“Oh, right.” Darlene faced Kim. “Those boys worship you, just as much as your readers do. You’re, like, the queen of us.”
Dammit, Darlene knew these types of conversations were mortifying to Kim. The other woman always maintained that Kim was like the cool girl in school—the pretty one who all the boys secretly liked—who didn’t think anything about hanging out with the nerds at lunch to discuss the latest Alien movie or whatever. And while the nerds freaked out at her presence, she didn’t notice the ruckus she was causing.
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway…” Kim began.
Darlene rolled her eyes, cutting off the protestations. But when she peered at her friend again, she narrowed her gaze. “You look like flying pigeon turd, girl. You okay?”
“Me? Yeah.”
“Duh. Listen to me, of course you’re not okay. You ran into your vamp. That must’ve been a shock.”
Although Kim had given Darlene, Jeremy and Powder an abbreviated version of the Mystique encounter when they’d shown up at the club, she wanted to tell Darlene more—about the first bite, the second, what each had done to pump up her confidence or destroy it. She needed to talk to someone, and her coworkers at The Book Bay wouldn’t cut it. What helped was that Darlene was the only person who had any inkling whatsoever of how important Kim’s first vamp encounter had been to her, since Kim had told her friend a little more than she’d told the guys.
But not much more.
Ultimately, she settled on kind of talking about it, without mentioning the all-too-intimate bites themselves. “Believe it or not, the vamp didn’t…remember me, Darlene. Not at all.”
Her coworker frowned.
“I mean, he…visited me and when I reminded him that he’d…paid me a call before, he’d forgotten. Just…bloop…forgot about it.” The shame came back, and it stirred her defensive anger.
Across the hall, Troy’s voice went into broadcast mode—hurried, yet low and persuasive.
Darlene got up to shut the bedroom door while Kim sat on the paisley bedspread of the guestroom mattress. She lay down, suddenly more tired. The black curtains over the window gave a bleak slant to the walls, which were decorated with framed prints of Firefly characters.
“The thing is,” Kim said, almost whispering, “and this sounds crazy, but meeting that vampire was a big moment in my life, Dar. It…shaped me and made me think that I’d finally found out what I was about. It made me feel kind of…”
“Special?”
“Exactly.”
The other woman shook her head. “Wow, I understand. It makes you more than a number in a world of digits. It’s almost like a guy forgetting that he’s made a pass at you.”
Or forgetting that he’d slept with you. Oh, too humiliating to even admit.
“I’m forgettable,” Kim added.
Darlene rolled her eyes again, but Kim knew it was true. She was a bad bite, which had to be akin to being a bad lay. Her ego smoldered in the ashes of this realization.
“Forgettable, my patootie.” Darlene laughed. “If this were a normal guy, I’d tell you to just go back out there and hunt the weenie down. Make yourself unforgettable, know what I mean? Besides—” Darlene gave a little squeak “—he’s a vampire, Kim. What I’d give to be in your place, meeting the same hot one, twice.”
Kim blinked. Whoa. Darlene had no idea what she’d just suggested…or how much sense it made to a woman who’d just lost all self-esteem. True, Darlene’s advice was twisted and ridiculous, but…
No, it was too impulsive, too dangerous.
But if she could become the ultimate bite for the vampire who’d captured her imagination, who’d ruled her life, would that make her feel better? Would proving to him that she wasn’t a nobody bring back the old oomph?
The wound on her neck began beating, flashing out a naughty cadence. It was a lame idea, setting out to seduce a vampire but, Lord help her, it made her feel good again. She was somebody, or else…
Or else she was as good as dead to him—just as blank as her sister, who’d never had a second chance to resurrect herself.
Struggling to stand—she wanted to cover the wound with something in the bathroom cupboards—Kim patted Darlene on the back while moving toward the door.
“Thanks for the talk,” she said, fighting off the sadness that thoughts of her sister always brought.
