Veronica felt nervous and vulnerable in the situation, but something in Deriston’s easy voice and calm, steady eyes reassured her. She was so close to her prize. Her grip relaxed on the pistol in her pocket and she stepped through the threshold.
---
Lucas burst through the door of the abandoned apartment. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. As the room began to come into focus, he could see there was nobody in the lobby. He listened carefully for any signs of life, but could hear nothing but the sound of his heart and heavy breathing.
A piercing scream from upstairs turned his blood instantly cold.
“VERONICA!” he yelled, racing up the staircase with all the speed of a man possessed.
On the second landing, he bowled over a man who stepped out to investigate the noise. His legs pumped battery acid and his heart was a block of ice as he climbed the third landing. Then the fourth.
Lucas smashed through the door to the apartment on the final floor. His heart dropped out of his chest.
In the light of an oil lamp, Lucas saw his Veronica in the arms of a Wolfman sinking his teeth into the flesh of her neck.
END
Hot Blood
CHAPTER 1
“Jesus, Simmons! Would you watch where you’re going! Motherfucker, the only thing that would make you more dangerous is if you were born with wheels on your feet!”
I rolled my eyes at my co-worker’s obvious jab at my clumsiness while I kept drying the newly washed glasses in the grimy bar. Everyone who knows me had their doubts about whether I could work successfully as a waitress/bus boy without breaking every single glass and plate imaginable. But here I am in my third month and this is the first glass I’ve broken.
Of course, I’ve done plenty of other stupid shit since I started this job.
Like accidentally bumping into my boss and pouring a steaming hot Americano all over his brand new golf tee; mixing up the drink orders one night and accidentally giving one of the customers hives because the drink I gave him had a cherry in it and he was allergic.
And then there was the time that I actually caused a couple to break up right in the bar. All because I told the guy that I thought I’d seen him come into the bar with a chick who wasn’t his girlfriend. How was I supposed to have known that his actual girlfriend was not only insanely jealous and insecure, but psychotic enough to try to burn the bar down?
I almost got fired without severance pay for that. But in the end, my boss decided to give me another chance since despite my bad luck and timing on occasion, I’m generally good with the customers and I know how to work the bar and mix the drinks too, if our resident bartender couldn’t come in. And I guess it doesn’t hurt that my boss is also my uncle. You gotta love nepotism.
So here I was on just another typical night putting on my best smile and trying not to cringe at all the seedy, drunken guys that were checking out my ass through my jeans while I waited on them. It has been way too long since I’ve met a decent guy that I can just hang out with. Either that or I’ve just missed out on some seriously good lays with how much I’ve been working lately. Of course, it’s hard to find a decent guy when you live and work in Trinity View, a shabby and seedy neighbourhood in downtown Seattle where people and their good sense came to die on a regular basis. Despite the inherent danger of just walking around this neighbourhood, my uncle’s bar still managed to attract more than a few affluent clientele from influential businessmen, infamous drug dealers and gang members to yuppie types skiving off of Daddy’s latest pay cheque. These are the kinds of douchebags I have to serve every single night.
t doesn’t help either that my uber sarcastic co-worker, Roy, was being his usual jackass self. Don’t get me wrong, Roy’s not a total douche, just a little rough around the edges. He’s kind of a perfectionist, so he gets ruffled around the feathers quite easily when he feels like people are making mistakes around him on purpose just to piss him off. For me personally, I’d say that Roy had more of a God complex than a perfectionist idiosyncrasy. Or he just really needs to get laid. This fact was made all the more apparent with the secretively lecherous looks he was throwing at a good looking male customer sitting by the bar. “Dude, if you want that hottie to twist your body like a bendy straw, all you have to do is say so.” I teased with a sly smirk on my face.
Watching the way that Roy’s face coloured over with a deep crimson was pretty amusing to say the least. “Mind your own fucking business, Ginger. Or just your uncle’s business, since that’s what you get paid for. And take these shots to those guys in the back near the TV.” Roy instructed, handing me a tray laden with shot glasses filled with transparent liquid.
