Good & Dead #1 (16 page)

“That was weird,” Randy said slowly, his eyes slightly unfocused.

Come outside
.  Bell’s voice rang crystal clear in his head.  Michael’s jaw dropped.  The blonde woman mounted a sleek white motorcycle and looked directly at Michael with piercing green eyes.

Michael stood, “I, um—” Randy was staring at the blonde Bell as though Michael wasn’t even there.  He shook himself, blinking.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Randy asked when he saw Michael was already halfway to the door.  “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told Charlotte we would help her solve the case,” Randy said, as though this was supposed to be obvious. 

Get out here, Michael
. 

“Um…” he looked at Randy.  “Okay.  But right now I have to go.  I have a paper to finish.” 

You’re getting better at lying, Michael,
Bell said in his head
, I’m so proud. 

Michael was already jogging down the steps.

“Dude, how many extensions did you get?” Randy called after him.

Michael shut the big double doors behind him and started down the steps.  Bell smiled at him from the seat of the motorcycle, “Blondes don’t actually have more fun.”  She shook out her blonde braid and it turned instantly into a mane of red curls.

“Get on,” she said, her leather glistening in the lights of the marquee as she straddled the motorcycle.

“Um...”

“It’s like riding a bike, Michael.” She leaned in. “Because it is a bike.  Get on.”

It was awkward getting situated with his long legs.  There were little foot rests for a passenger, but getting his sneakers onto them meant pressing his knees against Bell’s thighs.

“Sorry,” Michael said.

“You’re making me blush,” she said dryly, bumping the starter button.  The engine roared to life.  “Hold on.”

“Uh, where?”

She gunned it.  Michael threw his arms around Bell to keep from flying off the back of the bike.  He forgot all about personal space.  At the speed she drove she was wearing Michael like a second skin.

Bell was not a careful driver.  When she was unable to weave through the gridlock as fast as she preferred, she had no problem veering onto the sidewalk and letting the pedestrians leap out of the way.  Michael shut his eyes the first time she did this and had no intention of opening them again until the bike came to a complete stop.  He could still tell when they were on the sidewalk because he could hear people screaming and feel Bell laughing in his terrified arms.  Michael’s stomach rebelled against the speed, and he began replaying a movie in his head to keep from vomiting.  The Dread Pirate Roberts was being pushed down a hillside when the pace finally slowed.  Michael cautiously opened one eye. 

They were cruising quietly on a dark, garbage-strewn street; the stores that weren’t boarded up all had bars on the windows.  They slowed in front of a bar at the end.  There was only one letter still working on the bar’s signage.  The large front window was held together with a spider web of duct tape.  Loud rock music and raucous laughter poured out into the night.  Bell pulled up and turned off the bike. 

They sat motionless for several seconds before Michael realized he’d have to get off first.  He dismounted clumsily and had to lean on the rusted out Honda parked next to them for balance.

“You do realize I could have crashed the thing headlong into a brick wall and you’d have walked away without a scratch, right?”

Michael could barely nod as he tried hard not to throw up on the bits of broken glass shimmering in the red light of the giant letter ‘H’.

“Let’s go.”

Michael followed, glancing wearily at the large, leather-clad man who watched them from the sidewalk.  “Aren’t you afraid someone will steal it?” He whispered, gesturing to the beautifully detailed motorcycle.

“Where do you think I got it?” she whispered back.

“Oh,” Michael watched Bell disappear into the smoky darkness of the bar.  “Of course.”

The inside of the bar matched the outside.  The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the room crowded with patrons in varying stages of intoxication.  Several people were unconscious with their faces on tables.  Michael’s eyes watered at the smell of beer and vomit.  He could feel eyes on him from every corner.  He looked around for Bell, but she seemed to have vanished.

A woman wearing a sequined bra for shirt approached him with alcoholic boldness.

“Wanna know what fifty bucks’ll git ya?” she asked with dim, colorless eyes.

Michael coughed at the smell of decay that came pouring out of her mouth along with her words. 

“No thank you,” Michael spluttered. 

