The Nightlife: London (Urban Fantasy Romance) (The Nightlife Series)

by Luedke, Travis

  “I don’t stutter mate, you heard me. Get the fuck over to The Rocking Horse club and tell me who these bastards are. Reza’s in the hospital. Can’t bloody talk. He’s sucking mash through a fucking straw.”

  “This has nothing to do with me.” He grimaced when Laura quit teasing and took him full into her warm suction, slurping and working him with her hands.

  “Got everything to do with you. I give you one hour, and then the Keljmendi clan will be lookin’ for you instead of them.”

  “Fine! I’m …” Laura bore down all the way, sucking as hard she could. “I’m coming.”

  He disconnected the call as he filled her mouth with his release.

  Laura came up for air with a sticky wet smile and stripped off her t-shirt to reveal her small handful breasts, pink nipples hard as pebbles.

  “My turn.” She tilted her head to the side and bared her neck, waiting impatiently for her nightly bite.

  Mike had never imagined how easily a woman could become a complete addict for his bite, needing it day and night, like a junky needs a fix. But he couldn’t deny the fact that he thoroughly enjoyed Laura’s attentions, and her money.

  She sat naked before him, a millionaire widower turned whore, her eyes pleading with him to give her what she needed so badly. She had been hooked by the end of their second night together. Within a week she had promised to give him half her inheritance. By the end of the second week she’d been reduced to the level of a sex slave, willing to do anything to please him.

  Vampires are truly nature’s perfect predator. Their prey want to be consumed. They beg to be bitten. Fucking phenomenal. He could spend the entire night screwing and biting Laura until her heart gave out, and she’d love every minute of it. He figured that out the hard way, during his first night with Sarah, the bank teller. The more he bit her, the harder she fucked him. Riding his cock, his head buried in her neck, she just fell over in a damn coronary.

  He had been forced to learn a measure of self-control to avoid killing Laura.

  “Please Michael, stop playing with me. You don’t know what it’s like when you sleep through the day. I go bonkers! I can’t take waiting for you.”

  Laura was starting to cry, tears running down her face. Her hands shook with nervous need as she reached between his legs to stroke his flaccid cock, willing to suck him off again if that’s what he wanted.

  Amazing.

  Never in his wildest dreams did he realize how much power he could hold over women with nothing more than his bite.

  He grinned in genuine pleasure. “If you insist.”

  “Then I insist!”

  Her words trailed off as he pulled her down into a deep bite, caressing her back and tight little ass as she moaned and squirmed in his grip. She came hard, fingering herself in an orgasmic frenzy as he held onto her, sucking down his dinner, fresh, warm and delicious.

  “Oh god! Shit! Don’t stop! Don’t you bloody stop!” She had three fingers jammed inside her, masturbating her sopping wet folds with the temporary insanity of explosive climax.

  The woman was insatiable. He knew if he wanted, he could line up ten men to gang bang her, all at the same time. As long as he continued to bite her regularly, she’d fuck until she collapsed.

  Too bad she wouldn’t last very long. He had really begun to enjoy living with her. And spending her money, of course.

  Drinking deeply from her throat as she spiraled through a convulsive multiple orgasm, she finally flopped on his chest. When she didn’t move, he prodded her. Nothing.

  “Fuck!” He’d taken too much.

  Rolling her over gently onto the bed, he laid his head on her chest and listened to her shallow breathing. Her heart was racing hard and fast, working overtime.

  “Sorry, Laura. I’ll try to be more careful next time.” Might not be too many next times.

  He licked the smear of blood off her neck and kissed her on the cheek before he grabbed his robe to head for the shower.

  Waiting for the water to warm up, he couldn’t help but stare at himself in the mirror, marveling at the wondrous changes to his physique. Love handles gone, the paunch had magically disappeared. He could see every muscle of his torso, ribs too. He still looked his age, mid-forties, receding hairline, but he could have passed for a fitness instructor. He never stopped smiling in the mirror.

  Though it hadn’t been easy, stealing Michelle’s blood was the most inspired thing he’d ever done.

