Hunter's Kiss

by Niall Teasdale

‘Sounds utterly wonderful,’ Leanne replied, heading for the bedroom.

  ~~~

  Dione watched through an observation window as Winthrop, assuming the role of medical examiner for the operation, conducted the Nails family through the viewing of their daughter’s body. When he put his mind to it, Winthrop could be a caring, sensitive man, and he knew exactly how to handle the current situation. It was a situation which did not come up often, but they had an arrangement with the morgue for when it did. Juliana had been brought up from SCU and now lay with a sheet draped over her body, all the way up to her chin. It was supposedly to spare the family the sight of her wounds.

  ‘She looks so peaceful,’ Aryanne Nails said. She was close to tears, you could hear it in her voice, but she was trying to sound happy. Dione was never sure why people did that. The woman had lost her daughter and should be allowed to show it. ‘It’s almost as if she could wake up at any moment.’

  Juliana’s brother, Daniel, stood there with his face set in stone. It looked to Dione as though he was trying his absolute best to keep it together and it was making him come over as cold. ‘Have they found the… man who did this yet?’ Daniel asked, his voice tight.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Winthrop said. ‘If he comes to me, he won’t be going to trial, and they don’t often update us on the progress of a case.’

  ‘I heard… I heard that if they don’t find him within forty-eight hours–’

  ‘A truth hiding a falsehood. The key time for gathering evidence is the first forty-eight hours. Witnesses have things fresh in their memory, leads are current. However, many homicides take longer to resolve, but they are still resolved. Some of the best detectives in the NYPD are on this, Mister Nails. I assure you that the man who harmed your sister will be found.’

  Bartholomew Nails gave a rumbling cough, his eyes never leaving his daughter’s face. ‘When…’ Despite the cough, his voice cracked and he began again. ‘When can we have the body? We’re hoping to hold the ceremony this week.’

  ‘Arrangements are being made, Mister Nails. I understand she’s to be buried?’

  ‘Yes. She… We all have quite strong beliefs. She’s to go into the family plot.’

  Winthrop nodded. ‘I’ll ensure you can have it done as soon as possible. If you have no objections, we’ll arrange the embalming. There are techniques which will limit the damage to any evidence we might find should we need to go back to the body.’ He held up his hands. ‘God forbid, and it’s most unlikely, but if we can do that, we can expedite her release.’

  ‘Yes,’ Aryanne said quickly, ‘please. She needs to rest, finally. She needs peace.’

  Dione entered the room once the family were gone and stood looking down at the girl on the cold, metal bench. ‘Peace? That’s something she’s unlikely to get.’

  ‘No,’ Winthrop replied, ‘but we can give them some.’

  Dione twitched the sheet down, away from Juliana’s neck. The gashes left by Quade’s fangs were almost entirely gone now, just reddened score marks on the skin. ‘How long before she wakes up?’

  ‘You know that’s hard to judge. If we hand her over now and do the switch at the graveyard, there’s no chance of her coming around in the service. He did far too much damage for that. It’s probably going to be weeks before she comes to.’

  It was true: conversion was often a slow process. A vampire’s accelerated healing required a supply of live blood to power it and without that, it was just the body’s natural ability to repair itself working to bring her back to health. And she would not wake until she was fully repaired. The healing of the neck wounds had largely been done by the active virus in Quade’s saliva and that effect lasted for a relatively short time. It had evolved to help hide a vampire’s activities, not make it easier to make more vampires.

  ‘Right, of course,’ Dione said. ‘Let’s get her back to SCU and see whether Mary has come up with anything new.’

  ~~~

  Leanne opened her eyes, blinking. ‘Did I nod off?’

  ‘Yeah, but your snoring didn’t bother me too much,’ Mike replied from the chair opposite where she was propped up on the sofa.

  ‘I do not snore.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I guess I needed more rest than I thought.’

  ‘I guess.’

  Mike was reading something on his laptop, which was in his lap, and Leanne was curious, but getting up was something akin to effort and she was not going to make any if she could help it. ‘What are you reading?’ she asked,

  Mike considered lying, but it was nothing secret. ‘Stuff about vampires. The myths throughout the world, progression of the various superstitions, how those superstitions have been interpreted in modern times.’

