Love Bites UK (Mammoth Book Of Vampire Romance2)

by Telep, Trisha

  But I am wrong about something else. I am wrong about the most important part. I am wrong that Holliday will come back to me.

  He never does.

  For some weeks, I follow his story in the newspaper. How during the trial, Holliday’s health deteriorated. How when it was over, he headed south for Glenwood Springs, to partake of medicinal waters found there that are said to relieve the suffering of consumptives. How somewhere along the way, he picked up a travelling companion.

  At that point, I stop reading the stories. Stop waiting for him to appear. Stop making plans for when he does. It is finally clear that whatever we shared those brief hours six months before meant far more to me than it did to him.

  Sunny Tom and I continue to run our saloon. We know it won’t be long before we have to move on. The silver veins are petering out and prices are falling. In preparation we begin hoarding more and more of our take.

  On 14 November 1887, I come downstairs to find Sunny Tom having breakfast at his usual table, the Leadville Carbonate Chronicle spread out in front of him. His hand stills and his eyes grow round as he reads.

  I pour myself a cup of coffee and came round to join him. What’s wrong?

  He looks up at me, pity reflected in his expression. It’s an emotion quite alien to his usually gruff nature. I raise an eyebrow in surprise.

  He turns the paper around so that I see what sparked the reaction.

  It is Doc Holliday’s obituary.

  I thrust it away. I don’t want to know.

  Sunny Tom takes the paper back. “You should at least hear this,” he says aloud. He settles the paper on the table and begins to read: “There is scarcely one in the country who had acquired a greater notoriety than Doc Holliday, who enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most fearless men on the frontier, and whose devotion to his friends in the climax of the fiercest ordeal was inextinguishable. It was this, more than any other faculty, that secured for him the reverence of a large circle who were prepared on the shortest notice to rally to his relief.”

  He meets my gaze across the table. “He was a good man. It’s all right to grieve.”

  No. I won’t grieve any human. It’s pointless. They die. We do not.

  I push myself away from the table, turning to flee back upstairs when a man from the stage office appears at the saloon doors.

  “Can I help you?” I ask.

  He has a small package in his hand. “I’m looking for Rose Sullivan.”

  “I am she.”

  He holds the package out to me. “This came for you on the morning stage.”

  I fish a coin from my pocket and press it into his palm as I accept the package.

  Sunny Tom asks from his table, “Sir, would you like a drink?”

  I don’t wait for the answer, but seat myself at a table in the far corner to examine the package. It’s wrapped in plain brown paper, my name and Hyman’s Saloon, Leadville, printed in block letters on the top. There is no indication of who it’s from.

  But something inside me knows. My hands tremble as I tear at the paper, fumble the top off the tiny box inside.

  A diamond winks up at me.

  Under it, a note. “For Rose. To remember me by. John Holliday.”

  Leadville

  Present Day

  A chiming tone from my computer brings me back with a start. I have an instant message coming in from my friends at the museum in New York. They tell me they miss me and ask how I’m doing and when I’m coming back.

  “We know you won’t last in Bumfuckville six months,” one of them writes. “Rose Sullivan living in a ghost town? Never gonna work.”

  My fingers play with the small diamond pendant I’ve worn around my neck for over a hundred years. Holliday was the first and only man I ever considered offering immortality. If he’d come back after his trial, maybe he’d be seated beside me right now, adding his own words to mine.

  My face is wet with tears. I am surprised how the memory of a man I knew only a few hours still has power to touch me. Or is it this place? Was coming back to Leadville a mistake?

  Deep inside, I know it’s not.

  My fingers begin to move over the keyboard. Doc Holliday is here with me. I hear his voice, see his face and the words flow. This will be more than a novel. This will be our story.

  The Vampire, the Witch and the Yenko

  Tiffany Trent

  Being a hired witch wasn’t exactly the profession Dani had dreamed about as a little kid. A fireman or astronaut? Yes. Witch? No.

