The Vampire's Revenge (14 page)

Twenty-four hours, Connie had said. And then she would come for me. If I was going to be double-dead by this time tomorrow, I might as well have a nice time tonight.

Olivia reached under her pink wool miniskirt and wriggled her hips. A scrap of black lace fell to the floor and she stepped out of it. She hopped onto the trunk of the ’Vette, arched her back, and drew up one leg, looking like a pinup girl in an auto calendar.

“Eat, drink, be merry, and fuck my brains out, for tomorrow we may die,” she said.

“That’s very poetic.” I sauntered toward her, undoing my belt as I went. “But somehow I don’t think that’s how it’s worded in Ecclesiastes.”

“No?” Olivia whipped off her top, leaving her wearing only a wispy pink bra and the skirt. “I never claimed to be a biblical scholar.”

I hopped along on one foot, then the other, taking off my boots. “I won’t hold it against you.” By the time I reached her I was naked.

“That’s not what I want you to hold against me anyway.” She reached down, grabbed my Johnson, and tugged me toward her open legs.

I almost said
Ask and ye shall receive,
but I didn’t want to take the Bible thing too far. If I was going to hell in less than twenty-four hours, I didn’t want to piss off God any more than I already had by willingly giving up my soul to be a bloodsucker so long ago. Who knows, maybe I could do something to get a last-minute reprieve. Anything’s possible, right?

“Whatever the lady wants,” I said. “But not right now.” I eased out of her grip and raised the little skirt. “First, while you’re on the trunk, let’s see what you’ve got under the hood.”

I stuck my head under the fabric and pressed my face between her thighs. “I love the way your engine smells.” I teased the swirly curls with my nose and worked my tongue into her opening, exploring her dewey girl petals. I could feel that she was plump with need down there, so I massaged her little hood ornament with my thumb while inserting one finger into her opening. “My thumb feels the little man in the convertible raising his head,” I teased.

“If you say I’m a quart low, I’m going to kick you,” Olivia said breathily.

“You don’t need a lube. In fact, I think you’re as ready as you’re going to get.”

“Stop talking and get to it then.”

I raised up and spread her skirt all the way back, braced myself over her, and rammed into her full length.

Olivia gave a little shout of pleasure and locked her long legs around my waist. I braced my feet against the concrete floor and leaned close, pistoning in and out of her warm wet length.

“I think you should adjust my front end while you’re at it,” she said from between gritted teeth, and captured my head between her breasts.

“Whatever you say.” I bit the front closure of her bra apart with my fangs, freeing her breasts, their nipples already standing at attention.

I lapped at her breasts, sucking first one hardened nub and then the other while she clawed at my back with her nails. She dug her high heels into my hips the way a cowboy sinks his boot heels to keep his feet in the stirrups while hanging on to a bucking bronc.

We rode each other hard enough to have bruised flesh and broken bones if we’d been human, but we weren’t. So we went at each other like the crazed, souped-up immortal predators we were, driven only by animal need. Somewhere in my lizard brain I realized this was the first time I’d ever had sex where I didn’t hold anything back. I wasn’t trying to keep from hurting a human woman, and I knew now I couldn’t hurt Olivia’s vampire powers. So if this was going to be my last time, I was going to make the most of it.

I put my hands under her buttocks and lifted her off the car, driving her body down onto mine over and over until she screamed out her release and I saw exploding orbs of light behind my eyeballs. I came in a blast of pleasure that weakened my knees almost enough to make me drop us both. I laid her back down on the car’s trunk and rested on top of her until my strength and my vision returned to normal.

“That was . . . beyond anything I ever thought possible,” Olivia said. She wriggled a little. “I can’t believe it, but I think you’re still hard. Want to go ’round again?”

“Anything that cranks your camshaft,” I said.

I woke up the next night to the feel of Reyha’s tongue lapping at one of my quickly healing wounds. I think it was a hole over my hip bone where Liv speared me with the heel of one of those crazy shoes. They didn’t call them stilettos for nothing.

I climbed out of the coffin, showered, and dressed while Reyha changed into her nightly human form. Olivia was nowhere in sight.

