Night Rider (3 page)

“Not to worry. I'll find it,” said Nicholas, as he stepped forward, placing his helmet on the front desk. Barry gave the thing a bitter glare, resentful that the biker had so carelessly intruded on his space.

Eve leaned up to Nicholas' ear, as they walked past the front and under the main stairs and whispered, “The biographies are upstairs, in the nonfiction section.”

Nicholas smirked. “Yes, but the history section is here.”

The further they went, the darker their surroundings became. The bookcases reached high, and the smell of old paper saturated the air. Eve wrapped her hand around Nicholas' waist out of instinct. The odor and silence was almost oppressive.

“Clearview Public Library...established 1899,” said Nicholas, as he read the caption under the black and white picture framed against the wall. “Ahh,” he said under his breath and reached for a section of books almost completely covered in darkness.

His fingers traced along the spines, while his lips moved in silence.

Eve's eyes widened. “You can read that!?”

“I can
feel
that.”

“Like braille?”

He did not answer, his search was so intent. Finally, a long smiled spread across his refined face. “
Das Leben und die Geschichte von Edmund Baiker
,” he said in a voice and accent that did not seem to belong to the man Eve had grown to lust for over the day.

He fit his fingers around the book's jutting edge and pulled. Dust and soot spiraled onto the floor while he hefted the thing in his palm.

“Like I was supposed to find that.”
Wait how did he know where to go?
She eyed his feature's a little more, taking in his alabaster complexion, radiant with vitality unlike so many pale youth. Her blood quickened at how his blue eyes seemed to flicker with inner light, focused and intent on the book before him.
Is he? No...they're not real.

“In another life, another time, perhaps,” he said and eyed her with an almost pained look.

He set the book down on a nearby table. Her eyes drifted to his pale and elegant fingers. “You know...you never told me about Jim Morton and the chase,” she said, eyeing his high cheekbones and sleek jawline.
Just because he's gorgeous doesn't mean anything. I mean I've never seen him in daylight. Barry neither. And no one's going to call him a vampire.

“No, I didn't,” he said with a hint of irritation. The book peeled open reluctantly, like the lid off of a tomb. His eyes scanned the old German text with a strange fervor, flicking to and fro, page to page.
What do they call that? Active reading? Power reading?

“Well...aren't you gonna tell me?”

“Tonight is for another secret!” he snapped and then flipped the book to the very end. Eve flinched at his outburst and felt genuine fear close around her nerves.
Jesus!

He traced his finger down a vast family tree. Eve watched the names near the very top that written in florid Germanic text slowly transfer to plainer cursive. The names became more Anglicized the lower his finger went. “To see whatever happened to the blood of the greatest hunter of my kind...”

Eve kept her voice soft, lest she raise his ire again. “Your kind?”

“The damned,” said a new voice.

Eve and Nicholas spun around. Four men and a woman occupied the narrow pathway. Behind them, she saw Barry slumped over in his chair, blood streaming down his mouth.
Oh god.

“Step aside, Eve. I'm sure Mr. Verner doesn't want history to repeat itself.”
He's not a professor and they're...really, really not philosophy students. Jesus Christ.
“He has a habit of making the lives of those close to him worthless.”

Eve stayed still, paralyzed with indecision.

Nicholas' steadied her with a hand over her shoulder. “So does my helmet, apparently,” he said, nodding to Barry's corpse.

“He was always going to be a problem,” said one man, unsheathing a long stake from underneath his sleeve.

Nicholas snorted. “Get in the way, did he? Sitting in his chair like that?”

The gray haired leader spoke, “Just shut up. Piece of shit.” With lightning speed, he unholstered a gleaming sidearm from under his shoulder. “Eve. If you don't move I will paint those books red with your blood.” His voice was dead and chilling. He accentuated his point by cocking the trigger.

Tears of confusion and fright streamed down Eve's cheeks. “
Who
are you people!?”

The woman from the back spoke up. “Please move, Ms. Baker. We're the good guys. This man killed your great-grandfather and countless others.”
What?
She blinked the stinging droplets from her eyes and looked upon Nicholas' stoic face, his eyes bright and burning with rage. “The only reason he hasn't come for you before now is because we protected you with wards to block your scent.”

The leader steadied his gun on Nicholas' head. “And when we took it off...you came sniffing like clockwork.”

Nicholas looked to Eve, his eyes dark with hatred.
“Eve, your ancestor murdered his own daughter and then did god knows what to her sister!” Then, he looked back to the death squad, as his fingernails elongated into silvery talons. He continued, “Death was too generous for what he stole from me...”

“Funny,” said the gray haired professor, “we thought the same.” A muzzle flash erupted from the end of his gun and smashed into the hollow of Nicholas' throat, creating a spray of dark red.

Nicholas still stood defiant and gasping, his wound a smoking hole. His healing was stymied by whatever was in the bullet. He narrowed his eyes at the man, as he said, “But I'm not dying tonight.”

“That's one vote,” cracked the woman in the back, her blonde hair backlit by the scant light.