  In fact, she hadn’t even been aware that such a profession was possible until the Syndicate had quite forcibly made her aware. She’d always thought her ability to fix stuff was just a special talent, like reciting the alphabet backwards. But apparently not. Being able to fix anything, any broken thing from carburettors to crania, was not so much a talent as a power.

  The Syndicate had snatched her up when she was a teen. Before things could get dangerous, they said. Before she could learn to break things. They told her she was fairly old to have her power come online.

  At her look, the Questioner had said: “Ever wonder why there are so many missing children?”

  That had stopped Dani cold.

  She couldn’t say she’d been entirely happy with disappearing into the Syndicate fold – never seeing friends or family again, always working undercover, never allowed to become too close to anyone. But the trade-offs were luxury, travel, protection and training. She’d seen first hand in her work what happened to the untrained. She was glad she’d been grabbed before any of that ugliness could happen to her.

  She was also glad that she understood how the world worked a little better than most folks. Like the fact that every fairy-tale nightmare was true. Witches, ghosts, vampires, werewolves – all real. Some people of course knew this far too well. Some people didn’t understand the complexities and took out their fear and rage on any supernatural creature they could get their hands on.

  And some people, like her present mark, were only after one thing – the Syndicate itself.

  She stared down at Joey Martoni’s craggy face. Mafia kingpin. Classic-car collector. Magic thief. No one knew exactly how he’d developed a means of stealing magic. He was like a vampire, only worse. He sucked witches dry, amassing all their magic for himself. He’d sworn to take the Syndicate down using its own power. And generally when Martoni swore to do something, it got done.

  He’d infiltrated and destroyed an important cell around Washington DC that it might take years to rebuild. Some of the Syndicate’s best witches had been lost. Some of them were the closest to friends and family Dani had these days. She didn’t know if she’d ever stop missing them, or hating the man who had murdered them.

  The Syndicate had heard that Martoni was appearing at the Island Cruise on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, that he was even auctioning off a special car of his for charity. They decided to try a new tactic: use only one witch to catch him when he was isolated and exposed, away from his normal territory. If Dani could find a way, she might eliminate the Martoni threat and help the Syndicate rebuild. It was gratifying that so much trust had been placed in her and her alone to get the job done.

  Trouble was, she thought, as she crumpled Martoni’s photo into a ball of flame, all she really wanted now was to get out of the Syndicate for good.

  Drake wiped his hands on the rag next to him and reached back into the guts of the ’58 Corvette. She was a touchy beast, but such an old beauty that Drake couldn’t resist the challenge. The biggest problem was finding someone willing to unload what he needed. He’d had Warren calling everybody he knew – and he knew a lot of people. The engine was fine but the carburettor was shot, and the owner was determined to have it back in time for the show next week.

  The Island Cruise would be huge this year. A charity auction would feature one of the two known Yenko Camaros. When Joey Martoni had snatched it up about ten years ago, it had gone for $2.2 million. Hordes of collectors would be th
ere, not just for the Yenkos, but for whatever else might catch their eye. The ’Vette had to be ready by then.

  Someone was behind him. He knew it before the shadow fell across the plugs and hoses of the Corvette’s innards. A chime sounded, a sweet, high sound that only he could hear.

  A nasty tingle wormed up his spine as he turned.

  The way her eyes scanned his naked torso, hugged his hips tighter than his jeans, and lingered on his crotch and thighs made him wish he wore a cloak from head to heel. He had back in the old days, and never thought he’d miss them when they went out of fashion. She glanced at the telltale shirt with his nametag on it draped over the bumper.

  “I thought I felt you here when I moved in yesterday,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. Hers were dark and wicked; he was even more certain that he wanted nothing to do with her. “I came by to make sure.”

  “Come again?” Drake said.

  She purred, and Drake shook his head minutely. They’re all the same, damn them.

  “Do you need something?” He gestured towards the torn-up car. “I’m a little busy here.”

