So where the hell is the gringo? No bones, no blood, no clothing. His leg and hip throbbed with the nasty bruise Aaron left him as a parting gift. Limping around out in the hot sun was not his idea of fun. He resorted to yelling across the empty desert.
“Hey gringo, come out and play! Where the fuck are you! God damnit, where the fuck are you puto!”
Demarco’s gonna be pissed as hell if I don’t find this puto. The newest of Demarco’s little troupe, Miguel was still trying to prove himself and earn his pay. He definitely didn’t want to end up like Camacho, a chewed up carcass left in the desert to rot. He never did get a decent answer out of Oso about what had happened to Camacho. That bugged him.
This job was pretty cush. Most days he didn’t have to do anything more than stand around and look intimidating. His menacing size usually sent the intended message.
When Demarco asked if he minded torching the gringo’s body, he shrugged it off. “Just a little barbecue!” But marching through the desert to find a dead man sucked big time.
Twilight hit, and still no sign of the gringo. Ain’t gettin nowhere in the dark. He headed back to the Tahoe. Gonna have to hit the carwash. This thing is covered in dust. He recalled how clean Demarco like his vehicles as he drove back towards the highway.
He hoped maybe he’d get lucky and run across the gringo making his way to the highway. He imagined the look on the kid’s face as he begged for a ride. He smiled at the thought of blasting the punk point blank in the face with a nine millimeter hollow point slug. That’s what they shoulda done to begin with, no fucking around. If you want to get the job done, do it right the first time.
* * * *
Chapter 19
Aaron awoke entombed in dirt. The taste and smell of it coated his mouth and throat. He was so parched with thirst, the dead sage brush next to his hidey hole held more moisture than his mouth. He heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. His wide smile cracked dry lips. How convenient, dinner delivered with perfect timing.
The predator skimmed the edge of his consciousness, a shark whose dorsal fin cut through the surface of the water just before striking. He could barely keep a grip on the animalistic feeding impulse urging him to attack the moving vehicle. He took position at the high point atop the hill, overlooking the path of the oncoming black Chevy Tahoe.
When the predator identified the man behind the wheel of the black SUV, Aaron lost all restraint. He streaked down the hillside, a raging blur of lethality. He leaped straight through the driver’s side window, blasting through the glass. He smashed into Miguel, displacing him to the passenger side, flowing out the passenger window together. Their momentum continued as they flew another fifteen feet to land in a tussle on the desert floor. The predator tore out a chunk of Miguel’s throat and drained him dry.
Miguel’s final thoughts as he died were that his mother was right. She had threatened he’d go to hell for leading a life of sin. He thought of how smug her face would look when she found out her predictions came true. He’d been laughing her off for years.
The predator reveled in his feast, drinking his fill, draining every last ounce. As he sated his intense thirst, Aaron regained some measure of self-control, shoving the predator back into its cage. Time to go.
The Tahoe had stalled out. It waited in a pile of dead brush, an invitation to catch a free ride back to Vegas.
* * * *
“She’s feels cold. Maybe she’s dead Essay.” Oso slid his hand up Michelle’s naked thigh.
“You into that kinda thing?” Demarco snickered at him.
“Callate guey. I ain’t gonna get it up for a week. My shit hurts.”
Demarco snickered again and then stared intently at Michelle. “Ima give it to her anyway. The sun’s setting right now. I ain’t takin no chances. You know what. Ima give her two shots. I think she already got a tolerance for this shit. Fuckin vampires.” He shook his head.
* * * *
Michelle awoke to rapturous euphoria screaming through every vein in her body. She roared with the joy of it. Her back arched up off the bed as she wet herself in a multiple orgasm. Panting and grunting through her release, she looked up to Demarco and Oso’s lecherous smiles of anticipation. They stared at her and Ana, who slept cuddled up against her. Through a blurry haze she saw their auras swirled with extreme anxiety and a taint of lust. Demarco held two syringes in hand. She could smell it from there, heroin.
