by Kat Cotton
“Tough shit.” I tried to do the right thing and he hit me with attitude like that?
“Okay, hang around if you must, but you might not like what you see.”
I walked in without waiting for an invitation.
“What, I might see a hotted-up game of Monopoly? You’re about to build some hotels?”
“So, what do you want?” Nic asked. He stood in the middle of the room, hands on his hips, as though he didn’t want me to get too settled.
Wow, he was edgy today.
Kisho moved to clear something off the coffee table. It wasn’t a game of Monopoly, though, it was my book. I knew Kisho had it. He tried to hide it away when he noticed I’d spotted it, but I grabbed it from him.
“You stole my book!” I yelled at Kisho.
I flipped through it. And yep, there was a whole section on the Vampire King. Purposely hiding information. I’d give that section a careful read later.
They had both blatantly lied to me.
“You’ve got your little book, now you can go,” Nic said.
“I need to warn you about something. The mayor wants me to stake you.”
I had planned to build up to it, but Nic’s attitude made me just blurt it out. Even if he was a dick, it wouldn’t be nice to know someone wanted you dead.
Instead of being shocked, he burst out laughing. I didn’t think it was a laughing matter.
“You could try.” He grinned.
I could. I really could when he acted like that.
“He told me some other interesting things too, like about the Vampire King and a prophecy. Were you planning to share that with me at some point? Because, again, handy information for me to know.”
“It’s complicated, and this is not the time to go into it all.” Nic glared even harder.
Before I could say any more, the doorbell rang. Kisho ran to answer it. I wasn’t sure when he thought was the right time to tell me. After that run-in at the warehouse would’ve been a handy time.
“Food delivery service,” he said, coming back in with a girl in his wake.
She didn’t seem to have food, though.
Of course she didn’t. She was the food.
Nic crooked his finger to call him to her. She blushed and smiled. She willingly did this?
“You can’t feed with me here!”
“I told you it wasn’t a convenient time, but you came in anyway. If you visit people uninvited right at dinnertime, what do you expect? Now, you can either leave or sit there and let us get on with this.”
“Okay, I’ll stay, but you can’t make me watch.”
He just raised his eyebrow. “Do I care?”
I didn’t want to stay, but my damn stubbornness wouldn’t let me leave. The last thing I wanted was to watch Nic feeding on this girl. If I left now, though, he’d know I’d freaked out about it. How bad could it be anyway?
He took the girl gently by the shoulders, brushing her hair back from her face. She beamed at him like a smitten teenager. The way he stroked her face made her flush all the more.
“Nic, I’m so happy you called me,” she said, her voice all low and husky.
That made me want to vomit. Was she president of the Nic fan club or something?
I’d never seen a vampire feed before. Usually, I got to them after they’d finished feeding. I’d caught one in the act before, but he’d been in the shadows, then he’d been dust. I knew the theory, but the practical side of it remained a mystery to me. A mystery I hadn’t wanted to delve into.
The girl put her head to the side, baring her neck. Flaunting it, even. Red marks covered her skin. She’d done this many times before. She was like some kind of vampire slut or something. Didn’t it gross her out? All that blood and sucking.
“They say my blood is the sweetest,” she said.
That didn’t seem like something to be proud of.
Then she glared at me. “Is she feeding? Because I don’t do girls.”
“No, it’s just me.” Nic smiled at her and she actually squirmed, like his smile alone was all she craved in this world.
Nic’s fangs elongated. It did nothing to detract from his looks. If anything, it made him more attractive. Shit, I had to empty my mind of thoughts like that or I’d end up being vampire food myself.
Kisho leaned on the door frame. I’d expected him to at least have vamped up, but there was no tooth action going on. Nothing.
He didn’t look at me or acknowledge that I was in the room, though. He was completely focused on Nic. He didn’t feed, or had he lied to me about that?
I’d thought Kisho couldn’t lie to me, that he gave himself away with his furtive glances and blushing, but when it came to important things, it seemed he lied more than anyone.
