Blood Groove

by Alex Bledsoe

  Suddenly she was on her feet. She pressed her hand against her leg, feeling the dubious comfort of the Mace sprayer. “I have to go,” she blurted. “Thanks for the smokes.”

  “You don’t liked hanging out with the coloreds?” Leo asked almost mockingly.

  “Hey, now, Leo’s our pal,” Tom said defensively. “Don’t be a Klan Fran.”

  “A ‘Klan Fran’?” Ling said. “Did you just make that up?”

  “Sure.”

  Danielle started to reply, but without a conscious decision suddenly dashed off toward the fence, hoping she could find the exit in her still-dotty state. The boys laughed, especially Leo, whose derision almost seemed to follow her. Tears of fright struggled to burst from her eyes, but she held them in check. Time enough for that on the drive home, assuming she lived to reach her car.

  The graveyard became a maze in the dark, and she painfully fell over three tombstones hidden by the shadows. Limping and thoroughly disoriented, she turned a corner around a mausoleum and shrieked in surprise.

  Billy and Olive were locked in a clinch against the wall. Olive looked up, startled. Billy, his back against the stone, didn’t move. His pants were unzipped, and Olive’s right hand curled around his erection.

  At that moment a breeze rustled the trees shadowing them, and the pinkish illumination from above shone full on the black girl’s face. To Danielle’s trained eye, there was no mistaking the gleam of fresh blood on her lips. Then she glanced at Billy. The girl had bitten him in the neck, and two thin trickles bled down onto his shirt and bracketed the “I” in the KISS logo. His eyes were open and glassy, and his mouth worked in soundless gasps.

  Olive chuckled, a wet sound as if it came through fluid still in her throat. Billy ejaculated onto her hand.

  Danielle was about to scream when a strong, ice-cold palm slapped over her mouth and she was yanked back against a tall male body.

  CHAPTER 11

  AT THE SAME moment Danielle locked her car and began her amateur undercover work, Zginski sat in Lee Ann’s vehicle and stared at the illuminated radio dial. The noise it emitted was second only to Lee Ann’s response to it for utterly inexplicable behavior, and for the first time he feared he might not be able to acclimate to this new world of the future. He had tried every rational explanation and found none applied, so at last he turned to her. “May I ask you a question?”

  She stopped tossing her head to the music and answered breathlessly, “Sure.”

  “What is ‘the funk’? And why do those singing tribal people want it?”

  “Singing tribal—oh, you mean the nigras. Yeah, they’re black, and I guess ‘the funk’ is sort of what they call doing the deed.”

  “The deed,” he repeated blankly.

  “You know, the deed,” she said, trying to sound worldly.

  “Ah.” That at least he understood.

  As she parked her battered ’69 Chevy Malibu outside their destination, Lee Ann wondered for the first time if pursuing this sudden crush might not be a good idea. “You mean this is where you’re staying?”

  “It suits my purposes for the moment,” Zginski replied, his voice soft, deep, and smooth. He understood her initial response: even to his eyes, the Graceland Motel was clearly on the low, common end of the spectrum. However, the cash he’d taken from her brother was running out, and this was the only place he could afford. All this would change as he grew more acclimated to this new time and secured funding for the appropriate lifestyle.

  She looked over at Zginski, his eyes hidden in the gloom. Red light from the motel’s flashing neon sign illuminated his lips and chin. The image sent a shiver through her, and all her mother’s warnings about strangers, foreigners, and men in general sprang fresh to her mind. But then she remembered how she felt when he looked at her, and everything faded except that. If he wanted her in a ratty motel room, then he could have her there, in any way he desired.

  He stepped around to the driver’s side and opened the door for her. For the first time he noticed the “G” was unlit in the motel sign. A glowering black man emerged from one of the nearby rooms, spent a moment staring at the two whites, then climbed into a Dodge Charger and squealed tires out of the lot, fishtailing as he entered the traffic to many disgruntled honks.

