Blood of Gold (23 page)

It was probably the last time she would have such a generous thought. She walked out into the alley and stopped cold. There was a young man on top of Kate, his pants around his ankles, while two others cheered him on.

She dispatched the onlookers without a thought. A sharp claw penetrated the first one’s back, puncturing his heart. She tore out the second one’s throat, and he gurgled, spouted blood and fell over on top of the first guy.

The man on top of Kate was so engrossed in his act that he didn’t even notice what had happened to his two friends. Now that it was quiet, Patty could hear his grunts. She walked up to him, stopping where he would see her when he opened his eyes. “Having fun?” she said coldly.

The man froze. He looked up at her, his face white. “She wanted it,” he said. “She asked for it. She was desp-” He coughed, and blood came out of his mouth instead of words.

Kate had her fangs fastened onto his throat. There was a loud snap as she bit into his neck. She sat up and pushed the body away. The young man’s corpse flopped off the table, bounced off the bench and landed on top of his two friends.

“In a way, he was right,” Kate said. “I
was
asking for it. I wanted to see what he’d do if I acted helpless.”

“I thought it was all right if they were ‘just horny,’” Patty said scathingly.

“Horny is one thing,” Kate said. “But you at least have to ask a girl nicely first. Buy her a drink or something.”

Patty snorted. “If you say that makes it all OK, I’ll believe you. Personally, I find these guys disgusting.” She searched the first corpse’s pockets, then the second one’s, and found some car keys. She pressed the button and a pickup beeped on the edge of the parking lot.

“Stay here,” she said. “I’ll drive the truck as close as I can.”

They loaded the bodies into the back of the pickup and made it back to the house right before dawn broke.

After feeding, they decided to take turns having a shower. Patty went first, washing away the blood that seemed to cover every inch of her body. She came out and grabbed a towel. Kate was sitting on the edge of the tub.

Patty was startled. She didn’t think anyone could sneak up on her unnoticed anymore. But then, she’d never had a vampire try it. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said. For some reason, she was self-conscious about her nudity. She knew she had a nice body, when she wasn’t covering it up in frumpy clothing. Her face was pretty plain, especially without makeup, but when she was relaxed, she had a kind of soft beauty.

Kate was still covered with blood. She stood up and took off her clothes. They landed on the tile floor with a wet splat. She was petite, with tiny breasts and a narrow waist. Patty tried not to stare.

“I won’t be able to get the blood off my lower back,” Kate said as she stepped into the shower. “You mind helping me?”

Patty hesitated. It was getting harder and harder to conceal her interest in the younger girl. Standing next to her in a hot shower, rubbing her hands all over her body, it would be impossible to hide her desire.

As it turned out, Kate didn’t want her to hide it. As soon as Patty touched her, she moaned, turned around and put her arms around Patty’s neck.

Patty made love––not just had sex, but truly made love––that night for the first time in her life.

#

“I want you to know: I still like boys,” Kate said as they lay in bed afterward. “Horny boys.”

“You can have them,” Patty said sleepily.

For the next two nights, the same thing happened. Kate acted helpless and appeared to pass out someplace where men could find her. She’d suddenly recover if they acted helpful, which happened a few times. But more often, the man, or one of the men if it was a group, would look around furtively, then start to unbutton her blouse. Sometimes they stopped there, and then Patty let them live, because she knew that they fell, just barely, under the strange, seemingly arbitrary “only horny” standard Kate professed to follow.

If they dared try to go farther, Patty would kill them, usually by breaking their necks so as not to waste any blood. Then the girls would load them into the back of the pickup and drive them back to the house. They’d feed, then hurry into the shower and then to bed.

Patty felt alive for the first time in her life.
Now that I’m technically dead,
she thought,
I feel alive.
She laughed at the irony.

After several days, the house was really beginning to stink.

“We either have to bury the remains or leave,” Kate said, wrinkling her little button nose.

