Spider Bite: A Vampire Thriller (The Spider Trilogy Book 3)

by J. R. Rain

  The Count was a lot more than a ghost.

  A lot more than a love-struck spirit unable to move on.

  What he was, exactly, I didn’t know. But I was going to find out, somehow.

  For now, I had bigger problems.

  Yes, even bigger problems than a violent ghost hell-bent to bring his girlfriend back from the dead...and destroy anyone or anything who got in his way. Dylan was the anyone. I was the anything.

  As I stepped out of the shower, dripping wet and naked as the day I was born—which just so happened to be nearly 200 years ago—I found Parker sitting up in bed, staring at the wall, eyes blank.

  “Er, you okay, Parker?” I asked.

  She didn’t immediately answer and, as I stepped deeper into the room, a cold dread came over me. Or maybe just a dread, since I was always cold.

  Yeah, something was seriously wrong here.

  “Um, Parker—”

  “Who is this Parker you speak of, senor?” said Parker. Of course, she sounded like anything but Parker. She sounded like she could very easily be...

  “Let me guess,” I said, covering my face. “Maria de Hoyes?”

  “Of course, senor. Now, would you please get some clothes on? We need to find the Count and reclaim my body once and for all. Oh, and send him back to hell where he belongs.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I have to confess, my pride was hurt a little by the fact she looked at my naked body and demanded I cover it up.

  But any physical attraction in that situation would have become very, very awkward. Hell, it was weird enough just having feelings for Parker. A one-woman love triangle would certainly have complicated things even more than they already were.

  “How much of you is still in there, Parker?” I thought at the Parker/Maria person.

  It’s like my words bounced off a mental brick wall, so I figured “not much.” Parker had apparently been possessed again, like she had by that stone-demon thing when we’d first met. This was getting to be a habit, and something we’d have to have a long talk about before our relationship got any deeper. But for now, I figured the best move was to get Maria back to her own body and rescue Dylan.

  And getting a chance for revenge against the Count was a nice little bonus.

  We slipped out via the entrance to the hotel’s pool, figuring the cops would be busy out front trying to figure out what the hell happened. I hailed another cab—yeah, I could have flown, but carrying Parker/Maria would have been kinda noticeable—and gave the driver the address for the museum. I figured Dylan’s instinct would be to take his dead sweetheart back to the glass case where he’d first fallen in love.

  At least, I hoped so. If he stopped for a little bit of the old slap-and-tickle in the back of the van...well, I didn’t even want to think about that.

  I doubt the Count would think much of that, either.

  Just before we got to the museum, the taxi driver glanced in the mirror. “Your girlfriend okay, buddy?” he said. “She looks a little, you know, spaced-out. Come to mention it, you don’t look so hot yourself.”

  “One of those nights,” I touched the cut on my mouth. Then I realized my fangs had grown a little and were sticking out over my bottom lip.

  The guy nearly drove off the road. “Your teeth! Jesus Christ.”

  I dug into my pocket and pulled out a couple of hundreds and shoved them into the little slot in the bulletproof glass. “One for the ride and one for not seeing me.”

  “You got it, Mac. For that kind of dough, I’d forget my own wife and kids.”

  The Aurelio’s Pizza van was parked at a service ramp behind the museum. The back of the van was open, and so was the big door at the unloading bay. Nobody was in sight.

  But someone was very much in smell.

  * * *

  We stepped inside and there were the usual aromas of formaldehyde, cleaning products, dust, and decay. But beneath that was a stench that could only be one thing.

  Rotted flesh.

  We came across a severed hand twenty feet inside. The nails were painted bright pink, but the flesh was bloated, black, and a little bit leaky around the raggedy wrist.

  “¡Por Dios!” Parker/Maria said. “Is that my hand?”

  “No,” I said, not wanting her to panic. “Yours are still attached, see?”

  She flexed her fingers and nodded. “Es muy stinky in here.”

  “That would be all the dead stuff. A museum is filled with the past.”