  * * * *

  God, this place was a dive. Mike shook his head at the fact someone could trace him to a hole like The Rocking Horse. He hadn’t thought anyone could pursue his non-existent trail, but he’d stayed low anyways. If only he hadn’t killed that poor woman. He’d seen the reports of Sarah’s death in the newspapers. That had to be related to this, somehow.

  He didn’t even want to think about the idea that this could be related to Paris, to Aaron. And if so, how the hell did Aaron know Mike had survived?

  He’d thought he was dead for sure in Paris. Michelle – that psychotic bitch – had sliced him wide open and strung his guts out on the floor. He barely stayed conscious long enough to scoop them back in. Hardly seemed possible that anyone could survive such trauma to stand here in front of this craphole strip club without a scar to show for it. Vampirism was a god damn miracle. Perhaps he couldn’t be killed.

  He wondered if Michelle had survived. Nah. He filled her with thirteen shots from a Glock. A damn elephant couldn’t survive that.

  He stepped in the door to the strip club and shook off the cold. Definitely a huge difference between here and Vegas. Natives of Vegas had never seen snow. His vacation in London might need to be cut short. Looks like it was time to go home. But if someone was searching for him, Vegas would be an obvious place to look.

  He needed to stay low, flush these people out and figure out how to get rid of the problem. No sense going through life looking over your shoulder.

  Seconds after entering through the front door, a man stood up from a table by the entrance and approached Mike. “About time.” The man looked very much like Reza, older, thinner, perhaps a bit more severe, he could easily be a cousin or uncle.

  “I’m here. There’s no guarantee I have any answers for you, but I am guessing you have some kind of video footage to show me?” Mike had noted several cameras positioned about the place the last time he was here. Someone kept a close eye on this operation. A little overkill, but this was London, the land of cameras on every street corner.

  “Name’s Bresnik. Reza is my third cousin. This is a family operation. We’re not happy about this … disturbance. You understand?”

  Mike nodded and waited silently for him to go on.

  “I have video, and you’ll see it from every bloody angle. But you’re going to tell me who these bastards are and what they want with you. If you’d like to leave here in one piece, you’ll tell me everything.”

  The two juggernauts pretending to hang casually by the front door stepped up behind Mike. He heard their slow, sluggish hearts, probably plagued with high blood pressure, and even higher cholesterol. Definitely no match for him. He could break all three of them. Their weak bones and flesh would sever in his hands. He’d enjoy it immensely. But there was a time and place for such things. Not here, not now. For once in their pathetic lives, these men could serve a purpose.

  “I have nothing to hide. I will help you however I can.” Mike nodded and tried his best to look innocent.

  Bresnik pierced him with a stare. In another life, Mike would have feared this man, but not now. Bresnik played his intimidation card well. “Yes, you will help me. You will tell me everything you know about these bastards.” He nodded towards a side door and then led the way, the two thugs trailing behind them.

  They made their way to an office of sorts, with a wooden desk and two flat-screen PC’s tied into the surveillance system. Bresnik sat behind the desk and motioned to Mike to sit. The thugs stood back in the hallway, door open, watching.r />
  With a few clicks, Bresnik had what he wanted. He turned the screen to face Mike, and here they were, Aaron and Michelle, together, unstoppable. Mike watched the screen, fascinated, as Aaron took out a man near twice his size, and Michelle raked the other man’s face with her wicked razor nails. The same nails that had torn through Mike’s stomach and ripped out his intestines.

  The sight of them filled him with awe, reverence and fear all at once.

  How could she be alive? No one could survive thirteen shots at point blank range.

  “I see you know them.” Bresnik eyed him smugly.

  Mike swallowed down his confusion and breathed deep, trying for some measure of composure. “Yes. Only the young man and blonde. I don’t know the others.”

  His thoughts raced over all the possibilities for how to deal with them. The two vampires together were far more than he could handle. He’d seen the slaughter they were capable of in Las Vegas, what Michelle alone was capable of. He couldn’t take them by himself. Plus, they had friends who seemed just as formidable. Especially the big guy with the build of a professional wrestler. That man moved like a seasoned combat veteran: confident, fearless, lethal.