  The car gave Zginski a rush of visceral excitement unlike any he’d experienced in over two centuries. Mastering the skill of driving looked complicated, but if someone like Lee Ann, a mere woman, could master it, he should be able to do the same. These terrific machines, capable of such bursts of speed and power yet filled with amenities like cool-air generators and small wireless devices that produced music, were the first genuine improvement he’d encountered in this new time. He couldn’t wait to learn the techniques needed to operate one.

  Lee Ann took his arm and they entered room 12, downstairs by the pool. Zginski was desperate to feed on the girl, but he knew the benefits of taking his time. First he closed the drapes so she would not notice his unusual pallor. He’d left the air conditioner off so the room would be warm, and thus his skin not quite so cold and repulsive to her touch. When he looked at her again she stood in the middle of the room enveloped in his full influence, trembling so that her legs could barely support her. He held out his hand, and she put her fingers carefully in it. At the moment of contact she made a little gasp, and he knew she’d experienced female fulfillment. Her face flushed with blood, and he found himself trembling as well.

  “Come to me, Lee Ann,” he said in a low, deep purr.

  “I’m scared, Rudy,” she whispered. “I’ve never felt like this.”

  “Is it your first time with a man?” he asked with a knowing smile.

  “What? No, don’t be ridiculous. It’s just . . . I never wanted it like this. This much. It hurts, almost. Like you’ve put a spell on me.” She managed a smile at her own silliness. “Or maybe a curse. I can’t imagine saying ‘no’ to you.”

  He slid a hand around her waist and pulled her against him. Because of her platform sandals he had to look up into her eyes. She was breathing heavily, and her whole body shivered. He could possess her now in any way he chose.

  “On your knees, Lee Ann,” he said softly.

  With no resistance or comment, she slid to her knees, sat back on her heels, and looked up at him. Her hands rested demurely in her lap.

  “If I told you I was a demon, with the fires of hell in my heart, would you run away?”

  “No,” she said raggedly. She wrapped her arms around herself, but continued to stare into his eyes.

  “If I told you I intended to take the life from you slowly, and that as you grew weaker I would grow stronger, would you flee my presence?”

  “No,” she repeated. Her eyes shone with tears now.

  He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Lee Ann, by your own word I have taken possession of you this night. I will summon you at a moment’s notice, and the pain of not responding will be more than you can bear. I may debase and demean you, and use you in any way I choose. There is nothing you can do to resist me, because I have claimed part of your soul. Do you understand this?”

  “Yes,” she replied promptly, in a child’s voice. The tears spilled forth down her face as she continued gazing up at him.

  He touched her cheek with his fingertips, and again she gasped. His first estimate of her had been correct: beneath the sophisticated trappings of her modern world she was a simple peasant girl, lacking the intelligence and will for even a token resistance. He smiled, now making no secret of his elongated canines.

  “Are y’all really gonna kill me?” she asked softly.

  “Not tonight,” he said. “Now rise, and disrobe.” He wanted to feed before setting out to find the other vampire from the warehouse.

  Lee Ann stood and pulled her loose paisley blouse over her head. She let it fall to the floor, followed by her bra. Zginski sat on the foot of the bed and watched with detached interest, comparing her to the dozens of other women he’d put
through similar rituals. It struck him that despite the amazing technical advances society had made while he was in limbo, a naked woman remained the same treasure to be uncovered. At least no corsets were now involved, nor those voluminous layers and hoop skirts that required teams of servant women to remove. Nor was that horrendous makeup apparently in favor anymore; the girl’s eyelids and lips were painted, but little else. He found he preferred that simpler look. And he’d always hated wigs.

  Finally Lee Ann stood naked before him, sniffling with barely suppressed tears. She kept her hands flat against her thighs, shoulders hunched and head down. The red glow from the sign outside shone through a gap in the curtains and cast a line of crimson light across her throat. He smiled at that. Somewhere another car squealed tires, and voices raised in disagreement momentarily rang out. Lee Ann jumped at the sounds, but otherwise did not move.

  “Stand up straight,” he said.

  She put back her shoulders and raised her chin.

