The Bite Before Christmas

by Heidi Betts

  From the other room, she heard the front door open and then close, and knew she was alone.

  Was this really how she wanted to live out the rest of her life? she asked herself as she slowly drifted back to sleep.

  Provided this was her reality now, that she was stuck here as a human being rather than going back to that other world where she’d been immortal and more in charge of her life than she was here, was this how she wanted to spend the next twenty, thirty, fifty years?

  She wasn’t sure, but judging by the ache in her chest and the heaviness lower, in her belly, where she suspected her conscience took up residence, she thought the answer might be no.

  Sometime later…she wasn’t sure how long…the low peal of a phone ringing woke her. She pushed out of bed, naked and groggy, going in search of the annoying noise.

  It wasn’t the phone in the bedroom, which meant the call wasn’t coming in on her land line. And the only cell phone she knew about was the one she’d had in her coat pocket while she and Ian had been on stakeout.

  Shuffling into the other room, she located her parka and wrestled with the bulky material until she could pull the small phone free.

  “Hello?” she mumbled after flipping it open.

  “Angie?”

  A woman’s voice calling her by an unusual name—she never went by Angie…or at least she hadn’t in her vampire life—caught her off guard. Holding the phone between her shoulder and ear, she went to the kitchen and started gathering her discarded clothes, stepping into the pieces one by one.

  “Yeah,” she responded, even though it felt odd to answer to such an unusual name.

  “It’s Ellen,” the voice on the other end said. “Ellen Hart.”

  Oh, God. The last name wasn’t necessary. The minute the woman identified herself, Angelina knew exactly who she was talking to: Ian’s wife.

  How had Ian’s wife gotten her number? Were they friends? Did they have backyard barbecues together? Did she attend their children’s birthday parties?

  Or were they casual acquaintances, familiar with each other only because she and Ian were partners?

  Until she knew for certain, she had to be careful of what she said and how she acted.

  Filling the awkward silence when Angelina didn’t know quite what to say, Ellen asked, “Is Ian with you?”

  Shit. Talk about a loaded question. If she said yes, would it clue Ellen in to the fact that her husband was having an affair? Or if she said no, would that put Ian in an even more precarious position because he’d told his wife he was going to be on the job with his partner—a.k.a. The Other Woman?

  “He said he was going out to sit on a drug house or some such, and I just assumed he would be with you, but I haven’t been able to reach him.”

  At the mention of a drug house, Angelina’s blood went cold. She’d thought she’d turned Ian away from any interest in the vampire nest, or at least given him a reason to reconsider that they were cooking up drugs inside.

  But even if she hadn’t, why would he go back there alone? What did he think he could accomplish on his own?

  “Are you two together on a stakeout or something?”

  Jesus, how was she supposed to answer that? If she lied and said they were, Ellen would want to speak with Ian. But if she told the truth, the woman would only worry and possibly call around to other places and other people trying to track him down.

  Worse than scrambling for the right thing to say to her lover’s wife, though, was the fear that Ian had gone off on his own and gotten himself in trouble. Not with drug dealers or manufacturers, but with really bad guys. Bloodsucking bad guys, in the truest sense of the word.

  “Not right this minute,” she found herself murmuring, trying to keep her tone calm and steady. “We’ve been sitting on these guys for a while, though, on and off, and we’ve got a motel room down the street where we take turns resting while the other one of us keeps an eye on the house. He’s there now, but he probably turned his phone off so it wouldn’t wake him up.”

  Lie, lie, lie. And she wasn’t even sure it was a good one.

  “I can tell him you called when he gets back, before we switch off again, if you want, but it may not be for a couple more hours.”

  Ellen was quiet for a few seconds, then she seemed to relax. “Okay. It was nothing important, anyway. I just needed to talk to him. Thanks, Angie.”

  Angelina managed to keep her voice level and composed until they’d said their good-byes, then she shoved the phone back into her coat pocket and hurriedly climbed into her boots and shoulder holster.

