Night Road

by A. M. Jenkins

  It was all quite vivid; the delay, the frustration, his trembling fingers loosening the last layer of lace and strings and straps so that he almost burst just from the sudden sight of nakedness released.

  He roused to wakefulness, the experience so real that the odor of talc and stale sweat seemed to linger in his nostrils.

  He was sweating now.

  Cole kicked off the covers and lay under the cooling air. This was probably a weird aftereffect of sun. Even the pillow under his head felt hot.

  He pulled it out, turned it over, plumped it up. Put it back.

  This time when he dozed off he dreamed of an omni he’d kept for a while in the early days. She’d stayed with him, in full awareness of what he was, and sometimes he would deliberately hold off feeding until he was wild with it.

  In the dream he pushed her up against a wall, put his hands flat on the wall on either side of her, trying to prolong the moment, play with her—he acted as if he were about to bite her, then pulled back so that she could just feel the scratch of his teeth. Nip at her but not break the skin. She knew what was coming and caught her breath; and at that tiny noise he lost it, lost himself completely to the feed.

  He woke to find his hands curled in fists, gripping the sheets.

  And he remembered how he’d smelled the omnis in the hall.

  It was almost as if…well, as if he was starting to feel the barest wisp of Thirst. Thirst always took over the mind before it started to work on the body.

  But it couldn’t be—not so soon. He’d only gone two nights without a feed. All right, it had been a long time since he’d missed more than a single night, and even longer since he’d actually felt Thirst; but he remembered, remembered distinctly—no mere two-night lapse had ever brought it on. No, it always took four nights. Three at the very least.

  He was not mistaken.

  He could count, for God’s sake.

  And anybody would have weird dreams if they were gearing up for a stressful night ahead, the way Cole was. Then, too, he’d been preoccupied with Royal. On top of that, he knew he’d cut it too close earlier—risked a touch of light just because he’d wanted to be sure about the stray.

  All that would be enough to make anybody have strange and vivid dreams.

  He got up and went to the bathroom. Checked the tape on the window. Checked the locks. Tried to read a bit but couldn’t. Finally he put down the book and shut his eyes.

  Almost immediately he dreamed of a simple overpowering without thought of restraint or consequences—of attacking an omni in the open, from behind, on a city street. In the dream he took no care but tore the flesh so that blood ran out of the corners of his mouth, too great a flow to contain. He didn’t stop even after the pulse slowed and the kill drooped in his arms. When there was nothing left, he dropped the empty and useless husk in the middle of the sidewalk and walked away.

  What woke him this time was need: every corner of his brain and body pounding with it, every cell insisting that the emptiness be filled.

  It began to fade a little as he came back to consciousness, and by the time he opened his eyes it had half dulled.

  But after one disoriented moment he realized that he was standing at the door, barefoot in his shorts and T-shirt, hand on the knob.

  With that he knew. It was Thirst.

  Something had gone terribly wrong. Something inside him must have changed, to make him feel this way after only two missed nights.

  Or—or—maybe he had changed it. He was the one who’d trained his body to expect nightly intake. He had been priming his metabolism for decades.

  He’d had such contempt for Gordo, unable to resist a few drops of blood because he was used to regular feeds. Cole had assumed it was a matter of will—well, maybe it was in Gordo’s case, but Cole hadn’t even considered that it could be a matter of one’s body adapting to regular use.

  It would be ironic—if all the years of caution and control, far from keeping him sharp and fit, had instead been softening him up.

  Well, he wasn’t Gordo. He’d experienced Thirst plenty of times in the past. He knew how to handle it—especially at this early stage, when it had just begun.

  He didn’t try to go back to bed this time. As long as he was awake he was sure he could keep the need pushed down. It still licked at him from inside, but now that he knew what it was he had the reins on. At this point, Thirst was merely a craving that hadn’t fully blossomed.

