After Dark (The Vampire Next Door Book 2)

by Titus, Rose

  She was glad she helped to clear Rick.

  It was only a short distance to his place so Martin had decided to walk. He wondered about the girl. She was odd, in a fragile sort of way. She seemed intelligent enough, but then there was her bizarre taste in men.

  “Hey, Marty!”

  Oh hell.

  It was McMurphy, pulling up beside him in his white Ford Bronco.

  “Yeah? Hi.”

  “Get in, dude.”

  Oh hell, Martin thought, he’s in one of his strange good moods again. “Sure, okay,” and he accepted the ride.

  “So, how’s it goin’?” It was weird how he seemed concerned about him now.

  “Fine.”

  “Yeah? Stressed out?”

  “Yeah, right, as usual.”

  “So, take it easy on yourself.”

  Martin closed his eyes and enjoyed the air conditioning in the new white Ford. “Yeah, like I really could these days. The case is going nowhere.”

  “So? That’s exactly what I’ve been meaning to talk to you about! Give it up. Forget it. Take on easier stuff. It’s only street people, hookers, people no one really cares about anyway. So forget the whole thing!”

  “What?” he mumbled lazily, only half paying attention.

  “Yeah! Forget the serial murders. No one, Marty, and I repeat, no one, will catch him anyway! So just let it all go. Gotta learn to let it all hang out. I do! And see how happy I am?”

  “How d’ya know no one will get the guy?” Martin was growing irritated. McMurphy was always so self-assured.

  “I just know it. So let it go.” He slowed down and stopped to let Martin out. “Hey, take care of that cute little girl of yours.”

  The slightly rusted Toyota nearly stalled out again as Keisha rounded the corner, but somehow she made it into the driveway. It was nearly dark, and she did not want to be there alone. But she had to go back.

  She got slowly out of the car, keeping her keys in her hand in case she needed to quickly leave. She had to get back to be sure the place wasn’t burnt to the ground, or fire bombed, or somehow damaged far worse than before. But no. It was still all the same. Nothing had changed.

  No new damage.

  She was still living the same in nightmare. And it was all too real.

  She turned to slowly leave.

  But then she saw it. A police car.

  She froze, watched its ghostly slow approach from down the quiet dark road. She rushed to the small gray rusted economy car, prayed the engine would start.

  She backed out of the driveway swiftly and was gone.

  She found he was up early; or perhaps he awakened late in the afternoon and simply remained indoors until the sky darkened. He looked over in her direction and smiled as he dealt with a customer, finally selling a painting.

  The elderly lady seemed happy with it, but complained bitterly that the shop was closed in the afternoon when she saw it in the window. She left, walking out with a slow shuffle. “Thought I’d never get rid of her.”

  “She was cute.”

  “No. She was a pain.”

  “I drove here all by myself.” She smiled, and almost laughed at being proud of it.

  “And you probably did it very well.”

  “I don’t know.” She continued to look through the painted canvases that leaned against the wall. “I mean, no one arrested me. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Do you like that one?”

  “What?” She was only half paying attention.

  “The painting of the flowers. You keep looking at it.”

  “Oh. Well.”

  “Keep it. It’s yours.”

  “I really don’t know if he believes me,” she said as she sipped her tea and listened to the constant swift whispering rhythm of the pencil on the sketchpad. “I think the detective thinks I am crazy, or something.”

  “No.” He did not lift his head up to look at her while he spoke; instead he kept drawing. “He knows we’re here.”

  “He knows we’re—?”

  “He knows we exist. That’s the only real reason he suspects us.”

  “No. It’s not about that. I mean, I believe he must feel that I am quite strange to socialize with you, or something.”

  “Yeah? Martin himself is damn strange, Laura. And that’s a fact. Only he doesn’t know it.”

  “Really?” her back was feeling cramped, but she remained still for him.

  “The man has troubles. The other night, we had a little disagreement. I might have been too hard on him. I should maybe apologize. But then, he was drunk, not me.”

  “A policeman? Drunk?”

  “They’re only human. And yes, he was drunk and raving like a lunatic.”

  “I know, but...Oh, how awful,” and then she was reminded once again of her unworldliness. She naively thought of the childlike image of the friendly policeman who helped get kittens out of trees. And then she wondered out loud, “I often do worry if something could be not right about me for socializing with you, I mean.”

  “For socializing? With me?” He did not quite understand.

  She heard the pencil cease its constant rhythm on the paper. He stopped drawing; she could feel the silence. “Oh, there is nothing wrong with you. I mean, with me. For liking you.”

  He laughed quietly and slowly resumed drawing. “Why not? Why not like someone who’s relatively decent? Most of us are. We’re not like what you see on TV, you know.” He shrugged and kept working.

  “I know, but...” She had grown up believing that she was destined to fall for someone who was tall, muscled, and passionate. Yet while she was alone she found herself mysteriously longing for someone whose flesh was nearly milk white, who was built like an agile greyhound. And he was quiet, restrained, and polite. He could almost be described as gentle, if not for his cold dark sense of humor. “It’s not that, really. I mean, it’s me. I always believed I would meet and make friends with, you know, more common types of people. But I never really met any common people before getting out into the real world. I suppose I had preconceived notions about life, and what kinds of people I would be meeting.”

