Women of the Dark Streets

by Radclyffe

  Toni ran her finger around the rim of her wineglass. “It could be a Christ thing, and that reeks of Jade.” The glass emitted a soft hum that slowly became a ringing.

  “I’d have to be there to see if it reeks.” Shannon watched Toni’s finger go round and round. “There wasn’t anything in the pictures. They were just dumped…set out there with no signs of ceremony.”

  “Like trash,” Toni stated.

  “But cleaned.” Shannon’s gaze followed Toni’s finger still circling. How can such a sexy finger be so annoying? Shannon wanted that finger tracing circles on her skin, not wasting time on a glass.

  “Like recyclables.”

  “What?” Shannon had heard Toni’s comment, but her brain surged, and she needed to hear that word again.

  “Recyclables. You know how little old ladies always rinse their cans and bottles? Last week one called to complain her recycling had been stolen.”

  “Shit. Toni…” Shannon grabbed Toni’s hand and, without realizing what she was doing, clasped it to her chest. “Shit.” It can’t be! Could someone be taunting a vampire?

  “What? Recycling. Does that mean something? How do two bloodless, clean bodies lead to recycling? It’s not like you could reuse a dead body. Well, unless you were Dr. Frankenstein.”

  “Yeah…I don’t know why I didn’t see it.” Shannon’s mind was reeling with the thought of it. Bastards! Killing just to send a damn message.

  “What the fuck?”

  Shannon hardly heard Toni’s voice. It seemed in a distant fog. “What, Toni?” Shannon realized she hadn’t been listening.

  “Last year we had a Satanic cult and a Christ-crucifying coven. Now a Frankenstein enthusiast is killing people to re-animate them?”

  “No, what? Frankenstein. Where’d you get Frankenstein?”

  “But you said—”

  “Never mind, Toni.” She took a deep breath to calm herself and gather the words she wanted to use. “Maybe the killer left them there to taunt someone.”

  “Taunt? You mean, like ‘you can’t catch me, I’m too smart’?”

  “No, more like ‘neener neener, look at this yummy lunch.’” Shannon looked down. Her cheeks warmed as she realized she was holding Toni’s hand to her chest. She slowly moved her hand to her thigh, but didn’t release it.

  “Lunch? So we’re talking cannibalism here. Someone’s breakfast ruined because the kids interrupted?”

  “They’re empty of blood, Toni. Empty. Nice clean and shiny, like they’re ready to be reused, but they can’t be reused. They’re clean but empty. Empty and dead.”

  “Wait. So someone killed them, drained them, and left them there to taunt someone who wants them?”

  “Wants their blood.”

  “Like a vampire.”

  “Right, like a vampire.” Shannon linked arms with Toni and leaned into her. Not for the joy and happiness that usually followed her discoveries, but for support. With this new realization, she was shaken to the core. Someone out there was taunting a vampire. She took a deep breath, willing herself to remain calm. Toni’s warmth comforted her. “But the vampire wouldn’t want them dead. Which means the killer is taunting the vampire. For what reason, I don’t know.”

  “Does the killer think he’s making new vampires? Does he think these two will become vampires?” Toni’s voice rose, edging near incredulous agitation.

  Shannon patted Toni’s thigh, hoping to calm her. “That is something else entirely. They wouldn’t have been left like that. See, vampires don’t kill. They may even reuse the same person over and over. Killing someone or draining a vessel is a waste. This killer is—”

  “Litterbug!” Toni’s face lit up like she had just answered the million-dollar question. “Just tossing out perfectly good vessels, so wasteful.”

  How can you be so cute and sexy and yet such a dorkberry? “Toni, please, this killer really believes a vampire lives somewhere around here.” But do they know or is it a guess? “We have to figure out why. Why they think a vampire is out here and why they want to taunt or tease them. What is either of these people going to do next?”

  Toni took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, before releasing it. “Okay. Let’s play.”

  “Thank you. Now, I’ve killed a couple. Drained their blood.”

  “For what? To drink? To bathe in?”