  ‘I guess if you’re trying to find someone who’s hunting for vampires, what he might think they are could give you leads.’

  ‘Yeah. And it’s kind of interesting. Academically, you know?’

  ‘Yeah… I had a chat with Diana about them. Vampires. How they could be– Well, not how they could be real, but how it wasn’t impossible if an undiscovered and kind of bizarre set of circumstances existed.’

  ‘Oh?’ Mike said, trying to keep the wariness out of his voice.

  ‘Oh, I’d had a nightmare.’

  ‘The same one?’

  ‘More or less. It seemed clearer last night. Diana pulled me out of it, kind of like you did, and we talked for a bit. I think she was just trying to put my mind at ease. I mean, I don’t believe vampires are real, but that guy…’

  ‘Did she? Put your mind at rest?’

  ‘Yes, and no. And yes. She was suggesting ways a body could apparently come back from the dead and I suggested a disease that triggered the body to move. And then I remembered the dagger blade and thought, maybe, if I hadn’t taken it out, Juliana might still be alive.’

  ‘You can’t think like that,’ Mike said, his tone a little harder than he had intended.

  Leanne did not seem to notice. ‘I know. Diana laughed and said she shouldn’t have started, and told me I wasn’t to blame, and I think it got through.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Anything in there about viruses creating vampires?’

  Mike looked back at his screen. ‘In this? No. It’s mythology. It’s all about being born with a caul, or on a certain day of the week, or being murdered by drowning, or… Oh, does people being accused of being vampires because there happened to be a cholera epidemic count?’

  ‘I don’t think so. And cholera is a bacterial infection.’ She frowned. ‘Severe cholera cases can result in pretty bad dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. So you get cold, stiff skin, sunken eyes, and wrinkly hands and feet. I guess that might make people look twice at you.’

  ‘Dehydration does that?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Basically, your bowels turn to water and you can’t keep anything in, and your body drains of fluids.’

  Mike’s face screwed up. ‘Remind me not to discuss diseases with you.’

  ‘Mike,’ Leanne said, ‘don’t discuss diseases with me; it grosses you out.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  ~~~

  ‘We are not having much luck,’ Dione said. She was sitting on the sofa, her head laid back, having turned up to brief Mike on developments. It was going to be a short meeting, but she felt he needed to be kept up to date. Leanne had retired to the bedroom after nodding off repeatedly throughout the afternoon.

  ‘Nothing’s come up?’ Mike asked, frowning.

  ‘Quade hasn’t. He’s hiding somewhere, but I’ve no idea where. Mary did a background run on him and we discovered that he had something of an unhappy childhood. After he was converted, that is. His creatrix abandoned him, and the replacement was negligent. He moved here to get away from the Chicago scene and study classical literature. He’s more or less a loner. No indications of a girlfriend, or boyfriend, in his apartment. I ran down a few people who knew him and discovered that they knew nothing much about him, but they
don’t recall him ever having had a relationship, or even a one-night stand. Mary also found a couple of people who knew his creatrix and I called them. Apparently she converted him for romantic reasons. He liked reciting poetry to her. Then she discovered that she couldn’t do a thing without him wanting to be with her.’

  ‘Too clingy for her?’

  ‘I guess. I’m not sure where the fault lies, but she ran a long way to get away from him. And it sounds like he’s still pining for her if he’s never found anyone else.’

  ‘He used the Candle?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Pat remembers him. Quiet. Preference for redheads, but never had sex with any of them. All business-like, no frills. Seems a waste to me, but there you go. He kept himself to himself, didn’t go out much. How the venator found him I have no idea.’

  ‘He’s trolling the universities,’ Mike said. ‘Central Park is on the lookout for him so he’s switched to areas with a lot of people moving freely about. He’s probably young and fits in with the students. Maybe he’s a sensitive. Maybe he just looks for likely candidates and then watches them. But there are… dozens of university campuses around the city and he could be moving between them. Different place every night until he finds a target.’

