Once Bitten

by Reinke, Sara

  “Sandy.” John stepped reflexively forward just as she squirmed violently against the bonds, mewling at him around the gag. Wilder tightened his grip visibly on her shoulder, the talons of his fingers hooking deep, and the bright, frightened expression on her face faltered into a pained wince. John swung the nail gun up, doing his best to ignore the fact that it felt leaden in his hand, so heavy and unwieldy, there was no way in hell he’d be able to keep it raised for very long, or hold it steady enough to draw good aim.

  “Let her go,” he told Wilder.

  “I see you found my invitation,” Wilder said, still grinning. “Great! Thanks for coming to my little soiree. I hope you don’t mind that we got started without you.” He made an exaggerated show of glancing at his wrist watch, then back at John, his brow raised. “You’re kind of late.”

  John ignored him and furrowed his right brow. “Let her go,” he said again.

  He heard a low growl from his left, and had a half-second to cut his eyes that way before one of the dogs from the beach attacked him anew, darting out from beneath the folds of a white linen tablecloth that had been draped over a long serving table laden with canapés, fruit platters and dip bowls. Sandy screamed, garbled and muffled, as the dog plowed into him, sending him careening sideways, waltzing with it in wild, clumsy circles before crashing to the floor with its massive, mangy bulk atop him.

  He managed to throw his arm up in front of his face just before the dog sank its wicked mouthful of teeth deep into his skull. They clamped down into his forearm instead, and the dog began to shake its head, frothy slobber flying as it growled and snarled.

  With an agonized cry, John shoved his right foot against its belly and kicked it. Its heavy paws clawed for purchase against him, but at last, its teeth ripped loose and it fell back. It came at him again, mouth open, lips curled back from blackened gums, and this time, when it landed on him, he mashed the business end of the Paslode Impulse cordless nail gun into the side of its neck. He’d loaded it with pink golf tees, not nails, and didn’t know if the damn thing would work or not, but squeezed the trigger anyway as the dog snapped its jaws within millimeters of his face, spraying his cheeks and mouth with hot, foamy saliva.

  At the first shot, the dog recoiled, its furious snarls cut abruptly short with a startled, pained yip. John rolled with it, cramming the nail gun into its shoulder first, then its flank, its back haunch, pulling the trigger again and again. The dog howled as it scrambled away, paws scrabbling clumsily on the floor. With its tail tucked between its legs, it scuttled out of the parlor, disappearing into the corridor.

  John heard the whisper of more paws on the Oriental rug, and tried to turn, flopping over onto his belly, holding the nail gun out in front of him. He compressed the trigger once, twice, then a third time, sending a series of high-velocity golf tees punching into another dog’s torso, neck and side. He tried for a fourth shot, trying to aim for the damn thing’s head, but this time, the trigger wouldn’t release. He tried again and again as this second dog broke off in aborted attack, yelping shrilly as it retreated, but nothing happened except for a dull, impotent click! He’d jammed it.

  “Shit.” Swaying unsteadily, he stumbled back to his feet, turning in a slow-moving, teetering circle to face Wilder again. Wilder’s hand remained clamped firmly against Sandy’s shoulder, forcing her to remain seated. Ashen and shaking, she blinked at John, her blue eyes round and glossy in the lamplight with tears.

  “What is that?” Wilder asked, looking impressed as he nodded toward the Paslode. “A goddamn miter saw or something?”

  “Nail gun,” John replied, and because he didn’t have to time to eject the clip and try to fix it, he tossed it aside. “Loaded up with golf tees.” He felt for his belt pack, pulled out the Super Soaker. “Let Sandy go.”

  “Golf tees,” Wilder repeated, his brows raised, his smile stretching more broadly. “I’ll be damned. Let me guess. Ash wood.”

  “Maple.”

  Wilder chuckled. “I’ll be damned,” he said again. Lifting his beer bottle in a toast, he added, “You’re good, John. I gotta give you that. When Jame first told me about you sniffing around, I figured you’d be easy enough to throw off, be rid of. But I have to admit, you’re impressing me, man. You want a beer?”

  “No, thanks. I said let her go.”

