Undead in the City
Page 1
UNDEAD IN THE CITY
Hera St.
Aubyn
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* * * * *
This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable (violence).
Undead in the City
Hera St.
Aubyn
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Loose Id LLC
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Carson City NV 89701-1215
www.loose-id.com
Copyright © May 2007 by Hera St.
Aubyn
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ISBN 978-1-59632-466-4
Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader
Printed in the United States of America
Editor: C. B. Calsing
Cover Artist: April Martinez
Chapter One
Malveaux skulked in the shadows along the abandoned industrial buildings. A relentless blizzard -- an uninvited Canadian visitor -- pounded the urban landscape, causing even those with exceptional vision to falter in the wall of white. Hard snowflakes, slamming earthward like mini ice darts, caused him to raise an arm above his eyes as a shield to forestall the storm’s assault. The frozen projectiles couldn’t hurt him -- almost nothing could -- but the act of protecting one’s eyes was habitual. Instinctual, perhaps. Even for beings that hadn’t been human for a very long time.
Parts of the inner city of Detroit had become the stuff of nightmares. Not only because they were inhabited by creatures of the night like him, but because of the frighteningly ingenious methods humans had devised for harming each other. And they called him a monster.
One benefit to frequenting this seedy part of town was the readily-available food source. Prostitutes displayed their charms for pitifully small amounts of money, and they were always more than willing to donate a bit of blood for the right price, even in a storm like tonight’s. He quite enjoyed sucking the throats of these ladies of the evening, then erasing their memories of said event. They always struck him as painfully honest, acknowledging the very human need for sex, unlike the masses who pretended to feel no such compulsions.
He was excruciatingly aware of his needs. Blood and sex. Even though those two things weren’t commonly linked in most vampires, Malveaux’s creator had been unique. A human who’d been addicted to sex of all kinds before being forced into vampirism against his will, he’d passed along the mutated desires to his vampire offspring -- who were also taken against their wills. A family tradition. Certainly not Norman Rockwell’s idyllic vision, but a tradition, nonetheless.
Malveaux had sated his bloodlust earlier in the evening, but had yet to fully relieve the aching, throbbing tension in his cock. He knew that if he didn’t find another satisfactory outlet for the building sexual pressure soon, he’d kill. And killing was always more trouble than it was worth, not to mention messy. He could have tempered his sword -- metaphorically speaking -- with the street-walking blood donor he’d sampled earlier, but she’d smelled of garlic. Even though there was no truth to the old wives’ tale about garlic repelling vampires, he had a personal dislike for the odor. Foul aroma aside, he’d guided her hand onto his cock and used mind control to encourage her to stroke vigorously while he fed. He wasn’t inclined to add his juices to the fluids he scented in the long-unwashed area between her legs. Even a vampire had standards.
Unfortunately, a hand job was the equivalent of finding a drop of water in the desert when an oasis was needed.
So Malveaux prowled the filthy streets in the middle of the worst blizzard of the year, seeking a moist, warm place to sheath his aching phallus.
He sought a human female with soft, round breasts and a pleasant-smelling, tight cunt.
Not that he was limited to women, his creator had seen to that. But he definitely leaned in that direction.
All thoughts about his flexible sexual tastes ceased suddenly as his finely-tuned radar engaged. Sensing an almost-imperceptible disturbance behind him, he moved with preternatural speed into the nearest trash-strewn alley, pressing himself behind a filthy, overflowing dumpster. Going completely still, as only the strongest vampires could, he waited for his guests to arrive. He’d known it was only a matter of time until they tracked him down. As good as he was at evading their attempts to kill him, he’d gotten sidetracked by what felt like a perpetual erection. Malveaux wasn’t usually held prisoner by his cock to such a degree. Whether he wanted to face it or not, the relentlessly escalating urge could only mean one thing: the legend was true. He’d be forced to create his own offspring soon, or go mad.
Offspring meant responsibility, something he avoided at all costs. Responsibility had never brought him anything but pain.
Shuffling footsteps sounded nearby. Tuning in with his enhanced hearing, he smiled. There were two of them. The clumsy oafs must be very new or very stupid. No vampire with functioning brain cells would make that much noise while in pursuit of someone with Malveaux’s reputation. Quade must be hard up to send such lightweights his way.
He waited until the two dullards paused under the streetlight at the mouth of the alley, actually discussing whether they should go straight or venture into his hiding place. His heart pounded in excited anticipation. He could already imagine his steel-like fingers knifing into the cold, white flesh of their necks, ripping out their throats. The surprised screams and arcing spray of blood would be the highlight of an otherwise meaningless night. He did relish these primitive moments. And focusing on the matter at hand would take his mind off his crotch, at least temporarily.
