* * * * *
Work that night showed no signs of improvement in the way the other MDGs acted towards her, making Morgan wonder if Brianna had spoken to them yet. Or maybe the problem just couldn’t be fixed. Maybe Morgan was too much of an outsider, didn’t fit in with her child and her exotic dancing background. All night long she felt their eyes upon her, even during her breaks away from the bar, although she never actually caught anyone staring at her as intently as the hairs on the back of her neck and arms suggested someone was doing.
“Hey, you almost done cleaning up?” Jonathan asked, grabbing her around her waist from behind in a hug.
Laughing, Morgan tilted her head sideways and was rewarded with a kiss to the side of her neck. “Yeah. I just have to take these empty boxes out to the alley. Be right back.”
He sent her off with a swat to her butt, making her laugh again as she pushed through the metal back exit door with the small of her back, a stack of cardboard boxes filling her hands and arms.
Immediately Morgan’s flesh pebbled with goose bumps. The brightly lit alleyway appeared deserted beneath the overhead street light, the chain link fence gate at the end still padlocked shut. But she felt as if she weren’t alone.
As if she shared the alley with an unseen presence.
Deciding to dump the boxes with the others to be picked up later in the day and get out of there, she added her boxes to the cardboard pile, then turned and reached for the door handle to go back inside.
Suddenly she was grabbed from behind, arms like bands of steel wrapping around her and spinning her toward the brick wall beside the door. Her attacker held her completely pinioned, one arm wrapped around her upper body from shoulder to shoulder, her hips held the same way by another unyielding arm.
Survival instinct kicked in and she tried to scream, only to find her mouth covered by a cold, hard hand.
“Hello, my pretty. Did you miss me?” he whispered in her ear, and she froze. That voice…her dream lover…?
Chapter Eight
He couldn’t be. Those were just…
“Just dreams?” He laughed in her ear, sending cold chills down her back and making her shiver. “No. My name is Kilo, and I am no dream. I let you think they were dreams, just like I let you live for so long. How else could I explain appearing like a mist in your bedroom to ravish you over and over?”
She thought of how she’d never been able to speak out loud during her dreams.
“Yes, a bit of vampire charm, a simple trick really. And you so enjoyed all my tricks, didn’t you?” He licked the side of her neck, making her whimper with fear. She renewed her struggles, using every muscle she had to try and get out of his arms.
He laughed. “There’s no use trying to get away. You’ve been mine for weeks now. You gave yourself to me, remember? Told me you needed me, begged me to fuck you over and over.” He stilled, then tightened his arms into a bruising grip, making tears spring from her eyes at the pain. “But you little whore, you didn’t keep yourself only for me, did you? No, you had to fuck that Jonathan Dexter.”
Oh God, he’d been watching her? And he’d been in the same room as Joey. Fear clawed at her, made bile rise up in her throat with nowhere to go.
“Yes, I’ve been watching you and Joey. And I’m so disappointed in you. Just like that bitch Brianna Cochoran, turning to a human instead of the gifts I have to offer you. But that’s okay. Because you won’t be like Brianna, will you? You’ll appreciate the abilities I’m going to share with you tonight. I know you’ll be different. Because you’re mine. Forever Kilo’s.”
She wanted to scream out for Jonathan. Sweet lord, he was only a few yards away, separated only by the building’s outer wall. Would he come out and check on her? The grip on her mouth permitted no sound to escape from her lips. She tried opening her mouth, thinking she could bite his fingers and make him release her, but his fingers were like marble around her face, completely unmoving.
Then she felt twin shards of pain stab into the side of her neck, and the world exploded with searing, burning agony. She couldn’t think straight anymore.
Jonathan, I’m so sorry, was her final thought before she drowned in a whirlpool of someone else’s memories, of a child who thought of himself as George, being beaten by a drunken man, with a crying woman somewhere in the background. Becoming that child and trying to save the woman with a feeble childlike strength, only to have the woman push her away, too. Running out into rain slicked streets that stank of urine and feces to survive on rotting trash. Finding a group of others like her, homeless, angry, ready to lash out at anyone kind, wanting to hurt others as they had been hurt.