  “What’s that?” Wilder nodded toward the Super Soaker, then laughed again. “No, wait. Let me guess. Holy water. You’ve really done your homework, you and Miss Dodd both. You know all of the apotropes.”

  He cut a glance to his left, where the red-head, Phoebe, and several other girls lounged languidly, watching the exchange between the two men with thinly veiled, contemptuous amusement.

  “The bad news, John, is that a lot of those things are just superstition,” Wilder said, giving his bottle a little waggle in beckon. At this, Phoebe swung her long legs around, settling her stiletto heels against the floor as she stood. Three others around her slipped away from their perches along the walls, slinking like a pride of lionesses on the hunt as they converged on John.

  “Holy water is one of them,” Wilder continued. “Crucifixes, too. Anything consecrated, it’s all just a bunch of bullshit.”

  “Yeah? How about garlic?” John asked as Phoebe’s smile stretched wide, her canine teeth now long and hooked, a pair of fangs that gleamed in the lamplight. He depressed the trigger on the Super Soaker, sending a high-pressure stream of water spraying directly into her face. She backpedaled, startled at first, sputtering and choking for surprised breath. When she looked up at him again, her hair clung messily to her face in wet clumps and her carefully applied eye makeup had begun to run in dark streaks down her cheeks.

  “Bastard,” she seethed, more an expulsion of air, like a pissed off cat hissing, than voice. She crouched like a cat, too, her knees buckling beneath her, as she readied to spring at him.

  Then she began to scream.

  Her hands darted to her face and her voice ripped up in shrill, agonized octaves. Swinging wildly about, her hair flying around her, she loped in wide, crazy circles, shaking her head and shrieking. John could see smoke rising from between her fingers, could smell the sudden, pungent aroma of scorched flesh and watched with bizarre, somewhat repulsed fascination.

  Phoebe wheeled about and rushed from the room, but not before dropping her hands enough for him to see the water had eaten into her face like acid, burning through her pale, smooth skin, peeling it back in blackening flaps to reveal bright red meat, the gleaming hint of ivory bone beneath. One of her eye sockets looked like little more than a spongy pocket of hamburger with something viscous and creamy oozing out of it, trailing down what remained of her cheek.

  John caught sight of Sandy, all round and stricken eyes as she mewled around her duct tape gag, twisting her hands helplessly. The other girls shrank back toward the walls, abandoning the loose circumference they’d been pacing around John. For the first time, Boyd Wilder looked caught off guard, momentarily uncertain and—John was fairly certain—a little bit afraid.

  “I mixed garlic powder in with the water,” he said. “Stinks like hell, and you probably wouldn’t want to use it to gargle before a date, but hey, seems to do the trick by me.”

  That momentary hint of fear lingered a split second longer before Wilder’s face wiped smooth again, unfazed. He held John’s gaze evenly and his mouth unfurled in another predatory smile. “I had really hoped that we might be able to discuss this reasonably, John,” he said. “You know, man to man.”

  “You’re not a man,” John said.

  “No.” Wilder nodded once in concession, then raised his brow. “But neither are you. Not anymore.” Pausing long enough to brush the cuff of his hand against the side of Sandy’s face, despite her best attempt to duck away from him, he stepped out from behind her chair and strolled slowly, leisurely toward John. “Look, I’m sorry about Lucy got you involved in all this.”

  When John gave the Super Soaker a little warning jostl
e, Wilder fell still. “Changing her was a mistake. I can see that now.” He raised his hands in mock surrender. “I thought she was ready, thought she could handle it, but she freaked on me. Started bawling and sniveling and pleading with me to let her go. Then she tried to run. She didn’t know it was too late. She was already turning. By the time I tracked her down again, she’d bitten you. The next thing I knew, she was fixated on you, sneaking out of here at night, tracking you down, hunting for you.”

  “Yeah, I have that effect on women,” John said.

