Dante's Awakening

by Devon Marshall

  Something was.

  Robin Shepherd sat on my bed.

  My mouth opened, ready to emit the biggest girlie scream I could muster, only Robin clamped a hand over it that might as well have been a steel vise. She raised the forefinger of her other hand to her lips, smiled behind it.

  “If you scream, Dante, I will kill you,” she said, and I believed her utterly. I blinked at her above the hand strangling the lower half of my face.

  “Will you promise to behave?” she asked. I nodded. The hand went away. Robin’s smile widened and, God help me, I actually thought about how damned cute she was when she smiled! I definitely needed to give myself that kicking. And soon.

  “How’d you get in here?” I croaked. “Samson is right outside.”

  Realization dawned on me then with the shattering force of a hammer to my skull. She was right. There were spies, or one spy anyway. Samson. I shut my eyes, groaned softly. I was in a whole world of shit and trouble here.

  “It’s okay, I’m not going to kill you, or bite you,” Robin’s voice said.

  I opened my eyes and saw Robin was looking at me with amusement. “How long has Samson been with you?” I asked dully.

  “Long enough,” Robin replied. She tilted her head. “You have my human here.”

  I nodded. “Voshki figured it would bring you out of whatever hole you’d crawled into. I guess it worked.” My fingers crept involuntarily to the place on my neck where Robin had sunk her fangs a few days ago. The marks were fading and it hardly hurt at all. Forgetting what she’d done would not be so easy or so quick.

  “You didn’t need to fucking well bite me before,” I accused.

  Robin laughed. “Oh, but I did. It seemed like the best way of showing Voshki how serious I am. I didn’t plan on Lois finding her way to you…” She frowned… “You humans are very unpredictable. It’s just as well Voshki left Samson to guard you both, or else I might not have gotten in here so easily. Still, this has upset my plans somewhat.”

  “Gee, sorry,” I said.

  The hand she had covered my mouth with now rested against my chest. Last time a vampire had done that, I was excited by it. This time I was terrified.

  “You know, you’re really a very special human, Dante Sonnier,” Robin told me.

  I frowned. I enjoy receiving compliments as much as the next person, don’t get me wrong, but this one puzzled me, and it seemed somewhat inappropriate given the circumstances. I also had the feeling Robin meant something very particular by it, but if she did, she wasn’t telling just yet. She looked down at me, still smiling, only now her fangs were out and there was a glow building in her green eyes. “So where do we go from here?” she mused.

  “You could take Lois and just go,” I suggested.

  The bedroom door flew open and Voshki was inside the room. She had Lois Bartlett in front of her, one arm looped tight around the sheriff’s neck.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” she told Robin.

  Whatever Voshki’s plan was, I’d like to think it did not include what happened next, but with Voshki you never do know these things.

  Robin snatched me out of bed as easily as though I’d been a stuffed toy and not a fully grown human. Whilst I squawked and kicked ineffectually, she swung me around in front of her and held me to her. Facing Voshki and the sheriff, she grabbed my hair and used that to yank my head to one side, leaving my neck exposed. Her fangs hovered less than an inch from the throbbing vein beneath my skin.

  “Checkmate, Voshki,” she growled.

  I don’t think I was breathing. I’m pretty sure I would also have been screaming if I had been breathing. I could feel my heart trying to dig its way out of my chest. The blood pounding in my head was making it hard to think. Not that I supposed thinking would have been a whole lot of use to me right then. A stake, about a gallon of gasoline and some flaming torches—those would have been a damn sight more useful than thinking.

  “Put her down,” Robin ordered.

  Voshki smiled. Shook her head.

  “You know I’ll kill Dante if you don’t.”

  “Yes, I know. And I’ll kill Lois.”

  Oh this was not working for me at all! I struggled to force air into my lungs against the forearm pressing my throat. “Let’s not…kill anyone,” I wheezed. “I’m pretty sure there must be some way we can work this out peacefully?”

  Thank heaven the agent in me was surfacing, reminding me of my own mad negotiating skills. They could be used here, right?

  Wrong. Robin’s fangs grazed my neck. I felt warm blood on my skin. My own fucking blood. “Your time running the show has just run out, Voshki,” she snarled.

