Thicker Than Water (Blood Brothers Vampire Series Book One)

by Greg Sisco

  "Jesus Christ! Can’t hear my own thoughts in this shithole; how the fuck am I s’posed to hear yers?” Michael threw his cards on the table and punched them as Mindy and Mitsey rubbed his chest and kissed his neck.

  Loki glared at Michael without a word as he raked in his winnings. He had barely spoken a word all night, playing his silent stranger character to perfection. His infinitely deep black eyes never giving the faintest hint of personality, he succeeded in containing any subtle tells he might have had from Tyr’s eyes, let alone a mortal’s.

  They’d both taken to the game and mastered it years ago. There was challenge in playing one another, but to play with a human was for a champion boxer to fight a crippled toddler. When Tyr played he let the humans win now and then to thwart their confidence and create the illusion they had a chance; Loki on the other hand, with his addiction to causing trouble, preferred take each hand for everything it was worth, bankrupting men, ruining marriages and driving anyone he could to suicide in few enough hands to count a carpenter’s fingers. It was Loki’s disposition to bring chaos to a room, much as it is the disposition of ice to melt in fire.

  Michael shuffled and dealt another game. Upon looking at his cards his eyes gave the slightest twitch of excitement, invisible to the casual player, but to Loki and Tyr he might as well have jumped on the table and waved his arms wildly. When Loki threw down four silver dollars, Tyr foresaw a fight. He dropped his cards and let the hand go by, glancing at Loki so Michael might understand to do the same. While Tyr’s gesture seemed to affect Michael slightly, he was battling Loki’s charm and he was fairly certain this was to be Loki’s game as usual.

  Michael glanced back and forth between his cards and the table, his whores once again clinging to his body. After a minute he slapped the cards face down and yelled to Mindy, “Get yer fucking hand off my dick! There’s a four-dollar bet in question. I don’t need no goddamn hand job at this moment!”

  Loki glared his solid black glare, a tension on his lips resembling a smile.

  "Ya lay ‘em once, ya know?” Michael waved his hand, implying the whores were being unfair to him.

  Loki moved—rare for the night—to put his arm around Mindy. He pulled her toward him, took her hand in his, and guided it into his pants, moving it back and forth for a moment and leaving her to it once she got the rhythm right. He never took his eyes off Michael, taunting him with that sardonic sneer just behind his poker face, telling him that if he wanted to be bitter and unkind then Loki would take advantage of all the juicy circumstances life had to offer, and what’s more, he would do it while taking the remainder of Michael’s hard-earned money.

  Mindy kissed Loki’s neck just above the shoulder and he brought his arm around to her right, pulling aside her baggy lace top so her tit pounced out in plain view of everyone at the table. He ran his hand along it, pressing just tightly enough so her nipple would poke between each of his fingers as he ran his hand up and down, perfectly replicating the motion of tapping his fingers as he stared crudely at Michael, ridiculing his indecision and getting a laugh from the whole table.

  Tyr instantly stopped worrying about the potential hell-storm of mortal blood that was rising to a boil and his agitated mind suddenly set on the fact that Loki had already landed his catch with Mindy. She was to be his drain tonight, which likely left Tyr with Mitsey—who was homely, unkempt, and used goods on this occasion.

  Michael inhaled deeply through his nose, snorting congestion back into his throat as he shook his head side to side. As Loki was intending, he took the taunts personally, hoping they were part of a very confident bluff. He tossed four dollars on the table, and after a brief hesitation to look up at Loki, he tossed his last three dollars on the pile as well.

  On the other side of the room, Fats had taken to shouting again in his thick Irish accent. “Getcher fookin’ arse back here! Ye call these pints? Line me up another three of ‘em maybe and give yerself two minutes I won’t have to call ya!”

  Loki tossed down his cards with a cocky grin that said, ‘Sorry, you’re fucked.’

  Michael cursed under his breath, pushing at Mitsey and getting to his feet. He was preparing to take his rage out on Fats rather than Loki, saving his own life without knowing it. All eyes went to the encounter and Loki had to pass a dollar to Mindy and remind her to continue stroking.

