The Fertile Vampire

by Ranney, Karen

  My hormones didn’t die in my transition to becoming a vampire but evidently my determination had. Until now, that is.

  “You’ve got the most ungodly look on your face,” Dan said.

  I glanced at him.

  “Like you want to kill something.”

  “You’re not far off.”

  “The duke?” He didn’t look at me, but concentrated on the road. His hands clenched on the wheel, his knuckles white. “He raped you, didn’t he?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to lie to Dan, but it hadn’t been rape. Coercion, maybe, enhanced by whatever drug Maddock had given me. I hated the fact I’d participated even being drugged. I hated the fact I’d been so damn eager and even now remembered the acute bliss.

  No wonder vampires got whatever they wanted in life. Unbelievable sex will convince even the most reluctant person to give in. Hell, not give in - participate wholly and completely.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  “You’re not okay. You’re in shock. You’re shaking. You’re pale and the color of flour.”

  “That’s my natural vampiric complexion.”

  “I cry bull,” he said, reaching out and grabbing my hand.

  Until he mentioned it, I hadn’t known I was trembling.

  “You’re cold.”

  “I’m tired.”

  I didn’t look at him as I spoke. I was afraid he’d see the tears in my eyes. I couldn’t talk about it now. But I could take responsibility for my part in it.

  Looking back I know I should have demanded to leave immediately. I should have listened to the tingles on the back of my neck when Meng abruptly left me. I should have taken off my heels and started running for the highway.

  I might not have escaped but at least I should have tried.

  According to Doug, and he was my go-to guy when it came to vampire sex, they had years to practice. A man’s ego wasn’t tied up in his car or his weapons, he’d once told me. Instead, it was the number of women who were happy with his lovemaking.

  I thought Doug had done what he did because he was either a.) overcome with passion or b.) didn’t give a rat’s ass.

  Now I knew it wasn’t either of those reasons. He’d been instructed to turn me. The betrayal implicit in that realization was buried beneath another thought. No wonder MEDOC was working on a one stop pill for HIV. With the number of partners a male vampire had, he was a prime candidate for AIDS.

  “Marcie.”

  Dan placed his hand on my shoulder and a current of warmth traveled from him to me. Humanity, for lack of a better word.

  I should have told him to remove his hand but I didn’t. I desperately needed the touch of someone who wasn’t like me, someone who was more human than me.

  “My house is safe,” he said. “He can’t get to you there.”

  I bowed my head, took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I was afraid no place was safe from Maddock. Nor was I eager to involve someone else in the mess of my life.

  “I’m so tired,” I said.

  I hadn’t slept for a day, but it was more than that. My fatigue was bone deep. Maybe part of it was being in the sun, but I suspected I was finally coming to grips with being different. Not the Marcie I’d thought myself all along, but something foreign and strange. I was a creature whose existence was the stuff of myth.

  “I promise I’ll keep you safe.”

  I opened my eyes and smiled at him. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  “You haven’t seen my house.”

  “All right,” I said, not because he was being gentlemanly and kind or because I was tired. I agreed because I had no where else to go.

  “I think Maddock’s girlfriend was the one who shot at me in the parking lot,” I said, leaning back against the headrest.

  When he didn’t say anything, I turned my head and looked at him. “She sees me as a threat. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “Are you going to tell the police?” he asked calmly. One thing I’d noticed about Dan. He had the ability to remain cool in a crisis. Was it the Ranger training?

  “Yes,” I said.

  He only nodded, hit the turn signal and pulled into my complex.

  My evening purse was back at Maddock’s house, along with my house key. At least the rental car key was separate. But I didn’t have a spare house key hidden anywhere. I’d never given my neighbors a key so we had a choice: to wait until the complex office opened in two hours or break in to my own apartment.

  I was a little appalled at the ease with which Dan jimmied the office window and entered. The cute little townhouse where I’d always felt so safe no longer felt like home. Between getting the spookies and the ease of breaking in, I was re-thinking my living arrangements.

  Once he opened the front door for me, I stepped inside, listening. No barking, which either meant Mutt was asleep or he was hiding because he was embarrassed because of what he’d done.

  I sniffed the air experimentally but I didn’t smell anything that shouldn’t be there, just the potpourri in the crystal bowl on the hall table and Meng’s flowers. They stank of rotting green things more than fragrant blossoms.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, following me up the stairs.

  “Where’s Mutt?”

  I opened my bedroom door, half expecting it to be a scene of chaos. But the bed was intact except for a dog sized impression at the foot of the bed. No pillows had been chewed to bits. The rug wasn’t soiled. Everything was as it had been when I left including the mess I’d made trying to decide what to wear.

  He wasn’t in the closet tasting my shoes, or under the bed, or even in the bathroom.

  My dog was gone.

  I sat heavily on the end of the bed. “Where is he? He couldn’t have walked out of here.”

  Dan sat on the bed beside me.

  “You sure you didn’t leave a door open?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe he started barking and someone reported him to the management,” I said.

  Had the manager come and taken my dog?

  “We can’t stay until they open, Marcie,” he said.

