Blood Casino: Vampires & Vices No. 1

by Nina Walker

Chapter 4

  I wake up with a start, my eyes popping wide open. I blink into the shadowy ceiling and freeze. Ayla sleeps next to me, her body curled into a tight ball, her breath soft whisperings in the darkness. Exhaustion grips the back of my eyeballs, but there’s no way I could go back to sleep right now. My heart races, the pulse drumming in my neck.

  I heard something––a noise that woke me up.

  A thump, maybe?

  I don’t move, don’t breathe, listening intently until I hear it again. Thump, thump, thump. It’s inside the house. Footsteps. Soft, quiet, sneaky, “trying not to wake anyone,” kind of footsteps.

  I think back to the encounter with Adrian and fear tightens around my neck like gripping murderous fingers. I imagine what it would be like to have fangs sinking into my tender skin, to feel the hot slice of them, to experience my limbs going limp and my body draining of life. Angry tears burn my eyes. Did Adrian come after me? He could have sent his minions to search me out, but that vampire seems like the type who’d want to do the job himself.

  I can’t believe I played him like that. How stupid can I be? Maybe Mom’s right. In the light of day, my actions against Adrian felt empowering, but now in the middle of the night, I feel nothing but vulnerability and fear and the weight of a million what-ifs.

  I force myself to sit up and slip from the warm bed, padding softly to the dark hallway. I follow the sound out toward the living room, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. I need to place distance between myself and Ayla just in case the vampires found me here and somehow managed to enter her house uninvited. But also, as foolish and “girl in a horror movie” as it is, I want to locate the source of whatever that thump was that woke me up.

  I freeze. A figure is standing near the kitchen counter, tall and unmoving, with the broad shoulders of a man. My throat goes dry.

  He moves quickly, taking two steps toward the refrigerator. When he opens it and Felix comes into focus, I let out a breath of relief and sink back into the darkened hallway. I’m an idiot. One encounter with a vampire and I’m already imagining crazy scenarios in my head. I watch Felix for a minute. He puts a lunchbox in his backpack and tosses in a couple bottles of blue Gatorade. He must be getting ready for work. The clock flashes above the stove: 4:10 a.m. I didn’t realize his internship started so early. I don’t know of any banks that open before 9:00 a.m.

  But he’s not dressed in professional attire. He’s in athletic wear, black basketball shorts and a black hoodie. He’s probably hitting the gym before work. Or maybe they have lacrosse practice super early?

  Just as I’m thinking that I’m verging on stalkerish behavior over here, he rearranges his bag and lifts something long and wooden from within. The tip glints silver in the refrigerator light and my jaw falls open. It’s a silver-tipped wooden stake––the kind used to kill vampires.

  Maybe he takes them with him when he goes out at night? A lot of people do these days, it wouldn’t be that unusual. Except when he lifts his hoodie and fastens the stake into a holster securely above his waistband, something within me screams that this is more than everyday protection. There’s a practiced movement to the way his hands grip the weapon that speaks to experience handling it and handling it well.

  I want to ask him about the stake, to emerge from the shadows and confront him, or at least talk about this. What is Felix hiding? And also, how in the heck can I get in on it? Because if he’s hunting vamps then I want to do it with him. But just as I’m about to take action and reveal myself, he finishes getting his bag ready and heads out to the garage door, disappearing from sight. Before I can think twice, I race back to Ayla’s room, snag her car keys off her desk, and sprint out the back door. Since there isn’t room for all the cars in the garage, the Moreno kids park in the driveway. By the time I’m approaching Ayla’s prized navy blue Mini Cooper, Felix is already pulling his black SUV around the street corner.

  I jump in, start the engine, and follow.

  Adrenaline pumps through my veins, enough that every time I start to question my actions, I’m able to push them away and focus on not losing sight of Felix’s tail lights. I’m careful to keep my distance, considering nothing about Ayla’s ride is inconspicuous. I wish I had my own car at a time like this, but alas, I’m broke. I follow him all the way through the twisting suburban streets, onto the freeway for a few minutes, and then downtown into the banking district. The further we get from home, the more I lose my nerve. Maybe he’s not out to hunt down suckers. Maybe there’s a gym in this part of town that he belongs to. Executives and business professionals have to workout too.

