Under a Blood Moon

by Rachel Graves

  It was a long and serious speech for Danny.

  “The two wolves were committing murder: that doesn’t sound like something that gets you an immediate execution. Where do you draw the line?” My question was rhetorical and Danny didn’t bother to answer it. I watched the trees go by on the side of the road. We were close to Jakob’s house but I couldn’t leave the conversation like this.

  “Danny, I—”

  He cut me off. “Look, sometimes upholding the law would mean stopping justice, when that happens you serve justice instead of serving the law. I would never tell you to lie or to corrupt an investigation. Do your job, concentrate on the work you have to do, and leave the things you can’t prove, the things you shouldn’t mention, to God.”

  I gave a small smile. I didn’t believe in Danny’s god. I went to church because I accepted the possibility, but I didn’t have his faith. He caught my look. “Or to all of the Gods and Goddesses, or even to fate. Heathen,” he teased.

  “Zealot,” I returned, glad I didn’t have to take too much of the sober, serious Danny. He went on to tease me about Jakob’s house, about my having a key, and about my outfit for church. He pulled away smiling, the sober side of him hidden again.

  I opened the door, closing it and locking out the sun before I opened the second entry door. Two doors: one that wouldn’t open until the first one was shut. The dual doors were common in open-air aviaries and vampire homes. I was still getting used to them. I went straight to the bedroom, stripped off most of my clothes and curled up in bed next to Jakob. His body was cold marble in the darkness. I was grateful for the excuse it gave me to hide under the covers.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I fell asleep wishing for dreams of Jakob, delighting in the way he still smelled faintly of the cologne he’d worn last night. My wish wasn’t granted. Instead, I found myself back in the park, watching again as the wolves devoured the man. In my dream he screamed. My heart raced but I couldn’t run. I couldn’t move. I knew Indigo wasn’t going to save me this time. The wolves looked up, blood dripping from their snouts.

  “Mallory?” It was Jakob’s voice. He was with me, sharing my dream the way he did sometimes.

  “I can’t stay here. Change it. Please, please, take me anywhere. Take me back to your mill, just hurry,” I begged. The dream changed, the scene shifting quickly from dark night to golden sunset. We were at the mill, Jakob’s first home, a place that hadn’t stood for nearly five hundred years. The river that turned the wheel chuckled along its banks. I took a deep breath of the clean mountain air.

  I walked in a field of golden waist high grain, brushing my fingertips along the soft fur at the tops of the waving plants. A sweet breeze blew my hair in a thousand places. I walked into the mill, trailing my hands along the cool fieldstone walls. A light flickered in a small window at the top of the two story building. I wanted to be there, and then I was, at the top of the stairs looking at the giant cogs. Jakob was there too, stripped to the waist wearing a tan I’d never seen before on him. He pulled at a large wooden gear that didn’t want to move. Angry muttering sounded the same in German and English. It made me smile. The room wasn’t particularly hot but he was sweating from the work, it shined on his skin. I was fascinated by that skin. So familiar yet so different. Besides the foreign coloring, I could make out half a dozen small scratches. It occurred to me that this was Jakob as he had been. This was Jakob as a human. One thought lead to another and I was suddenly next to him, my mouth on his skin. His sweat tasted sweet and salty at once. I was almost sorry when he turned around.

  He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close for a long hard kiss. There was sweat on his upper lip, and more shocking, a tiny bit of stubble. His kisses had never had a rough five o’clock shadow before, I savored the difference. When we broke from our kiss, I deliberately stepped back to look at him. His chest was still hard and flat, but his nipples were a dark raspberry not the normal pale pink. My eyes locked on to another scrape across his lower stomach, bright red blood welled up against his skin. The contrast was fascinating.

  “Do I look acceptable?” he asked with laughter in his voice.

  “I’m not sure turn around.” I ordered. He turned, showing me the same broad tan back I had admired a moment before, I smoothed my hands across it feeling a dozen tiny imperfections in the flesh I’d never felt before on his skin.

