Hunger

by Barbara J. Hancock

  He remembered the elevator. He’d been trapped and she hadn’t clawed and bit and screamed. She’d stood while Dillon teased and toyed and played his wicked games.

  He remembered when Dillon had swept her up into the clouds. Had she fallen for him figuratively before she literally fell to the ground?

  The familiar vibrations of the Fairlane’s V-8 engine surrounded him, but it didn’t feel comforting. He felt the knife in its sheath, the coat on his back and the steering wheel against his face, but it all was alien as if he’d been born into a world he couldn’t quite feel or trust to stay solid beneath him.

  Holly had betrayed him.

  He didn’t know what bothered him more, that she’d fallen or that he’d been right that she would. He had wanted to be wrong. Her resistance had awakened a kind of hope in him that he hadn’t felt since his partner’s death. Night after night, as he’d seen her fight the vampire, inside and out, he’d been seduced into thinking the world wasn’t as dark as he’d thought. He’d been lulled by her smiles. He’d been lured by her spirit. He’d been misled by her kisses. He’d known monsters were real, but he’d forgotten it in her arms.

  He lifted his head up from the wheel and looked out at the night. He was miles from the city and no false light helped the winter moon illuminate the flooded cemetery. For all he knew, Dillon could be nearby.

  But he doubted it.

  The vampire had his hands full tonight. Full of Holly.

  Earlier today, he had doubted his resolve. He’d been torn between distrust and desire. His desire was cold as ashes now and distrust was all he had left. Distrust and the blade at his side.

  Tomorrow night, they would hunt the queen. If Holly returned to the motel to sleep, the two of them would hunt together when she woke up.

  He couldn’t imagine being with her. He couldn’t imagine killing… He didn’t have to imagine it. He just had to do it when the time was right.

  He smoothed his hand over the handle of his knife, but the movement didn’t bring him peace.

  He’d been angry, stunned, numb, resolved then tempted to ignore it all and lie back in her arms over the course of the day. When he’d seen her leave the motel, when he’d followed her, when he’d found her with Dillon, the flood of emotion had swept up to fill him to the brim and then it had dissipated to leave him empty as he’d found his way back to this place, alone.

  He felt the tide of emotion trying to rise again, but he held it back. He needed the emptiness. He needed to blank out the kisses and the smiles. He needed to blank out the betrayal and the vision of Holly in Dillon’s arms. He needed cool, detached precision for tomorrow night. He needed to reclaim the vampire hunter and once and for all, send the man he had been before Jim’s death to sleep.

  He wouldn’t be led astray again.

  Chapter Twenty

  If possible, the ruined hulk of the Raveneaux mansion looked even worse than before. Her mind had soothed her while she was away. “It couldn’t have been that bad,” her mind had whispered. So, with a reassured and hopeful brush, she had painted over the memory of last night until it wasn’t as dark or as decayed or as…rotten as it actual was.

  Her mind hadn’t done her any favors.

  The horrible reality of the place was even harsher set against her softened recollection. It was a vine-eaten tangle of fire-blackened timbers and brick left in nearly dissolved piles as mortar turned to dampened dust.

  Fire.

  Last night, from the prospect of the front and the west wing of the house, there hadn’t been much evidence of burning, but as she and a coldly silent Winters crept around the east wing, the rot and decay was joined by another smell. Even after all this time, her vampire nose detected the acrid odor of home turned to charcoal beneath the lush covering of kudzu vine.

  The back of the house was a mere framework of wood and brick held into place by a veritable jungle of vines.

  Holly felt as if darkly verdant tendrils were trying to climb up her ankles and her legs. She brushed her hands down her thighs in a compulsive move to save herself from the imagined assault. Her skin itched and twitched and swore it was being violated by insistently spreading growth.

  She was definitely a Middleton Place kind of girl. Give her a perfectly manicured garden any day. When they had taken a tour around Charleston, she had loved the hedges, the structure and green open lawn of that plantation. Her sister had loved the wilder Magnolia Plantation and Gardens with its decadent abundance of flowers. Everywhere you looked at Magnolia was rampant nature barely held in check. Of course, the overgrown mass here at Raveneaux made even those sensuous gardens seem calm and pruned and tamed.

