Vampire Night

by Alice Bell

  I let go of her wrists but her arms came around my neck. “More,” she said.

  Scarlett

  His lips brushed my belly, my thigh. I felt his tongue, warm and probing. I was chafed and it matched how I felt inside—scraped out and raw.

  When his mouth enclosed my nipple, I writhed. I didn’t want him to ever stop.

  He drew back and pushed himself inside me, again and again.

  I raised my hips to urge him on, faster. He went slower, as if to torture me. His eyes were half closed. His lips were near mine, not touching.

  I wanted to kiss him.

  I wanted to bleed.

  When I came, he turned his head and buried his face in the crook of my neck. I dug my nails into his back. He thrust into me, faster and faster, until at last, he came too. He bit me, hard, and something inside me broke free.

  He laced his fingers through mine.

  And then we were kissing…

  FOURTEEN

  Devon

  I didn’t mean to kiss her. Our lips touched, our mouths opened and the world dropped out from under me.

  There was a sound in my head, like humming. I saw tears and blood, a gash in my flesh, a wound closing… stars like diamonds.

  I lost track of time and space, until I was falling, tumbling down in the wrong direction, through endless darkness.

  No, I wasn’t falling at all. I was being pulled up from the depths of a cold dark lake. Up and up…

  I broke through the surface, like crashing through glass.

  My heart thumped and surged. I shuddered. I gulped air and opened my eyes.

  There were the stars again. They sparkled. A terrible sadness engulfed me.

  I had been up there soaring toward comets that streaked across the sky. But they weren’t comets at all; they were winged creatures brimming with light. They were coming for me until something strong and undeniable took me away and brought me back to earth.

  She had been a creature from the lake. Her wet hair dripped onto my skin. My eyes closed, as she pressed her mouth to mine. I felt her breath inside me.

  When I opened my eyes again, she was gone.

  She wasn’t an angel who had saved me and brought me back to life. She had made me undead.

  Zadie.

  Had Zadie done this to me?

  * * *

  I touched Scarlett’s neck where I’d bitten her. A bruise was forming. “Did you kiss me?”

  “You kissed me,” she said. She lay back down, snuggling next to me but I sat up. I kept seeing Zadie. She was a ghost with wet hair, oozing through the cracks in my mind. I was hyper-alert, on edge.

  I glanced down at Scarlett. “Are you okay?”

  “Should I be?” she smiled. Color blushed on her cheeks.

  I thought of the speed of the Ferrari on the open road. I’d returned the car, parking it where I’d found it, in the garage next to a black Jaguar. How easy it was to take and why couldn’t I do it again? Or better yet, why not hop on a Lear jet? I could get away with anything.

  But there was nowhere to go. Not until I found Zadie.

  “You sure you’re fine?” I said to Scarlett. You never knew what could happen over something as simple as a kiss anymore. Her kiss had lifted me up into the stars and Zadie’s kiss had brought me back from the dead. At least at this point, I thought it was Zadie who’d kissed me on the beach. Who else?

  Scarlett sat up, keeping the covers drawn around her. She frowned, half scowled. “Well, I don’t know if fine… is the word I’d use.”

  I picked up my jeans from the floor and got dressed.

  “Where are you going?” Scarlett said.

  I thought the first thing I’d do was shower at the spa. And then I’d put on clean clothes from my locker. Come to think of it, why did I have to wear clothes?

  Why did I have a human form that looked exactly like the one I’d had before? What was to prevent me from running into an old friend who thought I was dead?

  “Devon… I’m talking to you… hello?”

  I jerked my gaze to Scarlett. “What did you say?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere. I have some business to take care of.”

  “So late? Nothing will be open.”

  “You read my obituary. Is it too much of a leap to think I might do my best work at night?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I hoped she wouldn’t cry again but it was a futile worry.

  Her eyes narrowed into a hard glare. “Are you going to the bar?” Despite her angry tone, I felt bad for her. She reminded me of a kid in the school yard, trying to stand up to a bully.

  I went to her. “Didn’t you have a good time?”

  “Why won’t you stay?” she rose up on her knees and grabbed my arm. The blanket slid down, exposing her delicious body. “You’d do it with anyone, wouldn’t you? Just screw out their brains.”

  I laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” she said.

  “It’s kind of funny to hear you say screw out their brains instead of screw their brains out.”

  “I don’t see the difference,” her shoulders slumped. She sank down on the bed. “No one is special. You probably don’t even know their names.”

  “I know your name.” My gaze traveled to her full breasts with their perfect nipples. Without thinking, I reached down to cup them. She moaned and I was ready to lay her down on the bed again but to my surprise, she pushed me away.

  “What about Autumn?” her eyes glittered at me.

  “Who?”

  “The girl, Devon. She’s seventeen. God,” she visibly shuddered. “How could you? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Uh… no.

  “She thinks you’re her perfect fantasy,” Scarlett’s tone was full of righteous indignation. “But you don’t even know her name,” she accused, her cheeks turning pink.

  “Well, I also have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Our eyes locked and I could see her searching for something, something I didn’t know if I could ever give her.