  Where you belong, I thought, but I didn’t dare say it out loud. She seemed fragile enough as it was. I guess you’d be, too, if your body was scattered around in pieces.

  We followed a slick trail of slime through stacks of wooden crates, cardboard boxes, and shelves of weird stuff like African tribal masks, metal armor of Spanish conquistadors, Native American artifacts, and the odd stuffed trophy fish. We came out of the storage area into a hallway. The lighting was low, and most of the corners and detours were hidden by shadows. But with my vampire eyesight, I had no trouble seeing deep into the corners.

  The one thing I didn’t know was whether the Count had pulled his disappearing act again.

  “Maybe you should wait here,” I said to Parker/Maria.

  There must have been a little of Parker in there, because that didn’t go over too well. Her eyes flashed anger and she said, “Hey, it’s my body, and I can do what I want with it.”

  “Okay, but if the punches start flying, try to stay out of the way,” I said. I could only hope that once we got Maria’s body all back together and safely in her case, then she’d end her possession of Parker and we could all live happily ever after. Well, those of us that were actually alive, anyway.

  We wound deeper into the museum, and I was beginning to recognize the layout. We were nearly to Maria’s final resting place—cleverly hidden in plain sight—when I heard a loud clattering ahead. I put my finger to my lips to shush Parker/Maria. My fangs grew longer in anticipation of danger.

  I turned the corner into the room that contained Maria’s exhibit. A dim spotlight threw soft light on the empty glass case. Just in front of it, Dylan was hunched over on the floor, working feverishly.

  He was putting together Maria’s pieces like a puffy, stinky jigsaw puzzle. “My darling,” he whispered. “I’ll make you as beautiful as ever.”

  The creepy little flap of a mask lay to the side, and I have to say, she was pretty hideous without it. I wished Dylan could see the real her, but you know what they say about fools blinded by love. The rest of her chunks were scattered on the floor and he jammed them together as if hoping they would stick together like a Mrs. Potato Head doll. The Count, as far as I could tell, was nowhere in sight.

  “Dylan!” I called.

  He jumped to his feet, wielding one of her legs like a battle ax. “She’s mine. You can’t take her.”

  Parker/Maria stepped in front of me. “Hey, senor, put down my leg and step away and no one gets hurt.”

  “Maria?” he said, obviously confused.

  “Yes,” she said. “Do you love me?”

  “Of course. Forever and ever, until death do us part.”

  It was a little creepy, hearing Dylan say that to his cousin, but he didn’t seem to catch on that Maria’s voice was coming from Parker’s body.

  And that’s when I saw the Count.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’m not scared of much.

  Hell, I wasn’t even scared of a psychotic ghost with superhuman—or super something—power. But I also wasn’t looking forward to having my ass kicked by the invisible little bastard.

  Except he wasn’t invisible now.

  And he wasn’t a little bastard, either.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  The Count smiled...down at me. Yes, he’d easily grown a foot or two since our last meeting. And by “meeting,” I meant since my ass kicking.

  “Exactly,” he said from the doorway. His voice, I noted, sounded a bit deeper and more guttura
l. God, I hate when that happens. “What the hell, indeed.”

  He stepped into the room, and there was a small chance the ground shook. I had a feeling the creepy bastard, who was now a giant creepy bastard, wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon. And, I suspected, I had more than met my match.

  Again, I hate when that happens.

  I cracked my neck, still smarting over the beating I had taken earlier. Well, we would just have to see what the old boy could do.

  I stepped in front of Maria/Parker, shielding them. Ever the chivalrous vampire. Even to the possessed and the very dead.

  “You look different,” I said. “New haircut?”

  “Pathetic,” the Count said, and he swiped an arm that seemed—at least to me—impossibly long, supernaturally long. And faster than anything had a right to be. The back of his knuckles landed squarely over my right eye and snapped my head around and sent me flying into a glass display case to my right. A shard of glass went through my eye and straight to the back of my skull.

