by Jenn Windrow
There was one thing I couldn’t outrun: the consequences. I let the vampire escape. Eddie needed payment and satisfaction or he would tear me apart from the inside out or even worse, force me to feed from the first human I came across.
The roof of my warehouse apartment was in sight, two blocks away, an eyesore of a building nestled among other buildings the city had forgotten long ago. I jumped from the roof to the empty sidewalk below.
Before my feet fully connected with the ground, my supernatural sonar let me know I had a second chance to satisfy my monster within.
There was a creature near my home. A creature that wouldn't live to see sunrise.
Chapter Two
The creature darted and clung to the deep shadows cast by the skeletal rail cars. I stalked, studied, watched. Waiting for the opportune moment to attack, ideally in an isolated area, no witnesses.
Every vamp, werewolf, and creepy crawly in Chicago knew where I lived. Hell, they probably had my address listed on an undead city tour. “Next up, Evil’s Assassin’s house.” There were two explanations for someone to be around my place. They were new to the area. Or they had a death wish.
My prey’s identity was hidden underneath a heavy, black cloak. I didn’t know what flavor of creatures-that-go-bump-in-the-night I stalked. Not that it mattered. After tonight’s disaster I needed a good fight.
I knew just the place for our confrontation, and my prey headed right for it. An abandoned train station on the corner of Wells and Polk, two short blocks from my home. The empty parking lot in the rear was the perfect place for a moonlight execution.
I picked up speed, rounded the corner of an empty caboose, a short cut that would bring me out ahead, and slipped underneath a rickety stairwell. I pulled out my redwood stake and dug my nails into the wood.
The angel wings branded on my hip, another by-product of my contract, pulsed with fire. The growing intensity let me know the creature was close, even before I heard its shoes slapping on the pavement.
Pain sliced through my insides, a thousand tiny knives carving into my bones, my organs. I bent over and clutched my stomach. I didn’t have long before the beast took control, and I became the monster I loathed. The monster I feared.
The black-clad figure rounded the corner and passed my hiding spot. I leapt out and yanked off its cloak.
My blood curdled like rotten milk. It couldn’t be. Not him. Not tonight. Not ever. Not Nathan.
My heart high-dived into the pool of bile in my stomach.
“’ello, China Doll.” His British accent had thickened in the past two years.
He looked exactly the same—amber eyes surrounded by thick charcoal eyeliner, spiked bleached blonde hair, silver hoops hanging from his earlobes, and an old ratty Ramones t-shirt I’d given him for Christmas five years ago. He was the vampire Billy Idol, and damn proud of it.
Nathan. Father-figure, friend, mentor all rolled into one flamboyant vampire. God, I missed him.
And tonight he will sacrifice himself to help you fight for another day.
I won’t do it. I wasn’t sure if I was telling Eddie or myself.
There’s no other option. Eddie always liked to state the obvious.
Fangs ripped through my gums, fire raced through my veins, and red bled into my eyes. Eliminating the creature in front of me pushed all rational thought to the dusty cobweb corners of my mind. All I could think about was death.
For the second time that night the beast demanded to be fed. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and squeezed. Squeezed hard, hoping it was enough to keep myself in control, or at the very least keep Eddie at bay long enough to dig us out from under this mountain of shit.
I bent over, placed my hands on my leather-clad knees, and pulled deep breaths through gritted teeth. Come on Alexis. You’ve been in worse situations than this. You’re strong. You’re in control. You’re not a monster. Not. A. Monster.
Are you sure about that? Eddie interjected.
Positive.
My pep talk swept the pain, the hunger, and the need to kill under the rug, like the dirt hidden from an unexpected houseguest, which would eventually creep back out. I estimated we had five minutes before my personal beasty bust out. Five minutes to figure out how to get Nathan out of here alive.
“You okay, Luv?” His voice snuck through my concentration.
“Not even a little.” There was a sharpness to my words. Sharp enough to ram a stake through my heart. “What are you doing here? We had an understanding.”
“I heard you were dead. I needed to see for myself.”
