Black metal stairs sprawled out below me. There was no way but down. The Creep waved a bony finger at me, and I followed. It was hard to fight the urge to run back, but I was sure the door wouldn’t open for me. The inside of the club was just as black as the door, but there was glitter mixed into the paint and the black walls shimmered slightly. They seemed to undulate with a life of their own as lights flickered and cast strange shadows amongst the dancers.
A long skinny black bar was positioned along a far wall. Black velvet circular couches were full of pale-faced partiers; lines of blow were on the table next to me. One girl who looked as young as my sister tapped her nose as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back. When she opened them, her eyes met mine, but they were lifeless. From the drugs or the Frenzied, I couldn’t say. She smiled at me, also an empty gesture, but I didn’t smile back. I quickly averted my eyes.
The full horror of my surroundings came into sharp focus with the sight of a severed head rammed onto a spike, positioned behind the bar. The gruesome trophy had swollen eyes with dried blood showing the tracts of the path it once flowed, from the nose, mouth, and ears. Some sick fuck had wedged a blunt between its purple lips—there was no regard for the dead here. Humans were simply food, and that poor guy was the turkey carcass discarded after Thanksgiving.
Strings of flesh dangled from the neck due to the tearing action of biting and gnawing that removed it from the body. The pole fitted perfectly into the windpipe and the ginger short hair looked matted with pieces of flesh that revealed some flashes of white where the skull glimpsed through.
Then a sinking feeling pushed through my entire body and down to the ground and yes, there really is a sinking feeling. That was the kid who stole my concert ticket. Bill from the store! I gagged and stifled a scream of protest.
God works in mysterious ways, but no one deserved that kind of ending. Even if he was responsible for stealing my concert ticket and the subsequent disappearance of Melissa. I would have fought with my life to keep her by my side at that concert. Billy was just interested in seeing the band.
I should be engaged and sitting on the sofa by now, stroking her hair and watching TV. If I’d gotten ahold of him in the store restrooms, I swear I would have torn him limb from limb, but someone beat me to it.
I suspect the bloodsucking collective were unhappy to see Bill arrive in my place and showed their displeasure accordingly. I’d be pissed too if I’d ordered a filet mignon and a crappy burger arrived.
The Creep then met me at the bottom of another staircase, a stretched grin on his face and hands on his hips. He had strangely long fingers, inhuman. Inhuman! It rang in my head like a bell ringing. Suddenly, I felt like I knew him and not just from his scaring the shit out of me on the bus.
I’d seen him play. Yeah, that’s right. He played at the Squire’s Club. He was with the Rattlers. Or he had been before they broke up. But I thought those guys had died in a plane crash. Maybe a car wreck? I couldn’t recall the details.
“It is no matter,” he said. He’s reading my mind again. “Come with me, Levi Wallace. Queen Alice is waiting.”
“Queen Alice?” I asked in a voice that sounded more broken than I intended.
The room was full of strange smoke, not from weed or incense—although there was plenty of both, this was something else. This was a kind of living smoke.
Oh my God! Was that a ghost? An ephemeral white figure fluttered in front of me; a strange smoky appendage brushed against my skin and then sped away down a long dark hallway. I heard the Creep laugh at my discomfort.
I thought of Melissa lost in this maze of evil, for surely that’s what this was. People or maybe things that posed as people were everywhere. A man dressed in leather and a woman with a strange hat and painted skin whispered to one another as we walked by. Everywhere there were people talking, kissing, and whispering.
Music poured from somewhere but there was no band, and I could see no speakers, but the sound of a thumping guitar filled the place. I felt sick and wished with all my might that I wasn’t here, but I had to find Melissa.
Melissa! Can you hear me? I love you and I am coming for you; I promise.
I heard nothing. Nothing from her at any rate. I did hear many voices that whispered my name, and some again called me Sustainer. Some spoke in what sounded like ancient languages, but they were all saying my name. That much I knew.
