by Jacey Ward
What the fuck is wrong with me? She wondered silently.
“Uh…yeah,” she replied, trying hard not to stutter. Her heart rate sped up. “Chase, right?”
He nodded and raised his hand to signal the bartender.
“What are you drinking?” he asked in a sensual tone of voice. The tone sent chills up Ava’s spine.
“Umm…Absolut and cranberry,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice steady. What was it about this mystery man that made her feel like a gushing schoolgirl every time he was around?
He ordered her another drink and a martini for himself. Ava watched his every move with growing fascination. He looked to be in his mid- to late twenties, but his demeanor suggested a confidence and wisdom far beyond that age.
Jocelyn noticed her friend’s obvious infatuation with the handsome young man and made her way over to another part of the bar to observe them from afar. She’d noticed the blonde-haired companion who had entered the bar with Chase, but he seemed completely uninterested in mingling with any of the other patrons.
The bartender brought the drinks back over to Chase and set them down in front of him. After paying, Chase turned his attention back to Ava, who thanked him with a bright, inviting smile.
“Have you lived out in Lexus your whole life?” she asked him, before taking a sip of her drink.
Chase nodded slowly, while keeping his eyes locked on Ava’s. A part of her wanted to look away, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so.
“Before I went away to college, I lived in Mountain Crest my whole life, but I’ve never seen you before,” she noted.
“Yeah…we uh, tend to get home schooled,” he replied solemnly.
Across the bar, Jocelyn eyed the couple and she could tell that her bestie was indeed feeling a deep connection to the mysterious, good-looking stranger. She made a point to stay in the background and allow them the opportunity to converse with one another for the remainder of the night. She also noticed that the pale-skinned, blonde-haired guy who had accompanied Chase had all but disappeared over into a dark, quiet corner, avoiding everyone in the bar.
“You know, my dad told me to stay away from you. He told me that you were bad news. But there’s just something about you…I don’t know, just something so different from other guys I’ve met,” Ava said slowly.
If only she knew, Chase thought to himself as he downed the last of his drink. He raised his hand to signal the bartender again.
“Did he tell you why you should stay away from me?” he inquired, cocking his head slightly to the side whilst continuing to hold her gaze.
“No, actually. He just seemed really adamant about it,” Ava confessed. “But I’m a grown woman, so I get to decide.” She raised her left eyebrow and flashed him a grin.
“I don’t usually do this, you know. Approach women out in public like this,” Chase said to her. “I usually don’t even leave Lexus except to go away on visits to members of my…family in other areas of the country.”
He realized that he had almost uttered “species.” It was obvious to him that Ava didn’t know he wasn’t human—that he was actually an immortal creature; and he wasn’t quite ready to reveal his true identity to her just yet.
“You sound like a shut-in,” Ava replied. “So what made you come out here tonight, then?” She slid in just a bit closer to him as she spoke.
“You promise you won’t turn around and run away if I tell you?” he inquired, raising his dark, sexy eyebrows at her, and leaning in close to her ear.
Ava leaned forward and smiled flirtatiously.
“I kind of…followed you here because I really wanted to see you again,” he confessed. His deep blue eyes glistened in the dim light of the bar and Ava became completely lost in them.
Her heart leapt inside of her chest. She silently wondered what it was about this mysteriously attractive man that made her body react to him this way. Just being in his presence and looking into his eyes caused her to feel emotions that she had no control over whatsoever.
Is this what they mean by love at first sight? she pondered.
The bartender brought over another round of drinks and Chase handed Ava her glass. Their fingertips touched in the process, and just from the brief skin-to-skin contact, Ava inhaled sharply at the jolt of electricity that shot up her arm.
Apparently, Chase felt it, too. He paused for a moment, and then quickly downed his drink. Ava felt herself shudder slightly when his pink tongue emerged from his mouth and licked away the residual liquid from his lips. She felt an overwhelming urge to kiss him, but held herself back. What was wrong with her? She never acted this forward with strange guys.
Perhaps it was the liquor doing a number on her, or maybe it was her growing attraction to him. Most likely, it was a combination of the two. But, whatever it was, she honestly didn’t care at that moment. The only thing she wanted to do was feel his sexy, soft-looking lips against hers.
Ava rose to her feet and closed the short distance between the two of them, pressing her body closer to his. As if mesmerized, she stood up on her tiptoes and raised her face up to meet his. She closed her eyes as her lips met his and her entire body reacted to the kiss.
Chase felt an electric jolt go through his body. The chemistry between them was like nothing he had ever experienced before. Almost immediately, he felt his fangs punch out of his gums, and his eyes turn red. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t control the reaction. He quickly backed away from her, keeping his head lowered. He mumbled an excuse about how he never should have come and then he turned and left.
“Chase, wait! What’s wrong?” she called out after him as she attempted to follow him out of the bar.
She threw open the door and stepped outside. Astonishingly, Chase was nowhere to be found. She looked to the left and to the right and there was no sign of him anywhere - just the dark, empty street with a light mist coming down.
