Hunger

by Karen E. Taylor

  “Then look at me, Larry.” My voice was pitched low and urgent, a request to a lover.

  “No.”

  I tried a different approach. “Larry, what you want, I have never done before. I don’t know how to transform you; I don’t even know if it is possible.”

  “It’s possible, and you will do it.”

  “No, it is not a good thing. You don’t want my life; it was forced on me, I had no choice. All those lonely years, Larry, you just can’t visualize how horrible it can be. You’re young, you have a good life ahead of you. Don’t throw it away for this, it’s not worth it. Believe me, I know.”

  His laughter echoed in the room. It sounded hollow, evil. “It’s what I want. I’ve got nothing ahead of me now, don’t you think I know that? If you don’t transform me, here and now, they will catch me and try me for murder.” He laughed again and I shivered. “Then my good life consists of jail or death.”

  “You shouldn’t have killed them, Larry. It was wrong.”

  “Them?” He shook my hands. “I only killed Gwen. She served her purpose well, of course, and for that I’m thankful.”

  “And her purpose was?”

  His voice was calm, reasonable in his rationalization. “She made it possible for me to get you here, alone, with what I want.”

  “I would have come. You didn’t need to kill her! And it did not need to be that way.” I shuddered slightly and he laughed.

  “But it was the most effective way of getting my message to you. Besides, let’s be honest here, compared with all the others you have murdered over the years, what’s one poor silly girl like Gwen?”

  “I have never killed anyone.”

  “Never? I find that hard to believe. And I know for a fact it’s not true.”

  “How could you?”

  “You have my book. Did you wonder where that first picture came from? It’s been in my family for generations, along with the story of the beautiful lady who bled and killed wounded soldiers. Always at night, always with a smile. My great-grandfather inherited the picture and the story from his father. He’s the one on the far right. And I always assumed the story was embellished over the years, magnified to scare the children. But when I met you, I recognized you immediately. Then I stayed quiet, followed you, watched you. It wasn’t hard to draw the conclusions I did. Or to track you over the years; all it took was belief. No one would think to look for a vampire, no one believes in you.”

  I made no attempt to justify my actions for him. His mind was made up and until he met my eyes or allowed me close enough to feed I could only stand there, trapped by his strong hands.

  “But I believe,” he said, the tenderness of his voice at odds with the tense, violent stance of his body. “And I will be one. You must do it, take me and change me. I can fill the years for you, Deirdre. You will finally have someone who loves you, to stay with you forever.”

  “But . . .” I was about to say I didn’t want him, could never love him. He felt my reluctance and tightened his grip on my wrists. I changed my tactics again. “But, Larry, my love, you must let me close enough to change you. I can hardly do it at arms’ length.”

  He gave me a doubtful look, then shook his head. A lock of his hair fell over one eye and he impatiently brushed it aside, using his hand, still holding my wrist. I took advantage of the contact and stroked his hair and cheek before he dropped his arm.

  “Oh, Larry. You don’t understand, do you? I was only testing you, I had to make sure that your resolve was strong, your desire true. Because the whole time that you were watching me, I was watching you, wanting you, grooming you for immortality. Trust me, my love. You won’t be sorry.” I laughed, low and sexy, and he sighed with longing. “But you must let me get close to you. You’ll like it,” I purred. “It’s an incredible experience. Better than love. Better than anything you can possibly imagine. I have so much to teach you, to show you. What would you like to know? Shall I tell you of the beauty of the nights, the feeling of being free and secure in a world of people who exist only to satisfy your every need? Shall I tell you of the power of life and death, the crisp touch of teeth to tender skin, the warm flow of life. Or shall I tell you of love?” My body writhed as if in remembrance. “Shall I tell you how a vampire makes love, or shall I show you?”

  He said nothing, just stared down at me, still avoiding my glance. The only sign that he was weakening was the glistening of sweat on his forehead.

