six-and-a-half feet, I was perfect for meeting those hard-to-reach-places. Bea handed me a thumbtack at a time and a handful of fake spider webs. While I fiddled with that, she went ahead and strung the bat lights under the lip of the bar; when lit, they’d give the floor a nice eerie glow. She threw another set over the fireplace mantel and plugged them in, and they turned out to be black lights. With the tables sprinkled in glitter and little skull, tombstone, and witch cutout confetti I had to admit it all looked pretty neat. She put on a CD of spooky noises and lit a couple of black candles.
“What do you think, Fang?”
“Fang?” I shot her a glance.
She laughed and shrugged. “Not everyone is as nuts as you and Serv to get permanent fangs.” She hooked her fingers in front of her mouth for emphasis.
“It’s just a gimmick.” I grinned. “You know, Crooked Fang and all.”
“I think they’re cool as shit. I told Josh he should get some made.”
“What’d he say to that?”
She giggled. “I don’t think it’ll be happening anytime soon, but he has bitten me in bed.” She play growled and batted in my direction like Cat Woman.
“Well, if it’s just biting you need...” I didn’t give her a real vampire growl because that would’ve probably freaked her out just a little, but maybe just a sample. Her face flushed with color. I knew it would.
“Mr. Marcelles, if I weren’t married...”
“You’d be in trouble.” I finished for her and turned to go back to my corner. She caught my arm.
“I’m just playing with you, Xan.”
“I know.” Would I have played more if Josh wasn’t my drummer? Maybe.
“But you are a human ladder. So, thank you for helping us out with the higher decorating.”
“By the way, where is Mr. Reddig? He should be helping us with this shit too.”
Her and Josh were a good couple, honestly. And Josh was a good guy, probably the most responsible of us four since he had a real job, and he and Bea had a house between Pinecliffe and Boulder. He also went to Renaissance fairs, collected claymores and was obsessed with Vikings.
“He wasn’t feeling well, so I just left him at home to get some sleep, so right about now? I’d guess buried under two happy, sleeping malamutes.”
“Better than a cute nurse any day.”
I’d seen Vane and Fury once or twice. I don’t know if it was the fact that they were bigger, or that they had wolf in them, but they were the first two that didn’t hate me thoroughly. Dogs knew something was different about my kind. So did cats, horses, or anything with a decent amount of intelligence. They shied away from me.
Pale Rider was one of those comfortable places to me. It attracted all kinds of different people, which kept it exciting and interesting. I’d see people wearing anything from cowboy boots and Levi’s to cat ears and black nail polish.
The brass lanterns, dark wood paneling and old toggle-style light-switches were original furnishings, as were the long picnic-style and little round tables. Initially an old lodge when Charlie bought it, Pale Rider gained a second life when he reopened it as a tavern. Charlie was a good man, an easy charmer with the ladies: tall, dark and skinny, though he walked with a little slump from age. He always wore slacks with suspenders, white dress shirts and an old gray fedora. At sixty-nine, he should have retired long ago from the crazy bar business and settled down with a nice retirement fund, but he didn’t really get much in the way of benefits from his years serving in the Vietnam War. When Crooked Fang was put together, we were given an option to use those old lodge rooms as partial payment for entertaining his customers. There were five in all: The four upstairs, and Charlie’s own little apartment, past the bar, on the other side of the kitchen. Charlie did eventually have a couple of toilets installed downstairs because customers weren’t fond of using the single bathroom that doubled as a stock overflow room. But my favorite part of Pale Rider was the roof deck, which was too small for general public use, but perfect for after-show parties and private times for staff and guests. For me being a vampire, it worked really well to close in on a potential snack, and if I locked the roof hatch, no one was the wiser.
A shell parking lot spread out front and to one side of the building, branching away from the equally crude road. Pale Rider was off the beaten path, and that’s the main reason I felt safe and defended it.
