Dark Thirst

by Angela Allen

  “Black bitch!…K-k-k…kill you!” he chokes out defiantly even as his face pales to the color of dirty chalk.

  “Your insults are as pitiful as you are,” I tell him, deliberately letting him see my incisors slide out.

  “Noooo,” he wails as I suck the blood out of his thrashing body. As I let him fall in an insensate heap to the floor, I hear more footsteps heading in my direction, drawn no doubt by his screams.

  Altagracia lies insensible in the cage. She never looks up as I break through the thick boards and metal nails of her prison.

  “Altagracia! I work for Don Micelli and I know what Sal did to you,” I say, hoping to stir her to action with the mention of Sal’s name.

  “You’re here to help me?” she asks with cautious optimism, her dazed eyes holding little hope. I can see that she is desperately weak from her ordeal and in no shape to attempt an escape.

  “Yes! I know why Sal wanted to keep you quiet,” I say, spinning around to aim a kick at the man creeping up behind me, machete in hand. My booted foot connects with his pelvis and I hear the bones snap like twigs. “I know Sal murdered Marco.”

  I quickly grab her arm and pull her from the cage, hefting her slight weight in my arms with ease. I enter the hallway leading back to the main tunnel and break into a light run, hoping to get out before the others arrive. I am not so lucky.

  The sound of frantic shouting fills the air. “Where is he? Did you see him?” yells one man. “He got Tiny Tim and stole the girl.”

  A pack of men appear in front of me, quickly spreading out to encircle us and cut off our escape route. I cannot see any firearms but I’m taking no chances this time.

  I place Altagracia on her feet. She wavers but finds her balance.

  “Hold on!” I growl, pivoting to throw a hard elbow at the man foolish enough to charge me and a roundhouse kick at the person unfortunate enough to move into his place.

  “Get behind me!” I shout, steadily backing toward the dark mouth of a side tunnel. The number of bodies chasing us is still formidable, but fewer and fewer rush to attack as they see the fate of their comrades.

  I give one final bone-smashing kick to the leg of a particularly persistent pursuer and spin around to grab Altagracia’s arm.

  “To the left, to the left, cut them off!” yells a large man, a broken baseball bat in his beefy hand.

  “I really didn’t want to do this but you leave me no choice,” I mutter, pulling the Glock from my pocket. The crystal chandelier tinkles and sways as gunfire echoes around the cavernous room, bullets falling like lethal raindrops on surprised faces.

  The hollow-point bullet rips into the back of the man raising his arm to fire a small pistol, tearing through bone and tissue like the head of a mercilessly marauding army.

  I take advantage of the resulting confusion to swing Altagracia into my arms again and make for the main tunnel. Once I’m out of sight of the others, I give my power free rein, using the energy to race through the darkened, rat-filled tunnels, the girl in my arms blessedly oblivious.

  As we reach the light of the train station, I gradually slow until I am walking again. At the platform edge, I rouse Altagracia and urge her up the stairs. Around us on the concrete platform are a few late-night riders who sit or stand with bored faces.

  “Just a little way more,” I tell the exhausted girl, who is nearly comatose with fatigue.

  When the train doors open, I deliberately choose an empty car. When a young boy attempts to enter I give him a look so vicious he quickly turns away. I ease a limp Altagracia down onto a seat bench. She has a weak but steady pulse.

  “Altagracia, I need you to wake up,” I say firmly.

  “What? What?” she mutters. “I’m so tired. I have to sleep.”

  “No! Altagracia, you can’t go to sleep now!” I snap, even as she sags spinelessly in the seat.

  With a grimace and a quick glance at her closed eyes and pale face, I bring up my arm, peeling back the leather to expose my wrist. A quick twist of my teeth and a thin line of blood wells to the surface.

  I pull her head up, forcing her slack lips to my wrist. “Drink and be strong,” I whisper, hoping the mental command will be strong enough in her semiconscious state. As she slowly begins to lick the blood, a flush fills her wan face and her eyes open.

