BloodStar

by Montoya, Cassidy

  "Franky actually told you about me?" asked Marley. "How did she know that I was the one…for Sabian?"

  The me-me-me was starting to get to him. "I honestly don’t know, Marley. She knew. She knew a lot of things, not just stuff about past lives. For a while the leeches tried to get to her, change her because she was so different. They felt like her abilities would go ballistic if she were changed, epic style. Who knows, maybe even more than your boy."

  Sam had thought about this a thousand times. If Franky had been changed, would he hunt her?

  "So, what exactly did she say? About you, me, and Sabian?"

  See, this was what turned Sam off. One second he found himself caught up, thinking things, thinking maybe Franky had been right about his feelings for Sabian’s woman, then Marley would say something or do something that just killed it. Her questions always veered off to Conceit Street. Yeah, you’re so special. Everybody wants you, everybody knows about you. Fucking little princess Marley. It was like she had no idea how much telling this story hurt him. She only cared about herself and the BloodStar, but did he really expect it to be any other way? Why should she give a fuck about him? She didn’t even know him.

  But instead of saying all this, he answered her question. "Just that we were part of a trio. She felt sorry for me."

  "Why?"

  "Because I’m a peripheral player, and you and Sabian almost always get center stage."

  "Almost always?"

  Sam shrugged. He could only tell her what Franky had told him a hundred times. "The soul knows what the soul knows, and the heart wants what the heart wants. Most of the time, your heart wants him."

  She looked at him in the most peculiar way, and Sam realized he sounded like a narrator from a goddamn John Hughes film, lamenting the nice guy who never gets the girl. He hurried to cover up his feelings. Why couldn’t he do it automatically? It’s what he was best at. What was it breaking him down? Marley? Anya? Being so close to taking the BloodStar?

  Get a fucking grip, Halac.

  Out loud, however, he said, "Don’t get me wrong. I was never about getting together with you. It pisses me off a little. What, I have no say in my own affairs? Well fuck that."

  "I know how you feel. What the fuck is going on in the world, Sam? Seriously."

  "I used to ask Franky that exact question, verbatim."

  "So how come you never…"

  "Hooked up?"

  "Yeah."

  "We used to have that debate over way too many beers. I’d be drunk, asking her to just get over it and come up to my apartment already. She’d be just as drunk, telling me no, fucking laughing at me. She would say, ‘Nope, your soul doesn’t belong to me.’"

  "And what would you say to that?"

  "I would say maybe that was true, but my body was all hers for the taking."

  There it was, that fucking loser whine in his voice again. He could see Franky clear as the Colorado stars at night, with her half-lidded eyes after too much ale, lips swollen with the same desire that swelled his cock at the end of every night of drinking together. But she never took him up on the offer, not once.

  "And now she’s gone, and all you have is me and my shitty sheets," said Marley, and they both laughed, releasing some of the tension.

  "You really think he’s coming?" she asked.

  "Betting my life on it."

  "Jesus, no pressure or anything."

  Sam laughed again, and reached up to stroke her jaw with his thumb. The gesture made absolutely no sense to either of them, and Sam yanked his hand away.

  "Go get cleaned up," he said, clearing his thickened throat. "You’ll feel better after a shower. Then we’ll see how much you really want to know."

  "There’s more?"

  "Isn’t there always?" he answered.

  "Sam, you know we need to get out of here before she comes back."

  "Trust me, Marley. That’s the worst thing you can do. She’ll find us. She’ll kill me, and she’ll make sure you suffer." He got up, and threw her a pile of clothes that landed all over the place, and a towel that actually caught her square in the face. He smiled at her as she collected the items, and said, "And don’t worry. I don’t believe in that soul-mate shit. I won’t peek." He winked at her.

  And he wouldn’t peek, but as for what he did and didn’t believe in, well, that might be another story. One he wouldn’t write, goddamn it.

  When Marley didn’t move, rooted to the bed with the pile of clothes and towel in her lap, Sam walked over and held out his hand, inviting her to get up. He knew she was hesitant, not able to decipher his emotions. Right now, he must seem a lot like an Igor to Anya, her beast of burden and source of energy. Sam couldn’t blame Marley.