  She was not a cop, not really. She might have a badge and gun, but the brain in her head was lacking the proper knowledge to use them effectively. Not that her ignorance was going to stop her from faking it or doing whatever she had to do to save Ian’s life. If all else failed, she just had to point and shoot, right? Point and shoot and pray.

  Provided he was actually in trouble at all. Maybe he was just holed up in another sleazy motel room, three-timing his wife and two-timing her.

  She almost hoped that was the case. Not because she liked the idea of him being a complete and total womanizer, but because it would at least mean he hadn’t done anything stupid like walking into a den of vampires and getting himself taken hostage…or worse.

  Hitting the front door at a dead run, she raced out of the apartment building and started punching the button on her key chain fob the minute she reached the parking lot. She had no idea which vehicle was there or even if the keys in her hand were hers. But she was making an educated guess and hoping like hell she got one right.

  One of the cars beeped and she hit the button again…and again until she spotted a set of headlights flashing against red brick.

  Her car, it turned out, was a dented white Acura with a bad case of tinworm. It actually pained her to unlock the driver’s side door and climb in, knowing that her other ride—the one she’d enjoyed, but obviously taken for granted in her previous existence—was a sleek silver Mercedes with heated seats and a gray leather interior.

  As she cranked the ignition and the engine barely managed to catch, she wasn’t sure this pathetic POS even had heat, and the interior looked like something that had been pieced together from the corpses of other junked vehicles. Hers, it seemed, was the Frankenstein’s monster of average American sedans.

  Forget about pimping my ride, she thought with derision. Somebody douse it with gasoline and light a match. Please!

  But she had more important things to worry about at the moment than how she looked driving down the street in the Uggo Mobile. Like whether this hunk of junk was going to get her all the way to where she needed to go, and just what the hell she was going to do once she got there.

  She wasn’t entirely sure where she was going, but with only a few wrong turns, she found herself on the bad side of the tracks, rolling past rundown houses and dark alleys that looked moderately familiar only because of the time she’d recently spent with Ian in these same areas.

  Following the grid of streets, she turned up one and down another. Back and forth, crisscrossing, until she knew she was in the right place.

  She slowed her speed, narrowing her eyes and searching the dark, unlit yards on both sides of the street for the abandoned house where she prayed she would not find Ian at the mercy of a bunch of bloodthirsty vamps.

  When she found it…or thought she did, anyway—all of these clapboard houses with their peeling paint, broken-out windows, and splintered porch steps looked disturbingly similar—she slammed on the brakes, pulled to the curb, and cut the engine. For several long minutes, she simply sat there, watching the house for signs of inside activity.

  What she wouldn’t have given at that moment to have her vampire superpowers. Super night vision, so she could see through the window frames at a hundred yards as clearly as though she were standing in front of them. Super hearing, so she could listen for movement and voices, even hear what the occupants were saying. And most impor
tant of all, that super sixth sense that would allow her to feel another’s presence, knowing if someone was sneaking up on her, or even how many people might be inside before she went in herself.

  Taking a deep breath, she opened the car door and stepped out, facing the fact that she would just have to do what she could with her five average, everyday, pathetic human senses. That, and a handgun she wasn’t entirely sure how to use without shooting herself in the foot.

  She unsnapped the holster, anyway, and removed the firearm, opening and closing her hand around the butt of the gun in an attempt to get a feel for it and work up her confidence in carrying the thing. Or, God forbid, having to aim it at someone.

  Of course, aiming a gun at a vamp wasn’t going to do her much good. Even if she pulled the trigger, she couldn’t count on a bullet slowing one of them down any longer than if she were using marbles and a slingshot. If she could manage to tap the heart or head, maybe it would buy her a little time. A few stunned minutes before he recovered, then came at her with a vengeance.

