Authors: Scott Nicholson
CHAPTER
FIVE
They met Cherry and Roy at the marina just after sunset. The sodium vapor lamps hanging on strings cast
golden, wavy ribbons across the inlet. A brown pelican perched on a dock post
as if posing for a photograph. Sabrina had packed fruit, water, and a couple of
towels. She was wearing her bikini beneath a blue blouse and a knee-length
cotton skirt, figuring they’d go for a swim at some point, and she’d slipped
into some bright turquoise crocs for comfort.
Luke had wanted to play a little purple
submarine with her before leaving the cottage, but she’d reluctantly postponed
him to tell him about Cap’n Barney’s warning.
Now, as they boarded Luke’s
30-foot pleasure cruiser, she was regretting not taking the submarine voyage.
But she suppressed her yearning long enough to be a polite hostess to Cherry
and Roy.
“I told you this would be
awesome,” Cherry said to Roy, who was wearing sunglasses and seemed a little
sullen.
“I gotta boat,” Roy said. He was
chewing on a toothpick and spoke out one side of his mouth. His hair was dark
and curly, not moving much in the sea breeze, and he had one of those strong
chins that looked like it could take a punch or two. He was good-looking if you
liked that sort of thing.
Cherry, apparently, did.
“What kind of boat do you have?”
Luke said, releasing the tether line.
“Big one.”
Only a small man worried about
size so much
, Sabrina thought.
Luke took the throttle and they
eased away from the marina. Jewels of blue-green and orange light dotted the
masts of the docked ships, and a few fishing boats and trawlers headed for the
warehouses around the point, toward the rougher side of town that always
smelled of shrimp heads.
Roy dug a beer from the cooler and
motioned it toward Luke. When Luke shook his head in refusal, Roy smirked and
popped the tab. After a moment, Sabrina realized he wasn’t going to offer one
to her or Cherry. It was, apparently, a man thing.
Sabrina watched Cherry watching Roy. Cherry had a shawl over her shoulders, hair blowing in the wind. Her bikini was snug
around her firm figure, which jiggled in the right places as the boat bounced
over the waves. As cute as she was, she could do way better than Roy.
But maybe it didn’t matter what
you could have. You cared more about what you
couldn’t
have.
After all, Sabrina was the one
sexing up a vampire. Assuming they were both immortal, they could give “happily
ever after” a whole new meaning. But did the relationship have any future? She
was in as much denial as any geeky high-school freshman crushing on the star
quarterback.
Cap’n Barney had been right about
the moon. It laid a fat, rippling stream of silver over the sound. Sabrina
didn’t feel like shouting over the engine, so she relaxed and watched the flux
of the tide. Roy downed his second beer, Cherry grinned foolishly at him, and
Luke maintained his typical serious surveillance while piloting. Soon land
appeared, a thin, dark line that grew larger as they approached.
Luke eased the boat toward a
small, weed-choked cove, cutting the engine as he coasted the bow into the mud.
“Get that anchor, Roy?” Luke said, as a question instead of a command.
“Aye-aye, sir,” Roy answered with
an irritated sneer. Roy handed Cherry his beer and played out the coil of rope
with the anchor attached.
“You can tie it off to the cleat.”
Luke deliberately left out the “please.”
Roy wound the slack around the
metal cleat as if it were Luke’s neck.
“Is this the right island?”
Sabrina asked, more to break the tension than in doubt of Luke’s navigational
skills.
“Portsmouth, like you wanted.”
Luke slipped over the side and
into the waist-deep water. “Hand me the food and stuff and I’ll ferry it to
shore.”
The beach was sandy and wide,
alabaster in the moonlight. Far up the beach, a campfire twinkled.
“I thought Portsmouth Island was abandoned,” Cherry said.
“Nobody lives here,” Luke
answered, churning through the tide with the cooler. “It’s part of the Cape
Lookout National Seashore. But people stay overnight, and sometimes a park
ranger stays on duty in the old village. Lots of kayakers use it, and you can
camp overnight.”
“I wish we’d brought tents,”
Cherry said, to which Roy replied, “Too many skeeters out here. The little
bloodsuckers would carry you off in your sleep.”
Sabrina had to chuckle.
Maybe
you should be more worried about the BIG bloodsuckers.
“How’s the water?” Sabrina asked
as Luke deposited the cooler in the sand and churned back toward the boat.
“Warm enough for a swim,” he said,
reaching his hand to the rail to help Cherry overboard.
Roy lurched forward, causing the
boat to rock and nearly tipping Sabrina over the side. He grabbed Cherry before
she could make contact with Luke’s hand. Roy’s glare was made even more
threatening by the steep shadows on his face. “I can handle my own woman,” he
said.