  Mike needed all the help he could get. He needed the Keljmendi clan.

  “These two, Aaron and Michelle,” he pointed at them on the screen, “they are here for me. But I believe they may have business in London as well. I don’t know the other two women or the big guy. I have never seen them before.”

  Bresnik just watched him quietly, and then revealed a new piece of the puzzle. “The large man is Russian. I suspect he is the one in charge.”

  Mike frowned, not knowing what to make of this. Bresnik waited.

  Mike sighed. He would have to give this man something more to go on. “I followed Aaron and Michelle from Las Vegas to Paris. But it was too dangerous. I abandoned the investigation.” Mike pulled out his private investigator license from the State of Nevada and showed it to Bresnik. “Don’t let their appearance fool you. Aaron and Michelle are killers. Your men are lucky to be alive. These two killed a group of Colombians in Vegas, along with my client, the head of security at Caesars Palace.” Mike would give Bresnik the truth that he needed, the truth he could understand.

  “I am supposed to believe these fucking supermodels with their Russian pimp are killers? Brawlers, yes. Maybe a boxer? This one is very fast.” He pointed at Aaron frozen in a grainy black and white image. “What proof do you have of these things?”

  Mike had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. He hated aligning himself with this kind of man. There is rarely any true benefit to be had from getting cozy with mafia, especially the Albanian mafia.

  But, there seemed no way around it. If he wanted these men to solve his problem, he would have to give them a reason. Like a good soldier, Mike had come prepared for the worst. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a USB flash drive and handed it to Bresnik. “That’s video I filmed in the desert of Vegas. You can see Aaron and Michelle as they burned the bodies of the Colombians. They stole the cocaine and the money, several kilos.”

  Bresnik perked up. “You think they brought it here, to London?” He plugged the USB flash drive into the side of the monitor and clicked through to the video of Aaron and Michelle tossing corpses on a bonfire.

  Mike shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible. They could be trying to set up shop here.”

  Bresnik’s eyes never left the video. The Albanian watched the vampires burn the bodies of the dead, standing there looking like a pair of underwear models, slim and trim, young and beautiful.

  Bresnik scratched the stubble on his unshaven face and slipped his fingers through black, greasy lanks of hair. He scrutinized Mike closely. “So, why are they playing with Russians? Maybe the Russian is helping them move the coke?”

  “That would make sense.” Mike nodded.

  He watched the conclusions forming on Bresnik’s face. He had a pretty good idea of a man like Bresnik’s thought process. The Albanian probably wanted Aaron and Michelle’s heads on a platter, simple revenge. He would probably want any drugs or cash they might have. More, he probably wanted to dig his fingers into any network they might have, including the Russian. Then there were the women of course, he probably planned to cart them off to some shithole brothel in Macedonia. Everyone knows Albanians are the masters of the sex slavery trade across Europe.

  Men like Bresnik were easy to read. Once you understood their lifestyle and business, their motives became underwhelmingly transparent.

  When he left Paris, Mike had thought London would be an interesting vacation. See the sights, get a taste for British blood, but then he had met Laura. The thought of staying had started to look appealing as Laura offered him wealth and property. But now the vacation was over, and Mike’s illusions of a calm, quiet life were swept away in the face of these two murdering vampires determined to hunt him down.

  The fool Albanian who thought he had opportunity on his hands smiled at Mike, one of those reptilian grins full of teeth, but no real mirth. “I imagine the Colombians are still looking for them, no?”

  “I imagine you’re right.” Give the Albanian some points for originality.

  * * * *

  Chapter 11

  Aaron tossed and turned in the hotel bed as a beckoning voice dragging him out of a sound sleep. {{Come to me now. We must talk.}}

  Urvashi dragged Aaron from deep slumber with her compulsory demand. Michelle’s limp, naked limbs were draped around him possessively, as though subconsciously she needed assurance that he’d never leave her again. He slowly slid out from under her, placing a kiss on her cool cheek.

