by Willa Okati
“I know, lover. I know. It never ceases to amaze me, but yes, I am well aware of how much you mean those words.” Barrett caressed Nathaniel’s arms, his eyes glowing with lust and wonder… and amusement. “Just as you knew what I’d say in return.”
Nathaniel nodded. The two stood together for a long moment, soaking up the afterglow, slowly feeling their shakes come to a halt in one another’s arms. God, he could have stayed there forever, loving and being loved in return, but…
He swallowed. “You’re going now, aren’t you?”
Barrett smiled. “Yeah, lover. Got to. I’ll risk being late as it is.”
“Late, late, for a very important date?”
“Already made my date.” Nathaniel couldn’t help returning Barrett’s brash grin as the vampire went on. “No, I’ve got a job that’s waiting on me. I’m after a prize tonight, lover. Hard cash, all of it unmarked and liquid. Enough that we can run away together, find a place to put down roots where they won’t be so hasty to draw stakes at my kind, and live like kings. You and I, together, forever, and safe at last.” Barrett ran the pad of his thumb over Nathaniel’s lower lip. “Now, what do you say to that?”
Nathaniel’s mouth opened in surprise. “Run — run away? Leave here? You and me?”
“I’ll stay, if you ask it of me. I know I never did say anything about such a plan before, but I never thought I’d have the means to carry out that little dream. If I pull this job off right, though, there’ll be enough and plenty left over to ferry us away. What d’you say?” Barrett stroked, stroked, stroked with his thumb, and stared, stared, stared with his blue eyes.
Nathaniel didn’t let any of that influence him, though he had to grin at how Barrett liked to play just a little dirty, to let his vampire know he was wise to his game. It didn’t change his answer. “God, yes, I’ll go,” he said, voice shaking. “If there’s a place where we can live safe, I want to be there. Go, Barrett. Pull your heist, come back for me, and I’ll follow you wherever you go.”
“That’s my love.” Barrett kissed Nathaniel lightly. “Keep watch for me out that window, then. I’ll be back with the money before the morning light. We’ll spend the day a-snooze in one another’s arms, and be off as soon as dusk paints the skies in purple glory.
“But mind, if I can’t make it back before daybreak, I swear to you I’ll be here tomorrow night. Be ready for me. ’Cause then, we go. Go together, and don’t look back.”
Barrett kissed Nathaniel again, lingering, promising with lips and voice. “Till death do us part, lover. This I swear.”
“Till death,” Nathaniel echo-murmured into their kiss. “To the end of the world and back…”
“Though hell should bar the way…”
* * *
Down beneath Nathaniel’s apartment, Zeke grinned a sharp, feral grin, and ran his tongue across his teeth. He’d heard every last word of that little exchange. “Tender lovers tell no lies,” he chuckled to himself. “Damn, if I’d only had a recorder. But my word is good as any man’s, right? There’s plenty who’ll love to hear this tale.”
He stood, brushing leaves and bracken off his black-and-olive clothing. Stared up at the window, thoughts full of blood and laughter, and just how he’d play this particular game. Yeah… he’d have a little fun, as well as do the job he’d been sent on.
“Though hell should bar the way,” he chuckled. “Well, maybe not hell. How about an emissary from the other team, instead?”
Stanza Seven
The apartment seemed far too quiet and empty once Barrett left. Once upon a time, Nathaniel had been used to living in silence. He’d preferred it, in fact. God and nature might have gifted him with a pretty face, but he’d learned early on that trying to use it in the bars, the meat markets, and even the coffee shops lured in none but those who wanted to use him. Wanted to kiss his cupid’s-bow lips and wanted to fuck his tight, firm ass until they were drunk with ecstasy.
Not a one of them wanted to stick around, though. Sure, they might have asked for his number, and tried the occasional follow-up booty call, but no one ever had taken an interest in becoming part of Nathaniel’s life.