  Winters was silent.

  He didn’t cough or sigh or even step on a twig. If the filth and decay bothered him, no one would know. He was in all-out hunter mode. Stealthy. Ready. Watching. Waiting.

  She wanted to punch him in the arm or step on his toe. She needed him with her, not in his own little world of tuned-in killing machine.

  She didn’t touch him.

  He was…wound tight. She could sense it in his quiet breathing and the way he made no extraneous movements. All his energy was building, building, building as he walked from the car through the swamp and up to the ruins. His steps meant nothing. All his strength and all his power was being channeled toward his muscles, his mind and his hands. His entire being was preparing for the fight.

  Holly was impressed. She was also very, very scared. Gone was the memory of his smile. Gone was the taste of his kiss and the touch of his body. The man at her side was a stranger. He was a killer and at some point tonight she would have to come between him and the kill.

  She remembered the rapist in the alley. She remembered the vampires at the dance club. She could be a killer too.

  The night around them was silent. In any forest animals and insects hushed in waves as you walked through, with those behind you resuming their calls and rustles once you had passed and those in front of you calling and moving until you reached them. Not tonight. Even with her senses, she detected nothing. No movement. No life. No noise. The absence of sound didn’t feel empty. It felt expectant. The air was heavy with South Carolina humidity even in February, but it was also heavy for less tangible reasons.

  Winters didn’t help the atmosphere with his coiled-and-ready-to-pounce aura. Holly found herself feeling like it was minutes before final exams…if she hadn’t studied and if she was naked in front of the entire student body and if more than a few of them were waiting to eat her or drive a stake through her heart. Yeah, it was like that.

  Her pulse rushed in her ears. Her fingers and toes were numb. Her knees were rubber and it was an all out panic party inside of her head.

  Holly stopped. She slowed her breathing and rolled her shoulders. She thought of her mother’s smile.

  Winters paused. He watched as she gathered and calmed herself. He narrowed his eyes and she knew he saw every jangled nerve, every sweating pore, every unspoken fear. It wasn’t smart to let him see her weakness. Then again, letting him see her at her most fierce and deadly hadn’t made everything hunky dory between them either.

  It didn’t matter. They had a ship that was dead in the water before it had even set sail. Tonight he would try to kill her and her mother. He wouldn’t succeed.

  Holly narrowed her own eyes and met his gaze. Her nerves settled and sharpened and somehow became ready as she stared into his night-shadowed, brown eyes. Her body calmed and her fears retreated to the darkest corners of her mind.

  He nodded once. It was a slow inclination of his head. His gaze locked with hers. She couldn’t read the movement, not now when he was a stranger to her. Was it a challenge? Was it encouragement? She didn’t know.

  They continued. Moisture sucked at her shoes and even that slight noise sounded like a guffaw in a funeral home. Winters flashed her a look. She ignored it. This wasn’t Wild Kingdom and she wasn’t on safari. The closest thing she’d ever done to a hunt was poking through clo
sets at Christmas time looking for hidden presents.

  Besides, the queen knew they were coming.

  Dillon hadn’t been able to free himself. None of her other creatures had the mental acuity to even consider treachery—if the vamp mom was any indication—and Holly was pretty sure they were being watched.

  It had begun about the same time as she had imagined the vine climbing her leg, a prickle on the nape of her neck, goose bumps down her arms. The panic attack had distracted her, but as soon as she had calmed herself she knew.

  They were watching.

  For once, she was further ahead of the game than Winters. He pushed through the vines and into the ruins without a pause. Holly had to force herself to follow. The leaves rubbed harshly against every inch of exposed skin. Even though Winters was ahead of her, the wall of vines hadn’t made way, not one inch, for his body or hers.

  If she had been camping, she would have headed for the Calamine lotion. As it was, she figured vampires didn’t worry about rashes especially when they were walking into a trap.