  I take my wrist away and pull my glove over the wound.

  “I had the strangest dream that I was drinking blood,” she says with a wide-eyed look at me. Only a spot of telltale color lingers on her lips like the stain of some exotic lipstick.

  “We don’t have much time,” I tell her. “My friends are meeting us at the next train station in a few minutes. We have to get you back to Don Micelli’s house so you can tell the Commission what you saw the night Sal shot Marco. I need you to tell them the truth. Are you up to doing that?” I ask.

  “I loved Marco. He was a good man.” She sobs quietly, burying her face in her hands.

  Tommy and Dmitri are waiting at the station as we pull in—Tommy with a worried frown and Dmitri calmly smoking a cigarette despite the large NO SMOKING signs posted in the area.

  “She needs medical attention, but she’ll do,” I say, moving back so that Tommy can see Altagracia’s slight figure behind me.

  “Jesus, you did it. You really did it!” he says with a smile. “I thought you were crazy but you were right.”

  “Now we have to finish it!” I say.

  A weeping Altagracia collapses in a heap in the middle of the Doctor’s study. Only her face is visible; from the neck down she is enveloped by the folds of Dmitri’s coat. It dwarfs her much smaller frame, the cuffs turned back several times to bare her fragile wrists.

  “This is Marco’s mistress, Altagracia Concepción,” I announce, letting the murmurs die away before I speak again.

  “Two months ago she was with Marco when Sal came to the apartment and accused him of stealing half a million dollars from the don,” I say. “She was the only person who witnessed what happened that night. She’s here to tell you the truth about Marco’s death.”

  The room erupts with shouts. A maddened Sal is on his feet, screaming profanities in Italian and English. When he makes a move toward the still-crying Altagracia, Tommy draws his gun.

  “Tommy? What is this?” says Sal, his face graying in shock. “You would draw on your old Uncle Sal?”

  “Sit down and let Sheila finish,” he growls in reply, bitterness in his voice.

  The shaking Altagracia remains huddled on the floor.

  “My dear, perhaps you’d like a drink of brandy to steady your nerves,” offers the Doctor in his smooth, patient voice.

  “Altagracia, I’m here with you. You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” I whisper to her, gently grasping her arm to help her upright. After a few seconds of uncertain swaying, she steadies and raises her face.

  “Mentira!” she accuses, glaring at Sal.

  “She’s sick with grief. She’s not right in the head no more since losing Marco,” says Sal, shaking his head sadly.

  “Sal, I think we owe it to Marco’s memory to at least listen to her,” says the Doctor.

  “Start from the beginning,” I tell her, moving back to let her stand on her own.

  “He came to the apartment that night,” she begins haltingly. “I let him inside because I know he and Marco are good friends. I was in the kitchen when I heard him shouting. He was saying that Marco had done something very bad. That he had took money from his brother.

  “When I came into the room he had a big suitcase with lots of money. He opened it and said, ‘See, here’s the money you stole from the don,’ but Marco kept saying how he didn’t know where that money came from,” she says, her voice beginning to waver. “He called me names, ugly names, and Marco said for him to stop and that they could talk to his brother in the morning and straighten everything out. But he just kept shouting and calling me names and saying Marco had stole the money! Pero está la mentira! Marco never stole from hi
s brother!”

  “Why didn’t you come forward and tell me this when my brother was killed?” asks the Doctor, an odd look on his face.

  “He took me away!” screams Altagracia, her face growing red. “After he shot Marco he grabbed me and covered my mouth and face with towels. I begged and pleaded but he made me go with him to some strange place under the ground. And they put me in a cage!”

  “It’s okay,” I croon as she collapses to the floor, folding into herself like a flower bending under the strain of too much weight.

  “Sal paid a man called the King to get rid of her so that no one would ever know the real story about why Marco died,” I explain. “But the leader took pity on her and instead of killing her he simply took the money and imprisoned her in a cage underground.

