* * *
Catherine Williams, who’d decided to quit using the diminutive Cathy when she turned twenty-one years old the day before, carefully applied the finishing touches to her makeup while she stared at her reflection in the mirror of her bathroom.
Not too bad, she thought, giving herself a slow, sexy wink. The azure eye shadow picked up the blue in her eyes and made them seem larger and more sparkling, and the bright red splash of her lipstick caused her lips to seem fuller and poutier. Just the look she was trying to achieve. This would be her first night out as an adult, able to drink liquor with her friends without resorting to the fake identification she’d been carrying for the past two years.
Her boyfriend, Ronny, had told her he had to work late tonight at the Burger King where he was assistant manager, but that he’d meet her at the club as soon as he was done.
She pouted her red lips, and then she smiled. Well, she’d show him. She might just meet someone else before he got there and it would serve him right. He knew how much this night meant to her. He’d wanted to sleep with her for months now, and she’d managed to put him off by telling him she wanted to wait until her birthday to lose her virginity. And then the selfish clod decided his job was more important than she was. Who knows? She might even meet a medical student or a law student—someone with more potential that a glorified burger-flipper.
She adjusted her dress, leaving the top two buttons open to show just the right amount of cleavage, which was helped along by the push-up bra she’d bought yesterday.
The doorbell rang, signaling the girls were downstairs and ready to take her out for a night on the town. She worked at Baylor College of Medicine in the dean’s office and all the other secretaries there had promised to show her off at the club where the medical students hung out.
She gave herself one last glance, then ran down the stairs for the most important night of her life.
* * *
Morpheus entered the door of The Waiting Room, an upscale nightclub on Fannin Street, a couple of miles toward downtown Houston from the Houston Medical Center. He’d selected Houston as his new lair for several reasons, chief among them the close proximity to Samantha Scott and her friends who’d made the mistake of interfering in his life. Now he would Hunt, replenish his strength with the blood of an innocent, and then he would begin his attack on those he hated with every fiber of his being.
The Waiting Room was filled with young people, most of whom had some connection to the medical center. Some were even still dressed in the white coats and scrub suits and other uniforms of various hues that they wore while working in the hospitals in the area.
Though the smoke level was thankfully low, this being a medically oriented crowd, the blaring rock and roll music made Morpheus’s ears ring, and the close proximity of so many minds was a cacophony in his own. His psychic ability to read and influence thoughts was at a serious disadvantage when there were this many people so close at hand. It was like trying to hear one voice out of hundreds in a large crowd.
He shook his head, trying to separate the thoughts that intruded on his mind from the many voices nearby, spoken loud to overcome the blaring of the small band on stage at the end of the room.
Dressed in a black Armani suit, cut loose to hide his disfigured left arm, Morpheus moved through the crowd, his supreme night vision a distinct advantage in the dim light of the night club. He weaved through the tables like a dark shark cruising through coral banks in search of prey.
For Morpheus, like so many of the Vampyri, the Hunt was about more than just acquiring fresh blood—it was also about sex and power and domination. Thus, the ideal victim for him would be a young, attractive female; one he could seduce and terrorize as he fed on her, since terror in the victim added a certain spiciness to the blood. Morpheus was a true gourmand when it came to the taste of blood.
He slowed as he moved past a table with four young women sitting at it, letting his eyes and his mind caress the youthful beauty of the girls. One among them stood out above all the rest. She had that fresh, exciting glow of incipient womanhood about her that so attracted the ancient vampyre. He almost stopped dead in his tracks when he realized from her thoughts that she was still a virgin. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had an unspoiled female as his prey. He grinned to himself and circled the table at a slight distance, thinking this was the one. After so many decades of Hunting, he needed something special to keep from getting bored.
As he moved through the crowd, staying just far enough away from the table so as not to draw their attention, he picked her mind clean, as easily as a skilled burglar would pick a lock.