  I turned up the heat some more. “Just imagine, Larry, your senses are heightened, your pleasure is enhanced, your endurance and strength are unimaginable to a human. You will be able to call women to you, all women, any woman you want. They will worship your perfect body with their bodies and their hands and their mouths.”

  His breathing was labored now, his tongue darted out to lick his lips.

  “Oh, Larry, think about it. Even a single touch can drive you to a sexual frenzy that is humanly impossible. And love with another vampire, oh, Larry, I can’t find words to describe it. You must let me show you, let me show you.”

  He said nothing, but his arms began to tremble.

  “You will let me do it, won’t you, Larry?” I spoke eagerly and earnestly and felt my words hit him. “You must let me do it, Larry. I can feel it now, your blood and my blood, intermeshed, blending together, as our bodies . . .” I let my voice trail off in a low moan.

  His arms loosened and relaxed; I moved up to him, rubbed my body against his and he groaned. “Now,” I whispered, “now,” and I sunk my teeth deeply into his neck.

  I was right, I realized as I let myself be carried away in the flow of his blood, it was incredible. His hardened penis pressed urgently against me, he was willingly giving himself to me, not pushing away but welcoming my bite, pulling me deeper into him. Almost, I wished I could take him with me.

  Almost, except for the image of Gwen, naked with her blood spattered about my bed. Poor silly girl he had called her. I removed my bloodied mouth from him. “Bastard,” I hissed; all the rage in my soul was contained in that whisper and he rocked back from the sound, even as I positioned myself for a slashing bite.

  He stared at me, his eyes glazed over. Then his hand shot out, and gripped my wrists again. God, he was strong. I had read about the strength of madmen, but had never realized its truth until now. He whipped me around and pressed me up against the wall, his eyes glinting dangerously in the darkness.

  “I should have known better than to trust you, Deirdre,” and he reached behind him, stooping, still holding me against the wall. I struggled but his grip held. “I came prepared.” And he held up a wooden stake and a mallet that he had hidden. “There are more ways than one to get your blood. I can just as easily drink it from your dying body. And although, you’d be gone; I can still find other women, younger, more beautiful than you, who’d be happy to take your place.”

  “Larry, it doesn’t work that way.”

  “No, I won’t listen to you. It must work, it has to.” He pinioned my body against the wall with his legs, placed the stake over my heart and raised the mallet.

  “No,” I screamed, dodging away from his strike, and heard my scream’s echo from the stairs, seconds before a searing pain flashed in my shoulder. He missed, I thought, confused as the hammer dropped from his hand and the stake clattered to the ground. Then he fell, and took me with him, his legs still gripping mine. Larry was dead and his blood was flowing over me, soothing the pain in my arm.

  “Oh, God, Deirdre.” Mitch rushed down the stairs. “Oh, Deirdre,” he cried again.

  “Mitch, I’m not hurt. He’s dead, just get him off of me.”

  Quickly, Mitch rolled the body from me. I pushed my hand against the wall and stood up. My whole right side was drenched in blood, some of it mine. But I would not tell him that, the hole left by the bullet that had passed through Larry, would heal quickly. Too quickly for explanations.

  “Jesus, look at you.”

  “It’s okay, Mitch. I wasn’t hit
, all this is Larry’s.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why would I lie about it?”

  I took a step toward him, but my legs were trembling and I couldn’t move. He came to me then, held me tightly and whispered into my hair. “I almost lost you, do you know what that would have done to me?” He lifted me up and kissed me.

  “Mitch,” I said when he finally released my mouth, “thank you.”

  “For saving your life? Gee, lady, it’s all part of my job.”

  “No, not that. Well, for that too. But mostly, thank you for loving me.”

  “Oh, that. No problem. Now let’s get you out of here and cleaned up. I can take your statement later.”

  “Don’t you have to stay here?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  I reached up and kissed him again. “Put me in a cab, you can finish up here and then meet me back at my hotel.”