Nic locked gazes with me before he fed, challenging me to observe.
He stood behind her, his arm around her waist as he watched me. I wanted to run, but that gaze challenged me. I’d stick around no matter what.
As he lowered his mouth to her neck, I could no longer see his eyes. I expected the feeding to be as controlled and calculated as the rest of his life, and at first, it was. But the bloodlust took over.
As his teeth sunk into her, the girl squirmed against his body. He clutched her to him, his fingers digging into her flesh. She moaned. She writhed. Her skirt rode up, but Nic didn’t seem to care that she flashed her panties. The biting and sucking intensified.
It was too primal, too intense. A sweat broke out on my skin and my head throbbed.
When he’d played with Kisho, I’d also had the feeling that I shouldn’t be watching, but my lust had drawn me in. I’d wanted to be part of it, so much so that Nic’s movements rippled through my body.
The feeding just repulsed me. It was ugly and gross and not at all sensual. Nic made slurping noises while he fed. Ick. The whole thing lacked control, even if she was a willing meal. He sucked on her blood. Fed on her.
The girl arched her back, becoming fluid. She obviously got off on this, which made it even more awkward to watch. As Nic bit harder into her neck, her fingers slipped into the waistband of her skirt. I had to look away.
Then Kisho joined them and I looked up. His hand rested on Nic’s back. The three of them combined as one.
The girl’s moans became screams. Her knees buckled and she hooked her arm around Nic’s neck as though unable to stand on her own feet. I tried to look away, not wanting to be part of this, but I couldn’t. What would I look at? That crappy painting of a ship on the wall?
The whole time, Kisho stayed close to them. I wasn’t sure why. He’d told me he didn’t feed. Had he lied about that as well?
I couldn’t believe that so recently, if only for a moment, I’d felt like one of them. We’d bonded, I’d thought. But now I realized that meant nothing. I would always be an outsider. The whole “being vampires” part of them being vampires had kind of escaped my mind.
Stupidly, I’d thought of them as being my friends. Buddies. We hung out and had fun times.
I mean, obviously, I had known he was a vampire and that’s what they did. But over the time I’d known them, I’d forgotten about that whole vampirey side of them. The “undead, no soul, not human” facts.
We weren’t buddies, though. They were vampires and I was a Demon Fighter. It wasn’t even cute, like those unlikely animal friends you see on the Internet. It was just wrong.
The girl reeled away as though unable to stand it any longer.
Nic raised his head, his mouth smeared with crimson. At that moment, I barely recognized him. The control in his eyes had been replaced with a wildness. His prettiness gone. Instead, he looked like a beast.
Nic pulled Kisho’s mouth to his. Their bodies pressed tight together and their lips locked. I wasn’t sure what they were doing. Kissing. No, not kissing.
Kisho didn’t feed. Instead, Nic gave him substance like a baby bird.
My stomach flipped. I wasn’t sure I’d hold on to my lunch. I’d assumed, when he
said he didn’t feed, he’d meant that he only lived on animal blood or something nonhuman. But secondhand human blood was still human blood. That he couldn’t feed directly didn’t change that. Instead, it just deepened the weird codependent relationship between him and Nic.
But then, technically, it wasn’t feeding. If what the mayor said was true, then Kisho had never fed.
All this information and weirdness overwhelmed me. I should’ve left before the feeding started.
“I can stay longer if you need…” the girl said. Her eyes pleaded for more.
But Nic had lost interest in her. She’d been discarded once she’d served her purpose. He waved her away, and Kisho showed her to the door.
“What were you saying?” Nic asked.
I couldn’t look at him, not with the blood still on his face. I hated that he’d proved the mayor right. There was so much I didn’t know about him. And I’d never be part of this, no matter what. I was someone he’d employed to do a job.
The queasiness in my stomach had been replaced by an emptiness. I hated myself for that. I didn’t want to need Nic’s approval. Not now.
