One Night Burns (The Vampires of Livix, #1)

by J Gordon Smith

  I rubbed my face against him still half in and half out of sleep, “I hope I didn’t scratch my nose in my sleep.”

  “Oh you did but in a beautiful romantic way.”

  “Hmm … As long as it’s romantic.” I rolled a little.

  “I also figured out when morning breath kicks in.”

  I startled up, “When?” I had my hand to my mouth.

  “About 3:30am.” he laughed. “Of course that Caesar salad dressing loaded with garlic is a real kicker.”

  “So the mood’s kind of broken now for a kiss, huh?”

  “Kinda.” he laughed again. Then eased back in the couch, “Maybe we can go get breakfast?”

  “Oooh. Waffles at William’s would be good.” I climbed off the couch and wrapped the blanket up. He watched me like ‘you’ve got a hot body and I want it next to me’ kind of look and not the ‘I’m famished and want your blood’ look. Not that I have much experience there. “Do I have bed-head?” I touched my hair lightly.

  “No. You’re pretty.” He gestured to a short hallway, “Bathroom is over there if you want to check … or get ready to go.”

  I washed my face and combed my hair of the worst tangles and then I leaned on the pedestal sink and stared at my face in the mirror. I’d fallen asleep on top of a vampire for a whole night. Dracula would have drained me. This man didn’t. Still a human in there. And he realized and shared the fear of a romantic becoming a vampire. The possibility of Forever without a True Love. My heart twinged for him.

  Bethany would have nudged my elbow and suggest I check the medicine cabinet. Who knows what lurks behind that mirror? Maybe nothing. Maybe frightening things. Vampires must not be afraid of mirrors like Garin said to have put one in here. I pulled out some lip gloss from my purse and ran it around my mouth.

  When I came back to the kitchen I saw him dabbing his mouth with a napkin. He slid an empty blue bottle of his variety of elixir across the counter with the napkin into a deeper recess under the overhead cabinets. Did his skin glow or just a reflection of his warm smile at seeing me?

  The waffles were wonderful. And then Garin took me back to my place.

  He walked me up. I turned to him when my lock came undone, my hand resting on the knob. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me hard and deep. My knees turned weak. I really wanted to pull him inside my apartment.

  “Why don’t you come in?”

  “No, I can’t. I have a meeting to get to. Some production crisis or something. Probably minor but duty calls.” he pulled me near and kissed me again, “How about I get you up to my family’s cabin this weekend?”

  “I’d like that.” I faded back into my apartment as he left.

  I closed and locked the door and leaned against it. I nearly started counting minutes until the weekend. Is this man, this vampire, is he the right one? Are you sure you want to hang out with a vampire? People have a tendency to get in trouble around vampires. I think anyone I asked would share that wisdom.

  -:- Ten -:-

  We drove North up I-75. We raced along with the rest of the traffic. Periodically the fast moving cars bunched up as the impromptu fast club came upon a truck driving at the minimum speed limit. Garin clutched. He yanked the shifter down to the next lower gear. Then he accelerated into the other lane. The car launched forward. My hands discretely gripping the edge of the soft leather seat.

  My jangly bracelets rang against each other as the engine roared about the cabin. The guttural animal we rode within growled as we passed the truck. I could see the delivery truck recede in the mirror as we flashed forward.

  “See that manufacturing plant?”

  I looked where he quickly pointed, “That’s huge. I never paid attention. I’ve been up this far a few times to go to the clothing manufacturer’s outlet mall.”

  “Evidence of manufacturing health,” he glanced at me quickly then back to the road, “see the lots over next to the freeway and the rail yard?”

  “It’s the end of a work week and see how empty those lots are? Maybe there are empty rail cars waiting. You can probably see. I have to pay attention to the road curving and funneling here with six or more entrance and exit ramps. But see how empty? When it looks like that it means people are buying cars and trucks. So this recession that’s in the papers is lifting.”

  I added, “The speech at the Victorian Festival seemed positive.”