One last grunting shudder, and she curled around her beautiful, nude pet, reaching between Ana’s legs to find her warm, wet, and inviting. She cared not for the men. They wanted her, her bite, but she wanted Ana.
“We need you Michelle, please don’t make us wait any longer! Please?” Demarco’s voice cracked as he spoke.
They’d been awake most of the day, over ten hours without her venom. It had driven them to the edge of sanity. She smelled the drug oozing out their pores. They were high on something, using it to fight off their withdrawals. Demarco came to her, running his hands up her thighs, up between her legs. He slipped two thick warm fingers up in, working all her juicy wetness. He swam through her cloudy vision to appear right in her face as he stroked her.
Ana hadn’t awoke yet, and he was there, warm and inviting, his big strong hands working her into another orgasm. She heard the anxiety driven beat of his heart as he leaned over her. She clamped onto his neck violently, accepting his offer. He fell into her embrace, willingly giving himself up to her savagery.
Once, twice, a third time, he climaxed over and over convulsively. “Holy shit, oh my god that’s good Michelle. That’s just what I needed.”
She held onto him, humping on his hand till he slumped in her embrace. He’d passed out. She released him.
“Qui s'y frotte s'y pique.” Play with fire and you get burned.
He slid off the side of the bed like an empty container falling away after its contents are consumed. His heart did a stutter-step pattern, a painful spike in his chest before normalizing its beat. The evidence of his multiple orgasms created a dark stain at his crotch.
* * * *
Anastasia awoke to Michelle’s purring French and her hands roving across her breasts and down in between her legs. She was very playful and frisky. Still hazy from drug and alcohol, Ana tried hard to focus on Michelle. She looks totally wild. Michelle smiled at her and dipped a finger inside her, rubbing around Ana’s sweet spot with her thumb.
“I should wake up to this every day of my life.” Ana sighed.
Michelle’s golden curls stood out in a tangled snarl, a fitting complement to the tempestuous insanity of her eyes and the barbaric aspect of her fangs on full display. Ana was awestruck with love, fear, respect and wonder at this magnificent creature making love to her.
She didn’t know what had put Michelle into such a state, but she didn’t really care. She needed it now, bad. She rolled over atop Michelle to embrace her, whispering in her ear.
“I need you, love me. Michelle, bite me!”
Michelle seemed to calm somewhat. The skin on skin contact and loving embrace helped. Michelle bit her softly, holding onto her pet with great care and affection.
She let go her bite, gushing with affection. “Je t’adore ma petit. Tu es pour moi la plus belle!”
The meaning wasn’t totally lost on Ana, she understood she was loved and accepted. She basked in the love and sensations, soaking it all up. It was wonderful, but there remained a missing element to her joy. Aaron. Her unconditional love for Michelle felt out of balance without Aaron. It had been a package deal, two for one. She needed them both.
She kissed Michelle, stroking her face, neck and breasts. “Where is he? I miss him so much. Did he leave us?”
“Non ma petit, ce n’est pas grave.” At her puzzled look Michelle realized she hadn’t been speaking the same language.
“He will never leave us ma chérie. Don’t worry, he will return soon. All is well.” Michelle rocked Ana like a baby, petting her long black hair.
“Chingao madre. Soy un pinche desperado.” Michelle and Ana looked up to see Oso holding out his arm with an unmistakable expression, “begging to be bitten”.
“Please?” The one word said it all.
Ana hadn’t really even noticed he was there. He’d been so quiet and unobtrusive till now.
Michelle nodded and Oso came to sit beside her on the bed while Ana covered herself with the sheets, embarrassed in her nudity. Michelle struck without warning. Fast and wicked as a snake, she clamped onto Oso’s fat neck. She held onto him for a very long time. The big man twitched and moaned, gripping Michelle’s ass tightly. She held him till his hands let go. He’d gone totally limp.
She let go and he rolled off the bed, slumped on the floor in a heap. She leaned over to poke at his shoulder. He didn’t wake up.
“Mon dieu!” She turned to Ana with a wild-eyed horrified look. “What have I done?”
