TheVampireandtheMouse

by Robin Stark

  The Vampire and the Mouse

  Robin Stark

  Blush sensuality level: This is a sensual romance (may have explicit love scenes, but not erotic in frequency or type).

  Stabbing a man to death was not something Kirsty Dunn had planned for the night. At work, she is the quiet girl, the unnoticed girl, the girl with the timid voice, the proverbial office mouse. She is absolutely not the sort of girl who kills someone.

  Six-hundred-year-old vampire Benjamin Bretel is her only hope for getting away with murder. But as they get to know each other, she finds that he has much more to offer than just his skill at hiding a body.

  A Blush® paranormal romance from Ellora’s Cave

  THE VAMPIRE AND THE MOUSE

  Robin Stark

  Chapter One

  I think office mouse is the phrase.

  Yes, that’s it. I suppose that’s what I am. An office mouse. It’s a curious phrase, I think. Certainly, I am mouse-like. Though I don’t squeak, and cheese is by far not my favorite snack. But I am quiet, and I do move quickly, and I hate attention. I work in the complaints department for a car-insurance company, and I go home, where I live alone with two cats, and then go back to work. It’s not a great job, a career, but it pays the bills and that’s okay. I have coworkers, and I have a little fun by giving them nicknames, but they don’t know about this, and if they did I think I’d go into some sort of fit of embarrassment. There’s Jack Langdale (Goggles), Michael Smith (Bin Breath), Andrea Gould (Legs), Simone Winter (Panda Eyes), and Fiona Barham (The Princess). There are others, but these are the only ones lucky enough to be gifted with nicknames from yours truly.

  But I digress.

  Mouse, hmm.

  It is a curious phrase. Some people are lion-like, brave and strong and ferocious. But lions aren’t all that brave. They’re at the top of the food chain. How much bravery does that really require? No, I think mice are much braver. They spend their whole lives scuttling from one place to another, always prey to other animals’ rumbling stomachs.

  But I’ve digressed, again.

  It was July when it all started, a beautiful English July with healthy interpolations of summer rain and the occasional heat wave. I was twenty-six and he was, well, he was older. I had worked at that company since I was eighteen and not once had I been promoted, but I didn’t care. The job was a job, that’s all. I had no goals in life except a roof over my head and food on my plate. My job has nothing to do with this story, but, oddly, it is where it all started.

  I was working a late shift. When I got out it was dark. The stars shone down like little diamonds from the clear sky, and a few drunk people stumbled down the road, laughing, shouting, touching, and the crescent moon winked its shy light down at me. I don’t live in the best area. Rough is the word.

  I was walking beneath the underpass when they came, two guys, tough-looking. I was wearing a skirt and a shirt and glasses and my hair was in a bob. I’m not the most attractive girl in the world. (I’m short with blonde hair and small, pert breasts and ghost-white skin and blue eyes with specks of brown.) But men do sometimes show interest. That’s what these men clearly thought they were doing, at first: showing interest. One was two heads taller than me with a big, sweaty belly that almost exploded from his tracksuit. The other was short, with ratty hair and a sharp, pointed nose that jutted from a gaunt face.

  “All right, darlin’,” Rat said.

  “Fine, thank you,” I said, walking a bit faster.

  “Whoa, whoa, where you goin’ all fuck you? Come back an’ say hello.”

  I ignored this and kept walking. I was on the left side, almost hugging the wall, and they were on the other side, smoking cigarettes. The clop-clop-clop of my heels was loud against the pavement, like a signal-call, beckoning them. Rat was the first to move, Fat hanging back.

  He jogged up in line with me on his side of the path. “Darlin’, darlin’! Come an’ say hello. You’re a good-lookin’ gal, I’ll give you that.”

  “Nice ass,” Fat said with a laugh from behind.

  “Yeah, wouldn’t mind havin’ that from behind!”

  Fat laughed loudly and Rat laughed with him. I was almost at the end of the underpass now. My heart was going drum-drum-DRUM in my chest, in my ears, in my palms, screaming at me to get out of there. Sweat trickled down my back and between my buttocks and down my legs, and my knees felt wobbly. You hear those stories all the time, don’t you? Woman beaten to death by two strangers. Woman raped in underpass. Woman raped and then beaten to death in underpass by two strangers.

