Black Heart: Coeur de Sade (Black Heart Series) (39 page)

            My first option was smash through the glass doors of the mall and hide within.  I figured that wouldn't do me any good. They would probably bring in dogs and hunt me down.

            The sprinklers kicked on.  In driving rain.  I shook my head, then froze.  Looking back at the nearest mall entrance, I looked the landscaping over.  It was very nicely landscaped next to that door, with those low shrubs that completely covered a wide swath of ground.  Not much light would penetrate that thick growth.

            Hurrying over, I forced my way to the middle of the shrubs, and lay down on my back beneath their blanket of green.  I closed my eyes, and willed myself to sink down.  A second later Mother Earth wrapped her soothing arms around me and I was six feet under.

CHAPTER 23

            This may sound strange, but I had the best day of my life as a vampire deep in the ground.  The sun's rays didn't bother me at all.  I slept the whole day through without waking a single time.  That was a first.  I always slept fitfully.  It occurred to me that maybe vampires were intended to spend our days deep underground, probably in our coffins in the cemetery.

            My vampiric senses said the sun was down and it was safe.  So I willed myself up, and my body rushed up through the earth.  The last foot or two was sloppy wet.  Topside under the shrubs wasn't much better.

            I lay there in the humid coolness.  A part of me said it was quite cool, maybe even jacket weather.  But my vampire body was completely comfortable.

            A girl's got to have priorities, so first thing I reached out with my vampiric senses to check on my people.  Desiree was doing well.  Very well.  She was still at Kale's house and getting it good.  Way to go Kale.  Desiree wasn't always the easiest women to please in bed for a mere mortal.  Gabe was sound asleep at his house down by Duncanville.  But Dane wasn't asleep or at Gabe's house.

           
That idiot.  Does he have a death wish?
I thought.

            Maybe he did.  I was feeling a deep sense of guilt and sadness from him.  In my mind's eyes I could see him going through Heidi's stuff and blaming himself for her death.  I killed her, in self-defense, but I wasn't sure he was entirely without fault.  He brought her into this vicious, bloody world of vampires and hunters.

            I don't know what possessed him to return to the Mesquite house.  Probably guilt and remorse.  Maybe a need for closure.  Heidi's body was missing.  Why hadn't I made Desiree tell me where?  Did I really want to see her body?

            Council probably knew where Dane lived, so it wouldn't be safe for him to stay there.  Of course, if they went after him it would be because he was a known vampire hunter.  They knew he didn't have the talisman.  Thoughts of council made me anxious.

            I destroyed the talisman to keep it away from council, so I no longer had any leverage to get my promises of safety for me, family, and friends.  Right now they were stunned by the talisman's loss.  Later that could turn into anger and vengeance.  I'd have to figure something out.

            Standing up brought a shower of rain water down upon me from the leaves of the shrubs.  I looked up at a partly cloudy sky.  My emergence brought all of the people going in and out of the mall to a stunned stop.

            "Oops," I said, placing my left hand over my pubic area and laying my forearm across my breasts.  Looking down, I realized I was slathered in dripping mud and rainwater.  "Ugh.  Disgusting."

            I morphed into a bat, flew the few feet over to the sidewalk and was a woman again.  Anyone that had any doubt of what I was knew for certain with that display.  Most of the people hurried away, some ran.  More than I thought possible stayed.  Some of them looked intrigued, a few looked at me with hungry eyes.

            "Can I help you?" a young man said.

            He was with a small group of equally young looking men and women.  Goths.  His complexion was pasty white, hair dyed black and longish.  He wore heavy eyeliner and was heavily pierced.  The Japanese language's symbol for "death" was tattooed on the left side of his neck.

            He was excited.  I could see it in his eyes, feel it in his blood.  Blood surging, heart racing, aura quivering, he took a tentative step towards me.  I raised a haughty brow at him, cocking my head to the side to look him over critically.

            "Are you hungry, Lady Vampire?" he said, rolling his head back and to the side a bit.  His hot blood called to me.  I was famished.  I was twenty-four hours since I last fed.  "It would be my pleasure to give you my life's blood."