“That’s twice tonight someone’s informed me of my own demise, but I’m very much alive, and now we’re screwed.”
“I cocked up, but I had to know. I had to say goodbye.” He lifted his shoulders in a half-assed shrug. “What’s the plan? I bugger off into the night, and you find some poor unsuspecting bastard to replace me?”
“There are no unsuspecting bastards.” I shot my thumb over my shoulder, and pointed out the deserted area behind us. “Everyone knows to stay clear of my turf. Especially you.”
Nathan flinched like I had just thrown holy water on him. “What are our options?”
“Blood or death,” I said through clenched teeth, repeating the mantra out loud that had been constant in my mind for the past two years. “In order for you to live, I have to feed.”
“Off a human?”
I shot him my best what-do-you-think look.
“Sorry.” He lowered his gaze and his voice shook just enough to let me know he was afraid.
The memory of sinking my fangs into the drunk at the bar surfaced, so did the revulsion and shame and terror. The truth was, I knew what I had to do to get Nathan out of here alive, but could I do it? At the bar Eddie had been in control, I hadn’t attacked of my own free will. But here. Right now. It would be my choice. Could I live with that on my conscious? It’d be hard, but living with Nathan’s death in my heart would be worse.
“Yeah. Me too. It seems I’ll be falling off the wagon twice tonight.” I shut out the background noises that accompanied all big cities, and searched the area for a beating heart or hammering pulse or warm body.
Damn. No one. No vagrants, street thugs or drug-addled idiots.
This was Chicago for Christ’s sake. Where were all the warm blooded-humans? I glanced at the gold watch on my wrist: two forty-seven a.m. Tucked away for the night.
My head rolled back on my shoulders, my eyes pinched shut. “Shit.”
“Problem?”
“No humans.”
Nathan laid his hand on my shoulder. The touch of the creature my curse considered the enemy sizzled through my flesh, my blood, my bones. “Now what?”
My hard-won control slipped through its carefully built barrier. I pushed his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
Nathan backed away, both hands up in the air. One step. Two steps. Three steps, but it wasn’t far enough for me to regain control. Eddie rammed against my insides and tore through his prison of weak flesh. He demanded the vampire in front of me die. Tonight. By my hand.
Tears stung my eyes when I looked at the pointy hunk of wood and then at Nathan. Nathan. The one who found me. Saved me. Protected me. How could I drive a stake through his heart when it would break mine?
Pain crashed through me like a wrecking ball through Wrigley Field. Our time was up.
“I can’t control the beast.” I clamped my teeth so tight I was afraid they were going to shatter.
“I know.” His words carried a heavy dose of pity. “Your eyes are shining like rubies.”
It’s the vampire in front of you or the humans you love so. Your choice.
I lowered my chin and eyelids, ashamed of the monster Caleb the-asshole-angel turned me into. How did I get us out of this mess? The rules were simple. In order for one to live, the other had to die. But who’d be sacrificed? I swore I would do anything for the return of my humanity, and I meant it, but looking at Nathan I knew th
at wasn’t a promise I could keep.
There was only one solution I could live with.
“Go.” I pointed to a break between two buildings, an escape that led to his survival.
He stayed put. “What happens to you?”
“Just go.”
“What happens to you?” The concern in his voice ricocheted off my heart.
“I die.” The full force of my anger pushed the words out. I lunged forward, stake raised high, aimed at his heart. “Get the fuck out before I do something we’ll both regret.”
His soft soles crunched the gravel slowly at first, then picked up speed. I looked up to see him turn the corner. Tears of relief and dread and fear rolled down my cheeks. The beast lunged against my inner flesh prodding me to give chase. I ground my teeth against the pain and refused to give in to its demands.
Without the satisfaction of the vampire’s demise or blood to satiate its thirst, the beast turned its anger on me. I welcomed the swift death.
You chose wrong. I detected a hint of satisfaction in Eddie’s tone.