Ana leaned over the bed to discover Demarco on the floor next to Oso. “Holy shit! Are they dead? What’s wrong with them?”
“I drink too much.”
“Will they be okay?”
Michelle crawled down off the bed onto Oso, putting her left ear against his chest. She pet his belly softly, like petting a dog.
“S'il te plaît pardonne.” She kissed him on the cheek.
Michelle crawled over to Demarco, sniffing him and putting her ear down against his chest. She looked up at Ana with another wild smile.
“They will be okay, I think.”
“Are you sure?”
Michelle looked confused, but then she smiled again. “Aaron is coming soon. He will fix everything.”
Michelle looke at Ana with her head cocked sideways. “You are hungry. Come, you must eat.”
“Do I smell hungry or what?”
“I can see it, the colors.” She twisted her hand in the air, twirling her fingers. Suddenly she was up and moving, swaying on her feet like a drunk as she flung open the closet door.
“These will do.” Michelle handed her a white terry-cloth bathrobe from Demarco’s rather large collection, and snatched her hand leading her out to the kitchen.
Ana dug into Oso’s delicious pork stir-fry and slurped down orange juice while Michelle kept pouring her refills and trying to put more food on her plate.
“I’m good, no more please.” She looked closely at Michelle. Her eyes looked funny, dilated and glossy. She kept swaying and staggering, losing her balance.
Michelle jabbered on in her barely understandable French accent. “Aaron is coming now. When he arrives, all the problèmes will be dealt with. He is not happy with Demarco.” She flung her hand carelessly in the direction of the unconscious men in the bedroom. “But don’t worry. Aaron will take care of everything.”
As she listened to Michelle, watching her closely, she realized something was really off. “Are you okay? You’re acting funny, did Demarco give you something? Drugs?”
“Oui, but this is no problème. The heroin cannot hurt me. Is très magnifique! I like it very much.” Michelle gave her a fang-filled, insane smile reinforcing the fact she was stoned out of her mind.
Suddenly she took off, moving with inhuman blurred speed down the hallway back to the bedroom. Ana heard the crack sound of Demarco being smacked around and Michelle’s voice as she interrogated him about where he kept his needles. He mumbled something and a second later Michelle zipped back to the kitchen table. She came to a dead stop in front of Ana with a wild grin and tossed a handful of syringes on the table. They were already loaded with doses ready to go.
She gasped, looking back and forth between the insanely smiling vampire and the needles. Michelle stood there full of happiness and enthusiasm, like a used car salesman hocking his wares.
“Oh My God! I’ve never seen that much before! That’s gotta be several grams! You could overdose!” As soon as she said it she realized it might not be true for Michelle. None of the rules applied to Michelle.
But what would it do to her? Would she become an addict? Would she be able to retain sanity? She looked closely at her again. She’s totally faded! It all clicked into place, why they were staying in this house instead of the hotel. Michelle was pounding smack with these assholes!
Just then the assholes shuffled into the room looking pale and sickly, their eyes sunk in, encircled by dark rings. She began to notice their necks, arms, and faces were mottled with discolored bruises and cuts. She imagined what Michelle had been doing with these losers. It served them right! That’s what they deserve for getting Michelle all drugged up! She snorted with laughter.
“Look what the cat dragged in! You guys look like total shit!”
She couldn’t help but laugh at them. They got a hell of a lot more than they bargained for when they shot Michelle up thinking they would have their way with her. Been there and done that before! She knew exactly what men like Demarco and Oso did to girls after getting them all high and stupid.
Demarco looked at her with obvious distrust, as if she conspired to ruin his life. Oso squinted at her, trying to be menacing. He looked constipated.
“What’s so damn funny?” Demarco snapped.
She never had a chance to answer him. Aaron slammed through the front door, damn near taking it off the hinges. He looked like a demon who’d clawed and tunneled his way up from hell to land at Demarco’s doorstep. He seemed a completely different creature from the man she knew and loved. His designer clothing hung off him in shreds. He was covered in bloody gore and dirt congealed in a dark cake of mud reeking of death.