Resisting the temptation to leap onto the two oblivious bloodsuckers, he let the desire to kill wash over him. Building the exquisite tension, he leaked some of the humming vibration into his aura. Noticing Malveaux took longer than it should have, but his pitiful trackers finally sensed his presence, gasping and snarling in response.
Malveaux laughed as the two large vampires came at him, arms reaching and fangs exposed. He had to hand it to Quade. The assailants the territory boss sent might have been idiots, but they were stereotypically perfect B-movie vampires. He’d heard Quade had a flair for the dramatic.
Squinting to see through the curtain of snow, Malveaux planted his tall, muscular body directly in front of his visitors and smiled, showing a hint of fang. His long, dark hair hung in ice-crusted clumps down his shoulders and back, and bits of snow left water trails on their journey down the slick surface of his black leather duster. He didn’t need a mirror to know that his bright blue eyes had transformed into hypnotic silver pools. Those frighteningly shiny orbs were usually the last thing his pursuers saw before they joined their predecessors in the fires of Hell.
He’d been an assassin as a human being and saw no reason to change professions simply because he’
d become the undead. Although a vampire assassin was rather redundant.
Malveaux momentarily toyed with the idea of delaying his gratification, of stretching out the pleasure of their deaths. But the snow was becoming annoying, and the distraction hadn’t proven to be of sufficient intensity to deter his attention from his ever-demanding penis, so he ended the game. Locking eyes with one, then the other, he froze them in mid-lunge. He sent a simple mental command, insisting that they stand very still, while he pressed his sharp fingernails into the skin of their throats. They stood as ordered, shocked expressions on their faces, eyes empty. He moved back just in time to avoid the spray of crimson as the two vampires crumpled to the ground. Before the wounds could begin to heal, Malveaux reached into both chest cavities, extracting the still-beating hearts, and crushed them in his hands.
Quite a nasty way to die, but a most expedient one.
He felt the adrenaline rush subside and shook his head over the quickly-decomposing bodies. In most circumstances, there would be little more than ash, which would be blown down the alley to find a final resting place inside an abandoned car or an overturned dumpster. But, thanks to the wet snow, the hapless fools would end their worthless existences as piles of dark sludge, waiting to adorn the tires of a garbage or delivery truck.
Not exactly what they were promised when they became vampires, he mused, but precisely what they all deserved.
A tightening in his groin brought him back to the present, and he wondered again whether someone could die from a hard-on. Maybe he’d find out. Leave it to him to be a night-walking pioneer.
But, impending death or not, he was going to have to confront the possibility that he had to find at least one mortal to turn. Someone he could enslave sexually. Someone who’d be always available to him. That thought made him smile, until he remembered what it had been like to be on the receiving end of such a bargain.
He frowned, kicked at some of the snow-covered sludge, and turned up the collar of his coat. Sticking his head out of the alley, he investigated the white expanse in both directions, and then walked toward some lights in the distance.
Time to fuck.
* * * * *
The last guitar chord echoed through the almost-empty room, as Tempest Moon leapt off the small amplifier and landed in a crouch on the stage. She faced the other band members and brought the neck of her Fender Stratocaster guitar down abruptly, ending the song with a grand flourish. Grinning, she turned toward the audience -- or where the audience would have been if anybody had come into the bar that night -- and felt her grin flip upside down. Fucking snow, she thought. Their first gig in weeks and of course it had to blizzard like a motherfucker.
But what the hell? They’d get paid anyway.
She leaned into the microphone and announced to the three drunks at the bar that the band would be back for one more set in a few minutes. Her band mates headed off toward the bartender for liquid medication.
Tempest grabbed the soft rag she used to wipe off her instrument and scanned the room. The band had never gigged there before. Standard dive. Or maybe even crappier than a standard dive, since it was in one of the most dangerous parts of a scary city. But she’d been raised in this nasty, dirty place, and had gotten used to what she considered the normal sick shit of daily urban living. She often thought that she’d had two choices: either be a musician like her parents, or be a ho. She certainly loved sex, but couldn’t stomach not being in charge of who stuck what where.
She caught her reflection in one of the mirror tiles lining the back wall of the stage, and was glad that all the tough years hadn’t given her “the look” yet, that beaten-down, used-up look. The one her mother had. In fact, genetics had been kind, and Tempest had inherited the sweet, innocent face her mom had started out with, and her dad’s lean, toned frame. She wouldn’t have minded a couple more inches in height, but she’d settle for average. Besides, there were always stiletto-heeled boots for maximum theatrical effect. She appreciated that there was nothing like a well-placed pointy toe to make a drunk or stoned asshole take a detour. The guys in the band had gotten creative with the promo material, and described her as “sleek as a panther with long, silky dark hair, big brown eyes and a couple of black belts in various martial arts, creating a potent, guitar-packing, take-no-bullshit, Motor City mama.” She chuckled as she thought of that, and hoped the next thirty years would go down as easily as the first thirty had.
