“Damn!” Shiny B raced his zipper closed and walked out.
Wilma leaned against a wall and her body seemed to dangle. She didn’t appear as hot anymore in such a weak state, and a droplet of blood fell from her nostril. She quickly plugged it with her thumb, looked up, and smiled at him. “All done powdering my nose.”
She waltzed over and hooked her arm around his, and he had a pretty good idea what she powdered her nose with. Now, he could find out who gave it to her.
He steadied her on her feet. “Looks like a sick time you’re having all by yourself, baby.”
“Oh, you can’t handle this!” She was belligerent; she fired her forefinger at him and nearly toppled over, then stepped back and shimmied her hips. “Besides, you’re a cop!”
A couple walked up at that moment, but turned and high-tailed it back toward the dance floor. The guard at the employee’s lounge widened his feet for balance and crossed his arms. Shine balled his lips. Fuck! Wilma wasn’t giving up any leads and was blowing his cover. He rushed her toward the blue steel door, and Tank let them out into the parking lot.
The motion lamps turned on as Shine dragged Wilma to his car. She giggled and fondled every part of him she could reach. He whipped out his keys and deactivated the alarm. He was thankful Daniels was stationed out front to watch for any “investor” types that showed up. One thing worried him, though. If he took too long with Wilma, Daniels might come looking for him—which meant he had to make it quick. Shine yanked the rear door open and patted Wilma’s ass as she entered, hands and knees on the seat of the car. He slipped in behind her and closed the door.
Five minutes later, the windows were fogged over from the warmth of their breath and the cooler evening air. He managed getting the condom on despite Wilma’s aggression. It was the same behavior Karen Holt exhibited before she was shot in the head.
Wilma now straddled him and slipped him inside her. So much for giving her pussy a promised lick, he thought. Damn, oh well... he’d imagine later, when it would come handy on lonely nights. He gargled a satisfied groan as she plunged downward. She rode him fast and hard, banging. Her breathing carried soft shrieks throughout the car. She slammed her palms against the roof and arched her back, taking him deeper.
He craned his neck forward and sucked the flesh of her small, firm tits. His fingertips sank into the softness of her buttocks as he squeezed and hung on for dear life. The ride was as wild as he’d anticipated. His face pressed against her flat stomach rippling with worm movements. She was wearing him out! He could feel her tighten around his dick and nearly bending it in half.
To delay the inevitable, he thought about Daniels. He played out in his mind he was in trouble and needed his partner’s help. It didn’t work. Heat flush inside his chest and washed down into his abdomen. An electrifying charge traveled through him to the tip of his cock.
All these were delightfully welcomed—except a few symptoms he couldn’t explain. There was an arthritic ache in his joints, then a tearing sensation in the skin. It felt as if his bones were extending like they had when he changed in Purgatory and attacked Warner. The good thing was the pain helped refrain ejaculation.
Where Daniels was parked he had a bird’s eye view of the front and rear exits of the club. Shine wiped a clear spot on the window and looked out. He saw Daniel’s door open and him step out; Daniels then trotted across the intersection toward the entrance.
This was getting dangerous. Shine had to get back inside the Blue Ember. He caught a glimpse of his hand against the glass and in the dark saw his fingers were longer. “Shit!” He tried to wiggle from underneath Wilma, but she slammed harder on him.
“Yeah, niggah!” Sweat trickled from her face onto his. “I’m coming,” she squealed over and over again.
Shine’s nuts ballooned and the electrifying sensation was now in his torso. He groaned with a false mixture of pain and pleasure. This was wrong. Something besides lust laddered inside him and wrenched his gut, cutting his gums at the same time so it felt like tissue shredding. There came a gnawing need—hunger—growing within. He grabbed Wilma by the hips and attempted to shove her off to save her from whatever he was becoming. She entangled her arms around his neck and plunged him inside her to the end. He squeezed her in an embrace as he shot his load, every warm drop of semen filling her.
Then, he threw his head back and opened his mouth. He let out a snarling growl that was alarming until he recognized it as his own. His eyes widened with a tension that made them bulge from their cavities, and he lunged forward.