  There was a proud grin on Loki’s face, watching the turmoil he’d started between the strangers. Michael shouted something at Fats as he grabbed hold of his neck and kicked the stool from under him, slinging the three-hundred-pound man backward into the wooden flooring like a malfunctioning catapult. As he hit the ground, he seemed to crack the perfectly solid texture of the floor before he half-rolled half-slid along the wood with a furious grunt. He reached for his gun which was a predictable reflex easy for Michael—who had the advantage of being sober—to counteract. As soon as Fats’ left hand gripped the pearl handle of his Smith & Wesson, Michael dug the spur on his right boot into the fat man’s hand.

  Fats reeled, grabbing at the fresh wound, spraying a little blood that tantalized the boys back at the card table. Before Fats could manage any movement beyond futile rocking, spitting, and swearing, Michael had the same spur pressed tightly against the flabby fucker’s throat. Fats fell as silent as anyone else in the bar save for Loki, who was bellowing his obnoxious car horn of a laugh.

  There was a fascinating blend of fury and terror in the fat man’s eyes. He breathed heavily and kept his good hand pressed to his bad one, staring up with a scowl on his face that made him look like he might burst into flames. Al was across the room, standing as still as a Mormon at an orgy with a deep concern for the health of his spoiled son.

  After a long moment to let Fats recover from his fury—or to let the crowd revel in it—Michael rotated his other foot to slip the revolver out of Fats’ holster and kick it across the floor as best he could while suspending his other foot on Fats’ neck. The gun slid only a few feet, but far enough for Al to take the cue and pick it up. It was a few more seconds before Michael lifted the spur from the gelatinous bearded blob that was Fats’ neck.

  While Loki and Tyr had ridden into town just before sunrise only a few days prior and therefore were not privy to the gossip enough to know the full story of Fats and the fear he incited in most of the other men, the fear itself was clear as day—or clear as they imagined day to be. It was obvious as he hooted from his place at the bar that a lot of them had wanted him gone and they had battled their wills to stomach him.

  Loki had been waiting for an opportune moment to approach the loudmouth cocksucker himself, but as he watched Michael from the table, he felt proud for the kid. He took an instant shine to Michael not just because Michael had attacked a beacon of terror and come out victorious, but because Michael had left his own guns at the table with the poker players—which was reckless, boastful, and the kind of thing Loki would have done.

  "On yer feet, ya sack o’ shit,” spat Michael, “Come back for the gun tomorrow sober and I’ll think about it.” He clawed at Fats’ clothes and tried to pull him to his feet, but the man was a boulder and he let himself lie there like a stubborn child.

  Loki took this as his opportunity to share the spotlight. He made a ruckus of standing up enthusiastically and taking Mindy’s hand out of his trousers, where it had been sitting still for some time now. He gave a happy jog toward the turmoil and indicated a gun with his hand, playfully shooting at Michael, whose curiosity and apprehension were racing to a climax.

  A soon as Loki reached them, he bent down and grabbed hold of as much of Fats’ hair as he could fit in his right hand. Fats gritted his teeth and seethed. Loki pulled up hard and all at once, tearing a clump of red fur from the top of the screaming man’s scalp. As Fats tried to punch at his knees and his crotch, Loki kicked him in the ribs just hard enough to keep him under control. He looked at the ball of greasy hair in his hand. The bits of skin and blood. He was laughing quietly to himself.

 
; After his laugh become louder, Loki addressed the crowd. “Well whaddaya say we try that again?”

  Tyr chuckled and slapped the table lightly as most of the room roared with laughter. Loki grabbed hold of Buddy McGovan’s hair one more time—this time from the back of his head—and dragged him up a little slower, now with the full cooperation of the other party. When Fats was back on his feet, Loki stepped closer so they were eye-to-eye with an inch between them.

