Holidays Bite: A Limited Edition Collection of Holiday Vampire Tales

by Laura Greenwood

  I let out another groan and looked at the clock on the wall. It was already 9:00 p.m. “I guess I should go pack.”

  “I’ll help. It’s the least I could do, but first, let me give Amy the okay to come up.”

  Delilah reached for her phone and started texting Amy. Within a few minutes, Amy popped her head in and waved, and Delilah pushed me into the hallway and toward my room to start packing for a trip I didn’t really want to go on. But I hung onto a tiny shred of hope that maybe it would help me find a glimpse of self-discovery and to snap out of the funk I found myself in.

  I absentmindedly opened my closet door and stared at the clothes hanging limply on hangers. Letting out a sigh, I reached for a few of my favorite tops.

  “What’s going on, Lizzie?” Delilah sidled up next to me. “I thought you’d be excited to get away for a week. You might find a hot guy.”

  “I’m tired and why are you always trying to solve my problems with a man?”

  “Well, it couldn’t hurt to get some fun after work.”

  “The last thing I need is a casual hook up. I just want a man who…” I struggled to finish the sentence. If I was really honest with myself, I wasn’t quite sure if I could find a man like the fictional Mr. Darcy. I wanted a whirlwind perfect romance that ended in marriage. I wanted my own version of Pride and Prejudice without the drama and I wanted to get to the good bits and find a man who was devoted to making me happy. It wouldn’t hurt if he had money, too, so I didn’t have to work for a little while.

  “A man who is like Mr. Darcy?” Delilah interrupted.

  “Get real, Delilah. Men like that don’t exist.” I lied to try to save myself from a lecture.

  “Uh-huh, I know you, Lizzie. Ever since your parents died and when we met you were always going on about how amazing it would be to find your own Darcy. Did you finally grow out of that?”

  “Yes. After Joe, I learned my lesson. There is no such thing as a perfect man or Prince Charming.”

  “Okay, then, Ms. I’m-all-grown-up, how about you try to have fun? If you happen to meet a hot guy in Venice… Just. Have. Fun.”

  “If I agree with you now, will you stop bringing it up?”

  “Deal.”

  “Great. Now help me pack so we can go to bed and make our flight on time.”

  “That’s my girl.” Delilah smiled and started removing items from my closet, throwing them into the nearest suitcase.

  “Thank you for being there for me and for the trip. It was really sweet of you.”

  “Girl, anytime. I really want what’s best for you.”

  I smiled and hugged Delilah.

  Delilah pulled away and peered over my shoulder. “I think we’re done. Let’s hit the hay. Good night.”

  “Good night. You can sleep in here or the guest room.”

  “I’ll take the guest room. You snore,” she laughed. “I’ll get plenty of that in Venice.”

  “I do no such thing.”

  “Oh yes, you do. You saw logs in your sleep.”

  I rolled my eyes and pushed Delilah out of the room. “Get out of here,” I laughed.

  I shut the door behind Delilah, turned off my light and crawled into bed. I was already in my pajamas thankfully, so all I had to do was crawl under the blankets and pray that sleep would come naturally. I didn’t want to have another sleepless night. Closing my eyes, I took a few deep breaths and fell asleep with ease.

  The warmth of sleep seeped into every bone and crevice of my body and my eyes fluttered as I fell into a deep sleep.

  “Lizzie,” a deep voice called out to me. My eyes fluttered open. I found myself surrounded by candles in the same bedchamber I’d fallen asleep in. I spun around to find the source of the voice.

  The blood drained from my face when I saw my doppelgänger bent backward in the arms of a handsome man. I was being pulled closer by an invisible force. The closer I got, the clearer the vision before me became. I screamed but no sound came out as the handsome man sank his teeth into my doppelgänger’s neck and drained the life out of the woman. The woman fell limp on the floor, and the man stared straight at me. His eyes glowed as if with fire and he wiped his lips clean with his tongue.

  “Oh my love, you’re next. Come to me so that we might live together for an eternity.”

  A loud bang at the door woke me. My heart pounded wildly against my chest, and I clutched my bedsheets closer to protect myself. The pounding was accompanied by meowing. I jumped out of bed and opened up my door a crack. “Bingley, you scared the shit out of me,” I chastised my cat, and he meowed and rubbed up against my leg to apologize.

  “Okay, I forgive you, just don’t do that again.” He meowed in agreement and jumped into my bed. I went into the bathroom and flipped on the switch to search my medicine cabinet for my sleeping pills. I popped opened the bottle, took two from the bottle, and swallowed them without water.

  I flipped off the light and reluctantly went back to bed. I wasn’t sure if I was more scared of the dream or that the man seemed real. Either way, I needed sleep and prayed that I wouldn’t keep having nightmares.

  Thankfully, the sleeping pills had hit fast, and my dreams were void of the disarmingly handsome man.

  Chapter 11

  When I woke in the present time, I was disoriented and confused. It took me a minute to realize I was out of the dream and back in Mr. Darcy’s bedchamber.

  Okay. So it hadn’t been Mr. Darcy-level sex. When was it ever, really?

  At least I had my Italian fling.