“Oh, mother fucker,” she screamed as he bit the side of her neck, his fangs sinking into her veins. “We doing it like that?” Her body trembled as she reached orgasm. Her strides slowed to an easy gallop, and she moaned softly.
He didn’t know if he was killing her. He couldn’t stop drinking her blood if he wanted to. He was starved. Listening to her moans escalate into whimpers he continued to drain her.
Another ten seconds and her pussy vibrated in spasms, and she came to a dead stop.
Daniels had made his way through the dance floor and scouted the bar. He’d even checked the rear hall near the employees’ lounge when he came to the conclusion Detective Shine was nowhere to be found. He was now at the blue, steel panel in the hallway when he made the guard let him out. He immediately spotted Shine busying himself at the rear of his car, shutting the trunk.
“There you are!” Daniels’ heart pumped faster with anger. “What the hell happened in there?” Shine ducked out of sight and Daniels stormed closer. “Hey, man, are you all right?”
Shine heard Warner in his head clear as day. Rule number three: everything you do has immediate consequences. He waited for what undoubtedly came next, for Daniels to see the beast he’d become. He hoped darkness aided in hiding the stains. He wiped Wilma’s blood from his mouth and smeared his hands on his pants. Time slowed and the hunger had ceased by the time he finished getting her limp body in the trunk.
But the rage—the urge to tear up anything in his path—was uncontrollable! And now, it would only be a matter of seconds before Daniels saw his buggy eyes… his red, sticky claws and fangs. He couldn’t let that happen. Shine kept his head down, hunched his shoulders, and rushed toward the driver’s side as Daniels’ footsteps encroached.
“Sir, what’s wrong?” Daniels had nearly touched him before he slipped away.
Music grew louder in the lot, and he looked at the rear exit. The blue panel opened and Tank let an undercover officer walk out. Daniels then glanced back and the old Chevy Impala revved its engine then screeched off.
The NARC coming out the club was a tall, lean man who’d previously moved in on Shine’s dance, and later ran into him in the bathroom. He stepped up to Daniels and put his arm around his waist. “Was that Detective Shine?”
“Yeah,” Daniels answered.
“Weird.” The officer cupped Daniel’s cheek and positioned his face to his. He pressed his mouth against Daniel’s full lips and slipped his tongue inside passionately. He felt his him embrace him, tasting him in return but soon pull away.
“We can’t,” Daniels said. “We’re on duty.”
“Officer Reynolds reporting for duty.” He saluted him, then sighed when he got no response. “Right, well, we better get out front then. Raid squad’s on their way.”
Daniels faced him quickly. “What?”
“Yeah, that fat chick I’ve been dating for weeks turned up a lead. Schnecke, Holt, and some guy called Jo-Jo are in deep with Demetri and the Polish gang. A meeting with the Poles is going down tonight, only a matter of time.” Reynolds searched Daniel’s blank eyes. “Hey is Shine going to be okay?”
“I don’t know, but I better give him a call and update him on what’s going on.”
“Good idea. Tell him he almost screwed up earlier, moving in on my girl like that.” He waited and while Daniels appeared to be listening to nothing but ringing, he said, “He acted like he didn’t recognize me. Maybe
it was part of the undercover act, but—”
“Voice mail.” Daniels left a message for Shine. He relayed the latest Intel on the sting operation then hung up. “Done. Let’s get back inside and work our way through.”
Chapter Six
Shiny B ignored the call lighting up the navigation system’s panel. He sped onward to Hillside Housing, which he called home temporarily. Along the way he fought the anger brewing inside him. He wanted to slam someone’s head against a wall—blast a hole in a cop like the one who’d always given him grief when he was truly alive—maybe the corrections officer who called him “nigger” before strapping him into the electric chair.
Shiny B didn’t understand why he had these urges, until he recalled what he read in the medical reports. On the way to the Blue Ember that morning he learned victims of X-ibit had to release their impulses. Then it all made sense. Wilma had used, and he’d drank her blood.
“Fuck!” He smacked his palm against the steering wheel as he ran a red light. Horns blared at him from the intersection.