I followed the Creep down another set of stairs; after the third or fourth flight, I began to become disoriented. Each level we descended had a different fragrance. At first the fragrances were attractive, even stimulating in a strange erotic way, but as we descended those aromas became more intense and morphed into something entirely different. I began to smell other things like blood and cruelty and death.
How could I smell cruelty? It doesn’t have an aroma, does it?
I could not understand my own thoughts now. I felt disoriented. The god-awful blood smell grew stronger; it was like being in a meat locker! The closer we got to our destination, wherever that might be, I realized that I was leaving the real world—the human world—behind.
Maybe forever.
Rock-and-roll music played on all levels, but it changed like the aromas. It became more frantic, much more intense as the Creep led me deeper and deeper into a maze of rooms. He’d become calm suddenly and glanced at me with his shiny eyes only a few times. Yes, they were shining now.
Oh, God! Melissa! He did not mock me now but became the face of seriousness, and there was something else there too. Reverence, perhaps? Fear? I couldn’t begin to identify his expression, nor did I care to. All I wanted was Melissa, but where to find her? Did the Creep really know where she was? Or had it been his plan all along to leave me here amid these devils?
Suddenly, right there standing in front of me, was a slab of perfect womanhood of the like I’d never seen before. If Venus ever ventured out of her renaissance seashell and entered a nightclub, she’d be repainted right here and now.
At first, I thought she was a statue by the way she held her hands. She was so still, like an inanimate object, but then she stepped out of the blackness with a dull glow about her. She was as tall as me, with long, shapely arms and perfect features. Yes, she was perfect, and probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
Her long nails then scraped along the wood paneling either side of her as she walked toward me, leaving a long trail of four grooves and a sound that rattled my head and put me on edge. Her tight, tanned, honey-colored, slippery skin shimmered like spilt molasses on a hot sidewalk. She moved her hips hypnotically in a pendulum way like I'd never seen before, and I felt a strange feeling grow through the soles of my feet that spread through my marrow and internal organs like a rejuvenating potion. She was heavenly, but I saw the devil in her eyes—big trouble was brewing.
Her raven black hair curled and wrapped its way around her face and shoulders and bounced as she moved closer. The woman wore a cropped black shirt and see-through harem pants. Underneath I spied blood red bikini bottoms with gold clasps. They arranged themselves tightly around her womanhood and showed every soft fold of her femininity. A cloak with a shiny sheen flowed and followed her like the breeze. They moved in unison like it was alive.
She was exactly the type of woman Naomi warned me about—as if her own relationship choices looked perfect. “Why can’t you date some nice girls?” She would whine about my string of shabby girlfriends. Melissa wasn’t a tramp but she didn’t like her either. I knew that.
“Because I only want the bad ones!” I remembered snapping back at her.
I heard the Creep laugh beside me, but it did not deter me from staring at the woman. She was pleased too; she liked that I thought she was perfect, even though she didn’t speak. But I knew. I just knew. She smiled to reveal her sharp teeth, and as she raised her hand, I saw her long red fingernails closely.
Any thoughts I had of her as some sort of Venus then vanished, and she was pleased with that too. Sat
an had formed her with his bare hands from the clay buried in the deepest pit of hades. How can anything in this world be so delicious and so deadly at the same time?
“I can see why you're in charge!” I said stupidly. “But I want my girlfriend back.”
She hissed like wet leather and when she did, it was as if she’d sprayed the air around me in the same way a predator would to warn his prey.
“Welcome, Levi. I’m Queen Alice. Very nice, Nikolai. Very nice.”
She moved her nose around me to fully imbibe my aroma and as she came to my neck her sharp teeth clicked together like a thousand mouse traps. I pulled away and saw her brief ecstasy. “Inherited nobility, or did you marry into it?” I enquired sarcastically.
“I’m exalted where I come from,” she purred as her dark eyes focused on the deepest parts of my soul.
“Levi means a pair of Jeans where I come from,” I retorted still unable to match wits with this strangely attractive being.
“You have sold yourself short, Levi. Your name is Hebrew, and it means joined in harmony. You and I need to be joined in harmony. I think.”