  To someone who didn’t understand, she could easily be mistaken for dead. Their metabolisms slowed to a crawl as they slept.

  He knew instantly it was too early. He sensed the daylight pressing against the blacked-out windows of their suite. One of the most immediate benefits of Urvashi’s blood in his body was a tolerance for daylight. But the heavy fatigue dragged him back down towards sleep.

  {{Wake up. I need to talk to you.}}

  Her powerful demand forced his body to climb out of bed against his own will. He stood, groggy and pissed off. He had once been burnt very badly in the Nevada desert, and he wished never to repeat the experience. Urvashi may have changed him, and daylight could no longer harm him, but Aaron retained a vampire’s fear of the sun. He cringed at the thought of daylight.

  Wrapped in a bathrobe, sluggish with the need to sleep, he trudged down the hallway to Urvashi’s room.

  She opened the door just as he started to knock. “You really must learn to function during the day. The rest of the world does.”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever.” He slumped onto her bed and curled up, tired, wanting to go back to sleep.

  Renault stepped out of the other room attached to Urvashi’s suite wearing a crisp three-piece suit, a snarl on his face.

  Aaron lifted his head. “I thought I smelled wet dog.”

  Renault didn’t bother to answer Aaron’s half-asleep taunt. Though short, compact, and seemingly in his fifties, Aaron knew Renault was much more than he appeared, like everyone else in his life. The man stank of earthy scents and musky animal.

  Renault looked at Urvashi and pretended Aaron didn’t exist. “I will be waiting for you in the lobby.” He wheeled out a heaping stack of suitcases on a cart, Urvashi’s luggage.

  Aaron groaned and shook his head. “He’s part of that wolf pack, isn’t he?”

  “Once, yes. He is a free agent now. They would call him a rogue. But he serves me, and they have no further claim on him.”

  A complicated tale lay hidden in that simplified explanation. Everything with Urvashi was complicated. Renault did play his servant role well. Chauffer, gopher, Renault did whatever she needed done. A manservant straight out of the Victorian era.

  “So, what’s with the luggage? Where are you going?” It bothered Aaron that she would pack up and leave without any real notice. And ye
t Renault knew what was up. Aaron was always the last to know her plans.

  “Moscow. There is an urgent matter I must attend to. You will join me when you’re finished here.”

  Michelle was gonna love that one. He sat up in bed. “What’s in Moscow? And why would we want to go there in the middle of winter?” England had all the cold he could handle. He had heard the tales of Moscow in the winter, of subzero temperatures, ice and snow. “The rest of the civilized world goes south for the winter, not north.”

  “There is a problem with one of your kind, his name is Dmitri. I don’t know what to do about it yet. When I see what’s happening, I will tell you more. But that’s not why I called you here.”

  Hmm, a Russian vampire named Dmitri. How many of us are there? Aaron rubbed his eyes, he really wanted to lie down and crash till sunset, but this was getting interesting. “OK, so what is it?”

  She sat next to him on the bed. Crackling with tingles of power, her hand slid into his. “When you took my blood, you created a connection that can be dangerous for the both of us.”

  “Doesn’t seem like such a bad deal for you. Got a new vampire as your beck and call guy.”

  She smirked and pecked him on the cheek. “There is more to our bond than you know. If something happens to you, it can affect me. You have probably guessed by now, we share more than just thoughts.”

  Aaron had felt her sharing. More like taking. She had definitely been getting something from him, he just didn’t know what.

  “So, what do we share, and what does it mean?” She had him wide awake now.

  “I have not had time to teach you all the nuances. Let me say it simply: every living thing has a certain energy. In Asia they call it Qi. You may have heard of it in other cultures, like mana or pneuma, the yogis of India call it prana. I can sense and manipulate Qi, my own, and that of others. In a way, you could say I feed from it, much like you feed from blood, which is also a form of life energy.”

  He just stared at her, knowing she’d been siphoning off him, wondering what kind of harm she could do to him in the process.