  “This is not why you’re here.” He made a tsking sound and turned back around to me.

  “Why am I here then?” I asked, my eyes still caressing his body.

  “Come, I need a bath.” We walked out of the door way and into the sunset. The sky was on fire with red and gold, mare’s tail clouds burned bright. He led me down a few steps, away from the splashing water wheel. The sun’s beams played over the water casting a dozen fairy lights on to the woods on the other side of the bank. He didn’t have to undress, one moment he was beside me wearing pants, the next he was in the water up to his waist. It was enough to remind me this wasn’t real.

  “Is it cold?” I asked. His nipples tightened, I wondered about what went under the surface of water.

  “Always, it’s fed by the melting snow, even in the summer it’s icy cold.” He looked up at the mountain in the distance. “This was one of the best days of my life.”

  “Sweating buckets, yelling at machinery that won’t work?” I shook my head. “Life was harder back then, huh?”

  “No,” He splashed the water at me with the back of his hand. “On this day I worked hard from sun up to sun down, at the end of the day, I had accomplished my work. I washed in cold clean water, I ate a good meal, and I slept. I had no worries. I had no doubts. My work provided food for my family, there was nothing to keep sleep from me. My muscles ached with work well done. This day was a gift from God.”

  I smiled at him, enjoying the moment. Then he ruined it. “Can we talk about the other thing now?”

  “We need a blanket and a picnic basket,” I sighed. As I spoke they appeared, and now we were seated on a soft plaid blanket with a basket beside us. I wasn’t a dream warrior, I wasn’t even an expert at dreams, but I was getting better. Still, I didn’t want to talk too much about last night, I didn’t want death to invade this safe place. “Is it always late summer here?”

  “Harvest,” he corrected. Taking a strawberry from a bowl that hadn’t been in front of me a minute before. “Harvest was always my favorite time. When you know there will be enough food to last the winter, when it’s still warm enough and the days long enough for you to rest when everything is done. I miss this time.” I could hear the sadness in his voice for the life he had lost. “It’s not just a nightmare is it?”

  “No. It’s a memory of last night.” I shivered and moved closer to him. In dreams his skin was warm and tan. He was always human when he dreamed.

  “Can you tell me what happened? Nothing will come here, I promise.” His blue eyes stared down at me with worry and love.

  “Indigo killed the wolves. He…he wasn’t himself.” I gave a bitter laugh when I realized how wrong I was. “I mean not that the other form isn’t who he is. Okay, he was more himself than he usually is?”

  “He was a cat,” Jakob supplied. I nodded.

  “He was there to save me, which was wonderful, but now…” I pushed the memories away. “Now I keep thinking about what would have happened if he hadn’t been.” The tears came again, making me feel incredibly weak. If Jakob thought the same, he didn’t mention it. Instead he held me close. My mouth found his and I kissed him through the tears. One kiss brought another, then another, when the kisses changed from comfort to desire I found myself awake in his arms.

  Somewhere between my dream and reality, I’d taken off my underwear, or maybe he had, but I was still wearing my bra. Rough fabric bruised my nipples, the lace hadn’t been meant for this.

  “Take it off,” I demanded.

  I expected him to reach behind me and unhook it; instead he turned me over, his hands wandering
down my back. He left a trail of kisses from my shoulder blades to the soft, curving flesh of my backside. He stretched out above me nuzzling my neck and I could feel his hardness between my legs. I arched my back, pressing into him but he backed away.

  “Not yet,” he whispered. He turned me over again and took the bra off me. The way he looked at my naked breasts was so intense I blushed. Exposed, my nipples shivered to hardness. He licked his lips before capturing one with hungry urgency. I moaned and leaned back, pushing into his mouth. His hand caressed down my side, sliding inside my thigh. He began to stroke me there and I felt the pleasure start to build inside me. He took his mouth from my breast and moved down to meet his hand.

