Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2

by Doug Dandridge

  Then she caught his eye. A stunning redhead he had never seen in the club. Her knee length blue dress set off her pale complexion and fiery hair perfectly. She had tastefully selected diamond earrings and a pearl necklace. A professional lady, thought Jake. Not a whore, but a businesswoman out for a little fun. Who might be impressed by Jake Padillas.

  The woman met his eye and she squirted some breath spray into the mouth. Jake felt his heart beat faster, and not from the coke in his system. The woman radiated sexuality, and Jake found himself imagining how she would perform in bed. In his mind’s eye he could see her straddling him as he lay on the silk sheets of his bedroom, lust in her gaze as she moved up and down on him.

  “What,” he said, as suddenly she was at his side, smiling at him with one of those half smiles that hide most of the teeth. As if she was laughing at him inside. He felt his face flush with anger. But a look into her wide blue eyes killed the anger with lust.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here before,” he said, trying to calm a voice that came out too high from his nervousness. What the fuck, he thought. He hadn’t been nervous around a woman since taking Charlotte Harden’s virginity in the storeroom of St. Agnes’ Catholic School. But this one made him nervous, with a thrill of danger that had his blood pumping in his ears.

  “I’ve never been here before,” she said leaning toward him so he could smell the minty fresh breath from her mouth. “So I’d be surprised if you had.”

  I’m Jake,” he said, putting out his hand. She took it in hers and he started for a second at how cool it felt.

  “I’m Lucy,” she said. “Lucy Tegano. Pleased to meet you.”

  She gave it a gentle shake, then lightly raked her fingernails over his palm as she withdrew her hand. Jake took in a sharp breath as he looked into the wide pupils of her eyes. Either a sign of interest, he knew. Or of drugs. But she didn’t act like she was on any strong narcotics.

  “Would you like a drink, Lucy?” he asked, nodding toward Gregorio.

  “I don’t drink, liquor,” she said in a throaty voice. “But I would love to dance. Would you dance with me, Jake?”

  “Sure,” whispered Jake, feeling a little light headed. He reached out his hand and she put hers in it. He led the way from the bar to the dance floor, the psychedelic lighting scheme dazzling his eyes. He pushed his way through a couple of ecstasy heads, the man turning an angry gaze on him until he realized who it was. People moved out of his way as he led her to the center of the floor. Jake reveled in the power that he held in the nightlife of Tampa.

  As they reached the center of the floor Lucy pulled her hand from his and started moving to the music. Jake stared at her in fascination for a moment, watching her graceful movements in perfect rhythm to the metal music that was playing over the expensive sound system. She smiled at him and he felt embarrassed to be acting like such a schoolboy. He started moving himself, arms and legs attempting to find her rhythm. But she moved like a professional dancer, and he did his best just to keep up.

  Looking at the slender curves of her perfect body under her tight fitting dress, he felt himself becoming aroused. She flashed him another bemused smile, and moved toward him, falling into his arms. He flinched for a moment as she molded her body to his and began moving in a rhythm that had nothing to do with the music. His arms went around her, feeling the taunt muscles of her back moving as she swayed. Her soft breasts pressed against his chest, as he ground his hard manhood into her hip and groin.

  There was a musky scent about her that pulled Jake even further into her spell. He frowned for a second as he smelled something else under the perfume and natural scent. Something that reminded him of the corruption of death. But then her mouth nuzzled his ear and all thought that dealt with anything but lust fled his mind.

  “I want you so badly,” he whispered into her ear. “I want you now.”

  “I think the dance floor may be a little too public,” she said with a chuckle.

  “No,” he said with an answering laugh. “I think I can wait till we get in private.”

  “I want you too,” she said in a husky voice that dripped with sexuality. “I want you so bad.”

  “Then let’s get out of here,” he said, pulling out of the embrace and grasping her hand. He led her from the dance floor, nodding at a smiling Gregorio, while he wondered who had won the pool on him tonight.

  They walked toward his car hand in hand, and Jake waited in anticipation as they approached his car. He knew that the silver Maserati Spyder normally sparked excitement in his women. He pulled his keys from his pocket and triggered the lock/alarm system. He felt a little bit of disappointment as she took her hand from his and walked to the passenger door, pulling it open and sliding her lean form into the seat.

  Jake shrugged his shoulders. What did it matter if she was impressed or not by the car. I’m gonna get that pussy, he thought, and that was all that really mattered.

  As he slid into the seat and put the key in the ignition she shifted over toward him and stroked his back through the suit. Her other hand went down his chest, sliding unerringly down to his groin, where it rested for a moment, then started kneading. Jake felt his erection spring to full life again.

  “I really think it might be better to wait till we get back to my place,” he said, a wide smile on his face. “Unless you want to give me a blow job, this place is just a little too crowded for comfort.”

  “It’s spacious enough for my purposes,” she said in a cold voice.