  Well, that was a bit dramatic, wasn’t it? The agent in me unhelpfully wanted to ask Robin whether she’d ever considered a career in soap opera acting.

  “It doesn’t matter whether you kill Dante, or even if you kill me—the Council will never accept you or your kind,” Voshki pointed out.

  Did she have to put that idea back in Robin’s goddamned head? I glared at Voshki in an attempt to convey this but she ignored me, her focus on the other vampire.

  “After I deliver the Promise of Darkness to them, your precious Council won’t be in any position to object,” Robin sneered.

  Voshki smirked. “Ah yes. Your war against the oppressors…” She feigned a yawn and then snickered… “That’s a myth, Robin. Get over it. Get over yourself. And put my fucking human down!”

  Rather than do as she was told, Robin let her fangs touch my neck and used the tip of her tongue to lick up the blood trickling down my neck. Unlike when Ellis or even Voshki had done the same, it didn’t feel the least bit sensual having Robin licking my blood. “Mmm, tasty,” she murmured. She threw a sly grin at Voshki. “But Dante isn’t your human, is she? She belongs to your creature, Ellis. Interesting that you should be so very willing to defend her, Voshki.”

  “I don’t belong to anyone!” I squawked.

  “Sparky one, isn’t she? How does Ellis control her?”

  Mockery flickered in Voshki’s smile. Poking the angry, rabid vampire. The one with its fangs at my neck. That was such a good idea. “I suspect Ellis doesn’t control her, nor does she have any interest in doing so,” she said. “Unlike you and your filthy kind, we don’t have a need to control humans. Dante is her own woman. She doesn’t belong to either Ellis or me. She chose to be with Ellis of her own free will. And I expect when she realizes how much she wants me…” Voshki gave me a look that made me feel all rucked up inside…“she’ll come to me with just as much free will.”

  Oh. Wow. My God. Even in a moment of crisis a vampire could find a way to indulge their own monstrous ego. It would have been fascinating from a sociological perspective, if I’d had even the slightest inclination to look at anything from any perspective except the I’m-about-to-die-horribly one. Whether by intention, or because Voshki’s poking was simply pissing her off, the pressure of Robin’s arm against my throat increased until my head began to pound painfully. I was sure two miniature versions of the creature from Alien were going to come bursting out of there, front and back simultaneously, in a shower of pulped brains and skull bone. I could taste my pulse in back of my throat. I thought, This is it. I’m going to die now. And in my night clothes too. How undignified.

  Then Lois Bartlett decided the situation was not tense enough. It needed some inflammatory input from her.

  “Yeah, Robin,” the sheriff sneered, “seems like some vampires actually remember their own humanity well enough to realize that controlling and coercing people is a poor fucking way to run an empire!”

  Talk about coming over all unnecessary. I wondered if Lois had bad eyesight, if she couldn’t see the arm choking me, or the ripe aubergine shade my face must surely be turning? I would have asked her to shut the fuck up, but I needed the small amount of breath I had left to stay alive.

  And then things took a turn toward the truly ugly as Voshki ducked her head toward Lois’s neck and ripped
a chunk out of her throat. Blood spouted from the ragged wound in a bright red fountain. Lois slumped in Voshki’s arms and the vampire thrust her away. Lois crumpled to the floor.

  What happened next seemed to happen in a place where time simultaneously sped up and slowed down. I heard a hissing, snarling noise close to my left ear, wondered briefly why there were angry bees and a big, angry dog in my room before realizing the noise emanated from Robin. Scary. Then I was thrown aside, my feet actually lifting from the floor briefly as I hurtled into the wall. My forehead broke my fall. Stars, entire constellations of them all colorful and twinkling, danced across my vision and the breath went whooshing out of me. Ears ringing, I also crumpled to the floor, where I lay immobile whilst chaos visited above me.

  Soon as Robin threw me aside, she lunged forward. Torn between tending to her human who was bleeding from a sizeable hole in her neck, and killing the vampire that had done this to her, Robin was caught wrong-footed. Voshki took full advantage. She grabbed Robin, ran her into another of those handy walls, and sank her fangs into Robin’s throat. What came after was a bit of a blur between my incipient concussion and the speed at which the vampires were moving. Someone hit someone else and they retaliated, and, well, you know how these things catch fire.