  “Come here,” Zginski said softly.

  As if her feet weighed a ton, she moved to stand in front of him, her navel at his eye level. He put his hands on her waist, and she gasped. He looked up into her face, framed by her falling hair.

  “Do you know what I am, Lee Ann?”

  She shook her head; the ends of her hair brushed her nipples.

  “I am a vampire. Do you know what that is?”

  She nodded. “I seen movies about ’em on TV.”

  He was unsure what she meant by the terms “movies” and “TV,” but clearly she knew what he was. “I have lived for centuries, Lee Ann, and will exist for centuries more.” He brushed her hair back behind her shoulders, displaying her pale breasts. “Tonight I will drink your blood. Not all of it, but enough to replenish my strength. It will not take long. It will weaken you, but not kill you. Do you understand all that?”

  She nodded.

  “I can make you endure it, or enjoy it. The choice is yours.”

  She had to swallow hard before speaking. “I don’t know what ‘endure’ means.”

  He smiled. His hands traveled up her back. “Then I will make certain you enjoy it,” he said, and pulled her down onto the bed.

  As he’d promised, the tryst was brief, and he sent her away with a look of anguish on her young face; he had taken more than mere blood from her, and he knew she would ache for him until he deigned to summon her again.

  Once she’d gone, he quickly hurried through the night to intercept the girl vampire from the warehouse. He was freshly fed and at the height of his powers; she dared not oppose him. And she would serve a purpose very different from Lee Ann’s.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE ARM AROUND Danielle might have been a metal band, for all that her frantic struggles did to move it. The palm clamped over her mouth was cold to the touch, like the touch of the boy Leo, but whoever held her now was considerably taller. Reflexively she tried to scream, and the hand clenched until it felt as if it would crush her jawbone. She froze, all buzz from the dope gone.

  “What the hell, Olive?” Mark demanded, effortlessly holding the struggling woman. He shouldn’t be surprised; if the air depended on Olive’s good sense, they’d all suffocate in five minutes. “I can’t leave you alone long enough to park the fucking truck?”

  She shrugged and nodded at Billy. The boy’s mouth worked silently, and his erect penis bounced up and down on its own, pumping out white fluid. “He’s out of it, don’t worry.”

  “Yeah, what about this one?” Mark nodded at Danielle. “Are you just totally blind? She saw you, and if I hadn’t been here she would’ve screamed her head off by now.”

  Olive shrugged. “I was gonna have her join us, if you hadn’t come along.” She wiped the semen from her hand with the tail of Billy’s T-shirt. “I’d be the fudge between two vanilla wafers.”

  Danielle controlled her panic enough to evaluate her situation. She was a doctor, after all, and knew better than anyone where the human body was vulnerable. She took a deep breath, then with all her strength brought one heel down on the man’s foot while her right hand clutched and then twisted his genitals.

  He did not react. At all. It was like she had grabbed mere leather, or something that felt no pain.

  “Quit that,” he hissed, and squeezed her face hard for emphasis. Her TM joint clicked inside her head as it popped and she immediately stopped fighting. To Olive Mark said, “Where’s Leo and Fauvette?”

  “Leo’s back with his white boys. I thought Fauvette was with you.”

  He frowned. “No, she left before we did, said she wanted some alone time and she’d meet us here.” Her absence was a surprise and, after what happened to Toddy, seriously worried him. “I think just to be safe we better get out of here.”

  Olive stamped like a petulant child. “But we just got here! I’m not through!”

  Mark sighed. “Christ on a stick, Olive, you’ve still got that guy in the back of the truck to go through. And we’ll bring this one,” he added with chilling casualness; Danielle knew he meant her. She renewed her fruitless struggles and tried to scream.

  “Dammit,” Mark muttered as she fought him. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about. He spun her to face him, holding her by the shoulders. She drew a deep breath for a shriek. But it never emerged.