  The trouble was that if he was feeling it, there was no question that Gordo—uncontrolled, inexperienced Gordo—must be feeling it, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  HE started to call Sandor’s cell phone to warn him, but he wasn’t sure of the number. He thought about banging on the wall, but that would alarm Sandor to no purpose. There were windows at each end of the hall, and Sandor couldn’t come over to see what he wanted.

  So he waited. He watched the clock, and when it was time he peeled a corner of the tape from the curtain to make doubly sure.

  The sky was dark. Cole could hear thunder in the distance, but no rain was falling.

  He was already dressed. He felt hyperaware, hyper-alert, as if he moved in a slipstream of time that was ticking a few seconds ahead of everything around him. But he had himself under complete control. And before he did anything else, he had to get Gordo’s feed. He had to do it quickly.

  Next door, Sandor looked a little disturbed when he answered Cole’s knock.

  “He’s in the shower,” he said, as Cole stood impatient in the doorway. “He’s been in there for almost an hour with the water running. He doesn’t answer when I knock. Before I was even up, he was—”

  “I’m going to get him a feed right now,” Cole interrupted. “You keep him here—whatever you do, don’t let him out of this room. It’s hitting him already,” he said, to Sandor’s confused look. “He’s standing under cold water in there. He’s fighting it. But I guarantee he’s going to blow in a bit. Keep him here, and I’ll be right back.”

  “Do you want me to go instead?”

  “No. I’ll be quicker.” He would, too—he was in the grip of a sharp, crisp urgency. Every one of his senses was hungry and on the prowl.

  “Cole—”

  But Cole was already gone.

  He took the steps three at a time and was in the car in less than a minute.

  And he quickly found what he needed, less than five blocks away—the plan would have been a good one, if he hadn’t screwed up this one point.

  She was older than Gordo would like, he was sure—but she would do. She was in her thirties, with a rather hard face but with laugh lines that made her almost seem as if she were still pretty. She wore white shorts with stilettos and a flannel shirt with the tails tied tightly just under her breasts. She was thin but sturdy, and very tan, with wiry muscled arms and pale hair that looked white over her bronzed skin.

  He thought about feeding from her himself, just a little bit—it wouldn’t take long at all, he told himself—but he knew she needed to be full and intact. It might be hard to get the kid off her once he got started.

  A cigarette poked out of her mouth at a right angle; she was surrounded by a stagnant swirl of smoke. Cole was glad—one more brick to add to his wall of self-control.

  He paid her in advance and took her back to the hotel. She was a talker; in those five blocks he learned that her name was Crystal and that she wasn’t originally from Maryland but from a small town in Virginia. She’d run track in ninth grade but dropped out of high school when she was sixteen. She had a little girl back in Virginia, living with Crystal’s mother and stepdad. She was hoping to go home for Thanksgiving.

  The few remarks he made were soothing, low, and quite controlled.

  At the Vickery Moe, Cole didn’t even try Sandor and Gordo’s door, knowing that Sandor would have locked it. He pounded a couple of times on the door frame, Crystal patient beside him.

  When Sandor let them in, Gordo was just coming out of the bathro
om. The kid was fully dressed, but for once he hadn’t attended at all to his hair. It was still wet, and pieces were stuck together in damp clumps.

  He saw Crystal and stopped in his tracks—the intense focus, Cole thought, of a dog that just spotted a rabbit.

  After a few stunned seconds, Gordo managed to pull his gaze away from her. He turned accusingly to Cole. “What’s she doing here?” he demanded.

  “She’s for you,” Cole said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s a gift.”

  “I don’t want any ‘gift.’”

  But Cole saw Gordo’s eyes flick back to Crystal. “Yes, you do,” Cole said, calm in certainty. This would be over within minutes.

  “Where did you find her?” Gordo said, aiming a glare at Cole now.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “I want to know why she came here with you.”

  Crystal spoke up. “Hi, sweetie,” she said kindly, as if Gordo were eight instead of eighteen. “I’m Crystal. What’s your name?”

  Gordo scowled down at the floor.

