by C. L. Quinn
Marc got it. He was protecting his waitress. Marc had done the same with the young women who served drinks in the bar next door. It was okay. He’d just have to bide his time. But he would speak with her at some point.
“Okay,” he said simply, acknowledging Frank’s protectiveness, and backed away.
Still, walking out of the diner, the neon sign above the door that said Frank’s Place, sizzled, announcing a bulb that might be burning out. Every sound was amplified and Marc found it harder to breathe.
He found himself in the alley behind the bar instead of going straight into The Iron Butterfly. The disappointment stung, and he dropped onto his haunches and sucked in air. How had his life gone so far off the tracks, he couldn’t even manage a simple moment of discouragement? He did not even know this woman.
A few moments of self-indulgent pity behind him, Marc stood and reassessed himself. No, he was fine. This weirdness wasn’t any weirder than the past eight years of his life. Weird? For him, that was just normal. He had so many regrets and so much culpability for his actions in the Middle East, he’d never crawl out of that trough of responsibility. Redemption wasn’t in the cards he had been dealt. All he could hope for was a chance to sleep well…occasionally. Karma had his number and he figured it was coming for him.
Just a little while longer, he thought. Just a little while.
When the bartender finally made it back to her, Tamesine took the drink and grabbed his skinny tie to pull him close.
He smiled at the contact until she caught his eyes and put him under her compulsion.
“Now, tell me where the bartender is that worked last night. Tall, well-built, brown hair peppered with white strands. I don’t know his name.”
“Marc,” the bartender said flatly. “Marc Brannon. He called in tonight. I don’t know when he’ll be in.”
“Fuck,” Tamesine said softly under her breath.
“Why do you want him?” he asked. “He’s a gelding. He can’t get you off.”
What? What the hell did that mean? And why would this asshole tell a stranger something like that?
“I didn’t ask you about his cock. You have never seen me before. I never asked about Brannon. Go about your work.”
He backed away and went to a cocktail waitress who’d come up to the bar with a new list of orders.
So, no satisfaction tonight. Eventually, yes, Tamesine knew she would find him, and compel the truth from him.
But not tonight.
Time to go. Frank had kindly let her walk out of the diner, but she knew Sunday nights were busy. After a last glance into the smoky interior, regretfully, Tamesine left. She would endure another night wondering what this meant. Fuck, she hoped she wouldn’t dream of him again tonight.
THREE
IN THE SWISS ALPS
“He is impossible to please!”
The petite coffee-colored chef threw her best carving knife across the room to embed itself into the fine carved wood of a breakfront that was probably 300 years old. She didn’t care.
“I quit! I won’t work for that monster another day!”
Viktor’s eyes went wide. She’d missed him by only a hairsbreadth.
“Please, Sophia, reconsider. Mostly, he loves your cooking. It was just this…this last piece of lamb. He thought it was a bit undercooked.”
Sophia shrieked. “It was perfect! And you are mistaken, Viktor. He hates nearly everything that I do, and I am sick of it. I will sell hamburgers to Americans in little cafes with yellow arches before I make him even a piece of toast ever again! I am finished!”
She was gone. Even if he could have kept her from leaving, Viktor rather knew that Lamont should never eat anything prepared by her again. She was very angry and quite vengeful. No telling what would actually be in his food if she stayed.
Viktor figured the man would deserve it. Lamont was a class A butcher. But the asshole paid him so well to be here and take care of his mortal needs, and he would do just that as long as he himself could satisfy the world’s worst boss.
It was increasingly difficult to do now that Lamont had powers that no one had ever seen before. The things that man could do…
No, Viktor thought, Sophia had been right…the things that monster could do. It was unnatural and terrifying and Viktor rather thought there was a good chance that someday Lamont would kill him for making a simple mistake. These days, he was exceptionally careful when taking care of Lamont’s needs.
Viktor’s cell phone chimed. Lamont.
“Yes, sir?”
“Dinner is late, Viktor. Would you care to tell me why?”
“Uh, well, the stove, it had a problem, but it is fixed now. Fifteen minutes, sir, if you will grant me your indulgence.”
Dead silence made Viktor’s blood freeze. Maybe he should follow Sophia.
“You have fifteen,” the answer finally came. Lamont’s voice was cold, but at least he’d accepted Viktor’s explanation.
“Brigitte, you can cook, yes?”
Sophia’s aide looked at Viktor with huge eyes, her mouth wide. She’d seen the entire episode with Sophia moments earlier, and she’d been here long enough to know that every word Sophia spoke was true.
“It doesn’t matter. Do your best and make something palatable in ten minutes. Do not fail me, Brigitte.” Viktor paused and softened his voice. “Please.”
Brigitte did not respond for thirty seconds, then she nodded and went to the largest refrigerator in the big kitchen.
Viktor turned away. He couldn’t watch this.
Lamont sat behind a desk that could have held all of King Arthur’s knights, and more. It was obnoxious and overly ornate, but he loved it. He thought it appropriate for the man he now was. He thought the desk was magnificent, and so was he.