  I don’t know. Neither or both? Does it matter? Shannon finally responded, “Doesn’t matter. They aren’t for me. I’m leaving them here to show you my trash, but it doesn’t look like trash. It looks like recyclables, like it might be worth a pretty penny. But it’s not. It’s worthless, like wax fruit.”

  “Okay, why would you do that?” Toni tapped her fingers on Shannon’s knee.

  “It looks like it’s good, but it’s not.” Shannon swirled the last bit of wine in her glass. “I want you to think they’re reusable—but they aren’t.”

  Toni nodded toward the kitchen. “Let me get the bottle.” She jumped up and moved away.

  Shannon immediately missed Toni’s warmth and struggled not to show it. “But why them? Why display them that way?”

  Before reaching the kitchen, Toni stopped and snapped her fingers. “Hey! You just said it.” She paced between the sofa and the kitchen, as if reading the words from the floor at her feet. “You want me to think they’re good, but they aren’t. They look alive, but they’re dead. What if the bodies were displayed to make someone hungry or thirsty? Make me want some? I mean if I were the vampire.”

  “Maybe you’re on a diet or trying to quit…”

  Toni closed the distance between them and sat back down. Beaming with excitement, she took Shannon’s hands and exclaimed, “Maybe they’re my last brownie!”

  “Last brownie? Like you were saving them for later?”

  Toni nodded, bouncing Shannon’s hands as she said, “Yes. Right.”

  “Ah! Saving them for later, but the killer took them?” Shannon’s heart was thrumming in her chest, partially because of Toni’s forest eyes streaked with gold, and partially because of the fear of opening up and revealing too much. She had never seen the victims before, but the killer was taunting someone in her territory. Regardless of whether it was a personal affront to her or meant for another, it was serious business and she’d have to get to the bottom of it. Tomorrow, Shannon reasoned, Toni tonight.

  “Exactly. This was personal.” Pulling Shannon to her feet, Toni continued, “We have to see if there are any old bite marks on the victims. Then at least we’ll know why these two were chosen.”

  “Good thinking.” Shannon let Toni pull her away from the coffee table. She half expected Toni to suggest that they run right down to the morgue and check the victims. Despite her anxiety, she would follow Toni anywhere. Her desire to be with Toni had escaped from its bindings, and now Shannon couldn’t rein it in. She was afraid to say anything for fear of destroying the moment.

  “We find their vampire, get a list of his enemies, and then we find the killer. Brilliant!” Toni pulled her into a hug before playfully pushing her away. “Shit, now you have me acting like a real vampire is out there.”

  Shannon hesitated. Someone was taunting a vampire. Her gut clenched. One way or another, the game was over. “There is.”

  “Are you saying you actually believe that vampires and werewolves exist?”

  “Vampire myths exist in almost every culture.”

  “Bogeymen?” Toni teased, whispering into her ear. “Ghosts and aliens, Shannon. Do you really believe all that hocus pocus, woo-hoo-hooey shit?”

  “It’s not all woo-hoo-hooey shit, Toni. One of my great-great-aunts even wrote about it back in 1881.”

  “Oh, I see. So belief in vampires runs in the family?”

  “There have been vampires and werewolves throughout history. In myth certainly. Now, I know it sounds crazy, but there is more in this world than you and I can even imagine.”

  “Ah, ‘there are more things in Heaven and Earth than you can drea
m of.’ Hamlet?”

  Shannon stared into Toni’s eyes, begging for understanding. “Some things are beautiful, like hidden waterfalls or rediscovering animals we thought were extinct. And some things are scary ugly, and I’m not going there.” Shannon’s heart raced. She cared for Toni and didn’t want to lose her. Desire warred with prudence.

  “Demons and angels?” Toni asked, her gaze unwavering.

  “I don’t want to talk about any of them. Some things are just plain mysterious. That is all I’m going to say. Those are my personal beliefs. You’re here for my professional opinion. My knowledge and training, nothing else.”

  “That’s not quite true.” Toni’s eyes were locked with hers. “I’m hoping, if I’m lucky, that I might get something more.”