When Reyha was a biped again, she went to William’s desk and handed me a note. “
She
said to give you this.” My shape-shifting pal didn’t like to speak the name of the woman who had kicked her out of what she saw as her rightful place in my coffin.

Jack, forgive me for leaving without saying farewell in person. I’ve grown so fond of you, I don’t trust myself not to break down and disgrace myself. So while a note is cowardly, at least it’s dignified. I feel ashamed for leaving you alone and in danger, but I can’t deny the wisdom of what you said last night. Let this be so long and not good-bye.

All my love, Olivia.

I crumpled the note and told myself I was glad that she was gone. Now that she was out of danger from the Slayer, I only had to concentrate on keeping myself, Werm, and Mole alive. But at the same time I felt almost as bereft as I did when I considered that Connie and I would be separated forever. It felt like Olivia was the only one on earth who had a clue what it was like to be me.

I wished her well. Maybe someday the old lords would go back into hibernation and she could find happiness. Maybe even with Billy and his big tree.

I tossed the note in the wastebasket by the desk. I didn’t have time for a pity party. I needed to go and warn Werm that the Slayer was on the warpath.

The patrons of the Portal looked a little wrung out, as did the proprietor.

“You look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet,” I said to Werm as I sat down at the bar.

“I guess I had too much to drink last night,” he admitted. “Those gods can really put it away.” Werm slapped a coaster on the bar and handed me a draft.

“Please tell me you didn’t try to keep up with two Brits in the drinking department. Those people can out-drink an elephant.” I took a sip of beer and added, “An elephant who can really hold his liquor.”

“Now you tell me,” Werm said. “But I gotta say, you don’t look so hot yourself, my friend. You must have had a hard night after we left.”

“Yeah, you could say that. But listen, I’ve got some bad news.”

“Ugh,” Werm said, struggling with the top on a bottle of aspirin. We vampires are immune to almost everything, but not hangovers. “We just got rid of the double-deads. What’s happening now?”

“Dude, you’re a vampire and you can’t even open a child-proof aspirin bottle?” I asked with disgust. When Werm went at it with his teeth, I took the bottle from him and opened it myself. “Not with your
fangs.
You
need
those, and going to the dentist to get broken ones bonded before they have a chance to grow back will be hard to explain.”

I looked at what—in the vampire world—was the equivalent of my little brother, as we had the same sire. How in the hell could he protect himself if Connie killed me? That both depressed me and made what I came here to tell him even harder.

“Look, Werm, Connie came by the garage last night right after you guys left. She says now that the double-dead threat is over, it’s open season on vampires. I sent Olivia back to England for her own protection.”

“Oh, crap!” Werm said, and shook a few more aspirin out of the bottle.

“Maybe you ought to let Seth run the bar for a while. Lie low, maybe go back to crashing in your parents’ wine cellar until I get some idea of how to convince Connie that we can be useful enough to keep alive.”

Werm sighed. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think about it too long. She said she was going to give me a twenty-four-hour head start.” I looked at my watch. “And that was twenty hours ago.”

Werm and I smelled vampire and looked up in unison to see Mole, a.k.a. Velki, come through the door. The little vampire hurried up to me and said, “Jack, I hoped I’d find you here. Diana and Ulrich are about to make their move. Reedrek’s with them. You’ve got to come with me!”

“What’s happening now?” Werm said, holding his head with one hand.

“It’s just a potential nuclear disaster I’ve got to stop, that’s all. Another reason for you to go underground for a while.”

“Well, just . . . crap!” Werm moaned as Mole dragged me toward the door by my jacket sleeve.

I tried to get the details out of Mole as I drove us down to William’s dock on the river, but he didn’t seem to know any specifics. He kept insisting that if we got to a particular boat in time we could stop Diana and Ulrich from stealing the tritium. The boat in question was one of the cabin cruisers that William had equipped with a specially tinted windshield and windows so that, if he was very careful, he could walk around in the bridge during the daytime.

“They must be aiming to cruise up the river to Augusta and then go from there on land to the site in Aiken,” I said.

“Yes, I think so,” Mole said.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked.

“Plan?” Mole asked.

“Yeah, you know—an idea of how to stop them. You do know how Diana and Ulrich operate, right?”