  They entered what had once been a room. It would have been called the jungle room if this was Graceland.. Only instead of leopard prints they were met with more vine. It covered what had once been the ceiling over their heads, large roots pressed up through what was left of the floor, and all around were leaves, leaves and more leaves.

  Right about now, Holly was feeling nostalgic for cement and asphalt. Lots and lots of asphalt. Sure, vampires could hide in the city. In plain sight they could manage to mingle long enough to pick off prey, night after night. You didn’t have to be able to carry on intelligent conversations in nightclubs. And alleys were pretty much a given.

  But here, surrounded by the viny beast that had eaten her ancestors’ home, Holly was as overwhelmed by the untamed growth as the remnants of the once-grand mansion. Here, before her eyes, was civilization being devoured by the wild.

  It was an alien setting in a world she was only beginning to realize she would never understand… which made it all the more strange to find a banquet-sized table around the corner, set with impeccable china and crystal and silver.

  Winters froze and Holly stepped on his heels. He didn’t yelp and she didn’t beg his pardon. They were both too busy taking in the startling contrast of the elegant table set against the decay of the mansion and the wild growth of the vine.

  There had to have been a hundred chairs, though Holly didn’t count. There had to have been a thousand candles, but again, Holly didn’t count.

  Because from out of the vine-covered shadows came the entire cast of every zombie movie that had ever been made. They shuffled. They lurched. They left pieces of rotten fabric and lord knew what else in their wake. And of course, they were vampires not zombies, but it took her long seconds to discount their appearance and listen to reason. They were zombie-like vampires, for sure. They were filthy and their flesh sagged off their bones and their eyes burned with hunger and madness.

  Holly drew her lips back from her pointed teeth in automatic response to the hundreds of yellow-black fangs aimed in their direction. She didn’t hiss, thank God. Instinct spared her that at least. Winters already had his knife out. In this, they were in agreement.

  There’s no such thing as a good zombie vampire.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Winters crouched and Holly couldn’t help the thrill that raced through her when she saw his lean-muscled preparedness. A crazy, vine-eaten banquet hall full of insane zombie-vampire freaks? “No problem,” his crouch said. “Bring it on,” chimed in his knife.

  Holly concurred…though she did hope his gun was in his coat somewhere ready to join in the fray.

  Then the shambling, threatening mass of inhumanity shuddered to a stop. Many of them swayed on their feet. Some of them collapsed on the floor. A few wandered off mumbling or singing to themselves.

  Holly heard a familiar snatch of lullaby and turned to see the vampire mother from last night crooning to what looked like finger bone as she twisted it this way and that in her hand.

  Winters straightened and turned his face in Holly’s direction. His expression looked as puzzled as she felt.

  Is this not going to be the blood bath we expected?

  Winters squeezed and released, squeezed and released his hand on the handle of his blade. Would he wander around the room and dispatch each and every creature even if they didn’t fight back?

  Holly twitched. For some, maybe for all, it would be a mercy. It still didn’t feel fair. The vampire mother caught her attention again as she put the tiny bone in a fold of her tattered gown and patted it. “Sleep tight,” the gesture said. Rest in peace.

  Okay, so maybe the lot of them needed this sad, half-existence to end. Holly braced herself to help or hinder as her heart tried to decide.

  Funny how a strange mob of zombie vampires can make you forgetful.

  As Winters gripped his knife in tightened fingers that seemed suddenly resolved, as Holly struggled with right and wrong, black and white and shades of gray, a voice rang out over the shuffle of pitiful monsters.

  “Welcome home, dear heart. We’ve been expecting you. Though an uninvited guest has tagged along I see.” Like Scarlett O’Hara if she had smoked five packs a day, the voice was cultured, southern and horribly gritty. The gravel of it tore at Holly’s ears and she knew. It was the queen. Again, like Scarlett, but with heavy shades of Miss Haversham on a bad day, the queen swept into the room. Unlike the pristine banquet table, her gown was coated with grime. Unlike the zombie horde, her gown hadn’t yet been reduced to rags. It was torn and dirty and rank, but sometime in the last few years or so it had been new. Made in the old hoop-skirted style, but new. Did vampires shop online?