I really hate the fact that this asshole I work with actually knows my real name. I’ve never even told him; it must be my uncle’s doing. The sad part is that I’m not even an actual ginger; the closest I’ve gotten to having red hair is when I accidentally broke a glass jar and spilled ketchup all over my head. That’s right, I’m a 23-year old waitress named Ginger with dirty blonde hair. So instead of giving my parents the satisfaction, I called myself ‘Ginny’ because it sounded so much cooler when accompanied with the surname ‘Simmons’.
I sighed heavily at the ceiling overhead with its large oval-shaped light glaring sharply back at me. I headed over to the table in question and cringed inwardly when I overheard snippets of the men’s conversation.
I’m telling you, bro, she wanted my dick so bad, I had to charge an admission fee just for her to go down on me!” the first man chortled with the utmost delight. Ew, he actually made me throw up in my mouth just from his words alone.
“With all due respect, that sounds like a work of fiction, my friend,” A second man chuckled through regular sips of his beer.
“Fuck you, Vick! That is totally what happened!” the first man fumed in a drunken slur, slamming his glass of beer down hard onto the table so that it shook a little.
I cleared my throat loudly to get their attention and starting placing the shots down gently onto the rickety wooden table. “Here are your drinks, fellas. Enjoy,” I said sweetly, even though looking at their repugnant faces made me want to barf.
“Wait a second, beautiful,” the first man slurred. I gasped when I felt a warm and clammy hand encircle my waist and pull me down to sit on a lap. A lap infused with something long and protruding that poked me right in the ass. Is that…what I think it is? “Don’t run off so quickly. Stay and play a little while longer with us,” the first man murmured sensually, his hot and smelly breath fanning the edges of my earlobe.
“That’s super tempting, but I really can’t, fellas. A girl’s gotta put food on the table somehow,” I apologized, shooting a meaningful glance at our surroundings.
If my uncle had been here right now, he would’ve blown his top at any of the male customers giving me a hard time. But I stupidly went and insisted that me and Roy could handle things for the night and that he should take my aunt out for dinner and a movie. Ginny, you are such a fucking moron! And Roy was just standing behind the bar with Eddie, the bartender, pretending to be engrossed in mixing drinks and cleaning glasses instead of defending my virtue. I take back what I said – the guys I work with are fucking useless!
“Come on, beautiful, can you really afford to play hard to get?” the first man asked in what was definitely a brazenly insulting way.
Gus, leave her alone. She’s gotta serve the other customers,” a third man with a nice looking face and cool demeanour told the first man whose lap I was inadvertently sitting in.
“Relax, Pete. Besides, I can think of other ways the slut can make her quota for the night,” the man called Gus said in a leering way. Oh no, you didn’t.
“Oh snap, did he just call that waitress a slut? He did, right?” a new voice interjected
“I think he did,” another voice agreed solemnly.
I managed to extricate myself from Gus’ lap and stared in astonishment at the newcomers. They definitely
weren’t regulars at the bar; in fact, they looked nothing like the men that I usually interacted with, either professionally or personally.
The man who had spoken first was tall with broad shoulders and an impressive build all round. His skin was pale to the point of almost being translucent and he was wearing what looked like a dark blue V-neck muscle T-shirt and a black leather jacket on top. He was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans and boots. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at his light grey eyes and mop of unruly, curly brown hair that I just wanted to run my fingers through in the moment.
That was the case until my eyes landed on his companion. He was shorter, but he was just as good looking as his friend if not more so. He was pale too, but with traces of formerly tanned skin of the Latino persuasion. I could see this in his face with his warm chocolate brown eyes, a long, angular nose and a delicately chiseled jawline. His hair was short, black and gelled upwards, which somehow reminded me of a shark’s fin. Unlike his taller friend, he was wearing a maroon hoodie, black and white striped tracksuit pants and sneakers.
They seemed pretty harmless just standing there in the middle of my uncle’s bar. And yet…I got this strange vibe from both of them. Like…they were a hell of a lot more dangerous than they looked. So much so that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up at full attention as I kept staring at them.