But, as she entered the hallway, a reckless compulsion stole into her like a shadow inching over a threshold. A shadow that kept whispering for her to invite it all the way inside, where it would complete her.
Where it would truly make her the woman she thought she’d become.
4
STEPHEN HAD FLOWN straightaway to his home, his family, his only shelter. He escaped from the devastated look on Kimberly’s face while regret grew like a rip in his chest.
Surprising, that.
He tried to tell himself that the regret was born only of his failure to extract any useful information about this Van Helsing League from her, yet he knew there was more. There was something dormant that she had touched and awakened, something that had remained so long buried that he was hardly certain just what it was.
Had this mysterious awakening kept him from reading the intentions of this female hunter? Besides attempting to see into her mind before leaving, he had tried to go beyond the usual sedation that persuaded a victim to give their blood and then forget it had happened. Normally, he avoided linking with their thoughts and going deeper than the seduction itself required—he would merely control them and was not interested in anything beyond that.
But when he had tried to venture further with Kimberley, he could not. Why?
Had his initial bite somehow brought out an inner strength Kimberly hadn’t possessed before? He had heard many tales of how a vampire could transform a victim—both in good and bad extremes—after an encounter. However, he hadn’t gone back to any one bite to witness the effects firsthand. A couple of his brothers had occasionally entertained themselves with the power of a bite on a human, taking a detached interest in how the mortals changed their lifestyles. Some became empowered, some showed latently emerged talents such as physical agility or increased charisma.
Yet not all the changes were positive.
Proof came in the form of Stephen’s creator, Fegan, who often bragged about the days when he would take advantage of a victim’s craving for another bite. Like Stromboli, Fegan would control his sexually awakened prey and command them to obey his every depraved whim, just like puppets on invisible strings.
As Stephen’s body cut through the night air, over the mouth of the Grand Canyon, where his family had relocated approximately ten years ago, he forced himself to forget the longing, the wounded expression he had left on his latest victim and, instead, to concentrate on the reason he had left his home tonight in the first place—the rogue vampire, a creature Stephen needed to find before the criminal exposed all of them.
Fegan was not certain which vampire clan this rogue hailed from, but the elder vampire didn’t care. Like other masters in this area, Fegan wanted the rogue quieted so they could all resume hunting the fertile grounds of nearby Las Vegas. While hiding more than usual until this rogue was caught, most vampires were taking a united stand against the criminal, and Stephen was the one charged with bringing him in.
Slowing, Stephen eased into the deeper shadows of the canyon, his gaze honing in on the hint of a cavern’s mouth while the wind chafed against him. Besides the danger this rogue vampire presented to the lifestyle of every local creature, there were other reasons Fegan had given Stephen the task of discovering the criminal’s identity.
First and foremost, their leader had quite the ego, and he was angered that a fellow creature had the temerity to openly feed and, thus, put Fegan’s very existence in jeopardy.
Yes, it was all about Fegan, not merely the principle. Not merely survival, either.
Before Stephen could think about the other reasons his creator had assigned him to thi
s mission, he whisked into a buried entrance, coming to his feet in an effortless, walking landing. A soft breeze whistled around him, moaning, occasionally crying through the tunnel he followed.
Gradually, an echo of voices and laughter led him to a massive cavern, decorated with the gilded greed of a vampire gang’s spoils. The baroque style included candelabras filched and transported from various European palaces, a chandelier culled from a luxury hotel in London, even a tile mural nicked from under the nose of a collector of Roman artifacts in Naples. The gang had enjoyed that particular robbery to its limits, speedily and carefully removing each tile while one of their members seduced the owner and then fed off of him.
Under the faded colors of the mural—which had originally graced the walls of an ancient brothel and depicted men and women in flagrante delicto—a group of Stephen’s vampire siblings gathered. The five of them were sharing two human victims, who were still dressed in rugged outdoor clothing. Hikers. Stephen knew that the gang would only have grabbed them and brought them back if the humans had been silly enough to be wandering where canyon rules barred them from doing so. Careless.