  “I just want to make sure you understand who calls the shots here,” she said. She exuded a ripe sexuality that would have driven any human man insane with lust in ten seconds flat. But a human was not what she needed.

  “Believe me, I’m perfectly aware,” Drake said. He glared at her. She was young; this might be her first time. Some males would jump at that, but perhaps his nonchalance would give her a hint. “I’ve got business here, which as you can see I’m running behind on, so . . . ”

  He half turned, but she was there, her hand on his biceps pulling him back, with familiar force, to face her. More nasty shivers raced over his body, centred on where her fingers dug into his skin.

  “I want you to understand fully what I mean,” she said. Her fangs extended. Her other hand wandered down his ribs and into his jeans.

  Drake looked down at her, at her hair snaking around her shoulders, down her back almost to her ass. The music in his mind compelled him to yield to her.

  “Look . . . I’m not in that scene any more. I’m just doing my job here, doing what I love to do. I’m happy for you to do the same.” He stepped back, pulling her cold hand out of his crotch.

  She laughed, the long cords of her neck tightening. “Not in that scene? How precious! You know it doesn’t work that way. Have you forgotten the duty you owe your species? You have three choices. Fuck, flee or die.”

  She pushed at his mind, trying to force him to cave in to her. Her song promised she would spread him across the hood of the car beneath her, riding him until he gave her what she wanted. She was in heat. And when vampires came into heat, their chosen sire had no choice. A vampire would travel continents seeking a sire for her offspring; they were worse than werewolves.

  And if the sire wasn’t strong enough or if he refused the mating, she’d kill him. That was the way it was, the way it had been since the sanguinaria virus had wormed into the blood of a Romanian village long ago. No one knew where the virus came from or why it worked the way it did, though there were theories. The comet debris theory was a personal favourite of Drake’s.

  But what he hated was all the shit about “siring” vampires off of hapless, tortured humans. Drake was grateful people didn’t know how it really was, how twisted and humiliating vampire matings actually were.

  “I’m waiting,” she said.

  He stuffed the compulsion of her lust deep inside his brain. He reached out and grabbed her by the throat, bending close so that his dark hair brushed her cheek. “You forgot the fourth choice, little vixen.” He squeezed with a power that let her know he could rip her head off with his bare hands and freeze her bones if he chose. Her lips tightened and she dug her nails into the flesh of his arm until she broke skin. Black blood seeped out.

  He threw her backwards and she tripped and fell, sitting down hard on the garage floor.

  “Just keep that in mind,” Drake said. “There’s always another choice.”

  She stood, laughing as she dusted herself off, and tossed her long hair back over her shoulders. “And you’ve made your choice, Drake. I’m Ferrell. Remember that, because our next meeting won’t be so pleasant, I promise you. You’ll be screaming my name on your knees.”

  She stalked off and he heard the doors clatter closed behind her – all semblance of stealth gone.

  The music went with her.

  He narrowly avoided slamming his hands down on the Corvette. Instead, he turned and kicked a tyre so hard it sailed across the garage and sent a shelf of tools clattering to the floor.

  He sighed and started cleaning them up, when a knock sounded at the door. Drake stiffened. He was pretty sure that Ferrell wouldn’t bother to knock when she came calling again, nor would she return so soon after such a dramatic exit.

  He walked over to the side door and opened it cautiously.

  A man in black stood flanked by two well-dressed bodyguards who wore sunglasses even in the dark. The security lights made their faces bluish-white. Beyond them, a white limo sat next to a gleaming Yenko Camaro. It had the sport package – orange with white racing stripes, the Yenko logo emblazoned above the back fender.

  Joey Martoni stepped uninvited into the garage. For just a moment, Drake thought one of the old princes had found him, so great was the power that rolled off him. But the great vampire princes were gone, lost in the Wars of the Matriarchs. Martoni must be something else entirely.

  “You Drake Evans?” Martoni asked. The bodyguards stationed themselves on either side of the door. Drake caught a whiff of corruption under heavy cologne.

