by Minda Webber
At the door, two large signs read: VAMPIES DO IT WITH A PRICK AND WEREWOLVES DO IT WITH THEIR CLAWS ON.
Lucy frowned. That was too much for her. Still, paying her cover charge, she walked inside.
The Overbite Bar was a place where wannabes, a few real vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures sometimes stopped by for a drink or a quick bite.
The club was fairly crowded tonight, and it looked like everyone and their dog was here. Around Lucy, vampire wannabes were dressed in black capes and black pants, their dark shirts open to the waist, exposing their jugulars. Others were dressed in red.
For some strange reason, humans had gotten it into their heads that vampires only liked black and red. Vampires did love the color red, but mostly flowing out of bodies—to drink and not to wear.
And vampires apparently loved flowers. The male vampires here wore flowers in their buttonholes, and the vampiresses wore them in their hair or on their clothing, and it was clear each vampire was specific about which flower he preferred. Val must have preferred golden roses.
Choosing a table in the middle of the bar, Lucy glanced up at the open balcony above, noting where the true vampires were sitting. The tables they sat at had an array of night-blooming flora in vases. The vampires were dressed in an array of bright colors, skintight dresses or pants. Lucy caught a glimpse of disgust cross their faces every time the humans below vied for their attention in their Bela Lugosi costumes and faux vampire creations.
A waitress dressed in a skimpy black dress with almost no back leaned down and asked, "What's your poison?"
"Lone Star longneck," Lucy responded, scanning the crowd.
"Hey, aren't you that host for the Twilight Zone?" Lucy nodded, glad to be recognized, and the waitress continued enthusiastically, "I just loved that one show with all those Draculas in drag."
Lucy smiled. "It's one of my favorites, too. Kind of like a Victoria's Secret catalog meets Fangoria."
"I know! I'm just dying to know where that green-haired drag queen got that cute little leafy number."
Lucy laughed. The leafy number had just the right amount of strategically placed foliage, giving the drag queen a kind of Tarzan-meets-Dracula chic. "He told me he bought his outfit at the Yolanda G. store," she confided.
"Thanks!" The waitress looked thrilled, flashing a toothy smile—complete with fake fangs, of course. "Well, let me get your beer."
Two drinks later, Lucy still hadn't spotted her quarry, and had turned down four offers to dance and one to buy her a drink. She was getting antsy from sitting still for so long. Shaking her head, she sighed. She'd had no idea surveillance work was such a dull detail. No wonder cops sat around on stakeouts eating donuts and drinking tons of black coffee, with scowls on their faces; they were probably bored silly.
Glancing down at her watch, she noted it was approaching one in the morning. She was tired and she had been here for over three hours, hoping to use herself as bait, yet so far she had received no useful bites. She hadn't even spotted anyone that resembled the description of DeLeon, and certainly not anyone with violet eyes, a color no other supernatural predator she'd seen could claim.
"Well, well. Look who's here."
Turning slightly, Lucy found herself face-to-face with Detective Valmont DuPonte, and she choked on her drink. As usual, his presence was electric. Her pale blue eyes watering, she wondered what the coffin-hopping, fang-banging worm was doing here.
As her eyes quit watering, she took another long look at her ex-lover. He might be a cheating worm, but Val was an attractive worm, and he wore authority well. This vampire, who had made his own rules for centuries, was like a giant straddling the world.
He was staring at her neck. She shivered, remembering that necking with a vampire took on a whole new meaning—and that meaning was a far cry from the necking with a redneck in a pickup truck that all good—or not-so-good—Texas girls had done in high school.
Her heart began pounding, and she felt an adrenaline rush much like the ones she got when she ran. Runs always made her slightly dizzy and sick at her stomach. That, she supposed, was why she rarely ran or jogged.
"Fancy meeting you here, Lucy. Slumming and dressed like an Elvira reject?" Val pulled out a chair across from her and sat down.