  Jakob’s tongue swirled slowly over my thigh. He was taking his time and it was all I could do not to beg him for more. I felt his long fingers play along my hips, sliding behind me. He lifted me up an inch off the bed, holding me like I weighed nothing at all to get the perfect position. He smoothed the blanket beneath us then gathered me up in his arms.

  “Together,” he breathed the word in my ear and I could only nod. Passion had stolen my breath. His body moved into mine slowly. It was a delicious torment. He kept his eyes on me and his fingers went back to teasing the flesh between my legs. He moved slowly, stroking inside me with his body.

  My breath came in gasps as the pleasure rose. I screamed his name pleading for more, and he gave it to me. While our eyes stayed locked he yielded to his own passion. I pressed against him in my own frenzied pace, forgetting everything but the sensation between my legs. Moans tore from my throat as that ecstasy built, until it was too much and my body exploded beneath him. He collapsed, still joined to me, exhausted.

  Between long deep breaths, I kissed his face tenderly, first his forehead, then above his eyes, exploring all of those places that only lovers touch. He made sex something so much more intimate, so much deeper than I had ever known. There was no way I could ever leave a man who made me feel like this, the power of our love scared me.

  “You look so serious, my love.”

  “I was thinking about how much I love you.”

  “I guess love is a serious thing,” he laughed and kissed my neck.

  “Serious but fun, then again, I’m serious about my fun.” I smiled up at him, still high from the pleasure he had given me. “Thank you, for all this and for how great you are.”

  “It was my pleasure,” he said and we both laughed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The kitchen counter wore red stains, a brighter, sunnier color than the blood I’d seen recently. I shivered a little anyway, drawing my eyes to the pints of bright red berries. The plastic containers of three empty pints were stacked neatly. Jakob was cutting a fourth pint into quarters, leaving the scraps on a newspaper. I could see a fine dusting of sugar on top of the berries that were already cut.

  “Miles away from here is an organic, family-run farm. A few years ago, I took a chance on them. Now every summer I can get the best of field.” He offered me a berry too perfect to cut. “Sweets to the sweet.”

  I’d been eating Indigo’s chocolate all week but the tart juice of the strawberry that had been on the vine just hours before still dazzled me with its perfection. Strawberries are the taste of summer, red and full. I savored the first one, but devoured the next four.

  “They’re divine,” I said between bites of heaven.

  “I was worried you might be allergic,” he frowned. We’d talked for long hours about everything and nothing. It felt wrong that he didn’t know if I was allergic. “I guess not.”

  “No allergies, none. Cook whatever you’d like for me and I’ll happily try it.” I reached for a fresh pint, intent on getting more. Distracted, it took me a minute to add, “Within reason, none of that gross head cheese stuff or anything.”

  “Black pudding? Haggis?”

  “No!” I caught a bit of the paper between berry tops. “Are all of the headlines about the werewolf killings or just the ones I can see from here?”

  “Most of them, but they haven’t been described as werewolf killings. I can’t tell if the papers are being sensational or purposely ignorant. They keep alluding to some mysterious killer who must have supernatural powers. They go on to rule out everything but a werewolf without mentioning it.”

  “There hasn’t been an official statement saying ‘werewolf’. It’s too soon for us to have any hard evidence yet.”

  “Isn’t your insight enough?’

  “It’s enough for the department, for us to base an investigation on, but for a conviction we need fiber, tissue that sort of thing. We won’t tell the press until we have something that can hold up in court. If we went ahead now the WPL would cry foul. They might even sue the city.”

  “So the papers skirt the truth, ensuring that no one can properly protect themselves, because one small special interest group might be offended?” His voice dripped with disdain.

  “Pretty much.” I popped another berry into my mouth and thought for a minute. As the only death witch anyone had heard of in the last century, I was never going to have to face this problem. Jakob was a member of a supernatural minority. “Would you feel differently if we thought the killers were vampires?”

  “If the killers were vampires I’d deal with them before the papers could print the story.” He was grim.