  “Newspapers and evening news programs won’t catch up. They follow a lot of lagging indicators. How many vehicles are stuffed on dealer lots and at the manufacturing plants indicate early what is happening.”

  “So there is hope?”

  “Yes.”

  We exited I-75 near Bay City and drove another freeway West. Then we came into two lane roads. I had a hard time following the roads since many did not seem to have signs, “You’ve been up here a lot? Memorized the route?”

  “Yes. I follow the signs to Cadillac and then to Traverse City.”

  We slowed down for a turn. We waited for traffic to clear and turned North. I saw an ice cream shop that seemed incongruous among the pine, maple, and birch forest. Small diameter trees and scrubby brush at the edges.

  “I’m hungry. Let’s stop.”

  “Sure.”

  We pulled in and the store shown well with retro order counters and booths that sparkled clean and neat. Something on the grill smelled wonderful so I changed my original plans, “Burger, a small vanilla cone, and a strawberry slush.” I pay and we go outside. The air is warm and pleasant and we sit at one of the park benches outside.

  I bite into the hamburger. It’s pretty tasty. Garin is sitting with his sunglasses on and staring at the road, “Are you sitting upwind of me on purpose?” I left my hair down and bushier. The wind grabbed strands that I had to curl behind my ear to avoid biting the ends while I ate.

  “Maybe a little,” he turned to me. I saw my reflection in his sunglasses. My little red and white top reflected as a funky bluish black while my face showed ghostly and pallid. “I forgot we’ll need some food for you.” He looked back over the road, “We’ll have to do some shopping in North Port.”

  I slurped my sugary slush, “This is how we will be, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I feel like I am constantly eating. Because I’m hungry all the time. But I’m especially conscious of eating when I’m with you. You never eat other than pretend. It makes me feel like a big fat pig.”

  “If pigs were as pretty as you,” he lifted his glasses to look me in the eyes, “they’d be too attractive to slice for sandwiches.”

  “Now that’s a goofy line.” I said. His eyes so dangerously charming.

  “But of course.” He let his glasses drop back to his nose. Again he watched the roadway.

  A shiver glanced across my shoulders and ran up my spine, “So what kind of victims have you drained? Outside of your bottled Massai drinks?”

  He grabbed the empty burger wrapper and the napkins from my cone. Hard to believe I had eaten them so quickly. The wrapper crinkled loudly in his fist as he tossed it in the refuse bin, “Let’s go.”

  We drove in silence for quite a while. I peered out the window. Watching the trees and streams drift by. Here and there a hawk soared above the tree tops. I thought I saw a bald eagle but it flipped in the air diving at a group of smaller birds that scattered before it. I had to look away before I saw too much.

  My half full strawberry slush liquefied in the center console. The other cup holder held the dark blue bottle of Garin’s Massai drink. Beads of moisture clung to the glass below the liquid level.

  The road continued as two lanes. Most Friday evening traffic went North while a few traveled South. The road wound and curved as if we floated across the asphalt flying inside a black bird. Swooping around corners and twists. Over knolls and powering through small dips.

  “I like how you’re relaxing.” Garin announced.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re
not gripping the edge of the seat anymore.”

  We came on a whole string of campers. Slow moving dinosaurs. Garin down-shifted and dragged the brakes. I saw a sign that said, ‘Passing Lane 2.5 Miles’.

  “I guess I’m getting used to this.”

  “A little at a time?”

  “Yes.” I looked at him and put my hand on his forearm, “I’m sorry about back there.”

  He slid his hand off the shifter and laced his fingers between my fingers and pulled my hand up to kiss it, “I’m sorry too.”

  But I hardly heard that. I hadn’t realized how sensitive the inner parts of my fingers could be. We touch and are touched all day and only occasionally so completely there. And the touch of his lips on the back of my hand floated about my mind. He released my fingers. He clutched down to rocket around the line of campers edging over to the slow lane as the passing lane appeared.