  I could already see my picture in some page-eight article, with a modest paragraph beside an exposé on some celebrity’s makeup ritual and maybe a few pictures of a funfair. Oh it’s so sad. Now have you heard what she uses in her hair?! I was nearly out, in the blessed safety of the streetlamps, when I felt a sinewy, claw-like hand grab my wrist.

  I screamed, of course. But I also felt embarrassed about screaming. And then I felt confused by the embarrassment. Then I screamed again as I felt another hand, made of jelly and pig fat, grab my bum.

  “Oh yeah, baby,” Fat said into my ear. His breath was too hot and smelt of cider and cigarettes.

  I tried to squirm away, but Rat’s hold on my wrist was strong and Fat was grabbing and pinching my bum. I looked around, breathing heavily, a curtain coming over my vision, black and red, but nobody was there. “We’re gunna ’ave some fun, slut,” Rat hissed. “You’re a dirty little whore, aren’t you? You’re a fucking ugly cunt.”

  “No,” I squealed, and tried again to pull away.

  “Yes, you are,” Rat spat, saliva splattering my shoulder.

  “No, no.”

  Fat’s hand was up my skirt now, coming close to the top of my leg. Still, nobody else was in the underpass. “I bet you’re tight,” he laughed.

  “Please, stop,” I said. “Please, I’ll give you money. Do you want money? I can give you money.”

  “Rich bitch,” Rat giggled. “The only thing we want from you is that little present between your legs.”

  “She feels good,” Fat said, his hand on the outside of my underwear.

  Then, something happened. I told you I was an office mouse. That’s true. I’m small and I don’t have muscles or anything like that. But something came from inside me, some animal instinct I didn’t know I had. Rat spun me so I was facing him, his dirty face close to mine, while Fat tried to fit his massive hand in my underwear.

  Rat let go of my wrist, just for a second, and that’s when I reached into my bag, pulled out my scissors, and stabbed the little shit right in the neck. I stabbed him over and over and over. I fell on top of him, and I screamed, and I let out all the pain and agony and built-up frustration that come with being an office mouse.

  Fat jumped back, bleating. “Crazy bitch!”

  I turned on him. But I wasn’t myself. I wanted to kill him, too. What right did he have? Touching me like that. None. But he turned and plodded away as fast as he could, his fat jiggling in waves.

  Then, the animal instinct left and the office mouse returned.

  Chapter Two

  If I believed in miracles, I would say God intervened that night and stopped anyone from wandering into the underpass. As it is, all I can say is I was damned lucky.

  I stared down at the dead body, at the big, gleaming pools of blood spreading across the pavement, and thought, Did I really do that? I couldn’t believe it. There was so much blood, and Rat’s face, so full of hate and lust before, was now slack and dead-eyed. I wanted to close his eyes, the way they do in the films. Overhead, I heard sirens, and for a terrified second I thought they were coming for me, but then they retreated, echoing into silence.

  I couldn’t just
leave the body there, I knew, but the idea of touching him made me feel sick. I also had no idea what to do. I worked in the bloody complaints department, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t kill someone and then move the body. I should’ve been at home right now, with Blinky and Rocky around my feet and a cup of tea and some bad TV. Kirsty Dunn was no killer. Kirsty Dunn was an office mouse.

  “Christ, Christ, Christ.”

  I slumped against the wall as the panic loomed upon me. It rose in my chest and made breathing difficult. Thinking was impossible. All I knew was there was blood on my hands and a dead body close to my feet and the office mouse had become a killer. I didn’t exactly have friends at the office, but there were people I talked to and laughed with and passed the day with. If Goggles and Bin Breath and Legs and Panda Eyes and The Princess could see me now! Nobody would believe it. I didn’t even believe it.

  My throat felt like a boa constrictor had slithered around it and was tightening its grip. I grabbed at my neck and sucked in all the air I could. My chest felt like there was a vending machine on it, pinning me down. And my arms and legs felt like they were made of water, shaking.