            "’Lady Vampire?’  You watch too much vampire TV," I said.  He blushed.  My eyes narrowed.  "How old are you?"

            "Twenty-three," he said, and his body tensed and changed.

            His entire aura changed.  Blood pressure, heart rate, it all changed.  I stepped up close.

            "You're lying.  Don’t you know you can't lie to a vampire?" I said, and locked eyes with him.  He tensed, and smiled.  I think he enjoyed losing control like that.  Enjoyed being
possessed
by a vampire.  "How old are you?"

            "Eighteen," he said.

            "You've graduated from high school then, right?"

            "No," he said.  "I'm a senior."

            His friends figured out I had control of him.  They might be Goths, and fascinated by vampires in general and me in particular, but that spooked them.  The whole group was consumed with fear and started moving away, back towards the door into the mall.

            "Come see me once you have a high school diploma, and I might bite you," I said.  "Now go away.  Fast."

            He turned and ran into the mall.  His friends raced after him.

            That left three men and a woman.  All four were in their twenties.  Every one of them was bursting with horny, too.  It was enough to drive an honest vampire into a frenzy.  I kept a firm hand on the reins of my blood lust, and my libido.  It wasn't easy.

            "Anyone of you know where the local fang whores hang out?"

            One of them pointed to a dark corner, under some live oaks.  "Over there."

            There was no one there.  I smiled knowingly.  I didn't like feeding off humans, except for my fang whore.  Desiree expected it.  They were unsure, fearful, and excited.  I nodded and walked over to that indicated spot.  Three men and the woman followed.  The overhanging branches of the live oaks reduced the light to nearly nothing.

            "Only feeding," I said.  "No sex."

            One of the men left.  The guy who pointed me over there stepped up, licking his lips and all but trembling with anticipation.  I stepped up close, placing my hands on his chest and leaning my face over to his neck.  He was tall enough I had to raise up on tip toes.

            "Mmmm, you smell delicious," I whispered, nuzzling his neck as his arms enfolded me, pressing me tight against him.  His blood surged and flowed, hot and delicious under his warm skin.  My mouth watered and my base, supernatural hunger consumed me.  I looked up, locked eyes and mesmerized him.  He would enjoy it more under my power.  I could feel his penis stiffen, pressed against my left thigh.  Then opening wide, I sank my fangs deep into his throat.  "Mmmmmm."

            Human blood was so terribly good.  I feared it might be addictive.  Within seconds I had a buzz.  Slurping, I drank all I dared.  Not much.  Maybe half a pint.  He climaxed, creaming his shorts.  Then I sealed his wounds and pulled away.

            The woman was next.  She was a small woman, maybe five two and a hundred pounds.   I had the impression she was Hispanic, but had blonde hair.  Didn't matter, for within seconds my fangs were deep in her throat, sucking down mouthful after mouthful of oxygen rich blood.  She climaxed faster than the previous guy, and then climaxed again just before I finished feeding.  That one was a real fang whore.  With her small size and my fear she was a practicing fang whore, I didn't allow myself to take too much blood.  She seemed disappointed.

            "When is the last time someone fed off you?" I said.  She was mesmerized, so had to answer honestly.  "This was the first time for me."

            "Really?"  I was surprised.  I released her from my power.  "I suspect it won't be the last time."

            She swayed before me a second, staring up into my face a long second.  Yeah, she was smitten.  I think I could’ve made her my personal fang whore.

            “I hope not,” she said in the most dreamy voice, and stepped back reluctantly.

            The last man hurried over.  He slid one hand up into my hair, and the other pulled me close.  Before I knew it we were kissing.  His hand felt great in my hair.  That lasted a good minute or so before I broke free of his lips, mesmerized him, and sank my fangs into his neck.  I sucked more blood from him than the other two combined, mainly because he had me so aroused.

            "Thank you," I said, stepping back and reveling in the blood buzz.  "I have to go."

            Morphing into a bat, I headed for my bike in the park.  I had a pretty good sense of direction, so didn't expect much problem finding it.  But first I headed over to the construction site.  I found it abandoned, puddles of water all over the place.  But to my deep satisfaction all of the shafts that had steel prepared in them were filled with drying concrete.  No one was getting the Coeur de Sade back, or even figuring out which shaft it was inside.