He was too weird for them, they claimed, if pressed. Had eyes that looked too deep and saw too much. One trick said, squirming like a worm on the hook, when Nathaniel stared at him, it felt like Nathaniel was looking right into his soul, and not liking what he saw there.
Nathaniel had been baffled. He’d not meant to do that, not ever, but his ex-trick swore up and down that was why no one ever came back for seconds. “You ain’t human, not exactly,” he’d said, that man whose name Nathaniel had long since forgotten, rubbing his arms as if he were freezing cold. “Nobody human can peel away skin and bone like that with just a look. You’re pretty as hell, but you’re also fuckin’ scary, man. Some kind of devil that walks like a man.”
Panic had flashed through his eyes. “Hey — you’re not — one of them, are you? Some kind of damn-freak daywalkin’ vamp?”
Nathaniel had burst into laughter, unable to help himself. Even to his own ears, it had sounded brittle and frightening. He’d not been surprised when the trick broke and fled, and even less surprised when his stream of horny supplicants slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether.
He’d not gone out much, after that. The occasional bar, when he wanted a drink he didn’t have to pour and mix himself, or when he was pissed off enough at the world for making him a hermit against his will that he wanted to give them all a good scare. He’d stand at the bar and stare, just stare, watching men meet his eyes, then scramble away, near pissing themselves for fear.
But then, there had been Barrett. Barrett, dangerous and sexy, as good with a gun as his honey-coated tongue, who had the balls to wear a silver cross dangling around his neck. His cocky grin was unwavering and his own blue eyes a terrifying wonder. Nathaniel had fallen under his spell without a second thought, knowing that here was the other half of himself. Barrett was what he’d been missing, and seeking, all along.
He’d not regretted it once. Not even once he knew Barrett to be a killer and a robber. Everything that walked and crawled took life, one way or another, to keep on living, just as they laid hands on whatever they could get by any means. The way Nathaniel saw it, he had no room to judge. Nor did he want to.
All he wanted was Barrett. Then, now, and forever more.
“Lover,” he murmured out loud, just to hear the words. “My lover, my killer, my Barrett.”
Humming a deep, contented sigh, Nathaniel padded over to his bed, the sheets still a sweaty, come-soaked tangle, and flung himself into the middle of the mess. He stretched out his arms and legs, laughing as he made “angels” where a devil and a fallen soul had fucked their way almost all the way to the gates of heaven itself.
Idly, he reached down to caress his cock. He sighed. Not as young as he’d once been, though he wasn’t yet old by any means, it still took Nathaniel a little while to start a fire burning without Barrett to strike the match. All the same, he held his cock in his hand, gently rubbing the softened flesh with his thumb. He knew what promise it held, and the light touch felt ever so good.
“Together forever, huh?” he murmured. His cock twitched a little. He and Barrett. Somewhere safe from everything he’d learned to fear. Sounded like an impossible dream, but he knew not to doubt Barrett’s word. If his vampire said there was such a place, then it existed.
And come the next night, so soon, yet far too long to wait, they’d be on their way. Running the highway to freedom, the dark and empty highway, alone in the moonlight. A discarded gypsy’s silken ribbon that they could follow all the way to their new home, wherever it might be.
But better yet, Barrett would be back soon again that night. Nathaniel didn’t worry too much about his vampire’s being able to pull off whatever heist he had in mind. Barrett knew his way around things no lawman or rich man would care to have others be aware of. Wasn’t anything Barrett couldn’t steal, if he had a mind to
the task.
He’d be back. Soon. Coin and cash in hand, but more important, horny and ready to rumple up the sheets again. Fuck until daybreak, and fall asleep in one another’s arms to wait out the dangerous sunlight hours and plan their escape the following night.
Nathaniel arched his back, laughing softly. What a wondrous thing, to love a beast! He’d never been happier, or more eager to face the future. But he’d be happier yet — no, happiest of all — when Barrett came back through his door, reaching out for Nathaniel even as he crossed the threshold.
