Vampires! A Bundle of Bloodsuckers (16 page)

Quite a nasty way to die, but a most expedient one.

He felt the adrenaline rush subside and shook his head over the quickly decomposing bodies. In most circumstances, there would be little more than ash, which would be blown down the alley to find a final resting place inside an abandoned car or an overturned dumpster. But, thanks to the wet snow, the hapless fools would end their worthless existences as piles of dark sludge, destined to adorn the tires of a garbage or delivery truck.

Not exactly what they were promised when they became vampires, he mused, but precisely what they all deserved.

A tightening in his groin brought him back to the present, and he wondered again whether someone could die from a woody. Maybe he’d find out. Leave it to him to be a night-walking pioneer.

But, impending death or not, he was going to have to confront the possibility that he had to find at least one mortal to turn. Someone he could enslave sexually. Someone who’d be always available to him. That thought made him smile, until he remembered what it had been like to be on the receiving end of such a bargain.

Annoyed by the memory, he frowned, kicked at some of the snow-covered sludge, and turned up the collar of his coat. Then he stuck his head out of the alley, and investigated the white expanse in both directions.

Where should he go? As if it mattered. Which part of the mortal cesspool was less foul than the rest? As the saying went,
nowhere to go and no time to get there
. He laughed, tossed a mental coin, and then walked toward some lights in the distance.

Time to fuck.

T
he last guitar chord echoed through the almost-empty room, as Tempest Moon leapt off the small amplifier and landed in a crouch on the stage. She faced the other band members and slashed the neck of her Fender Stratocaster guitar down abruptly, ending the song with a grand flourish. Grinning, she turned toward the audience – or where the audience would have been if anybody had come into the bar that night – and felt her grin flip upside down. Fucking snow, she thought. Their first gig in weeks and of course it had to blizzard like a motherfucker.

But what the hell? They’d get paid anyway.

She leaned into the microphone and announced to the three drunks at the bar that the band would be back for one more set in a few minutes. Her band mates headed off toward the bartender for liquid medication.

Tempest grabbed the soft rag she used to wipe off her instrument and scanned the room. The band had never gigged there before. Standard dive. Or maybe even crappier than a standard dive, since it was in one of the most dangerous parts of a scary city. But she’d been raised in this nasty, dirty place, and had gotten used to what she considered the normal sick shit of daily, urban living. She often thought that she’d had two choices: either be a musician like her parents or be a ho. While she certainly loved sex, she couldn’t stomach not being in charge of who stuck what, where.

She caught her reflection in one of the mirror tiles lining the back wall of the stage, and was glad that all the tough years hadn’t given her “the look” yet – that beaten-down, used-up look. The one her mother had. In fact, genetics had been kind, and Tempest had inherited the sweet innocent face her mom had started out with, and her dad’s lean, toned frame. She wouldn’t have minded a couple more inches in height, but she’d settle for average. Besides, there were always stiletto-heeled boots for maximum theatrical effect. She appreciated that there was nothing like a well-placed pointy toe to make a drunk or stoned asshole take a detour. The guys in the band had gotten creative with the promo material, and described her as “sleek as a panther with long, silky dark hair, big brown eyes and a couple of black belts in various martial arts, creating a potent, guitar-packing, take-no-bullshit, Motor City mama.” She chuckled as she thought of their words, and hoped the next thirty years would go down as easily as the first thirty had.

A twinge of pain drew her attention to the muscles in her neck, and she absently rubbed the sore spot. Fucking dive bars were definitely getting old. She swung her guitar away from her body and propped it against the rack by her brand new amplifier. One more hour and she could collect the band’s money, divvy it up, and split. She unplugged the PA and clicked off the stage lights with her foot.

“Hey, Tempest! I’m outta cash. Front me a couple of bucks for a beer, eh?”

Tempest turned toward the voice. The speaker was no mystery. Stan the drummer always needed a couple of bucks for a beer. He usually managed to slam his allotment of free drinks before the night was half over. She tried to put on a stern face, but it was impossible. He just looked like a big, overgrown kid with his long, blond hair and big green eyes. A combination of a jock and a surfer dude. All that drumming had given him an impressive upper body, and his lower body wasn’t too shabby, either. Too bad his emotional development had stalled at around the kid level as well, because he was one tasty morsel in the sack. She smiled, remembering their last tumble.