            Heading south, I flew back to the park.  I feared I would have to find alternative transportation.  The flight back to my bike went without incident.  I wasn't expecting trouble, but I was ready for it.

            "Hello, bad boy," I said, patting my Ninja after morphing next to it.  "Momma's back."

            I walked over to where I lost my clothes.  Nothing there.  Looking around, I found my burgundy tank top first.  It was soaked and muddy from the rain.  I rung it out and tossed it across the motorcycle's seat.  After extensive searching, I found my equally wet and muddy jeans and the left shoe.  Nothing else.  Even the key to the Ninja was missing.  Desiree had the spare key.

            "Decisions," I muttered, looking northwest towards Kale's home, and then eastward towards Dane.  Kale's house offered two warm, loving people eager to help "warm me up" in bed, while Dane was in desperate need of a friend.  "No question.  Mesquite."

            Suddenly, I was all wings and fur.  Little bat Sable flying through the night sky.  I so loved flying, and hoped I'd soon have functional bat wings like Roger's.

            Soon enough I found myself flying over Mesquite, following my link to Dane straight to his house.  I flew up onto the front porch and turned back into a human.  I knocked on the door, feeling self-conscious without a stitch of clothes or any makeup.  Dane opened with a pistol in hand.

            "The big bad vampires won't knock," I said.  "May I come in?"

            He was wearing jeans, and nothing else.  Oh, I tried to keep my eyes on his face.  Not one hundred percent successful, but I tried.  He really needed a shave and shower, and his hair looked like it could use a good scrubbing, too.  I think it was the worse shape I’d ever seen him.

            "Sable?" he said.  Then his eyes slowly roamed down my naked body.  It was chilly, and my body reacted like any other woman’s body would react to being naked in those conditions.  Yep, skin tightened, boobs lifted a bit and nipples stood at attention.  "Why are you naked?"

            "I flew over as a bat."

            "Why?  It left you naked," he said.

            "I know, that's why I want to come inside," I said.

            "Oh, sure," Dane said, blushing as he placed the Glock 31 on a table next to the door.  Outwardly, he almost looked like he had it all together.  He was trying, mightily.  "Come in.  This is the house I shared...I guess you know that, right?  You were here a couple days back."

            I brushed past him.  Yeah, I brushed against him and it wasn’t entirely necessary.  He gave me plenty of room, but I so wanted to touch him.  He didn’t flinch away.

            "Yeah, not a pleasant memory," I said, glancing down at the perfectly cleaned hardwood floors.  Were they considered spit shined after I licked them clean?  Probably not, since I wasn't really sure what that meant other than being really shiny.  The floors looked good, but weren't that shiny.  "Do you have an old shirt or something I could put on?"

            "Would you like to pick out something from Heidi's closet?"

            "No!  That's gross."

            "She's dead.  You told me so," he said, just a bit miffed.  His anger was starting to rise.  "She's beyond caring."

            "I beg to differ," I said.  I glanced up, then down.  Could she have risen to Heaven?  I mean she was insanely jealous of me, and tried to kill me, but I'm a vampire.  Heaven might not care that she tried to murder me.  "She might come back and haunt me."

            "You believe in ghosts?" he said, looking at me disdainfully.

            "I thought vampires were just stories to scare children, when I was just a child," I said.

            "Ah, to be a child again.  You didn't know much more about vampires than a child when I met you," he said.  He got a faraway look for a moment.  "God, I loved you.  One minute you'd be so naive and innocent, the next sexy and sassy.  And that really bizarre, slanted way of looking at the world was very endearing."

            "Bizarre?  Slanted?" I said.  "Is that a jab at my jokes?"

            "Yeah.  You have to admit, you have a strange sense of humor," he said.  "I liked it, but it pops up at the strangest times."

            "Hey, I'm a preacher's daughter," I said, grinning.  "You know I grew up traumatized by that."

            "And yet you wanted to marry me and bring more children into that tawdry life," he said.