Crooked Fang

by Carrie Clevenger

  I could hear pulse, smell perfume, peppermint gum, knew exactly which one of the staff smoked. My senses were turned all the way up, cranked far past fucking eleven. I wanted a smoke. I wanted ten thousand drinks. Most of all, I wanted to do the same thing Heather did, and it was only through a monumental force of will that I calmly took Silvia’s arm and pulled her from her seat to walk her outside to the Willys.

  The ride back was tense, and I kept the window rolled halfway down to suck in big lungfuls of air in between cigarettes. She started some menial bits of conversation but I didn’t encourage it past a nod or a grumbled garbled response. A boy had to eat. Someone. Somehow. I hated that part of me, the part that had to have blood regularly. I nearly jumped out of her truck before she pulled to a stop in her driveway. She called after me and I halted at the sound of her voice to spin around and face her through the passenger window.

  “Are you all right?” Her gaze although concerned, burned into mine.

  “I’m fine.” My jaw was clenched so hard, it seemed I’d crack my teeth. “I think I’m going to head back to the room for a bit.”

  She nodded once. “That man back there. The policeman. He wasn’t very nice.” She stared through the windshield. Damn, she was perceptive for a human.

  I shook my head. “No, he wasn’t.”

  She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Colorado is better for you.” She turned to look at me. “Be careful, Gabriel.” She gave me a small smile.

  “I’ll come back for my stuff later. Take care, hon.” I lit another cigarette and fished my motorcycle key from my pocket and started the bike.

  I rode back toward town where I’d spotted several bars clustered together with glaring neon signs. The place I stopped was called Wolf Moon. It was the only thing open in a desperate mini strip mall–a long, squat, brown building with a flattop roof. The parking lot was about half-full of dusty trucks–a couple with welding rigs in the beds–and rust-bucket cars. The double doors were blacked out, like it was a porno shop or something. I was assaulted with Billy Ray Cyrus, the stale stench of cigarettes and the smell of alcohol. My kind of place.

  I avoided eye contact, as I was pretty damn sure I looked more vampirey than usual. A mouthwatering assortment of bodies darted to and fro in the dim lighting of the bar, stood and moved in animated conversation, and some danced together. Bodies. I blinked hard. People. Not bodies. Entangled in all the smells of the regular living was another, deeper musk. Now that I knew her scent, I detected it before I picked her out from the crowded tables of drunks. Nin.

  She perched on a high chair at a tiny round table about twenty feet away. My gaze slid over her narrow wrist as she held a shot glass halfway to her lips. The proud angle of her nose. Her dark eyes as she scanned the crowd for the same thing I did. The low lantern-lights caressed her every move. I watched her put back the shot, delicate as a swallow sipping rainwater out of a birdbath. Her hair lay in easy waves, snaking over her bared shoulders and she just–

  “Hey, you gonna stand there gaping, or did you need a drink, mister?”

  I blinked and glanced down at a petite brunette waitress carrying a loaded tray full of beer and frosted mugs. She arched an eyebrow and put a hand on her hip, making her oversized breasts jiggle just a little. “Just let me know when you’re ready,” she said then melted into the crowd. My gaze darted back to where Nin was sitting and found her chair empty. I looked around and spotted her dancing close to a grinning twenty-something and it was pretty damn obvious what she was doing.

  Women could do that. If I started hugging up on some female on the dance floor, I’d probably get slapped. I just stood there and watched her do her thing, and gradually my own hunger slowed to a simmer, which meant I could control it so that I could take my time too. I cut through the milling throngs and sat in the chair across from hers, signaling the waitress when she looked in my direction to request my usual.

  “You’ve got nerve coming here,” Nin breathed into my ear from behind a minute later and I shivered. Her breath was warm.

  “So, I found out about my friend.”

  “Did you?”

  I smirked. “Yeah, turns out she’s one of us now.”

  Nin scoffed and reclaimed her seat to lean in close. I could see her cleavage. She wore several necklaces with charms. “You’ve seen her then?” She sat back when a small bottle of whiskey and a glass was brought for me.