But I couldn’t stay forever. I couldn’t just sit there, drink and pluck strings for the rest of my years. I slept on the floor. I drank until I passed out. I got girls’ phone numbers. I had warm bodies pressed against me after shows. And then there was sex. Don’t get me wrong, it was great. I got it enough, but it was just a conduit to the blood. I would always be a slave to the blood.
I liked to go out on rides, pushing my Suzuki Marauder to top speed, enough to feel like the skin was going to peel back from my mouth like an old gym sock and then I could light my skull on fire and be some kind of comic hero.
I wasn’t trying to play the hero. People just let themselves be victims.
I drank. A lot. It was the only way I felt human–the cigarette and whiskey. I don’t know what it was about the whiskey–it just kept the vampire in me quieter, more manageable.
I opened up the stage to auditions the day before the big show for Halloween, wanting to get another act in to open for us and mix it up a little. The bands sucked. I stood there, arms crossed over my chest with a careful unaffected look on my face until Serv came back with the drinks. We both dressed in black, only he wore his lead singer prima donna leather pants while I slouched in jeans. Fronting Crooked Fang gave him an ego about as big as the Atlantic is deep. Crooked Fang was technically my band, but I was content behind my bass away from the spotlight, adding in on his chorus every so often. Anybody watching our show would just see a bunch of black hair and my blue bass. I named my five string ESP, Sasha.
I took a drink and felt him looking at me. “What?”
“Tell me again why we’re subjecting ourselves to this torture.”
“Well, we were bitten, and then we drank some blood and–”
“That wasn’t what I’m talking about.” His gaze flicked to the current trio on stage working real hard to invoke the wrath of Jimi Hendrix’s ghost. A dark-skinned man in bell bottoms, a teeny vest with nothing underneath it, with a bandana wrapped around his barely controlled ’fro gave his Fender Strat a hard workout and my ears a wish for temporary deafness. A waifish, peaked girl in a Bettie Paige hairdo was on bass, with cowboy boots that had bright green cactus appliques on the sides. The balding drummer looked constipated behind his kit.
“I hate tribute bands. It’s like skilled karaoke.” I stared into the bottom of my glass like it would fill up again magically. “This dude here”– I pointed in the direction of the stage– “is not opening for us.”
Serv gave a sh
arp laugh and took a deep gulp of his beer. As if drinking would somehow make the musical abortion on stage sound any better. He drained it.
“You can’t hate them.” Serv yawned, the tips of his fangs peeking from behind his lips. I started to remind him, only to have the yawn transferred to me. I had a little more difficulty hiding my bigger fangs, especially since they curved back a little like a dog’s. I hid the yawn behind my hand and my hair, which I’d left down for the evening. Although my hair was black, it still had a deep mahogany shine to it in bright light. I never dyed it. I was born with it.
“I don’t hate them. I just hate how bad he sounds.”
“What do you think Crooked Fang does?”
“Crooked Fang is not a tribute band.” I resisted the urge to smack him. Serv might’ve been a dick, but he could sing, unlike the jackass on stage.
“Xan, we do covers.” He rolled his eyes and picked one of his hairs out of his beer with a grimace.
“We do covers. Of lots of different bands. We’re not reenacting The Who or impersonating Elvis like Jimi up there.” I scowled. “I shouldn’t even call him Jimi. I doubt this dude even remembers Jimi. Jesus, I could be his fucking father.”
“Well, you look good for fifty.” Serv stopped midsentence and I followed his gaze to a girl in a black latex mini dress at the end of the bar. Dressed like that, she had to be in the wrong place, but I couldn’t resist getting a nice, deep look at her curves. “There’s Karla.”
“I’m fifty-two.”
“And you look less than thirty. Help me out, Xan. I’m trying to make you feel better.”
“I still feel fifty-two.”
Serv sat his empty glass on a nearby table. “I’m going to talk to Karla. She knows this actors’ troupe. I was thinking it’d be perfect for Halloween tomorrow night.”
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