  And that was one bad-ass vampire. If she could manage to hit one of them…when there were probably three or four more who would be on her like lions on a baby gazelle.

  She wished, more than anything, that she had some backup. Cops were supposed to have backup, right? Or at least have backup available.

  But she hadn’t been in this body long enough to figure all of that out. She didn’t even know where the precinct was that she and Ian worked out of, let alone how to radio in to ask for help. And even if she did…

  Oh, yeah, she could just picture that. Calling in, asking for more officers to be sent to her location to help her break into a suspected drug den because she suspected her lover…er, partner…was being held by a gang of vampires.

  Even if she didn’t mention that last part, even if she trailed off at the “suspected drug den” part, they would be hella surprised when a bunch of supposed meth cookers and dealers they’d thought would be a piece of cake to bring down sprouted fangs and started tossing them around like bits of fireplace kindling.

  Which meant she really was on her own, in every sense of the word.

  Slipping across the street, she climbed the porch as quietly as possible—which wasn’t easy, considering the loose and splintered boards that made up the crooked front steps. Peering in the front window, she saw nothing, heard nothing. Just black, empty space.

  She abandoned the porch and moved around the house, slowly, silently, looking for all the world like a burglar, she was sure. Thank goodness this was a bad neighborhood, where no one was likely to call the police. She doubted they’d even notice her, no matter what kind of crimes and misdemeanors she was up to.

  Tiptoeing into the backyard, she spotted a small window near the ground. A basement window. And on the other side of the glass, a low, flickering glow.

  Dropping down to her hands and knees, she inched closer, practically pressing her nose to the filthy glass panel to get a better look inside.

  At first, she couldn’t tell what she was seeing. Then, as her eyes adjusted, she realized that the flickering light was a couple of candles burning on a low table off to the side, barely illuminating the figures in the room.

  Of course, vampires didn’t need light to see; like all nocturnal creatures, they had perfect night vision. But because they had opted for candles, she could make out four vampires milling about the room.

  Two leaned against walls as if they didn’t have a care in the world. One was chewing his thumb nail, the other slapping a wicked-looking knife rhythmically against his thigh.

  Another stood almost in the center of the room, arms crossing his chest. And the fourth—the one she’d originally identified as the most Thriller-esque, the leader of the group—was pacing back and forth.

  Between the two non-leaning vamps was an old wooden chair, and tied to the chair was a man.

  Ian.

  Her heart plummeted at the sight, falling to the bottom of her stomach and making her want to retch.

  He was wearing nothing but jeans and a sleeveless, formerly white undershirt, and was beaten and battered. One eye was sickeningly red and swollen shut, the other not too far behind. Blood, both fresh and dried, trickled from his nose, mouth, and temple. There were cuts and abrasions on his arms and probably every inch of the flesh she couldn’t see.

  His arms had been wrenched behind him at what looked like a painful angle, then secured with a bit of dirty rope, and his head lolled to the side, chin meeting his chest. She didn’t know if he was conscious or not, but at this point, she didn’t really care. She just wanted to get to him.

  For a second, she considered bursting in on them. Kicking in the window and jumping inside. But though that might give her the element of surprise for all of half a second, it wasn’t going to buy her any real leverage. The vamps would be on her before she hit the ground.

  So even though it went against her basic instincts to get to Ian by the fastest and most direct route possible, she made herself back away from the window and round the house the way she’d come.

  Re-holstering her gun, she made sure the flaps of her coat hid it from view, then climbed the front steps once again. This time, she didn’t worry about being stealthy as she raised her hand and rapped on the door.

  She honestly wasn’t sure what the heck she was doing. All she knew was that if she sneaked in and tried to take the vamps by surprise, she and Ian would both end up as human Slurpees.

  So she was going in another way. Not necessarily a smarter or better way, but “Avon calling!” was about the best she could come up with on the fly.

