Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires

by Adrian Phoenix

  The old woman swung her open hand at Eric. He caught it with no effort at all and tossed her over his shoulder into the lake. She landed with a splash.

  “Help! Vampires! Help!” The teenagers’ voices carried clear out over the water. I dove back down into the boat. None of this was happening like it was supposed to happen. Now there were humans here, too?

  “Grandma,” Greta said, gripping the werewolf’s upper and lower jaws and forcing them open too wide. “What big teeth you have.”

  “Just kill her,” Eric said impatiently.

  Greta frowned, but did as she was told.

  I leapt back up onto the dock and resumed my human shape, complete with jeans and T-shirt. “Both of you, stop this,” I cried.

  “Go home, Tabitha.” Eric grabbed me by the chin, squeezing my cheeks. “Just go the fuck home. I’m sorry I asked you here.” He pushed me away. “I never should have turned you. I knew it wouldn’t work out. You can’t handle this.”

  “I can do anything I need to do! But this doesn’t need to be done. It’s stupid. It’s murder, not self-defense, not feeding.”

  “Looks like you got another dud, Dad,” Greta said, walking up to the porch of the house.

  The woman Eric had thrown in the water floated in the darkness, watching us. Eric pointed at her. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Swim off to the marina or something.”

  He watched her swim away, looking relieved that he didn’t need to kill her. “What do you want from me, Tabitha?”

  “I want…”I want you not to push me away, I thought.I want you to understand that I’m still me, and then I want to show you what I can do, that I can be like a live girl for you, that I can be warm and sexy and still hunt with you. I want you to be the same reluctant romantic that you always were, the man who isn’t always in the right, but tries.

  “Do you want me to be all sexy and dangerous?” He sniffed the air, checking for werewolves. “Am I supposed to be Tom Cruise?”

  “No. I…” Did he really want me to leave? Was he pushing me away on purpose?

  “Am I supposed to go fight crime with you? Open a detective agency? Look for a cure? Because it’s not happening. You wanted a monster and you got one!” Waving his gun around as he spoke, Eric came toward me, his intemperate footsteps causing the dock to creak in protest. One of the white plastic barrels supporting it floated out from underneath, dropping the dock closer to the water’s surface on one side.

  “You’re not a monster!” I shouted.

  “I’m not?” His voice cracked as he asked.El Alma Perdida hummed angrily, but Eric’s eyes blazed brightly just the same. His claws came out, and with them, the fangs. He snarled at me, doing everything he could to be less than what he was.

  “No. Not really. You’re the man I love.”

  “Oh, please,” Eric said, his features becoming human once again. “Maybe you loved me when you were alive, but now you’re dead. You don’t even smell like you anymore.”

  “But I—” But I can, I tried to say. Eric cut me off.

  “Just shut up, Tabitha,” he yelled in a voice so loud that my ears rang. “Listen,” he snapped, grabbing me by the shoulder. “Do you hear that?” Howl after howl rang out into the night. “Do you see those?” He pointed out over the water to werewolves in pontoon boats heading our way, some swimming in the lake. “I do not have time to talk about this right now. Some things are more important than how you feel.”

  And he was right. He was right. This wasn’t the time or place. In truth, it was way past time for this discussion, but he hadn’t been ready for it, and probably never would be. He didn’t like to think about things too hard, especially not emotional things. He didn’t want to admit that he loved me, but I knew that he did. He had to.

  But I had to rethink my tactics. Chasing him wasn’t working. Rolling over and letting him act however he wanted just made things worse. He had to realize that he loved me, had to be willing to admit it to me and to himself. And he couldn’t do that with me giving in to him over and over again.

  Which left only one way to get his attention.

  “I hate you!” My claws raked down his face, leaving behind furrows of ravaged white flesh. He didn’t react, didn’t yell or scream. He just stood there, an inhuman statue.

  “That makes two of us,” he spat.

  “If you love me, come find me. Otherwise…we’re finished,” I said. I turned into a bat and flew off into the night. I could pick up my things at the Demon Heart and make it to the Highland Towers by morning.