  I didn’t bother asking why. The more distance I put between me and Maddock the better.

  “I told him I’d take care of him,” I said.

  He put his hand over mine. Again, I was struck by his warmth and found myself leaning closer to him.

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” he said. “When you’re safe, I’ll come back.”

  I glanced at him. “Do you really think he’s all right?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay.” I stood. “I’ll pack, then.”

  “I’ll give you a little privacy. I’ll be downstairs.”

  I nodded.

  The first thing I did was shower again to get the bullfrog scented mud off. I dressed in jeans and a top grateful for my dry underwear. So it was cotton instead of lace. I didn’t care at this moment.

  Because I’d traveled so much with my job I made quick work of my packing. One suitcase later I left the room, joining Dan downstairs.

  “Is that all?” he asked.

  “I don’t intend to be a houseguest forever.”

  When I grabbed the rental car key from the foyer table, he frowned at me.

  “I’m taking my own car,” I said.

  He looked as if he wanted to say something but evidently changed his mind. Good, because I wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

  Despite his kindness I was alone and I knew it. Two people wanted me dead and a vampire wanted to make me a prisoner.

  Dan was damn brave to have me as a houseguest.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I’m just a vampire in a gilded cage

  I hated following people in a car. I normally got lost or they drove faster than I did, but Dan was cautious and careful, always keeping me in sight.

  Three quarters of an hour after we left my complex, Dan turned into a two way access road. No manicured lawns here, no coaxing of coastal ber
muda or St. Augustine to grow in an occasionally harsh climate. There was no sign of human habitation as the road grew rougher, pit marked, then potholed, resembling Swiss cheese with only a few scattered patches of asphalt. Miles of brush and stunted mesquite lay as a mute testimony to the ruggedness of the people who’d first settled this land.

  Dan didn’t seem to think the road was anything special. He drove like a Friday night drunk to avoid the worst of the potholes. Finally he pulled into a gravel drive and slowed his speed. Rocks pinged against the underbelly of the rental car, making me wince.

  When he pulled up to an iron gate I was surprised. Even more so when he rolled down the window and pressed a code into a box set into a stone pillar.

  What I expected was a comfortable, middle class home clad in rough hewn stone, perhaps even graced with a large screened in porch.

  What I got was a castle.

  My mouth dropped open as we passed the iron gate and its sign.

  I’d heard of Arthur’s Folly as it was being built. No one could believe the eccentric builder had gone completely medieval. I’m sure he wanted it to be called something more romantic, like Camelot, but from the first pictures of its construction everyone had called it Arthur’s Folly.

  The castle was three stories tall, built of rectangular blocks of Texas granite. Four large turrets sat at the corners, their crenellated tops resembling a medieval fortress. There were at least eight smaller turrets along the sides and back of the house. Topped with shiny black roofs, they resembled upside down ice cream cones pointing to the sky. A row of windows curving at the top marked each floor giving the building an appearance of a multi-eyed insect. The hedges around the structure were trimmed into topiary animals, no two the same.

  The house reminded me of something I’d imagined as a child, a castle where I could pretend to be a princess waiting for her knight.

  Dan drove around to the back, past rows of mounded earth and into a separate building filled with six other cars and trucks.

  He rolled down the window and pointed to a vacant spot.

  “Arthur’s Folly?” I asked through my open window. “Are you related to the Chicken King?”

  “My grandfather.”

  No wonder Dan thought his home was impregnable. I would, too, if my house came complete with a moat and battlements.

  “What’s with the Maginot Line?” I asked, pointing to the rows of earth.

  “My grandfather’s gift to my grandmother,” he said. “We call it Grandmother’s Garden. In the spring, each row is a different type of flower.”

  I didn’t speak, touched. I knew from reading about the castle that Dan’s grandmother hadn’t lived more than a few months after it was completed.

  I parked where he’d pointed, got out of my car carrying my stuff. He joined me, taking my suitcase and smiling at my purse. He wisely didn’t say anything about its size.

  “Did you ever eat any Cluckey’s Fried Chicken?”

  “Only once,” I said. Was I being too blunt?

  He gave me a quick smile. “Godawful stuff, wasn’t it? The scrawniest chickens in the world all floured up and cooked in the cheapest grease. My grandfather refused to eat chicken at home. Probably all those years working in a processing plant. Or smelling the stuff.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Arthur Peterson had been a well-known personality in San Antonio. He’d looked like Colonel Sanders with a cowboy hat and had been worth millions. Although he adored his wife after her death he’d taken a half dozen mistresses. The man was larger than life even in South Texas and that was saying something.

  I was trying to reconcile Dan the Driver to Dan, Arthur Peterson’s grandson. It didn’t compute.

  “So you live in a castle,” I said.

  “I was Arthur’s heir,” he said. “My mother was his only child.” He opened a door to reveal a passageway. “It seemed to me a castle is the safest place for you.”

  “You think they’ll come after me?”

  “Yes.”

  Just one word with no elaboration. Normally I didn’t want people to tell me how to build a watch when I asked the time, but now I needed a little more information.

