by Night, H. T.
Mount Shasta would get in the news and the hotels and bars would be filled and crystal sales would boom, and all the Lemuria legends would get some play. The History Channel might show up for a feature documentary one day.
But none of that mattered. I’d seen such stories play out over the years—pretty much everywhere I’d ever been, come to think of it.
It made me feel as lonely as ever. It seemed I was always walking away from the wreckage.
I heard crying and wailing from inside the buildings, which I took as a good sign. At least some of them were together enough to experience shock and horror, instead of believing the apocalypse had come and that it was time to join The Answer in whatever sicko afterlife he’d promised them.
I was nearly to my car when I heard a rustle in the nearby stand of trees.
I spun, wishing I had kept the silver stake. What if one of the winged things had been late to dinner and was still on the prowl?
Then Parker stepped from the shadows. Or, at least, the young woman Parker had possessed and upon whom I’d fed.
“Hello, Spider,” she said, shyly.
Crap. Why did this always happen to me?
I studied her face in the moonlight. She looked like just another teen, a girl and a woman all thrown together in the same confused mass of flesh that all her kind learned to deal with. Her eyes were downcast, and her hands were by her side.
She didn’t look like a spiteful demon intent on ripping my heart out and feeding it to the devil.
“Is it you?” I said.
She nodded, biting her lip as if she were about to cry.
But she didn’t cry, and I took that as a good sign. Tears would have meant she was trying to trick me, playing on my hero impulse until I let down my guard again.
I nearly said, “Prove it,” but how do you prove you are human except by doing stupid human stuff like falling in love?
Instead, I said, “I’m glad you didn’t die.”
Her face lifted and her eyes widened in shock. I noticed for the first time that she was intensely beautiful. “You mean...you didn’t know? You would have killed me to get rid of that beast?”
I shrugged. “So, are you really Erasmus Cole’s daughter?”
“No. He...” She looked away, ashamed, and I realized I didn’t want to know the degradation and manipulation she’d endured. “He used me.”
“Well, that’s good in a way,” I said, as her eyes welled with tears that didn’t fall. “I imagine the taxes on this place are a real pain in the ass. Who’d ever want to inherit it?”
I heard a distant siren echoing through the valley. Maybe one of the security guards had slipped out, or one of the disciples with a contraband cell phone had put in a 911 call.
“You want a ride?” I asked.
She headed toward the car, and, like a true gentleman, I opened the door. I guess I was right to trust my instinct. She wasn’t bad, she was just weak.
Just like me. God help us all.
When I got behind the wheel, she touched her neck and said, “Did you really bite me?”
“Nah. I just made a pit stop to fuel up for the finish line.”
“How did you kill it?”
“I got lucky.” I turned the key.
We got out of there and rode in silence, passing a fire truck, three cop cruisers, and an ambulance coming from the other direction. I kept it under the speed limit until I could no longer see Mount Shasta glistening in the rearview, and then I punched it to the floor.
I felt her hand crawl to mine. She drew away a little at the chill, but then tightened her grip. I let her. I don’t know why.
“Erasmus was right about one thing,” she said. “You’re a vampire.”
“Yeah,” I said.
We’d made ten more miles before she spoke again. “That debt I owe you? The thing you said I’d need to do for you if you killed Erasmus Cole?”
Her finger teased the pad of my thumb. I almost wished she was a demon trying to manipulate me instead of a fool falling in love with the wrong guy.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I meant what I said. I will do anything.”
She scooted over in her seat until I could feel the warmth of her body. At that moment, I would have traded my soul for a little warmth to give back.
But I no longer had a soul.
“Anything,” she whispered in my ear, and her breath was like the fresh spring breezes of my nearly forgotten youth. It had been so very, very long ago.
“Okay,” I said.
I was Spider. That’s the way I rolled these days.
“You can help me study for the history test,” I said. “We’re in night school, remember?”
She moved away a little.
Not too much, but just enough.
The night stretched out before us, and all the miles, the endless, endless miles.
The End
Return to the Table of Contents
Also available:
ROMEO AND JULIET:
A Vampire and Werewolf Love Story
by H.T. Night
(read on for a sample)
Chapter One
I looked over the Lady’s sleeve and drank in my beautiful city. The stunning fireworks had finished, and once again, I was left overwhelmed at the majestic magnitude of the city. The party boats had left the harbor with their floodlights, raucous cheers, and commotion that commemorated the first anniversary of the renaming of the city. What was once named Manhattan had been replaced by the name Verona.
I stood by the silent, virtuous Lady, just on her left shoulder. Balancing my feet on such a great statue was always tricky. I could taste her overwhelming wet, coppery scent in my nose and mouth. The aroma was reminiscent of fresh blood, not altogether unpleasant.
I looked up into the dark cold night. It was unusual to see stars over our city, but the night was crisp with them, twinkling sparks on a black velvet nightscape, such a clear night that diamond rays from starlight illuminated the night sky like Jacob’s ladders extending from deep sky to tall buildings. It was a radiant night.
