TJ, not wanting to leave town with the lawsuit hanging over her head, had called her lawyer and told him to set up a meeting, and that she wanted to settle the lawsuit once and for all and get it behind her.
“That’s okay, Mark,” she said. “Just leave it to me.”
She put her purse down on the table and looked at the two men across from her. “I believe if I could have a few words in private with the plaintiff, we can come to a mutually agreeable settlement.”
Both lawyers immediately jumped to their feet and began to speak in loud tones, saying this just was not done.
The plaintiff’s smile faded for a moment, and then he grinned and held up his hand. “Just a minute, guys. Why don’t you go get some coffee and let the good doctor and I talk in private for a while? What harm can it do?”
The lawyers, shaking their heads at the foolishness of clients, walked out of the room and shut the door behind them, leaving TJ and the man alone.
He leaned back in his chair, took his hand out of the sling and wiggled it, showing her it was perfectly all right. Then, he put his hands behind his head, smirking at her. “What are you gonna do, sweetie? Offer to fuck me if I give up the suit?”
TJ shook her head and moved around the table, letting herself change as she walked toward the man. His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened and he took a deep breath, about to scream for help.
TJ, fully changed now, reached out her right claw and clamped it over his mouth, lifting him with very little effort straight up into the air by his head.
With his feet dangling a foot off the floor, she brought his face close to hers and opened her mouth wide, revealing long fangs glistening with red-tinged drool.
She lapped at his face with her long, pointed tongue and smiled her most evil smile, her red-rimmed eyes boring into his. “No, you little bastard,” she growled, licking him again, “I’m not going to offer to fuck you, I’m going to fuck you up beyond all recognition, and then I’m going to rip your head off and drink your blood until you’re a dried up husk of dust. Do you understand me?”
His throat worked convulsively, still trying to push a scream past her hand, but it stuck in his throat and died there, leaving him moaning with his eyes screwed tightly shut against the horribleness of her visage.
When she smelled the stench of feces coming from his pants, she grimaced and dropped him back into his chair, where he sat cowering, still with his eyes shut tight, too frightened to even try to scream.
She leaned down and whispered softly, “I’m going to leave you now, Buster, but I’ll be back if I ever hear the words lawsuit again, and then we’re going to have another dance. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”
He nodded rapidly, his head bobbing up and down with his eyes firmly shut, tears streaming out from under the lids and the odor of his loose bowels surrounding him like a fog.
TJ turned and went to pick up her purse, changing back to normal by the time she reached the door.
As she left, she passed the lawyers standing out in the hall, coffee cups in their hands.
She smiled sweetly. “I think your client has had a change of heart,” she said to the man’s lawyer. “And he definitely needs a change of pants. Ta-ta,” she called as she walked slowly from the office, whistling softly to herself.
Epilogue
Matt, Sam, Shooter, and TJ sat on the deck of the log cabin Elijah had bought in North Waterford, Maine, and stared at the frozen expanse of Jewett Pond fifty yards away.
Baldpate Mountain looked down on them from the other side of the pond, and snow still covered the ground to a depth of three feet.
“Jesus, and I thought Canada was cold,” Shooter said as a frigid north wind turned his cheeks red.
“Ay uh, winta’s wicked cold up heah, all right,” Elijah Pike said from the sliding glass doors to their left, affecting a thick Maine accent as he carried out a tray of steaming hot chocolate for the group.
When they’d all been served, he said, “I’m going to head over to Norway and pick us up some supplies. I’ll be back in about an hour, in case you guys need to talk,” he added enigmatically before he turned and walked back into the house.
Matt took a deep swallow of the rich chocolate and looked up at Sam with marshmallow cream covering the end of his nose. “What do you think he meant by that?”
Sam smiled at him and then she glanced at TJ, who nodded. Now was the time.
Both Sam and TJ took turns telling the men what Elijah had discovered about their lack of aging and what it meant for the two couples.
When they finished, the men were silent for a few moments, and then Shooter put his arm around TJ. “You mean to tell me you and Sam are gonna be this beautiful forever?”
TJ blushed and laid her head on his shoulder. “That’s about the size of it, big boy.”
“And Matt and I have the choice of either growing old and gray and dying and leaving you two behind to find some other young studs to replace us, or drinking some of your blood and staying young and with you forever?”
“You hit the nail on the head,” TJ responded.
“Well, damn!” Shooter said in his soft southern accent, smiling. “That’s a real tough choice to make, ain’t it Matt old pal?”
“Not for me it isn’t,” Matt said, his eyes locked on Sam’s, his hand in hers as she reached up and licked the marshmallow cream off his nose.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In doing research for the three books in the Blood Series, I read as much as I could find in the literature on vampires, and tried to do something with my characters that hadn’t been done before, namely take the supernatural out of the vampires and have them “suffer” from an actual disease, with some modifications for dramatic purposes. The reader will have to decide if I’ve succeeded.
The discerning reader (and is there any other kind?) will note that I’ve used many names from older stories about vampires as names my characters have chosen as aliases, for reasons explained in the books. If anyone wishes to find out where certain names came from, they may E-mail me at [email protected] and I will give appropriate credit where it is due.
Literature is full of hundreds of fascinating takes on the vampire life, and I encourage those who have an interest in the “children of the night” to go on-line or to a library and check out some of the stories; it will be time well spent!
James M. Thompson
Immortal Blood Page 30