The office was located on an upper floor in an enormous hotel chalet he’d purchased when he needed to quickly relocate after the vampire debacle in Brazil. Surrounded by windows, it overlooked the mountainside, inspiring, elegant, isolated.
In front of the desk, three women stood, skirts up over their heads, bent over, their butts exposed in the air for him to view. He liked a woman with well-rounded buttocks and large breasts. It suited him that he had three of them displayed in front of him, just for his viewing pleasure.
“Turn around,” he finally said. They did so, letting the taffeta skirts fall as they faced him. The women were slender with large firm breasts, of which only one set was natural. That didn’t matter to him as long as they were big and round.
The girls were smiling. They liked this work and liked pleasing him because he had the cock of all cocks. Since his change, his dick rarely relaxed for more than a few hours. No wonder those first blood vampires had all the nice rides, they were built for sex. And now, thanks to their blood, so was he.
“I’m preparing for dinner, my dears, do return in about an hour, and be prepared to go all night.”
They giggled and left the room, arms around each other. Jacques Lamont smiled.
He loved his new life. As one of the wealthiest men on the planet, all inherited from long family history, he’d never known a moment when he couldn’t do exactly what he wanted in his life. Except for the vampires.
Which is why he’d invested in the little vampire studies society he’d first discovered twenty years ago.
Vampires. Altered humans who had superior strength and special abilities. They were extraordinarily strong and fast, lived virtually forever, never aged, and were highly sexual in nature.
He’d found the unnatural state of existence, the superiority of the breed, repugnant. Lamont had never paused to consider that it might be because he refused to acknowledge anyone or anything superior to him.
Over the years, he’d developed a healthy hatred of supernatural species. The society he now owned took supernatural beings to study them and try to extract their powers, their inhuman abilities, to find out how to control or eliminate them.
Always before, the vampires had
been too strong for him to hold for any period time at all. Capturing a vampire that could not be caged was a death sentence.
Then Lamont found out something even more remarkable. All vampires were not equal.
Most were made by converting a human being using copious amounts of force-fed vampire blood, which triggered a conversion at the genetic level. The human would become vampire.
But a select few vampires were never converted. They were born vampire.
He’d come to know since then that they were referred to as first bloods. And they were much more powerful than those created by their blood. The first blood vampires had abilities normal vampires would never develop. And they could breed.
If the right male and female came together, it was possible for a female vampire to give birth. Or for a male vampire to impregnate a human female, if she were one of the very few humans capable of bearing and birthing a vampire child. The situations were rare, but first blood vampire children could happen.
The entire thing blew Lamont’s mind. The unnatural creatures could breed!
He’d vowed to stop them. Which is why his supernatural studies teams sought to find ways to control, contain, or destroy vampires. The Supernatural Research Society had been around for several decades. But now it belonged to him, and Lamont meant to take it all the way. He meant to find the means to destroy the vampires once and for all, but they were too powerful.
Then a few months ago, a brilliant team of his biologists developed a serum that could render a first blood, any vampire, unconscious. The new miracle serum interfered with their abilities, all of them, they wouldn’t be able to use their powers while dosed.
He’d won.
The serum worked. And he’d gotten so much more than he’d bargained for when he had been able to capture and contain five, five, first blood vampires in South America a few months ago.
Viktor hurried through the door with a covered dish.
“I do apologize, sir, for the delay. Kitchen equipment in these old households…sometimes they do have problems. But I think you will enjoy this little dish the chef dreamed up. Just for you, sir.”
That pleased Lamont. Something just for him. Yes, that appealed a great deal. He even deigned to smile at his assistant.
Lifting the stainless-steel cover from the dish, Viktor held his breath as Lamont used the solid silver fork and tasted a pasta and tomato-sauce dish sprinkled liberally with local spices and bits of sausage. He cringed when Lamont sat completely still as he moved his tongue around his mouth. Then he looked up at Viktor with those disturbing empty eyes.
“Quite good. Quite unusual flavors, but I like them. Send my compliments as you close the door behind you.”
After pulling the double doors to the big room closed securely, Viktor allowed the long expulsion of breath he’d been holding. He was paid well. Very well, and yet he knew he wasn’t going to be able to stay in this job. He couldn’t handle the terror.
Once dinner was done, Lamont called in his new security team.
All seven oversized men stood at attention.
“Where are we?” he questioned the man who stood just forward of the others. His name was Tomas, and he was in charge of securing everything needed by Lamont.
“Final surveillance has tracked her to the States. We haven’t pinpointed her precisely yet, sir, but it won’t take long. To have tracked her this far, this easily, means she isn’t trying to hide.”
“Of course not, the arrogant bitch. She still thinks she’s impervious to everything and everyone. And while she may be the most powerful vampire I have ever known, I still knocked her out and caged her. For moments, yes, but that was all I needed. Her blood is…”
Lamont looked up at Tomas, then to the other six, who were paying close attention. He’d better not reveal any more to them. It was probably wise they did not know he ingested nearly a gallon of the first blood vampire’s combined blood. And that her blood was the one that bound it all together. They could not know.