  “Why do you think so?”

  “Because I know Maddock. He doesn’t give up easily.”

  “Are you a millionaire, Dan?”

  He turned and faced me, his face turned blue by the lights of the tunnel.

  “I have some money,” he said.

  “Then why were you working for Maddock?” I asked.

  “I needed to know some things about the man.”

  “What things?”

  He pressed another switch and a wall moved on our right side. I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t have to navigate this place by myself. I didn’t know where all the secret switches and buttons were.

  “Can we wait until you’re settled to talk about that?”

  I nodded. A nap would be good. My brain was slightly foggy at the moment. I didn’t know if it was because of the drug Maddock had given me, the exposure to the sun, or the hours of acute fear followed by the sensation of being safe I was feeling now.

  For whatever reason, I was about to drop.

  Maybe I should have been a little more concerned, especially given the events of the night before, but I trusted Dan more than anyone else. He didn’t look like he wanted to drain me dry and he hadn’t told Maddock about my walking in the sun.

  Given everything that had transpired in the last month, I wasn’t surprised to be rescued by a knight in cowboy boots, someone who whisked me away to a castle in the Hill Country.

  I wish I could have been a princess in actuality. Wave a magic wand over me, please. Let me transform into a blond sparkly creature with a crown, bright smile and a voice sounding of bells. Not someone with defective fangs who still smelled faintly of bullfrogs.

  “I’ll introduce you to the staff after you’ve had a chance to rest,” he said.

  I glanced at him startled that Dan the Driver had staff. I was a little out of my element here. I’d thought Maddock’s home worthy of a few stares, but it hadn’t prepared me for Arthur’s Folly.

  From the garage entrance we traveled down a wide corridor paved with a floor of beige marble laced with gold veins. The walls were polished stone with alcoves carved into them every few yards or so, hidden lighting illuminating the chosen piece of art. I didn’t know much about Egyptology, but it looked like the Chicken King had taken to small Egyptian statues with a vengeance.

  At the base of the sweeping staircase I hesitated, taken aback by the grandeur of the structure. It reminded me of a pair of swans with gracefully bent necks. I was halfway up the stairs when I happened to glance out the massive two story windows.

  Here in water starved South Texas where men had been shot for damming up a creek Arthur Peterson had built a lake. Not any lake but one in the shape of a teardrop. In the middle of the lake was an island. Or maybe not an island, but a floating deck.

  “For your grandmother?” I asked, glancing at Dan at my side.

  He shook his head. “My mother. My grandfather was a shark in business, but he was a softie when it came to his family.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “I loved him,” he said simply.

  I was immediately envious, wishing I had an uncomplicated affection for a relative. I’d once felt that way about Nonnie, but now it was measured by caution. I wasn’t sure how much loyalty she would show me if pressed. Would her coven come first?

  Dan stopped in front of double doors then stepped aside after pushing one open.

  I couldn’t speak. In this room I would be a princess. A fairy fanged princess in my own little kingdom. I think I said something brilliant like, “Duh.”

  An IPad sat on the night stand. Dan picked it up and showed me how to control the blackout curtains. A misnomer, since they were a pale shade of coral to match the walls.

  The bedspread was pink or coral or something in between, the iridesc
ent shade of the inside of a shell.

  The furniture was delicately shaped, with legs bowing outward before curving to end in pawed feet. Queen Anne, I thought. Or maybe Chippendale. I didn’t know. My furniture had mostly come from big box stores and had to be assembled.

  The carpet was beige or something paler with a touch of pink. The room - suite - was feminine without being cloying.

  I’d seen some of the art before, prints of more valuable paintings. I didn’t know enough about art to know if these were real, but I suspected they were. I recognized the Georgia O’Keefe over the mantel and the one in the dressing room.

  The bath was lined with aquamarine tinted glass tiles, the shower larger than my entire bathroom at home. You could have a dance party in there and with the three shower heads, it had to have been designed for more than one person.

  I didn’t ask just kept nodding my head like I wasn’t overwhelmed.

  I was strictly middle class. I was Calumet Street, San Antonio. I was middle management. Okay, prior middle management.

  I was so out of my element.

  “Thank you,” I said when we returned to the bedroom. “It’s lovely,” I added, remembering my manners.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No,” I said. My stomach was still queasy from whatever drug Maddock had given me.

  “I can have some soup sent up. Tomato soup?”

  “With oyster crackers?”

  “And a grilled cheese sandwich?” He smiled at me.

  “Maybe later.”

  If it had been another time I would have hugged him for his kindness. But last night was still with me, would probably be with me for days if not weeks.

  “Sleep well,” he said, closing the door behind him.

  I turned and surveyed the room, my little suitcase and my big purse looking out of place.

  Something else was happening here besides the kindness of a handsome man to a confused vampire.

  Why had the wealthy Dan the Driver been working for Maddock? What information had he been wanting to discover? Why was he so solicitous of me when no one else had been, not even my family?

  More importantly, why did I suddenly feel I had escaped one web only to leap into another?