  I crawled across the carpet to where Lois Bartlett lay on her side, a pool of blood spreading beneath her. I figured that stain wasn’t coming out and wondered what in the name of everything cute and holy had possessed me to put down a pale beige carpet in here in the first place? I hate pale-colored carpets. They are so impractical. I needed to change that carpet pronto. Strange, the things that suddenly seem to matter when your life is in danger.

  “You okay?” I asked. Stupid question. Lois had a hole in her neck from which she was bleeding to death.

  She managed a wan smile despite her predicament and my stupid question. “I’ll be fine,” she wheezed. I winced at the wet, bubbling sound of her voice. I struggled over to the bed where I reached up and groped for a pillow, yanked it off the bed and dragged it back over to Lois. The vampires were slugging it out on the other side of the room, oblivious to us and our suffering for the moment. The pillow felt full of rocks.

  “Actually…” Lois winced as the effort of talking caused more blood to pump out of the wound… “I agreed to Voshki doing this. She already knew that Samson guy was working with Robin. She was laying a trap.”

  I frowned. Doing so made my head hurt. I was thoroughly sick and tired of being whacked in the head every time I was around the goddamned vampires. “And when did she let you in on all of this?” I inquired coldly.

  “After she left. She came back… I didn’t know vampires could climb walls so easily?”

  I gave her a sick smile. “They have many talents. Many of which should probably stay hidden. Go on. Please.”

  “Voshki didn’t want you knowing what was going on in case Robin Shepherd could read it from you.”

  I had nothing to say about that. I heaved the pillow at Lois. “Put this against the wound,” I advised. Like she wasn’t a law enforcement officer who probably knew more about first-aid than I ever would. She grabbed the pillow, pushed it hard against the bleeding wound. It wasn’t an ideal tourniquet, but it was the only item readily at hand.

  At that moment Voshki grabbed Robin by her shirtfront and, with the most ungodly snarl I have ever heard or want to hear again, she heaved the Child of Judas through the sliding glass doors. The sound of shattering glass pierced my pounding head like millions of tiny, sharp daggers with bells attached. Before me, Lois swam in and out of focus. I blinked. My stomach roiled. Either I was about to faint, or throw up. I hoped not both at once. I tried breathing in and out steadily but that seemed just to hurt my head. Sound receded. I felt like I was sinking beneath the surface of a heavy, warm ocean.

  Then blessed blackness swallowed me whole.

  * * *

  This time when I came around it was with both Ellis and Voshki looking down at me, Voshki perched on the bed in which I lay—clothed this time, I’m glad to say—and Ellis hovering beside it. I wasn’t in my own bed, however. I didn’t recognize my surroundings.

  My last clear memory was of Voshki throwing Robin through the window in my bedroom.

  “Where’s Robin?” I demanded.

  Voshki had some scratches on her face and neck, and a bruise around her right eye of an interesting purplish-brownish-yellowish hue that I think didn’t actually have a name. She exchanged a look with Ellis that I took an immediate dislike to.

  “Where are we?” I demanded.

  I was vaguely aware of not quite making perfect sense.

  “Robin managed to get away,” Voshki confessed. Then: “I brought you to my home. It was a tad drafty at your place. And possibly not safe.”

  I closed my eyes. Terrific. Robin Shepherd was crazy, that much I did know. Vats and vats of crazy. And, oh deep fucking joy, she was on the loose again. Which meant we were back to square one.

  “You set me up,” I grated. “Again.”

  “Sorry. There was no other way. There is some good news though.”

  I opened my eyes, looked at the vampire leader hopefully.

  “Samson has been telling us all kinds of things, and we expect to have the Children of Judas under control again very soon.”

  “Wonderful. But you’ll pardon me if I don’t hold my fucking breath. What about Lois Bartlett?” Last I remembered the sheriff was bleeding to death on my impractical beige carpet.

  “Sheriff Bartlett is fine. The wound looked worse than it was.”