* * *
Catherine laughed easily at Margaret’s story of a freshman medical student’s pathetic attempt to hit on her in the Baylor cafeteria that morning, enjoying Margaret’s mimicking of the poor young nerd’s hemming and hawing as he tried to ask her out on a date. It was a testament to how horny medical students could get, Catherine thought, since Margaret was only marginally pretty and had a pear-shaped body with almost no breasts to speak of.
As she laughed, Catherine let her eyes roam, searching the crowd for any likely studs who might be in the vicinity. She squared her shoulders and sat up straighter in her chair, letting her fingers casually pull the edges of her blouse open a bit more. Over the years, she’d realized that most men, especially young men, had a fixation on breasts. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to give any interested spectators a glimpse of the impressive bulges the new bra created.
Suddenly, she felt a tickle at the back of her mind, as if someone had slowly run a feather across the surface of her brain. As she shook her head, trying to get rid of the strange sensation, the hairs on the back of her neck stirred and a feeling of dread engulfed her. She shivered, goose bumps covering her arms, and looked back over her shoulder. She had the feeling someone was staring at her—someone who meant her harm. She shivered again, remembering the old saw about someone walking on your grave.
“What’s the matter, Cath?” Margaret asked, alarmed at the sudden expression of fear on her friend’s face. She looked like a bird frozen in place by a snake’s stare as it slowly writhed toward its next meal.
“I . . . I don’t know,” Catherine stammered, her eyes flicking back and forth over the crowd.
Barbara Ann, sitting next to Catherine, was more than a little drunk. She was a nice-looking woman, but right now her harshly dyed blond hair was sticking out in places like straw and her makeup looked like she’d put in on with a trowel. Though she didn’t admit it, even to herself, one of the reasons Catherine liked to go out at night with Margaret and Barbara Ann was that she was so pretty by comparison. It was good to be the best-looking one in the group.
Barbara Ann stared at Catherine through bleary eyes and laughed, slapping her on the arm. “What you need, my girl, is another drink,” she slurred.
Barbara leaned back in her chair and waved her hand in the air, yelling, “Gar-kon, another round if you please!”
Catherine shook her head again and tried to smile. What was wrong with her? Was it possible she was just feeling guilty about looking for another man while Ronny was expecting her to be there for him later?
She ran her hands through her hair and used her fingernails to scratch her scalp, trying to get rid of the itch in the back of her head. “Yeah,” she said to the others, forcing her lips into a grin. “I just need another drink. I’m not nearly drunk enough.”
“You got that right!” Margaret said, and the girls all held out their glasses and clinked them together before downing their drinks in large swallows.
As Catherine slammed her empty glass down on the table, a tall, thin man dressed all in black sidled up to the table. Catherine looked up at him curiously. He seemed much too old for this crowd, and certainly too old for her. Still, there was something about him, something that made her feel an emptiness in the pit of her stomach.
The man gave a slight bow, but his eyes, dark as the f
ar side of the moon, never left Catherine’s. “Miss Williams,” he said, extending his right hand, “I am Professor Martin. I met you the other day in the dean’s office when I was there visiting the dean.”
Catherine’s forehead wrinkled for a moment as she tried to remember, but her thoughts seemed strangely muddled, as if the last drink had hit her very hard. Automatically, she took his hand and shook it, her eyes falling on the man’s left arm. There was something about it that didn’t look right.
Morpheus turned slightly to the side so that his body hid it from her view, which made Catherine blush, thinking he must’ve seen her staring at his deformity.
“Hello, Professor,” Cynthia said slowly. Her words were becoming slightly slurred and she tried to talk in that slow, distinct way people do when they know they’ve had too much to drink, but for some reason, her mouth just wouldn’t work right. There was something wrong with her vision, too, she realized. She couldn’t see anyone in the room but the dark man; everyone else just seemed to fade into the background and disappear.