“Who the fuck are the two of you? The Hardy Boys?” the guy named Gus demanded, followed by derisive laughter from him and his friends.
“You don’t need to know that,” the taller guy answered abruptly.
What you do need to know is that we know you, Augustus Prince. We also know you, Vincent Franz and you, Peter Baldwin. We know a hell of a lot about you and your shady dealings.” The shorter man continued.
Gus’ cheeks turned blood red and his hands were shaking badly as they rested on the table as he gazed at the newcomers. “Who are you?” he asked yet again, only more seriously this time.
“You know a friend of ours, Gus-Gus. At least, you were acquainted with her once, before you raped and killed her.” When this sinister announcement was met with more than a few blank stares from me, my co-workers and the other bar patrons, the stranger elaborated: “Oh, you all don’t know? This is Gus Prince, Vick Franz and Pete Baldwin. They’re famous on the news these days; you’re probably more familiar with their work as the ‘Trinity Troika’. Gus over here likes the women a little too much; Vick’s into money laundering; And Pete takes care of the books and keeps his nose clean, with a little racketeering on the side. Better drink up, boys. It’s gonna be your last.” The taller stranger warned, a creepy smile plastered on his face.
At that point, Gus smashed his beer glass on the table and stood up, shaking all over with rage and grasping the jagged shard so tightly in his balled-up fist that it started to bleed a little. “Come try that bold shit over here, asshole,” he implored, his teeth bared like a wild animal.
“With pleasure,” the shorter stranger remarked casually. To my intense horror, his whole face seemed to break out into scaly flaps of skin, crisscrossing with black veins that appeared out of nowhere, along with his brown eyes morphing into blood-red orbs. And I watched with morbid curiosity as he launched himself off the back of his heels and landed squarely on top of Gus’ shoulders. I emitted a scream when sharp fangs shot out from behind his parted lips as he sank them hard into Gus’ neck and drank deeply.
Vick screamed like a banshee and tried to get away while Pete held his ground, retrieving a blade from his jacket pocket. At this point, the whole bar was in a state of total chaos. The other patrons, along with Roy and Eddie, tried to haul ass out of the entrance. But it was like some strange magic was being worked over the bar. The doors which had been unlocked the entire time just wouldn’t open- no matter how much anyone tried. The shorter man was now through drinking his fill of blood and he had left a gaping laceration on the side of Gus’ neck. Gus lay on his back with his eyes wide open. My heart dropped in my stomach while staring at the man’s mouth, which was now rimmed red and dripping with blood at the edges. The taller man grabbed hold of Vick’s shirt and threw him savagely into the jukebox in the corner of the room. Both man and jukebox careened violently onto the side and didn’t move a muscle afterwards.
With a roar, Pete charged forward with blade in hand and stabbed the taller man savagely in the stomach. But the man simply looked down at the protruding hilt and grinned wickedly at his attacker. Then in a flash, he grabbed hold of Pete’s neck with both hands. He twisted and twisted till I heard a sickening crunch , followed by skin, bone, muscle and membrane tearing and separating from each other. I gasped in terror when I saw the head he’d just ripped right off its neck rolling on the floor like a lost bowling ball.
And just because things couldn’t possibly get any weirder, the shorter man calmed the mayhem of people by uttering one word with four letters:
“Stop.”
Everyone, including my co-workers stopped running and freaking out and became as still as tombstones, their eyes frozen as if with shards of ice. The only thing that told me they were still alive was the gentle rising and falling of their chests. The taller man, whose eyes had also turned blood red with black veins and scales erupting all over his face walked forward and addressed the bar.
“Everything is fine, you are not in danger. The three men lying dead on the floor are notorious criminals who fought amongst one another and got killed in the process. This is what you till tell the police should they make any inquiries. You will not remember seeing our faces tonight. Go home now and lock your doors.”