He lay in his bed for — hours, he didn’t know how long — savoring the smells left behind from the night’s lovemaking, his own sweat and Barrett’s foreign, spicy tang. Moving his arms and legs lazily as if through water. Making up dreams of how it would be when Barrett came to him. How they’d fuck away what remained of the night, and who’d do what to whom. His cock eventually rose and filled to stand upright, pulsing with the need to come, but he held it back. Saved it for Barrett. He wanted his vampire’s mouth on that proud erection more than his own hand.
Lost in the haze of a daydream, Nathaniel barely noticed the sound of footsteps mounting the treaded stairs outside his apartment door. When he did, he grinned. Barrett, back at last? Probably. No one else moved about his building so late at night.
A key rattled in the lock. Nathaniel’s grin widened. Only Barrett had a spare. It was him. At last. At long last.
“What took you so long?” he teased, not looking as the door swung open. His hand slipped down to circle his cock and show it off, swollen dark purple and hard. “I’ve got something for you, Barrett. Want to come and get it?”
“Well, now, I would, except I don’t lean that way,” a stranger’s voice drawled. “Not to man, nor to monster, either.”
Nathaniel shot upright in bed, staring wild-eyed at the door. A man dressed in camouflage, a stranger to him, ex-military by the look of his haircut and crazy as hell from the gleam in his eyes, leaned against the doorjamb. Almost casual, he raised a rifle big enough to kill a bear and aimed it at Nathaniel’s head.
“Now that I’ve got your attention, instead of your dick,” the man said, a chuckle in his voice, “how about you tell me all about your vampire lover, you pervert whore? Tell me.” He leveled the gun. “Tell me all I want to know.”
Stanza Eight
Barrett found himself humming a snatch of song as he worked merrily away, fingers flying over the data pad on a safe that had been child’s play to ferret out. Hidden behind a picture, of all things. Hadn’t anyone with money ever watched a single movie? The safe was always behind the tacky picture in a head honcho’s office. Usually mounted behind his desk, where he could gloat all day long, knowing what lay behind him and thinking no one else knew, or could possibly get to it.
Damn fools, all of them.
More fools, still, for not hiring guards prepared to face anything that might crawl the earth in the dark-time hours. Vampires moved faster than your average human, hit harder, and weren’t afraid to use their teeth as well as fists. Good guards ought to be prepped with stakes, at least, but these? All they had were pitiful little handguns they barely knew how to shoot.
Barrett hadn’t killed them, for all they deserved it as complete and total idiots. He’d just tied them up, had a good, filling snack from their neck arteries, and left them there. Bleeding, embarrassed, but alive to tell the tale.
He chuckled to himself. Another legend of the Highwayman, born before his very eyes. Good fun.
The data pad clicked once, twice, three times, and then a tiny LED lit up pretty and green. Barrett grinned, broad and feral. Easy as coaxing a pretty boy into a kiss, this job. Not that he’d go looking for one, not any more, not now that he had his Nathaniel a-waiting for him to come back that night, though hell should bar the way.
Well, he wasn’t looking to face any brimstone that night. As he opened the safe, he laid eyes, then hands, on all he wanted. What he’d come for.
A fortune. A fucking fortune in liquid cash and coin. His and Nathaniel’s ticket to a life together, so long as they both should live. And long might be that day, yeah?
Barrett filled his satchel, and then his pockets, singing under his breath again. By all the gods that denied him salvation, he couldn’t wait to get back home and show off the night’s take for his lover’s pleasure.
He wondered: what would Nathaniel be up to, about then? Lying in bed, awaiting his return? Thinking on what they might do, when next they met?