  “Sal also paid the King to have his men kill Micelli couriers so that the Commission would lose faith in the family and reject Tony Jr.’s nomination. His ultimate goal is to control the family.

  “Marco was just a warm body standing in your way,” I say, walking toward Sal, who now wears a hunted look on his sagging face.

  “No, no! This puttana is making stuff up,” he says, turning his eyes toward the don. “She thinks her lies will get some kinda blood money out of the don.”

  “Your real target has always been the Doctor,” I add, talking over his protests. “You decided that you would run the Micelli family and that if need be you would kill to do it.

  “You wanted Altagracia dead because you believe the old saying: ‘Three can keep a secret—if two are dead,’ so you paid the King to kill her and dispose of her body, but for some reason he didn’t follow orders. He kept her alive.”

  “What is this? Who you gonna believe, Don Micelli? Me or this fucking puttana?” demands a desperate Sal. “I worked for this family for years. I’ve always been loyal to you. This moolingnanne just joined the payroll yesterday.”

  “I always knew in my heart that Marco would never steal from me,” says the Doctor. “I let your lies blind me to the truth.”

  “Fucking cafone!” yells Sal, jumping to his feet. “You don’t have the balls to lead this family. You’re too soft!”

  “No, Sal, you’re the one who’s a piece of shit if you think you can ever be the head of this family,” he says. “Always you have wanted to be primo, to be number one without earning that honor.

  “From this day forward, your name will never again be spoken in this house or by anyone in this family. From this day on, you are dead to me.”

  Two men with guns drawn lead the still-screaming Sal from the study, a litany of curses falling from his lips.

  “Tommy, go and get Tony from his room,” says the Doctor. “He deserves to know what happened here and why the Commission won’t be voting tonight.”

  “Got it,” says Tommy, exiting the room. As he leaves, whispers and looks fly around the room. Jimmy finally nods and rises to his feet just as Tommy returns with an expectant-looking Tony Jr. His handsome young face is open and guileless, more clean-cut cherub than future Mob kingpin.

  Jimmy clears his throat. “Don Micelli, it’s your right as head of your family to take care of this,” he begins. “But I want to ask that you allow the Commission to step in and handle this situation. A good man was lost because of lies. A man without honor has hurt us all.

  “In the memory of Marco, may the Holy Madonna watch over his soul,” he makes the sign of the cross and all in the room follow suit. “I speak for the entire Commission when I say we unanimously vote to accept the nomination of Tony Jr. to be a made man.”

  A big grin breaks out over Tony’s face. He looks like an all-American high school student who’s just been made football team captain. I feel a rush of elation at this news but push it down and keep my expression blank. Tony has been my secret project for months. He is both young enough and ambitious enough to achieve my goal. Already we are linked. With Tony under my mental command, I plan to make the Micelli family a global force in the drug trade with tentacles in every country. I will make Tony capo di tutti capi, the Boss of Bosses.

  “God bless you,” murmurs the Doctor piously. As the men continue their conversation, I put a hand under Altagracia’s arm and lead her from the room.

  We walk up the stairs into a guest bedroom decorated in soothing blues and greens, the heavy damask drapes drawn against the night.

  “Please, don’t leave,” she begs when I turn to go. “When I’m alone I feel like I’m back in that horrible cage with no one to help me.”

  “Would you like to forget? To have the memory of everything that has happened since Marco’s death become like a dream to you?” I ask, looking at her haunted and tear-drenched eyes.

  “Yes!” she breathes.

  “Then close your eyes and let yourself fall asleep. I promise that when you awaken, everything will be only a vague memory, something you can’t remember even when you try,” I say, guiding her to the bed and smoothing the covers over her as she lies down.

  Dmitri is alone in the weapons room when I enter. His pale eyes track me as I close and lock the door behind me.

  “You called me strigoi,” I say, coming to stand where he sits at the table with his legs splayed out before him. “That is one name for my kind. Vampire is another. I don’t know how you know, but I have decided that if you were going to make the knowledge public you would have done so a long time ago.”