  “Yes, sir.” Drake decided to play the respectful card. For the moment. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m glad you asked that,” Martoni said. “Glad you asked. Word is this is the best rod shop in town.” His eyes travelled over the other cars as if they were garbage. “My ride needs an oil change and a little clean up before she goes to the auction block on Tuesday. Think you can manage that?”

  Drake nodded. “I think I can handle that, Mr Martoni.”

  “Good,” Martoni said. He walked out without another word.

  One of the bodyguards handed Drake the keys and a business card. His cologne was overpowering. “Call us if there’s a problem. Though there had better not be.”

  The limo pulled out, leaving Drake staring bemusedly at the heavy-bodied Camaro. Certainly not to his taste, but it was worth millions. He hoped Warren’s insurance covered this.

  He opened the garage door. Today, he had more important things to worry about than horny vampires.

  Dani didn’t have too much trouble sweet-talking Warren, the manager of Mal’s Rod Shop, to hire her on for the night shift. People were already coming in for the Cruise and his best mechanic would soon be overwhelmed. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Dani had more persuasive power than the best vampire prostitute. Witches had a rep that way, and that probably explained why Martoni hated them so much.

  Her talents reminded her a bit too much of the old mind-trick scene in Star Wars for her comfort.

  “Heard you could use a good mechanic to help out during the Cruise,” she said.

  Warren eyed her. He was a chesty man with a fat gold bracelet and tats up and down his hairy arms.

  She smiled.

  “Matter of fact,” he said, “I probably could.”

  “When do I start – tonight?” she asked.

  “Tonight! That would be great,” Warren said, his eyes going glassy.

  “What I thought.”

  They shook hands then. He gave her a key to the side door without being asked.

  She tried to hide her huge grin as she left. If only Martoni could be this easy.

  Between worrying over the Camaro and Ferrell, Drake barely felt rested when he rose at twilight. Very, very dangerous. If Ferrell were an older, more traditional sort, she’d call a quorum of the highest-ranking vampire females around. Usually, thr
ee crones assisted in capturing a recalcitrant male and forced him to stand at stud; three having some esoteric significance that Drake could care less about. If Ferrell wasn’t a traditionalist – which he suspected – there was no telling what she would do. The younger vampires all acted like werewolves these days; it was all the rage. A pack mentality among normally solitary hunters was a terrifying thing indeed.

  If he wanted to be ready, he’d need all his strength. When he’d started working for and with humans, he’d decided to eat only the ones who deserved it, and then only if he was desperately in need of nourishment. Tonight he feared he would have to feed, not only to prepare for Ferrell, but also because Danny, the new mechanic Warren had hired, was coming to help him on the night shift. If he was hungry or tired, things could get ugly.

  He considered running again briefly . He’d certainly run before. But he couldn’t run for ever.

  And where would he go, anyway? He liked his work and the people he worked with. Warren was smart enough not to ask questions, and every night another car offered itself up to him like a beautiful patient that only he could cure. For the most part, he was left to his own devices. It was perfect.

  These thoughts circled through his mind like vultures as he stepped out of his cottage and revved up his old Indian Chief motorcycle. He stopped to fill up with gas and got a newspaper, looking for the latest news on homicides, robberies, domestic or animal abuse. Police had found a body out on Dare Road. That was good enough.

  Arriving at the site of the investigation was a disappointment, though. He sensed through the ground, through the memory of the place, that there had been no trauma here and thus no murderer to seek in retribution. The victim had been an old hitch-hiker who had died here of a heart attack. But . . . A heavy scent wafted on the breeze. There was a pig farm very close by. Some dinner was better than none, he reckoned.

  Under the smell of the farm was an even sweeter scent, the chilling perfume of a vampire. It was as cloying as death; as alluring as absinthe. Soft, melancholy music drifted into his mind, threatening to take hold. He trembled a little, balling his hands into fists. Ferrell. This allure hadn’t touched him in two centuries, not since Isobel. After her, he’d sworn off women, particularly of his own species.