  “Gah!” The campers became a white and gray blur beside me as I flicked my eyes back and forth from the road ahead to the speedometer needle burying itself. We zipped ahead of the lead camper, an old “dually” pickup with a fifth-wheel camper in tow. Garin slammed the shifter into another gear and without braking he let the engine chew up our forward energy while rumbling angrily through the exhaust system. We slowed to the speed limit in the slow lane.

  We crested the hill and there it lay. The arms of the land reached out into Lake Michigan creating the sparkling bay and harbor of Traverse City. The sun sat low on the horizon creating long shadows from the boats at dock and the last of the triangular sailboats still out in the water returning home. We snaked into the downtown city streets then followed the harbor around before continuing again North.

  “How far is it?” I saw a supermarket on the opposite side of the road we passed.

  “We’ll stop at the market in North Port. Then head west. The house is on the shore of Lake Michigan. This side is Traverse Bay.”

  We wend in and out following the curvy road that hugged the shoreline. Houses sat back on the left side while others precariously perched on the spit of dirt between the road and the rippling waves.

  “I see a lot of houses for sale along here.”

  “That’s because when the economy is humming everyone wants a cottage Up North. These are the first things they try to unload when troubles start. Obviously everyone else gets the same idea and so they sit. Demand comes back like clockwork with the economy.”

  “Are wineries up here?” We sped passed a sign pointing to a wine trail before I could decipher anything else on it.

  “Yes. The same type of soil that’s good for fruit trees is also good for wine grapes. Something like 80% of the tart cherries going into pies across the country are from this part of the state.”

  “So the church’s cherry pie we ate together –”

  “ – are most likely from up here.”

  “But wine?”

  “The cold water keeps the buds from popping out too soon in the spring so the last Michigan frost doesn’t knock them out. Down by Livix it’s harder to keep the first blooms from getting bitten even though the rest of the growing season is better.”

  I giggled, “You said bitten.” He did not comment.

  “This is North Port,” Garin slowed the car as we came into a small town with sharp S-curves.

  Garin pointed to the sign for Thomases Market and we drove in. I saw they hadn’t figured out where to put the apostrophe in their business name. One or a bunch of Toms that owned the place? Hardly more than two dozen parking spaces. But the lot reflected the size of the town. Twenty buildings huddled themselves into North Port’s downtown. I could see the local docks on the Bay beyond a pizza place.

  We wandered up and down a few of the isles dropping random items into the little wire basket Garin carried. He stopped at a wine shelf full of local wines, “Here, we’ll expand your wine education.” He put three bottles in the basket. He also put a cherry flavored coffee in there, I must have had some involuntary expression on because he said, “Trust me, you’ll like this too.”

  The air outside the store had changed becoming more damp and cool. I pulled a sweater out and put it over my thin top before buckling in the car. He watched me, “What?” I looked to see if anything crazy stuck out or appeared badly wrinkled.

  “The motions you go through doing things you do every day your whole life. Practiced and not realizing it. How you tuck your hair behind your ear –”

  I tucked my hair out-of-the-way.

  “– Pretty, sexy, and dangerous.” He wore that mocking grin of his. I picked up more of his cues too.

  “Just every day things?”

  “Just every day things.” He started the car and rolled out of the lot, “Must be hard coded in our genes. You can tell from a silhouette a mile away if it’s a man or a woman walking on the street. Up close, your little habits are enchanting.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel good or some sort of stalker creepiness?”

  “I really like you.”

  “Thanks.” I put my hand on his arm. “I’m glad we made the trip.”

  The road took us up and over a ridge line. On the west side we dipped down into heavy fog. More pine trees lined the road like a bewitched forest platoon. Remains of old wind-swept white pines that covered most of the state at one time. A renewable resource that helped rebuild Chicago after several historic fires.

  The loamy soil covering much of the peninsula now changed into rocky outcroppings. Narrow twisted bridges clutched the edges of the rocks over gorge-like ravines. Asphalt faded into gravel paths. Wild and rugged landscapes cloaked in fog and mist. Houses and cottages and cabins separated by miles of state and private forest land.