Nicholas launched forward in a blur, tearing out the leader's throat in a spray of red. In return, the two closest men stabbed him with stakes. One through his thigh, the other through his shoulder. Steam issued from the wounds, as Nicholas caved in their heads.

Eve screamed and crouched into a corner, drawing the old book close as protection. The two remaining hunters drew down the narrow pathway, pulling guns as the red ruins of their comrades toppled to the ground.

Nicholas had taken on the aspect of nightmare and death itself, an incensed whirlwind of shadow that covered the ground as quickly as a light might illuminate the darkness. Their bullets passed straight through him, ripping up the books behind and causing Eve's skin to ripple with goosebumps. A short scream from the last man of the group was cut short when Nicholas' claws blurred over his face.

The woman of the group held up her shaking gun, her cheeks wet with teardrops. Her desperate eyes were fixed on Nicholas' looming form, too consumed with fear to notice the streams of blood that dripped from his fingers.

“Is this how you thought it would end, woman?” said Nicholas, his voice deep yet distant, as if echoing from some hollow place. “That five could take
me
?” He clenched his darkened claws together into fists, his breath like a chill wind. “Not enough. Not nearly enough.”

In a blink, his hands wrapped around the woman's throat and raised her off the ground.

“Please!” she gasped.

“Please what?”

“Mercy!” Her eyes watered more and her flesh turned reddish purple.

“Only as much as you gave me.”

With a jerk of his wrist, her neck snapped. Eve saw her body go limp.
He really is
a force of nature. Jesus.
Nicholas shrank down to normal size before her eyes and then leaned against a bookshelf, his red wounds running against the wood.

And then it all hit Eve at once. “That...that was you...last night,” she said under her breath. Nicholas inclined his ear to the side and then turned around.

“Don't act so surprised, Eve.” His breath was labored, and he walked with a staggered step. “Your instincts knew full well who I was the entire time. You should listen to them more.”

“Who were those people!?”

Nicholas gave a quick glance to the strewn corpses and simply said, “Dead.”

Eve continued looking at their bodies, all their faces caught in expressions of eternal agony and fright.
He killed them so quickly.
Eve had never seen a dead person in her life, much less five murders. Nicholas saw the shock still evident on her face.

To help her further understand, Nicholas explained a little more, “Order of Solomon. Edmund founded a chapter here with his own band of crazies when he came from Bavaria. They killed more mortals than not. They weren't good people.”

“Are you a good person?”

“Good enough.” He extended her his hand. “Come.” She took it and hugged him, eyeing all the bodies down the path and Barry's bloodied form. He turned her around and stepped over the leader of the hunters, his boot avoiding his blood pool. “This is going to be the biggest news story in town for years. You won't want to be around when it hits.”

No kidding. I can see the headlines now. 'Library in the Red'. 'Bloodbath in the Books'. Do they even do headlines like that anymore?
She held his book tight as they stepped over splotches of blood. “Where are we going?”

His hand drifted down to hers and held tight. “Into the shadows.”

He grinned and then held her close against his black jacket. He grabbed her by the back of her head and kissed her deeply, forcing her soft body against him. She melted into his huge, masculine form. His powerful arms and chest were like an unyielding shield against the chill night winds...

***

She and Nicholas floated through shadows, her naked warm flesh against his cool, hard body. This time she was ready for him. This time she knew that no matter how much it fooled her senses, this was no dream.

Here, Nicholas was not a shadow, but a pale demigod brought to life. His chiseled musculature clashed against her soft curves. She looked into his eyes. They shimmered like azure mirages, brimming with the stuff of dark immortality.

Her delicate hands swept down his sturdy thighs and fell around his hard length. The rest of his body was cool, but his weighty manhood radiated heat. She moaned as she felt its sheer power emanate through her hands.
This is a weapon...

Nicholas nudged her down against something soft. She could not tell what in this surreal realm. His face came down to hers, and he grabbed her by her hair, forcing her lips against his. Their kisses had more bite and fire than their first night. The thrill of evading death kept their passions high.

Her tongue twirled with his. Her hands pulled his head in closer, sucking on his lips. She was desperate to satisfy her deepest yearning: to have him inside her. She sighed as she felt his heavy member drag against her lower belly, near her pubic mound, seething with arousal.
Arousal for me.

Her cheeks stretched into a delirious smile.
He's going to take me,
she thought. She felt his fangs poke against her soft lips.
Fully.
His lips came to her throat when his manhood moved to her slit. His kisses were light against her supple neck, teasing her with what was to come.

Her body went rigid to the sensation of his hard flesh piercing her folds. She sighed and fell back into softness, as the throbbing tool pushed in. Her soaked pussy ensured the smoothness of his thrust. She gasped to his fingers palming her full breasts, rubbing her nipples, and stimulating her soft flesh.

He penetrated her with an aggressiveness that was unlike his civilized exterior. Her moans rang out like a tolled bell with each thrust. Pleasure and power throbbed between their legs. The two exchanged the current of passion with each grunt, slide, and push.