  "It’s more complicated than you’re probably thinking," he said. "There’s a lot at stake, for both of them, and I think Anya wants you to try to escape, feel me? Now come on. She’ll want another sample when she gets back. She’s a gas guzzling bitch, that one." He grabbed her gently by the forearm, and pulled her to her feet.

  Marley stood face to face with Sam, but didn’t move. His hand more than lingered on her arm. It began a lazy caress upward. Something was passing between them, voltage he didn’t dare qualify.

  "Jesus Christ, woman," he sighed as his palm lay against her bare shoulder. "If you want to live through this, just for once in your life, listen."

  "For once in my life?" She looked at him levelly, and whispered, "We really have been here before, haven't we Sam?"

  "Shower. Now. I know you want answers, and I’ll explain everything, but first things first. You will not leave tonight, understand? The bathroom window is small, but I know you could fit through if you were motivated, and I know you are."

  Then, before he could deny them, his two hands were framing her face. He needed her to understand. "But Marley, fuck…you will die tonight if you leave right now. Believe it. You believe it, right?"

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Solis sported his best Oscar the Grouch and pinned his partner down. "Just get him on goddamn phone."

  "How am I supposed to do that?" asked Teichmann. "We’ve been trying him for three weeks. He doesn’t answer."

  "No," said Solis. "He hasn’t answered. Big difference. And he won’t if we don’t keep fucking calling, get it?"

  "My phone’s dead."

  Jesus Christ on a crutch, Solis felt like the big agent’s mom sometimes. He swore the guy would be walking around with a security blanket and a trail of snot dragging from his nose without the senior agent to pick up behind him. Solis took his phone from his belt clip, and handed it to Teichmann.

  "Use mine."

  The blizzard was hard-core, lasting through the previous night and into the morning, and the agents had been in the airport terminal for hours. Teichmann spent the night with his mouth attached to Solis’s ear every twenty minutes about getting a hotel room for the night.

  "There’s no more flights to New York tonight, not until morning. He’s not here. We’ll just get up at the ass-crack of dawn and be waiting for him back here when he shows up."

  Solis had explained to Baby Huey twenty times in twenty different ways that even the ass-crack of dawn was too late to catch the BloodStar.

  Now, ten wet-naps and a not-so-fresh-feeling later, he just wanted to get his old partner on the phone.

  "It’s ringing," said Teichmann, handing Solis the phone. Solis took it, put it to his ear, and waited.

  When Marley emerged from the steamy bathroom, she was dressed in the G.I. Jane ensemble Sam left for her. Cargo pants, a tank top, and cop-style lace up boots that were just a little too big weren’t exactly consistent with her eclectic, thrift-store style, but good enough. Leave it to a Hunter to outfit her for a special ops mission. She hoped he had a sweatshirt of jacket up his sleeve, too.

  She was clean, but Marley still felt dirty, used up. She found bite marks all over her body; they covered her breasts, thighs, and of course, her neck. There was even one on her ass. Really?
Who did that kind of thing, even in the vampire world?

  The motel shower rained soft water, so no matter how much she rinsed the soap, her skin still felt slimy; the perfect analogy for the way she felt inside.

  She looked around, moving slowly. She didn’t want to upset the last of the headache-holdouts or the swami-wrapped towel keeping her wet curls piled high and under cover. She saw that Sam cleaned everything up. There were new sheets on the bed (Marley hoped he flipped the mattress), and her dirty clothes were gone.

  So was Sam.

  Just when she was about to ransack the crumpled paper bag for more snacks, Marley sensed a presence in the dim room with her. Anya was there, sitting perfectly still at the table.

  "Better," said the vampire. "Did you miss me? Somehow I thought you’d be gone with a whole day to make your move."

  "Where’s Sam?"

  "Recovering."

  Jesus, the glutton had fed on him again. Marley was in trouble. "What now?" she asked.