  “It didn’t happen,” I said.

  But could I promise her that? With the jagged holes in my memory, with the overall fucked-up-ness of my existence? Jesus, Scarlett, I don’t want to hurt you.

  Scarlett

  It felt so strange when he left, like waking from a dream. I was always confused and disoriented by his sudden absences. I’d think a lot of time had passed when barely minutes had gone by. When I wasn’t with him, the world barely turned.

  I checked my watch. 10:33.

  I touched the place on my neck where he’d bitten me and shivered.

  I gathered my clothes off the floor.

  Shame burned inside me. He was already gone, eager to get away, probably on to the next conquest while I was left alone to put myself back together.

  I went down the dank stairway, naked, holding the shards of my clothes that felt like the last remnants of my dignity. In my room rain lashed at the windows. When I parted the curtains, I saw treetops swaying in the wind. The sight made me dizzy.

  I wrapped my arms around myself.

  I couldn’t decide what to do. I wanted to bathe and put on a nightgown and go to bed. I wanted to sleep for a long time, until the storm was over. And yet I felt an urgency to escape the house and myself.

  I stood inside my closet, gazing at the mess. Recent events had slipped and fallen into disarray, like the clothes in my closet. Trying to reshelf them into chronological order seemed impossible and the more I tried, the more spiders spun cobwebs in my brain.

  I gulped air.

  At last I chose a simple black skirt and a black V-neck sweater.

  As I dressed I couldn’t stop the images of Autumn and Devon together, entwined. Anger mounted inside me.

  My fingers twitched, my skin crawled.

  I tried to get a comb through my gnarled hair but my scalp was too tender. When I attempted to put on lipstick, my hand shook. I couldn’t stay within my lip line. I star
ed at my clownish reflection. I rubbed my mouth with a tissue.

  I put on black boots over fishnet stockings and grabbed a black raincoat from a hook by the door. I paused, my hand on the doorknob.

  Just go.

  No, roll the dice first. It’s bad luck if you don’t. The worst will happen.

  Just go. Stop being psycho.

  A gust of wind shook the house.

  I turned around.

  As I went up the stairs, I gripped the banister. The wood was smooth, worn down by years.

  The house was almost a hundred and thirty years old, built by a cattle baron when the west was full of outlaws. My mother liked to pretend spirits lived here but I thought it was just her inner demons that made things go bump in the night.

  Once she woke me in the early hours of dawn. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa and her fingernails dug into the flesh on my arms. Her hair hung limp. She wore an old checkered Armani jacket over her nightgown. When I looked at her feet, I saw she had on shoes with spiky heels. “You’re not going out?” I said.

  “I can’t,” she said. “The spirits have locked us in.”

  Later I found her in bed, passed out on top of the covers. What if my mother knew things? What if she wasn’t crazy but saw what so-called sane people couldn’t?

  I swayed and held the railing tighter. I kept going, one stair at a time, until I reached the top.

  My thoughts veered wildly, refusing to form into a logical plan.

  I could only act on instinct. If I stayed here, I would die.

  I knew how it would happen, had always known. I would simply stop breathing. It would happen when I was all alone. It would happen because I was all alone with no one to resuscitate me.

  So I had to keep moving.

  I didn’t like finding my torn dress on the floor, reminding me how eager I was to give my virginity to Devon, only to have him leave me all alone again. What was the use of such fleeting pleasure?

  And why did I bring the ruined dress down from the attic only to leave it out in plain sight, like evidence?

  I picked it up, intending to throw it away but the waste basket in the bathroom was overflowing with tissues and Q-tips and last month’s used hair dye kit.

  I stuffed what was left of my dress under the bed and searched for my pink dice, wanting to feel the smooth cubes in my hand. Sometimes I left them in the kitchen. I didn’t want to go all the way back downstairs.

  Outside the wind howled.

  Keep moving.

  I decided to go up to the attic. Clothes littered the floor there too. The bed was a disaster with the mosquito net half down, blood on the sheets. My mother’s hope chest had been plundered. I vaguely remembered being the one who plundered it. There was something up here I needed.

  My gaze darted from one thing to the next, until I saw the knife on the floor where Devon had cast it. A knife would be handy, much handier than a gun.

  It was pretty with its ivory handle. I touched my finger to the sharp edge. How would I carry it? I considered strapping it to my thigh with a garter belt but it wasn’t the right size. I didn’t want to think about it too much because it was insane to be wondering how to conceal a steak knife.

  But it was good to have a weapon, I thought, since I couldn’t stay in the house and everyone knew storms brought out the crazies.

  Or was it the full moon? A lunar eclipse? The stroke of midnight? I checked my watch. 11:59.

  * * *

  Before leaving the house, I hid the knife in my mother’s Louis Vuitton bag. It felt strangely empowering to be carrying a concealed weapon.

  I had to park five blocks from the bar. The wind whipped my hair and lifted my skirt. Rain pelted my face. When I pushed through the door, I was greeted by emptiness. Only a few people sat at the bar. A leather-clad couple hovered by the juke box. No band. And no Devon.