She saw herself as a teenager who called himself Kilo now, beating an old woman to death with a stick for a few coins in her pockets, coins that would be good for a drink or two at the pub. A young man in his twenties now, Morgan heard his thoughts of himself as street smart, tough, and always, always angry. His anger never went away, just simmered below the surface, stoked to full fledged flame often by an unquenchable aching loneliness that wouldn’t diminish. He wanted someone who wanted him, who would never push him away or choose others over him. He wanted to be the center of someone’s world; to become their everything, so they would never leave him.
Still caught within his memories, she felt herself being grabbed again by an unnatural strength, flying through the air now, dropped with a thud on a stone floor in some kind of tower high above the ground. Her body felt broken by the fall, and pain ran rampant through her. A dark presence gathered like a concentrated storm at her back, dragging her to her feet, and she felt more pain in the side of her neck. She was dying.
The vision changed. She wasn’t dead anymore; she was gloriously alive. But so thirsty, so damn thirsty, and water wouldn’t quench her thirst. Images flew past her now, of face after face until they blurred together, thousands of them, each killed savagely, their throats ripped out and feasted upon. A metallic taste filled her mouth and throat. It was the source of her very life.
Then nothing. The visions disappeared, leaving a black void in which she was only herself again, Morgan Fremont. She saw a pinpoint of light up ahead and thought she should reach for it.
“No, Morgan. You will listen only to my voice. Drink now. Drink, if you want to see that precious son of yours again.” Kilo’s voice rasped from far away.
Joey, she thought with deep sadness. And Jonathan. If she reached for that light, she knew she’d leave them forever.
She wasn’t ready to die.
Somehow she made her body respond to her will, made her mouth open, made her throat receive the metallic fluid dropped into it.
The metallic liquid coated her throat and trickled onwards through her system, leaving a blinding pain that ravaged her body, stripped her veins bare, and ripped at her muscles and joints. It was hell on earth, this pain, and she was drowning in flames.
“Goodbye for now, my Morgan. I will find you again soon. We have much to teach you.” Kilo whispered in her ear.
She couldn’t think for the pain, didn’t want to think anymore, only wished she could die.
Then someone was lifting her upper body, cradling her, brushing her hair from her face. She opened her eyes and the world shifted into excruciating focus, the building rooftops sharply etched against the night sky overhead, the brick walls on either side of her too detailed, as if viewed through the zoom lens of a camera.
“Morgan, baby, I’m here. What happened? Are you okay? Can you hear me?” Jonathan’s desperate voice filled her ears, pushing back the pain until it faded away.
Brianna crouched to the left of her sprawled legs, worry and fear marring her usually perfect face. Funny how Morgan had never noticed how perfect Brianna’s complexion had always been. Or how luminous her employer’s eyes looked in the street lights.
Morgan turned her head to the right and found Jonathan’s too pale face creased with anxiety.
“I…I’m okay,” Morgan reassured him, hating the
look of fear in his eyes. She reached up to stroke his cheek, but the fear didn’t leave his face. “Really, I’m okay.”
She sat up, but Jonathan still held onto one of her forearms in support.
“Morgan, tell us exactly what happened,” Brianna said, and Jonathan became a still life beside her, all the tiny natural movements of a human body frozen within him.
“I…” Where did she even begin? “I was having these dreams a few weeks ago, before meeting you.” She looked at Jonathan, then felt embarrassed and looked away. “This man appeared in my bedroom several times. The dreams stopped after I met Jonathan.”
It was easier to tell Brianna; somehow she knew her boss would understand. “Then today at the store I heard his voice, the guy from my dreams, but I thought it was my imagination. Then I came out here to throw the boxes away. Someone grabbed me from behind. I couldn’t get away, couldn’t scream. He was so strong, like being held by a statue. I mean, he didn’t even move at all no matter how hard I fought him.”