Chapter Six: A Killer is Free
Nineteen-year-old Melissa Matthews opened her eyes and tried to adjust them to the darkness that surrounded her. She immediately realized that she’d been stripped completely naked and tied to some kind of hard, cold contraption. Also, her hands and feet were tightly bound with a dark-colored ropelike material.
She attempted to call out for help and struggled to move her extremities; but, the more she tried to move, the tighter the ropelike material became around her ankles and wrists.
The last thing she remembered doing was taking her bike out for a late night ride while listening to her favorite playlist on her portable pink MP3 player with the matching ear buds. She had just turned onto Oak Street when she saw someone or something lying in the street, causing her to slam on her brakes and come to a sudden stop just before she’d collided with it. Had the person or thing gotten up off of the ground? Everything had happened so fast that Melissa couldn’t quite remember anything past that particular moment.
“You’ve finally awakened, young one,” a gruff, evil-sounding, raspy voice stated from over near the left side of her exposed body.
Melissa quickly turned her head toward the voice and immediately, tears of pure terror began to stream down her face. She tried hard to scream at the top of her lungs, but the gag across her mouth muffled the sound completely.
A scaly, scratchy hand reached out and stroked the side of her face, causing her to shriek beneath the gag. Her entire body began to tremble uncontrollably with extreme fear. She closed her eyes and started to pray.
The creature laughed a loud, malevolent, wicked laugh and then slapped the young brunette across the face with such force that her bottom lip split open and began to bleed.
“Your meaningless rhetoric is futile! Your God cannot save you!” it roared.
In one swift movement, the creature closed in on her, sinking its long, razor-sharp fangs into the flesh at the base of her neck. Melissa let out a muffled cry before finally succumbing to death, the life literally drained out of her as her blood filled the cr
eature’s mouth.
**
“I fear we may have a serial killer on our hands,” Detective Hartzman noted as he covered the sunken, pale face of the second blood-drained murder victim.
“Her name is Melissa Matthews,” Deputy Long said somberly. “She’s the youngest daughter of Pastor Matthews, a preacher at the Mountain Crest Baptist Church.”
He lowered his head, looking as if he, himself, was close to tears.
It had barely been a week since the first young woman had been slaughtered, and now, they had a second one. She had the exact same puncture marks on her neck and her body and had also been completely drained of blood. William knew that he was going to have to get to the bottom of things—and fast.
Members of the city council were already starting to point fingers at the vampire community and the last thing William needed was for the two entities to turn on one another—especially with the Mountain Crest Summer fair coming up next week.
He shook his head, knowing that, yet again, he would have to meet with Vincent Veldassare.
**
Ava hadn’t been able to get Chase out of her head ever since that electric, yet awkward kiss she’d shared with him the other night. A part of her was upset with him for running out on her at the bar, but the other part of her was actually hoping that he would be there when she and her dad arrived at the Veldassare residence.
Ava hadn’t mentioned her encounter with Chase at the bar last week to her father. She also wondered why her father seemed to think that the city council was convinced someone from the Mountain Crest community was committing these atrocious murders. What kind of maniac would drain all of the blood from someone’s body? And what kind of crazy suction contraption was this man using to suck all of the blood from these women? It was almost as if this deranged pervert thought he was some kind of vampire.
And was he storing the blood? Drinking it? Saving it, somewhere? These thoughts played over and over in Ava’s mind as she sat quietly in the passenger seat with her father. She glanced over at him and saw that he, too, seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. It hadn’t been easy to get her father to agree with letting her join him on this second excursion up the mountain to speak with the Lexus leader. Ava had had to imply that she could get the lead on the murder stories if she could just prove that she had an “in” about some of the pertinent details. However, she was starting to think that her dad was keeping something from her. She just had a feeling. She planned to find out what it was about these weird, yet fascinating Lexus dwellers that made her father so sure that they had something to do with the murders.
Inside the Veldassare residence, Ava and her father sat across from Evangeline and Vincent at a rectangular cherry wood table. Whoever these people were, they seemed to be pretty well-off moneywise. Everything in their large, dimly-lit home was expensive-looking and reminded Ava of artifacts and decor she’d seen in museums.
“I held a meeting with the residents here in Lexus,” Vincent explained. “I assure you that no one here had anything to do with these unfortunate, gruesome murders. We would never dream of harming anyone from Mountain Crest. Not in a million years.”
He sounded quite sincere and his dark, magnetic eyes exuded candor and truthfulness. Ava felt as if she’d believe anything that came out of the enigmatic older man’s mouth.
Just then, Chase entered the room. Immediately, Ava felt a shiver deep within her core. Once again, her body reacted to his presence in a way she could not control. Her pulse began to race and she immediately felt her cheeks growing warm. All of the anger and frustration she’d felt toward him was smothered by feelings of attraction – as if something was actually joining the two.