  "Death borders upon our birth, and the cradle stands in the grave,” the words came out of Loki’s mouth simply as something to say, and he said it low enough so as to be heard only by Fats and none of the others. Loki had read the words somewhere and it meant nothing to him; he said it solely for the theatrics of it because he knew it would disturb his victim. Sure enough, all of the fight slipped out of Fats and his face became a twisted mask of fear. He ceased to be anything but a tortured and terrified victim in the grasp of a monster. Loki gave his standard demonic grin as he gripped Fats again, this time by the shirt collar, and, with a tug that surpassed mortal strength only by a thin enough margin so as not be detected, hurled him toward the door.

  The door to Al’s was heavy—a thick, oak slab hand-carved from one enormous piece of wood and lined with steel rims. It took a good deal of force for one to pull it open to enter, but when Loki lobbed Fats at it, it swung open with the force of a bullwhip, striking the wall on the outside of the building and bouncing back as Fats passed through the doorway just in time to club him once more, ripping loose two of his teeth and sending his unconscious body spiraling onto the porch out front. It would be days if not weeks before Fats was in any condition to start shit in Loki’s town again.

  Michael’s jaw was on his chest but the corners of his lips danced upwards in a flabbergasted smile. Loki was a gladiator. He spun from his post near the door striding with all the pride and confidence a victory in the coliseum might have brought. He made a victorious fist that he held at his side and Michael copied him. The two met on the floor and they shook hands and laughed. There were thundering applause and hoots and screams from the crowd.

  Tyr was among them, giving a faint and understated laugh as he brought his hands together quietly just enough to fit in.

  This is how it always was.

  Loki took Mindy in an alleyway out back rather than one of the rooms. Convincing a whore to do this might not have required much finesse even for some other overweight wrangler or blacksmith indulging his deviance in the sleazy saloon, but Loki brought her here feeling it was her idea and it most certainly was not. He undressed her partially and they rolled like wild animals in the mud, the rain doing little in the way of washing away anything.

  Likewise, Tyr had brought Mitsey to some stranger’s den that he assured her was his own and they tainted some poor sap’s just-laundered sheets, sucking on necks and chests, hands and tongues scavenging for pleasure in any place they might find it.

  Of course the pleasure Loki or Tyr took in such an act had more to do with the pleasure felt by a partner than anything he felt himself. In all their years they’d mastered lovemaking the same way they’d mastered poker, finding by the slightest spasm in another’s face the key to any pent up desire she might have been burying in her subconscious. The best sex of their lives was the gift that Tyr and Loki gave to women—being sure of it by ending the life soon after. These women would die in and of ecstasy.

  They played the climaxes for all they were worth. Mitsey screaming like murder before murder came as she straddled Tyr, nails digging into his shoulder and his back, and he gripped tightly to her breast, pressed offensively upward by her tugged-down corset as his mouth worked its way from her chest to her shoulder to the tender meat at the base of her neck. Loki, pounding downward like a piston into Mindy, his left hand laced with the fingers on her right, her voice shrill in its absence like a shriek lingering on her lips she hadn’t the ability to let loose, and Loki’s fingers between her teeth and the slightest flavor of his copper ring on her taste buds, and tears in her slammed-shut eyes, and rainwater, and mud, and sweat, and come, and blood—Oh blood! The moment of orgasm. The peak. Where Tyr let his fangs slide out of his gums and pierce the vein like needles, and Loki in his ecstasy brought forth his carving knife and ripped the skin open like fresh fruit so that in that instant, at the height of intimacy and at the height of exultation, they brought on the Rapture. And the blood that flowed forth was blood at its finest, rich with sexual release and the vibrant luscious flavors of human satisfaction at a pulse that it reached only in such instances of blissful coupling. The moment a vampire lived for.

  But they were only whores.

  The moment of gratification was reduced on such an easy target. This was no medieval princess, no duchess, and no saint. They felt it stronger when it was forbidden, when it was horrible by the standards of mankind. Especially Loki with his sickening self-image felt an unrivaled sense of achievement in watching a proper, comme il faut, young virgin rubbing his seed into her skin like lotion before he brought forth the blade to drink.

  And he drank with the blade not because he had to, but because he chose to. The stream of the blood ran faster, thicker, flowing down his gullet as he guzzled and gulped, gluttonous hedonist heathen that he was. Oh yes, he drank with the blade for the sport of it.