  Shannon’s nostrils flared. She could smell Toni’s heat. Toni’s blood pumping through her veins and settling between her legs. She imagined the tip of her tongue touching the soft skin just below Toni’s ear. Sweet, but salty too.

  She reached up and held Toni’s ear for a moment before letting her finger trail down Toni’s neck to her shirt collar. “Well, Toni, you never know.” She could smell Toni’s essence, like the day they lay under a trailer reading the rantings a suspect had written on the bottom of his boat. Mingling with the smell of cloves and ginger, Toni’s desire radiated from her in waves. Shannon wanted to rub that smell all over herself.

  Her eyes met Toni’s. Her breath stilled. The room hummed with their silence. The time for pretending was over. No point in holding back now.

  *

  Slowly, Shannon turned, sashaying toward her bedroom. The mesmerizing movement drew Toni along. Part of her wanted to run down to the morgue and question the coroner about his findings, but her feet propelled her toward Shannon.

  A phone rang from the kitchen.

  Watching the professor’s fluid motion as her ass swayed filled Toni with joy and longing. Shannon hadn’t said anything, but Toni knew there was an invitation in those moves. She wasn’t retreating to her bedroom. She was beckoning Toni to follow—inviting Toni to her bed, her body and all its lovely curves and flavors.

  As Toni reached for those hips, Shannon stopped and turned. “Is that you?”

  Toni was confused by the sudden halt and the question. “Of course it’s me. Who else would it be?”

  Shannon chuckled, motioning toward the kitchen. “Not you. The phone.”

  Toni’s brain hadn’t registered the ringing, but when Shannon mentioned the phone, it was as if Toni’s ears remembered the sound. It was an echo of memory in her head, but now the apartment was silent. “Was a phone ringing?”

  “It only just stopped. I don’t think it was mine,” Shannon said as she brushed past. “I’ll start the coffee.”

  Toni felt herself deflate. The excitement that had filled her seeped out as Shannon moved toward the kitchen. She obediently followed, knowing she’d have to check the call.

  As she pulled the phone from her jacket, Shannon planted a quick kiss just below her ear and then moved away as the phone on the wall began to ring. Toni froze, surprised and unsure of what to do next. It happened too fast. She wanted to recapture the feeling of those lips. Had it really happened? She heard Shannon’s calm voice behind her.

  “Dr. Flugle’s residence.”

  Toni’s phone buzzed in her hand, forcing her eyes and brain into action. The readout told her it was dispatch. “Nomikos.”

  A gruff voice filled Toni’s ear. “Damn, we got another body, Nomikos. Annie’s Glenn, just past the ball fields, eastside.”

  After giving her ETA, she disconnected and looked at Shannon. “You too?”

  “Yes.” Shannon smiled ruefully. “Save that conversation for another time?”

  Toni’s mood lifted. At least there’d be another time. She held out here hand. “Come on then, Dr. Flugle. Let’s go hunting vampires.”

  The Orient Express

  Shelley Thrasher

  Angelique sat in the first-class dining car of the Orient Express and fingered the petals of the deep-red rose that adorned her table. The sun, setting an intense crimson, blinded her for a minute as it penetrated the window across the aisle.

  One of the three men in black business suits who sat there lowered the shade. Their voices were low, almost whispers, only an occasional word of their Oxford English drifting her way. Their heads almost touched, and she basked in the excitement shimmering from them. A beautiful young woman, perhaps their secretary, sat with them—rather old-fashioned looking in her long-sleeved, high-necked creamy lace blouse and mid-calf straight skirt.

  The men reminded her of the Englishmen in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which she’d read ages ago, who were chasing Dracula across Europe to the Black Sea in hopes of destroying him. The book had introduced her to the Orient Express, and since then she had associated it with adventure and intrigue.

  Cradling her globed glass of reddish-brown wine, she stared into it, wishing it were a crystal ball in which she could discover an exciting future. So far this dinner had met her expectations.