We were fortunate to have most of our land bought out for re-gentrification by a billion-dollar Prince. Prince Escalus. His very surname as a visionary developer was a legend in his own time. Not only was he rich, he was powerful, and masterful at rejuvenating entire cities. His approach into developing cities and remaking them was that his philosophy was simple: Keep the peace.
There was no place that needed peace more in this time than New York City. More specifically…Manhattan.
As I looked out from my 300-foot-high perch in the night shadow of the bosom of the lady, I marveled at the beauty of my Verona. My city was like a beautiful woman to me and my city had two competing lovers and a divided heart. I was reminded of which immortal species ruled these parts. Vampires and werewolves were as legendary and infamous in these parts as celebrities. In fact, we even had our own media network.
Verona was run, in part, by the two immortal families: the Capulets and the Montagues. They couldn’t have been more different in their culture and in their immortal forms. Montagues were from the wrong side of the tracks: a ruthless, cutthroat band of scorned misfits who succeeded anyway, with all the odds against them. They were crass and abrupt, and they always needed a shave, a bath, and a good haircut. But that came with the territory. The Montagues were cursed by a comedy of errors but brazenly got to their feet, every time.
Now the Capulets, they were cultured and liked the finer things in life: big houses, expensive cars, and especially, flaunting it to the Montagues.
As different as the two sides were in culture, they stood even further apart in their unlike immortality. The Capulets had chosen to live their remaining years here in Verona—it could be a million years, as they were long-lived as vampires. It fit their smug elitist attitudes to be so long in the tooth and aggravated the Montagues that there was no way to get rid of them.
The Montagues lived their days as werewolves
: meat-eating, ass-kicking, moon-howling werewolves who lived day by day, close to the earth, as close to raw passion as creatures could ever get. Montagues were warm-blooded and therefore, had passion soaring through their veins. The Capulets had to take their blood from others, like the leeches on society that they were, by virtue of their curse. Most of them, save her, were passionless, elitist, and cold. Only she was different. I swore inside of me that I had never laid eyes on a wonder of the world more captivating than she.
The problem was twofold. Immortality, dominance, and bloodlines separated Verona into two sides, nearly split right down the middle at Times Square. There were two immortal families in my city, bloodthirsty rivals who gave each other no quarter, and none was asked. They mostly kept to their own turf, and to their own kind. The two families were split along Times Square.
To the north of Times Square in the Upper East Side, the Capulets had bought out mansions that were turned into apartment buildings…that were now turned back into mansions. The family owned just about every building and had turned the section of the city into a place that turned up their noses at the Hamptons.
To the south of Times Square, and all the way down to the Financial District, was where the werewolves roamed. They were definitely not as rich as the Capulets, but they lived better than most folks. If werewolves were roaming, then one would likely see a Montague in their midst. Nearly all Montague men had chosen to live their days as werewolves. Montague families were spread out pretty evenly among Chelsea, and the East and West Villages. One could even find families in SoHo and Chinatown.
Until now, there had only been small skirmishes between the two dissonant factions, but my extraordinary senses of premonition and danger detected that all hell was about to break loose in a populous that was deep in celebration about the rebirth of art, culture, education, and creativity. A resurgence of passion for the city swept like a fiery new religion into the corners of every borough. It was as if people were crying out for a deeper purpose. I knew I was.
Things in this part of the world had been quite different for some time. In reality, the entire world was different. A hundred years ago, there had been a technology revolution that spurred the inevitable. We’d touched the moon and the planets with our humanity and our machines shot into outer space, and could go no further without bankrupting every country. A realization set in that we now needed to get in touch with our mortality, our inner space.
It was time for the world to turn on its fulcrum. I felt it. Time for the immortals to take their rightful place as the world’s muscle and minds. Religion and politics tried to prevent it from happening, but eventually, immortality reigned over mortality. Now, just two immortal factions stood at the helm of society, glaring at each other from opposite corners of the city.
In the madness, I had been given a gift from the gods. I had been given visions of a wondrous place. A place of peace, of hope and love. I had only seen it in my dreams, but on this night, I felt that my special place was near, as if I could almost touch it with my hands. Of late, something had come over me and it was only intensifying. I looked up at the stars and the full moon that pierced my mind’s eye with a pull that I knew well. I howled into the night sky. I howled from my deep place, where I had only seemed to been able to howl from as of late. I had been told that my howl was unique in that it had both the sounds of music playing and the reverence of a man crying out in prayer. It was a howl that had reduced some to tears when they heard it, such was its unique vibration, timbre, tone, and range. It was a yodel from across the Alps, a chorus of angels with one harmonized chord. My howl is my prayer and my song of all that I was, all that I am, and all that I shall be. Inside of me roiled a yearning for something more, hungering for something more. I howled in agony and ecstasy until tears dripped from my face and wet my body like scorching rain.