The scent of their blood lured him, even as it pushed him away. Much about his past had repelled him for decades—all the spoils, the violence, the greed. Still, it was how he had lived, and he was not certain there was any other way to go through life, to make the nights interesting enough to tolerate.
He was what he was.
While one of his brothers—Henry D’Amato, an early gang member—raised his head and smiled at Stephen with bloodstained lips, he sensed a heavy gaze upon his back. He coolly turned around to find Fegan watching him.
The creator was sprawled in a velvet-lined chair, basking under a giant portrait of Marie Antoinette. A corpulent fellow, Fegan preferred baggy trousers shoved into high boots, an untucked silk shirt with a flaring leather coat. Gaudy gem rings sparkled from each swollen finger, and traces of dried blood lingered at the corners of his mouth. He reminded Stephen of certain depictions of Dr. Faustus that he had seen in old books, complete with a devilish, dark Vandyke beard. Fegan vaguely claimed to have been made a vampire centuries and centuries ago, while in his early fifties…and there he remained.
Stephen stopped just short of musing about the discomfiting tales of excess Fegan told with such relish. Tales that most of the family turned away from in the telling, keeping their thoughts private for the most part. However, Stephen knew what most of his brothers were thinking, now that the novelty of being a vampire had gradually worn off: What is Fegan and why does he enjoy such appetites? And since he’s our father, will we become the same sort of creature eventually?
Shielding the direction of his thoughts, Stephen nodded to his maker. “The sun is close to rising, so I called it a night.”
After checking an opulent pocket watch, Fegan raised an eyebrow. “Looks to me like you had ample time left.”
Stephen let it lie. Fegan enjoying baiting him, especially since the gang had relocated this past decade. It was all too obvious that Stephen did not like Vegas or the desert, and that tickled Fegan’s cruel streak. In fact, he took Stephen’s displeasure as a personal affront to his taste. Consequently, it was one of many issues that had led their creator to choose Stephen for the assignment of finding the rogue. Assigning “the malcontent” to dwell in a tedious place like Vegas, where everything was so easy that it made Stephen ill, was a petty power play that emphasized Fegan’s place as head of the gang.
As if any of them could forget.
Nonetheless, Stephen ignored Fegan’s ego and took to his work with relish. The danger this rogue presented to his vampire kind was real, especially if there were actual hunters on the case.
Fegan dropped his pocket watch back into his coat. “So tell me, Stephen, how goes your search? I do grow tired of not being able to creep into the city, having to pick at what this canyon has to offer, instead.”
“If you’re referring to the rogue, I don’t bring news. But I have tidings that should concern you. A hunter confronted me.”
The smug expression dissipated from Fegan’s face. “Hunter?”
Stephen hated the rebellious feeling of satisfaction that weighed on him. It was wrong, but it felt good anyway. “Hunters. They call themselves the Van Helsing League and, rest assured, I’ll be investigating them, as well as our rogue.”
At the mention of Van Helsing, Fegan laughed. “Oh, the kids these days. Van Helsing, indeed. I tell you, we study how these people talk and do our best to keep up, but they’re ballsy, these humans. Especially Americans.”
Stephen wasn’t certain of the reason, but he bristled at his maker’s mocking tone. “With the spread of technology—the Internet, media, movies—these modern times present more challenges than ever, Fegan. These hunters can do more damage to us than a batch of holy items put together, and with the rogue being so careless—”
“The rogue.” Fegan became serious again. “The hunters are tracking our nasty friend, too, I take it.”
Finally, some understanding. “They know he’s a vampire and they’re savvy to our ways.”
Hunters. Uninvited, memory breathed over Stephen. Kimberly—pale blue eyes, red hair, smooth skin. Intoxicating.
He could still taste traces of the woman, her blood arousing in its primitive heat. He embraced the remnants, allowing the thoughts to consume him for a beat longer. As he relived the moment when his teeth sank into her soft neck, a rush of power surged, piercing his nerve endings, electrifying him. A shudder of ecstasy rippled down his skin and he closed his eyes.
