A few lycanthrope couples rushed down the slope to the pond, then skirted it to vanish in the tree line a few feet away from the water’s back edge. He wondered if Frank would turn Bernadette. Would she be open to being turned? He hoped Frank took good care of the ginger, because she was special and complemented the MC president in every respect. They made a good team.
Would he ever have that? Phil wondered. Again, he thought of Daffodil. Even if he was able to bring her into his life, she’d probably never accept that he was a lycanthrope, and hiding what he was just wasn’t an option.
He chugged a couple big mouthfuls of his drink. The burn slid down his throat and warmed his belly, calming him somewhat. He placed the tumbler on the stand again and sat with his fingers threaded together over his stomach, his gaze trained on the moonlit lawn sprawling below his bedroom window. He began to nod off. A random thought that he might just sleep in the chair that night flittered through his mind, then he succumbed to sleep.
She came to him, emerging from the shadowy corner of his room, her limbs smooth and glistening in the soft lighting. Barefoot and hips swaying seductively, the woman approached him in a delicate, red lace thong, but her luscious, ripe breasts remained bare.
“Phil, baby,” she said. “I want you to fuck me.”
He’d hoped his beautiful visitor was Daffodil, but he didn’t recognize this woman’s voice. He tried to see her face, but all he caught in the shadows was the chiseled line of a youthful jaw and the full poutiness of cherry-red lips. She raised a hand, then drew a long, red-painted index nail down from between her collarbones and into the canyon separating her heavy tits with their large areolas and pert nipples. His cock sprang to attention. He wanted to suck on those nubs, make this woman cry out in pleasure, feel her pussy contracting around him as she came.
“That’s right, Phil,” she crooned. Somehow she managed to jerk the glider around, a feat he marveled at considering he weighed over two hundred pounds and the chair had no swivel under it. His feet hit the floor, and she straddled his knees. “I’ll make you feel amazing, baby.”
Again, he tried to see her face, but her wide smile was all he saw before she dropped to her knees and pulled his straining cock free of his boxers. He gripped her hair, tugging her head down to his cock. Heat enveloped him, a heat that had him rocking his head back and bucking his hips.
“Fuck!”
It almost seemed as though he’d plunged his dick into hot oil. His balls tightened, then drew up against his body. The woman did things with her tongue that had him writhing on the seat, both hands in her hair, fingers tight in her locks. He tried looking down to see what color her hair was, to maybe gain a hint as to her identity, but he couldn’t move his head. Regardless, he succumbed to the sensations she was creating with her tongue, alternating them with a hard sucking. She drew the head of his cock to the back of her throat, the heat jumping several degrees, her soft palate caressing him.
“Oh, my…fuck!” He couldn’t stop thrusting.
The tingling at the base of his spine transferred to his balls, forcing them even tighter to his body. He had no control over his pelvis, couldn’t stop fucking her mouth, and just as he was about to explode, she released him with a sudden pop of her mouth.
He nearly cried out with frustration.
“Oh no, lover,” she whispered. “When you come, you’re going to be inside me so I can suck up every bit of your essence.”
Her words were as if someone had thrown gasoline on his flaming body. He couldn’t come without being inside her. It had been so long since he’d taken advantage of a sweetbutt, not finding any of them piquing his sexual interest, but this woman—he had to have her now.
He started to ask her if she’d brought a condom, but the instant she stood and wiggled out of that barely-there thong, all rationale jumped ship. She grasped his raging hard-on tightly, then pumped her hand once, twice, three times. He arched in the chair, a strangled cry ripping from his lips, and just as he thought he’d explode from her hand alone, she straddled his lap and sank down on his cock in one move.
“Ungh!” He bent like a longbow, his body so tense he wondered if he’d snap in two. She wriggled on him, bounced a couple times, then settled herself so he was buried in her to his hilt. The heat of her almost burned him. He gasped and groaned, rutted like a deranged man, and still she hung on, grinding his cock until he feared she’d actually melt it from his body with her fiery core.