  “Such as?” he was now looking at the sketch with a critical eye, staring at fine details.

  “Perhaps I read too many foolish novels when I was a schoolgirl. I expected life to be a certain way, and maybe I was sheltered. In fact, you know I was. I’m beginning to realize there is a world I know nothing about. I didn’t know people like you existed, until, well, quite recently. Now I know something that most people, including my father, who claims to know everything, does not know.”

  He closed the sketchbook. “Life is about struggle. If you make friends along the way, you’re lucky. That’s all.”

  The horses were quickly saddled. Mikhail took what little money he could find. Katarina, his sister, brought her jewels. He insisted on waking her; she dressed hurriedly and followed him silently. He could not leave her at his uncle’s mercy.

  Mikhail helped her mount her small horse, and she got on without speaking. She watched Pavel with wariness as he mounted his own horse and led the mare that once carried the princess. They moved out of the stable quietly, knowing they may need to fight their way out.

  “Take me with you, my lord,” it was Dmitri. He had been hiding in a darkened corner of the barn, hiding from the men who would come only to beat him once again. “Take me with you. Please.”

  “Gather what you will take with you,” Pavel whispered.

  “I have only but the shirt you have given me, my lord.”

  “Then get on this mare, and be quick about it. We leave now.”

  As time went on Pavel noticed that the young woman, Mikhail’s sister, did not speak a word. She rode silently by her brother’s side. She was exhausted from being awakened so early. And so was Mikhail, yet he spoke quietly with Pavel as they rode through the forest in the darkness before dawn. Dmitri followed them from behind.

  A wolf cried in the distance, then another answered
from across the forest. Katarina cringed when she heard it.

  Pavel and Mikhail continued to discuss hunting, war, and especially the wretched place they had just escaped from. Mikhail would talk of any subject to keep himself awake. He complained that Pavel was the only one among them who seemed strong and alert. Pavel replied that he would urge them all to continue until they reached a safe place to stay throughout the day—he would bring them to the house of the beautiful maiden that Mikhail visited winters ago and longed for ever since.

  “So, did he get back together with his girlfriend after all?”

  “The story is not finished yet.” He was now completing an oil painting of flowers—several cut wildflowers laying on a bare dark wooden table, with a black background.

  “You can work with so little light?” It was obvious that he could. Only one light was lit in the room, a small table lamp, and when he looked up to speak she could see the reddish amber glow reflected in his catlike eyes. “Well? Does Pavel get back together with Yelena?” The long-awaited story of their love. She wanted to hear it, hear all of it, close her eyes and imagine it.

  “You’re getting ahead of things. But, that’s typical. You people always hurry through everything.”

  “Well, we don’t live for hundreds of years.”

  “Would you like for me to go on?”

  Svetlana rushed out to greet Mikhail when she saw him approach in the moonlight. She heard horses coming, and dropped her bow and quiver when she realized who it was. Mikhail dismounted and seized her quickly in his arms. “I thought I would never see you again.”

  Pavel dismounted and took both their horses; he listened as she sobbed quietly. “Do not be sad, I have brought him back to you.” He helped Katarina off her horse and told her that soon she would be in a warm, safe bed and that she could finally rest.

  Svetlana’s sister came out to see what the commotion was. “Ah, but he has come back to you finally! The young hunter from the castle. And I thought he married some horrible wealthy duchess from a foreign land for her money!” She laughed. “And where was he?”

  “We were held prisoner,” Pavel stated. The women remembered hunting with him in the forest not long ago and they were glad to see him as well. “We were held against our will, at that fortress.”

  “A curse on that wretched swine they call a king!” Natasha hissed. “He is nothing but a butcher and a dog!”

  “You have a harsh tongue, beautiful Natasha,” Pavel was not used to hearing a woman speak so, “but, I fear you are right.”

  Together they led the horses to the stable.

  “Someone is coming,” Natasha spun quickly around to look into the forest, and reached for her dagger.

  “I nearly forgot,” Pavel whispered. It was Dmitri on the mare Pavel had stolen. “Yes, he begged to come with us.”

  “A little slow, isn’t he?”

  “Never mind. I suppose he can see to our horses.”

  Mikhail and Svetlana were still warm in each other’s arms while Katarina shivered alone in the cold darkness. Pavel threw his cloak over her shoulders and brought her inside by the fire. “I am sorry, they have no food here for you. But there is a village down the hill in the small valley. It is nearly dawn, perhaps after you rest awhile.”

  “What shall become of us?” She buried her face in her quivering hands. “Do tell me, what shall become of us?”

  “So, you do speak,” he almost laughed. “I do not understand what troubles you, woman. You are free from your uncle. It is what you wanted, is it not?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, trying to hold back tears. “But, this dark forest, it is filled with terrible wolves, and these two sorceresses, what sort of spell have they cast over my brother? Am I to be next? What unholy things will be done to me?” She cringed on the stone hearth and drew herself into a corner.