  I had to run. That was all there was to it. I couldn’t do anything else. What was I going to do? Move the body. I wasn’t some expert serial killer in one of those American TV shows. I was a squeak-squeak office mouse. I still couldn’t believe that it was I who had done this. Kirsty Dunn is a timid, frightened little thing. That’s what people say, I’m sure. She means well, but she’s too shy. Not too shy to stab a man to death, apparently.

  I had decided that running was my only option, but that wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Standing, for a start, was now a titanic struggle. I planted my feet and tried to rise, but my knees buckled and I slammed back down. I tried again and again and, finally, I was on my feet. How long it had been, I was clueless. It felt like a long, long time. But in reality it was probably only five minutes since I’d entered the underpass.

  I looked down at Rat and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

  Then I made toward the streetlamps, the proverbial end-of-tunnel light, though I doubted there would be any salvation. Only police inquiries, DNA swabs, a nice, tight cell, and then prison. But I couldn’t do anything else. One last night, I thought. One last night in my own home with my cats and freedom. I took it (literally) one step at a time, concentrating on moving my legs, lest they go all watery again. I must’ve looked absurd, like a puppet operated by a blind man.

  I was almost at the end of the underpass when he walked out.

  “What’s your plan, then, leave the body? Doesn’t seem very smart to me.”

  He was tall, around six feet four inches, with smooth black skin and dark, close-cropped hair. He had the shadow of a beard on his strong face, and his eyes were so dark they were almost the same color as his skin. He wore a green t-shirt, tight-fitting, that showed his well-defined muscles, and cargo trousers.

  He walked confidently into the underpass, coming right by me, and looked quizzically at the body. “Don’t feel bad,” he said casually. “They were going to hurt you. No harm done.”

  “No harm…” I echoed. Then: “Are you police?”

  “God no,” he said. His voice was deep with confident, almost arrogant undertones, as if everything was a joke that existed only for his amusement.

  “Who are you then?”

  He didn’t respond for a long time. His eyes were fixated on the pooling blood as it molded into the crevices in the pavement. Finally, he looked up at me. “A fellow traveler, like you. Someone just marking time.”

  “Are you…” I stopped as a sob rose in my throat. I swallowed. “Are you going to call the police?”

  “Why would I do that?” he said, as if the very idea was beyond ridiculous.

  I nodded down at Rat, but I couldn’t look at him, so I kept my eyes on the man. There was a small smile on his lips as he stared back at me. “Oh, him,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

  “I don’t need to worry.” I said it numbly, everything numb, even my own words. Some distant part of me thought: Squeak-squeak, stab-stab. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “What? Why?”

  He was silent for a moment. Then she said: “Because—” He closed his mouth. Slowly, a smile lifted it. “You should never let blood spoil.” His muscles tensed slightly as he said this, and I found myself tracing them with my eyes.

  This comment was so surreal it forced me back into reality. Suddenly, everything seemed real, and it was only now I realized how dreamlike it had seemed before. I took a deep breath and looked around. Still, nobody had happened across us. But it was only a matter of time. It was late, and it was a weekday, but still.

  “What does that mean?”

  He didn’t respond. So silently I wouldn’t have known he was moving if I hadn’t seen it, he walked up to me. He put his hand in my hair. I flinched away. “No,” I gasped. “No, no.”

  “Relax,” he said, and put his hand in my hair again.

  I tried to pull away but then he was taking his hand away, one of my blonde hairs between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Why?” I breathed.

  “So I can find you. Now get out of here. I’ll deal with our friend.”

  “Deal?”

  “Yes, deal, now go. I’ll explain everything tomorrow night.”

  “Why would you do this for me?”

  “As I said, I’m a fellow traveler. But you can only mark time for so long.” He smiled and stroked my cheek. For some reason, counter to all my instincts, I didn’t pull away. “Come on, time to leave.”

  “Okay, okay,” I breathed.

  I was nearly in the blessed light when I turned. “Wait,” I said. “At least tell me your name.”