What was he tasting? What was it about her that exposed something undiscovered within him?
Stephen opened his eyes, trying to identify this quality that he had not felt since…since he was human.
Fegan sat back in his chair, inspecting him, his expression unreadable.
Stephen straightened up, banishing tonight’s bite from his mind. Why should this Kimberly be any different from other meals?
Forget her, he thought. An attachment will only end badly. You cannot bear the disappointment of losing someone—not again. Existence stretches too long for you to outlive the pain.
The sad thing was that, if he were still human, he might have given in to what he was fighting. But a vampire was made to live beyond human years, made to endure most of what might destroy him.
“I wonder,” Fegan said idly, playing with his watch’s gold chain, “how you know about tonight’s hunter. How did he mark you as a vampire?”
“She,” Stephen said, fortifying himself against more thoughts of this Kimberly. “She experienced my bite almost a year ago.”
“And she remembers?”
Again, Stephen’s skin caught erotic fire. Her skin, the scent of it, the taste of it…“Yes, she somehow remembered.”
Fegan’s fingers stilled on his watch chain. “Occasionally that happens. It did to me only…Yes, two centuries ago. Not every human has a mind of mush, so there’s more work to be done with certain individuals. I expect you’ll be tracking her down again and persuading her that vampires don’t exist?”
Track her down again. It was all Stephen wanted to do, all his body craved in spite of his better sense.
Even so, Fegan’s grand tone irked Stephen. Years—centuries—of being ordered about had built to a shrill crescendo. “I’ll do what I must, Fegan.”
“Cheeky boy. If you fail us, there’ll be a big price to pay.”
Famous last words. Fegan had muttered them before every job, before every time the gang had struck, whether it was on a lone, wooded road outside London or a stealthy attack on an antebellum Southern home while the War Between the States had raged on in a nearby battlefield. Being ordered around had become very old.
In fact, it had gotten old with other members of their group, who had struck off on their own. None of their names were ever to be spoken in front of Fegan for fear of a temper fit.
Tauntingly, Stephen bowed to his creator. “I don’t
remember ever failing my family before, my master.”
“There’s always a first time.”
With all tonight’s pressure, inward and out, Stephen felt ready to explode with anger. It was a mild substitute for the tension he was feeling due to…No, he was not going to think about her again; this bite that had suddenly taken over his world.
Needing an outlet, he took a threatening step toward his maker, and Fegan’s eyes widened.
A rough female voice tinted with French put a halt to the standoff.
“To think,” she said, “I was very much enjoying a snack until this interruption.”
Stephen turned to find Gisele licking blood from her lips as she swayed toward them. She was the only female among the gang, a latecomer who had followed them around in Paris when they’d paid a visit in the 1970s and wheedled her way into Fegan’s affections. She had been an underground cinema snob, a lonely, confused new vampire, who had been kicked out of her home when her parents grew afraid of her changed ways, and forced her to more or less live on the streets. An “adopted” child—a vampire made by another maker—Gisele had worked hard to prove she was worthy of the gang. She had learned every angle of the thievery that allowed them comfort, and she was invaluable when it came to luring victims with her feminine wiles. She was smart, self-educated, from a poor background—just as Stephen—yet more willing than any of them to embrace modern ways.
This was evident in her wardrobe. Tonight she was wearing a tight, sheer white business shirt under a form-fitting vest with a slim tie at her throat. But she also sported a very short skirt and high go-go boots; a look that complemented her razored, shoulder-length black hair. Her big, light brown eyes seemed innocent, but Stephen knew better.
“Don’t you have more blood to suck, Gisele?” he asked.
“Done for the night, Monsieur Fangslinger,” she said, passing Stephen and tweaking his long coat. Then she climbed up the few steps to where Fegan was lounging.
Sitting in his lap, she cuddled against him. He smiled, nuzzling the top of her head, content.
The Ultimate Bite Page 5