“Um . . .”

The little guy had seemed a lot sharper the first day I met him. I guess he must have figured he’d done his bit as the tipster and the rest was up to me. I’d have to play the dual role of brain and brawn to get us out of this mess. On the other hand, it occurred to me that he could be leading me into a trap.

Considering all the angles first, before going off all half-cocked, was what William would have done. Shooting from the hip had always been my style. Maybe I was learning after all. Still, I was pretty sure that Mole had been sincere about helping us. As terrified as he was of the old lords, I couldn’t figure a reason why he would switch his allegiance again. Besides, I didn’t figure I had much choice but to go along.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to stop by William’s warehouse on the way and get some things to work with.”

“What things?” Mole wanted to know.

“Never you mind. The less you know the better. Stay in the car.”

I sneaked into William’s warehouse and unlocked the small workshop I maintained there. No one had the key to the place except William and me . . . now only me. In addition to all my other responsibilities, I had also been William’s demolition man. The workshop was packed with everything I needed to make bombs, including meticulously wrapped and preserved explosive material.

Over the years William had called on me now and then to make something go boom. The most recent time was when he asked me to blow up one of his yachts, the
Alabaster.
It had been a big and luxurious oceangoing craft that William used to import European vampires. Although an ocean voyage took a long time, it was a much safer and more comfortable way for blood drinkers to travel than by air. It was a shame we had to blow up that beautiful ship.

Explosions are useful for more than just destroying evidence, though. They’re a good way to murder multiple vampires: the fires that ensue can kill vampires if they’re hot enough and the victims have been blown into enough tiny pieces. So a nice conventional bomb seemed just the ticket for the situation at hand. I usually liked to build my incendiary devices carefully and painstakingly, but time was a luxury I didn’t have. I would have to put this one together on the fly.

I grabbed a burlap bag and began selecting the components as quickly as I could. Fuse, alternator, gag rod, detonator, battery, housing all went in the bag. Newfangled bombs are all electronic and fully programmable with no moving parts. But I’m old school.

As soon as I had what I needed I got back into the convertible with Mole and drove to the nearby dock. Mole eyed the bag with curiosity but must have instinctively known not to ask questions. I parked far enough away so that we could sneak up on the boat without making any noise. Diana and Reedrek’s scent was everywhere, along with a powerful vampire stench I didn’t recognize.
Eau de Ulrich,
no doubt.

We crouched beside a repair shed right next to the dock. The shed was tall enough to tow a sailboat underneath and repair its rigging from the rafters. From where we were I could see a slight glow from the cabin of one of the cruisers tied up nearby.

“They’re already on that boat,” Mole whispered, all six of the hairs on his head swirling in the breeze. “I saw them board.”

“How did you slip away from them, anyway? You’re supposed to be helping them, right?”

“He did help us, Jack. He brought you right where we want you.”

Oh, shit.

Ten

At the same moment I heard Reedrek’s voice from somewhere above me, a net made of chains heavy enough to tow battleships fell over me, knocking me flat. The blow would have killed a human at once. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Mole had stepped neatly away from the trap.

Three vampires jumped down from the roof of the shed. I lay on the dock, unable to move.

“Hello, child,” Reedrek said.

“Hey, Grandpa,” I said.

“You remember Diana, I’m sure. May I introduce you to your great-grandsire, Ulrich.”

I raised my head as best I could manage and looked at the tall vampire standing between Reedrek and Diana. He had a livid scar across his throat where William had almost cut his head off back in the day. The fact that he’d survived those wounds boggled my mind and proved just how freakin’ powerful he was.

I remembered what else William had told me about my great-grandsire. Ulrich went by another name in the late 1800s—Jack the Ripper. Even by vampire standards this creature was a savage. I could remember reading accounts of the murders in the newspaper at the time. It still made me ill as I thought about it.

Ulrich had longish salt-and-pepper hair and a matching beard. He was much better groomed and dressed than Reedrek, who always seemed to have some dirt clinging to him from whatever tomb he’d last slept in. Ulrich was about forty when he was made; all he needed was one of those blazers with elbow patches, and he could pass for your average college professor.