This is what Warner meant by consequences. Shiny B had taken his mind off the task at hand, and now he was tripping on some new age, blue shit. He had to regain control.
He raced along Hillside Avenue and screeched to a halt, swerved into an empty space in front of the motel and turned off the ignition. He sat for a moment, breathing heavily, and stared at his elongated fingers and razor-sharp nails. When he finally glanced in the rear view mirror, he saw himself as a vampire for the first time. Pupils enlarged and black as soot, his brown lips cracked and tinged with smears of blood. Warner wasn’t kidding when he’d said he was an ugly one!
Shiny B ripped his mobile from the deck and the keys from the ignition. His claws got in the way of putting them in his pocket so he held onto them. The dampened sounds of knocks from the rear of the car caught his attention. The beast in him made him snarl instinctively at movement coming from the back. He popped the trunk with the lever underneath the seat, then snatched his door open.
He got out and locked up, then hurried to the rear. “Wilma?” he called with grainy voice and lifted the hood.
She lunged at him and shrilled like a preying hawk, sprang onto the bumper in a squat position, and lashed her hand across his face. He growled fiercely from the sharp sting and touched the gash across his cheek. Wilma seized the opportunity to spring from the vehicle in a wild leap and landed on her feet in the middle of the street.
His heart raced as he stared at the abomination he created out of his lust. Her large, ebony eyes glared at him with the same uninhibited thirst for blood as he had. Teeth protruding unnaturally from her jaws, saliva trickled from the tips of her fangs hanging over her split lips. She stood with her shoulders hunched and arms spread. Her breath was shallow and rapid, and Shiny B somehow knew this was attack mode.
He mimicked her and puffed up in a bestial stance of intimidation. “Wilma!”
She shrieked at him, and he looked around for any witnesses. The street was empty, only shadows cast by the street lights and the glow of the motel’s neon sign.
He lowered his shoulders and his size deflated. “I’m sorry!” He reached out toward her while kneeling. “It’s alright, let me give you something.” He placed his phone and keys on the ground then reached upward his neck and removed Warner’s necklace. He held it out and moved slowly in her direction.
Wilma squint her eyes—gave him an ominous smirk, an offbeat smile as if she knew he was offering her help but didn’t want it. She darted off down the block, her legs running almost too fast to be seen. Within seconds, she’d reached the corner and was gone in a flash.
“Shit!”
Shiny B remained motionless, dumbstruck at her ability. Warner never told him that could be done! Now what? He wondered if he should go after her. But where the hell did she go? He could possibly sniff her out, but then? What would he do with her, if he got her?
“Fuck!” He got his belongings and managed to put them in his jacket instead of his pants.
The feeling of defeat was undeniable. He’d done enough damage for one night and had to consider the consequences. He was stoned. No idea what the backlash on that was. He committed murder—made her a vampire—and now that bitch was on the loose. If all that wasn’t bad enough, he realized his next problem: How could he enter the motel as a monster and get his room key from the Korean woman?
Next to the building he spotted a narrow alley. In total blackness he crept through and bumped into tin garbage cans. When they rattled, the noise scared off a few stray cats that hissed and growled. Shiny B’s neck-hairs bristled when the animals brushed past, and he snarled impulsively. He had to get a grip, he thought, had to embrace what was left of his humanity. He took deep breaths, ran his claws alongside the bricks and found the end of the fire escape ladder.
He climbed in on the second landing stairwell and had gone back down a flight to his floor. By the time he got inside room 171, he was exhausted. He peeled off his jacket and tossed it on the cot-like bed then sat beside it, with his face in his palms. He felt different and glimpsed at his hands. They were normalizing, and his nails were much shorter. The urgency to bash skulls was practically gone. He was tapped out of the adrenaline rush. The exertion from fucking Wilma and then their confrontation, followed by scaling a crappy ladder done him in. Or, he was coming down from his inadvertent high on X-bit.
Either way, he had a case to solve and a blue door in Purgatory to complete. He rose and got his mobile from his blazer, then phoned Daniels back. “Sorry about that.” He had to speak over Daniel’s fussing. “I got sick, really bad.”