  “Gordon,” Cole told her.

  “It’s all right, Gordon,” Crystal told him. She moved over and sat on the closest bed. “Come sit down.” She patted the spot beside her. “I’m not going to bite you.”

  Sandor evidently knew it was about to end. “I’ll be in the hall,” he whispered in Cole’s ear, and Cole heard the door click softly as he stepped outside.

  Gordo shook his head. “I don’t want her,” he told Cole. But Cole could hear the panic edging his voice.

  “You do want her,” Cole said. “And if you don’t do it now, you’re going to create a mess. Just like you did with your girlfriend,” he added pointedly.

  “Oh, my,” Crystal said softly. “What happened with your girlfriend, love?”

  This time when Gordo’s eyes went back to her, they locked on. And he wasn’t staring at her face or body, Cole noticed—no, the kid was full-out hemovore for once, entranced with the curve of skin between her jaw and shoulder.

  Now, Cole thought. Now he’s going to do it.

  But Gordo turned his head away.

  “God,” Cole said in disgust, “you’ve got no instincts at all. You’re a freak of nature.”

  He had himself under tight control, but he pulled that control even tighter and stalked over to her, pasting on a smile that felt wolfish to him but that seemed to enthrall Crystal. “He’s just shy,” Cole told her soothingly as he held out his hand, and she, still caught in his gaze, let him pull her to her feet. Now he stepped behind her, so that he could watch Gordo over her shoulder.

  “Oh no,” said Gordo as Cole pulled his necklace out from under his shirt.

  “She’s pretty sturdy,” Cole told him, lining up the point against her neck. “And you’re pretty empty. You could probably go to as much as thirty.”

  “Thirty what?” Crystal asked.

  “Don’t do it,” Gordo said, his voice scaling up. “I’m warning you.”

  Cole stuck his cross into her neck.

  Almost instantly that metallic scent curled into his nostrils and then everything seemed to happen at once. He heard Crystal give a faint cry; he saw the dark red drop welling up, felt his fingers tightening on her shoulder as the drop burst its boundaries and fell into a trickle.

  And then Gordo was on her.

  Cole stepped back. He was sweating again, his breath coming in quick puffs. He turned his back on Gordo’s feed, and, with jerky movements, forced himself to walk across the room. He found himself standing in front of the window, sucking in deep breaths. The plastic curtain had been pulled aside, and he suddenly realized that he was standing exposed to view, the lights in the room clearly visible from the darkness outside. He began to fumble for the edge of the curtain, to draw it closed.

  Finally he heard a rustle, and he knew: Gordo had stopped on his own.

  The kid had potential. If he’d just stop being such a pain in the ass.

  “Wow.” That was Crystal, her voice a little weak but breathless with wonder, and Cole allowed himself to turn around.

  “Feel better now?” he asked Gordo.

  Gordo fell back to sit on the bed. “You’re the devil,” he told Cole, sounding suddenly weary. “You know that?”

  “I’m whatever I have to be. Do you want her for anything else?”

  “No. I’m tired.”

  Cole studied him. He looked about as exhausted as Cole felt. “I imagine you are,” Cole agreed, and then he turned to Crystal. “Come on, I’ll take you back.”

  She didn’t seem puzzled at all by the sudden change of plan. Just…awed. By the whole experience.

  When they stepped into the hall, Sandor was waiting, lounging back against the wall. “All done?” he asked cheerfully. “I can take Miss Crystal if you’d like to stay with Gordo.”

  “No,” said Cole. “I need to go.” He took Crystal by the elbow and started herding her down the hall.

  “Cole,” Sandor said, “are you—?”

  “Yes,” Cole told him without looking back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  COLE noticed that his hands were shaking now—it was difficult to get the key into the lock of his car door. Crystal stood quiet but pale, waiting and watching him with an oddly reverent look.

  “Mind if I smoke?” she asked, as soon as she got in. For a second he thought he could hear her pulse under the flannel of her blouse, but he realized that was silly—of course he couldn’t.