She reached into the pocket of her jeans and extracted a wad of singles. Peeling off a couple, she held them out to Stan. “What’s in it for me, Stan the Man?”

He showed his remarkably white teeth, jumped back up on the stage, and sauntered over, reaching around behind her to grab her butt. “Whaddya want?”

Tempest wedged one of her hands in between their bodies, cupping his expanding equipment. “Guess.”

“Beer now.” He wiggled his hips, and laughed. “Boff later.” He squeezed her buns, snatched the dollars, and executed a perfect athletic jump off the stage.

She could hear him yelling to the bartender, “Shot and a beer, Chaz!”

Tempest suspected that Stan’s gorgeous body wouldn’t survive his high-calorie alcohol binges. For that matter, she was surprised she’d been able to stay lean with all her bad habits. Then again, sex tended to burn calories, so at least she’d chosen a physically active hobby. Nobody could accuse her of being a couch potato. Unless, of course, she was using the couch for screwing. As long as she listened to her common sense, and kept a good supply of rubbers, nothing but pleasure would come from her demanding sexual appetites. Her legendary sexual appetites, she corrected, grinning. While she was having great sex, she didn’t need to think about all the messy relationship stuff. Keep things simple, that was her motto. She’d found that men were good for sex and making music. Anything else was asking for trouble.

A burst of frigid air hit Tempest as the front door opened, and she gazed at the entrance. She’d hoped a few more customers might brave the sudden ice age to show up for the last set. It sucked to play for nobody. She was disappointed to see only a solitary man step inside. He shook his hair away from his face, sent a shower of melting snow down the walls, and straightened the collar on his coat. The entryway was directly in front of her at the far end of the club, and luckily, there were a lot of overhead lights, so she got a good look at the new arrival. Even with his long, dark hair snow-covered, wet, and plastered against his shoulders, she felt her breath catch – and not from the cold air. He had to be the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Tall, with light skin and piercing eyes. She appreciated the cut of his leather duster and suspected it was high dollar. What the hell was a fancy number like him doing in a crap hole like this? Maybe he was another one of those mafia jerks. They were always showing up to extort one kind of payment or another.

Hidden in the darkness of the stage, she followed him with her eyes as he strode purposefully to the booth tucked back in the far corner. The bartender, along with every other life form in the smoky room, had gone completely still as the newcomer passed. The newcomer paused next to the booth, removed his coat, then shook it to dislodge the melting snow and ice. A smile spread across Tempest’s face as she noted the form-fitting leather pants and muscle-hugging, light-colored t-shirt he wore under the expensive coat. It didn’t take much creativity to imagine how it would feel to run her hands over that muscled expanse, but Tempest had creativity and imagination in abundance. So much, that her body stirred in satisfied anticipation of the unexpected possibility that had just magically offered itself for later that night. She would’ve been happy to bounce on Stan again, but as far as men went, new was always better than familiar. She’d learned that the best thing about her looks was being able to pick up any guy she wanted. Pitiful that males were so easily controlled, held hostage by their cocks, but it was just as well, since she so enjoyed being in charge.

She watched the handsome stranger fold himself into the booth, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chaz, the bartender, spring from behind the bar. The previously laid-back – read stoned – fellow practically fell over his own feet in his frantic attempt to reach the leather man. He hovered near the booth, wringing his hands, and nodded energetically at whatever the new customer said. Chaz finally pointed toward the pay phone near the shelves of liquor, and speed-walked in that direction, leaving the man alone.

Tempest realized she’d been holding her breath during Chaz’s strange performance. Of course, she’d only met the bartender that day, so she had no idea what his normal behaviors were. But still, the vibe he gave off around the stud muffin was unusual, almost as if he was afraid or something. She could feel the thrum of his anxiety from her observation post. No surprise, really. Most of the businesses in the inner city were mob controlled. Maybe the eye candy in the booth was high-up on the motherfucker feeding chain. She smirked. A lesser woman might take a pass on rolling around with a member of The Family, but she always enjoyed a challenge. None of the assholes had gotten the upper hand with her yet, and she felt confident she could call the shots with this yummy specimen, too.