  Dione nodded. ‘That makes sense. I’ll get word put around to be careful in those areas. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will pick him out of the crowd.’

  The sound of the bedroom door opening brought the conversation to an end, but there was no sign of Leanne. ‘Maybe she went–’ Mike began, and then the bathroom door closed. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’ll stay here tomorrow,’ Dione told him. ‘It won’t hurt and it’ll benefit your education. Thursday is New Year. I’ll call you if I need you. Friday I think she’ll be fit enough that you can leave her. Just so long as she doesn’t leave the apartment.’

  ‘At the moment she’s sleeping half the time, so it shouldn’t be a problem.’

  There was the sound of the toilet flushing, then the door opening, and then Leanne appeared, leaning against the wall and blinking at them. Her hair was a tousled mess, and she was dressed in a pair of blue boy-shorts and a short, spaghetti-strapped, camisole-like T-shirt in a greener blue which did not quite match her shorts. In all probability, she had forgotten that the shirt’s fabric was thin enough to be translucent in stripes down it. Nothing really showed, just shadows, but she was likely to be embarrassed about it if she remembered. Also visible were the dark splotches of bruises over her stomach, as well as the more livid purple over the left side of her jaw. ‘I heard voices,’ she mumbled. Then she yawned and rubbed at the side of her head with one hand. Her eyes were barely half-open.

  ‘I was briefing Mike on developments in the case,’ Dione said.

  ‘There are developments?’

  ‘Not nearly enough, but telling him about what we have means there are two minds processing it.’

  ‘Oh…’ Another yawn. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologise for natural body functions. Not to me anyway. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Sleepy, but restless. I still ache a fair bit. And I wish this bruise didn’t look at me in the mirror. But I’m getting there.’

  ‘Good.’

  Leanne nodded absently and then perked up a little. ‘Hey, Mike, you had a close call recently. Did you think about stuff you haven’t done afterwards?’

  Mike raised an eyebrow. ‘Not… really. I wasn’t dead so I still get to do them.’

  ‘I was thinking, you know, like you do. If I’d been the one that stayed with the body…’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘I know, but if I had… There’s stuff I’d regret not doing. I’m not getting morbid, just… Makes you think, right?’

  Dione smiled at her. ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Um…’ Leanne wandered into the room and propped her hip against Mike’s chair, as though she was not planning to stay. ‘Well, I’ve never been to Paris. Or London.’

  ‘Overrated, but I can see the attraction.’

  ‘I’ve never played a slot machine in Vegas. I’d kind of like to do that boat trip under Niagara Falls. I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon, or the Golden Gate Bridge.’

  ‘You’ll be travelling a lot,’ Dione said to Mike.

  ‘I have never ridden a horse. Except a wooden one at a fun fair. Um… There are a couple of things I’d like to try that I won’t mention in polite company.’

  ‘We’re in polite company?’ Dione responded, appearing bewildered.

  Leanne giggled. ‘Oh! I’ve never kissed a girl to see if I liked it.’ Mike winced at the reference and did not notice Dione starting to move.

  ‘Well, that’s one we can fix easily enough.’ Leanne’s eyes widened as Dione crossed the space between them in two quick strides and pulled the smaller woman into a kiss.

  Leanne let out a squeak and resisted for about a second before the virus caught her up and she relaxed. Warmth flooded through her body, taking the pain away as it spread. Her mind filled with a pleasant fog and she fell into the sensation of Dione’s lips on hers, Dione’s tongue probing her mouth, Dione’s breasts pressing against her own…

  Dione broke the kiss and calmly laid Leanne down in Mike’s lap. Leanne was wearing a vacant, happy grin, as though she was just a little drunk, or high. Her nipples were tenting the fabric of her top. Mike knew more or less what was working through his girlfriend’s head, and knew it was not going to hurt her. In fact, it would likely result in her healing faster, and he suspected that was why Dione had done it. But all he could think about right now was how hot it had been watching his vampire partner French-kissing his girlfriend.

  ‘I should be getting back to my home,’ Dione said. ‘Don’t tire her out too much.’