“Easier to leave,” Patty said. “Unless you want to stay. I mean, it’s your home, right?”

“I don’t have any fond memories here,” Kate said. “I loved my parents. They didn’t deserve to die; but to be honest, they were cold and pushy, and pretty self-absorbed. I spent my childhood at private schools because they didn’t want me around. And my half brother… well, you met my half brother.”

Patty was sitting on the couch with Kate lying against her. She felt so content; then she had a vision of Simone’s no-nonsense expression and Laura’s typical perplexed look. She stiffened.

“What’s wrong?” Kate asked, sitting up.

“I forgot,” Patty muttered. “How could I have forgotten?”

“What did you forget?”

“I haven’t told you anything about myself,” Patty said. “I wasn’t just an ordinary girl when I got Turned.”

“I noticed that,” Kate said, laughing.

“I don’t mean
that,
” Patty said. She told Kate about how she had spent the last ten years of her life.

When she finished, Kate was staring at her, her face pale. Then she flung herself into Patty’s arms, seeming to want to get as close as possible, to touch every inch of her. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Patty. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Patty shook her head. “I really did forget, almost. It was as if once I was Turned, nothing that happened before really mattered. And what little mattered, I wanted to forget. Then I met you, and all I wanted to think about was you. But now… I think maybe I should have kept looking for Laura. She was so helpless. And Simone didn’t deserve to be left in the lurch like that.”

“We’ll drive over there tonight,” Kate said. “I know exactly which house you’re talking about.”

“Thank you, Kate,” Patty said, relieved that her friend was going to take care of things.

“I’d like to meet Simone,” Kate said. “She sounds like a pretty cool person.”

Patty felt a moment of wild jealously, which she immediately shook off. She’d seen how Simone and Rod were circling each other. In fact, that was one of the reasons she’d volunteered to go search for Laura, because she figured they needed time alone. Unless she missed her guess, those two had been all over each other the minute she’d left the house.

“Meanwhile, come to bed, dear girl,” Kate said softly, as if she could read Patty’s mind and see the jealousy there. “I think I understand now why you don’t care for horny boys.”

#

Sergeant Butler got the call late in the afternoon. It was still bright out, or he wouldn’t have responded. He’d taken to ignoring any emergencies after dark. Too dangerous. He’d seen how fast the vampires were when they were in their element and how invisible they could become.

He figured he could handle one more call for the day. He was feeling good. He was starting to get rich. He had plenty of “fuck you” money, as long as he was careful. He figured if the department asked too much of him or it got too risky, he could always quit.

The call was to a house he’d been called to many times before. Lee Awbrey was always complaining about his neighbors, though more often than not, he was the one at fault.
Routine call, another hour of overtime,
Butler thought.

He almost missed the body lying by the side of the road. It was in a shallow ditch and had fallen into shadow. From the size of the body, he guessed it was Awbrey, who was a big man.

Butler kept driving until he reached Awbrey’s house at the end of the lane. He stopped the car and thought about it.

Turn around and go back?
he wondered.
Pretend I didn’t see the body by the side of the road?

There were houses all along the road, and the neighbors had probably seen him pass by. Might be hard to explain that away. He looked up at the faltering light of day. Unfortunately, it looked like he’d have to see this through.

Butler pulled his gun as soon as he got out of the cruiser. He started walking toward the body, then changed his mind and went back to the car. He opened the trunk and pulled out his crossbow.
Way out here in the boonies, this is most likely a vampire incident
, he thought
.

He loaded the crossbow. He’d bought it on recommendation of the FBI agents who’d been in town until a few days ago. They’d pretty much ignored him, but he’d swallowed his pride and followed them around like a puppy, trying to pick up vampire hunter tips. The knowledge had served him well once he’d started on his own bounty hunting expeditions.

He approached the body carefully. It looked uneaten, which was unusual. Either the victims of vampires were Turned with a bite, or they were killed. When they were killed, they were usually consumed.

