Vamp-Hire (2 page)

Nick removed his hand and stepped away.

“I can’t do this,” he said, looking at the
floor. “I’m sorry.”

“You have to,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

He figured a lie at his expense was better
than the horrifying truth.

“It’s the medication they have me on,” he
said. “My blood, it’s… not good for what you want.” Nick figured
speaking about the official reason was here was best.

“You can’t give it?” she began. “Or
won’t?”

“It’s not like that. You’re a pretty
girl—woman. Very pretty.” He said it regardless of knowing if that
were true. “If I met you on the street and I was healthy, I’d
probably try and talk to you.”

That he didn’t know to be true. Since his
release, he hadn’t felt desire on any level until a moment ago. He
could still feel the heat of her, even with several feet of space
between them, and felt like… like grabbing her and… and he didn’t
know what. That was the scariest part of all. Something inside him
knew how to complete that sentence. Something else Nick hadn’t even
known existed wanted something more.

Despite his condition and what society
thought of people like him, Nick still considered himself to be
human. He had been human all his life right up until he had slipped
into that coma. Having a virus coursing through his body didn’t
change how he thought of himself any more than someone who had AIDS
or cancer would have. He had a condition and he was just as
determined as anyone else with a condition to manage it.

“I have to leave.” He turned for the
door.

“Please, don’t go,” Nancy said, suddenly at
his arm. Had she moved that fast or had Nick just been that
entranced by the warm red stuff coursing through her?

Nick shook his head and pushed her away as
gently as he could. He made for the door.

“My husband will kill you.”

That stopped him cold.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She settled back onto the bed, sitting with
her knees slightly parted. It was mildly suggestive and tugged at
the hungry thing inside of Nick.

“My husband,” she said as if that explained
everything. She let her hands drape between her legs, bowing the
perfect plane her dress made at her lap. “He’ll be home soon and
when he gets here, he’ll kill you.”

“You planned this?”

“I did. My Fenton wanted to try something
new. Something dangerous. He wanted to see me, y’know… with someone
else. And Fenton, ever since the Conflict, he’s been wanting to
kill someone. He never got the chance because he couldn’t enlist.
He passed all the physicals, but the doctors said he wasn’t
mentally sound. So you might as well enjoy the time we have
left.”

“Hell no,” Nick said and walked out. She
stepped behind him, following quickly.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Because you’re a
vampire you can’t die by traditional means.” Nick was running down
the stairs now and Nancy was in hot pursuit. “I’ve done all the
research. WebMD, Wikipedia. Please, I’ll double your fee.”

“No,” he said, turning and seizing her by the
shoulders. Nick was angry and at least for now that emotion trumped
any others. “No. If someone kills me, I die. Just like you.”

“You can withstand more physical damage than
a human and Fenton—”

“Just. Like. You.” Nick said, grabbing her by
the shoulders and giving her a shake with each word.

Her head slumped. “Fenton’s gonna be so
mad.”

“I can’t help you with that.”

She touched him in a plaintive gesture,
everything about her pleading. Whatever he was feeling before had
been chased away by revulsion. He had a strong urge to push back
her hair and see her face fully. Something in him wanted to know
who this person was and a name wasn’t enough. He needed to look
into her eyes to know her in a much more basic sense. Something she
had said was sticking with him aside from the part about murder. He
realized it an instant later, looking at her again and he did sweep
her hair away from her face, parting the long black hair like
curtains. She flinched.

She had large, dark eyes, a point of a nose
that angled upward, and full lips to the point of looking
swollen.

Nancy couldn’t have been more than twenty.
How had her husband been in the Conflict? She couldn’t have been
more than ten.

He wanted to ask, then headlights flashed
through the front windows as a truck turned into the driveway. Nick
swore, not wanting to run out the front door and right into
Fenton’s waiting arms. He turned to Nancy. “Where’s your back
door?”

“You changed your mind?”

“How the hell do I get out of here?”

