by Dani April
“I won’t give you guys a call until I’ve cleared everything with him first.” She squeezed his knee again. “You worry about everything way too much, Derrick. Thanks to what you four have done for me, my life is about to undergo a wonderful change. I wish you could just be happy for me and let things take their course from here.”
Barry was slowing the truck. The exit ramp into downtown was up ahead. When they got off the highway and began driving between the skyscrapers of the city, Marty started to get nervous. She wasn’t scared like the two men were, she was just nervous with the growing anticipation. She had almost made it to the finish line.
They turned down a side street and entered a part of the city that seemed darker than most. The businesses were not lit up in this section at night, and no one walked the streets. Then they made one more turn, and Marty could see a crowd of people standing down on the next street corner. They were gathered around a large building with bright, flashing blue-and-white lights on the roof. The glowing sign in front read “Rulers of the Night Dance and Party Club”.
The crowd and all those flashing lights were intimidating, and for the briefest of moments, Marty allowed a small sliver of fear to race down her spine. She was about to enter Rulers of the Night. She was about to meet Thorn Fair.
* * * *
Derrick felt his discomfort grow as Barry parked the truck three blocks down the street from the club. The lot was mostly full with cars from the nightlife crowd and was dark because two of the overhead lamps had burned out and no one had bothered to replace them. Marty jumped over Derrick’s lap and out the door as soon as the truck came to a stop. Derrick caught her by the arm and pulled her back for a last kiss.
“Promise me you’ll be careful.”
Derrick felt like he was dying inside. He wasn’t a vampire and couldn’t read minds and had no special sixth sense, but something in the back corner of his mind told him this was not right. Something was just wrong with this place, and it was very wrong for Marty to be running inside there alone.
“I won’t take any unnecessary chances.” She paused and looked back inside at both men. “Will you guys do something for me?” she asked.
She had to pause as a motorcycle roared down the street in front of them, its loud engine drowning out the possibility for conversation. Derrick ground his teeth together. This was his last chance to grab her back inside the truck with them and force her to stay.
“Promise me you’ll be okay with whatever I do in there, with whatever choices I make.”
“We all trust you, Marty,” Barry assured her.
“I’ll support whatever you do in there as long as you come out safe,” Derrick said. The moment had passed, and he knew he was about to lose Marty to the night.
“I’m not only coming out safe, I’m also coming out happy,” Marty said. “Be happy for me, guys. This is the moment I’ve waited so long for.” She started to leave then turned back with a last comment. “And, Derrick, don’t worry so much. You’ll get permanent frown lines, and you’re much too handsome for that.”
Then she was gone, bounding out of the parking lot and across the street. Despite what she had just told him, Derrick still frowned. Everything seemed wrong. He watched her attractive female form glide away from him in the night and realized that the miniskirt she had chosen to wear was all wrong for this setting. Sure, it was a dance club, but she was going in there alone. Watching her sexy, little butt swaying beneath that skirt as she disappeared down the opposite street was like watching a piece of meat readied to be thrown into a lion’s den.
Every instinct he had inside him told him to go running after her, to chase her down and stop her from proceeding with this crazy plan. Instead, all he did was sit in the passenger seat of the truck and watch until he could no longer see her form. Suddenly it struck him just how important Marty had become in his life, and he couldn’t imagine what he would do without her.
Barry patted his shoulder. The younger man could see how upset he was. “Take it easy, man,” he told him. “She’s a smart woman and knows what she’s doing. She’s on her turf now and not ours. This is vampire turf. We’re doing her a favor by not interfering.”
“If anything happens to her tonight, I’ll only have myself to blame.”
“Thorn may not be the nicest guy on earth,” Barry reasoned. “The two of them may not even get on that well tonight, but I don’t think he’s going to harm her.”
“You weren’t with her the night the vampires kidnapped her. You didn’t see the terror in her eyes.” Derrick kicked his foot helplessly against the floor of Barry’s truck. “That female vampire hurt her. She cut her. If I hadn’t gotten there in time to help her that night, I don’t know what might have happened.”
“Well, when you put it like that, I guess I don’t feel so good about this.” Barry looked out the windshield. A group of young professional-type people were passing the truck on their way to a party somewhere in the entertainment district. “You know I care for her, too. We all do.”
Derrick gave Barry a heavy pat on his shoulder. “I know you do, man. I’m glad she’s got you, and I’m glad she’s got the others. I just feel that all four of us may have let her down tonight.”
Derrick could see that he had succeeded in spreading his worry to Barry. He was now darting apprehensive glances down the street in the direction Marty had just disappeared. “It’s not too late. We could still go after her. I know this part of town pretty well. I could probably find her down there.”
Derrick scratched his head and tried to think of something in a hurry, but nothing came to him. He got his phone out of his pocket and set it on the dashboard. “We have to stick to the plan. She’s going to call us if she needs us. Just scope out the area in case we have to get down there in a hurry.”
Barry was now doing all of the worrying for them. He got out of his door and stared down the block at the dimly lit street. Derrick could tell the young guy wanted nothing more than to dart down the street after Marty.