Luke stepped back and held up his
palms. “Suit yourself.”
Sabrina glanced up at the sky and
the bruised ribs of clouds.
Okay, God, is Roy the one you sent me out here
to find? I mean, there’s a reason for everything, right?
God didn’t answer. Perhaps it was
nap time, or maybe another of those tests. God was big on tests. For all the
talk about honesty and faith, God never took anyone’s word for it. Believing
wasn’t enough. You had to prove it.
Perhaps that was why churches were
filled with so many hung-over hypocrites on Sunday mornings.
Roy removed his windbreaker,
shrugging his shoulders so that his abs rippled. The guy was a jerk, but he
could probably crush a beer can between his pecs. He didn’t have a
weightlifter’s bulk, but he’d put in some time at the gym. Cherry involuntarily
licked her lips.
Roy stepped up on the starboard
rail and balanced a moment, enjoying the attention. Sabrina thought for a
moment he was going to flex, preen, and then high dive headfirst into the muddy
bottom. She imagined his legs kicking in the air as he fought for freedom.
Assuming he didn’t hit a rock. In which case, the rock would probably lose.
Instead, Roy leapt toward shore,
spanning about 10 yards and splashing down in ankle-deep water.
Jeez, that’s got to be some
sort of world record. He must be the world’s most athletic real-estate
salesman.
Cherry jumped up and applauded.
“Cool!”
“State long-jump champ three years
in a row,” Roy responded, wading onto the beach toward the cooler.
“You forgot your woman,” Luke
called after him. Roy waved away the comment without bothering to turn around.
Sabrina climbed over the side and
into Luke’s arms. She could have walked on water, or sprouted wings and taken
off, but she figured prudence was the better part of valor, or something like
that. Not only would it have been showing off, she couldn’t be sure whether Roy knew that she was an angel. The Gog were just smart enough to act dumb. And if that
was indeed the case, Roy was the perfect specimen of their kind.
Besides, letting Luke carry her
was a lot more fun. He almost slipped once and she came close to tumbling into
the surf, but she couldn’t be sure whether he was fooling or not. His face
stayed grim and firm in the moonlight. After Luke set her on the sand, she
joined Roy around the cooler to wait. He already had a half-finished beer in
his hand.
“Have you ever been to the Outer
Banks?” she asked, once Luke was out of earshot. Although, with his keen
hearing, she could never be fully certain how far that was.
“I told you, I have a boat.” Roy’s eyes were dark and cold in the night.
“Lots of people never leave the
sound. They just chug around out there in the deep part. And, if you don’t mind
me saying, you don’t look like an oyster shucker.”
He took that as a compliment, the
way he took everything—all hail Glory Boy Roy. “I work the barrier islands,” he
said. “From Kitty Hawk to Fort Macon.”
“Cherry said you sold real
estate.”
“And Cherry’s dumb enough to fall
for it.” He spoke with a vulpine tone of conspiracy.
“Wait a sec. She’s my friend. You
know I’ll have to tell her you’re a big fat liar, right?”
Roy grinned and his teeth were
gleaming perfection. “She seems lonely. You don’t want to spoil her best shot
at Mr. Right, do you?”
Sabrina glanced back at the boat,
where Cherry was handing Luke the last of the beach gear. “Okay, Roy, let’s keep it between you and me. What’s so important that you have to lie to that
sweet little woman in the boat?”
“I’m watching out for bad guys.”
He drained his beer, crumpled the can, and threw it onto the sand.
“What, like, drug runners? Are you
with the Coast Guard, too?”
He lowered his voice, even though
the surf was louder now. “Undercover.”
“Federal?”
He shrugged, causing his muscles
to ripple. “Let’s just say I’m with a watchdog agency.”
Sabrina cast an inadvertent glance
toward heaven.
God, I know you’re a practical joker, but you wouldn’t have
sent another angel on the case without telling me, right? I told you I could
handle this.
“Luke says the Coast Guard is cracking
down,” she said. “You ought to talk to him about that.”
“Yeah, except it’s the Coast Guard
I’m watching.” Roy bent into the cooler for another beer.
Luke carried the bundle of gear
toward them, holding it high so it wouldn’t get wet. Cherry called from the
boat. “Don’t start the party without me!”
“You
are
the party,” Roy shouted back, lifting his beer can high and whooping.
Luke crossed the beach and tossed
down the bundle, rolling his eyes. Sabrina wondered how much he knew about Roy. Sure, she was the one to arrange the double date, but now it seemed mighty
coincidental that Roy was watching Luke and she was watching Roy. And nobody
was watching Cherry.