  Followed by abandonment.

  The dream had been really weird. For that matter, falling asleep had been odd, too.

  I wonder if there’s still a ball going on downstairs?

  Standing, I stretched and glanced around. My dress and other clothes hung neatly on hangers on the back of the door. Which was still locked, I noted. And if I listened carefully, I could hear strands of music downstairs.

  Good. Maybe Delilah wouldn’t be too freaked out.

  I pulled on the dress and managed to get the back fastened. Then I ran my fingers through my hair. In a small bathroom, I checked in the mirror.

  I definitely could use a brush. But it could be worse.

  And I headed downstairs.

  Mr. Darcy was nowhere to be found—upstairs, anyway. As I moved through the hallway, I met with the seamstress.

  “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “No. I was just looking for…” What should I call him? Mr. Darcy wouldn’t make sense to anybody but me. “My friend,” I finished lamely.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you come in with anyone.”

  I started to explain but changed my mind. “Thanks. I’ll just look downstairs.”

  As I swept down the staircase in my gorgeous ball gown, I felt truly beautiful for the first time in a long time, unbrushed hair and all.

  As I glanced around the dance floor, the fortune-teller’s words echoed through my mind.

  You are fated to kill the dark ones.

  Everywhere I looked, beautiful people in gorgeous clothes swept through the room, swirling and dancing, bright lights flashing off fabrics and glittering from the candlelight that lit up the corners of the room.

  But the fortune-teller’s words haunted me. Destined to kill the dark ones.

  When I looked, though, I couldn’t find the dark ones. Everyone here seemed bright and beautiful.

  I couldn’t even find Mr. Darcy. Instead, I moved to the table where they had drinks. The drink from earlier was starting to wear off, and my head began to pound a little.

  If I discovered that the beautiful man I had sex with had simply left the room while I was asleep and taken off, I was going to be irritated.

  But not miserable, I decided. If he wanted a one-night stand, then I was going to be completely cool about it.

  I was determined to follow Delilah’s advice and simply enjoy whatever came my way during this trip.

  I stared at the bar for a long mo
ment, considering more wine, then, with a shudder, moved over to the nonalcoholic drinks. I was not about to get drunk again. Especially since I couldn’t seem to find Delilah, either.

  As I stepped back into the crowd of people, I noticed a tall grandfather clock.

  Almost immediately, midnight began striking.

  Right. Time for unmasking.

  All around me, drunken people staggered as the music died down.

  But exactly at the stroke of midnight, when the twelfth bell rang out, a quarter of the guests stood up straighter.

  Something in my stomach twisted. This couldn’t be good, although I had no idea why.

  I stared at that quarter of the guests, one after another, trying to figure out what about them was so similar.

  They were all little paler, a little more attractive, with perfect skin and perfect hair. Everything.

  Did the wealthier guests have a different dinner? Was there something specific about these people that meant that the midnight bells put them on alert for something?

  What do you know that I don’t?

  That’s when I saw it.

  Teeth.

  Fangs, actually.

  Chapter 12

  Initially, I was certain I was imagining it. That there could be no such thing happening.

  After all, when the beautiful, raven-haired, pale-skinned woman who had been examining me sprouted fangs, I assumed I was imagining things.

  Because what I suspected in that moment was ludicrous.

  There’s no such thing as vampires.

  My mind insisted on it, even as all around me, a quarter of the guests began to grow fangs.

  I blinked several times.

  The first scream from the dance floor was what really convinced me that I was not hallucinating.

  I had not been imagining things. Each of the vampires—I might as well use the word, even though my mind wanted to dance away from it—turned to his or her dance partner or other companion and lunged.

  Without thinking about it, I dropped to the floor and rolled under the drink table.

  Lucky for me, it had a skirt on it that hid me.

  Part of me wanted to just sit there, waiting it out, praying that no one—or no thing—dragged me out and bit me.

  But the screams were deafening now.

  I didn’t know how the rest of Venice couldn’t hear them.

  I thank you for your sacrifice.

  That was what pretty Italian boy’s older brother had said as he handed me a rose.

  A rose with thorns.

  The dangerous underbelly of the beauty.

  This wasn’t anything the Venetians didn’t know about.

  It was a literal sacrifice. They were feeding people to vampires. My mind raced furiously. Maybe some of the people were volunteers. But given the noises coming from outside my self-imposed isolation, there were at least as many who had not volunteered—or hadn’t truly been prepared for the violence they faced now.

  Hell, I wasn’t prepared for the violence we were all facing.

  But Delilah was out there somewhere. I had to at least go save her. Maybe everyone else, too, if I could.

  I couldn’t see much from underneath the table. But I didn’t want to step out into the middle of things, either. So instead, I slid out the other side of the refreshment table carefully and quietly. It wasn’t quite flush against the wall, so I had about a foot of space to work with. Partially under and partially out of the cover of the table, I crept on hands and knees to peer around the lag on the opposite side and take a look.

  Pandemonium.

  I looked out around the corner of the table, crouched down as far as I could go, and came face-to-face with the glassy-eyed stare of a dead woman.

  A dead woman who had a vampire drinking blood from her neck.