  After letting the seconds tick by with no footsteps sounding in the background or angry voices heading in her direction, she put her hand on the knob and twisted. The warped wooden panel stuck and she had to add the sole of her boot and her body weight to the effort.

  The panel flew open with a jerky whomp and slammed back against the wall, sending Angelina stumbling gracelessly inside. Yeah, making a silent break-and-enter wasn’t on the day’s agenda. And if the vamps hadn’t heard all that commotion, there was something wrong with them. A stone-deaf grandma would have heard her entrance, even over the triple-decibel volume of Wheel of Fortune.

  Bracing herself for a confrontation at any moment, Angelina scoped out her surroundings. Peeling wallpaper, threadbare window treatments, and a couple of broken, lopsided paintings (of the garage sale, not museum, variety) made up the first room of the house.

  The floorboards were bare and weathered, nearly as uneven and splintered as those on the front porch, and grime as thick as sawdust on the floor of a good ’ole boy honky-tonk covered every surface. Cobwebs filled the corners and dangled from the ceiling. Mouse, or maybe rat—she really didn’t want to think too hard on that one—droppings and the occasional vermin-shaped skeleton littered the floor.

  Okay, she didn’t know how long this place had been sitting here abandoned, but it kind of put the need for manufacturing haunted houses at Halloween into the “obsolete” category. Hell, this one even came with its own scary-ass coven of vampires, who would gladly jump out at unsuspecting victims…and then give them more than they’d paid for by sucking them dry.

  And the smell…Well, she really didn’t want to think too much about that, either, but if trick-or-treaters were looking for a bit of reality in their holiday festivities, then the scent of cat urine mixed with Eau de Rotting Corpses should do it for them in spades.

  Careful not to take a deep breath, she slowly made her way into a narrow hall where a stairwell led to the second floor and then broke off in opposite directions to another room and the back of the house. She figured her best bet at the basement was toward the back of the house, so she turned left and opened her mouth to begin her ruse.

  “Hel-lo-o!” she called out. Not too loud at first; she wanted to come across as normal and natural as possible. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

  Step by step, she moved through the house, listening for a
ny sign of the occupants she knew were somewhere below. And then, out of nowhere, a hand grabbed her by the upper arm and spun her around.

  She slammed into a hard wall of chest covered in squeaky red leather, and above her ear, a low, menacing voice whispered, “What do you think you’re doin’ pokin’ around my pad, sweet thang?”

  SIP SEVEN

  The vampire’s fetid breath heated her cheek and ruffled her bangs.

  And how did she know he was a vampire, other than through her previous deductive reasoning? Well, the fact that his breath had the metallic tang of blood—mixed with a heavy dose of some sort of strong, hard liquor—was a pretty good giveaway.

  Her stomach tightened. She hoped the blood she smelled wasn’t Ian’s…and that Thriller-vamp didn’t intend to add hers to the cocktail.

  Even if Ian had been bitten, provided he hadn’t been drained to the brink of death or fed afterward from one of the immortals’ own veins, he’d be okay. Woozy and dehydrated, but okay.

  After processing those bits of information, Angelina’s attention turned to the viselike arm cutting into her diaphragm and the granite wall of inhuman flesh at her back. Judging by his choice of words—pad? sweet thang?—she suspected this guy was a neo-vamp.

  Not one of the older generation, turned eighty, a hundred, even hundreds of years ago, but one turned probably within the past couple of decades. Which meant that he wasn’t stuck in the eighties because it was his favorite era so far; he was stuck in the eighties because that’s when he’d been turned, and he wasn’t far enough away from it yet to let go, move on, embrace his new existence, and blend in.

  His more recent introduction to immortality might also explain the nest and the bullying behavior. Often new vamps operated on a power high for a while and went off on dominance binges, overwhelmed by all of their newfound strengths and feeling the need to throw their weight around. Usually, a run-in with an older vamp who could kick the newbie’s ass without so much as ruffling his hair took care of that PDQ.