  Phillip would take care of me. I knew he would. He knew how to treat a lady. He was nice and sweet…and short, fat, and bald, but he would do for starters. If Eric couldn’t get a grip on his feelings for me, refused to acknowledge them, never came to get me…then a vampire queen deserved better. I deserved better.

  32

  ERIC:

  ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

  Greta and I waited for William on the front porch. We didn’t talk about Tabitha. Out in the dark, pawfalls sounded on the damp evening soil. A small armada of pontoon boats and speedboats floated in the middle of the lake, biding their time. Smart puppies. They wanted me surrounded before attacking. Overhead, the crescent moon watched our little war games. I pretended not to hear the rustle of seventy-plus werewolves panting in the night. Greta found an old transistor radio and turned it on.

  “I forget,” I asked Greta, “is it waxing or waning that’s bad news for them, good news for us?” She shrugged.

  The same classic rock station popped and hissed to life, treating us all to a little Led Zeppelin.

  A wolf, white as snow and large as a lion, rounded the corner of the house.

  “Waning is good for you,” he snarled. “Tonight’s moon is waxing crescent.” Huh. Even the moon was out to screw me.

  “What kept you?” I asked.

  “A meeting.”

  “It would have saved you three packmates and a guard if you’d been at the marina.”

  “They are with the Lord now, just as you will soon be with your master the devil.”

  “Has anybody ever told you how cool it is that you guys talk in wolf form? I wish I could speak English when I change, but it all comes out like animal talk.”

  “You think this is funny.”

  “Not really.” I pulled the pistol out of the back of my jeans and scratched my temple with the barrel. “I think us fighting each other is pretty damn stupid though. You might be able to hurt me, but I haveEl Alma Perdida .”

  If he didn’t know whatEl Alma Perdida was, then I was screwed and the rest of my night was going to be like the bloodbath at the docks. Tabitha was right about killing them being murder, but wrong about it being needless. Murder can be necessary. If I looked weak to the wolves, like I wouldn’t carry out any threat I made, there was no way William would listen.

  William didn’t blink. “If I shoot you with this,” I warned, “you don’t go to your reward. You get trapped by the gun. You don’t want to spend eternity in a bullet, William. I know you don’t.”

  The other werewolves began to close in, jumping out of boats and onto the embankment. Others came out of the woods.

  “You killed my son!” William bellowed.

  “No, but you did kill mine,” I replied calmly. “I’m still willing to overlook that.”

  “Dad!” Greta crossed her arms with a loudhumph. “Can’t we just kill them all? They tortured me and they killed Kyle.”

  “Not yet, sweetheart.” My eyes never left William’s. “I killed a bunch of werewolves for that already.”

  William blurred, a mass of growling angry white fur charging at me, going for my throat. If I hadn’t had the gun out, I’d never have managed to bring it to bear.

  His jaws touched my throat and the barrel of the gun touched his forehead. It charred his fur slightly and he drew back. I had almost been too slow.

  “How?” said William. “A vampire can’t hold—”

  “They can if they
wear gloves and don’t mind it burning the crap out of them.”

  “You aren’t wearing gloves.”

  “I’m an exception,” I said. “I have it on good authority that John Paul Courtney was my great, great, great-granddad or granduncle…or something like that.

  “You see, someone has been trying pretty damn hard to maneuver us into this position. At first, I thought it was because I killed your son, but actually I didn’t. I don’t know who I killed. He was dressed like a bum, had already killed two other vamps, and jumped me in an alley.”

  “Fergus.” William spat the name out like it tasted bad. “No wonder I couldn’t get in touch with him. He’s no packmate of ours. He’s an outcast and a murderer. He’ll do anything for money.”

  “Greta,” I called over my shoulder to her. “I’m supposed to remember that name, for some reason. Do you—” Then it clicked. The check! Thirty thousand dollars written to a Fergus…something…a check on which Roger forged my name. Bastard. “Well, that explains that. So Roger hired Fergus to jump me in the alley. He got Brian to maneuver me into position and…Where was I?”