Morpheus gave a slight tug on her hand along with a subtle mental command to stand and Catherine rose from her seat, her eyes vacant and staring and her mouth slightly open, a glistening pearl of saliva oozing from the corner of her lips.
“I wonder if I might buy you a drink at the bar?” he asked, smiling at the other women at the table while sending commands to them to forget his face.
“Uh, sure, Professor,” Catherine mumbled, moving to his side, all expression wiped from her face.
By the time they were moving toward the door, the girls at the table with Catherine had almost forgotten he’d ever been there and were already looking around for suitable men to invite to their table.
It was not until the waiter appeared and put down a drink in front of the empty chair that they realized Catherine was missing.
Margaret massaged her temples with her fingers to try and ease her sudden headache. After a moment, she glanced at the empty chair across from her. “Hey, where’s Cath?” she asked.
Barbara Ann, eyes narrowed against a similar pain in her head, said, “I don’t know. She was here just a minute ago.”
Margaret, worried for a reason she couldn’t explain, stood up and looked over at the dance floor, then looked back at Barbara Ann. “I’m gonna go check the bathroom. Why don’t you check out the rest of the room and see if you can find her?”
“What’s the problem, Marge?” Barbara Ann asked, wincing at how the sound of her voice made the pain in her head worse. “She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
“I don’t know,” Margaret answered, frowning. “But, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Something’s just not right. Catherine wouldn’t leave without telling us, so get up and let’s look for her!”
Four
As they walked through the parking lot toward the black Ford Explorer he’d stolen earlier that day, Morpheus found Catherine Williams’s mind slipping away from his control. She blinked and shook her head, staring around them at the dark parking lot as if she was wondering how she got there.
Frowning, she looked at Morpheus standing next to her with his hand on her arm. “Who are you . . . and where am I?” she asked, her eyes suddenly clear and a note of hostility entering her voice.
Morpheus directed his thoughts at her with as much force as he could muster. He would have been shouting if speaking aloud: Be calm! I am a friend! Go with me!
Catherine’s eyes clouded for just a moment, and then with an angry shake of her head, they cleared once again. “Just a minute, Mister. I don’t know you!” she cried, her face a mask of both fear and anger as she jerked her arm out of his grasp and whirled around back toward the lights of the nightclub.
Damn, Morpheus thought, women used to be so easy to control!
He had no other choice, since her mind was strong enough to fight off his mental commands. After quickly looking around the parking lot to make sure no one was watching, he balled up his fist and hit her square in the back of the head as she tried to walk away from him.
Catherine grunted and fell to her knees, her hands going to her head as she swayed and almost passed out, whimpering in pain and shock.
Morpheus bent and put his arms under hers, his mind giving her another command to relax and trust him. Just as he got Catherine to her feet and pulled her arm over his shoulder, letting her slump against him, a car with two young men in it pulled into the lot and slowed to a stop as it came abreast of them. The man in the driver’s seat leaned his head out of the window, frowning. “What’s goin’ on here?” he asked, his tone belligerent.
Morpheus forced his lips into a half-smile, even though he felt like killing the insolent son of a bitch. “My girlfriend’s a bit drunk. I’m just trying to get her to the car before she pukes all over me,” he rasped through a throat thick with anger. It took all of his self-control not to tear the man’s throat out for daring to interfere in something that was none of his damned business.
The man in the car gave a knowing smirk when he looked at Catherine’s dazed expression and dead eyes, then gave a small wave as he pulled forward toward an empty parking space a dozen yards away.
Morpheus jerked open the passenger door of the Explorer and dumped Catherine’s limp, half-conscious body onto the seat. He ran around, got in the driver’s seat, and squealed his tires as he fishtailed out of the parking lot. He knew he had to hurry, since the mental commands he’d given the girl’s companions would wear off soon without him there to reinforce them, and they’d start looking for her and asking questions. It wouldn’t be long before the assholes in the parking lot would be giving a description of him and his car to the police.
