by Stella Blaze
A scent caught his attention—and the undivided attention of his beast. There was blood, still wet, no more than a drop, under his fingernail. I must have scratched her neck.
But then that scent kicked in, and his beast rose up, roaring with wanton hunger.
It was the blood that had drawn and beckoned him to this city; the blood that had kept his beast here, even when it wanted nothing more than to leave.
It was the witch…she was what he’d been looking for all along.
He took his finger into his mouth and licked and sucked the nectar from it. And though the beast inside him went crazy at the taste, something deep inside him sparked, just for a moment, an entity Luca didn’t know how to describe.
Something that brought joy, and terrible pain, with it. Something impossible.
But that flicker of flame vanished as quickly as it had come.
Next time, he told his beast, ducking down a dark alley. Next time more than just a taste!
Chapter 3
Min stood still as stone, the flesh of her palm still burning—the fireballs always gave pain along with their protection. She watched as the vampire swaggered down the street and disappeared into the night. Bastard!
She’d needed the adrenaline rush. After hours holed up in the shop, rummaging through those old texts, she had one hell of a headache, tired eyes and a crick in her neck. The close call with the gorgeous yet deadly vampire had washed away all her aches and pains.
She cringed just at the thought of what she’d done. As soon as she’d seen the vampire she should have taken the blonde and herself back into the shop and bolted the door. Not that that would’ve stopped him, but to go toe to toe with the creature on the open street had been sheer stupidity. What the hell was I thinking?
Truth-be-told she should have just let the vampire have the girl. It hadn’t been any of her business—she’d been walking around at night, defenseless…
No, no, no…no one asks to be attacked and eaten by a creature of a nightmare. She couldn’t have left her to fend for herself. It wasn’t like she stalked around the city with a cape, rescuing damsels in distress and little old ladies from the riff-raff scum of the earth. But she would be damned if she would let it happen right in front of her nose.
Not the smartest or safest way to live.
A flash of how fast he’d moved upon her slipped through her mind. He could have killed her, had her drained and been off hunting down Blondie before Min’s corpse even hit the concrete.
The feel of his touch, how something inside him had somehow connected with something in her, made her tremble. Every cell in her body wanted him, instantly, soulless demon or not.
She shook her head and tried to dislodge such stupidity.
Why had she gone for scorching the pavement when she should have gone for the kill? Her mother and grandmother had taught her better. Vampires were animals. Filthy, soulless, and single minded. If it wasn’t sex, it was food, gorging on blood when they weren’t committing carnal debauchery.
But this one was different. This one hadn’t killed her. He’d wanted to scare her. So he was one of those fiends that liked to play with their food before they ate it?
A moment of heated insanity welled up inside Min and made her pulse pound in her throat and her body tighten in all the wrong areas. She felt herself quiver just thinking how it might be to be with a vampire—all that preternatural strength…all that bloodthirsty passion.
“It would be wild,” she whispered to herself.
“Shit...” the blonde said from behind her.
Min had forgotten all about her. At least she’d obeyed and stayed quiet and out of the way while Min took care of the big bad vampire...
Yes, that’s right. He is the big bad vampire, and to play with such a thing is madness…suicide…what’s wrong with me? Min closed her eyes and took in a big breath, trying to gather her wits and center herself. Don’t be stupid! Don’t be stupid! Don’t be stupid!
But he’d been so mouthwateringly handsome…no, he’d been freaking beautiful. And the look on his face when she’d burned his chest and set him on fire? He hadn’t looked angry. He’d looked turned on. And that moment when he’d touched her? It was like electricity in her veins. There was something vaguely familiar about it, as if his touch had been…had been something she’d been waiting for. And now that he’d touched her, she wanted him to touch her again.
Min sighed, rolled her eyes and turned to face the bug-eyed blonde. “Why don’t I walk you home?”
The girl was alternating her terror-stricken eyes from where the vampire had vanished, to Min’s hands. “What was that? And what was he?” her tone was frightened, but a little pissy. That gained her points in Min’s book. Being able to get bitchy in the face of monstrous creatures of the night took guts.
Min turned back to the magic shop and locked the door, then waved her hands. “That was a fireball.” Then she shrugged in the vampire’s direction. “And he was a vampire.”
Blondie gulped as her eyes bulged out even further. “Oh!”
Min smiled. “Any more questions?” The blonde shook her head an adamant no. Min patted her on the shoulder and then headed her down the street, her eyes ever vigilant. “Well then, let’s get you home.”
~*~
His flesh had almost healed by the time Luca returned to his lair, changed his clothes, and then came back to pick up the witch’s trail. It still hurt, and it would until he woke completely rejuvenated the next night. He smiled at the little pain. It made him think of her.
He found them both still walking south on Vine Street. He could never get over how slow humans were. He himself could not pull up those long forgotten human moments. Everything after his transformation to vampire was crystal clear, if not painfully vivid. But his human life was lost to him. All but a few faded, dubious images remained.