  I saw the doubt enter his eyes and he shook his head. “I don’t know, Deirdre.”

  “The person you were protecting me from is there.” And I pointed to Larry’s body, trying to control my shudder. “I don’t think he is likely to follow me, do you?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “And I would really like to get away from this place, not just the cellar, but the whole club. I’ll wait for you at the hotel. Don’t be too long.”

  He put his arm around my shoulder and helped me up the stairs. Only about half of the clientele remained after the fire scare. They milled around uncertainly, but when the band resumed playing they went back to the bar or their tables. Max was nowhere in sight. On the way to the door, we passed a coat rack and Mitch removed the closest coat wrapping it around my blood-spattered clothes.

  The doorman signalled the cab and when it came, Mitch helped me in. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. I need a shower, some rest and a chance to think.” I reached into my purse and handed him my hotel key. “Let yourself in again.”

  As the cab drove away, I waved, but he had turned away and was walking back into the building. I watched the set of his shoulders, the determined stride and smiled to myself.

  At the hotel, I got an extra key from Frank and went to my room. Shuddering at the clammy, sticky feel of the partially dried blood, I stripped off my clothes and noticed the two small holes in the right sleeve. Although I had been shot, the bullet had passed clear through. In front of the bathroom mirror, I probed the wound, tenderly at first and then with more firmness. It was clean, with no bone chips or debris; it should heal cleanly and quickly. My white skin had a rosy glow, due to the thin coating of Larry’s blood and mine. I shivered when I thought how close I had come to dying and how it would have been of my own doing, as surely as if I had held the stake and raised the mallet. Had it not been for Mitch, I would have been as dead as Gwen was. But with one possible exception. Would it have been my body lying in blood on the cellar floor, the one in which I lived, the one to which Mitch had made love? Or would it have been a skeletal wreck, as all the unnatural years accumulated in minutes? Or perhaps only a small pile of dust and ash?

  I shuddered again as I stepped into the shower, allowing the hot water to wash away the unclean taint of blood that covered my body. Through my folly, I had at least learned one thing; that my life was still precious to me and the next time I decided to risk it by confronting a madman, I had better come prepared with more than my ego and body to protect me.

  Mitch was not long in arriving, but even so, I was ready and waiting for him. Knowing that he would have questions for me, questions that I could only in part answer truthfully, I had rehearsed my answers, my responses, as I prepared for his entrance. And of course, I realized as I applied the make–up to my pale complexion, there would be his anger to deal with, the anger that he had not expressed at the club from the sheer relief of finding me alive. But he’d had plenty of time to think since then, to wonder why I had done the things I did. He would be furious that I had attempted the meeting alone, that I had told Max, and not him, of my intentions. So I dressed in self-defense; the red silk of the caftan rustled when I walked, calling me back to more elegant days, making me, I thought, more vulnerable. But no woman of those times could have felt comfortable in such a dress, the silk was thin and, since I wore nothing underneath, it clung to my body, accenting my breasts, outlining all my curves.

  I admired the result in my mirror when I heard the key turn in the lock. I hoped that my appearance would keep him sufficiently distracted; that way he might not notice that my answers were less than satisfactory. I hated the thought of deceiving him, seducing him away from his job, but I had no alternative. He must never be allowed find out the truth.

  “Deirdre,” he called. I was right, the anger had set in. His voice was full of it, cold and uncompromising again, like the first night we met. But what had passed between us, I hoped, would keep us together, if only for a while.

  “Hello, Mitch.” I came out of the bedroom and went to him. “You’re earlier than I expected.”