Barrett grinned, feeling his cock stir in his pants, and his dead heart swell with want and love. I’m on my way, lover, he vowed. And then, we’ll never part again…
* * *
The man — a mercenary, Nathaniel guessed — that, or just plain crazy and bent on a vendetta that happened to pay — had introduced himself as Zeke, then ceased his talking altogether. At least, his talking to Nathaniel. He kept on making words, though, chattering to himself in phrases that made no sense. The few words Nathaniel could pick out sent fiercer shudders down his spine than anything Zeke happened to be doing to him: vampires, blood, kill, kill, kill.
Not that what Zeke occupied himself with was anything to scoff at. Nearly as strong as one of the vampires he seemed to hunt for a living, he’d manhandled Nathaniel as if he were a rag doll. Jerked him from the bed by one arm and dragged him to the floor, across it, and to the foot of his bed. Never once shutting up, he’d produced a coil of thick rope from a bag he carried and tied Nathaniel up good and tight to the bedposts. Facing the window, able to look down at the road that Barrett would ride back to him.
Nathaniel pretty much figured that trying to reason with a crazy man would be pointless, but for all that, he had to try. “You know who I am?” he asked, keeping the trembles out of his voice. “Do you know who my lover is? He’ll cut you to ribbons, Zeke, if you don’t let me go.”
Zeke cocked his head. “You don’t say. Well, that changes everything. Expect I’d better let you go.”
He drew back his hand and slapped Nathaniel hard as he could, knocking his head to the side. Nathaniel tasted blood from his lips as they split. Gagging, he spit out a mouthful of crimson saliva and fragments of tooth.
Zeke sank to his haunches in front of Nathaniel and grinned as if they were the best of pals. “’Course I know you, and your lover, you sick prick. He’s that Highwayman there’s so much talk about, and you’re his freak-lovin’ human pet. There’s more than common folk know the Highwayman’s name. Rich men know it, too, and they have the price to pay for his head. Well, actually, for a stake through his heart and a bonfire lit on his body. Which is what I mean to see happen tonight, just to let you know.”
Zeke looked thoughtful. “You, they didn’t specify a particular fate. So, I figure I’ll just have a little fun. Don’t suppose you’d tell me anything I’d like to hear, such as where the Highwayman’s gone tonight, or when he might be coming back?”
Nathaniel glared at Zeke. Sucking hard despite the hurt, he filled his mouth and spat out another stream of blood. It splattered the man’s shirt in a Rorschach inkblot pattern. Zeke glanced down with no more than a mild interest. “I didn’t figure as much,” he said, shrugging. “Just as well. I was actually hoping you wouldn’t talk. This way, I get to play and not have to make up excuses as to why.”
I won’t ask. Won’t ask. Won’t.
Zeke laughed all of a sudden, the sound loud and abrasive. “See, I figure the best way to make you hurt, is to make you watch it all. Everything I do to him, you’ll feel as if it’s happening to you. You actually love that sick son of a bitch, from what I can tell. Boy, you need serious help. Shame you’ll be too dead after this is all over to go looking for some.”
He picked up his second rifle and angled it just so against Nathaniel’s chest, the barrel tucked snugly beneath Nathaniel’s heart. “This is more or less just a reminder of what I can do,” Zeke said. “Also, just so you know, this thing’s got a special kind of trigger. I rigged
it up special myself. You so much as lean forward and it’ll go off. Blow you to kingdom come, where God Almighty will turn you back and send you straight to the hellfires where you belong. Man-whore and vampire slut. You think there’s peace waiting for you after death? God is an angry God, and He’ll have none of your kind.”
Zeke’s eyes gleamed. “Me, I expect He’ll welcome come the day, for I am a righteous man, and I carry out His works on this sorry earth. Now…” He took up a position where he couldn’t be seen through the window, lifting his rifle at the ready. “Let’s just wait…”
Nathaniel closed his eyes tight. Then he opened them again. He couldn’t look — he couldn’t not look. He couldn’t help but stare down at the empty road, the road Barrett would ride, coming back to him as promised before the break of day.
Coming back to his death, while there was not a thing Nathaniel could do to stop it…