“I’m going…” He gulped, unable to catch his breath. “I’m going to come…”
“Come for me, baby,” she whispered. “That’s it, come for me. Give me all you have. Let me have your essence…all of it now, now, now!”
The maniacal laugh she let out provided the ice-cold blast of reason Phil needed to snap out of his sex-hazed stupor. She bounced and rode him, her hands around his throat. Finally, he was able to focus on her. Red eyes stared back at him, pointed fangs protruded from the top and bottom of her mouth. Big, black horns jutted from the sides of her head, rolling back over her skull. She issued another deranged chortle.
“Give me your essence,” she squealed.
When he looked into her crimson eyes, hellfire stared back at him. He shouted, fear careening through him and, with lykoi strength, he threw her off him. She crashed to the wall opposite the bed, then fell to the long dresser top and rolled to the floor. The flat-screen TV toppled to the dresser and flopped facedown on top of it.
He jumped to his feet, heart flailing as though it would rip through his ribs, and jerked his boxers back over his waning cock. Keeping his gaze on the shadows where the woman-thing had landed, he reached for the lamp and turned the switch up to full brightness.
Nothing lay where the woman should be. The TV still rested on the dresser, so he knew something had hit it. Glancing around, his heart still racing, he examined every area he could see. Phil checked under the bed, in the closet.
“It had to be a dream,” he muttered as he crossed the room to his chair. “I’m stressed, so my dream turned into a nightmare.”
His pulse slowed, and he sat in the chair again, reaching for the remainder of the drink he’d poured earlier. After he turned the light back to dim and sat back with the tumbler in hand, a realization hit him. His glider was facing the wall opposite the bed when he’d been facing the window. The hair on his head, nape and arms stood at attention. A creak jerked his gaze over to the door, where it swung open about 18 inches, then quietly closed again.
Frozen in fear, he sat that way until he’d drunk half the Wild Turkey, but so much adrenaline jangled his system that he couldn’t sleep. Dawn soon bathed his room in grayness. He’d just dozed off when a woman’s scream tore through the house.
Phil leaped to his feet and raced out to the landing. He peered over the banister, but no one was in the living room and he couldn’t see into the family room. He jogged down the stairs, then through to the kitchen. There, standing between him and the table, their backs to him were Luella and Beastman.
“What the hell?” Phil grumbled. “What’s going on?”
Beastman stepped aside, drawing Luella with him.
“Holy shit!” Phil jerked back. If he got one more jolt of adrenaline, he’d surely die from it. He forced himself to calm down and focused on the scene before him.
In one of the straight-backed chairs, a mummified male sat with his head back and arms at his sides with his fingers pointed to the floor. His mouth gaped in the semblance of a scream, the lips so dried that they’d shrunken up past his teeth.
Phil frowned, then remorse gripped him. All the bikers wore jeans, cuts and usually a T-shirt with or without a pocket, but this guy had one distinguishing feature—the lack of a belt—and a habit that pissed Frank off to no end—drinking his Dos Equis. All but one of a six-pack of beer bottles sat on the tabletop. Walking between the corpse and Luella, Phil paused on the other side of the kitchen and stooped. There, lying on its side, a pool of liquid around it, lay the sixth Dos E
quis bottle.
“Ass Crack,” Phil muttered. His heart ached. He’d really liked the young guy, having spent hundreds of hours working on bikes and riding the backroads together for something to do. Ass Crack’s off-beat sense of humor had never failed to cheer up Phil whenever he’d been down. “Fuck me sideways.”
* * *
Bernadette, Frank, Phil, Luella and Beastman all sat on the screened-in porch as Deputy Craig Williamscot asked them each a barrage of questions.
“Oh, thank you.” Bernadette accepted a fresh cup of coffee from Luella.
Her friend placed the carafe on a small, narrow coffee table, then sat next to her on the love seat. Police and forensic personnel trekked in and out of the MC like lines of ants. Several prospects had been corralled in the living room with sweetbutts in the family room as other deputies ran through a list of the usual queries about whereabouts, times and companions.