A hot poker traced every curve, every line, and every detail of the angel wings on my hip. It burned its way like scorching lava through my veins, slowly consuming me from the inside out. The beast tore at my heart and ripped through my muscles, forcing me to drop to my knees, my hands, and roll onto my side.
A mix of raw terror and suffering ripped through my vocal cords and ended in one single blood-curdling scream.
I lay in a heap on the ground unable to move, the life draining out of me. The cicadas’ buzz, shrill to my sensitive ears, the smell of an over-ripe dumpster, toxic to my nose, the cold pavement underneath me, harsh to my feverish flesh. This was the end, but instead of regret I found peace. Peace because unlike so many other things in my life, this was my choice. My opportunity to make the right decision. I looked up. A blanket of stars covered my pain-ravaged body.
The scuffing of shoes on the blacktop let me know I wasn’t alone. My head fell to the side. A pair of faded fire engine red Dr. Marten’s stopped next to me. Only one person I knew owned shoes that ugly.
Nathan.
“I can’t let you do this.” He bent down, wiped away my tears, and placed my head on his lap. The physical contact sent a jolt through my extremities that arched my back and rendered me silent. He wrapped his hand around mine, and closed my fingers tight around the stake.
Eddie reared his ugly head and begged me to do something. Try to resist. Try to fight back. Try to survive.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Instead, I let my head sink back into the deep V of Nathan’s thighs, and hoped my life would be over soon.
“Listen, Luv.” He played with the dark waves of my hair. “I’ve looked after you since the day I found you on that cargo ship.” He raised the stake. Pinching my eyes shut, I mentally prepared for the pain that would accompany the smooth wood on its way to my heart. “And I’m not stopping now.” My eyelids sprang open.
The tip didn’t rest over my breastbone. It hovered over his.
The beast kept the words I wanted to say locked behind their cracked lips. I wanted to tell him to let me go, to make him understand I couldn’t live with his death on my conscience. Instead, all I could muster was one shaky word and a half-ass attempt to pull the stake away from his heart. “No.”
His hand cupped the side of my face, and he tilted my head so our eyes met. “It’s okay. I’ve lived for almost three hundred years. You’ve got a purpose. A chance to get your life back. I want that for you.”
I searched his face. His heavily outlined eyes said he didn’t want to die. His firm grip on the stake said he would…for me.
My hand shook—his was steady. My eyes were moist—his were dry. He gave my fingers a quick squeeze. “Close your eyes?” His fingers touched my forehead, but I couldn’t shut my eyes, couldn’t blind myself from what the beast was about to force me to do.
Nathan pulled the stake back at arm’s length and drove it toward his heart. The sharp tip drilled through his flesh, but caught on his breastbone.
I pushed with all the strength my body could muster on the wooden handle, until it broke through the bone and went straight into his heart.
He smiled at me one last time, a smile of pure love I’d never forget.
The skin that touched the stake glowed red and dissolved. The heat continued outward until all Nathan’s flesh and bone was reduced to a smoking pile of ash, which swirled in one last dance with the summer breeze. Bits of it landed on my hair and clothes, covering me in a light grey layer. A gruesome reminder of what I had done to survive.
Smart vampire. Content, Eddie slipped back into the abyss without another word.
The all-encompassing pain disappeared once the last piece of flesh dissolved, only to be replaced with something worse. The emotional pain gripped my heart and ripped it in two.
I focused on the pile of ash, the only thing left of my best friend. Silver sparkled under the dim streetlight, a flickering object buried in the center of Nathan’s remains. I sifted through and found the platinum band he’d worn on his left ring finger, one of the few mementos from his human life. Blowing on the shiny metal to cool it off, I slipped the circle on my thumb, and clutched my hand to my chest.
Slapped with grief, I fell to the ground. Silent sobs wracked my body before the anguished sounds left my lips. My fist slammed into the concrete and then I threw the stake across the parking lot.
Tears tumbled down my cheeks. Trembling fingers reached out, not quite touching Nathan’s remains. “I’m sorry, so sorry.” My vocal cords rattled with despair.
Nathan’s death. Another scar on my already battered heart. Another person I couldn’t save. Another failure to add to a long list of failures.