“That’s it. Consider me off the case.”
Chapter 24: Defeat
The day stretched out in front of me. I grabbed a bunch of client files, figuring I could make follow-up calls. Sometimes demons returned and I got a nice additional fee out of that. I opened the first file. There was a note on the bottom, in very neat handwriting, saying that a follow-up call had been made and the situation was now stable. I grabbed the next file. Same thing.
Kisho had gone through every case I’d worked on in the past year and had called them. All the paperwork had been added to files in reverse date order too.
That left me with exactly nothing to do but kill the Demon Child.
I needed to kill the Demon Child. Even if I wasn’t getting paid for it, I needed to stake that cute little son of a bitch. I couldn’t accept defeat.
I rubbed my eyes. I hadn’t slept well since that day in the warehouse. I just had to think through things logically, but logic wasn’t coming easy to me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. What I needed was a drink.
I headed to Sam’s Bar. At least a few stiff drinks might put me to sleep, if nothing else.
When I got there, the place was almost empty. Too early for most drinkers. I sat at the bar and ordered a vodka. The last time I’d been there, I’d been too poor to order more than a single beer. Now I had money in my pocket, but my life had become a ton more complicated. I blamed it on those vampires. Before I’d met them, I hadn’t known a single self-doubt in my life.
The bartender handed me my drink. I took a sip, then tried to sort my thoughts into some kind of order.
Could I do this?
Firstly, the Demon Child hadn’t attacked again since the Soho. We’d thwarted him at the underground club. Even if the Vampire King gave him small amounts of blood to keep him docile, he’d need to feast properly or no one would be able to control him.
That led to the second point. He needed to feast somewhere with a lot of people. A big public event. Of course. That made sense. The mayor needed it to be as huge as possible. He needed to shock people and get the media attention another big massacre would cause.
The next part of the plan was to control the Demon Child. That idea of using my blood had been the best idea I could think of. If the Vampire King hadn’t interrupted us, I’d have staked that kid by now. At least I could do that with no qualms.
I picked up the coaster and tapped it on the bar.
It’d be difficult to do this on my own. For a moment, I thought of involving Kisho.
But, no. Even if doing it alone was dangerous, working with him was more so. He’d let me down twice. He had secrets, layers buried under that sweet exterior. I wondered about him. Even the sweetness was too sweet, too compliant. Like he was scared to risk disapproval or anger. He jumped before anyone ever told him to. He watched and anticipated their needs, with me as well as Nic. I wondered what would happen if he ever had two people with conflicting needs. Those two people being myself and Nic, obviously.
Or maybe not so obviously. I finished my vodka and asked for another one. That would never happen. I was through with both of them.
So, I had to do this alone. Alone was best anyway. Relying on other people never worked well. My chances with the Demon Child were running out. I needed to stake him next time. If not, there’d be another massacre for sure. His need to feed would become stronger and stronger.
Since the mayor’s curfew and the underground club attack, I doubted it’d be another club.
Where else did people gather?
When the bartender handed me my drink, I asked him.
“Not many people coming out at night lately,” he said. “I’m thinking of closing up for a while. Heading up north and renting a fishing boat. It’s costing me good money to stay open. I get a bit of a rush after work hours, then they all head home. If they aren’t scared of getting attacked, then the mayor’s curfew order does it.”
“It’s a tough world.”
“Yeah, and up north the sun shines, the fish are biting and I can live off pineapples and coconuts. Somewhere off the coast near Cairns, maybe. Get a job on a boat and make some decent cash.”
“Sounds nice, can I join you?”
I only half joked. Maybe it’d be better to get away rather than suffer the humiliation of another defeat.
“Of course, if you want some huge event, I’d go to the zoo this weekend.”
“The zoo?”
“There’s an open day on Sunday. Those baby polar bears are making their first public appearance. Everyone in the city will be there. Who can resist baby polar bears?”