And just like that, every single person save for me and the two strangers walked calmly out of the bar entrance and left. Which left me alone with two murderous psychopaths who judging from their morphed faces and telltale fangs, are definitely vampires. Before they could say anything to me, my numb legs led me out of the door too. And then I ran and ran, until I was as far away from that bloodbath as I could be.
CHAPTER 2
Only heaven alone knows how I got any sleep that night. The truth is, I don’t even remember exactly how I got back to my crumby apartment after what I witnessed at the bar. All I know is that it was 6pm the next day and my phone started ringing. I picked up the receiver, every inch of my body aching with fatigue and listened to my uncle yelling nonsensically on the other side:
“Ginny, where the hell are you?! I’ve been calling your phone for hours now! I take your Aunt out for a nice romantic dinner and come back to find the bar in shambles! And those two idiots, Roy and Eddie, don’t have a fucking clue how it happened! I appreciate you telling those two strapping friends of yours to help fix up the place, but you should’ve cleared it with me first, young lady!”
Two strapping guys? Wait, he doesn’t mean…
“Uncle Ted, I’m really sorry, but I’m on my way now,” Then I hung up the phone and changed into the first items of clothing I could lay my hands on. Then I made a mad dash for my uncle’s bar. On the way out the door I grabbed a piece of paper taped to the door and stuffed in my purse.
When I sprinted through the doors, I came to a careening halt. Except for a few scuff marks made by chairs and shoes on the floor, the bar was spotless. There were no bloodstains, no shards of glass lying on the floor. Even the jukebox had been put back up and didn’t have a single dent on it. What the hell happened here?
In answer to that, my uncle came walking quickly towards me, a scowl plastered on his face. “Young Lady-”
I know, I’m so sorry I’m late, Uncle Ted! But I’m here now and I can explain everything-”
There’s no need for that, your two friends already took care of the mess. Can you believe those sons of bitches, the Trinity Troika, were actually in my bar last night? If I’d been here instead of out with your aunt, those clowns would have had to stitch their balls back onto their bodies after I got through with them. Beck, Santiago – how much do I owe you for the damage?” my uncle called out.
I turned my head and gasped sharply when I laid eyes on the two vampires from last night. Gone were their scaly faces and blood-soaked fangs. They were replaced with charming demeanours and easy-going smiles. Who the hell are these guys? Stefan and Damon Salvatore?
“You don’t owe us a dime, Ted.” The taller Caucasian vampire said with a smile.
“We’re just happy those illegitimos finally got what they deserved,” the shorter Hispanic vampire added with a light chuckle. This is so fucking surreal.
“Well all the same, any drinks you want tonight, it’s on the house.” My uncle told the two vampires. “Ginny, I need you to start wiping down the tables,” he added in an aside. Then he gave my arm a gentle squeeze and went on his way, whistling merrily to himself.
Which left me alone with two supernatural creatures who I’m pretty sure only helped my uncle and covered up the mess they made last night so that they could silence the one and only witness of their crime – a.k.a. moi. They advanced on me slowly and I backed away hurriedly, till my back bumped against a rickety table I was supposed to be cleaning. My uncle was in the kitchen, so I desperately tried to signal to Roy and Eddie that I needed assistance por favor. But they weren’t making any contact with me from behind the bar. It was almost as if they were –
“Compelled,” the shorter vampire affirmed, as if he could read my thoughts.
Actually, everyone in the bar is. So is your uncle; he thinks he’s doing inventory in the kitchen when he’s actually taking an open-eyed nap against a back wall. Call it ‘vampire mojo’ if you will.” The taller vampire continued, flashing me a heart-stopping, sexy smile.
“Guys, I don’t want any trouble,” I began in a pitiable voice. “My uncle doesn’t pay me enough to be a hero. And I kinda like having my head attached to my neck instead of it rolling around on the floor-”
“Whoa, calm down, Chiquita. Nobody’s ripping anyone’s heads off, especially not one as pretty as yours,” Jose Cuervo said in a simpering voice.
AREA 69: An Alien Invasion Romance Novel Page 7