I grabbed the rail car and pulled myself to my feet. Locking my emotions behind my black heart, knowing they wouldn’t stay there for long, but I needed to hide them. I walked the same path that Nathan had taken earlier; headed to a place I knew I couldn’t hurt another soul.
Squeaky wheels on the pavement made me pause and look back. An older man in a shredded coat and filthy clothes pushed a wobbly shopping cart through the parking lot on his way to a garbage can in a corner. The man arrived ten minutes too late to save Nathan’s life.
Fate was a fickle bitch.
Chapter Three
The crumbling graffiti-covered walls of my abandoned warehouse lay ahead. I walked quickly, chin to chest. Wanting sanctuary, safe haven, isolation.
Wanting somewhere I could fall apart.
The sight of Nathan’s ashes floating away on the wind had brought a new kind of despair to my already lonely life. His death plunged my non–beating heart into the sewer of my soul. A sewer filled with anger and regret and self-loathing.
You are the most morose vampire I have ever encountered. Eddie poked at my wounds, trying to goad me into fighting back, but I let his wisdom-less words turn into white noise.
Every half-peeled concert sticker stuck to the light poles, and every discarded Marlboro pack along the cracked sidewalk reminded me of him. If only the homeless man had shown up a few minutes sooner, I’d have sucked him dry to save Nathan’s life. Hell, I’d already broken my oath once tonight. Guess I needed to flip my “it’s been seven hundred and twenty-six days since an accident” sign back to zero.
Tiny cyclones of guilt twisted through my stomach and kicked debris over my heart, burying the useless organ in a heavy blackness. Blood and a hot shower would erase the physical pain, but the memory of what I was forced to do settled deep in my soul. Hidden away from any type of healing. Maybe I should skip the blood and shower, hold on to the pain a little longer, like a scarlet “SB”, for selfish bitch, nailed to my chest.
I yanked open the three-inch thick steel door that separated me from the welcome sight of scratched concrete and chipped walls. An old service elevator waited to take me to the loft on the second floor. I slammed my hand into the red up button and waited for it to lurch
upward.
The smell of pine cleaner and ocean breeze potpourri, mixed with the unwelcome aroma of a familiar musky male, slipped in between the metal diamonds of the elevator cage. A warning that an overly hostile Reaper waited for me on the other side.
What the hell was he doing here? And how did he get in? It’s not like he had a key. Or manners. The only other time he had stepped foot in my apartment was the night he introduced himself and announced his extreme dislike for anything of the vampire persuasion.
Reaper and I didn't have conversations. We had shouting matches with punches for punctuation. Something told me tonight’s conversation would be laced with exclamation points.
The elevator stopped. I pushed back the cage and drew a deep breath, bracing myself for what was sure to be a chilly reception. I stepped into the loft.
Nice. He’d made himself at home. Butt comfy on my cream-colored leather sofa, black combat boots propped on my coffee table, my black and orange cat curled on his lap.
I ignored Reaper, but crouched and made kissy noises to entice my kitty. “Come, Raja.”
Raja opened an eye, yawned, arched her back in a stretch, and curled up even tighter. Reaper reached down and stroked her fur. No Friskies for her tonight.
Reaper stood with my traitorous animal in his arms, petting her one last time before placing her gently on the floor. She purred and wound in and out of his legs, but he ignored the cat and focused his it’s-time-to-talk gaze on me. His fists pumped at his sides. “What the hell happened tonight?” The softly spoken words sent a missile shaped icicle to my core and scared me more than if he had screamed.
You should have eaten him years ago. Reaper’s crappy attitude, the only thing Eddie and I agreed on.
And even though I felt as if death stared at me from behind Reaper’s green eyes, I figured a few more minutes wouldn’t kill him.
I removed my black leather duster, tossed my keys on the cherry wood entry table, and walked to the kitchen. Grabbed a bag of “O” positive from the fridge, and popped it in the microwave. I leaned against the black granite counter and waited out the forty-five seconds it took to heat a pint of blood.