  His eyes are intent on my face but he doesn’t speak.

  “I am an outcast among my own kind, banished for something I did that violated the rules of our kind. The world of humans is my home now.” I pause. “It has been difficult learning to live among you, but I have found that you are not so different from us. I think I can survive here but I do need one thing that I do not yet have.”

  I move into the space between his legs, allowing my gloved hands to fall onto his broad shoulders. I look into his ice-blue eyes.

  “I need someone I can trust, someone who knows the truth but does not fear the power of the vampire,” I whisper, bending closer until my lips are only a breath from his. “Are you that man, Dmitri?”

  “Yes,” he answers in a deep voice made hoarse by passion, his eyes blazing with desire. His arms encircle and pull me into his embrace as our lips meet in a heated kiss.

  Human Heat:

  The Confessions of an

  Addicted Vampire

  The Urban Griot

  My Origins

  I read an article in the newspaper some time ago that made me reflect on my tortured predicament. The writer commented on the sexual tension of fictional vampires. And he was right, there is plenty of intimate tension amongst us. However, my life is not that of fiction. I exist, and not only in the dark shadows of my New Orleans birthplace but during the luminous daytime hours of human folly.

  This article made me think back to my origins as a vampire. I had not done so in many years now. What was the point? There is no escaping my fate. Only death can save me. But as far as I am concerned, I am already dead, and the next realm of death I do not care to know. So I continue to dwell amongst humans, tortured by my addiction for their heat and the taste of the sweetest bloods of passion.

  Passion was how it all began for me. I was surrounded by it. I was such an insanely handsome and adventurous man in my numbered days as a human that it drove women, young and old, mad to have me. I see it all now. The selfish cravings of lust were my fate from birth.

  I was born of exotic blood to begin with, a mixture of African, French, Spanish and American Indian. They called us Creoles, an American invention of a new human race. We were a nation within nations and a culture within cultures. But even amongst the vast beauty of the Creoles, I stood out.

  Martelli Daniel Sosa. Who could imagine the creation of such a striking specimen of bronzed skin, crystal-gray eyes, ivory-white teeth and a face of perfect symmetry, crowned with a mane of dark curls? How could they not stare at me? And how could I not become accustomed to the attentions they gave
me?

  I spent most of my early human years as an orphan, which only increased their desire for me. It seemed that I belonged to everyone but myself. The only memory I have of my mother is that of a sick Creole woman on her deathbed. I remembered that she looked pale and old, older than a mother should look. But I do not remember myself feeling sorrow in her death. I felt more relieved by it, as if her death was good for her. It was the nature of things.

  I never knew my father. But I was told that he was not a well-liked man. My father had failed to realize his place in the world. He was rumored to have been killed by a mob of offended and vengeful white men. Maybe they had hung him. But his body had never been found. So I imagined that they had burned my father alive and piled him into a heap of dark ashes to be thrown away into the wind.

  Of course, without the supervision or protective care of parents or relatives, I was left to the mercy of strangers, all of whom had moral dilemmas and human desires to overcome. Many of those human dilemmas and desires were not controlled, which led to my first sexual encounter. Or affair, I should say. Because it was bitterly secret and ongoing.

  On one of the hottest summer days of my human memories, Meredith Bennett, a wealthy, blond-haired maiden with eyes as blue as the ocean, called me to a quiet place behind her family’s grand white mansion. The images of her floral umbrella, white dress, white laced gloves and fine, tailored shoes return to me often when I rest. I view the encounter as the beginning of the end.

  “Martelli, could you please come with me?”

  Meredith was years older than I, but even in my innocence, I was never afraid of her. I was only suspicious of her intentions with me. I understood that I was not of her race or class. So I stood there bewildered in my cotton overalls and tattered shoes, while my skinny brown arms dangled nakedly at my sides.

  “Why would I want to?” I questioned her.

  Meredith approached me and pulled me by the hand with all of her urgency.

  “Come with me, and I promise that you will not soon forget it.”