  ‘Uh… right,’ Mike said. The kiss of a succubus tended to increase the recipient’s libido. He knew that. He had not known that watching a succubus kiss someone could do the same.

  ‘My cushion’s lumpy,’ Leanne said, and started giggling.

  ‘I’m definitely going now,’ Dione said, and did.

  31st December.

  ‘The bruising’s gone,’ Leanne said, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her fingers probed over the skin like a man examining his morning shave. Then she stepped back and pulled her shirt up. ‘Here too. Wow, I’m going to start a new trend.’

  ‘How so?’ Mike asked, reaching out to run his fingers over the, now white, skin of her stomach. He felt the muscles flutter under his touch.

  ‘I’m going to start prescribing a kiss from Diana and light sex to my patients. Seriously, I feel like I’ve had a week’s rest.’ She pressed harder on her stomach and winced. ‘Still a little tender. I’m not a hundred per cent.’

  Reaching out, Mike pulled her into his arms, and she giggled and wrapped her own arms around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. ‘Good,’ Mike said, ‘because it’s New Year’s Eve and you’re on medical leave, and I’m under orders to watch over you until Friday. So we’ve got two days to snuggle up and pretend the world doesn’t exist.’

  ‘That sounds great. Lisa’s going to the Candle tonight. I was kind of hoping to go too, but… I think a night on the sofa with a little wine and some cuddles might be a really good alternative.’

  ‘Cuddles, huh?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Leanne said, clinging a little tighter, ‘cuddles.’

  ~~~

  The New Year party at the Black Candle had become something of an event for the Manhattan vampire community in the past decade, after the club’s reputation had become established. Even those who did not attend had heard of it and considered going, but there were fire regulations and Tony was turning people away at the door by ten p.m.

  At the bar, Dione sat in her usual place, Pat drifting down to join her on the rare occasions she caught a break in the drinks requests. Lisa was on the stool beside her, thinking that she should probably be regretting the tiny skirt she had decided was suitable attire for the evening and failing to achi
eve a state of embarrassment over it. She had had six propositions walking through the dancefloor, only two of them requests to gift. The purple leather collar she was wearing was, partially, to fend off that kind of suggestion.

  Leo and his crew were occupying one of the central tables in the room. Leo’s rolling laughter filled the room quite frequently. He was enjoying himself. Lisa had been introduced to him when she had arrived and he had smiled broadly and said, ‘So you’re the girl who’s managed to get our Dione out of her funk,’ like it was a community service. Lisa had not known where to put herself, especially since this was one of the most important vampires in the city and he was treating her like an old friend. Later, she had wondered why Dione did not affect her the same way: Dione was more or less as important as Leo and they both seemed approachable; perhaps Dione’s beauty even made her seem more above the status of a normal human. Somehow, however, Dione just made Lisa’s heart flutter a little every time the succubus smiled.

  ‘Anyone need more drinks?’ Pat asked as she walked over. She was wearing a gold, one-shouldered mini-dress with matching high-heeled sandals tonight; Lisa was quite sure the only reason she could stand being on her feet was that vampires did not really feel pain.

  Lisa looked at her glass of wine and found it barely touched. She shook her head a little. ‘Uh, no. The effects of that last kiss you gave me have only just worn off.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Dione said, lifting her whiskey.

  ‘Okay, but you get to heat Lisa up again this time.’ Pat smirked at their shared supplicant.

  ‘I’m giving her a little break. We’ve hours before closing time.’

  ‘Yeah, but I want her horny enough to eat her way through my dress.’

  ‘Shouldn’t need to worry,’ Lisa said, ‘I’m already there.’ She frowned. ‘Oh, there’s something weird I thought I should mention, now my head’s clear.’ She had been riding wave after wave of succubus kisses since she had arrived, it seemed.

  ‘My kind of weird?’ Dione asked.

  ‘Not sure. I was at a party on Boxing Day. God it was boring. Too many drunk letches. Anyway, there were a few chemical enhancements going around.’ She paused before adding, ‘I don’t. Ever. Just so you know.’