  Biting back a squeak of terror, I skittered back under the table again.

  Fuck. There were vampires everywhere. I didn’t even have a weapon.

  But I did have an absolute determination not to end up dead on the floor staring at nothing.

  That meant I needed some kind of weapon to fight with.

  I tried to remember everything I’d seen on the table above me, along with everything I knew about vampires.

  Maybe a silver knife?

  No. Silver is for werewolves, not vampires.

  Right. Anyway, I hadn’t seen any knives, and if I had, they probably were stainless steel, anyway.

  That left what? A stake? Possibly. Though I needed to find something wooden and pointy to manage to fake that.

  Or something to cut their heads off with.

  Still no knives.

  Beheading was not my favorite idea ever.

  Out in the room, I heard people screaming, crying, begging for their lives.

  I’d seen some decorative swords. The sort you hang on the wall for people to admire and wonder why the fuck you have a sword.

  I think the last part was especially important, in fact. Why would vampires leave a weapon around for people to grab?

  Were their wall-swords sharpened? And if not, could I use one to hack off a piece of wood to use as a stake?

  Okay.

  Swords it was.

  It had to be worth something.

  So how to get to the wall-swords?

  If I crawled along the floor, that might make me low enough to be out of their immediate line of sight. But it would definitely be a disadvantage if any of them attacked.

  I really wish I had taken that self-defense course Delilah tried to talk me into last summer.

  No. My best bet was to run for the exit. Or it would be, except I was guessing the people now screaming had tried it, which probably meant the exits were locked.

  Okay. If not an exit, then what?

  A window. Maybe an upstairs window. I might hurt myself on the way down, but it beat the hell out of having my throat ripped out and my blood drained. Right?

  Besides, with any luck, I could stop on the way up the stairs and survey the room to find Delilah.

  That was my plan, then.

  Chapter 13

  I crawled out from under the table, landing in a runners crouch. I pushed off from the floor like I remembered my high school track coach telling me to do and sprinted toward the stairs without looking behind me or to either side. I had no idea if anyone was chasing me, but I ran as if they were.

  I got to the stairs and halfway up before spinning around with my arm held out to knock down anyone who might be behind me.

  I had lucked out. There was no one chasing me, and as far as I could tell, none of the vampires had seen me.

  Either that or they were too busy eating other people to bother with me.

  I couldn’t see Delilah anywhere, either.

  As I stared out across the ballroom floor, now littered with sightless, bloodied bodies, I was struck by the vision I had earlier.

  Dead bodies scattered across the field.

  I stared for half a heartbeat, stunned and horrified, as one of the vampires lifted a man by his collar, causing the man’s back to arch. The man on the floor stretched out his arm toward me, and I realized I’d seen it before, too.

  I couldn’t get to them. There was nothing I could do. Even if I’d been fast enough, there were at least three other vampires in between me and that man.

  And as I watched, the vampire attacking him and leaned down and ripped out the side of his throat. Blood spurted out the artery and the vampire laughed. My stomach churning in terror, I had to fight not to vomit.

  Instead, I began slowly backing up the staircase.

  I glanced behind me, only to find Delilah at the top, hiding behind a corner and gesturing for me to come with her.

  I’d never been so glad to see her before.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, I joined her. I could have cried in relief.

  She grabbed my hands and, her eyes wide, drew me into the bathroom. I shut the door behind us and locked it carefully.

  �
�Did you see what was going on out there?” she hissed.

  “Of course. It’s horrible.”

  “Are we going to be able to get out of here?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. We don’t even have a weapon.”

  “I do know that they’re afraid of fire,” Delilah offered.

  “How do you know that?”

  Her gaze flickered down to the ground for a second. “Well. I was outside the balcony smoking some weed—”

  “Delilah!”

  “Seriously? People are getting eaten by frickin’ vampires, and you’re worried about a little pot?” She slanted a glance at me. “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t know they were afraid of fire.” Her tone was defensive. “Anyway, we were on the balcony, and the stuff wasn’t that good.”

  “The fire?” I reminded her.

  “Oh. Right. The fire. So we’re out on the balcony smoking, me and this guy, when one of those fuckers comes bursting out of the room and starts eating the guy. Like, he drained the guy I was talking to. But I think maybe feeding from him made the vampire drunk or stoned, because when it started toward me, I held up fire in its face, and it backed off—right over the edge of the balcony.” She stifled a giggle.

  “Where did you get the fire?”

  “It was just a lighter. I lit it and held it in his face. He acted like he was afraid I was going to set him on fire.”

  “But you think the vampire might have been stoned?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I don’t think a lighter will be all that useful against sober vampires,” I mused.

  “But I was thinking that maybe we can set a fire. If that doesn’t get the authorities up here, nothing will.”

  “Now that,” I said, “is a great idea.” I paused. “Can we manage that?” I asked, glancing at the bathroom.

  “Well, I still have the lighter.” She lit it to show me the flame.

  “Excellent. We’ll need to be ready to run once a fire it’s going really good,” I suggested. “Do you think you can do that? You’re not too stoned?”

  She gave me a dirty look. “I think getting attacked by vampires knocked all the stoned out of me.”