  He pulls the SUV into an underground parking garage. I park at the other end of the garage and watch as he gets out of his car and goes through an unmarked door with a fingerprint keypad to gain access. For five long minutes I stare at the metal door that’s now closed behind him, feeling like a stage-five clinger. Why did I think I could follow him and learn anything? The guy is working or exercising or something. So what if he has a stake on him? That’s a smart move, doesn’t mean he’s a hunter. I’m being dumb.

  But I still can’t forget the expert way in which he handled that stake.

  I sigh and lean back into the seat, ready to head back to Ayla’s house and squeeze in a few more hours of precious sleep, when the metal door swings open and Felix reappears. He’s no longer alone. Two other guys are with him, each carrying a large black duffle bag. The new guys are also dressed in black athletic gear, and they all climb into Felix’s black SUV.

  It’s a lot of black, like a totally suspicious amount. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was a bank robbery, but I do know better. Felix may look like a bad boy, but he’s a good person deep down to the core. He’s not robbing anyone. So what’s going on here?

  They pull out of the garage and I follow him again, this time driving away from the city and back toward the suburbs, then farther to the outskirts of town where the suburbs become the rural areas which then becomes the swamp. As we leave the city behind, I have to drop back even farther so he doesn’t recognize Ayla’s car. I almost lose them a couple times because of it.

  It’s after 5 a.m. now. This time of year, the sun will be rising soon. The sky is turning that royal blue color when the sun is making its way out, but it’s still pretty dark. I continue to keep back as I follow them––to a cemetery. And let me tell you, there’s nothing like a swampy old cemetery at night to give you the heebie-jeebies.

  “Okay, guys,” I say to myself when I slow the car and park. “What are you up to?”

  I’m farther down so I have to jog in. I’m suddenly feeling ridiculous because I’m wearing nothing but the pink lacy pajama shorts and white cotton tank top I brought to Ayla’s. I thank the bra god’s, or goddesses, that I still have one on, even though I’m so out of my element here. At least the bugs have gone to sleep and aren’t having a meal of my legs, which if it was that extra special time around sunset, I’d be a goner. I’m a little cold and I’m a lot spooked, but I’m also curious and determined to figure out what’s going on.

  “We should go back to the car and wait. We weren’t supposed to do this until sunrise,” an unfamiliar male voice says. He’s within the cemetery walls, his gravelly voice catching my attention like a fish on a line. I edge toward it. “We shouldn’t break protocol. I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

  “I think it’s a great idea,” a different voice replies, “maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “I doubt that. Where did they say it was?” The unfamiliar man speaks again.

  “Here,” Felix’s voice adds. I’d recognize his deep smooth timbre anywhere.

  I follow them through the maze of headstones, tombs, and mausoleums. The water levels are too high to bury bodies underground this close to the coast, so our cemeteries are like above-ground mazes. The tombs make it easier for me to follow these three men without being seen, but it’s also freaky as hell, and I’m starting to shiver from fear instead of the cold. My
sparkly white flippys are going to be ruined from the mud, but that’s the least of my worries.

  The sunlight will crest the edge of the horizon soon. They’re going to catch me and then what?

  “Well, if any are in here and wake up,” the first unfamiliar voice speaks again, “they’d better hide quickly or the sun will get them soon.”

  I freeze. They’re talking about vampires. They have to be.

  “More like I’ll get them,” the second voice jokes.

  I take another step forward and wince when my ankle catches on the edge of a tomb I didn’t see in the darkness.

  “Shh––” Felix snaps. “Did you hear that?”

  They’re fast. One second they’re several rows of graves over and the next they’re coming right for me. Whatever they’re hunting, I’ve now become the target.