“Guess I better go put my hands on
your woman,” Luke said to Roy. “Unless you’ve gotten over your fear of sharks.”
“Go ahead,” Roy said. “I’m in the
mood for a swap, anyway. Me and Sabrina are hitting it off pretty good.”
Luke closed the twenty feet
between them so fast that even a half-blind sailor would have known he was a
vampire.
But Roy didn’t even flinch. When
Luke was in his face, nearly snarling, Roy smiled. “Kidding, bro’.” He turned
to Sabrina. “Your man’s wound tighter than a winch strap.”
“He doesn’t belong to me,” she
said, observing the couple’s agreement that they were not really a couple. Not
in the “forever” sense.
At least, not yet. Give her time.
“Cherry’s looking a little left
out, Roy,” Luke said. “I think you’d better help her to shore, Roy.”
The repetition of Roy’s name was a sign that Luke was heating up a little. His fangs grew a perceptible
amount, but Sabrina doubted Roy noticed. Which maybe meant he wasn’t as much of
a watchdog as he proclaimed.
Roy tossed his newest empty on the
beach, flexed and hunched as if lifting weights, and unleashed a huge belch.
“Okay, Cherry baby, hang on, the killer whale of love is closing in for the
kill.”
Roy ran full speed into the water,
kicking up sand and spray, and then he paddled his way to the boat, where a
rapt Cherry stood waiting. She giggled as she let herself fall into his arms.
“He’s as cuddly as the Creature
from the Black Lagoon,” Luke said.
“What do you know about him?”
“That he lied about having a boat.
Any landlubber knows a rolling half hitch.”
“He told me he works the Outer
Banks.”
“Well, he does it with a
helicopter, then, because Roy Boy doesn’t know a jib from a jab. Does Cherry
know he’s full of crap?”
Sabrina watched Cherry kick her
heels in glee as Roy tickled her. “I don’t think she cares at this point.”
“Well, I suppose we all have
something to hide,” Luke said, opening the bundle and spreading out the food,
towels, and flashlights. His cell phone was among the clutter.
“I thought we were isolating,”
Sabrina said.
“I’m always on call,” he said.
“You know that.”
“Except during the day.”
His pupils flashed red. “Sunshine
is for losers.”
“For somebody afraid of
commitment, you sure are dedicated to your duty,” Sabrina said, trying not to
sound jealous.
“I’m not afraid of commitment.”
“I never expected ‘’til death do
we part,’ but I wouldn’t mind ‘Wanna go steady?’”
Before they could get into a
serious conversation, Roy and Cherry joined them. Roy celebrated the trip by
digging into the beer cooler. “We’re going to take a walk,” Roy said. “Want to
join us?”
Cherry squinted at Sabrina and
gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
Right. Some alone time. I’m
thinking the same thing, hon.
But it was Luke who spoke for the
two of them. “We’re walking down to the village. The Coasties asked me to check
it out since they cut the park ranger’s hours.”
Roy stood straight, or as straight
as he could, considering his intoxication, and snapped off a salute. “Duty
calls, eh?”
“Keep your eyes peeled for
suspicious activity,” Luke said, looking at Cherry.
Roy winked at Sabrina but she
pretended not to notice.
CHAPTER
SIX
Luke switched off the flashlight
as soon as they were out of sight of Roy and Cherry. Being more or less
immortal and possessing supernatural powers, they could see in the dark. And
Luke was the practical sort.
“You never know when you might
need some juice,” he said.
She took his hand. “I got some
juice for you.”
“I meant the batteries.”
She shrugged. “I’ve still got some
juice for you.”
“Didn’t bring any toys, did you?”
“That would be embarrassing. What
if we got stopped by Customs and searched? Old Battery Operated Boyfriend would
have drawn a smirk from Roy.”
She was secretly pleased that,
although Luke was quite virile and more than satisfactory in the sack—and even
the coffin—he wasn’t threatened by her occasional indulgence in a vibrator. The
buzz reminded her of floating on a cloud in a turbulent sky. And vibrators made
no moral judgments.
“I don’t see what Cherry sees in
him,” Luke said. “Seems like a flaming asshole.”
“Humans are only 5,000 years off
the tundra. Biological imperative dies hard.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing
him
die hard.”
“Huh huh,” Sabrina said, in her
best bad Arnie Schwarzenegger voice, which was as bad as her Bruce Willis.
“Terminator make a funny.”