  “Benjamin Bretel.”

  “I’m Kirsty Dunn.”

  “Nice to meet you, Kirsty Dunn. Now leave. This blood isn’t getting any warmer.”

  Ignoring that last comment, I smiled my thanks and ran out of the underpass. Miracles, miracles. I didn’t believe in them, but how else to explain Benjamin’s sudden appearance? Luck, I suppose. Yes, I was damned lucky.

  When I got in, I scrubbed my hands until the skin bled and showered and put my clothes in a black bag and hid them under the stairs. Rocky came and nuzzled my leg as I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. He mewed and licked my feet.

  “Okay, boy,” I said, rising. “Time to eat, I know.”

  After I fed the cats I curled into a ball on the sofa. Everything was the same, quiet, calm, and yet most nights I don’t cry for hours and hours into a pillow as the bookstand sits undisturbed and the TV blinks in perpetual standby.

  Chapter Three

  I was going to skip work, but I thought that would—what’s the phrase?—arouse suspicion. So I decided to go in and sit at my desk and try to behave as if everything were normal and I hadn’t stabbed a man to death last night and met a mysterious man named Benjamin who seemed obsessed with blood and who had promised to take care of the body for me.

  I took the long way to the office, avoiding the underpass, terrified that I would see police vans and yellow tape and news reporters. In the office, I listened for any rumors about a dead body, but no one mentioned it. It seemed Benjamin had not been lying. He had really taken care of it.

  * * * * *

  I stood in the office kitchen, trying my best to look normal as I made a cup of tea. The kettle shook in my hand, the mug shook in my hand, and the spoon and the milk shook in my hand. But when Goggles and Bin Breath came in (the former, Jack, a wiry man whose clothes were baggy on his stick body and whose eyes were insect-like through goggle-like glasses; the latter, Michael, a man normal in all regards except for his nuclear-potent breath)—when these two came in, my hands stilled. Perhaps it was survival instinct.

  Goggles leaned against the counter and Bin Breath leaned across me and got a mug from the cupboard. “Hi, Kirsty,” he said, and I was washed
in the nuclear stuff.

  I smiled my best everything-is-normal-today smile. “Hi, Michael.” I turned to Goggles. “Hi, Jack.”

  Jack smiled and adjusted his glasses. “Hello,” he said. There was a silence, and then the small-talk started. All through the small-talk, my mind kept returning to Rat and his blood-soaked corpse. “So,” Jack said, “did you do anything fun last night?”

  I stopped, my body freezing. “I—” I coughed, wiped my hand across my mouth. “I went to the cinema.”

  “Oh, what to see?”

  I said the first film I could think of that was currently showing. It was a slasher horror film full of naïve teenagers who ended up dead.

  “Oh,” Jack said, as he wiped his glasses with the cloth he kept in his front pocket. “I didn’t think you’d be into that sort of thing. I went to the cinema the other day, to see…”

  And then he talked for a long time about the film he had seen, which I was glad about. It meant I didn’t have to live in the double-life world of thinking of the dead man, whilst talking about films. I made my tea and then went to the door, as Jack was muttering, “It was amazing, I love what he does with violence and how he uses pop music in historical films.”

  When I was at the door, I said, “I have to get back to work.”

  “Okay,” Jack said, and turned to Michael, who had just finished making their teas.

  When I sat back down at my desk, Legs, Panda Eyes, and The Princess didn’t even notice. I was starting to wonder if they had given me a secret nickname too: The Assassin. I had done a lot to earn it, moving through the office with ninja-like silence. Oh, who am I kidding? They would’ve dubbed me The Mouse, for my rodent-like silence.

  Andrea had the longest legs I’d ever seen. They seemed to go up to her bellybutton, completely surpassing her midsection. She always wore short skirts and sat with her legs crossed, and the men in the office always drooled at her as if she were the cover of a magazine. Simone was small, like me, but she wore dark eye makeup that drew you into her forest-green eyes and made her look like a panda. Fiona comported herself like a princess, always straight-backed and proper, with fancy jewelry.