Tempest watched the leather god for a couple more minutes, trying to guess what drink he’d ordered, but when Chaz returned to the booth, he was empty handed. Gorgeous Guy nodded at Chaz, who slinked away. The mystery man tilted his head back against the wall of the booth and closed his eyes. The movement appeared oddly vulnerable.

The commotion of the other musicians returning from their break surprised her out of her daydream. She couldn’t believe she’d been standing there in the dark for the entire fifteen minutes. She hadn’t even gone for her usual shot of tequila. It was completely out of the ordinary for her to be so intrigued by a man. Usually she just selected a likely candidate during the course of the night, and collected him at the end. Not much pre-boink lust indulgence. Something about this guy was different. Arousing. Dangerous.

Leon, the bass player, eased around her, reconnected the PA, and clicked on the bar’s cheap stage lights. As the dim colors framed her, Tempest saw the man in the booth jerk his head in her direction, predatory eyes locked on hers.

M
alveaux’s enhanced sense of smell gave him trouble when he had to spend time in disgusting places like the bar he’d slipped into. Smoke, alcohol, and the stench of human emotions prompted him to wrinkle up his nose in distaste. Of all his expanded senses, he struggled most with his need to integrate the overload of aromatic stimuli in this garbage-infested, poverty-stricken area.

He could argue with himself that spending time in this dump was better than being out in the blizzard, but he knew that really hadn’t been why he’d ducked in. Since he didn’t experience cold as humans did, being out in the winter onslaught merely caused him to be wet. An inconvenience, at worst. He’d long since stopped trying to make sense of why he didn’t choose to use his wide range of vampire abilities more often. At almost two hundred years old, the idea of transforming into fog or one of his many animal forms had lost a lot of its original appeal. He would certainly utilize the skills if the reason proved important enough, but if he could avoid it, he would. As odd as it was to admit, he always felt faintly creeped out after one of those episodes.

No, if he were truthful with himself, sometimes he came to places such as this to have the illusion of being normal. Human. To indulge in memories of a time when he wasn’t the cursed abomination he was now. Able to forget, just for a moment, his dark reality. The place was familiar to him because it was a favorite meeting place for some of his lowlife associates, but he didn’t expect company tonight. Even vermin stayed indoors during a snowstorm.

He chuckled quietly as he caught the bartender’s reaction to his arrival. His reputation was well known here, and he encouraged the mythos that had sprung up around him. The man – Chaz, if he recalled correctly – had frozen at the sight of him, and Malveaux half expected him to keel over from fear. He thought he probably shouldn’t have terrorized the fellow by mentioning an expected phone call, but sometimes he couldn’t resist manipulating the hapless humans, acting out the worst of his vampire nature. Phone calls in the mob world usually meant trouble was brewing, and forcing Chaz to stay on the alert for the imaginary call would keep him out of Malveaux’s way. The bartender just thought his sullen customer was a hit man, which was true as far as it went. But if the skinny junky knew what was really sitting in his corner booth, he’d run screaming. Malveaux had considered drinking from the bartender in the past, just because he was convenient, but the guy was so strung out on heroin that his blood was useless.

He breathed in the smell of smoke and liquor, and almost wished he could still drink his favorite whiskey. It was true that blood was a much more intoxicating substance, but old habits die hard.

At least the place was empty tonight. Not so many emotions to sense or thoughts to intercept. Fewer heartbeats to pound like drums in his ears. He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes for a few seconds to savor the silence.

The stillness was broken by a loud click, like the amplified flipping of a switch, and his eyes flew open. Soft color illuminated the interior twilight, and he swiveled his head in the direction of the noise. A gorgeous woman stood on a shabby stage at the end of the room. She radiated sex and sensuality so powerfully he felt a painful tightening in his groin. He was pleased to realize that she’d been staring at him from the darkened stage, and curious about how she’d slipped under his usually sensitive radar. He tuned into her emotions and thoughts and smiled at the potent lust flowing toward him from the exquisite female.