Shit, had I been under a rock this entire time? Of course. The mayor was best friends with those baby polar bears. He’d have had this planned the entire time. He even had the paperweight. Would the mayor stop at nothing to achieve his evil purposes? An event like that would be filled with little kids. Tasty, delicious little kids as far as the Demon Child was concerned.
Man, the mayor was more evil than I’d ever suspected.
Chapter 25: Zoo
The plan for the polar bear day was for the mayor to give a talk, then the polar bear enclosure would be opened to the public. There was no way the Demon Child would be unleashed on the public while the mayor was around. He wouldn’t want to be accidentally attacked.
That meant that the prime time for the attack was around 2 p.m. This time I’d be ready, no going at it half-assed. I had a vial of my own blood in my bag to attract the Demon Child, and I had stakes aplenty. I’d gathered up every stake I could find in my office.
You can’t just use any kind of wood to kill a vampire. You need to have special wood, ancient tree, blah blah blah. I’d never been sure if that was true or just a big load of bullshit to sell expensive, overpriced stakes, but when you’re in staking distance, with that fetid breath puffing down your neck, you aren’t going to use a cheapo pine stake on the off chance that it works. No one’s ever tested that theory.
My goal was to get to the Demon Child before any innocent bystanders died. I guessed staking him in full view of a crowd and the media would play right into the mayor’s hands, but it didn’t seem I had any other choice. I doubted I’d be able to lure him into a quiet, secluded place first.
I looked at the zoo map again. It’d be teeming with people and I’d need to make sure I had easy access to the Demon Child. There were three places where they’d be able to hold him. Two were on the left side of the polar bear enclosure, the other in a little shed behind the ice cream stall.
One thing in my favor was that the Demon Child would be weakened by being in full sunlight. That would slow him down a little.
When I got to the zoo, there was no place to park my car. Shit, you’d think there’d be some kind of “saving the world” parking privilege, but nope. I had to drive around and around, looking for a spot. Of course, everyone
was arriving and no one leaving. Finally, I found a spot a good twenty minutes’ walk away from the gates. Great. I tried to walk as fast as possible, but old people and families and people who just plain walked slow filled the path.
This had to be a record day for the zoo. People everywhere. One of those old-style bands with trombones and the works competed with the animals and children to make the most noise. Even though they played loudly, the trumpeting of elephants overpowered them all. Maybe the elephants wanted one of those burgers I could smell cooking. I know I did. If I had time after dusting the Demon Child, I’d grab one. Who’d even want to feed on humans when there were burgers like that? Stupid Demon Child.
Kids ran around screaming. One little shit poked a stick into an enclosure.
“Make it look, Mommy,” he yelled and kept poking with the stick.
The mother laughed.
While I didn’t want anyone killed, if the Demon Child had to feast, that family could be first. Tormenting a poor little animal like that.
A carousel had been set up near the polar bear enclosure, maybe to keep kids occupied while they waited. And to suck money out of the parents.
Maybe it’d been there for years.
I’d only been to the zoo once before. We came on a school trip. All the other kids were bored out of their skulls because they’d been a ton of times with their parents. Not me. No parents, no zoo. I acted bored, though, just to be cool.
Damn carousel scared the shit out of me. Those horses with their faces, like they were in the middle of intense torture. Surely they could put happy horses on the carousel.
I got to the polar bear enclosure. They’d set the podium up so that the sun shone on the mayor—not in his face, making him squint, but from behind, giving him a shining aura. It just added to his nice guy image.
The mayor had already started talking.
The carousel rotated with empty horses and carriages while the mayor talked. Every eye was glued on him. If only they knew his true character. If only I could race up on that podium and pull off his mask to reveal his true face in a Scooby-Doo-esque moment, then this staking would be a lot easier. The people might love him, but he was willing to use every last one of them as vampire bait to achieve his goal. Jeez, he might as well open up all the animal enclosures while he was at it, release the tigers and lions and let them feast on the crowd. It wasn’t like they were any different from the Demon Child.