  I stand there, frozen, really not wanting to be impaled by a silver tipped wooden stake, but also not sure where to even go, when Felix steps between two towering tombs, weapon raised and ready to strike. I scurry backward. “Don’t!”

  His body goes rigid. “Eva?”

  I grimace, caught like a deer in the headlights, but it doesn’t matter, because that’s when something behind me screeches, something not quite human.

  “Get back,” Felix growls.

  I turn, and standing not three feet away from me, with her fangs gleaming white and eyes bloodshot, is the pale face of a vampire. She lunges for me.

  Chapter 5

  I’m knocked to the ground, the back of my head slamming against a tomb in the process. Pain rings through my ears, but that’s the least of my problems. I scream as the vampire hurls herself on top of me. Felix is quick to intervene, wrenching her away before she gets the chance to make contact. She jumps back just as he swings the stake toward her heart. It’s close, but he misses. She shrieks an animalistic scream, her frizzy blonde hair a wild mess around her dirt-stained face. She’s dressed in a long white gown and the closer I look at her, the more I realize what she is.

  She’s not just any vampire. She’s new.

  The most dangerous kind, because even though it’s illegal in the vampire community to suck blood directly from a human without consent, newly-sired vampires are too thirsty to care about the laws. Their hunger is even rumored to be stronger than the blood bonds that forge them to their masters. The threat of true death is nothing compared to their mind numbing urgency to feed. This woman is no different. She crouches down among the grass with flexed fists, ready to pounce.

  Male arms grab me from behind and pull me back against a broad chest. “Stay calm,” the young man whispers. He presses something cold and hard into my palm. A stake. I grip it tight for dear life. It’s all I have. It’s everything.

  Felix edges closer to the vamp. “You try to hurt us and I will kill you,” he warns. “That’s if the sun doesn’t get you first.”

  She hisses, but he’s right. The sun will be out soon, and if she’s exposed, the light will burn her alive. But right now, dawn feels a million miles away, each second stretching into eternal darkness. Even though Felix’s threats are menacing and we all have stakes at the ready, this woman is probably strong enough to kill the four of us. She’ll suck us dry, one by one, until we’re nothing but husks.

  “You’re not my master,” she hisses. “Or did my master send you to me as my welcome gift?”

  The male arms still wrapped around me shift to push me behind his large frame.

  “Oh, yes,” she continues. Sick clarity spreads across her moon pale face. “You all smell so good.” Her eyes zero in on me. “Oh, and what’s this? Virgin blood.” She licks her lips.

  Hot bile rises to my throat and blood warms my cheeks. New vampires are ruthlessly strong, and this one appears to have barely risen from the dead, literally clawing her way from her grave. The blood of virgins is rumored to have some kind of draw for vamps, but I don’t know why.

  I’m not going to stick around and find out.

  Fight or flight mode kicks in, and I choose flight, taking off at an all-out sprint. I excelled at track while in school, so I’m fast, but even I know I’m no match for a newborn vampire. Even still, I have to try, especially while she’s distracted by three aggressive vampire hunters. I don’t know exactly where I’m going, just as long as it is in the opposite direction of her and toward the main road. I need to get to the car and get away from this cemetery as fast as possible.

  “Wait!” Felix calls after me. He utters a few curse words when I don’t respond, but I don’t care. I can’t be here. I shouldn’t have come and I need to go right now.

  My eyes have adjusted to the darkness but it’s still not light enough to see every obstacle in the pre-dawn misty light. I trip over raised tree roots and graves a few times but scramble back up even faster, adrenaline careening me forward with each hurried step. Behind me, the vampire woman screeches into the night. She’s closer––making chase.

  Too late, I realize my mistake and the reason for Felix’s curses. Earlier, I just so happened to stumble upon her, a lucky break for a new vampire, but now that I’m running, I’ve started a game of cat and mouse. It’s like the advice I heard once about never running away from a mountain lion. You’re supposed to make yourself big and scare it away. Running only makes the animal want to eat you even more.

  And now this vampire is definitely hunting me down.