  “Maybe tomorrow we can go to Sleeping Bear sand dunes. Have you ever been there?”

  “No. We almost went when I was a kid. Planned on it when school got out. But my father had a heart attack and we spent the summer with my Mom taking care of him in Southern Indiana. No time left to make the trip when he improved because school started again.”

  “So a bad memory?”

  “No. He rebounded and lived quite a few years later. My parents had been divorced for a long time. He warned my Mom that he’d move far away if she continued with the divorce – making it more challenging with me. But that didn’t stop her wanting the separation. She took care of him that summer so I really got to know him. Otherwise I wouldn’t have.”

  Garin stomped on the brakes. The black car came to a sudden stop after sliding in the gravel. My seat belt jerked me back. Large black shapes strutted across the gravel road out of the mists and the trees and the gloom ahead.

  Garin laughed, “Turkeys.”

  “What?”

  “A flock of turkeys.”

  I had the melody from the song about seagulls rattling in my head, “Turkeys?” They looked like hulking black pumpkins propped up with twigs.

  Garin flipped the headlights on high-beam. The intensely white bounce-back from the fog abrupt but the beam spread wide. Turkeys. Momentarily dazzled by the brighter light.

  “See how the tom is ruffling his feathers up?”

  “He looks huge.”

  “Think you want to mess with him?”

  “No.”

  “Now see how the hens and chicks fade back into the brush while you’re attention is on the tom turkey?”

  “And now he’s fading away.”

  “They’ve reintroduced turkeys in Michigan and they are quite successful. Wild turkeys.”

  I remembered, “Benjamin Franklin proposed the turkey should be the United State’s official bird instead of the bald eagle. Because they are clever at eluding hunters.”

  “Yes. Wild turkeys are not like the domesticated ones.” He put the car back in gear and toned down the headlights. “I forgot to pay attention. A lot of deer out here too but they will crumple fenders.”

  We pulled off the trail onto another narrower two-track that curled through a field of ferns below wide spread wh
ite pines. The wheels crunched across sharp lime stone chips as we entered a clearing.

  Wind swept in from the lake and blew a constant breeze that twisted the fog around the car and revealed a rugged house squatting by the edge of a cliff.

  “Don’t go out wandering without me. Those two trees at the edge of the lawn mark the edge of the lake, a several hundred foot drop to fractured boulders and the surf. A fantastic view in the daytime without the fog. You don’t sleep walk do you?”

  Maybe his cologne I had been smelling the whole day influenced me, “I’m not sure I’ll need to walk.” I reached for his face and drew him to me. My lips found his. My left hand slid over his thick shoulder and toward his spine. My right hand pulled at his microfiber t-shirt and pushed my fingers across his abs. Not the smooth peach fuzz of a boy but the rough texture of man. Maleness that filled my every sense and exposed my need.

  Garin’s fingers explored me and my bra loosened – freed from its clasp without any fumbling or hesitation. His other hand held my jaw and stroked down my stretching neck and across my shoulder. My eyes fluttered as I sunk my lips deeper into his.

  I pulled back to leave, “I haven’t even seen the house yet.” we grinned and laughed. “Give me a tour.” I released the door latch and stepped out.

  Heavy moisture and a stiff breeze pushed against me pulling the handle from my fingers and shutting the door. The breezes moaned louder now wafting soggy and gurgling waves against sharp rocks over the long cliff promising danger. Garin grabbed my hand and the keys and pulled me across the crushed limestone up the wide brick steps to the entrance.

  The house crouched thick and patient. It stood there solid like it waited for centuries. A dim intimidating past constructed from native blue-black rock with a rusty red sand mortar between them. The wood trimmed the house in white under a modern metal roof. Meant to last further centuries in the wet winds. Real storm shutters closed over the windows protecting the cabin when unoccupied. A shed huddled nearby storing the outdoor furniture that the porch lacked.