  “You didn’t do it,” Greta answered from the porch.

  “Right. I…Do you mind backing up a few steps?” I asked William. “Your breath smells like Alpo.”

  William withdrew slightly, growling low, ears flattened against his head. “You cannot escape.”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “You and your pack will call up more goons from the Lycan Diocese to hunt me down. Blah blah blah.”

  “Do not mock me, vampire.”

  “Sorry,” I said. I cleared my throat. “Okay, so then I thought that I was being used as a fall guy, that the boyfriend of the vampire who killed your son had framed me to protect his girlfriend, the theory being that I would probably kill you and even if I didn’t…well, once you killed me you would think the whole deal was over and move on with your life.

  “But then I found out aboutEl Alma Perdida .” I leaned against the wall. It was hard to read William’s expression, but since he was listening I kept on talking. “How likely is it that I just happened to stumble into a mess involving an Alpha werewolf, one that I might need all different sorts of silver to kill—blessed, magic, inherited, cherry-flavored, the whole bit, and then wind up with all of it neatly packaged in one gun?

  “Now…I happen to believe the whole John Paul Courtney thing. I kind of like the idea that I’m related to a badass cowboy werewolf hunter. But that someone would just happen to be using his special gun, that they would just happen to leave a bullet behind so that I could find that gun? It’s just too much coincidence.”

  “You have another explanation?” he growled.

  “Yeah, yeah, I do. You know a vampire named Roger, right?”

  William growled low in his throat. “Roger Malcolm. He dared to come here, to ask us to sell him our land. He—”

  I cut him off. “That’s the guy. I think the whole reason I’m down here is because Roger wants me to kill you and enough of your pack that he can bring in some hired muscle and dispose of the rest, snatch the property out from under any relatives you might have, and build his little fancy-schmantsy vampire lake resort.”

  “And are you here because you wish to protect this ‘friend’? Because he is also the one who told us where we could find you the other night.”

  “Me?” I asked. “Hell, no! Yes, I was planning to kill you, but that’s only because after the stunts you’ve pulled trying to get back at me, I didn’t think we’d be able to talk things over. I expected to kill you with the magic gun and then to have to kill your pack so that they’d leave me alone.” He bristled at that.

  “Now that we’re talking, though, we’ve got options. I figure we can do this one of two ways. Way one I call ‘the bad plan.’ You don’t believe me and I see how many of you I can kill before you take me down. Then, being a Vlad, I keep coming back over and over again. You get the idea.

  “Way two, which I must say I prefer, I call ‘the give the bastard what he deserves plan.’ About forty of your pack members keep Greta as collateral, unharmed, and the rest of us go pay Roger a little visit.”

  “Dad,” Greta protested. “You can’t trust them. They’ll try to eat me.”

  “Not if he promises they won’t,” I told her.

  “Dad, no.”

  “Do it and I’ll let you move back into the Pollux,” I said cajolingly. “You can have one of the dressing rooms all to yourself.”

  Greta bit her lip, considering it. With Kyle gone, if I let her move in, she knew I’d let her stay. “And I get to hunt for a whole week, however I want, and you won’t complain or be mad about how much I eat.”

  “Deal,” I told her. I inclined my head slightly toward William. “What do you say?”

  William resumed his human form. I’d seen other werewolves change back before, the fangs receding and new teeth growing in to fill the bloody holes. In contrast, William’s reversion seemed painless. The fur around his eyes lit up from within, spreading outward across his body until the only thing not illuminated were those fierce eyes, the glow obscuring the rest of him. The outline changed, became that of a man. The glow receded and he stood before me in jeans and a white T-shirt, wearing loafers without socks. Very cool. “Assuming I agree to this, what happens after?”

  “You let Greta go, deliver her safely to the Pollux—at night,” I emphasized, “and agree to stay out of my way in exchange for me staying out of yours.”

  “In other words, a return to the status quo.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t speak for the Lycan Diocese,” William replied, “but I can attempt to explain. I can call off my pack, but you killed Reverend. He was a member of Deacon’s pack. Even if the Lycan Diocese decides to forgive you…”

  “I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it,” I told him.