  Instead she looked up into the boy’s eyes and simply, completely, froze. He was handsome, sure, if young and rather soft-looking. But something seemed to reach inside her and wrench feelings that had been completely untouched for too long. It was a level of response Danielle never thought she could experience, and it hit so hard she was thoroughly incapacitated. Aroused didn’t capture the feeling, nor did merely horny. It was desire that went beyond merely physical response, although it certainly included that as well, to an embarrassingly wet degree. Somehow, with no warning or explanation, pleasing this total stranger had become not only the most important thing to her, but the only thing. She had instantly become his willing slave, and the certainty was so total she wanted to cry.

  “Not a word out of you,” Mark warned when he saw the change in her expression. Danielle nodded eagerly, like a child trying to win a brutal parent’s approval. She stood with her fists against her thighs as he pushed past Olive and with a single motion slammed Billy’s skull back against the stone mausoleum wall. The hollow thwock sound made Danielle wince, and clinically she wondered if he’d seriously injured that sweet, clueless boy. But considering the lust raging inside her for her captor, she could spare no more than a passing thought about Billy. She wanted to throw herself on this tall stranger and beg him for it, but that might annoy him, and she didn’t want that. No, not that, ever. Perhaps if she crawled to him . . .

  “Hey!” Olive whined as Billy slid to the ground. “He was mine! I caught him!”

  Mark grabbed Olive by the ear and lifted her onto her toes. “Go get Leo,” he hissed. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “Why?” Olive said, drawing it out in a petulant whine and swatting at him. “Because of Fauvette?”

  “No, because of Toddy. Something’s going on, and I don’t want to be caught out in the open.”

  Olive pushed out her lower lip in a pout; blood trickled down her chin. “Okay, fine,” she said, and Mark released her. She turned to go, but Mark spun her back and wiped her bloody lips with his hand. She grinned, delighted, and took off into the night.

  Then he returned his attention to Danielle. She looked so pitiful to him, wracked with a need she could neither comprehend nor identify, that he felt sorry for her. “Look, you’ve really caught a bad break here,” he said as he touched her cheek. She sighed, a shuddering cry that left no doubt what the contact had done to her. “You’re going to die before sunrise, probably slowly and painfully, and believe it or not I’m really sorry about it. But it can’t be helped.”

  Danielle swallowed, her breath shallow. She’d never experienced an orgasm like the one that just shot through her, and she could barely stay on her feet.
“Please,” she pleaded, although she could not be sure if it was for her life or for another climax like the last one.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. Forty years of seeing this should’ve rendered him more immune to it, but he still felt like a heel. Maybe someday it would no longer bother him.

  Olive returned with Leonardo. “What?” Leo demanded belligerently, hands loose at his sides.

  “Nobody’s seen Fauvette,” Mark said. “She should be here. After what happened to Toddy—”

  “Will you shut up about that?” Leo said, annoyed. “That little cracker deserved what he got. No loss, if you ask me. And it sure ain’t a good enough reason to call me off before dinner.”

  “Leo, think about it. Remember what the paper said? He just dropped over in an alley. Nobody staked him, nobody dragged him into the sun. And he didn’t catch up on his lost years. Something weird is going on.”

  Even over the roar of her hormones, Danielle understood enough of the conversation to be astonished. Found in an alley, the reference to “lost years” . . . the coincidence was gigantic, but could this “Toddy” really be Todd Crealey? She gritted her teeth against the desire to touch the boy she helplessly lusted after and tried to summon the courage to speak aloud, to confirm her suspicions. She failed.

  Leo scowled. “Yeah, I know,” he said, his anger fading. “Crossed my mind, too. You think maybe somebody killed him in some new way?”

  “I don’t have a fucking clue. But until we know more, and until Fauvette shows up, I say we get back to the warehouse, take care of this girl”—he nodded at Danielle—“and lay low for a while.”

  Now Leo turned and looked at Danielle, far more intently than he had at the gazebo. The scrutiny terrified her anew. “Hey, who the hell are you, anyway? I know Billy and his pals. Never saw you before.”

  She swallowed hard. “My name’s Danielle,” she said.

  “And what you doing here?”