  Her Tokay perfectly accompanied the nutty-tasting pâté de foie gras served as the first course. As she swirled the splash of wine the waiter handed her, its bouquet of fresh strawberries and vanilla almost overpowered her. Usually she preferred dry French wines, but this sweet Hungarian red seduced her as she rolled it over her tongue and softly chewed. She spread the delicate ochre pâté, sprinkled with mustard seeds, onto brioche, and alternated bites of it with sips of wine.

  She was beginning her second glass when a pale, black-haired young woman with almond-shaped dark eyes fringed with long black lashes glided toward her. Her white satin blouse set off her scarlet pantsuit, just as her pale skin and lily-white teeth seemed even lighter compared to the bright red lipstick covering her full, pouting lips. Angelique’s breath came more rapidly as she took in the open neck of her shiny blouse. The woman held the arm of a large, older man who seemed to want nothing more than to pamper her. Her blood-red nails shone as she grasped the man’s forearm and steadied herself when the train abruptly rounded a bend.

  Angelique gasped. Was this Countess Elena Andrenyi and her husband the count, reincarnated to accompany her? In her mid-teens, when Angelique read Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, she’d imagined herself as this very woman, a beautiful young American married to a Hungarian count. Part of the group who avenged the murder of her sister and her two children, she never bloodied her hands. She appeared fragile yet was stronger than anyone realized. She and her twelve co-conspirators literally got away with murder.

  The woman paused at the table in front of Angelique and let the man pull out her chair. As he rounded the table to sit with his back to Angelique, the woman stared at her with an expression that made her sweat. It promised lusty sex between white satin sheets, with the woman’s nails raking Angelique’s back to produce beads of blood as red as her nail polish. Angelique stared back, and the woman transformed into a demure, harmless creature more likely to be Count Dracula’s victim than his consort.

  Angelique took a large swallow of wine and shook her head. This Hungarian red was potent. Usually she held her liquor well. Despite her dizziness she forced herself to refocus on Murder on the Orient Express. She’d read the novel so many times she finally promised herself that someday she’d travel on the famous train, but not as the wife of a stodgy man like the count. She’d escort someone as beautiful as the countess. That was her first clue that she was different.

  The large man sat down and blocked her view of the temptress, so her mind jumped tracks as she spied another familiar-looking woman sitting alone three tables away on the opposite aisle.

  Mabel Warren, the first lesbian Angelique had encountered in print, had appeared in another novel set on the Orient Express—Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train. The woman Angelique had just spotted sat sipping from a tumbler filled with a brownish drink Angelique immediately imagined as whiskey, for Mabel Warren was an aging alcoholic
in her fifties. This woman emptied her drink and signaled the waiter for another one, clearly demanding that he waste no time.

  While the present-day Mabel waited, she lit a cigarette and glanced at her wristwatch, then half turned to look over her shoulder. Finally, an attractive blonde in her late twenties sauntered in. The woman with the drink, her cropped hair mussed, jumped up and signaled the blonde, obviously trying to show her off to the rest of the passengers. The young woman looked at her companion as if she was acting ridiculous and sat down as if she would rather be anywhere else. She was probably wondering if her brown roots were beginning to show.

  As a teenager, Angelique had admired Mabel Warren, primarily because she was a successful journalist unafraid to compete with men in the world of politics and high-pressure deadlines. Mabel Warren had helped Angelique realize she was definitely different from the other girls at school. However, she didn’t want to compete with men or look like Mabel, with her short graying hair and worldly manner.

  Angelique looked back at the other passengers in the dining car, especially those she’d already noticed, and finished her second glass of wine. To help pass the time, she might as well indulge in some more fantasies.

  *

  The three men to her left were British diplomats, she fancied, traveling to Budapest. After she disembarked in Vienna, they would continue across Austria into Hungary. There they’d spend the night near the train station in a famous old hotel.

  At dinner, the men would remark that it looked like the Hungarian Revolution had ended last month, instead of fifteen years ago. Buildings still lay in ruins in some sections of the city, which increased their feeling of superiority over the Russians. The Soviets clearly hadn’t managed to help their satellite countries rebuild as successfully as the countries of Western Europe had, because East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia didn’t look much better.