“More than you’d think,” she winked and put a grimy hand on Michael’s scrawny bicep.  “Just fifty bucks.”

Bell appeared at Michael’s shoulder.  The woman’s eyes lit up when she was met with Bell’s stare. 

“Oh,” she said, instantly releasing her grip on Michael’s arm.  “My mistake.”

She retreated into the smoke with a look that conveyed she would have disappeared completely if she could.

“Come on,” Bell said, “They’re here.”

“Who?”

“Your ‘new friends’,” she replied darkly.

“I thought—” Michael protested, “I thought you said they were dangerous.”

“I did,” Bell said, leading Michael across the sticky linoleum floor, “but I think you need to see it for yourself.”

Bell opened the back door and beckoned him into the alley.  He sprinted out of the heavy bar air, only to cough on the unmistakable smell of month-old garbage.  A soggy tower of full-to-bursting garbage bags leaned against a pile of crates on the narrow pavement.  A startled rat ran out of the pile when the back door slammed shut.

The bar butted up to a huge brick building that Michael guessed had been apartments at one time.  Now, the fire escape ran past story after story of broken, boarded, or missing windows.  The pull-down stairs were no longer attached, but lay on the street, littered with refuse.

Michael heard something in the distance.  It was a faint, shrill sound; half scream, half whistle, and completely unnatural.  His body responded instantly, even as his mind failed to discern the source.  He crouched, alert, ready to move. 

“What was that?” he whispered.

Bell turned toward the sound, a slight breeze lifting the copper wisps of hair away from her face.  The scent of jasmine swept down the alley with the wind.  The corners of Bell’s mouth twitched upward.  She didn’t answer him, but pulled her hair into a quick ponytail and jumped easily to grasp the bottommost step of the fire escape.

“Follow me,” she said, jumping nimbly up onto her feet several steps up.  Michael watched in awe as she flitted up the side of the metal structure and stood on the roof in mere seconds.

“Yeah,” Michael threw his hands up in defeat.  “Sure.  I’ll just— Right.”  He judged the distance to the bottom step.  “I need a much higher acrobatics score,” he mumbled as he looked around for something to use as a step up.  He began dragging an empty wooden crate across the concrete.

Bell sighed heavily from her perch.  “What would you do if you had super human strength, Michael?”

“I don’t know!”

“Keep your voice down” she snapped from the roof.  “I can hear you breathing; there’s no need to shout.  Try jumping.”

Michael judged the distance and groaned.  It was at least fifteen feet from the ground.  He was the kid who injured himself playing ping pong. 

“Just pretend you’re competent.  Close your eyes and jump.”

“I’m just going to climb to the bottom step!” He called up to her.

“
Did you forget we’re not alone?
” Her voice rang in his head like the clang of an alarm.

“I’m not a freaking ninja!” he whispered.

“No.  You’re a vampire.  Jump.”  She disappeared from the ledge.

The distant scream came again, raising the hairs on Michael’s neck.  Something at the end of the street rustled.

“Bell?” He called.  She didn’t return.

“Crap,” he groaned, and judged the distance again.  He jumped, bracing for pain, but instead found his aim to be dead on.  He grabbed the step, the cold metal cutting into his fingers.  He dangled for a moment before managing to get his arms and head above the step.  Some frantic wriggling proved pointless.  His long legs flailed in midair.

“I’m going to kill you.”  Bell was standing on the landing above him, holding a hand out to help him up.

She pulled him onto the step as if he weighed nothing. 

“Thanks,” Michael said, unnerved at how easily she could lift him.

She flitted back up the fire escape without another word and waited impatiently on the edge of the roof.

Michael jogged up the stairs to catch up. 

The moment he reached the top she started across the roof.  There were several dark spots where little piles of snow had melted.  It smelled strongly of mildew.  Michael stepped off the brick border and onto the black surface of the roof.  It sank slightly underfoot, like walking on a saturated sponge. 

“
Hurry up!”
Bell hissed in his head.  She was waiting on the far side of the building, crouching beside the little half wall at the edge of the rooftop.