  “Then she managed to get herself shot,” Wilder said. “In the head, no less. You can’t hide something like that. What was I supposed to do with her? I expect all of my girls to earn their keep.” With a sweeping gesture of his hand, he indicated the dancers from his club, then managed a feigned look of melancholia as he took a swig of beer. “I had to teach her a lesson. Make an example of her, you know. My family’s managed to keep hidden for almost two hundred years by being smart when we feed. Discretion, John.” He dropped a wink. “It’s all about discretion.”

  “Where is Lucy now?” John asked.

  Wilder reached for his shirt pocket, pulling out a slim remote control. Holding it in an outstretched hand, he aimed just beyond John’s shoulder. “See for yourself,” he said with a smile, pushing a button with the pad of his thumb.

  John shuffled in a slow semi-circle as the line of women along the parlor’s back wall stepped obligingly aside. Behind them, recessed panels in the wall slid smoothly back, revealing a flat screen TV. Its mirror-smooth surface was now bright and aglow, video filling the screen. The image jostled and shook as whoever held the camera moved quickly, trying to keep pace with a man filmed in front of them, someone kept in disorienting extreme close-up.

  “It’s almost time,” the man said, glancing back at the camera, and John recognized both his face and voice—Jame Covey. A woman was with him, his hands clamped fiercely on her shoulders as he forced her along. Lucy Weston.

  He could still see the places where Sandy had shot her, hollowed out indentations in her face and torso that were crusted with dried blood and dirt. Her eyes were wild with frantic terror, glazed with a sort of feral ferocity.

  “Come on,” Covey said, and John realized he was shoving Lucy along through the downstairs foyer. As he watched, Covey opened the door and dragged Lucy onto the porch. Outside, it was still dark out, but John could see the first rosy hints of encroaching dawn in the sky. Lucy clearly saw it, too, and her struggles against Covey’s firm grasp intensified.

  “Help me,” Covey said, and the camera frame bounced erratically before becoming steady and still, as whoever held it set it down against the flat surface of the nearest porch balustrade. Britney Wilson came into view, walking around in front of the camera and grabbing a white wicker ottoman from a nearby arrangement of genteel porch furniture while Covey continued wrestling with Lucy.

  “Get it over here,” Covey said, grunting as he caught the still-struggling girl in a full-nelson chokehold, hoisting her feet off the ground.

  Britney balanced precariously on top of the ottoman long enough to reach the porch rafters overhead, looping a short length of rope around one exposed beam. The free end had been knotted into a crude noose. Together, Britney and Covey forced Lucy onto the ottoman, then the noose over her head, drawing it taut around her throat.

  “Kick it out,” Britney told Covey as they both stepped back from the stool. Lucy’s cries were choked and strained, a furious garble of sounds as she thrashed against the noose, pawing at it, trying to force her fingers beneath its edge. Covey planted one large foot against the corner of the ottoman and gave it a firm punt, knocking it aside, leaving Lucy’s feet to pinwheel and pedal in the open air. Her voice cut abruptly short as the noose tightened, and she writhed like a live marlin caught on a steel line.

  Her struggles had continued, even as the sun had crested the horizon, and then she’d managed to scream, hoarse and agonized. When the first beams of golden light cut across the sky, her body began to burn, her skin turning first scarlet, then black, smoke rising in thick curls from hundreds of sudden, overlapping blisters that erupted on her exposed skin. As her flesh peeled back, searing in the sunlight, it blackened and curled like scorched parchment. At last, her entire body combusted in a bright burst of abrupt, violent flames. Still she thrashed against the rope, twisting, writhing, struggling, flailing, her desperate, dying shrieks piercing through the recording.

  When at last, Lucy’s charred husk fell still, smoldering and swinging back and forth in a slowing arc at the end of the noose, the TV screen flickered to darkness.

  “Discretion, John,” Wilder said again as John turned to look back at him, stricken. “It’s all about tying up loose ends. Which, I’m afraid, includes you.”

  John had nearly forgotten about the Super Soaker. As he’d watched Lucy’s gruesome demise, it had fallen to his side, dangling in his hand. At Wilder’s words, cool and ominous, and the sudden blur of movement out of the corner of his gaze, John drew it up now, compressing the trigger in the same movement, just in time to douse Jame Covey in the face.