He could hear their every word, though the blonde kept her mouth shut, and the witch was busy keeping an eye out for him. He could still hear the blonde’s heart inside her chest, racing still with fear. Its beat fluttered at every stray sound.
But he couldn’t hear the witch’s heart. She was human, he could smell that clear enough. But somehow her heartbeat was mute to him. He shook his head. Unimportant. What is important is following her home to watch her there. The better he knew her, the better he could hunt her, the better he’d be at seducing her when the time came.
~*~
Min stood at the door to the blonde’s apartment building. A rundown husk of a building, yet the walls were of stone, and the windows were good. It would keep its inhabitants warm and safe, if nothing else.
Blondie took her keys out of her purse and then hesitated before walking up the steps to the front door. “What if he’s waiting for me?”
“His kind can’t get in if they’re not invited.”
The blonde looked at Min mystified.
“Just don’t invite him in,” Min snapped. “You’ll be fine.”
The blonde shook her head and grasped the sleeve of Min’s jacket. “I saw what he can do.”
You have no idea...
“There’s no way I can defend myself against that.” She wouldn’t let go of Min’s sleeve.
Min reached out and pried the blonde’s hand from her jacket and then handed it back to her. “Just stay in at night for a week or two. By then I’ll have taken care of him.”
“But how can you know—”
“He’s after me now.” The prickling truth of what she’d just said froze Min to the core. What have I gotten myself into? “So, don’t worry. You’re safe. Just stay inside for a while and it’ll all blow over.”
“Really?” The blonde sounded so relieved.
I should belt you in the teeth right now! But instead Min said, as reassuringly as she could, “Really.”
The blonde threw her arms around Min and pulled her tight into an uncomfortable yet heartfelt embrace. Ah, cripes. Next she’ll be naming her cat after me!
~*~
The vampire watched as the witch left the blonde at her apartment building, watched as she strode quickly yet elegantly along the sidewalks. Her boots clicked neatly as she crossed streets. Her dark silk skirt billowed, and her long leather coat whipped behind her like a cloak. Her gait never lengthened, her pace never quickened. She wasn’t acting afraid. But, then again, she hadn’t stopped to call him out from the shadows, either.
Luca moved in behind her, maybe twenty feet back, and fell into step with her as she turned a corner and headed heedlessly down a long, dank stretch of urban jungle. He was not the only monster out that night: drug dealers, pimps, gangbangers, corrupt cops.
Luca picked up his pace. He wanted to reach out and shake her. It was fine for him to want to kill her; he was almost positive he was going to bring her back as one of the undead. He would have to work fast—ridicule her and dodge her fireballs…and anything else she could find to drop on his head.
But as he picked up his pace, so did she. Odd… He hadn’t expected her to bolt. She seemed so self-possessed and bold. Rushing away from a pursuer, even a killer vampire, didn’t seem like something she would do.
He started to run, using his preternatural speed to catch up to her. But still he could not overtake her. She didn’t seem to be running, merely walking at a normal gait. Luca stopped and listened. The witch’s breathing hadn’t quickened. And then he sniffed the air.
Nothing.
He stopped and gritted his teeth. No perfume, no flesh, no blood.
Whatever it was he’d chased, whatever it was that walked away from him even now, it wasn’t her.
A glamour! He chastised himself. This one is tricky...
Chapter 4
When Min got home she pulled her thick, oak front door closed and threw the latch, the dead bolt, and the chain. But it would take more than just that to keep a persistent vampire at bay. Sure, if you didn’t invite them into your home they couldn’t just come in. But they could throw things through windows—burning, smoking, poisonous, exploding things. And then your house would be on fire, and when you ran out to escape the flames, voila! They got you.
So she had to think up some protective spells, and quick. Maybe conjure up something big and mean and wolfy to play watchdog. Could she create a bulletproof, twenty-foot high wall around the house on the fly?
Maybe I should move?
But then she took a deep breath and sighed. She’d never leave this house. And no blasted vampire was going to drive her out of it either. After all, a twinge of excitement ignited in her heart, making the back of her neck itch, he’d look so good naked, up in my room, on my bed. Damn good.
You’re really going to do this—this astonishingly stupid thing—aren’t you?
Min stopped and looked about her, at the house she’d grown up in, the house she now lived in all alone…practically.
Yep, she was going to do it.
Min walked back to the kitchen and into the pantry. There, behind the Oreos and the belladonna, she found the family “Recipe Book,” otherwise known as the grimoire. Grandmother had called it her Cicatrix. But her mother had thought calling it a scar was nasty, so she renamed it the “Recipe Book.”
Min thought of it as her best friend, something that never let her down, that had taught her so much more than even her grandmother and mother, and that had saved her life on twenty-six separate occasions.
As she rubbed her neck and found a thin line of her own blood on her fingers, she was praying to the pestilent gods that tonight it would be twenty seven.
~*~
Luca doubled back to Vine Street, and then started off in the direction the witch had been headed before her glamour had led him astray. And at first he did smell the witch’s scent, her hot blood. But not even a block later he lost it, the trail going cold as his mind raced for an explanation.