  A chill ran down Jake’s spine as the atmosphere in the car changed. The musky sensual odor went away, overpowered by the smell of death. He turned his head to look into red, glowing eyes, while the smile on her face revealed long canines. He felt the fear settle in his gut as he realized he was in deadly danger.

  He jerked at the hand on his groin, while trying to shrug his shoulder out from under the other hand. She gripped tightly in both places. Jake hissed in agony at the pain that erupted from his testicles. He pulled with all of his strength, panic boosting the adrenaline flowing through his muscles. But Jake might as well have been pulling at a hydraulic press for all the good it did him. The slender arms didn’t budge, telling of a strength many times his own.

  Jake released the hand squeezing his balls and tried to reach under the front of the seat. There was a pistol there, and he needed it at this moment more than any other time in his life. But her hand moved like a striking rattlesnake, shifting from groin to moving hand in a blur. His hand froze in place, and he looked back at her face in a fascinated fear.

  “What are you trying to do, little man?” she said with a smile that froze his heart. “You are all mine now, and I intend to enjoy you.”

  “Please,” he croaked. “My father will give you anything you want if you let me go.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” she said. “Since I want the same thing from him as I do from you.”

  She moved her head to just off his neck, her cold breathe chilling his skin as it chilled his guts.

  “I want your life, little man,” she whispered. “Jacob Padillas. Raper of little girls. How’d your father get you off on all of those charges Jacob?”

  She licked his neck, leaving a moist trail on the flesh.

  “You will not get a reprieve this time Jacob. There is no clemency in this court.”

  Jake felt the sharp pain in his neck as she bit into him. He then felt her lips against his neck, sucking at the flesh. He struggled for a moment, but his strength could not free him from her grasp. The sucking continued, until he began to feel faint headed. Soon his vision began to go red, then black, until Jacob Padillas fell into a black hole from which there was no escape.

  * * *

  Lucinda stared at the corpse in the driver’s seat for a moment, feeling the hunger abate as it was replaced by a feeling of satiation. She then looked up and around through the windows of the car. Nothing moved in the parking lot.

  I still should have waited, she thought
. Someone might have seen her. But the hunger had gotten too great, until she could not resist any longer. So she had fed and made her kill, and no one had seen.

  Quickly she got out of the car and pulled the body over into the passenger seat. Lucinda then got into the driver’s seat and started up the car. Her human memories were sparked by the rumbling purr of the high performance automobile. She shifted into gear and pressed the gas, moving the car out of the parking lot and onto the street.

  A couple of blocks down she turned into the entrance to a towering parking garage. Stopping at the automatic gate she pushed the button and accepted the ticket, waiting a moment for the gate to swing up. The Maserati responded to a slight touch of the gas as she headed for the up ramp. She accelerated as the ramp sloped up.

  Lucinda drove the car past the second floor, then the third, ignoring all of the open spaces that would be full when the business day started tomorrow. She pulled onto the tenth level, the rooftop of the garage. With a squeal of tires she brought the car to a sudden stop, got out, and walked to the concrete guardrail. She looked over the guardrail and down onto the street a hundred feet below. There was very little traffic on the street, only a couple of cars a minute. Good enough, she thought. A risk worth taking.

  Lucinda got back into the car and backed it across the roof until the bumper tapped the far guardrail. She noted with satisfaction that the gas tank was three quarters full. She then got out of the car and pulled Jake’s body back into the driver’s seat, belting him in so he wouldn’t go anywhere. Lucinda then got back into the passenger’s seat and put her foot over the gas pedal. Shifting the car into gear, she grabbed the wheel and slammed her foot down on the gas. The car stood still for a moment as its tires squealed and sent up a cloud of smoke. Then it took off like a shot across the roof of the garage.

  Lucinda shifted the gears twice as the car sped toward the far guardrail. She braced her arms against the wheel and the dash. The Maserati plowed into the concrete guardrail at seventy miles an hour. The front of the car crumpled in as it slowed to almost a stop in a fraction of a second. But it kept going forward as the momentum shattered the concrete and blasted through.

  The vampire felt the concussion through her arms, watching as the airbags erupted from their compartments and race the shattering windshield into the car. Then the ruined automobile was hanging in space as it looped out and fell toward the street. Lucinda triggered the change at that moment, her corporal form turning to mist that streamed out of the car and into the air. She drifted down the street as the car struck its shattered front onto the hard asphalt. The car crushed under the momentum, then exploded in a ball of fire as the fuel system sparked and spread immediately to the gas tank.

  That’s one I don’t have to worry about, she thought as she coalesced to human form. There would barely be enough left to bury, closed casket of course. He would not rise again.

  Lucinda raised her arms to her side and changed again, soaring into the sky as a bat. She had accomplished much tonight, killing someone close to her primary target, a man who himself deserved death. And she had fed her hunger while not harming the innocent, either tonight or in the future when the monster would have awoken from the corpse she had left behind. Fire instead purged the body of her taint.