Sunset Strip: from the Tome of Bill Series

by Rick Gualtieri

  Great! There was an image I didn’t need stuck in my head.

  Another wave struck the catwalk and it shuddered. Things were definitely getting worse - not that they were all that good to begin with. We were probably minutes at most away from being completely underwater.

  If the creature won, I was fucked. If Mark won, I was likewise fucked - probably literally.

  The girl was useless as anything but a paperweight at this point. Thus, there was only one possible solution to this problem - me. What a surprise.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Bracing my good leg beneath my body, I began to inch my way back to a standing position. I almost didn’t make it. As Mark continued to struggle with the shape shifter, I almost fell on my ass - twice. My left leg refused to support my weight, its healing no doubt retarded by the blood still spurting out of my body.

  By the time I did make it up, using the wall as support, I was even more lightheaded. Forget coke - there’s nothing like a near-mortal wound to produce a killer high.

  The thought of cocaine brought with it memories of Jeff, though. He’d been responsible for nearly all of this...a chain reaction on legs. Thinking of him, Colin’s betrayal, and all the things that had been done to me as a result, brought with it a wave of anger to rival the storm surge. My eyes flashed to black and my head momentarily cleared.

  There was no time to waste - I had the feeling I wouldn't get another second wind.

  I hobbled forward to where the creature was slowly forcing Mark back. He was pressed up against the railing of the catwalk, the rock monster’s back to me as it tried to lean in and give him one hell of a hickey.

  I stumbled as I finally reached them, but that was fine. Neither had noticed me close the gap. They’d regret disregarding me as a threat.

  I grasped the creature from the bottom and heaved with everything I had to give, using my good leg as leverage. Ugh! The fucking thing weighed a ton. I barely managed it, but that was good enough for the accounting.

  Both combatants, locked in a death struggle, flipped over the edge.

  The creature tumbled into the water below, but Mark was both lighter and more agile. He twisted out of the monster’s grasp and was able to grab hold of the railing with one hand. He hung partly in the rushing water while I watched, unsure whether to be glad or horrified. Looking up at me, he smiled a predatory grin as he started to pull himself up. Guess he wasn’t quite ready to let bygones be bygones.

  I didn’t have much left to fight back with, but then again, maybe I didn’t need much. His grin became a whole lot less smug as I slammed the claws of my hand into the back of his.

  “You fucking whore!”

  “For the last time, I was just a dancer!” I spat, tired of being called that.

  He reached up with his free arm. That’s when I saw the lights from below. Orange eyes rose up from beneath him. Their glow cut through even the murk of the water. I’ve seen some messed up shit in my time, but the sight below chilled even me to the bone.

  I could only stare, wide-eyed, as they burst from the water around Mark. Arms made of razor-sharp rock wrapped around his body. One of the creatures bit into his side, taking a hunk of flesh as if it were some sort of supernatural shark.

  Mark let loose a scream of pain. The shock on his face mirrored that from when I had attacked him all those years ago. In that moment, my heart broke. All of this...every single moment...was my fault.

  “Help me!” he cried. Instinctively, I pulled my claws from his hand and grasped his wrist instead.

  “Please, Lucinda!”

  I looked down at him and felt the disparate worlds inside of my head collide. Christy was right. He did look a bit like Bill...

  That’s when things began to grind to a halt for me.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He looked like Bill, but he wasn’t. Mark had once been a decent man, but he’d let the beast inside bury all that was good about him. He’d given in to the anger, the need for vengeance.

  Bill had only been a vampire for a short while, but in that time, he’d seen more than some vamps a hundred times his age. Through it all, he’d somehow managed to stay himself. Whether it was his friends, his family, or his fucking dorky sensibility, he continually fought and won against his darker half. Not only that, but he’d somehow managed to drag me along for the ride.

  The creatures continued to swarm Mark. He tried to fight back, but one pinned his other arm, and they began to drag him down. My grip began to slip under the weight. I needed to...

  “Help me, Lu,” he pleaded. “I never stopped loving you.”