Rubbing the back of her neck to relax the muscles, she swung her guitar away from her body and propped it against the rack by her brand new amplifier. One more hour and she could collect the band’s money, divvy it up, and split. She unplugged the PA and clicked off the stage lights with her foot.
“Hey, Tempest! I’m outta cash. Front me a couple of bucks for a beer, eh?”
Tempest turned toward the voice. The speaker was no mystery. Stan the drummer always needed a couple of bucks for a beer. He always managed to slam his allotment of free drinks before the night was half over. She tried to put on a stern face, but it was impossible. He just looked like a big, overgrown kid with his long blond hair and big green eyes. A combination of a jock and a surfer dude. All that drumming had given him an impressive upper body, and his lower body wasn’t too shabby, either. Too bad his emotional development had stalled at around the kid level as well, because he was one tasty morsel in the sack. She smiled, remembering their last tumble.
She reached into the pocket of her jeans and extracted a wad of singles. Peeling off a couple, she held them out to Stan. “What’s in it for me, Stan the Man?”
He showed his remarkably white teeth, jumped back up on the stage, and sauntered over, reaching around behind her to grab her butt. “Whaddya want?”
Tempest wedged one of her hands in between their bodies, cupping his expanding equipment. “Guess.”
He wiggled his hips, smiling. “Beer now. Boff later.” He squeezed her buns, grabbed the bills, and executed a perfect athletic jump off the stage.
She could hear him yelling to the bartender, “Shot and a beer, Chaz!”
Tempest suspected that Stan’s gorgeous body wouldn’t survive his high-calorie alcohol binges. For that matter, she was surprised she’d been able to stay lean with all her bad habits. Then again, sex tended to burn calories, so at least she’d chosen a physically active hobby. Nobody could accuse her of being a couch potato. Unless, of course, she was using the couch for screwing. As long as she listened to her common sense -- and kept a good supply of rubbers -- nothing but pleasure would come from her demanding sexual appetites. Her legendary sexual appetites, she corrected, smiling. And, while she was having great sex, she didn’t need to think about all the messy relationship stuff. She’d found that men were good for sex and making music.
Anything else was asking for trouble.
A burst of frigid air hit Tempest as the front door opened. Thinking a few more customers might be braving the sudden ice age to show up for the last set, she was disappointed to see only a solitary man step inside. He shook his hair away from his face, sending a shower of melting snow down the walls, and straightened the collar on his coat. The entryway was directly in front of her at the far end of the club, and luckily, there were a lot of overhead lights, so she got a good look at the new arrival. Even with his long dark hair snow-covered, wet, and plastered against his shoulders, she felt her breath catch -- and not from the cold air. He had to be the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Tall, with light skin and piercing eyes. She appreciated the cut of his leather duster and suspected it was high dollar. What the hell was a fancy number like him doing in a crap hole like this? Maybe he was another one of those mafia jerks. They were always showing up all over town to extort one kind of payment or another.
Hidden in the darkness of the stage, she followed him with her eyes as he strode purposefully to the booth tucked back in the far corner. The bartender, along with every other life form in the smoky room, had gone completely still as the newcomer passed. Pausin
g next to the booth, the man removed his coat, shaking it to dislodge the melting snow and ice. A smile spread across Tempest’s face as she noted the form-fitting leather pants and muscle-hugging, light-colored T-shirt he wore under the expensive coat. It didn’t take much creativity to imagine how it would feel to run her hands over that muscled expanse, but Tempest had creativity and imagination in abundance. So much that her body stirred in satisfied anticipation of the unexpected possibility that had just magically offered itself for later that night. She would’ve been happy to bounce on Stan again, but as far as men went, new was always better than familiar. She’d learned that the best thing about her looks was being able to use them to pick up any guy she wanted. Pitiful that males were so easily controlled, but it was just as well, since she so enjoyed being in charge.
She watched the handsome stranger fold himself into the booth, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chaz, the bartender, spring from behind the bar. The previously laid-back -- read stoned -- fellow practically fell over his own feet in his frantic attempt to reach the leather man. He hovered near the booth, wringing his hands, nodding energetically at whatever the new customer was saying. Chaz finally pointed toward the pay phone near the shelves of liquor and rushed in that direction, leaving the man alone.
Tempest realized she’d been holding her breath during Chaz’s strange performance. Of course, she’d only met the bartender that day, so she had no idea what his normal behaviors were. But still, the vibe he gave off around the stud muffin was unusual, almost as if he was afraid or something. She could feel the thrum of his anxiety from her observation post. No surprise, really. Most of the businesses in the inner city were mob controlled. Maybe the eye candy in the booth was high up on the motherfucker feeding chain. She smirked. A lesser woman might take a pass on rolling around with a member of The Family, but she always enjoyed a challenge. None of the assholes had gotten the upper hand with her yet, and she felt confident she could call the shots with this yummy specimen, too.