“If something happens to her, it’s going to be my fault,” Barry said.
“It would be all of our faults, and just relax now. No matter how bad this is, we just have to wait it out. That’s what she’s counting on us to do.”
“I was the one who wanted her to go to this club tonight for my own selfish reasons. I was hoping if she met Thorn, he would teach her how to make other vampires, and then she would turn me into a vampire.”
Derrick hadn’t heard Barry talk like this before. Apparently there were certain things he only shared with Marty when the two of them were together alone. “Why would you want to be a vampire, Barry? You’ve seen what it’s done to Marty’s life. No sane person could want that for themselves.”
Barry thought about it for a moment. Derrick could tell he was searching for the right words to explain himself. “It’s just always been a dream of mine. Honestly, I was disappointed and even a little mad when Marty told me she didn’t know how to turn me. Now I wish I had just kept my mouth shut.”
“Just try and keep a low profile,” Derrick said. Barry climbed back inside the truck and tried getting some tunes on the radio to pass the time. “If there are vampires in there, and they’re like the ones Marty met that night in the limo, they are strong and mean.”
“I’m ready to take them on for Marty if it comes down to it.”
“Some of those vampires could be hundreds of years old.” Derrick thought about all of the possibilities, and it made his head spin. “If we have to fight, all it would take is one of them to tear us both apart.”
“If we have to, I’m willing to risk it for Marty.”
“Yes, whether she’s a vampire or not, she is still a pretty special woman.”
“She means everything to me, man.”
Derrick’s cell alerted them to an incoming call. Derrick almost dropped it off the dashboard, he was so quick to reach for it. When he opened it, he was disappointed to hear Aaron’s voice on the phone and n
ot Marty’s.
“Just checking on you guys, man,” Aaron said.
“We made it here,” Derrick explained. “Marty is on her way inside. Barry and I are keeping an eye on things from outside. We’re going to need to keep this line open. Marty will call us if she needs anything. So unless you two have an emergency, don’t call anymore.”
“All right, but as soon as you know what’s gone down give us a call back.”
“Of course we will. Hang tight back at the house, that’s what Barry and I are doing out here.”
“Oh, and Derrick,” Aaron said, keeping him on the line a second longer. “Did you have to let her go in there by herself?”
“Unfortunately we did. You know how she gets when it comes to meeting her vampire maker. When we let her go, she was excited and certain that all her dreams are coming true tonight. There wasn’t any way to talk sense to her.”
“And you don’t think all her dreams will come true tonight?”
“No. I’m scared about what’s going to happen in that club.”
* * * *
The area in front of the club was lit with bright lights in contrast to the dark street beyond. A crowd was gathered in front of the entranceway. A bouncer was sitting on a stool checking IDs before allowing admittance and keeping people in line.
Marty passed through the crowd. Her palms were starting to get sweaty. She was so nervous she didn’t really know what she was doing. For once she decided this would be a night where she didn’t check the time on her wristwatch at all, but instead, she fidgeted with her skirt, making certain it was smooth and straight. Her pullover top was also an area of concern, and she had to keep pulling it back down to her waist each time it would ride up her belly.
She felt as if she was walking through a dream as her footsteps carried her past all those people waiting to get inside Thorn’s club, and although this wasn’t exactly the setting she would have had in mind to meet him in, she couldn’t really care less as long as the two of them were reunited. She tried racking her memory for any more clues in her lost memory about Thorn. What had he liked to do? Where had he liked to go? What sort of people did he have as his friends? All of these questions came flooding through her mind and went unanswered.
Was she going to be good enough for him? Would she be able to please him totally in the manner he deserved? Then, in the middle of asking all of these questions, another terrible question came to the fore of her mind. What if he had left her because she had done him wrong in some way? Perhaps she had let him down or even betrayed him somehow. As a vampire, she had been unable to exhibit any self-control and had made all sorts of mistakes, almost resulting in the death of one of her men. Could she have been like that as a human? Had she always given into her passions before all else even as a human? If so, then no wonder Thorn had left and never returned.
At the front of the line she was confronted by the bouncer on the stool. She handed over her hospital ID card. She had lied about her age on the form, but it still showed she was well over twenty-one.
“Who’s with you?” the bouncer asked. He was gruff and very big. A toothpick dangled from his mouth. Marty stared down at him for a few seconds and thought he might be one of her own kind. Then his thoughts came to her loud and clear, and she knew this man was just a human. He looked like an evil man. She was glad, at least, he was not a vampire.
“I’m here alone,” she told the bouncer. He looked at her suspiciously, and Marty didn’t think he was going to let her inside.
“Look at her hot, little body under that short skirt. She might just be here to turn tricks in the back. We don’t need that kind of trouble with the law here.”
“I’ve come here to see Thorn Fair. I’m a very old acquaintance of his.”
The name of the club’s owner got his attention. He nodded for her to hand over the cover charge. She gave him the twenty-five-dollar entrance price, and he motioned her to go past him.