When I was finished, I looked over my city of Verona and cried out so loud that my throat roared, “My name is Romeo Montague and I am a Werewolf!”
ROMEO AND JULIET:
A Vampire and Werewolf Love Story
is found in:
What the Night Knows: Three Novels
Also available:
WINNING SARAH’S HEART
A Young Adult Series
by H.T. Night
(read on for a sample)
Chapter One
It was the last day of summer and I was going into the sixth grade. I woke up feeling pretty impatient, as I always did on the day the school posted the classroom lists. Each year, the day before Wenchester Elementary School began, the school posted a list for each classroom so that the students could see which class they would be in during the year.
For some reason this had always been a huge event in my life. I anticipated it the way little children anticipate Christmas morning.
This year would be a tad different. I had finally made it. I was at the top. I was a sixth grader!
At Wenchester, there were two sixth-grade classrooms. The teachers were Mr. O’Neil and Mrs. Phyllis. Mr. O’Neil was tall, slender, and non-threatening in his appearance. He had a reputation of being real strict. Mrs. Phyllis, on the other hand, was simply young and beautiful. She had blonde hair and blue eyes that hid behind red glasses that made her look like a secretary. So, given the two choices for having a teacher, I thought it was fair to say I would rather be in Mrs. Phyllis’s class.
“Wake up!” screeched a female voice outside my room.
“You actually thought I might be asleep?” I yelled back.
“Mom wants us to walk to the store and get lunch.” With that, she threw open the door. It was my sister, Carrie. Everyone said we looked alike. We would both argue to our deathbeds that we didn’t. She was a year younger than I was. The sad part about it was we were in the same grade. I was held back a year by my mother. She said it was for emotional reasons. If you ask me, I thought my mother wished she had given birth to twins. She figured that even though we didn’t come out at the same time, she would make us go to school at the same time.
I used to live in Arizona with my mother and father. My parents divorced when I was three years old. My dad moved to Texas with his girlfriend a year later. I would only speak to him about four times a year. I saw him once at Christmas time when I was seven years old. We didn’t have much of a father-son relationship. I was supposed to love him because he was my dad. It was hard to love someone you never saw, especially when that someone chose not to see you.
My mother, sister and I live in Southern California. The three of us moved here after my mom and dad divorced. I figure I’ll probably leave California someday when I’m older, but, for now, it’s an okay place to live, I guess.
“Blayne called, he said he’ll meet you at the basketball courts at two o’clock,” Carrie said with a smile. My sister has a crush on Blayne since we were little kids.
“Did he mention if Timmy would be there?” I asked.
“What am I, your personal answering service?”
“You are when Blayne calls.”
“I don’t like Blayne,” she protested. “You always say I like Blayne. I might have thought he was cute when I was little, but I don’t like him anymore.”
“Whatever,” I said, pushing her out of my room.
It was hard not to be overly excited knowing that the classroom lists were going to be posted. I wanted to have five people in my classroom. I wanted Blayne Ward and Timmy Lawson because they were my two best friends. I also hoped to have Tanya Taylor and Ali Moore because they were the two prettiest girls in the sixth grade.
Then, there was the new girl. She moved here at the end of the year. She wasn’t in my class.
Her name was Sarah Davis. She was the type of girl who seemed very mysterious. She didn’t say much. She would just keep to herself at recess. I always paid attention to her though. We walked home in the same direction from school.
On the last day of school, I decided to do something that was very unlike me. That day I decided to
pass my house and go to the market and get a candy bar. I was curious to see where Sarah lived. I walked behind her for about a mile. She happened to walk into Pete’s market. It was the only place to go, aside from the Laundromat.
I walked in after her and grabbed a bag of chips and a soda. I noticed Tommy Madkins was in there with a couple of his friends playing video games. Tommy was by far the biggest bully to ever go to Wenchester Elementary School. He started to get a reputation when he was in fourth grade. It was fair to say we had a lot of jerks in the sixth grade.
I walked up to the counter and Sarah was in front of me. All she had in her hand was a loaf of bread. She was much shorter than me and had sandy brown hair. Her eyes stood out the most. She had these big green eyes.
I stood behind her, admiring her, when I heard, “Greer!” I hated when someone called me by my last name. I turned around to see Tommy and his clan of jerks laughing. “Is that your girlfriend?” Tommy asked, laughing even harder. This made Sarah turn around and look at us.
“No,” I said, “I don’t even know her.” I felt stupid. It was the truth though. I had never even spoken a word to her.
She looked at me and gave me the most innocent smile.
I smiled back. However, whenever someone caught me off guard with a smile, I would try to smile back but it usually looked odd, like I was posing for a toothpaste commercial or something. She paid and went out the door.
Then I heard, “Let’s go!” It came from Tommy’s direction. He and his buddies ran out the door. They ran behind the market and picked up a plastic bag full of water balloons.