“I think that’s all the questions I have for now,” Deputy Williamscot said. He stood and slipped his ever-present notepad into his shirt pocket. “Oh, almost forgot.” He looked down at Frank, who was sitting in a recliner. “The autopsy report came back for Tony Edwards.”
“And?” Frank urged.
The man removed his black hat, rubbed his right forearm over his forehead, then replaced his hat. “It’s the damndest thing, Frank.” He offered them a baffled expression. “Other than the lack of fluids, the coroner had no idea how the vic died.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Frank demanded, sitting forward in his chair.
Bernadette placed a hand on his knee, and he wilted slightly.
“Sorry,” he said to the deputy.
“I know you’re worried, Frank,” Deputy Williamscot said. He looked at Bernadette, and she smiled back at him. “You have a mate now, the responsibility of a large MC and a growing community tied to your clan…I’d be worried too, my friend.” He sighed and waited as Frank processed his words. Finally, the deputy said, “As for the autopsy report, other than the lack of any moisture in the man, there was no cause of death. None of the tests performed revealed anything unusual.” He held his hands out in a placating manner. “The only sign of death was that someone”—he glanced around to make sure no one was wandering through the sunporch—“or some thing drained him of every ounce of moisture that composes a human being’s makeup.” He looked directly sat Bernadette. “Do you have any idea what could have done this to either of the vics?”
Frank stood suddenly. “Now what just a minute—”
“Babe, sit!” She swatted Frank’s ass. “The deputy doesn’t mean it the way you’re taking it.”
“I know she’s a natural witch, Frank,” Deputy Williamscot stated. “News—and gossip—travels fast in small communities. Regardless, if she’s apprenticing under Scary Mary, I figured she might have knowledge of what some of the possible culprits are, that’s all.”
“Fuck,” Frank whispered as he collapsed into his chair. “I’m sorry, Craig.”
“I understand.” The deputy leaned forward, bracing himself with his hands just above his knees, and looked into Frank’s face. “Like I said, you’re responsible for so many. Hell, you amaze me, because if I were in your shoes, I would’ve probably come unglued by now.” He looked back at Bernadette.
“I met with Mary a while back, and she warned me that the high priest of her coven was worried about this area, that there was a surge in evil.”
“What did she mean?” Luella asked.
Beastman mumbled something about black magic.
“We don’t practice black magic,” Bernadette tossed at him. She returned her attention to the deputy. “We don’t practice white magic, either, unless it’s absolutely necessary. With every spell, whether black or white, there’s a price to pay.”
The deputy nodded. “Go on.”
“We can’t pinpoint what the evil is unless it reveals itself, so the reason it’s here is unclear too.”
“I think I saw it.”
Bernadette whipped her head toward Phil sitting on a footstool across from Frank. “What? When?”
“Fuck, Phil. Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Beastman groused.
“I thought I was fucking dreaming, that’s why!”
Phil met Bernadette’s gaze. The worry and indecision she saw in his eyes pulled at her heart.
“What happened?” she asked, keeping her voice firm but gentle.
Hesitantly, he told the deputy what had transpired. Each detail Phil shared forced Bernadette’s fear up additional notches. Beside her, Frank leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his shoulders quivering with tension.
“So when I thought it was just a dream,” Phil finished, his voice shaky, “I realized the TV was still face down on the dresser. Then the door opened, stood ajar enough for someone to pass through, then it shut as if someone had closed it as they left.” He shut his eyes for a moment then opened them again. “Then I heard Luella scream in the kitchen.”
“Surely whatever it was couldn’t have left you and killed Ass Crack that fast,” Luella said.
Beastman snorted. “Yeah, that would give the word nymphomaniac a whole new meaning.”
“I don’t believe you said that!” Luella delivered a well-placed elbow to her mate’s ribs.
“Ouch, woman!”