  I slapped a fifty on the tray and told the waitress to keep the change. Grinning at the tip, she left me and Nin alone again without any further hovering. “Yeah. She attacked someone outside the hospital.”

  “Who else knows besides you?”

  I snorted. “Like I have anyone to fucking tell.”

  I ignored the glass, popped the seal on the bottle and took a good long drink.

  Nin’s eyes locked with mine. “You are working alone.”

  I laughed. “Is that so bad? Last I looked, so are you.”

  She took the bottle from my hand and filled the neglected glass for herself.

  I grabbed it back from her after she poured. “I don’t remember offering you none.”

  Her answer was a demure smile before she took an equally healthy drink. She licked her lips slowly. “Go feed. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  She nodded and jerked her head toward the dance floor.

  I shook my head. “That kind of shit doesn’t work for guys.”

  She laughed. “Go attack them in the restrooms as you are accustomed to doing then.”

  A blush of embarrassment washed over me. “There’s nothing saying you have to be a monster about it.”

  She shrugged and took another drink. “I don’t have all night.”

  After I attacked someone in the bathroom, I felt a little better. Nin was right. The blood was a nice jazzy combination that made me feel high and mellow at the same time. I was at this level when I returned to Nin’s table.

  “You look better,” she said. She’d drunk half my bottle. I snatched it out of her reach.

  “At this rate we’ll both be too drunk to do much besides fall down,” I mumbled and she laughed.

  “It breaks down fast enough,” she said. “Where’d you park?”

  “Around in the back.” I wanted a cigarette. I fiddled with the pack in my hands.

  “We can go out there and you can smoke your cigarettes.” She picked up the bottle to screw the cap back on.

  “Fine.” I rose to my feet. “You obviously know the place better than I do.”

  I followed her outside to the back patio. It was mostly deserted, with a couple of iron chairs and tables out there for smokers. A huge planter plot half-full of sand served as the communal ashtray.

  She sat the bottle down on the table but remained standing as I lit a cigarette, studying me. I glanced at her and reached for the bottle again. That too, she took in with rapt attention. I leaned back against the brick wall and closed my eyes. The blood rush was evening out, but I still felt terrific. Then I felt her weight against me. I opened my eyes.

  Her lips pressed against mine, soft but insistent. I sighed through my nose and gave way to the kiss, our lips parting for a first taste. Her tongue, laced with the sweetness of the whiskey was a wild, warm thing, lashing over and around mine. I groaned into her mouth and gripped her hip to squeeze, enjoying the feel of her. Then I realized what the fuck I was doing.

  I broke the kiss. “Looking for weaknesses?”

  God, I wanted her. Fuck the maybes. I wanted her bad. I leaned in to inhale her scent and sought her mouth again.

  She ran her hands down my chest and pushed me against the wall, her breaths shallow and quick. “I have to go.” She walked away without looking back, brushing past tables to jump over the railing instead of taking the stairs, leaving me weak-kneed with her taste still in my mouth.

  Her kiss stung. It was so hard and rough, yet soft. My lips tingled, and I licked a fang, thinking of places I co
uld bite her. Someone like me. Someone that I wouldn’t have to be careful with. Nesferata might be dirty animals, but their women were goddamned hot from my meager experience. I wanted to know more about her. Lots more.

  People came out to smoke, mingled and stared. I sat down and smoked another cigarette and tossed the rest of the bottle into the trash. Goddamnit. Now that she’d gone, my mind straightened out and I realized that I hadn’t said hardly a damned thing I’d meant to. I hadn’t even expected to see her again so soon. She was obviously sticking around, as determined to find the stray Nesfer as I was. I also had to track down Heather and do whatever I needed to do. And Nin–I couldn’t make up my mind whether I wanted to fuck her or fight her. She’d drawn a reaction out of me that I couldn’t control.

  A redhead in her late thirties sat at the table next to me with a cigarette. Great rack in her black tank top, but her laugh was damned annoying. The three college-age boys sharing her space talked to her, but were busy staring at her tits. She didn’t seem to care. I dragged myself out of the chair and left.