  I ordered my usual and asked the bartender what happened to the live music. He said the band got stuck on the freeway behind a jack-knifed semi. I sipped my drink and had to listen to songs I didn’t like blaring from the juke box. The scene felt unreal, as if I’d slipped into an alternate reality.

  Where did Devon go when he disappeared?

  I checked my watch, accustomed to synchronizing my sips with my lucky number. I didn’t have a lucky number tonight, and it felt like the stars were aligning against me.

  I downed my drink and crunched ice. I didn’t feel freed from my rituals. I felt at the whims of the night, thrown against a raging sea of chaos. Even though there were so many things Devon refused to give me, he gave me one thing I could count on—the moment. When I was with him, I wanted nothing else.

  I left the bar and walked down the boardwalk. No one was out. The spindly street lamps creaked. The world felt as empty as the bar. Above me, wind blew clouds across the sky. Stars emerged.

  I got in my car and meant to go home but then I thought: Where is 21698 Stargazer Lane, anyway?

  Devon

  I caught Erin Jones at the bookstore just as she was leaving. She stood on the sidewalk pawing through a shabby looking woven bag.

  “Erin,” I said.

  She gasped and glanced up.

  I watched her compose herself and tighten her psychic chastity belt. When we locked eyes, I saw knowledge in hers. She knew what I was. My gut coiled.

  She shifted her weight. I caught the flex of her fingers as she tightened her grip on her satchel.

  “I didn’t hurt my girlfriend,” I said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

  There was a long pause. She was fine tuning her radar, determining the direction of the wind. “I know, Devon,” she said, finally.

  I nodded. “You know about me,” I said. “How did you know? I mean, I don’t have fangs or anything. Can other people tell?”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “At least, not right away.”

  Great.

  She said, “I sensed your… um, situation, as soon as you came through the door. You may not believe in my abilities but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to use them.”

  I shrugged. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

  There was a moment of awkwardness. I realized I was hesitant to leave her company. “Do you want your manuscript back?” I asked.

  “Keep it,” she said. “Don’t you want the reference?”

  I thought of the pages scattered across my decrepit sofa. I didn’t want that thing in the same room with me. But it was too late to turn back. “It’s all up here,” I admitted to Erin, tapping my temple. “I have perfect recall.”

  Her expression lit up. “How fascinating,” she said.

  Doesn’t take much to get her excited, I thought. If you can get her to let her guard down.

  “Did you have it before,” she said. “Or was it gifted to you when you became—”

  “I don’t know,” I interrupted her.

  She blinked. A look of concern crossed her features. “You’re saying…” her voice trailed off.

  “Until a few days ago,” I said. “I had amnesia.”

  “Huh,” she said, like she was doing a complicated math problem in her head. “You don’t remember your human life?”

  “I just started remembering some things. It—it hurts to remember,” I confessed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, after a beat. She sounded like she meant it, which I didn’t appreciate too much. I didn’t like being pitied.

  She appraised me. “Are you on foot?”

  I nodded.

  “Want to go to my place? I have some other books you should see. You can scan the information into your computer,” she tapped her head, like I’d done. “There’s also something I’d like to show you on the way.”

  “Listen,” I said. “There’s just one thing.”

  She gave me a questioning look.

  “If I get in your car, you’re not going to… like, pull out a wooden stake or anything… you’re not like what’s-her-face? Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

  She laughed,
throwing her head back.

  “I’m serious.”

  “No, Devon, I’m not a slayer.”

  We got into a rusty old VW bug with no back seat.

  When we crossed the bridge out of downtown, the car groaned and shuddered. I gritted my teeth. My seat, pushed as far back as it would go, and not nearly far enough, had broken springs.

  We drove past the city limits toward the desert. Erin slowed when we neared the place I recognized from its online photos as Coffeen Sanitarium. The courtyard was lit up. A fountain out front cascaded the colors of the rainbow.

  Erin pulled to the side of the road. “That’s what I wanted to show you,” she said.

  “The psychiatric hospital?”

  “The tunnels under it,” she said. “There’s a portal down there. I can’t prove it. But I know it’s there.”

  My heart thumped faster.

  “You read whole the manuscript?” she asked me. “The part about Violet?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I met Violet through her fiancé. Her ex, I should say. He came to me because Violet was stalking him. He thought she was a ghost and he wanted her banished. She was playing tricks on him and his new lover.”

  “Good for her,” I said.

  “Cruel tricks,” Erin’s tone turned sharp. “Psychological abuse. Violet was a real piece of work. But still so human, like you. I realized too late, I should have tried to stay in contact with her. Because I do believe her that Vampires are coming here from another realm. With all the unrest… never-ending wars and technology, I think we’re vulnerable to exactly that type of thing in this century.”

  “Not you,” I said.

  “Yes, well,” she said. “I’ve worked very hard to learn how to protect myself. I’m actually even more vulnerable… more susceptible than your average person.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  She gave me a look. “Anyway,” she went on. “Violet said Vampires are coming through the portal all the time. But every single scholar who I contacted about the realm told me the portals are all closed and they have been for centuries. They think I’m nuts.”