  Thanks to Bill, I had been pulled back into the light...but only partially. There was a part of me that had tasted the darkness and liked it...a part I wasn’t quite ready to give up yet, if ever. That part of me was strong, a survivor...a woman who would never again let others manipulate her.

  That wasn’t all, though. She was also a monster.

  I heard the deceit in his voice, saw the lie behind his frightened eyes. The little girl in me stepped willingly aside. This was a man who had kidnapped an innocent woman, all in the name of petty revenge.

  “Lucinda died a long time ago. My name is Sally.”

  I let go.

  Chapter 33

  1981

  “Quit your fucking whining and let’s go,” Night Razor growled.

  I shrank back from him. “We don’t have to do this, master. I’ll try harder. I promise.”

  He turned toward me, his eyes darkening with annoyance. “See, that’s exactly the problem. I’ll try harder, I promise,” he mocked. “We are the lords of the night. We own this town and everything in it. You disgust me. I had high hopes when I dragged you out of that whorehouse in Vegas. Figured I’d have to put a leash on you to keep you from cutting a swath through humanity. Instead, you sit there like a mouse every night. I swear to God if you weren’t such a good lay, I’d have staked you myself by now.”

  I stood there and took the abuse. Every bit of it was true. The thing was, I deserved it. I was in Hell, and I deserved it. Not a night went by when the faces of those I killed didn’t stare back at me from the shadows, haunting me: Minnie, Tina, and poor Mark. I’d killed more since then, all at Night Razor’s insistence. It was either them or me. I hated myself, but was afraid of truly dying more...or more precisely, what Night Razor would do to me before letting me die.

  “Is everything all right?” the man behind the desk, the night watchman of this apartment building, no doubt, asked us.

  “My boyfriend and I were just here to visit my sister,” I replied, disgusted at the lie. Night Razor was about as much a boyfriend as Marlene had been my mother. Both of them were monsters, each of whom had claimed domain over me in their own way.

  “Oh?” the man replied, his tone doubtful. “And her name would be?”

  He was probably hoping to trip us up, give him a reason to throw us out. I was tempted to say a fake name, let him kick us to the curb, but that would’ve just made Night Razor even madder. “Linda Carlsbad.”

  “Okay then,” he replied, semi mollified but still distrusting. “I’ll call her and let her know you’re coming up.”

  Before he even finished the sentence, he’d signed his own death warrant. Faster than even my enhanced reflexes could follow, Night Razor crossed the distance between them. His hand closed upon the man’s neck and squeezed, instantly cutting off his air. The watchman clawed at him in silent protest, but there was nothing he could do against such power.

  Thankfully, it didn’t last long. His eyes bulged and his struggles weakened. At last, he went still. Night Razor gave the man’s head a twist, snapping his neck more for amusement than any other reason. He then gently sat the watchman down, folding his arms below him as if he were asleep.

  “There,” he replied happily. Killing always put the sick son of a bitch in a better mood. “Now, where were we?”

  It was my fault that we were there. Betty...Firebird had taken to the nightlife, as we
called it, like a fish to water. She hadn’t held a grudge against me for turning her, and in fact, had been ecstatic to have discovered she was stronger, faster, and would keep her good looks forever. I, on the other hand, was having trouble letting go, embracing my new life, as Night Razor called it.

  Upon arriving in New York, I’d immediately purloined some recent issues of the Las Vegas Sun from the public library in the hopes of learning anything of the aftermath of my rampage. At the very least, I’d hoped to find Mark’s obituary, reading that his loved ones were there when he was laid to rest. That would have given me some comfort. Sadly, there was no news of the kind. It was like the people I had murdered simply vanished straight off the face of the planet. As if they’d never even existed.

  In my desperation, I’d placed a postcard in the mail addressed to my parents. It wasn’t much - just a note that I was okay along with the address of where I lived now, a place the others referred to simply as “the loft”.