“Just keep me informed. The instant she is found, I need to have a team there, so Tomas, be sure the plane is capable of taking off with very little notice.”
Tomas bowed and signaled to his guys to retreat.
After he grabbed a bottle of wine, Lamont headed to the private elevator he’d had installed in this office.
He stepped out of it moments later to a garish bedroom with an oversized bed. After removing his clothes, he stepped in front of a big mirror and took a long admiring look. His body was transformed. The blood had built him like a vampire, big, cut, a cock he thought might rival any of the first blood vampires he’d known. His three women would barely be enough to satisfy him, but it would do, for tonight.
When he found the first blood vampire he sought, he wanted to ride her before he drained her. Lamont never wanted to return to what he was, so he’d decided that he would go forward with a conversion. He would become a vampire.
But only with that vampire’s blood. Her power would be infused into him, and he would kill her when it was over. He remembered a phrase.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Sounded good to him.
FOUR
Frank watched Tam as she finished cleaning for the night and prepared to go home. He hadn’t told her about the man who came in looking for her earlier tonight. He wasn’t sure he should. His sixth sense told him that something strange was happening, and that it might be better, safer, for Tamesine, if that man never found her. True, the guy could come back, but Frank wouldn’t let anything happen in this diner, and if the guy tried something, he’d be sorry. Yeah, the man was big, but so was Frank, and he had some skills of his own.
Frank cared about all of the young women who worked for him. But Tam, from the first time he saw her, he felt her fragility, felt that she was troubled or in trouble, that she was running from something or to something. Either way, he’d defend her from anyone who might hurt her.
She looked up at him and smiled. Frank smiled back and shook his head softly. That smile, that beautiful smile…it never made it to her eyes. He would love to hear her story some time, and more than that, he would love to hear her laugh. Right now, those serious blue eyes looked like they carried the collected pain of the world in them, and for all he knew, they might.
It was true that Frank was very intuitive, he had always been, even as a child. And he saw something in this woman, something deep and important. She wasn’t what she appeared to be, and she certainly wasn’t a waitress.
“Ready to head out, lady?” he said casually, belying his thoughts of her.
“I guess. I thought perhaps I’d go to that bar you suggested next door and get a drink. I never made it last night.”
Frank felt his breath catch. No, the man would likely be there. “Ah, I wouldn’t. Not tonight. Sundays aren’t the best day. Next weekend, yeah, that might be a better time. Tell ya what, why don’t you come with me?”
Tam didn’t move, surprised at the invitation. Frank had never asked anything of her before.
“Where do you want to go?” she inquired.
“I’m going to a concert in the park. It’s gonna go all night. They call it the Stars to Sun Revue. What do ya think? I kind of thought you might enjoy some good music.”
What caused him to invite her? Looking into his eyes, she almost wanted to compel him to tell her why he asked. But that was a breach of trust she wasn’t ready to cross with this man. He was one of the few humans she’d ever met who she really did trust. Her limited empathic skills told her he genuinely cared for her, but there were no sexual undertones. Sort of fatherly, she thought.
Tamesine had never known a father, and for some reason, the idea appealed to her. Something deep in her core grinned at that. Over a thousand years old, and still with Daddy issues? She smiled, truly smiled, for the first time in a long time.
Frank noticed the smile, and it nearly melted him. God, he’d thought her beautiful before, but now, she lit up the room.
He really didn’t want the troubled guy to get his hands on her. He couldn’t stand to watch her get hurt.
“Good, we’ve got a date. Let me close up the back room, and I’ll be right out.”
A concert. Odd, in all of her years of life, she didn’t think she’d ever been to a music concert. It was probably more important that she go next door and try to find the man who’d invaded her dreams, but she realized she really wanted to go listen to music with this sweet man who was beginning to mean something to her.
Buttoning a lightweight shirt over the short-sleeved tee shirt he usually wore beneath his apron, and his hair combed, Frank came quickly from the behind the counter, his keys in his hand.
“Come on, Tam. Let’s go get down with some music from the 60’s. Of course, you won’t have been around for it, but there’s some great stuff you have to hear. I guarantee you’ll love it. It was a time when music had rhythm and melody.”
Tamesine followed him from the diner. No, a thousand-year-old vampire wouldn’t know anything about something that had happened fifty years ago.
The Iron Butterfly was busier than usual tonight, so Marc had very little time to think about his situation. Mostly, he just wanted to tear out of there, go next door to Frank’s Place, and haul the blonde out of the diner to find out what the hell was going on.
And although he would never do that, the need to do so had grown stronger through the night. Finishing an order for a large group of rowdy men, he glanced up to see the time on the big clock Joe kept above the mirrored shelves.
Midnight. Frank’s Place was closed and she wouldn’t be there anyway. Fuck. All right, tomorrow night, sure, he could wait. Nothing in his life right now was urgent. He would finish the shift, go home, and sleep. Dreamlessly, he desperately hoped.
Three am came quickly after that, and once the place was cleaned up, Marc grabbed a bottle of JD, and waved to Joe.