Maybe she had magicks that could cloak her scent?
No. She would have used it all along, or might have doused her glamour with her scent to keep him running after her.
What she had done, Luca figured out just before he lost his mind, was double back herself. She’d led him in the wrong direction, and then she cast her charm, making him go the wrong way.
That would give her enough time to get home. Clever witch.
Once in her own home she would be safe. He could not enter unless she lost her mind and invited him in. But there were ways of getting around that. Luca smiled as he remembered throwing a bag full of live snakes in through the window of one hapless girl. How he’d caught one delectable widow’s son just before he made it to his mother’s door. He’d used the yowling child as bait, and the widow had run out heedlessly to save the boy.
Luca had eaten them both.
So, clever or not, Luca was sure that once he tracked this witch down, getting her back into the clear night air would be easy.
What was hard was going back to the cold trail to try and follow it again. No sooner had he caught a strong, fresh whiff of her, than the trail evaporated, and he was left brooding again.
He turned back around and slowly paced up the street until it came again. There was fear in that scent. And something else; pure, unadulterated lust. Luca licked his lips and inhaled deeply. He would have her, and tonight!
As if the scent of her blood was pulling him along by his nose, he slipped in through a side yard, over a gate, down a short, dark alley, and out onto a neighboring street. The scent became stronger, richer, and his strides came longer and faster. He was close. The scent saturated the very air and enfolded him in luscious torment.
~*~
The witch’s house sat on the corner of Temperance and Independence Avenues: a tall brownstone, with a wrought iron gate that surrounded its inadequate yard. The roof was pitched with gables, a widow’s walk and even a turret. There was a green man carved in stone affixed over the front door. A pagan touch, a mark of protection—but not from what Luca was.
He stood there in the shadows of a neighboring house and watched the witch, her unrushed, confident movements. She was simply getting ready to go to bed. He could see her in a second story window as she brushed her hair. He could have watched her for hours. Her every move was addictive to the eye.
Abruptly though, the witch peered out at him…from every window in the house. He felt a shudder of surprise ripple inside him. But he liked surprises. So he smiled and tipped his head to the cunning witch. He hadn’t taken his eyes from the building for more than a second, yet when he looked back there were twice as many windows aglow with light. And each boasted a lovely vision of the witch.
Fruitlessly Luca realized he didn’t know where the real windows were now. That would make forcing her out of the house far more problematic. Sneaky…very sneaky.
The image of the witch in the nearest downstairs window brought a telephone up to her ear.
Is she really calling the police? She can’t honestly believe they could do anything…except die. The thought of the witch showing such disregard for human life excited him.
A phone rang from about twenty feet behind where the vampire stood. He smiled at the witch—it was her turn to nod. He slowly turned to find a payphone directly behind him. Had it been there a moment ago? Was she powerful enough to conjure things out of thin air?
Probably not. His attention had been on watching her…or at least the image of her that she had wanted him to see, that he hadn’t noticed before. He strode carefully over to the phone and gently picked up the jangling receiver. Luca brought the device to his ear, yet said nothing.
When he turned back to the house all the windows were dark, except the one which held the phone-wielding witch.
“So what’s your name, vampire?” Her accent was thicker now. Obviously she’d pared it down to blend into this new world. But now that she was confronting an old evil, she let it flow freely.
“I’m known as Luca…but you can call me master.”
The witch’s laugh was robust and infectious, and she had
the loveliest smile—so sweet, but her eyes rolled toward the ceiling.
“I’m sorry,” she chuckled. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but you’re a complete ass!”
It shouldn’t have made him angry. He really wasn’t that thin skinned. But she was laughing at him. That overt slight made his blood burn in his veins.
“And your name?”
“Min,” she said.
“Well, Min…when I sink my teeth into your lovely neck, you won’t be laughing then. You’ll be begging for your life!”
The witch stopped laughing, but her radiant smile didn’t waver in the least. “Maybe…but I’d wager you don’t have the balls to make me do anything but laugh at you.”
The witch’s words stung. They made heat ripple off his cold skin. He hadn’t felt such a hunger for vengeance in so long he didn’t recognize it at first. She was baiting him, no doubt. But to his detriment, he was falling for it.
She shook her head slowly, that maddening smile still beamed through from the window.
“It’s too late,” she protested. “I’m already dressed for bed.” Luca noticed the witch was wearing a silky blue robe, cinched around the waist. Lace whispered its secret underneath. “But why don’t you come inside?”
“Come inside? Are you seriously—”
“Inviting you, a vampire, into my home? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You’re invited to come in…” Suddenly there was the crackle of fireworks from somewhere to the vampire’s left. His eyes only averted for a moment, and seeing nothing he looked back to find that every window in the house had disappeared. All that remained was the hard, brown stone of bricks.
“That is,” she purred into the vampire’s ear…the wrong ear to come from the telephone receiver, “if you can get in.”
The connection went dead.