  I hadn’t expected much in return, and I wasn’t disappointed. The following year, I received a curt Christmas card from my mother. “Season’s Greetings - Mom” was all it read. I kept it under my pillow for weeks until I became scared of it being discovered. Night Razor didn’t tolerate anyone keeping ties to their old lives.

  Then it happened. Just a few weeks ago, I had received a letter from my sister. It was short and impersonal, letting me know she had gotten a job as a sales manager for some toy company and had moved to the city. She wasted little time in gloating how well she was doing and ended with a seemingly insincere hope that we’d get together for lunch at some point.

  My mistake had been not destroying it immediately. In truth, it made me sick. She’d always been Daddy’s girl, living up to his ideals. In the end, though, it had all been bullshit. She was now a successful, single career woman, probably willing to spit in the face of any man who wished her barefoot and pregnant. My only solace was knowing it had probably given my father an ulcer.

  Sadly, that one bit of dark humor had been my undoing. Night Razor eventually found it and was furious. I had required nearly a full day to heal from his wrath. In the end, I’d promised to not follow up on it, a promise I had every intention of keeping.

  Since then, I’d tried to be a better vampire. I’d thought maybe we’d moved past it, but tonight, he’d gotten some bug up his ass. Unbeknownst to me, he’d saved the letter. He dragged me from the loft, telling me it was time to grow up once and for all. It was time to embrace the new me, including the ridiculous name I’d been saddled with. Time for me to bury the past.

  It was that last part that terrified me.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Do it,” he whispered as we stood in front of her apartment door. It was a nice building, much better than the shabby place I’d rented in Vegas. Standing there, I couldn’t help but feel a glimmer of resentment simmering inside of me. For a moment, it nearly overpowered the fear I was feeling for Linda and for myself. She’d never been much of a sister to me, but she was my sister nevertheless. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. I loved her.

  Didn’t I?

  “DO IT!!”

  The compulsion was subtle, almost a whisper in the back of my head. It was just a nudge. Unlike most of the other orders he’d given me, I felt I could have disobeyed this one. It was, no doubt, a test.

  Fear won out and I raised my hand to knock. For several seconds, there was no response. I began to hope she wasn’t home, but then I heard the footsteps. They were soft, easily missed by human ears. If I heard them, though, then Night Razor certainly did. A glance out of the corner of my eye confirmed the predatory grin on his face. God, how I hated him.

  “I’m coming,” a bored voice said from within. There was a pause and my sensitive eyes picked up the slightest variation in light behind the peephole in the door. My unnatural hearing registered a sharp intake of breath from the other side.

  The bolt pulled back and a chain disengaged. The door opened, a bit too quickly had I been an unknown knocker. Linda was older, more mature than I remembered, but then it had been about five years since we’d last seen each other. She’d held up well. Her hair was up and she was wearing a robe over a pair of silk pajamas. Her face had filled out a bit and a natural beauty had replaced the teenaged good looks I remembered. She actually could have been one of the fashion models I used to unfavorably compare her to. Despite being four years older than me, she could have passed for nearly my age. Albeit, a small voice in the back of my mind corrected, she was physically now six years older, and the gap between us would keep growing as I no longer aged. She would eventually fade, where I would not. That was small comfort, however.

  Though it was obvious she’d recognized me through the peephole, she put on a faux surprised face that was, no doubt, for my benefit. “Lucinda? Is that you?”

  For a moment, my mouth refused to open. She had no idea what I was. If she did, she’d have slammed the door shut and dialed the police as fast as her fingers could move. Instead, I replied, “Hey, sis. It’s been a long time.”

  “Let me look at you!” she said cheerfully enough. Her long, slender fingers wrapped around my shoulders as she examined me at arm’s length. Anger welled in me from her touch. How dare she, after all this time!

  I pushed it away, though, as her eyes took me in. My hair hung at shoulder length. I’d left a little body in it, but not nearly as much as seemed to be fashionable these days. I wore a simple sundress. I liked them because of the irony of their name. Night Razor was partial to me wearing them, too, but only because they were easy to remove. The only makeup I wore was some light lipstick and blush, toned down from my days as a dancer - a time I was now eager to forget.