Lucy narrowed her eyes. Her dress might be a tad on the Goth side, but it was none of her ex's business.
"Hardly slumming," she replied, willing her brisk heartbeat to slow down, willing the butterflies in her stomach to settle and stop trying to crawl up into her throat. "I don't remember asking you to sit down."
"Now, ma petite, your bad manners are showing." Val stared at her fringed sleeves with tiny feathers attached and grimaced. "Definitely the Elvira look. Or maybe Morticia Addams."
Glancing away from Lucy, Val took in some of the other mortals. They seemed dressed more for a Halloween costume ball than a nightclub. His blue eyes lit with scorn. Humans were always trying to imitate what they admired, and most of them were hoping to live forever. They never learned that it wasn't the number of breaths a person took, but the quality of those breaths. A person could live to be a thousand, but that wasn't the key. If he wasn't happy with himself as a mortal, he would probably despise himself as an immortal.
Lucy heard the scorn in Val's voice. She knew he despised Goth clubs and all humans who longed to be something they weren't. It wasn't that Val was a snob; it was just that he believed those who longed to be vampires and leave behind their humanity had little idea what being a vampire really meant. He had explained it all to her: Vampirism wasn't about sex, blood, and violence all the time, or about unending power and very long lives. Rather, being a vampire was a culture within itself, with very strict rules and responsibilities.
Even though she understood his point, she didn't like his disdain. Especially not directed at her. "What cactus bit you in the butt?"
"Cherie, how you've changed since…" He hesitated, the implication clear.
"You mean, since that night we broke up?" Lucy finished crossly. Oh, how that night lived in infamy in her mind.
"Since you ran away like a pichouette—like a little girl. You acted like a spoiled brat, breaking up with me without hearing my explanations." Val hadn't meant to get into their separation, to show that he held any feelings for her whatsoever, but seeing her up close and personal had really tested his resolve. Lucy was still as beautiful and spirited as when he'd first met her. He recalled the strawberry birthmark on her right hip that turned scarlet red when she climaxed. He longed to forget her totally, but he also longed to hold her in his arms.
He leaned back in his chair. Her scent was still managing to arouse him to a painful degree, his preternatural senses running amok with his hormones. He shouldn't feel anything for this woman who could turn away from his love, who could not trust him never to betray her. Her lack of trust had wounded him deeply, especially after he had given her his whole heart. "You wouldn't even take my phone calls," he reminded her coldly.
"You quit calling after six weeks. Such devotion," Lucy asserted. "Romeo would have called Juliet for at least six months before he gave up on her… if they had phones back then," she finished lamely. Just because she had screamed at Val to never call her again was no reason that he had to obey. He should have just climbed up her balcony.
"You told me you loved me, Val. Man oh man, was Hank Williams right!" Lucy said disgustedly.
"Hank Williams?" Val cocked a brow, trying to follow Lucy's slippery thoughts. Sometimes it was like trying to walk on a tightrope covered in grease being cut at one end.
"Your cheating heart will tell on you! You betrayed me with a vampiress. A vampiress! You swore to me that you didn't mind me being human, and yet you made love to another of your species while you were supposedly in love with me! Well, let me tell you something, you crypt Casanova—what goes around comes around!" she snarled, her pale blue eyes darkening. "You didn't find me with my teeth in someone else's neck that night! You're
as bad as my father and stepfather." So far, her father had been married three times, and her stepfather had left her mother for a twenty-two-year-old with two big boobs and one tiny little brain.
The muscles in his jaw tightening, Val growled, "E'spes'ces de te'te dure."
"Oh, speak English!" Lucy grumped.
"You hardheaded thing. I did not betray you. Not once. Not ever!"
Val's voice rose on his last two words, and the sharpness of it grated on Lucy's nerves. How dare he criticize her when he was the lecherous leech who couldn't keep his fangs in his mouth? "Liar, liar, pants on fire," she spat out. Then, realizing what she had said, she prayed for the floor to swallow her whole. "Well, that was certainly mature," she said after a moment. And although her face was red, at least she had beat him to any comment.