Inside, the dance club was wild and crazy. The walls were soundproof, and standing outside, Marty had no idea how high the volume of music was. She had never been to a place like this before as a vampire, and she was fairly certain she had never been to any place like it as a human being. The music pounded in her head, and she could not think. There was hardly room to move because the club had been packed with partygoers from one side to the next.
As she moved between people, around them, and beside them, she felt several men’s hands reach out and touch her butt. There were so many people surrounding her, each time she looked back over her shoulder, whatever man had taken the liberty had already disappeared back into the chaos. Her mental abilities were about to shut down because she heard the thoughts of so many people flying into her brain at the same instant. She couldn’t begin to make out one word they were thinking. It was just a mad cacophony of voices in her head, and they made no sense.
The giant room was built in layers. She had entered on the top layer from the street and was now slowly making her way down into what could best be described as a pit. The further down she maneuvered, the more people there seemed to be, and the louder the music screamed in her ears.
The dance floor was all the way down at the bottom of the pit and encompassed a huge area. However, as Marty made her way lower, not a foot of it was free of the writhing bodies of dancing partiers. The only lights in the huge auditorium-like room came from lights set underneath the dance pit. These were psychedelic lights that made Marty dizzy after watching them for just a few seconds. Hanging over the floor were huge neon-lit letters reading “Rulers of the Night”. She looked down at the material of her top, and in those weird flashing lights, it seemed to have turned purple stained with orange. When she looked at the faces she shoved past in the crowd, she noticed everyone had blue skin in the skipping lights from under the floor.
Suddenly the room was lit with a few moments of blazing light, as two flames of artificial fire shot up through the dance floor, drowning the dancers in its brilliance as it flew up to the ceiling. Marty was frightened by the pyrotechnic show, but everyone around her seemed to be laughing at it and screaming for more fire. Several of the women in the crowd gave mock screams and immediately followed them with peals of laughter. Marty wanted to scream for real.
Halfway down to the floor, a man took Marty in his arms and bent her back for a kiss. His hands even scratched at her breasts above the material of her top. It happened so quick she was too stunned to react, but she could smell the alcohol on the man’s breath.
“Leave her alone, Harry,” another man called to the drunk. “You can’t afford her.”
The drunk faded into the sea of humans as fast as he had appeared and was gone. More flames shot up from under the dance floor. The crowd screamed for still more. Not knowing what else to do, Marty kept pushing her way forward and down toward the dance floor.
She could read the thoughts of the drunk. He had been a human. All of the churning masses of beings around her were readable. They were all human, too. The bouncer out front had been evil but so very human. There were no vampires in this place. She was alone, the only one of her kind.
The waitresses of the club were scantily clad and moved their bodies suggestively as they slinked through the crowd with their orders. Marty got the attention of one of them. She was standing on the fringe of the dance floor and was afraid to venture down any further into the mayhem.
“Excuse me! I’m here to see the owner!” Marty found herself shouting at the top of her lungs to be heard over the roar of dance music. The waitress still could not understand her and had to bend over and listen before Marty’s words could be heard. “Can you please help me? I’m here to see Thorn Fair. Will you tell him someone is here to see him?”
“What’s your name?” the waitress asked.
“Tell Thorn Martha Williams is here to see him.”
“How do you know Mr. Fair?”
“Please just tell him I’m waiting out here to see him. I won’t move from this spot
. I’ll wait for him right here. I think he’ll want to see me.”
The waitress stared at her like she was looking at a mentally challenged individual. Giving only a noncommittal shrug, she moved off into the crowd and got lost. Marty felt her heart sink. There were too many people here, and there was too much confusion. She didn’t know how to navigate in this club, and everything was foreign to her.
She wanted to sit down and longed to be back home in her own kitchen with a tall glass of Owen’s blood concoction. This bizarre nightclub didn’t even seem to have anywhere to sit, only some sideboards from the walls on each level down that could be used to pony up to and set drinks on top of.
Marty began to wonder if perhaps Derrick hadn’t been right after all. Then she turned around and came face-to-face with a man dressed all in black. He smiled at her.
“Hello. I’m Thorn Fair, the owner. Can I help you?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Are you all right?” Thorn met her eyes, and she could not look away from him. She could not answer his question, nor could she even think. Her pupils went wide, and she just watched him as if she was at a great distance and not standing six inches from him in the middle of a crowded, noisy mass of humanity.
“Can I get you anything?” Thorn’s voice was low and calm. When he spoke, she was reminded of waves rolling in from the sea.
“I’m sorry,” Marty said, coming back from herself. “I’m Martha Williams. It’s been a long time. I don’t know if you still remember me, but we knew each other a long time ago.”
He reached out to shake her hand. His grip was so sure and strong, just like the set of his jawbone. Marty felt embarrassed because her palms had been sweating.
“You look curiously familiar,” he said, his voice never leaving its even tempo.
“Do you remember me?” She almost gagged on the question as she waited for his response. “I’m sorry I haven’t found you before now. I had so many…”