  “You’re avoiding the question.” I kissed him on the cheek as I went for a glass of lemonade. Strawberries and lemonade are the perfect combination for summer.

  “I’d happily give a statement to the press telling everyone to arm themselves with crosses and holy water if there was a group of vampires murdering people. What matters is that the violence stops and people are safe, sort out the hurt feelings when there are no more bodies piling up.”

  “Logical, but not politically correct,” I decided. I dearly wanted to talk about something else. A timer beeped from somewhere within the house and the steel shutters on the front windows began to roll up. “I guess sunset is over, what are we going to do with our night?”

  Jakob dropped what he was doing and grabbed me in a tight embrace. “Make love under the stars? Walk in the woods?”

  I smiled at his suggestions. They weren’t things I would ever have come up with. He was definitely the romantic in our relationship. “Watch Blazing Saddles wrapped up together on the couch?”

  My eyes lit up. “You just happen to have a copy of one of my favorite Mel Brooks movies in the house?”

  “Well, you did demand a magical evening,” he started to laugh but I smothered it with a kiss.

  ****

  The movie inspired a long conversation about language and how it had changed. We talked while he made shortcake. Living with a vampire meant I always got to lick the bowl. Jakob could remember when some words were used in common conversation, whereas I had always avoided them even in my head. To me watching the movie and laughing at those words felt uncomfortable, while Jakob saw it as a representation of a time in history, and thus not a problem. When the cake was done, the conversation had barely moved forward. We finally agreed to disagree.

  “As long as you’re never fixin’ to do anything we’ll be fine,” I said with a laugh.

  “Fixin’?” Jakob’s accent-free speech slaughtered the term.

  “My husband was always fixin’ to get a sandwich or fixin’ to go to the store, he was never ‘going’ to do something or ‘planning’ to accomplish something, it was always fixin’. One of the many things he did that drove me insane.”

  “How many things?”

  “Dozens, hundreds.” Examples sprang to my mind. I tried to edit the ones that Jakob wouldn’t want to hear. “He treated fishing like a religion, he hated going out at night. Too many things to list, really.”

  “You never talk about him. Why did you marry him if he had so many bad habits?” he asked the question lightly, but it made me think.

  “I don’t know really. He was just there, and he did everything for me, it seemed…” I
wanted to say wrong but that wasn’t it, “ungrateful to consider not marrying him. When Mom died he took care of me completely, the least I could do in return was say yes. From there he took over everything.” It was hard to explain my marriage when it was so different from what I had with Jakob.

  Worse, I’d never told Jakob how it ended. He knew that Greg had died, but I’d never brought myself to tell him that I had called Greg back or that I’d woken up with my husband’s zombie in my bed.

  “Everything?”

  “He bought the wedding dress, arranged all the paperwork, everything.” I shook off my gloomy thoughts and remembered the beginning of my marriage. “He did the dishes, bought the groceries. He did the laundry. If he found something like a shirt that was ripped or jeans that were torn he’d buy a new pair and throw the old ones away.”

  “And what did you do while you enjoyed your pampered life?”

  “Not much,” I laughed. “It’s hard for me to even remember what I did. It’s strange that I don’t have more memories of the last four years of my life. Looking back, I think I must have been depressed. I watched a lot of TV. I spent my weekends in bed.”

  “Entire weekends in bed? He must have been an extraordinary lover.” Jakob’s eyes twinkled.

  “Entire weekends in bed, asleep!” I laughed, grabbing him. “You’re the best lover I’ve had, and the only one who could keep me in bed for two days.”

  “Could I get you back there tonight?” he whispered in my ear. I gave him my answer in long sweet kisses.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was dreaming again. I was young, living in the apartment my mother had rented for most of my life. It was nighttime and I was sick. Mom was in the hospital so Hannah, Mrs. Bäcker from down the hall, was with me. She prayed over me in German. All of that could have been a memory: Hannah prayed over me so much I learned the Lord’s Prayer in German before I knew it in English.