  “Please do.” He would get her back safely and untouched. Gordo had taken too much; she could not hold up to another feed.

  They were just a few blocks from where he’d picked her up; it would take only minutes to get her back and seconds to find somebody else nearby.

  That was good; even snarls of cigarette smoke couldn’t obscure all the lovely, rich, life-filled blood vessels that were feeding oxygen throughout her body.

  “You guys are angels, aren’t you?” he heard Crystal ask. She sounded very wise.

  Cole looked at her, and for a brief second he could really see her, a human being behind the blood vessels and the smoke. So pathetic. Her little girl. Her short life. All soon to be forgotten.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I thought so.” She looked out the window. “Why did you choose me?”

  Cole thought for a moment. He did not particularly believe in God. If there was one, Cole had been cut off from him forever. Cole didn’t have to answer to God, and never would.

  But this woman…he had a sudden urge to give her something. Something she could use—belief, hope, a sense of worth—she could likely use those. He could almost see them filling her now—just because she thought she’d met an angel—putting light in her face, squaring her shoulders.

  So he didn’t bat an eye at pretending to be God’s messenger. “God loves you, Crystal. No matter what, he loves you. And,” he added as a thought occurred to him, “he wants you to take care of your little girl.”

  She nodded, positively beaming.

  He pulled over to the curb near the place where he’d first spotted her. She reeled a little when she got out of the car, but he felt it would be unwise to touch her right now, so he did not offer any help. When the door shut behind her, he let out the breath he’d been holding, nice and slow and controlled.

  Fat drops splatted on the windshield. Crystal walked around the nearby corner and was gone.

  Cole waited another moment, then got out.

  In that moment the drops had turned into a downpour. Within seconds water was running in rivulets down his face. He ignored it and stepped onto the sidewalk, looking around.

  There were only a few omnis scattered along the streets now, but it seemed to him as if they were everywhere; even in the wet air their salty skin smells and delicate blue veins seemed to be leaping out at him.

  Most of them were heading away, trying to get out of the rain—a denim dress ducking into a brown sedan, a pink skirt scurryi
ng into a doorway, a yellow rain slicker bounding to cross the street like a gazelle—but one was completely in the open, a gift in the middle of the sidewalk.

  Dark shirt with a low curving neckline. He could see the white of her face and neck and chest. Oh, she set his pulse pounding.

  Because she was coming directly toward him. Her only shelter was a black umbrella and a man’s Windbreaker, unzipped, hood up. The streetlight behind her turned the rain into individual drops, a curtain of tiny pellets falling to Earth.

  Dark, softly curling hair under the hood. Like Bess—she was like Bess.

  She sensed someone standing in front of her and glanced up. Her step faltered. He must be in a wild state to be able to halt someone in midstride with just the force of his stare.

  For a brief moment her eyes were fastened to his face. It had been so long since he’d had this much desire for anything—she was thin in faded jeans, but her breasts were full against the light lining of the Windbreaker. Her curls stopped just under her chin.

  Whatever she saw in him, it didn’t scare her; she dropped her gaze to the sidewalk and moved forward again.

  Closer. Closer. Brown eyes big in her face—Bess, he thought wildly, and then: No, he could not tell the color of her eyes from here. He took another deep, controlled breath—but this one refused to be held in check. It escaped, and as it fled, Thirst swelled over the boundaries he’d so carefully set, expanding into the space his breath had occupied and twining its way deep into his gut.

  She had already curled around the hollow in his middle. Now she tugged him toward her as she passed. He just had time to think that he must restrain himself, that he could not do this in public, when his body took over and he was after her, one hand automatically reaching for his cross.

  One splashing step, and in that step he could actually feel the last shreds of control loosen and drop away.

  His hand dropped the cross and shot out to grab the back of her Windbreaker, jerking it toward him while he flung his other arm around her shoulders and brought his weight to bear on her back. In the same second he was at her neck.