Relaxing slightly, Val crossed his arms over his chest. "I rest my case. You are as stubborn as a mule and you still haven't grown up."
"Why, you randy horse's ass. Just because I'm not over two hundred years old doesn't make me immature."
"Your age has nothing to do with it, cherie, just your attitude. Deep inside you're still that little girl whose father left her mother for another woman," Val remarked. Watching her angry face tense with the mention of her past, he went on. "You never really gave me a chance. I tried hard to prove to you that I was trustworthy, cherie. I let you see more of me than I have ever shown anyone besides my immediate family. But when push came to shove, you shoved me away."
"Jeez, Val. Since when did you get the psychology degree?" Lucy sneered. He had no right to condemn her when he had betrayed her trust. "My mom was right. Dogs are loyal. Men aren't."
Val glared at her. "You're not the only one who got hurt. You should have just taken a stake and stuck it in my heart. Because that's what it felt like when you threw away our life."
Lucy held up her thumb, making it go around in a tiny circle. "See this? It's the world's smallest record playing 'My Heart Bleeds for You.' "
Val sighed. "Were you always this cruel, or had I forgotten?" He should be over her. There had been other females of all colors, species, and sizes. And yet… none of them compared to Lucy, even on her bad days.
"I'm not some dumb blonde, Val. I know what I saw! You had your fangs in her neck and you were both naked underneath those robes!"
At that moment, Lucy hated Val with an intensity that shocked her, and wanted him with a desperation born of lost closeness. Part of her was crying out to run her fingers over that wonderfully sleek body. It had been so long since she had felt the incredible mind-altering passion he stirred within her. She found herself wondering how a heart could be filled with such hurt, and yet want so much to brave that hurt again.
Val stood up to leave, graceful as always.
"Wait!" The word tore from her throat in its urgency, but Lucy couldn't and wouldn't beg to have him back. Campbell women were made of sterner stuff than that.
Still, before she knew what she was doing, she'd already asked, "What happened, Val?"
He shook his head. "Once I would have explained my actions. Once I tried to explain my actions. But you didn't want to listen."
"I…" Lucy choked on the words. Suddenly she was dying to know why her love had cheated on her, wanted to forget her pride and her past. "Why were you with that vamp that night?"
Val studied Lucy's high breasts, and the way her skirt skimmed over her hips, hugging their slender shape. But then he decided, "Once those words would have meant the world to me. Once. You know something, cherie, you're a martyr to your past."
And before Lucy could say another word, Val was gone; the dead man was walking, leaving her a dead woman inside once again. He was right; she knew that her past had shaped her into the woman she was today. Her decisions, values, hopes, fears—it all came from what had happened to her as a child, both the big traumatic heartbreaks and the small inconsequential things that filled the everyday life. After hearing Val tonight, Lucy wondered if her eyes had been so clouded with what had been that she'd refused to see what could have been.
Two tears coursed down her cheeks, and Lucy had a feeling that she had might have made a mistake four years ago. In a life fraught with errors and her accident-prone character, losing Val might just have been the biggest mistake of her whole life.
No. Who was she kidding? Losing Val had been the biggest mistake of her life. Getting up from her table, she resolved to leave. She was too depressed for any more stakeout duty. And as she walked out the door of the bar, Lucy sighed mournfully.
"If only." They were two small words, which meant everything if a lonely person could go back.
If only.
Chapter Eight
I Used to Love Lucy
Everyone, human or supernatural, carried his past with him, like so much unwanted baggage. If a person was smart and self-aware, he lightened his load. But Lucy hadn't lightened her load at all, Val realized despondently as he hurried out of the Overbite Bar.