She had never seen such a vicious look of malevolence in all her brushes with violent men. It struck terror into her heart.
Demarco cried out. “Oh hell no!”
* * * *
Chapter 20
Demarco took one look at Aaron’s face and his horrendous appearance, and he knew the gig was up. He surmised the blood covering Aaron had once beat through the heart of Miguel. If Aaron could cut down Miguel the same way Michelle tore through Camacho, his own chances of survival were slim.
“Shoot that motherfucker!” Demarco screamed as he pulled his .44 from the holster at his back, firing off rounds into the wall where Aaron had stood a second before.
Oso pulled his pistol to send several rounds flying at the same empty space. Aaron dashed at Demarco in a flashing blur and Oso took off running, praying the whole way. “En el nombre del Padre, Jesus Christo, y Espirito Santo!”
His oversized bulk cruised down the hallway faster than Demarco ever thought he could move. Though he wanted to, Demarco never got the chance to follow Oso.
* * * *
The predator flashed through space and time to land directly in front of Demarco delivering a smashing blow to the side of his head. Demarco flew across the room to bounce off the wall with scrunch of crushed drywall. The predator flashed again, a blurred movement down the hallway to smash into the back of Oso’s head. Oso sailed down the length of the hallway straight through the sliding glass door to slam face down on the back patio.
“Holy shit! Oh My God! Did you kill them?” Ana stood there stunned.
The predator turned on her, still pumped full of adrenaline, rage, and the insane need to kill. Ana looked upon the gruesome visage of her lover, not realizing how close he was to tearing the flesh off her bones.
Michelle read his misdirected fury and acted. In her drugged haze, she did the only thing she could think of. She put herself between the predator and the offending Ana with one those blurred teleportation-like moves. She stepped into harm’s way to save their beautiful little pet from inciting the beast. She had just enough clarity of thought to issue a compulsory command, forcing Aaron to submit to her involuntarily, “Stop!”
This was the first time since the slaughter of the NYPD detectives, that she had used her authority over him. Her single spoken word echoed through his mind with its enslaving power. He froze in position, unable to move forward towards the girls. He snarled at her in frustration.
>
She then did something so foolish that she’d later look back on this moment in lament, blaming herself for the unintended consequences of her actions. She grabbed a syringe of heroin off the table, stuck it in Aaron’s jugular vein, and depressed the plunger.
As the china white screamed through his body spreading euphoria in its wake, he roared in Michelle’s face, a savage cry that echoed off the walls of the room. His unsatisfied rage and bloodlust blended with the overwhelming storm of sensations, mixing up a wicked recipe for violence. Aaron grabbed ahold of the nearest sack of flesh available to meet his savage needs.
He leaped to Demarco’s unconscious body and plunged deep into his chest. He tore through flesh and bone and cartilage to reach the juicy red center still beating rhythmically. He ripped Demarco’s heart out, drinking down all its warm juicy goodness, squeezing it dry like a sponge. He tossed it aside when he finished. Staring at the girls as though they were next, he roared his pleasure. He dashed down the hallway to Oso and repeated the ritual.
* * * *
Anastasia watched the carnage unfold before her eyes, speechless with the horror of it, not wanting to see, but unable to look away. She heard a keening wailing sound over the top of the meaty bone-crushing flesh-tearing noises, unaware it came from her own mouth. She fell faint to the floor, wailing and moaning in denial her wonderful lover could commit such an atrocity.
Michelle noticed the condition of their pet and acted. She scooped Ana up off the ground as she shook and cried like a baby. She took their pet out to the hot tub, past Oso’s shredded corpse, and straight into the healing bubbles.
* * * *
“Shhh … calmez-vous ma chérie. Oh pardonne tant que l’oh aime.” She crooned to Ana a famous quote from Francois de La Rochefoucald––we pardon to the extent that we love.
The Nightlife: Las Vegas (The Nightlife Series) Page 14