  Her movements, as she carefully curtsied to the throng of unresponsive vampires, treated the gown as if it were still perfect and impressive. She lifted the edges carefully and sat down at the head of the table. She smoothed the un-smoothable, lived-in-twenty-four-seven wrinkles with jeweled fingers.

  Yes, there were rings on every digit, but her fingernails were black and broken and crusted with unimaginable stains.

  Holly wanted to wake up from this nightmare. She wanted to step back through the distorted looking glass and head for the hills of home.

  “I—” Winters began to speak.

  “You do not have an invitation to this gathering, sir. And while we aim to be gracious, we do not consort with those who are beneath us.” The queen talked down to Winters as if he was the one who was less than human. “I’ll expect better manners from you in the future, dear one. The guest list must always be approved.” This she directed toward Holly with a smile. The smile was probably meant to be forgiving, but the yellow fangs it revealed made it seem more like a sinister grimace.

  A sly glance from the queen brought two slumped vampires to life. They had been swaying on their feet. Now, they swayed in Winters’ direction.

  Holly didn’t want things to go further south than they already were. Not yet. As soon as they started to hack and slash, any hope she had for answers would be gone.

  “Why was I invited, ma’am?”

  She tried to sound genteel. She thought she sounded less like Scarlett O’Hara and more like a commercial for grits-n-gravy, but she tried.

  The queen acted astonished. She sat back in her chair and placed one hand on her chest. The fact that the hand was crusted black kind of spoiled the southern belle effect.

  “Why, love, because you are a Raveneaux. We are all of us, Raveneaux.”

  She gestured around the room and Holly could…not…breathe. Her lungs simply refused to take in any more air for several long seconds. In the corner, the vampire mother brushed dark, matted curls from her forehead with a brush that had lost its bristles fifty years ago. Beneath the grime, the curls were like her mom’s. On the floor, a vampire who was once a man smiled and it was her grandfather’s smile. Suddenly, all around her, Holly picked out Raveneaux traits. The height of her uncle, the full
lips of her great-great Aunt Josephine who looked like Betty Boop in old photographs, the vivid blue of Raveneaux eyes. Dillon’s eyes. Like a family reunion without the fattening potato salad and off-key bluegrass music, the gathering took on a fresh, more intimate horror.

  These were her ancestors. These people had been family, and now they were trapped in a rotten purgatory instead of safe and deceased and written blandly in little squares on her mother’s family tree.

  They were here and now and pitiful and horrible and why?

  “Why?” The word sprang from her lips and the queen was not pleased. She pursed her mouth and twisted her shoulders as if to say, “Well, really! La, what is wrong with this child?”

  “Don’t question tradition. Raveneaux folk are special. My father taught me and now I will teach you. In turn, you will find another with our special blood and you will teach him or her.”

  Special blood?

  She was sure the queen was speaking about lineage and birthright and tradition, but Holly looked around and saw plenty of evidence to suggest many of these Raveneaux vampires were no different from any other vampires. They were mad and mindless with only the queen’s control keeping them from what they were. Hunt. Kill. Feed. Tradition? None of them could possible muster the wits to care.

  Special blood. Holly understood. Like the black curls or blue eyes or a certain type of smile was a genetic legacy that could hit or miss as chance dictated, so was the resistance to blood hunger and madness.

  She and the queen and Dillon all must share a certain recessive gene that made them less susceptible to the mindlessness of the usual vampire. Dillon. Kissing cousins, indeed. The fact that they were many times “removed” helped alleviate the ewww factor. Just a little.

  “It’s genetic. Some Raveneauxs can resist vampirism. You have the right combination of genes, but these others didn’t. Not in the perfect mix,” Winters concluded.

  “Jayne wasn’t totally mad,” Holly surmised, glad that her sister had been herself at the very end.