The village was a scattering of
old houses from the 1940s and ’50’s, walled with weathered gray planks. They
cast a peculiar gleam in the moonlight, as if they might shimmer and fade into
the past at any moment. A one-room schoolhouse sat empty beside a swampy inlet,
and the highest point was the belfry of the old Methodist church. Most of the
houses leaned a little leeward, weary from withstanding the many decades of
high winds.
It felt like an abandoned movie
set to Sabrina, and she supposed maybe it was. People had once acted out their
lives here. She wondered what God thought of these people who had given up the
island after a few centuries of settlement.
“None of your business,” God said.
Luke glanced at the sky. “Weird.
Doesn’t look like storm clouds but I could have sworn I heard thunder.”
They walked down the sandy rut that
passed for Main Street and came to a squat but solid shack that had a National
Park Service sign above the door. Luke turned over a chunk of bleached coral
near the steps and came away with a key.
“So much for Homeland Security,”
Sabrina said.
Luke unlocked the door and
switched on the flashlight, sweeping it around the interior of the office.
“Ah,” he said, crossing to a footlocker. He pulled out a blanket and tossed it
to Sabrina.
He checked the locks on a couple
of strongboxes, made sure the emergency generator had fuel, and led Sabrina
from the office, locking the door and returning the key to its hiding place.
“So, the Graveyard of the Atlantic,” he said, flashing his smile and extending his arm. “Care to take a walk.”
“Can’t ever get enough of graveyards,”
she said as they navigated the scrubs and sea oats toward the
thrush
of
churning surf.
“I used to be stationed here.”
“Wait. I thought this place was
abandoned in the 1950s.”
“Before that, silly. I’ve been
around.”
“Oh, yeah. The undead thing. How
could I forget?”
How
could
she forget? Here
she was, strolling hand in hand, just like any young lady on a romantic evening
at beach. And in her wishful thinking, she’d allowed herself to be swept in the
romantic fantasy and forget that Luke was a blood-sucking, evil murderer of
innocents.
Well, he
was
cute.
But she also had a mission here,
Luke or no Luke. The Gog could be landing already, for all she knew, and here
she was distracted by a schoolgirl crush.
They crested the stippled dunes,
and then the stretch of alabaster beach lay before them, the black water
roiling in determination. The sea breeze tugged at Sabrina’s blouse, puffing it
up and tickling her belly. Luke leaned into the wind and squinted as fine sand
blew into his face. He pulled her over the dune onto the flat edge of the tide,
and the breeze fell to a whisper.
“Out there,” he said, unfurling
the blanket and spreading it just beyond the water’s reach.
“What?” Sabrina said.
“They always come from out there.”
Sabrina imagined great tentacled
beasts rising from the inky depths, leviathans with legs, Biblical creatures
drawn from visions of the maddest prophets.
“I don’t see anything,” she said
hopefully. She had assumed the Gog and Magog were more or less human, but why
couldn’t evil take any form it chose?
Luke sprawled on the blanket and
lay back, staring up at the dim scattering of stars. She wondered what he saw,
and what it meant. She went to him, kneeling, staring into the moist and
mesmerizing glint of his eyes.
“What do you believe in?” she
asked.
He gripped her wrist and pulled
her atop him. “You.”
She wrestled to get free, but only
half-heartedly. He was fairly warm for a dead guy. “I mean, what do you think
happens to your soul?”
“If I ever find it again, maybe I
will ask it.”
“It doesn’t seem fair that you
have to be stuck on this Earth without a soul.”
“Hey. You’re dead, too. Maybe
you’re a slightly higher grade of ‘dead’ than I am, but that’s sort of like
being the second-best kickboxer in Belgium.”
She wriggled atop him until their
bodies aligned in that comfortable, familiar position, his heat intensified,
and she felt the immoral cravings stir inside her. God’s sense of humor—giving
her passion along with her wings.
“My soul’s already spoken for,”
she whispered above the surf.
“Cool. Saves me having to pretend
we’re soul mates.”
She swatted him on shoulder.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure I won’t have to worry about breaking up with you in
heaven. Because you won’t be there.”
“Score!” he said, grinning and
flashing those dead-sexy fangs.
Then he grew still and serious,
and she could feel his long, slow heartbeat against her bosom.
Buh-dump
…eight
seconds…
buh-dump
…eight seconds…
He was turned on, or his heart
would be beating once a minute. She lowered her face and pressed her lips
against his, nuzzling, teasing. His breath was sweet with something dark and
corrupt, but she loved him for what he was, what he must be. God’s love was
unconditional, so Sabrina accepted it as a universal excuse to love a vampire.
Or at least make out with one.