“It would seem that whatever the culprit is,” Deputy Williamscot interrupted them, “that there is more than one.”
It was the same theory Bernadette had come up with too. She sat quietly as the others stared at him in dismay.
“What do you think giving that demon-woman your essence meant?” Bernadette asked Phil. Embarrassment singed her cheeks. “What I mean is—do you think she just wanted you to come, or could she be trying to get pregnant?”
Terror swept over Phil’s face, his whole body going rigid as he gaped at her. “Holy shit, Bernadette. I don’t know. Hadn’t thought about it…until now.”
“Do you…?” She tried to convey her meaning with her eyes. “You know.”
He shook his head. “Almost, but no. The damn thing scared the hell out of me before I finished.”
“What about the wards?” Luella asked, turning to Bernadette.
Bernadette raise her cup to her lips but paused at her friend’s question. “Until now, nothing has happened since Tony was killed, so we have no way of knowing if the wards have even been working.” She looked at the porch door, then over at the two steps leading into the kitchen. “Has anyone been making sure the salt line is unbroken?”
“I’ve replaced it every night,” Luella stated, “but last night I forgot because someone dropped a jar of pickles out of the fridge last night and it shattered everywhere and Betty Lou cleaned it up.”
At the mention of the older woman, Bernadette sucked in a breath. “Betty Lou was sweeping upstairs during supper preps. She said the kids had dumped a bag of chips on the landing and down the hall during naptime, so she was up there running the vacuum.” She touched Luella’s arm, then glanced at Phil, who stared back with realization in his eyes. “I bet she swept up the salt lines along the doorways without thinking.”
“What if the salt isn’t even keeping these evil things out?” Beastman asked. “What if we’re just assuming it works, but these demon women are immune to salt?”
“I don’t know that I believe in demons,” the deputy stated.
Frank jerked his head up and asked, “Why not? You didn’t believe in lycanthropes, either, then you met me.”
“Well, I…” Deputy Williamscot paled. “Hell, you’re right, Frank. If werewolves exist, who knows what else might be real too.”
“Do you think that…?” Phil began, then sighed and leaned his head back on the chair, eyes closed.
Bernadette sipped from her coffee as they waited for Phil to continue, but as the minute stretched out she decided to prod him. “What’s on your mind, Phil?”
He turned his attention to the deputy. “I think it’s strange that w
ith human trafficking now in the Rebellion area that these incidences with the…the sucked-dry deaths…well, it can’t be coincidence, can it?”
“What human trafficking?” Luella asked. “Here? In Rebellion?”
The coroner’s transport van pulled up onto the carport. As the personnel exited the vehicle, then rapped on the porch door, Bernadette grimaced and looked away. Poor Ass Crack. He’d been such a sweet guy. They all remained silent until the crew had secured the body and left with it on a stretcher they loaded into the back of the van.
Once they were gone, they all looked at one another, the finality of Ass Crack’s death settling over each one of them.
“What was his real name?” Bernadette asked Frank.
“Jason Monty,” he said. “He’s had the nickname Ass Crack for as long as I can remember.”
“Look,” the deputy began, “I think we have all the information we need. Forensics is nearly done in the kitchen, and I have to get back to the office.” To Luella he said, “The human trafficking problem has been in the Ohio Valley for years”—he inclined his head to Phil—“so I highly doubt it has any ties to your…supernatural problem here at the MC.” Next, he stare pointedly at Frank, then at Beastman. “But there have been a few people reported missing in neighboring communities, so I would keep an eye on your women and youngsters from the age of six up—just in case. No one should travel around here alone, or let their children out of their sight.”
“Fucking great,” Luella grumbled. “This is all we need to worry about on top of everything else.” She glanced at her mate. “And Beastman’s already stuffed up my as 24/7 as it is.”
Deputy Williamscot chuckled. “I’ll see you folks around. Call the sheriff’s department if you remember anything that might help Ass Crack’s case.” He tipped his hat to Frank. “You know how to reach me if you need help outside of the department.”
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