“Harmony? We have nothing in common!”
“I will take him from here, Nikolai,” she purred, but there was no sweetness in her voice. “You may go. Drink your fill.” The Creep half-bowed to her and gave me the peace sign before he walked away to another room down the hall. I felt my blood go ice-cold.
“Melissa!” I called after him. “Where is Melissa?” He flashed his horrible grin and disappeared through a wall of red beads. There was moaning coming from the other side. Whether from pleasure or pain, I could not tell.
“Please, I need to see my girlfriend. He said she was here.” She didn’t reassure me and wasn’t moved at all by my tears.
Alice isn’t human. Not human at all.
She cast those glittering eyes on me briefly. I knew it would avail me nothing to plead my case to her.
Follow me, Levi.
I did as she asked. What else could I do? “You are perfect for a mortal. A tall, and handsome buck. The deer must be your spirit animal. You need to be gentle and calm to soothe your inner voice and self-critique. Be yourself and push yourself along the path. You must trust that kindness and graciousness will be well received.”
“I bet your spirit animal has rabies!” I snapped back even as I was powerless to do anything but follow her.
“You should try that kindness and graciousness around me, Levi. It will keep you alive longer.”
We traveled down a long hall until we came upon a large red door. It looked freshly painted and was wet to the touch. I don’t know why I touched it, but the paint stuck to my fingers. The strange woman observed me doing so but did not scold me or speak at all.
At the center of the door was a massive door knocker, a bat’s head with an ornate knocker hanging from its fanged mouth. She reached above her head for the knocker and rapped once, and then the door opened. The room was not dark but full of candlelight—strange ornaments hung from the ceiling, and weird mobiles of red stones spun about in a breeze. Incense filled the air, and there was a familiar album playing. I knew it by heart.
Elegant Black!
And that’s when I saw him.
Rex Teaser lay tied to a weird bed in the center of the room, and he was covered in blood. It was a savage sight, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the bed. It looked a bit like a hospital bed, but it had a wooden headboard carved with grotesque faces. The bed had no sheets and was tilted slightly. Blood pooled at my feet and on the floor. They were draining Rex—killing him!
Oh no. He is not dead, not really. Not yet.
The woman or whatever she was touching Rex’s face lovingly with her red fingernails and kissed his full lips, but it did not rouse him. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, the blood pooling thick around his feet.
Oh, God, he was so bloody! “He will be dead if you leave him like that. Please, he must go to a hospital. And I was told my girlfriend was here. Melissa. Where is she?” I asked as I took a half step back away from the blood that seemed to follow me wherever I stepped.
“Nikolai was toying with you, I am afraid. Having a little fun; it is in his nature to do so. There is no Melissa here, but I am sure as our newest Sustainer you could claim anyone you want. No one would refuse you, for the right price,” she said with a smile as she lifted her hands. “I brought you here for my new prince but now that I’ve seen you, I am loathe to give you over. Isn’t that selfish of me, Sustainer? I wonder how you will taste?”
There were tattoos on her palms, strange writing that made me shiver. I detected an accent but could not identify it.
“You took Melissa, and I want her back. Your monsters killed my sister, and I won’t let you have Melissa too. You won’t get away with any of this!”
I wasn’t sure where I was going with that threat. I was really in no shape to make demands on this woman, but my frustration and grief overwhelmed me. “If you’re going to kill me or make me a vampire, just do it! Get it over with!”
Stepping through the blood completely unfazed, as if she did not notice it, the woman pounced on me, her brown hair flying behind her. With a fierce grip on my neck, she shoved me down to the floor and I shut my eyes and squelched a scream.
If I was about to die, I wasn’t going to cry or beg for my life. My life was my own, and I would die on my own terms. Or at least I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of begging. To my surprise, she didn’t kill me but licked my face and sniffed me. I was sure she would bite me any second, but the pain never came. I sensed a struggle within her; she wanted to taste me, she wanted that very badly. Her eyes glittered and her lip curled to show me her deadly teeth, but she either could not or would not strike. I wasn’t sure which.