  “You are exhausted. Rest. In the morning you shall be fine.”

  “I know what you all are. I cannot rest here, not with the three of you!”

  “Indeed you can, for that is what we will do. Soon we will all sleep. As for spells, I only know the movements of the moon and stars, and the planting seasons they foretell, and I know the beasts that I hunt. I know the forest and the medicines that grow wild within. I have no other magic. Please, rest, no harm will come to you. Stay by the fire if you like. I will get you a blanket.”

  But she sat and watched his every movement with suspicion. Mikhail and Svetlana finally entered; they were speaking to each other quietly as they came in. But he left her side to go to Katarina. “Are you not well, my sister?”

  “Mikhail? Are you mad? These friends of yours—”

  “Yes. I know. forgive me. We have nowhere else to stay. Svetlana tells me we are all welcome to stay here. And she would like you to take her own bed while she remains in the stable for the day. Her sister will also, for their home is very small, with little room for more than a few.”

  Pavel was relieved that the trouble would be solved. “There now, you see, you and your brother will stay here, and keep warm by the fire. The three of us shall sleep with the animals. So, you have nothing to fear from us.” He took his woolen cloak back and prepared to go outside. “Let us now go, Svetlana,” and they left as Mikhail hastily tried to explain things to his distraught and exhausted sister. They did not pause to listen.

  The sun was gradually rising to brighten the sky. Pavel stopped to look up at the few remaining stars that still flashed in the dark heavens. They had lit the night sky for thousands of years before he walked the earth and they would keep lighting the night sky for thousands of years after he was gone. They hung in the deep silken sky when his people were honored as the children of the dark goddess of the night. And the stars themselves, he remembered, were once gods, as also were the trees and the animals. A time came when men worshipped a new God, and now his people were nearly forgotten. But now, men of wealth and power lived as though they themselves were gods, in fine palaces, with an overabundance of food and wine, while others starved outside the palace gates. They wore fine clothes and jewels while those in the village in the valley down below froze in the snows of winter. In a short span of years the men who lived as gods would die, the stars would continue to watch over the night sky, and Pavel’s people would still hunt through the dark forest when the great kingdoms passed away… He sadly looked away from the brightening sky and entered the stable.

  When he entered he found that Svetlana was already inside, sleeping soundly on a horse blanket spread out over a small pile of straw. And Natasha her sister was trying to continue a conversation with the timid Dmitri. She asked where he had come from, where he would be travelling to, and she asked if the iron slave collar he wore ever came off.

  “Let the poor boy sleep, Natasha. He has not your strength.”

  “But Pavel, we never see strangers in our forest.”

  He threw his cloak down on the ground in an empty stall. “We once slept the day safely in temples filled with fine silver. Now we must rest with the animals.”

  “I hear their new God lived in a stable once, with his mother. The people came to the stable, even kings, to bring Him gold,” she asked Dmitri if it was really true. He simply nodded.

  “Then, they are still paying us homage by casting us out in the cold with the beasts.” He rested on the floor of the stable. “You may awaken us when that mad dog butcher of a king arrives with the gold, Dmitri.”

  She drove herself home that night. He had almost forgotten that she came in her own car and he offered to drive her.

  He went out the back door after midnight, down the steps to where his Pontiac waited. It started quietly in the warm southern California night. He had to finish what he was doing. They all had to.

  Together they needed to try and stop the madness, or at least find answers.

  Alexandra fed her tropical fish while he sat in her living room waiting for her. “You know, Rick, you really ought to talk to him. And soon.”

  “Yeah?
So the little idiot can lose it again and blow my brains out? Or maybe I’ll be lucky because he’ll be so drunk he won’t aim right as usual.”

  “Rick! He has a problem.”

  “He is the problem.” He hated it when Alexandra defended worthless types of people who didn’t deserve it. “He’s going to keep saying that we are responsible and when he gets the chance he’ll do something about it. He might not go through the proper channels, either. He’s crazy enough to act on his own. He’ll hurt somebody.”

  She put the fish food away and went to get her brown leather jacket. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean, Alexandra. The moron might actually start killing us off. Think about it. He’s capable.” He got up and followed her out the door. “He is capable.”

  She gazed warily at the locked door of Martin’s apartment as they passed it before continuing down the stairs to leave the building. “No. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Rick, you’re scaring me.”

  “Yeah?” He held the door for her as they went outside into the darkened streets. “It’s about time we all get scared.”

  The night was quiet except for a dog barking in the distance. The pale yellow moon glowed overhead in the dark humid haze.

  They parked where the most recent killing had occurred. And waited.

  “Do you think people will really believe it’s people like us that are doing these things?” she asked. “I mean, people don’t even believe we exist.”

  “Don’t forget that girl on the East Coast. Maybe someone out there does know we exist.”

  “Rick. Please shut up about the college kid who wrote that story. We have enough problems of our own right now. I don’t want to think about that; not until we get this solved.”

  “Yeah, right. Hey. Let’s go down to After Dark when we’re done for the night. My refrigerator is empty. I’m empty.”