  Instead of heading back to Silvia’s, I rented a new room at the Thunderbird, a nicer place done in pale tan stucco with retro sixties furnishings and low beds. The pool had lights in it that changed color every few minutes. The floors were stained concrete with fuzzy throw rugs. Tired of staying in a dump, I was beyond worrying whether anyone knew where I was. After all, Nin had no problems tracking me down. I’d get a good day’s rest and try fresh the following night. My room opened to the parking lot, with my bike in the spot right in front of the door.

  I stood in the doorway, smoking a cigarette and thinking how badly I needed to get some new clothes when a rattle farther out in the parking lot, toward the wooden barrier fence, caught my attention. Curious, I pitched my cigarette aside and crept silently in a wide arc to investigate. A cat let out a bloodcurdling howl, and the sharp tang of spilled blood tickled my nose. Behind an old green Cadillac DeVille, I found Heather sucking the poor beast dry, squeezing the limp body in a pitiful attempt to wring more blood out of it. She crouched low, like a cavewoman, and she was still naked. The bones of her spine stood out under her pale skin and her ribs heaved as she flung the carcass aside and turned to find me standing there with my mouth hanging open. Her chin was rusty red from however many meals she’d managed to find in that new existence but she was starving. Hunger and fury gleamed dully in her black eyes before she lunged at me, surprisingly quick for something frozen solid just nights before. What did she do? Track me like a dog? I underestimated her range and she drove new fangs deep into my neck, snarling into the bite. I flipped her over my back in one smooth motion and shoved her hard, back into the fence on her ass. She grimaced, my dark blood oozing from between her lips.

  “Not food. Not me.” I stared her down, daring her to come at me again, but she blinked, and a slow realization smoothed the anger from her face.

  “Gabriel?”

  I’d convinced myself to think of her as a thing, not someone I used to know. This wasn’t the Heather in that picture in the wardrobe, but yeah, it was. Now. And she was kind of disgusting besides. But when she said my name, I softened for a moment. I couldn’t help it. She remembered me. She ran at me and threw her arms around my neck with a thick sob. “What’s wrong with me?”

  I gritted my teeth and pushed her away, holding her by the wrists. She stank of dead things and rotting underbrush–a moldy, rank smell that sickened me. But she was Heather. I was torn.

  She tilted her head and looked at me blankly, as if she were trying to remember something. “Help me.” She sagged in my grasp but I held her up.

  “I’m trying to.”

  “I’m so cold. So hungry.”

  “Welcome to my world, Heather.” I looked up at the sky. “The sun’ll be up soon. You can be good and let me try to help you out, or you can find out what a vampire tan feels like.” I let her go and she staggered backward, covering her naked breasts by hugging the backs of her arms. I couldn’t stand to look at her directly. Something was wrong with her. Far as I knew, vampires looked better after they were changed, not worse. Maybe it was because she’d been frozen? I turned to walk back to my room. “Come on,” I snapped over my shoulder and she followed me into the room, where I locked the door behind us.

  She was smeared with dried blood like some kind of wild woman from a jungle tribe. Her skin was ashen, pasty. Her eyes were dull, her hair snarled up in ragged knots. Her feet were filthy from running around outside half the night. Her appearance made it easier not to dredge up old feelings as much. I wrinkled my nose. “You need to bathe. Now.”

  She slunk into my bathroom and screamed. I figured that might happen. I stood in the doorway as she stared at herself in the mirror. I remember what that had been like–the first time seeing myself after the fact. I stayed patient as I could with her as she leaned over the sink to examine her face. “I need to ask you some questions after you’re done. I know you’ve been through a lot of shit tonight.”

  “What...am I?” She looked at me, her brows crumpled inward, like she might cry.

  “Well, someone’s changed you to a vampire.”

  Laughter erupted from her, like broken glass. It was the sound of someone losing her sanity. “A vampire. This is what being a vampire feels like...and you? You too, Gabriel? I had no idea. I can’t feel anything but hunger and cold. So cold.”