  Mild disapproval passed through Linda’s eyes, once more igniting a spark inside of me. Her tone, though, remained pleasant. “You look simply delicious.”

  I was half surprised Night Razor didn’t burst out laughing. “You look great, too,” I said. “City life agrees with you.”

  “Doesn’t it?” She drank in the compliment as if it were a cosmopolitan. “And who is this fine upstanding young man at your side?” Her eyes turned to Night Razor. His somewhat base attire, ripped jeans and a tight t-shirt, met with no such distaste from her. Her eyes greedily devoured his form and were obviously hungry for more.

  “This is....my boyfriend, Jeff.”

  “Boyfriend, eh? A pleasure, Jeff.” He simply nodded in response. “You’ve done well for yourself, Lucinda. How did you two meet?”

  “We met on the job,” Night Razor teased. “S...Lucinda works for me.”

  Linda passed a sly glance between us. It was obvious what she was thinking: Poor, pathetic Lucinda...sleeping her way to the top. The spark inside of me began to smolder.

  “Oh dear,” she cried in mock horror. “I’ve forgotten my manners. Won’t you both come in for a spell? It would be just wonderful to catch up with you, baby sister, and I’m just dying to know more about you, Jeff.”

  As we followed her inside, one word flashed through my mind: cunt.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The more things change, the more they stay the same. My sister ushered us in to her nearly spotless apartment, complaining all the while of what a mess it was. Once the door was shut, I was sure that Night Razor would fall upon her, doing whatever he wished while she begged for mercy. I would be forced to watch, compelled to do so if I tried to look away, and powerless to help in the face of his superior strength.

  Instead, he complimented her on the décor, accepted a beer - an import, no less - and took a seat on the couch.

  What the fuck? Was this part of his game - to completely disarm her before he literally dismembered her? I wouldn’t have put it past him. In the nearly two years since I’d come under his watchful eye, I’d come to know that his cruelty had few limits.

  That had to be it. I found myself nervously stuck between wanting it over with quickly so she wouldn’t suffer and wishing to see it drawn out in the hope t
hat there’d be an opportunity to spare her life. My discomfort didn’t go unnoticed.

  “You’re fidgeting, Lucinda.”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, you’re fidgeting.” She turned to Night Razor with a sly grin, still shamelessly flirting with him. “Lu was always a fidgeter. Used to drive our father crazy. I was always trying to get her to calm down.”

  Really? That was new. I’d never known her to do anything other than criticize my every choice. Guess I’d missed all of the calming effects her personality radiated.

  “How is Dad?” I asked absentmindedly.

  “Father is Father, just as he always was. Set in his ways until the day he dies. He certainly didn’t approve when I moved out and got a job. Said I needed to find myself a big strong man to settle down with and take care of.”

  “You look like you’re taking care of yourself just fine,” Night Razor replied, leaving more than a little room for interpretation in his tone. The fucker was actually flirting back. Despite my lack of a heartbeat, my blood pressure raised a notch.

  “But look at you, dear sister,” Linda said, turning back to me after holding Night Razor’s gaze a second longer than was proper. “You seem to have found yourself a good man. Father would finally be so proud. Tell me, Jeff, do you take good care of my little sister?”

  “As good as she deserves.”

  I clenched my fists, barely feeling my claws extend and dig into my palms.

  “That’s good to hear. Lucinda always did need that extra watchful eye looking out for her. Can I get you another drink, Jeff?”

  “Please.”

  She stood, took Night Razor’s empty glass, and walked into the kitchen - not bothering to ask me if I’d like even a first drink. Goddamn, how I’d like to have shattered that glass and rubbed her face in the broken shards.

  “Oh, Lucinda,” he cooed silently, “your hands.”

  I looked down and noticed the blood for the first time. Thinking quickly, I wiped my palms on a throw pillow next to me and flipped it over.