He was about ten feet away when the body twitched. That’s all the warning he had; then the big vampire was on his feet and charging.

Butler fired when Awbrey was only inches away, and the bolt went straight into his heart and kept going until it protruded most of the way out of his back, catching only on the bolt’s last bit of fletching.

The vampire was still moving. A crossbow bolt to the heart would eventually kill him, but beheading him would be safer. It was getting dark. Butler sighed and trudged back to the cruiser to fetch his axe. By the time he got back to the body, there was another vehicle parked in the driveway.

Two girls were getting out. He nearly called out to them, but at the last minute, something in the way they were moving stopped him. He was starting to be able to recognize vampires from the smallest of indications.
Probably why I’m still alive
, he thought.
Because once night descends, anyone you meet could be a vampire
.

He’d left the crossbow behind when he retrieved the axe. He hesitated. All he had was his sidearm. Would it be enough? Against two vampires? A shot to the head would stop them temporarily.

The girls were talking loudly, as if they didn’t have a care in the world. They weren’t even looking around. He decided to try to sneak up on them.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” the smaller, younger-looking of the two said. There was just enough light to see her face, and Butler thought she looked familiar. A cheerleader at the local high school, he decided. He never missed a high school football game.

The other girl was unfamiliar, but she jogged a memory. What was it that the vampire who paid rewards had said? “The oldest one, about twenty-six, is tall and skinny, kind of plain, with mousy brown hair.”

This girl wasn’t exactly skinny; in fact, now that he was examining her closely, he could see that she had a nice body, but she fit the description in every other way.

“Can’t tell if anyone’s home just because the lights aren’t on,” the taller girl was saying. “Simone was being pretty careful.”

They knocked, and after a few moments, they opened the door and went inside.

Butler ran to the side of house and poked his head up until he could see through one of the windows. He could hear them talking.

“Where do you suppose they went?”

“They could be anywhere,” the taller girl said. She sounded depressed, which surprised Butler. He’d never really talked to a vampire, or even overheard them much. He’d always assumed they were heartless, soulless killers. It had never occurred to him that they would have everyday conversations.

These two girls seemed almost normal. They were also exceedingly nonchalant, considering their situation. Weren’t they aware that the region was swarming with vampire hunters, all looking for a bounty?

He remembered what the FBI agents had said about newly Turned vampires. “Baby vampires,” they were called, and without the guidance of a Maker, these vampires were often naïve and trusting.

The girls met up again in the living room after searching the house, and Butler saw them hold hands.

“What do we do now?”

The younger girl hugged her friend. “Don’t worry, Patty. We’ll find them. I have an idea, actually. When I was first Turned, before my brother and his friends caught me and tied me to the bed, I heard a rumor about a safe haven for new vampires at an old abandoned motel near the beach. We could go there. We’d at least be safe for the time being.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel safe here,” Patty said. “Something has happened. Something bad.”

Butler could barely restrain his excitement. He’d hit the mother lode. For days, he’d heard rumors about a local hideaway where all the surviving vampires were supposed to be congregating. He hadn’t really believed it, because it was too good to be true. He knew exactly which motel they were talking about. It surprised him that he hadn’t thought of it earlier. Now the only question was, did he call the authorities and collect on the bounties, or did he call the strange vampire who was willing to pay him for information about three girls?

Why not both?
he thought.

As the vampire girls got in their pickup and drove away, Butler pulled out his phone and started dialing.

#

Patty and Kate made it to the motel in about five minutes. It looked deserted. They could see a glimmer of light over the coastal mountains. Whether there were any other vampires here or not, they needed shelter.

Patty knocked on the door. “If there’s anyone there, we’d rather not be standing here when the sun comes out,” she called.

The door opened and a grimy hand reached out and pulled her roughly into the room.

Chapter 22

“I heard you were dead,” the supervisor said. “Or shit-canned, or some such bullshit.”