  Anya’s smile was so sweet Marley’s survival instinct kicked into high gear. The glistening fangs, the current of malice radiating from the vampire, and the fact that Sam was gone, maybe even dead, all conspired against Marley’s bladder. She barely held her water as Anya rose slowly from her seat.

  The vampire looked at Marley, shook her head in pity, and then attacked, grabbing red hair, exposing a creamy throat, and plugging her teeth into Marley’s soft flesh.

  Sam Halac had been dodging Solis’s calls for weeks, but this time he had to pick up. He honestly didn’t know if he’d survive to the end of his plan, and he didn’t want to leave his old partner on the hang. Solis deserved better than that. Sam was sitting on a bus bench across and down the street from the motel, freezing his ass off in the whipping wind and snow, trying not to think about what might be happening inside that room.

  He heaved a sigh, and put his phone to his ear. "Halac," he answered.

  "Christ, what the fuck," roared Solis into Sam’s ear, the voice tinny and testy as ever. "Where the fuck are you?"

  "Just let it go, brother. I have to do this."

  "The hell you do. Tell me where you are. We’ll back you up, man. You don’t do this shit alone; you know better than that."

  Sam pulled a small electronic device out of his pocket, and jacked his cell into the cradle. He knew that Solis would already have trace equipment running, and he wasn’t about to give up his position.

  "I can’t follow protocol on this one," said Sam.

  "You son of a bitch, you cut off the trace, didn’t you? Goddamn it, Halac, where are you? What am I supposed to tell the Director?"

  "Tell him whatever you want. Tell him I’m working BloodStar."

  "I’ll tell him more than that. I’ll tell him you’re an asshole who’s jeopardizing the entire outfit."

  "Do what you need to do," said Sam, already weary of the lecture, but that’s what he signed up for when he answered the phone.

  Marley felt her jugular violated and her body ebbed with each pull Anya filched. Marley waited for Anya to slow down but the magic moment came and went, and still Anya took strong, long draughts of Marley’s blood. The longer this went on, the weaker she became. Panic set in. This feeding was not designed to taper off, and the last minutes of Marley’s mortal life were spent in a dizzying mixture of pleasure and pain.

  Her heart jack-hammered in her chest, and her skin was enveloped in the cold, sweaty blanket of hypovolemic shock. There wasn’t enough blood in her system to satisfy her organs’ need for oxygen. Physically, her body fought back with the only weapons it had available—not strength, but rapid self-preservation mechanisms that were beyond Marley’s conscious control.

  The first began with her heart, blood vessels, and kidneys. Her heart beat fast even as it weakened in a desperate attempt to get the little remaining blood to the most vital organs. Her blood vessels did their job, constricting in necessary locations to slow blood flow to other, less important parts. Her kidneys worked overtime to keep fluid in her system in an attempt to compensate for the loss of blood.

  The first line of defenses failed.

  "Solis, this isn’t a matter of choice, here. You know I have to do this," said Sam.

  "You’ve gone soft. You’re letting your personal feelings get in the way," spat Solis.

  "Little hypocritical, don’t you think?"

  "What do you mean?" asked Solis.

  "What do you mean what do I mean?" Sam honestly couldn’t believe what he was hearing. "How are you going to call me on letting my personal feelings get in the way?"

  Sam remembered a time not so long ago when Solis would have thrown his own mother under a bus to get one more fang-fix. Now his partner was bitching at him for doing what he had to do to make a kill, to make the kill. He’d been working this case for more than a decade. Why couldn’t Solis back him up by backing off?

  Marley’s body moved on to phase-two in its futile subservience to the preservation instinct. She felt herself slip into a state of confusion and disorientation. Her heart beat twice as fast as normal but half as strong with nothing available to pump. Her chest hurt, but she was too dizzy to understand why. Phase-two was failing fast.

  As Anya took her libation with greed, vein by vein, vessel by vessel, Marley’s body was dying. It moved to phase-three of lackluster life support. This, too, would fail.

  As her pickled heart weakened toward its final beats, Marley’s kidneys finally gave up and shut down, and her organs began to die off.