The moment he saw Ava, his eyes softened and he looked directly at her. Ava wanted to glare at him—to show him how insulted she’d felt by his abrupt exit at the bar the other night, but try as she might, she couldn’t force a scowl or a frown to form upon her face—not while his eyes were locked onto her own.
“Ms. Hartzman, so nice to see you again. Please, may I speak with you in the other room?” he asked calmly.
Ava felt as if she was in a trance. Almost as if hypnotized, she rose from her seat and followed him into the next room, never even noticing the look of concern on her father’s face.
As Chase shut the door behind them, he turned to face Ava and saw her standing with her arms folded across her breasts.
“Listen, Ava, I, uh…wanted to apologize for my abrupt departure the other night,” he explained. “It’s just that I—I’ve never felt such a strong attraction to someone as I feel with you and it—it took me by surprise when you kissed me like that.”
“What do you mean?” Ava snapped back at him, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes. As long as she didn’t look him directly in the face, she seemed somehow able to keep her mind focused on her anger.
In spite of himself, Chase found her irritated scowl extremely sexy. What was it about this passionate, entrancing human woman that drew him like no other woman he’d ever met before? Why did he feel so unable to control himself whenever she was around?
“I, um…,” he sighed, looking directly into her eyes as he spoke. “I shouldn’t have run out like that. I’m sorry.”
Passion sparked within his deep blue eyes as he stared at her and Ava’s irate attitude softened almost instantaneously. She no longer felt the need to be angry with him.
He moved in closer to her and reached out to touch her face. As his right hand caressed the side of her cheek, a sensation that began at her face travelled all the way to her core in an instant. He lifted her chin with his fingers and locked his eyes with hers.
“Let me make it up to you,” he said softly, his voice barely more a deep whisper. “The Mountain Crest Summer Fair begins this coming weekend. Be my date on Friday night.”
It was more of a command than it was a request, but for some reason beyond her comprehension, the assertiveness of his demand actually turned her on. There was no way she could have said no even if she’d wanted to.
At that moment, the door behind them opened, surprising them both.
“Come on, Ava. I’ve got to get back to the precinct,” William said sternly. He was speaking to his daughter, but his stare was focused intently on Chase.
Ava followed her father out of the room, glancing back at Chase one more time before walking out of the front door.
**
“I know you’re hiding something from me about the residents of the Lexus community. There has to be some reason why the members of the city council suspect that one of them has something to do with these murders. Apparently the Veldassares have money. What do they do for a living?”
Her father remained silent.
“Dad?! Talk to me! I’m not a little girl anymore! This investigation is just as important to me as it is to you! I am writing a story on this case for the Mountain Crest Journal. Don’t you think I deserve to know the details?” Ava knew she was stretching the truth a bit by telling him she was already writing the article, but she felt she had the right to know what was going on up at Lexus.
Her father sighed as he pulled up in front of his daughter’s small, one-story brick house and turned to face her with an expression of timidity.
“Ava, there are things that I shielded you from while you were growing up here in Mountain Crest—things that I felt I was protecting you from. But, you’re right. You’re not a little girl anymore and you do deserve to know all of details about this case. I’ve got to get back down to the station right now, but I promise we’ll finish this conversation later, okay?”
Ava was not happy with his reply, knowing that “later” would likely never come. She let out an angry huff and left the car, walking stiffly up the narrow cement walkway to her front door.
Chapter Seven: A Night at the Fair
Ava spent the rest of the week trying to piece together the details of the murder cases. Her father had postponed their “talk” numerous times over t
he past several days, and Ava was just about fed up with him. She was determined to find out what she wanted to know on her own.
People were already starting to talk and rumors were beginning to spread across the city. Many of the local news channels were calling the murders the: Mountain Crest Vampire Slayings. A lot of the newscasters believed that the killer was trying to impersonate a real-life “vampire.”
The latest rantings of a male Channel Five news reporter played in the background as Jocelyn helped Ava get ready for her date with Chase. He’d called her earlier that day, after having looked her number up online, to confirm their date and get her address.
Ava felt like a giddy teenage girl as Jocelyn added the finishing touches to her friend’s hair and makeup. She hadn’t been out on an actual date since her last boyfriend back in college. He had graduated a year before her and had called it quits before he left to accept a job on the other side of the country. Afterward, Ava had spent her final year of school focusing solely on her studies and ended up graduating with honors.
It was about thirty minutes after sunset when a shiny black Mercedes pulled up in front of her house.
“Wow, he’s got a nice car!” Jocelyn exclaimed excitedly, peering out of the front room window. “What does he do for a living?”
“Actually, I don’t even know,” Ava replied. “But I damned sure plan to find out!”
“Well let me know if you get lucky later tonight. You absolutely need to get laid, girl. It’s been way too long!”
“I’ve got to agree with you on that.” The two women shared a laugh.
“Thanks for your help, Joc,” Ava said, hugging her friend before heading out of the front door.