  I might have yelped like a baby as I stumbled backwards, holding my eye. For added measure, I somehow got entangled with what might have been a voodoo necklace made of bones and teeth and other body parts. I ignored the necklace, considering I had something in my eye. Luckily, I still had one good one, and that one good one managed to spot the Count’s massive fist, which was flashing at me fast, perhaps aiming to drive the glass all the way out the back of my skull.

  Enough was enough.

  I’ve had my share of fights. And I’ve ended my share of fights. Often in death, and often with me feasting deeply. I didn’t think I would feast tonight, at least, not on the Count, but I would be damned if I was going to continue to be his punching bag...or his pincushion.

  I happen to be pretty fast, too, and now that I knew we were playing with a higher level of speed, I kicked into another gear, too. Shard of glass in my eye and all.

  I just managed to raise my left hand before the vicious blow would have landed...and maybe took off part of my head, if the shard of glass had anything to do with it. I might be immortal, but I have no clue how to reattach the top of my own skull.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about that.

  My forearm took the brunt of the blow...but I held my ground, which surprised the Count, I’m sure. He was used to having his way with me, which was something I thought I would never say about another man, dead or alive.

  He roared and flailed his other arm and punched through the fire alarm, which immediately blared. It was a distraction, because now the other hand was coming for me. I saw the sucker with my one good eye. And before it got anywhere close to me, I was moving, sprinting forward, and raising both hands high overhead, and I delivered a crushing, punishing blow, a blow that might have killed an elephant.

  What the Count was, I didn’t know. One thing for sure, though, he wasn’t alive. Not in the mortal sense. The blow drove his head straight down into the floor. Another punch from me, one of my better punches, rammed his head through the floor.

  I stepped aside and admired my handiwork, even as I dug the glass shard from my eye, whimpering as I pulled the sucker free. Blackness swarmed around my right eye. Blackness and more pain than I’d felt in a while. As I pulled, I heard Dylan vomit next to me. Yeah, it probably looked gross.

  Mostly, though, I ignored the wet sucking sound the glass made as it slid free.

  Then it was out, but I was still blinded.

  But not for long. I literally felt my eye repair itself. Rapidly. It spasmed and twitched and I might have spasmed and twitched, too. Slowly at first, and then quite rapidly. Blessed light appeared a moment later in my right eye, followed by a blurred halo, and then actual images, and then I saw the Count—quite clearly now with good eyes—pull his face out of the floor and stand slowly.

  He turned and faced me.

  It was at that moment that I heard the clapping. It was coming from the adjoining wing, and growing louder, even as the fire alarm warbled seemingly everywhere.

  The clapping was followed by footsteps, and soon another figured appeared in the doorway. No, not quite the giant that the Count had become. It was a man. But not just any man. He was, I’m not afraid to admit, perhaps the most dashingly handsome man I had ever seen.

  Blond hair. Bronzed tan. Bright smile with perfect teeth. His eyes were the clearest blue. He would have made Brad Pitt envious; that is, if you could ignore the fact that he was surrounded by the darkest shadows I had ever seen.

  No, not just shadows.

  Living shadows.

  Demons.

  The blond man took in the room, looked at the Count with what I determined was disdain, then looked at me with mild interest. Meanwhile, shadows spread around the room, clinging to anything that offered a handle. One ventured my way, and I waved it off. It scuttled back, hissing, disappearing into a nearby corner.

  Most interesting was the Count’s reaction to the handsome man.

  The Count was shaking.

  “Well, well,” said the man, moving around me. I noticed with some alarm that his boots didn’t make a sound. Maria/Parker pressed close behind me. I didn’t blame her/them. Things were getting weirder by the moment.

  I was getting a very, very bad feeling about this.

  Especially as I realized that it was not the Count I had been sensing behind the scenes all along, but this new entity.

  “You are the one they call Spider,” said the man, and his voice, I noted, seemed a little confident, a little too smooth. A little too...everything. His eyes glanced at me only briefly, and I knew that a glance was all he needed. Whoever he was only needed a glance. If even that.