  I brushed past her and started the shower, adjusting the temperature to something halfway pleasant and guided her by her shoulders to get in under the spray. “Please bathe. You smell like shit.”

  She tried to grin, but it looked more like a leer with her teeth, which were a bizarre shade of gray and, of course, those skinny fangs. I guess since she’d been frozen for a week the pretty hadn’t kicked in yet. The incisions had knitted at least, leaving an angry red “Y” scar over her chest–I blinked, realizing I was staring openly at her bare tits and that was probably really rude.

  “You cool, Heather?” I paused at the door. She pressed her lips together, giving me a quick nod. “Okay, I’m going to figure out how to get you some clothes.”

  Betting that a nicer motel would have some sort of clothes-care facility, I wandered around the bottom floor until I found the Laundromat. I didn’t have much time, maybe a few minutes. Three dryers were going and, as usual, nobody was in sight. I popped open the first dryer and found kids’ clothing. The second one had an assortment of men’s and women’s clothing, and I found a couple of t-shirts and shorts. I grabbed a small armful and rushed back to my room.

  Heather sat on the edge of the bed staring out into space, a towel draped around her shoulders. She was shaking. I sorted through the clothes and handed her the best out of the mess I’d managed to collect–an old Raiders jersey and red jogging shorts. The jersey fell almost to her knees when she put it on. I gave Heather the bed, settling in front of the door like a watch dog.

  Insomnia was in full swing so I stared at the shapes light made on the ceiling above the curtains and listened to her thrash around on the bed, eventually kicking off the covers completely. I guess I slept because next I knew it was half-past-eight in the evening. About ten minutes after sundown, I got a knock on my door. It was Nin, wearing those painted-on jeans and a smile. She pressed a towel-wrapped bundle in my hands.

  “What’s this?”

  “I was thinking about last night.”

  I unwrapped the bundle partially to reveal the polished wood butt of one of my stolen guns. “Wow, you shouldn’t have. You’d swear they were made just for me.” I smirked and she stepped close to me, trailing her fingers up my chest to my neck, where she turned my head to see the marks where Heather’d bitten me. I could see her fangs, and with Nesferata, fangs down equaled hungry or horny–something about a muscle or nerve pushing the canines out when needed. I wished mine did that. Life would be easier because I wouldn’t have to hide them all the time. In fact, I talked funny for a little while when I was first changed, until I got used
to them being there.

  “What happened to you?”

  I covered the guns again. “Nothing.”

  She frowned. “You don’t trust me. I even loaded them for you.”

  “Look, I trust you not to be trusted. I think I’m holding proof of that in my hands.”

  She sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. “You have found her.”

  I backed up to open the door wider so Nin could come in. “Yeah. Meet the reason for not ripping your clothes off right now.”

  Her lips slid upward into a smile and she followed me into the room.

  Heather lay under the blankets. She looked like hell. Her skin was almost gray.

  “Is this normal?” I asked Nin, who stood there with her hands covering her mouth.

  She circled the bed to lean over at points to get a closer look at Heather’s unconscious form. Slowly she shook her head. “This is not Nesferata. Or even like you.” She hissed and bared her fangs in distaste.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I didn’t.

  “She is no good.”

  “What do you mean, ‘no good’? What’s wrong with her?”

  “I would think you already know.” Nin walked back outside and I followed.

  “What are you saying?”

  “You’re a good man, Xan Marcelles, but that in there deserves only destruction.”

  “She recognized me,” I said through clenched teeth. There was no fucking way she could be–

  “She is Wretched. Improperly changed. I know it, and you know it.”

  I took a step back, shaking my head, over and over. “There’s no way. She recognized me. She said my name. She’s been lucid the entire time.”

  Nin folded her arms under her breasts and raised an eyebrow. “I was led to believe that you were this great killer of our kind once. Go on–take a look at her once again and tell me you don’t see the initial stages of decomposition. Convince me that she is not already dead.”