Their kiss intensified, and she
slid her tongue into his mouth, enjoying the weird thrill of brushing her
tongue against his fangs. He retaliated, probing, running his fingers through
her wind-tossed hair. She writhed against his body, feeling him swell, and then
one of his hands brushed aside her blouse and slid inside her bikini top,
finding her breasts.
He alternately stroked her skin
and fluttered gently with his fingers. Her nipples tingled under his silken
touch as the nerves came to life. It was one of the side effects of her angelic
condition, something she’d never experienced as a mortal. Her nipples were like
electrical conduits plugged into the entire crazy sky, surf, heaven, and earth.
“Luke,” she whispered, as his
fangs grazed her neck. He’d never fed on her, not beyond a nip, because that
would have been the darkest sacrilege, but just the threat caused her to
moisten and squirm.
Sabrina, you really need to get
over this bad-boy trip.
She wasn’t sure whether the words
were her thoughts or a whispered decree of God, but she was listening to
neither at the moment. All she could heed was the yearning deep in her belly as
she wrestled Luke’s shirt open and fumbled with the zipper of his jeans.
“Watch the sand,” Luke said, as he
rolled her onto her side.
“I thought you liked it rough,”
she said.
“Not
that
rough.”
He peeled away her blouse and
shucked her bikini top, and the moonlight cast an alabaster sheen across her
breasts.
The sky was wild with tossed
clouds, corrugated rags of gray, violet, and silver twisted by the wind. The
moon leered down and imbued the beach with a soft, erotic glow, and the
whitecaps sparkled and whispered “Do it, do it, do it.”
A love this profane is still
better than no love at all
.
And then she was beyond caring,
focused on their motion as they rocked as if they were riding the high waves.
“I love you,” he whispered, but it might have been the splashing sea fooling
her ears.
Yes. Definitely the sea. He’d
never say that.
Their limbs entwined, and the wave
crested, pushing them toward the sky, where the universe flashed, expanded, and
collapsed.
She fell limp against him, ear to
his chest, and they lay quietly. He stroked his hair, gazing past her to the
stars. Sabrina counted the slowing of his heartbeat as he returned to his usual
undead self. When he was back to eight beats a minute, she said, “You said you
loved me.”
“Huh?”
“When we were rocking and rolling
there, you said you loved me.”
“Huh.” He said it like he was
already thinking about something else. If he were human, it would probably be a
beer, a cigarette, or the Green Bay Packers. With Luke, it might have been the
many people he’d murdered over the decades.
“So?” Sabrina murmured.
“So what?”
“Do you?”
He tensed, although his
diminishing hardness was still lodged inside her in a melted sea of combined
heat. “We don’t go there. You know that.”
She tapped him lightly on the
chest. “I’m a woman. I’m always going to go there.”
“You’re an angel. You only get one
love, and that’s way bigger than me.”
“Love isn’t that small and cheap.
If there’s one thing I learned by coming back from the dead, it’s that love is
the reason for it all. In everything.”
“What, did you meet John Lennon in
heaven or something? The place he told us not to imagine?”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“Listen. We have a good thing
here. But we both know it can’t last.”
“Talking like a sailor. Girl in
every port, ship’s leaving the dock, two ships passing in the night, blah blah
blah.”
“This isn’t about you.” He
continued stroking her hair, although his fingers weren’t as gentle as before.
“That’s what every man says when
he dumps you. So what else could it be about?”
“You deserve better.”
“That’s the other crappy line they
give. Heard it before, Luke.”
“This is different.”
She eased back until she could
look down into his dark, glistening eyes. The moon and sky were reflected in
his red pupils, like two miniature heavens that blocked out all hymns and harps
and angels. “So how is it different?”
“You know I’ve been here for two
centuries, right? And I’m not here today because God wanted me to get saved by
Sabrina Vickers.”
“You talk of destiny like it’s
something you make instead of something that happens.”
He rolled her beside him on the
blanket, causing them to part. Emptiness and longing surged through her belly
and joined the complex tidal waves of sensations. The physical and emotional
tides made for ever-changing weather. That hadn’t stopped when she’d become an
angel.
Luke sat up and gazed out at the
purple horizon where the ocean and sky melded into eternity. “I’ll tell you why
we can’t be together. You know I was in the United States Life Saving Service.”
“Yeah. The early form of the Coast
Guard. Always a hero, huh?”
“Right. A real American hero. And
do you know why I did it?”
“To save lives. Because I know you
have a real heart in there. You have a soul. That’s the reason I’m here.”
“Let me tell you a story, and then
you tell me if I could possibly have a soul.”
She shivered, all heat from their
passion now carried away like skirling sand. Her voice fell. “Okay.”