She was sitting on the stairs, her face
cupped in her petite hands. Damn, that was odd how her hair had
enveloped her face again. She pointed to her left.

He jogged around a corner as his
preternatural ears picked up the sound of the truck door slamming.
To Nick’s left was a small kitchen. Immediately in front of him was
a nook area, suspiciously bare, to his right an empty family room
with a fireplace and a doorwall directly in ahead of him. The front
door opened as he was sliding it open.

He ran.

It was a shallow backyard that terminated in
an embankment with a fence atop it. Nick realized how out of shape
he was, his taxed muscles slower to respond than he would have
liked as reached the end of the yard and hauled himself over. He
tumbled to the ground, a jagged rock or mound of dirt poking him in
the back.

Nick ignored the pain when a geyser of dust
exploded in his face as he rose. The report of a gunshot came a
millisecond later and he propelled himself in the opposite
direction, tumbling over something hard and moored into the
earth.

He scrambled to his knees, felt another shot
whizz overhead. There was something rectangular just ahead of him
with a rounded top and he circled around it. He came to another
one, then another, all in a row before realizing he was in a
cemetery.

Contrary to the stereotype that his kind
liked hanging out in graveyards, Nick was actually deathly afraid
of them and that dated back well before the world had turned upside
down. He almost stood to run again when another shot punched the
headstone in front of him, spraying cement dust into his eyes and
mouth.

Nick grasped blindly, trying to blink a
thousand burning specks out of his eyes. There was another shot
that struck something much farther away and then a woman’s scream,
lasting what seemed like fifteen seconds or more.

He had to get out of here. Even with the moon
now behind heavy clouds, Nick knew it was only a matter of time
before Fenton found him if he stayed put. Plus, there were dead
people right underneath him.

The earth-smell all around him clogged his
lungs. It was all he could do to force himself not to cough as his
mind scrambled for what to do. He couldn’t stay put and he couldn’t
stand. His only choice was to crawl blind until Fenton killed him.
Nick wondered if it would help to tell him he hadn’t slept with his
wife or if that would be even more reason to blow his brains
out.

Another shot never came. Nick thought Fenton
might have been following him along his haphazard crawl, poised and
waiting to plunge a knife in him. The knife never fell.

Finally, Nick rested against a headstone that
felt as though it had been cut in half. The earth beneath him felt
warm despite the chill air, as if someone had been sitting there
right before him. It was comforting, at least enough to take the
edge off the urge to run screaming until he was shot or he impaled
himself in some phallic grave marker.

He couldn’t mark the time; it felt like hours
as he sat there with only the reeping of crickets to keep him
company.

Gradually, his vision returned. He kept
wiping little bits of rock from his eyes. Everything looked a
little foggy, which might have been the result of his panic making
him believe he’d partially blinded himself.

He wiped his face, wet with equal parts
tears, sweat, and snot. He looked around and spotted a streetlight
on the other side of a black wrought-iron fence. Out was somewhere
over there. Nick made his way over on hands and knees, only daring
to stand once he’d touched the fence, almost afraid it was an
optical illusion. He followed the fence until he came to an opening
and walked out onto the sidewalk. He took comfort in knowing that
if Fenton murdered him now it would be one stranger killing another
as opposed to him killing the man who had intended to sleep with
his wife.

Thankfully, the idea he could be killed any
moment faded with each yard he put between himself and that house
until a new fear arose: curfew. It was after ten and no one without
a permit or who was not an emergency worker was supposed to be out.
If he were arrested that would cause all kinds of complications he
didn’t need.

From his limited time at the Pens he knew
there was a lot that would go on before someone like him was given
the benefit of the doubt. The only reason he had his freedom right
now was for lack of room. They couldn’t exactly put a tether on
him, not legally, but they sure as hell wouldn’t hesitate to make
room if he didn’t fit in outside.