  He shrugged. “There was less to do than you might think. And since you were the one involved, most of the work revolves around you. Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”

  I nodded. “There’s not much to tell, really. Larry called, earlier that evening, and said he wanted to meet me.” I sat down on the couch and smoothed the red fabric over my legs. “I, I guess it was stupid of me, but I thought I could get him to turn himself in. I never really thought he would try to hurt me, and I thought he might listen to me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Max knew about it, I suppose that’s why he set off the fire alarm. And we were together the whole evening, you and I, and you gave no indication of your plans. Did you think I wouldn’t help you? You knew what he was capable of, you saw what he did to Gwen, why on earth wouldn’t you tell me, take me along?”

  The lie I had practiced came easily to my lips. “He said,” and I allowed a tremor to creep into my voice, “he said that if I didn’t meet him alone, that he would start killing everyone who knew me. I did not want to risk it, I have so few friends, and he knew about us. You might have been next.”

  “Damn,” he ran his fingers through his hair and looked at me. “And for some strange reason, you thought you could control the situation better than I could? Jesus, Deirdre, that makes no sense at all.”

  “I never said it made sense. I’m just telling you what happened.”

  “What did he say to you? Did you talk or did he just jump out at you, brandishing his stake?”

  I winced at his sarcasm. “We talked for a bit; he said that Gwen didn’t matter. I was angry when I heard that, I couldn’t help it. I swore at him. Then he turned on me; I didn’t expect him to. And suddenly you were there and he was dead. That’s all.”

  “And how long were you there? I seem to remember you disappeared right after the fire alarm went off. I didn’t make it downstairs until about twenty minutes later.”

  “I waited around for him. Then when the siren went off, I thought I would just leave, come and get you. But it was too late, he was already there.”

  “So your conversation took about five or ten minutes?”

  “I suppose so. Jesus, Mitch, I was frightened and I didn’t have a stopwatch with me.”

  He gave me a rather grim smile that did nothing to break the tension between us. “When I got to the top of the stairs, I heard him say something about how he didn’t want to listen to you. How it must work, it has to work. What was he talking about?”

  I lowered my eyes. “You heard that? Well, your guess is as good as mine. He was crazy, deranged. That much should be obvious.”

  “Deirdre.” His tone of voice was harsh; he leaned forward on his seat as if he could catch the words I wouldn’t say, pull the information from my mind.

  “Mitch?”

  “You know,” he said in a hesitant way, “I would not have expected you to be a hostile witness on this. You’re
holding back on me, I can tell. Why?”

  “Damn it, Mitch. Don’t you understand what I went through with Larry? I was almost killed, staked down like some exotic insect. And you expect me to give you a blow by blow description of everything that happened. How am I to answer for the ravings of a madman? Obviously, if I knew what motivated him, I probably would not have been there in the first place.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “All right, it was stupid to meet him. We both know that. But I was doing what I thought was the right thing. And I will be damned if I will let myself be put on trial for it. It’s over now, Mitch. I’m alive, and you have Gwen’s murderer. It seems to me that everyone should be happy about this; you and I and the whole damn department.”

  “Okay, okay.” He smiled at me, a real smile this time, one that lit up his eyes. “I didn’t mean to be so rough on you, but every time I think of how you set yourself up for this, how if I had just been one minute later . . . I don’t like the thoughts of your being dead.”

  “Trust me, I don’t like it much either.”

  “No, I guess not.” He stood up, reached for my hands and pulled me into a brief embrace. “I’ve got to get back now,” he said regretfully. “There’s a lot of paperwork involved in closing this one out. I suspect, given Larry’s background and penchant for vampire lore, that we’ll pin them all on him. We suspected him anyway in the original three and even though Gwen’s murder doesn’t match up, it’s all in the same vein.”

  I groaned slightly at his unintended pun. He held me out and smiled at me again.

  “Sorry, it’s not really a joking matter. But we still have one situation to explain before we’re done.”

  “That being?”

  He looked into my eyes and held my hands. “There were fresh bite marks on Larry’s neck, similar to the others but with a smaller span. But don’t you worry about it, Deirdre, I’m sure there’s an answer somewhere. I’ll call you tomorrow. Good night.”