Shaking his head, he walked to his car. He had loved Lucy once, deeply and passionately, in spite of the fact that she had turned his undead life upside down with her accident-prone and chaotic lifestyle. Lucy was intelligent, passionate, and most of all she made him laugh. She had a bulldog determination in whatever she undertook, and an air of innocence about her that he had always found refreshing. He had loved to listen to her West Texas accent she couldn't quite get rid of, especially with words like "oil," "wash," and "nine." The way she slurred them out, she sounded like she was from another planet.
The first time Val met her had been at the Riverwalk in San Antonio. When she had fallen into the river, he had fallen hard. Later that night, they had danced to a golden oldie by Tony Orlando called "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree," and Chicago's "Color My World." Those two songs became their songs.
Three weeks later they'd made love for the first time. The Eagles' "Take it to the Limit" had been playing, and their two pulses had beat in rhythm to the music and their dance of love as old as time. Val had taken them both to the limit, over and over, as the dark shades of evening faded to the grays and purples of darkest night. Lucy had been everything he ever imagined in a lover. Of course, she had also been fairly inexperienced.
Yes, Lucy had become his daydreams, and she had filled his nighttime with true happiness, a bon viveur he had not felt in over two hundred years.
On the downside, Lucy had always been argumentative, stubborn as a mule for someone not of the shape-shifter weremule set, suspicious, and immature. Her pride was almost as strong as his own. And the most daunting thing about her was that she hadn't outgrown her past. She probably never would.
The ringing of his cell phone captured his attention as he put his car into gear. Glancing down at the display, he noted it was his partner in the paranormal task forces. "What's up, Chris?"
Chris's husky voice drew him back from his dark thoughts about lost love. Christine was a vampiress, and had been his partner for over four years. She had once been a lover. In fact, her relationship with Val was what had sparked her interest in law enforcement. Christine had gotten her degree and become a police officer for the night shift back when women were still scarce in the force.
"What's happened?" he asked her.
"We got a dead one. Strange, Val. It's really strange," Chris said.
"Where at?" Val felt his face muscles tightening. If Christine said it was strange, that was a bad sign. As partners, they had seen some really gruesome murders, from deranged ghouls to rogue werewolves.
"Down at the French Quarter on Voodoo Lane, a block from Addams's Familiars."
Addams's Familiars was a favorite of the wizard and witch world, as well as with gargoyles who liked having something fuzzy to play with while in flesh form. Cats, frogs, bats, hamsters—any number of familiars were available at the store, in all shapes, sizes, and colors.
"You there now?" Val asked.
"Oui. Just got here and saw the body," Christine replied, he
r voice filled with tension.
"I'll be there in five," Val responded. He flipped off the phone. If Chris was this upset, something big, bad, and ugly had gone down tonight. Val knew, because he knew his partner. Even though they hadn't been lovers in over eighty years, he still cared about her and always would. She hadn't ever been the love of his life, but she always stood firm as a friend that he could count on. He owed Christine a lot, in spite of the fact that she was the vampiress Lucy had seen with him that ill-fated night four years ago.
Hurrying to the scene of the crime, he could see the yellow and black police tape billowing softly in the light wind. Val's nostrils dilated at the smell of garbage tinged with the hot sultry air of the Louisiana night. Beneath the putrid scent of rotting trash was a different smell of decay.
His partner was standing by the victim's body. Christine's skin was the color of creamed coffee, her lean, muscular body a stark contrast to the victim. The dead woman was older, her body curled into the fetal position, and she had heavily wrinkled skin on her face with eyes clouded white from age. The corpse had little muscle mass left in her legs and arms, and her skirt was hiked above bony hips. Underwear hung around her right ankle.
It was the expression on her face, mouth frozen in a scream of horror, which caused a wave of sympathy to sweep Val. Nobody should die in a dirty alley like this, left to rot like so much trash. And soon the victim would be just a number in the morgue. Val wondered what her last thoughts had been. The woman had been terribly afraid; he could still smell the emotion in the air.
Clenching his jaw, he surveyed the area and approached the victim. The scene showed signs of rough sex: bruises on the skin and ripped underclothes.