  Not from where I’d been lying on the floor next to her, watching her bleed. I let it go for the moment, too damn weak to conduct yet another ultimately pointless argument with a vampire. “What about Samson? What will happen to him when he’s done talking?”

  “Samson will be dealt with,” Voshki assured me in a cold voice.

  I didn’t ask for details. I didn’t want details. I closed my eyes and lay back against the pillow. It felt cool and soft. Unlike the inside of my skull, where rocks were being pounded to shit by a road crew with jackhammers. “I need some aspirin. Actually, I need some Percocet. And Vicodin. Please, one of you call Lydia to come over.” Only person with a better supply of pharmaceuticals than Lydia is my mother, and I wasn’t about to call my mother.

  “You won’t need pills if I feed you again,” Voshki offered.

  I shook my head despite the pain. “No. I don’t want to feed from you again. If I’m going to feed from anyone, it’ll be Ellis this time.”

  “Dante, you’re delirious. You have to feed from me,” Voshki coaxed. With her blood in my system preventing me from killing her or not, I nonetheless wanted very much to shove a sharpened railroad tie through her heart.

  “I am not delirious,” I retorted, glaring at her. “I am in complete control, and I do not want to feed from you. I want…” my eyes slid over to Ellis and I hitched a smile onto my lips…“my own girlfriend to heal me this time. Is that okay with you? Not that I actually give a flying fuck even if it isn’t.”

  I was surprised when Voshki stood up from the bed without further argument and stood aside to allow Ellis to take her place. Wordlessly, Ellis slid one arm under my shoulders and helped me sit upright. I rested in the crook of her arm. That felt good. Right then I was no longer in the least bit mad at Ellis. I just loved her. I think Voshki recognized this. A wince of pain fought its way through her smile.

  “You’re a very special human, Dante,” she said softly.

  I recalled Robin saying almost the exact thing. Before she tried to paper the walls with the contents of my skull. “What makes me so special?” I demanded. I glared at both vampires at once. “Why are you lot so keen to all have me for yourselves? What is it about me?”

  But Voshki just shook her head. “You need to feed and to rest,” she said. “There will be time for all that later.”

  All what? I wanted to ask. But I could see the glow building in my lover’
s eyes and feel the heat radiating from her. I wouldn’t have believed it a couple days ago, but my own battered and bruised body was responding to her ardor. I sighed. As much as I wanted Voshki to tell me whatever it was being so rudely kept from me, I also wanted her to go away and allow Ellis and I some privacy.

  “Vosh, fuck off, would you?” I said pleasantly.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The rest of that week felt like something dense and oppressive I had to hack my way through with a steak knife, and which I was glad to leave behind. Voshki insisted on replacing the glass in my bedroom windows. She also offered to throw in a new deck but I turned that down. I know Voshki would have gone over the top, spent lavishly, and the current deck is plenty big enough for my needs. Besides, I didn’t want to feel indebted to her, and allowing her to install a new deck felt like something you eventually would be expected to pay for in kind.

  Lois Bartlett recovered from her neck wound. I suspected the psychological trauma would take somewhat longer to heal. Lois never told me whether drinking Voshki’s blood to help her heal left her also with the urge to have wild, abandoned, filthy monkey sex, and I didn’t ask. I talked with the sheriff just once before she went back to Holly Bush Junction, when she came by my house to apologize once again for all the shit she dragged into, and to thank me for rescuing her from Robin’s clutches.

  “Are you sorry Voshki didn’t kill her?” I asked.

  Lois nodded. “But I suspect Robin’s day will come,” she added grimly.

  “Meantime she’s still out there. Doesn’t that worry you?”

  Lois smiled, shook her head. “Voshki assures me that Robin Shepherd won’t come after me again. Apparently the fact that I now have Voshki’s blood in my system will leave me, ah, tainted as far as Robin is concerned.”

  Hmm. Would that really be enough to stop the psychotic Robin from trying to kill Lois Bartlett? I decided to keep my doubts to myself—they wouldn’t help Lois feel any better. I asked if she would stay in Holly Bush after…everything.

  “There might still be some Children of Judas there,” I suggested.