  “William,” one of the others snarled in protest. “He killed Lucas and—”

  “Silence,” William snapped. “He will pay for his sins. All we do here is agree to let the Lord handle his punishment. If what he says is true, then we attacked him mistakenly.”

  They argued for twenty minutes, but eventually he convinced them. He convinced me that he could be trusted, too, especially when the packmates he picked to keep an eye on Greta were all wolves who had raised their voices in support of his plan.

  The werewolves ferried us to the marina in a pontoon boat, then William let me ride in the back of his pickup, intending to drop me off at my car. We had to make new plans when we got to the abandoned house, though. It seemed Tabitha had decided to take the car with her when she left.

  I waved again at the security guards still standing in front of Sable Oaks. This time I got a reaction. They stared openmouthed and called for backup. I think they thought we were invading. With a mutual laugh shared between me and my temporary allies, we drove on.

  Which left me with one last problem: Did I really want to help these werewolves kill Roger?

  33

  TABITHA:

  TIDYING UP

  No one was supposed to be at the Demon Heart, but when I pulled around back to park, I saw Marilyn’s old Buick in its usual spot, second closest to the door. She always saved the first spot for Eric. I pulled into his parking place and wondered how the fight was going. Had Eric and Greta slaughtered all the werewolves yet? I couldn’t imagine the werewolves winning.

  Inside the club, all the lights were off except for a narrow band shining out from underneath the door in the main office. The weak thud of Marilyn’s heartbeat thumped in my ears, the acrid smell of her cigarette assaulting my nostrils. The door to Eric’s bedroom was open. The light snapped on at a touch and I started unpacking my things from Eric’s chest of drawers.

  I pulled my suitcase from his closet, but I knew everything wouldn’t fit. I’d accumulated too much stuff. He’d been so free with money that I now had six times the number of outfits I’d moved in with. My lingerie alone could have filled t
he suitcase. Packing up my favorites and my jewelry seemed the best way to go. I set aside the blue dress that I’d worn for Eric’s birthday and the diamond necklace. I wanted to be wearing them when I saw Phillip.

  I went into the bathroom and willed myself to seem alive, my heart to beat, my blood to flow, and most of all for my reflection to appear in the mirror. Doing so diminished my other senses, the sound of my own heart and the blood rushing through my veins drowning out external sounds to near-human levels.

  I stripped out of my clothes and studied the figure in the glass. No fat. No cellulite. My breasts were firm and full, and, unlike some dancers, completely natural. The slight sag that gravity normally gave them had been banished by vampirism. My tummy was flat, my muscles toned, and looking over my shoulder verified that my butt was tight and heart-shaped. My long black hair was healthy; it had body and bounce. What was not to love?

  I didn’t hear her come into the room, but I smelled the smoke.

  “That’s not the problem,” Marilyn said. Her cigarette was out, but the scent clung to her, a cloud of stench.

  “Don’t you knock?” I reached down for my panties, embarrassed by her presence even though I’d shown my body to thousands of perfect strangers.

  “When I feel like it,” she said, cackling. “I’m old. People overlook things when you’re old.”

  “Well, I don’t. I—”

  “You decided to leave him?” she asked, pointing to the suitcase. Her eyes loomed large behind her glasses. She wasn’t wearing her false teeth, and it changed the timbre of her voice.

  “Yes.” Not for long, though, I thought. He’ll come after me. I walked past her and retrieved my blue dress.

  “He won’t.” Marilyn sat on the edge of the bed, a withered old woman, a witch reading my mind. She smiled a pursed-lip toothless smile at my surprise.

  “How did you—”

  “I know him better than anybody,” Marilyn told me, crossing her arms. There was no sling, no cast. “Better than Roger ever suspected.” A cough took her, a series of long wracking painful rasps. “I know you, too, because you’re a woman who loves him. We have that in common.” She stood up, slow and creaking. “So I feel I should tell you this. He won’t chase you, but he does love you.”