  Marley lost her hold on reality. She saw no beckoning lights, did not hover above her body as Anya extinguished her golden flame. Instead Marley had a clear and terrifying thought that punctuated the blackness of death: I’m going to die. I should have tried to escape. And then, simply, Sabian.

  Marley’s conscious self was no longer part of the equation as her brain fired off random memories and experiences to keep her occupied while her body took care of the business of dying. It was eternal and instantaneous at the same time, an entire existence filled with only snapshots of meaningless encounters and near misses.

  Until Sabian. If there was anything that held dimension, it was the unfinished mental photo album of the only man who ever mattered.

  Absent, however, was Sam, the vampire Hunter, destined to travel the wild blue yonder in formation with Sabian and Marley for all time, but only as a wingman. Sabian would always be point.

  Solis was en fuego pissed, so much so that he was starting to think in Spanish. Pinche cabron, he said to himself. Pendejo obstinado.

  Sam was still bitching in his ear, accusing, deriding, but it all boiled down to the same thing—son of a bitch was going to get himself killed.

  "Halac—Sam—let me help you, brother. Let me help you like you helped me."

  "I can take care of myself. I don’t need your help," said Sam from some unfathomable distance, the wind interference in the background pointing to an outdoor locale. Solis hoped he wasn’t stuck out in the elements.

  "Please, man, just tell me where you are," pleaded Solis.

  "You don’t need my location," said Sam. "I don’t need back up. I just need you to stay the fuck out of my business, okay?"

  "Sam."

  "Solis, just take your little rookie partner, and get back to HQ. I don’t want your help."

  Solis stared at his phone, unwilling to believe his mentor had hung up on him. He knew Halac better than anyone, and there would be no more communication until his objective was achieved.

  Or he was dead, in which case Solis would be told to leave it alone, forced to let Halac rot in a hellhole dug by vamps. Metaphorical, of course, because the bloodsuckers wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about honoring the dead.

  "So?" asked Teichmann.

  Not looking at Teichmann, instead fixing his glare on the screens advertising various flights delayed by the storm, Solis said, "He’s out of his fucking mind—gone rogue. He wants to take on the BloodStar by himself."

  "If anyone’s
going to take out the BloodStar, it’s Halac. Where is he?"

  Solis wanted to know the same thing. Los Angeles? Canada? Fucking Fort Lauderdale? He saw the names of cities all around him, glowing in every direction he looked, flashing and scrolling off screens.

  "He’s off the grid," muttered Solis.

  "We just going let him commit suicide?" asked Teichmann. "Because that’s what this is."

  "We need to find the leech party tonight."

  "I'm not going into a club full of parasites without backup, especially on Halloween. They’ll all be way too fucking frisky." Teichmann was looking at Solis with his best put-my-foot-down expression.

  "Hell no. This is big," said Solis. "We need the whole New York contingency.

  "Think they can mobilize that fast?"

  "Would you miss a chance to raid a leech party en force?" asked Solis.

  "Better get on the horn, make some plans," said Teichmann, hand outstretched for Solis’s phone. He dialed, waited for his call to connect, and said to Solis, "Gives them what, the whole day? Seventeen hours at least?"

  It was enough time. They would buy tickets to the Big Apple, but there was no sense leaving right now at five in the morning. As long as they boarded by four pm, they’d be good.

  Getting up, Solis said, "Let’s get the fuck out of here. I need a drink, and I need sleep. If you survive tonight, no one will ever call you rookie again."

  Marley’s pupils were fixed and dilated. She’d let go and drifted away with no particular thought process at all.

  Anya’s wrist was open and bleeding, dripping her black waste into Marley’s mouth. Her eyes were trained on Marley’s with the intensity of a cat stalking a bird in tall grasses.

  "Come on you whore, come on," said the vampire with that diluted accent of hers.

  She felt Marley’s throat work, and then it happened. Marley’s pupils sucked in on themselves until they were only tiny pinpricks. Her eyelids closed, and when they reopened, nothing more than prehistoric rage and famine stared back.