  But as is always the case with sex, reality set in quickly when it was over and lying on their backs covered in blood, sweat, mud, rain, and human juices; they knew they now had work to do. They’d been seen with the girls and so it would have been foolish to leave the bodies where they would be found anytime soon. In such a lawless era, two slain whores were hardly a loss to warrant tracking and vengeance, but Loki had no intention of paying Al a cent for the merchandise he’d rendered useless.

  They loaded the dead whores into their stagecoach and rode to the desert, where the mutilated bodies of Mindy and Mitsey were to be left to decompose swiftly, perhaps feed for the coyotes in the heat of the following days.

  For Loki and Tyr, the American West was an easy place to call home.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Hi,” said Tyr to the young lady working at the check-in counter at the Excalibur. “I have an old friend named Douglas Thor who is staying here on vacation. He doesn’t know I’m here, but I want to go up to his room and surprise him.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t give out the room number of a guest in the hotel.”

  "This is really important. We haven’t seen each other in a very long time. How do I talk you into making an exception?” Tyr gave her a charming smile, melting her a little but not enough.

  "Aw, I’m sorry. I’m just really not allowed to. I could lose my job.”

  Tyr leaned over the counter as though to whisper in her ear. As she leaned to meet him, he slipped her five folded up hundred-dollar bills—what they call ‘honeybees’ in Las Vegas.

  "2316,” she told him almost immediately.

  A few minutes later, standing outside 2316, Tyr could hear Loki’s voice engaging in casual conversation with Thor. While their demeanor was pleasant, Tyr got a sick feeling in his stomach upon hearing his own brother’s voice.

  He might have knocked, but he couldn’t find the confidence to begin the confrontation. Really though, what would Loki do? They weren’t about to tear each other’s guts out in a suite on the Strip, were they?

  Hell, why not? He’d seen Loki fly off the handle on more than a few occasions. What reaction would Loki have to seeing Tyr’s face after all this time? It sure as hell wouldn’t be all hugs and gaiety. No, he’d best not knock on that door. He’d best wait to approach Thor when he was alone.

  "Can I help you?” a member of the housekeeping staff asked, her voice already threatening to call security and report Tyr for eavesdropping.

  "No, I uh… Just leave me alone.”

  "Is this your room, sir?”

  "Yeah, with my boyfriend. I’m afraid he might be cheating on me.”

  With that, the woman left him
the hell alone.

  “How do you pick just one fucking drain?” Loki and Thor had said together when they stepped out onto the Strip after The Tournament of Kings.

  They separated immediately after leaving the casino as Loki wanted to catch a stage show about vampires being put on nearby and Thor was eager for the kill.

  Thor set his sights on a small gothic club called Liquid Skin which was off the Strip and in a dirtier part of a dirty city. Choosing a cab over a limousine, Thor had always had a taste for how the poorer side lived, even though he more than happily accepted that he did not belong to this class. The dirt and muck that caked the indigent American’s life took him back to Tombstone. The real Tombstone, not it’s casket, as he thought of it today. The name Tombstone had become a sick irony for him.

  He paid the cabbie and entered the club, unaware of the man in the car behind him who was watching him carefully, working up the courage to speak to him after all these years.

  Liquid Skin was a trendy hangout for delinquent lowlifes with pincushion faces dressed in too much always-black clothing lined with unsightly chains weighing down their wardrobe while serving no decipherable function. Jackoffs such as these would get tarted up in black eyeliner and lipstick and do their hair in embarrassing prongs to come to places such as this and compare notes on desolation and the futility of existence.

  Thor’s reason for dropping in now and again—aside from the heartwarming feeling he got when killing someone who didn’t appreciate life—was that it was a popular hangout for members of Vampire: The Masquerade, a pretty funny game some humans liked to play. In short, they would dress up much like these contemptible schmucks, place fake canines in their mouths—completely unaware a real vampire retracts his fangs except in the instant before feeding—and tell others plainly that they were children of the night—an act which would banish any true vampire to Ofeigr’s torture chambers until he rotted away and died. All of this is not to mention half of the players were female and if they were telling the truth, they and the vampires who turned them would certainly be put to death.