Nick was thankful he hadn’t taken off his
jacket and pulled his hood over his head as he crossed at an
intersection. He walked quickly, not daring to run unless he saw a
car or truck heading in his direction. It was strange to see the
streets so empty. This was a major city and what he could remember
of his time before, it had always been alive, no matter the hour.
Now it felt like he’d stepped out of one graveyard and into
another.

It took several miles and more than a couple
of dashes into dark alleys or otherwise obscured areas before he
finally made it home. He’d seen two sets of yellow eyes in one
alleyway and figured them to be wolves. There had been several
sightings and though they were reported to not be a danger to
humans, he wasn’t interested in petting one. Phoebe still hadn’t
given him a key, so Nick had his own way in and out. Besides, he
slept in the basement and she was deathly afraid of it at night, so
she’d never know.

He removed the board covering the tiny
rectangular window and got on his belly, shimmying his way in legs
first. There was a shelf pushed up against the wall and he felt for
it with the tips of his shoes before going halfway through. Nick
ducked his head in and replaced the pane of glass, using a fresh
strip of duct tape to secure it. To anyone outside who might have
passed by, if someone were so inclined, it would look no different
than any of the other windows.

He started when he saw Randy sitting on the
floor in the dark. The child was odd and he had an affinity for
Nick, which in itself was odd. He woke up at all hours of the night
and many times Nick had heard him tramping around, sneaking in that
non-quiet way unique to young children. Most times Phoebe had
awakened and shuffled him back to bed. When she hadn’t, he would
come downstairs and either wake Nick up so they could play together
or find Nick already awake and they’d do something.

They didn’t always play. Sometimes, they
talked. Well, Randy didn’t really talk. Nick had never heard him
string more than two words together at any given time. That was
fine; Nick tended to use him as a sounding board for whatever was
on his mind and Randy was a really good listener.

She’d never caught them because Nick had
never made the mistake of letting him stay in the basement with
him. After an hour or so of whatever it was they’d been doing, he
would simply look at the boy and tell him to go to bed. Randy would
never complain. He would simply put down whatever he’d been holding
and pad back upstairs and to his room where Nick hoped the boy
slept, but could never be sure.

It took a moment for his eyes to focus in on
what Randy was doing. He was sitting next to a checkerboard, lining
the pieces up on either side. Despite only being three, he was
smarter than most people Nick tended to meet. He was still learning
the rules and Randy never got frustrated. If he did something
wrong, he listened while Nick explained it to him and more often
than not, got it right every time after.

They’d played only once before a few days
ago, when Nick had thought of the game as a good means to tucker
the boy out. Now he wanted to play again.

Randy only glanced up at him as he came over,
finishing with the pieces. Nick was a little worried that now he
knew about his secret entrance. Then again, Randy wasn’t verbose;
it was doubtful he would tell. At most, he would maybe innocently
point to the window. Phoebe would never come down here anyway and
wouldn’t allow Randy to. Nick’s secret was still as good as
kept.

Nick didn’t bother saying hello. He turned on
the lamp in the corner and sat down across from Randy.

“You go first,” he said. Randy looked up at
him, then back down, the dark brown pools of his eyes not seeming
to hold any recognition in them. He wondered sometimes what the boy
thought of him. Why he liked being around Nick so much was a
mystery. He didn’t like to dwell on it too much. He thought if he
figured that out, Randy might not come around anymore and despite
being almost eight times the boy’s age, Nick did enjoy his
company.

Nick won the first game easily, though Randy
had already significantly closed the gap. He hadn’t had mercy on
the boy the first time out and it wasn’t even an option in the
second game. Nick lost four pieces before collecting Randy’s last
and on the third game they’d stalemated.

They were resetting for a fourth when they
heard movement upstairs. Nick and Randy turned their heads to the
ceiling, listening. A second later came the telltale creak of a
stair and the jig was up.

“Go, go,” Nick said, patting Randy on the
arm. The boy stood up and quickly headed to the basement steps.
Phoebe called to her son. From the close sound of it the basement
door must have been open.