“Shit!” he muttered under his breath as he ran a yellow light, causing screeching of tires and a shouted curse behind him. So much for a nice, leisurely feed, he thought angrily. Now he’d have to gulp his food, with no time for the sexual foreplay he so enjoyed when dining out. He glanced at Catherine’s ripe body as she stirred and tried to come awake. At least, he’d have the almost forgotten pleasure of dining on a virgin, so the night wasn’t going to be a total loss.
With this calming thought, he slowed the car to the speed limit so as not to attract the attention of any roaming cops and proceeded down Fannin toward Hermann Park. He knew from previous explorations that the several-hundred-acre park had plenty of dark roads and parking places back in the bushes where he could finish with Catherine Williams without fear of being discovered. He didn’t dare try to take her back to his house since by now the cops might have a description of his car out over the radio.
He entered the park and slowed to a crawl as he passed several cutoffs where other couples were parking and making out in the darkness of the night sky. There were thankfully few street lamps in the park, making it ideal for such nocturnal activities. He made a mental note that in the future it might be easier just to sneak up on one of the many parking couples in the park and have a quick snack, without the bother of having to take his prey from a public place. Of course, he told himself ruefully, the Hunt was almost as much fun as the final outcome and it would be a shame to deprive himself of it just to make life a bit easier.
Just as Catherine began to moan and waken, Morpheus found a good spot. He pulled the Explorer off into the small road until the hood was practically in the bushes just off the trail.
He got out of the car and opened Catherine’s door, pulled her to her feet, where she swayed groggily and rubbed the back of her head as he opened the rear door and shoved her inside.
Earlier, he’d laid the rear seats back into a semireclining position for just this occasion. Catherine flopped down on the seats on her back, her legs splayed, giving Morpheus a glimpse of long, tanned legs and black thong panties that left little to the imagination.
Morpheus felt his groin grow heavy and his lust grow as he stared at her groin. The bitch was dressed to give it to someone tonight, he thought, so it might as well be me.
Catherine groaned again, her eyes flicking back and forth as she tried to come fully awake.
Morpheus got in beside her and began to take his clothes off as he stared with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes at the swell of her breasts peeking through her partially unbuttoned blouse.
His voice was deep and husky with building lust as he flicked a fingernail at the lower buttons on her blouse and growled, “Why don’t you get comfortable, my dear?”
“What? Who are you?” Catherine asked, her voice shaking with fear as she scrabbled sideways on the seat until her back was against the door and tried to cover her breasts with her hands. She pushed feebly at Morpheus with her feet, as if she could fend him off somehow.
Morpheus laughed deep in his throat as he tossed his shirt and pants onto the front seat and sat there naked before her. He leaned back against his door and slowly stroked himself into full erection, while his eyes stared into hers. “Oh, you’ll find out who I am soon enough, my dear,” he rasped, his voice as dry as a mummy’s skin and his breath as foul as a rotting corpse.
Catherine’s eyes widened and she tried to scream but her voice failed her when Morpheus’s features morphed into the face of a monster. His face coarsened and grew elongated as his lips thickened and pulled back in a hideous grin to reveal long, glowing fangs dripping with scarlet drool. His obscenely long tongue flicked out of his mouth to lick his chops while his eyes glowed eerily red as if lit by lasers behind his irises. His withered left arm straightened somewhat as his muscles bulged beneath the wrinkled skin while his right arm almost doubled in size, and long, needle-sharp claws grew like worms from his fingers. Her hand went to her mouth as she glanced down and saw an impossibly large penis throbbing between his legs. She felt her stomach growl and churn with nausea.
This couldn’t be happening to her! She tried to tell herself there are no such things as monsters, but her skin paled at the horror before her, and Catherine took a deep breath and tried to gain control of her terror. She blinked hot tears and balled up her fist, channeling her fear into anger, and swung with all of her strength at the horrible apparition across the seat, smacking Morpheus full in the mouth.
Immortal Blood Page 4