  Covey sputtered, shaking off the water like a dog. For some odd reason, he was naked, a realization so peculiar and off-putting that for a moment, John couldn’t move, immobilized, bewildered, disgusted and trying his damndest not to look any lower than Covey’s thick neckline. He waited for Covey to start screaming, for his skin to start dissolving like Phoebe’s had, and when it didn’t, when instead Covey shot a glance at Wilder, then chuckled mirthlessly, John had a very bad feeling.

  Shit.

  “Garlic only works on vampires,” Covey told him, and all at once, John realized why he was naked. Britney Wilson had been, too, after Sandy had shot her. After she had changed back to her human form.

  “Shit,” John said as Covey sprang at him again, transforming right before his eyes, his skin darkening as heavy fur sprouted in an abrupt, fervent coat, his face elongating, his features reforming like molten taffy stretched wide.

  He tried to run, to dive out of Covey’s way, but his damn bum leg refused to cooperate, remaining obstinately planted where it was. He crashed sideways, sprawling clumsily, just as Covey’s outstretched paws found purchase against his back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Beneath Covey’s imposing weight, John lay face-down in Boyd Wilder’s parlor, his arms and legs sprawled out to frame him. He gritted his teeth and struggled to move, his fingertips scrabbling feebly against the hardwood floor. When he heard footsteps approaching, a slow and leisurely cadence, he looked up at Wilder.

  “John, John, John.” Wilder tipped his head back, finishing off his beer. With his forefinger, he motioned to Covey, and the dog abandoned John’s back, padding over to his side. Like an overtaxed cushion wheezing back into proper shape after a fat person had been sitting on it, John panted to reclaim his breath.

  Wilder held out the beer bottle and the canine Covey took it in his mouth, padding across the room, then out the door, presumably to deliver it to the nearest garbage can.

  “That’s…a pretty good trick,” John gasped, wanting to sit up, square off against the son of a bitch. His body wouldn’t cooperate, his limbs drained of strength as well as sensation, and the best he could manage was to flop his head to one side, banging his cheek painfully against the floor so he could glare up at him. “Is he paper-trained, too?”

  Wilder shook his head, smiling gently. “John, John, John,” he said again, clucking his tongue as if scolding a mischievous child. “You didn’t have to make this so hard on yourself, you know. I was going to kill you quick, put you out of your misery. Because it is miserable, you know. The last part of the transformation, when your body dies and then is reanimated in revenant form. I don’t know from personal experience or anything, but from what I understand, it can be excruciating.”

  Wilder squatted beside John, resting his elbows on his knees. “I was going to do you a favor and make it easy on you,
but here you go attacking Covey, attacking my girls.”

  As John watched, Wilder picked up the fallen Super Soaker pistol. He reached out, rolling John from side to side so he could slip the straps of the backpack off. Wilder stood again, carrying the backpack and water gun with him, tossing them aside.

  “So of course, I’m going to have to take my time with you now,” he remarked almost mournfully. “Make you suffer awhile.” He glanced up, looking toward the doorway, and the saccharine-sweet smile wiped from his face. “Get him up.”

  John felt heavy hands clamp beneath his arms, strong arms jerking him abruptly to his feet. His legs would no longer support him and his knees buckled, leaving Jame Covey, in human form once again, to hold him forcibly upright.

  “Take him downstairs,” Wilder told Covey, presenting his back to John and walking away. “String him up on the porch like you did with Lucy. Leave him to the dawn.”

  Sandy shook her head, mewling around her gag, jerking her hands futilely against her bonds.

  “What about Sandy?” John asked.

  Wilder paused then chuckled. “Didn’t you read my invitation? It said dinner would be served.”

  “You son of a bitch.” John tried to shrug Covey away from him, but it was no use. Covey shoved him toward the parlor door.

  “You son of a bitch!” John yelled hoarsely at Wilder. “Look at you, making someone else do all the dirty work for you. You cowardly fuck!”

  “Get him out of here,” Wilder said, his smile withering again as he glowered at Covey. He’d come to stand behind Sandy’s chair again, and grabbed her by the hair now, wrenching her head to one side. His teeth had grown prominent, his canines standing out in wicked hooks.