Michael dodged the darkest spots and tiptoed around the edge of a huge sunken section.  When he reached her, she gestured down into the space below.

Michael crouched next to her and peered down.

There, in an alley similar to the one they had just escaped, was a man cowering behind a dumpster.   Michael could hear him weeping between forced, painful breaths.  His hands were pressed together between his knees as though he was praying.

The shrill sound came again, and the man whimpered louder.

Moments later a woman appeared at the corner of the building.  Michael had never seen so many curves.  Her dark hair was a shimmering mass of curls in the yellow street light.  She opened her mouth and out came the piercing, hollow sound that made his senses prickle uncomfortably.   Another woman appeared.  Tall and tanned and toned.  They crept along the brick wall, edging toward the dumpster that hid the terrified man. 

“What are they?” Michael whispered.

Bell didn’t look away to answer. 
They are nymphs,
her voice sounded in his ears.

“Nymphs.  Like ‘omaniac’?”

Bell smirked at him.
Not exactly.  They use their beauty and their charm to lure men to their deaths.  Their power over mortals is profound.  Now be quiet and watch.

The man below began rocking back and forth.  He shut his eyes tight.

More women appeared around the corner.  Each as distinctly beautiful as the last.  They made swift progress down the alley, the chorus of shrill cries becoming more excited.  Together, more than a dozen women swept toward the man like a terrible wave of beauty.

He began crying.

Their features sharpened as they rounded the dumpster, their teeth descending into razor points, their nails grotesquely thick and sharp as jaguar’s claws.  They crashed into him with a terrible crescendo.  Blood sprayed up the dirty wall, a red mist settling in their hair like dew.  They tore strips of his flesh right off the bone, sinking their teeth into the raw meat that had been a man only moments ago.  Those who couldn’t reach from the front leapt over the dumpster and frantically scavenged sinew and gristle off the pavement, blood dripping from their chins.  In mere moments, there was nothing left of him.

Michael tore his eyes away from the grisly scene and looked over at Bell.  What he saw nearly made him fall over.  Bell’s pupils were dilated to a hellish degree, only the tiniest sliver of green showing around the edges.  Her perfect teeth had elongated; not just her fangs, but all of them.  Her hands on the edge of the brick border were tipped with razor claws. 

“You’re one of them.”  His voice shook.

Bell blinked, and shook herself a little, her features reversing back to their beautiful proportions.

“Yes,”
she said proudly.

“So you’re half vampire, half—?”

“I am not half anything,” she stood suddenly to tower over Michael, “I am all vampire and all nymph.  The daughter of a Nymph Maven and turned by my Father, the most powerful vampire that has ever existed.  The
first
vampire.  I am not
half
anything!”  Michael fell backwards onto his elbows.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pressing himself as low as he could against the moldy tar paper beneath him.  Bell’s eyes reflected the moonlight like two silver spotlights and her hands were balled into eager fists at her sides. “I’m very sorry,” he said again.

The silver ran from her eyes and her vicious fangs receded.  She straightened her leather jacket and offered Michael a hand up.  She glared at him for a moment before taking a deep breath and looking back over the edge of the roof.

Michael’s stomach turned at the strong smell of blood that wafted up out of the alley.  “Are they immortal?”

“Just as much as we are,” she said. 

“So this is what Joseph and Tanish were watching for?”

“Yes.  They just got into town, and we weren’t sure what they wanted.”  She looked back down into the alley and smiled. “It seems we got a clue today.”  She pointed at Michael. 

“What?  Me?”  His voice came out strangled.

“They love an innocent man,” she smirked.  “You are certainly their type.”

Michael peered into the alley.  They had all vanished, the blood spray up the brick the only sign that they had been there at all.  Michael could just hear the faint, receding sound of their cries, which had subsided into a low, satisfied rumble.

Bell headed toward the fire escape.  “So, those are your new friends,” she called behind her.

“
You’re welcome to go down and meet them if you don’t think they’re that bad,”
her voice taunted inside his head. 
“I’m sure you could still catch them.”