  Parker/Maria pressed closer. I could feel her/them breathing on my neck.

  The shadows now completely filled the room, lurking everywhere: from behind displays, and in corners and under feet. They reached and pulled and tugged and fought each other as well, snarling and snapping. The room was a blur of dark claws and black teeth.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  The blond man stopped before me. He was, I noted, about an inch taller than me. His shoulders were about an inch wider than mine. He wore a black robe that reminded me of something Bruce Lee might have worn, God rest his soul.

  “There’s no maybe about it, vampire,” said the man. “I have had my eyes on you for a while, and others like you.”

  “Sounds like you need a new hobby.”

  The blond man cocked his head a little, then pursed his lips as a demonic shadow briefly formed the image of something dark and sultry and voluptuous. The two lips pressed together, and for one brief, nauseating moment, I watched their tongues play. When the two mercifully separated, and as a wispy strand of shadowy lips stretched thin and then snapped free in a puff, the man turned his full attention to me again.

  “I suspect you know who I am by now, no?”

  I looked at the shadows swarming the room. I looked at how the Count was now groveling at the man’s feet. I noted how my own normally dormant heartbeat had picked up.

  “You’re the devil,” I said.

  The man grinned and seemed to look right through me. The man who was not a man. A man, I suspected, who knew all. At least, who knew all he needed to know.

  “Very good, vampire, although I am known as many things. But you may call me Lucifer. And I’m here to collect a soul.”

  He nodded toward the whimpering Count. “Please,” the Count was saying, over and over. “Please. I do not have her yet. I need more time!”

  And that’s when it occurred to me. How the Count had managed to come back from the dead. How he had managed to become so damn strong. Most people stayed dead. And most ghosts could do no more than rattle a chain or two.

  I nodded to myself, finally understanding.

  The Count had sold his soul to the devil.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I’m not a religious creature, but all my weird encounters with the paranormal, occult, and the plain freaking weird had made
me a spiritual entity.

  Even though I had no soul of my own, I could relate to them intellectually, and I knew the value that humans placed on theirs. So for the Count to freely surrender his for the love of a woman, well, I could almost understand.

  I know, that’s strange to say, considering he’d tried to pound me into mud a couple of times and nearly jabbed my eye out. But I felt a little sorry for him. Despite all his awesome powers, he was basically a schmuck who gave up everything for a chance to be with the rotted corpse of a long-dead woman.

  About as much of a schmuck as Dylan.

  And as pissed as I was at the Count, he was basically a foot soldier in the Army of Evil. Mr. Mack Daddy of Darkness was standing before me, causing all kinds of misery. Why, if Lucifer didn’t lord his dark power over everyone and tempt them with all the things they really wanted, we’d all be saints.

  So if anyone deserved an ass-kicking right about then, it was Lucifer.

  “What are you going to do to him?” I asked Lucifer, as the Count whimpered and cowered.

  “What business is it of yours?” he asked, his eyes glowing bright red for a moment. I would have been surprised if they hadn’t glowed bright red.

  “I have a score to settle with him first,” I said. I wasn’t about to back down. Even though most people think vampires are the spawn of hell, the truth is that we’re kind of like free agents of the spirit world—since we have no souls, we’re not beholden to either heaven or hell. I usually take the side of Good, but mostly because Evil is kind of mean and selfish and stupid, when you get right down to it.

  Plus, I’d rather kiss an angel than some shadow chick any day.

  “Really, Spider,” Lucifer said, nodding at Parker/Maria. “Why don’t you take your toys and go home? You’re out of your league.”

  Then he did something George Clooneyish with his eyes and flashed that money smile, and Parker/Maria giggled. Hell, even Dylan giggled.

  I said, perhaps stupidly, “I’m not leaving until Maria gives Parker her body back and the old bruja takes back the love spell she put on Dylan,” I said, realizing my life had become like a Jerry Springer show for the undead.