  I have to choose to fight if I’m going to stand a chance, so I stop and whip around, the stake tight in my hand and poised to strike. I hold my breath in an attempt to hear better, but the graveyard grows eerily quiet, and my blood pumps through my eardrums, reminding me of how vulnerable I am. I ran too fast and too far, and now Felix and his friends are calling out from different directions. They’re not close. Not like her scream was.

  I look around for Felix anyway. I need him. There’s nothing but darkness and shadows and the reality that I’m the idiot who snuck after him in the middle of the night, and because of it, I’m about to become a corpse.

  I wait, my breath slowing like silent anguished prayers. I wait for her to come. I wait for the only two options left––to die or to kill.

  She appears, jumping from the roof of a tall mausoleum, flying right for me so fast that I almost don’t see her coming. She’s like a ghostly apparition of death––eyes bloody orbs and fangs long thin daggers. I don’t stop to question myself. I just swing the stake and aim for the heart.

  It strikes, slicing through the white dress and sinking deep between cracking ribs. She wails, her thin body falling against mine, the tip of a fang nicking my arm. A flash of white-hot pain erupts through me. It feels like the shock of hitting my funny bone, but it’s so much worse. The pain subsides as quickly as it came and the woman falls to her knees, reaching up toward the heavens.

  “No!” she screams, and then she crumbles into dust.

  Gone.

  “Holy hell,” I mutter. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

  Talk about dumb luck.

  Heart thundering, I brush off the dust and study my arm for bite marks where her fang got me. There’s nothing but a tiny prick of blood that I rub away with one swipe. Was I bitten? I’m not really sure. I felt her fang pierce my skin, but I wouldn’t call that a bite since she didn’t get anything out of me. My blood was never taken. But because the vampire royalty has kept their secrets guarded, I have no idea what the consequences of this might be for me. At least I know that I can’t be turned into a vampire. Not unless I feed on one who feeds on me, and then I’d have to be buried in a cemetery. Three nights later, I’d either wake up and claw my way out of the grave or the vampire venom would finish me off for good.

  That’s not going to happen. I’m not rising from the dead any time soon. I’m okay. It was just a scratch. It was nothing.

  I let out a shuddering breath as Felix appears. His dark hair is disheveled and horror hangs on his face, followed by anger, and then something else I can’t quite read. I prepare to defend
myself but I don’t have to. The man cuts through the maze of graves and pulls me into a tight hug. He’s never hugged me before this moment.

  “I thought you were dead,” he mutters against my hair.

  I release a frightened laugh. “Yeah, so did I.”

  His heart thuds against his chest, matching the rhythm of my own.

  Too soon, he steps back and surveys me up and down, assessing the damage, but there is none. “What were you thinking following me out here?”

  I scoff. “Um, excuse me, what were you thinking telling me you’re working in banking this summer when you’re obviously hunting vampires?”

  His two friends trudge from the shadows, chuckling at my antics. “The woman has a point.” The attractive African American one nods to me. He’s the guy who gave me the stake and essentially saved my life. “But hey, looks like you’re a vampire hunter, too.”

  I shake my head. “No, I’m not.”

  He points to the bloodied stake in my hand. “Could’ve fooled me.”

  I squeeze it tighter. I might never put this stake down.

  The third guy frowns, not really watching us anymore but surveying the spooky cemetery. “Let’s get out of here.” His voice is soft. It’s the same voice that didn’t want to be in the cemetery at dark.

  “The sun is rising soon,” Felix says, “we don’t need to rush.” He points to the black duffle bags I’d forgotten they’d brought with them. “We need to place those stakes before we go.”

  “Oh . . .” Realization dawns on me. These guys weren’t exactly out here to hunt vampires. They were here to place stakes around the graveyard, probably in hidden caches. I’ve heard this was something vampire hunters do since graveyards are the literal breeding grounds for vamps. It’s not a bad idea. I’m pretty sure stakes anywhere and everywhere is an awesome idea, come to think of it.

  A chill rolls over my exposed skin as everything comes rushing back to me, my mind unpacking what just happened. I don’t want to be here anymore, either.