Jonathan released her arm, and Morgan felt suddenly cold and lonely without his touch. Too many thoughts warred for her attention, including why he was no longer touching her. But she had to finish her story. “He told me they weren’t dreams, that I was his. And he’d been watching me. He knew you, Brianna, seemed angry with you for choosing a human instead of him? What’d he mean by that?”
Brianna’s eyes widened with a flash of recognition. If possible, her face looked even more frightened now, her skin so pale beneath her freckles that she appeared made of white marble dotted in cinnamon colored paint. She rocked back on her heels and hugged her knees, but nodded for Morgan to continue.
“Then there was all this pain in my neck and body. I saw…pictures, like seeing bits of a movie. I was a little boy, and a man was hitting me. Then it was like the movie fast forwarded at times, and every time it slowed down again, I was older.”
“Did Kilo tell you to drink anything?” Jonathan demanded, his voice suddenly fierce and frightening. Morgan looked at him and drew back from the intense fury blazing out of his eyes. His entire body seemed to radiate anger, to vibrate with it from every cell.
“He must have,” Brianna whispered. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”
Jonathan grabbed her upper arms hard and shook her a little, truly scaring her now.
Morgan nodded quickly, feeling as if she’d done something horribly wrong but didn’t know what.
Jonathan released her as if she were tainted and contagious, stood up, and walked away a few steps. He stood with his back to them, and his shoulders began to shake.
Morgan climbed unsteadily to her feet, then made her way over to him.
“Jonathan, baby, what is it?” She held his shoulders, but he shook off her touch.
“It would’ve been better if you’d died. For everyone’s sake,” he growled, spinning in front of her while quickly wiping at his face with the backs of his hands.
Brianna joined them and put an arm around Morgan, holding her shoulders comfortingly.
“What’d I do?” Morgan asked in bewilderment, feeling as if he’d just slapped her.
“Tell her, Brianna,” Jonathan demanded. “Go ahead, fill in all the blanks. Tell her what you really are, what your ex-boyfriend Kilo is. Tell her about the brand new lease on life she just got. Tell her how she just damned her soul to hell.”
Brianna grew very still beside Morgan, drawing Morgan’s attention. “What is he talking about?”
Brianna only continued to stare at Jonathan. “How do you know about him and me?”
Jonathan crossed his arms over his chest, his lips grimly set within his face. “Kilo killed my little sister ten years ago. I’ve been hunting him ever since.”
Slowly Brianna nodded, apparently understanding now. “That explains why you showed up at my saloon.”
“That’s right.” Jonathan’s face shut down, his eyes turning to cold rocks, void of any feeling. “Now why don’t you fill in the blanks for your new immortal sister here, then try and explain why I won’t be seeing her again.”
He turned and left, slamming the exit door open so hard it hit the brick wall behind it. Morgan watched him go, her mouth gaping in shock as tears welled up in her eyes. After a minute, she heard a car door slam in the front parking lot, followed by the roar of a revving engine and the screech of tires that faded into the distance. She still didn’t understand anything that was going on. And now it appeared she’d just lost the love of her life for something she didn’t even know she’d done.
Brianna sighed, drew Morgan over to a crate, then sat her down. Pacing back and forth, Brianna told Morgan what little she knew about vampires. That they were real. That Kilo was a particularly nasty one who had attacked Brianna months ago and turned her into a vampire too by draining her dry of human blood, then coercing her to drink his immortal blood. How vampires had evolved so they could walk about freely in the sunlight. Garlic, holy water, and crosses didn’t bother them. But they did have special needs that had to be met.
“We have to drink human blood once a month,” Brianna continued, stopping her pacing to stare down at Morgan as if to ensure Morgan were paying strict attention. “Or we can have consensual sex with a human once a week—during which their human energy force will be transferred to us. And vice versa.”
“We turn them into…into us too?” Morgan was horrified at the thought, yet still in shock, as if Brianna were a doctor who’d told her she had an incurable illness that could be spread to anyone and everyone. Her mind struggled to wrap itself around all these new ideas, but mostly she was still in disbelief.