Be careful, Levi. You know she can read your mind.
As I had this thought, she released my neck and made a strange purring sound. Then she tossed her hair back as she shook her head and growled. Her eyes glittered steadily, and she gathered herself together and became “human” once again. I was reconsidering begging for my life.
“Your blood is precious, Levi Wallace. To kill you would be a crime. We have use for you yet. You will sustain my new prince while he recovers, but do not fear. I will watch over you to make sure he doesn’t kill you. Not right away. He will be so hungry when he becomes one of the Frenzied. So. Very. Hungry. I’m afraid if I taste you, I won’t share you. People say I am rather possessive. Can you imagine?” She laughed with wicked delight.
My mind raced with a hundred scenarios and none of them good. While we’d been talking, I could see that Rex had stopped breathing. He was dead now. But if he was like she said, how long would he stay dead? I didn’t understand any of this. Why me? How was it that I should be here?
“Of course you do not understand. How could you? How could you know how precious you are and how long we have waited to bring you to us? You could not know this. But you will understand soon enough. To be a Sustainer is an esteemed position in our world, Levi Wallace. And although it will hurt in the beginning, you will soon come to desire it. You will want it, you will want me…and Rex. I will watch over you, young Levi.”
“You plan to feed me to Rex Teaser? Is that what you’re saying? Is he going to be like you? Why would you do that?”
Stall for time. Think, damn it!
“Because like all of you mortals, my Beautiful One wants to stay beautiful forever. I have done nothing to him that he didn’t ask of me. The truth is, many ask but only a few are selected. Only a few are beautiful enough, talented enough. In your own way, you are much like Rex. But the powers of this world are allied against you, Levi Wallace. Your blood has given you purpose. And in that, I think, you are lucky.”
“You’re crazy, lady.” I could think of nothing else to say. I watched Rex now. Did he move?
I thought perhaps I saw his eyes flutter, but it was hard to tell in the dim light. My fear level ratcheted up, and I was more afraid
than I’d ever been. Queen Alice didn’t seem to notice or care. She did not answer me but paced the floor. And then I realized we weren’t alone. Others were watching, creeping just inside the door. With a wave of her hand they vanished, retreating into the darkness, but I could hear them sighing and cooing, undoubtedly over me. They all wanted me, to kill me, drain me.
Melissa! I’m so sorry I failed you!
“Rex will not be marred by decay and will remain young forever, always beautiful and oh so talented. But he will always be hungry. Especially in the beginning. The hunger will be like a flame that burns inside him, but you will sustain him. You belong to him and to him alone. He chose you, Levi Wallace, for you are like him. So talented. We have watched you for so long, and you have played for us so wonderfully. Rex chose you, Levi. You will sustain him.”
“I don’t know what that means! What do you mean?” I cried and screamed at her as I clambered to my feet.
She shook her head in disbelief as if I were the stupidest of creatures. I kept my eye on her, on dead Rex and on the shadows that gathered in the doorway. “The blood in your veins has a rare power, young Levi. It strengthens my kind; even small sips of your blood satisfy us, the thirsty. I am sorry to say that your sister’s blood failed to suffice; it was quite different from yours.”
“My sister? You killed Debbie! It was you! My sister…” I took a step away from her, but something behind me brushed against me. I shuffled away and kept her in my sight. I wished I had something in my hands, a gun or a sword or a stake. But there was nothing. She flashed her fangs and growled at my thought. “You killed my sister. I would rather die than give you one drop of my blood! You hear me?”
And then the corpse of Rex Teaser began to moan…
Chapter Twenty—Charles
Thankfully, Naomi’s medication kicked in and she stopped screaming. Debbie’s twice-dead body lay at the bottom of the stairs, her face staring up into nothingness. Who would believe this? Detective Reynolds was going to come down on us hard, probably arrest me for something crazy like abusing a corpse, but that was a problem for another day.
The Vampire's Song (Vampires of Rock Book 1) Page 15