He then learned the latest on their murder victim. The homicide team visited Karen Holt’s known relatives and friends. She had a fair share of lovers, but no one could specify any boyfriend in particular. The department tracked down those she’d been dating and was getting their statements.
Meanwhile forensics finding blood with Holt’s DNA in the parking lot that afternoon only corroborated testimony she’d been shot outside. Without any evidence against Tynard Simmons for murder, the precinct had to release him in the morning.
“Anything else?” Shiny B shook his head. “Naw, I ain’t coming back there tonight. Yeah, I got my phone on now, so holler at me after the raid goes down.”
Daniels hung up and locked eyes with Reynolds. “We’re on our own.” He slipped his mobile in his pocket and leaned against the bar as Reynolds handed him a drink. “Thanks.”
“So, what was his problem?”
“Sick.”
“Hey, hey, hey…” He tapped Daniels’ arm and singled out the woman he’d tailed earlier. “She’s making her move.”
Daniels looked and saw her dancing toward the rear hall. “That’s it. You stay here,” he said. “I’ll follow her. Give me five minutes then call squad.”
He allowed the woman some leeway as she traipsed toward the ladies’ room, then rushed closer when she entered. He stopped the door with his foot, and a blanket of heat escaped through the crack.
The smell of perspiration mingled with combatant perfumes. It was borderline nauseating. He peeked in but couldn’t see past the tiled wall in front of him. He glanced to his left and a broad mirror gave him a clear view.
Two couples made love on the floor. Another man stood and plowed his woman from behind as she lay on a vanity top. In a corner a woman sat on a red velvet love chair, her legs spread and nails dug into the cushions. She squealed loudly while her lesbian lover ate her pussy.
Daniels’ jaw drop—his head wobbled in disbelief—was he really seeing this? He finally closed his mouth when he found his unsuspecting target knocking on a stall. A petite hand reached out and collected her money. A few seconds later the fingers delivered a small baggie.
The detective quickly removed his foot and hustled back while pulling out his cell. He placed an inconspicuous call to Reynolds, a bunch of riled women passing him and heading to the bathroom.
“Go! Go!
Go!” he whispered. “Women’s bathroom in the rear. You won’t believe what they’re doing in there. Hey, remember to tell them to search Schnecke’s desk for hidden compartments.” He hung up and ran out onto the dance floor. There, many seemed to mimic what was taking place in the restroom, only with their clothes on.
Daniels met up with Reynolds and made a beeline for the front corridor and entrance. They slipped out, apologizing as they pushed through the mass of clubbers trying to get in.
Outside the officers retreated into Daniel’s car across the street, and he settled behind the wheel. Reynolds looked at him. “Are you going to tell me what you saw?”
He faced him and replied, “X-ibit—and exhibiting they were!” He chuckled and continued, “They were in there fucking like animals.”
“An orgy?” His eyes widened while Daniels nodded. “Damn, I knew I should’ve gone!”
“Here we go.” Daniels motioned toward the armored vans zooming up to the curb.
Julio MENDEZ hid in a crowd fleeing through the rear exit of the Blue Ember. He spotted a black Hummer, and J grabbed his arm. “Pappi, that’s us right there.”
He led him to the vehicle—the back door swung open, an answer to freedom as if on sheer mental command, and they hopped inside. Julio was squashed in the middle, no time to get comfortable as the Hummer sped off with tires screeching. To his left was a Polish man whose knees pressed the rear of the driver’s seat. He was dressed in all black and had a chiseled-face and a slick, blond ponytail crescent on his shoulder.
Julio observed the male passenger up front remained quiet, elusive, not so much as a peek back at him and J.
“Perfect timing like always, Pete.” J patted the driver’s arm. “This mishap couldn’t come at a better time.”
Piotr Balik spun the wheel right, taking the bend sharply. He then fixed his icy-blue eyes on J through the rear view mirror. “Things might not be so bright,” came his deep voice with an accent, “when Demetri hears about this.”
Blue Door (The Colored Doors Series) Page 4