“No. We just give them a bit of an energy high, like drinking tons of coffee all at once.” Brianna sat on a crate beside her and held her shaking hands. “As you get older, you’ll develop other…abilities too. Like reading and sending thoughts to others. And you’ll develop control over these.” She parted her mouth, bared her teeth, and a pair of tiny fangs slid down from her upper gum line.
Morgan’s jaw dropped and she scrabbled backwards to get away, scrambled to her feet, and edged along the brick wall for the exit door in full panic mode. “What the hell are you?”
“I’ve been telling you for the last twenty minutes, Morgan. We’re vampires.”
“Holy shit!” Morgan breathed. She felt like she’d just been dropped down a rabbit hole out of nowhere and the freaking animals were talking to her now. “Are you on drugs? Are those real? What the hell?”
“Morgan, calm down,” Brianna said. “You’ve got to try and think clearly. You’re going to have to deal with all these changes. For the sake of your son.”
Joey. The thought of his sweet baby laughter had her pausing, struggling to breathe, to think, to consider her options.
“Will I…end up hurting him?” She’d rather die.
“No, not unless you don’t take care of your new energy needs. You’re in control of this, Morgan. You’ve just…got to get used to the idea of being a vamp and the need to take care of yourself a little differently now.” Brianna slowly rose to her feet, but didn’t try to touch Morgan again. “You’ll be okay, I promise. What Kilo has done to you tonight is really shitty of him, and he’ll pay for it one way or another. But this isn’t a death sentence for you. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Unless someone stakes you through the heart, cuts off your head, or sets you on fire, you’ll live forever.”
Morgan shook her head, too dazed to absorb any of it. “I…I need to get home.”
Brianna nodded. “Get some sleep. You’ll be able to think more clearly afterwards. Call me if you have any questions or just want to talk.”
Nodding with unseeing eyes, Morgan stumbled through the bar out to the front parking lot, got into her car, and slowly made her way home. Without stopping to shower first, Morgan picked up Joey from Mrs. Myers’s home, put him to bed, then just stood by his crib watching him sleep while she tried to reconcile everything that she’d seen and heard tonight.
I
t couldn’t be true, could it? Any of it? Wasn’t it all some kind of group wide prank they were pulling on her? Maybe a way of inducting the new girl to the saloon staff after three weeks of employment?
But then she remembered Jonathan’s rage, his refusal to touch her or be touched by her, and his parting words. He would never joke with her like that.
She sat on the couch in the living room, wrapped her arms around herself, and cried, her tears flowing harder and faster until her body was wracked with uncontrollable sobs. Dear lord, she’d become a killer. A drinker of human blood, one step away from cannibalism. And Joey, so innocently sleeping away in her room…
Filled with a desperate fear, Morgan grabbed her phone and dialed the one number she knew by heart but hadn’t called in weeks.
A woman’s bleary voice croaked out a hello into the phone.
“Momma?” Morgan sobbed out. “I…I need you.”
A few minutes and just a few short words later, it was done. Morgan simply told her mother that she needed help with Joey, gave her their address, and her mother promised to be there within a few hours.
Praying she’d made the right decision, Morgan curled up on the couch, feeling like a failure once again as she cried herself to sleep.
A fist knocking on the door pulled her out of a deep sleep. It was daylight now, and if she’d waked up in her bed, she could’ve pretended it was the start of a day like any other.
Rolling off the couch, Morgan stumbled over to the door, peered through the peephole, and felt her heart sink. Part of her had hoped it was Jonathan, that he’d changed his mind and come to help her through all this.
She unlocked the door and rubbed at her tired eyes, not caring that she was smudging her mascara everywhere. “Hello, Mom. Have a safe drive over?”
The short woman before her didn’t look a day over forty, though Morgan knew for a fact she was actually fifty-three. Working hard as a waitress had apparently helped Joan stay trim and fit, while bottles of hair color kept her shoulder length graying hair a brassy shade of blonde. Her hazel eyes, looking both moist and hesitant, studied Morgan’s. Joan took a step forward, then paused.
Midnight Dream Girls 2: The Scent of Revenge Page 10