Circus Wolf (20 page)

She whirled and faced him. His piercing, calculating
eyes glowed with an inner fiery evil, as though he were the Devil himself.

“Why couldn’t you let destiny takes its course?” he
said in a low, chilling tone. His fangs glinted in the lantern light. “If you
and your muscle-bound assistant hadn’t dug around and stuck your noses in my
business, no one would have ever suspected a star aerialist of being a thief
and a pleasure monger.”

A swift surge of anger swept over her. “The words
you’re skirting around are ‘vampire and violent serial killer’. Does your
attempt to dress up the words mean even
you
can’t face what you are?”

His slow sneer revealed he enjoyed making her
squirm. “It’s not that simplistic. I view my seduction of women as giving
pleasure. It is unfortunate they have to die. But you must appreciate they die
happy. As will you…”

She closed her eyes and struggled again to morph.
Somehow he must be blocking the process.
Damn
him. The most insidious characteristic of a vampire is his ability to hypnotize
his victims and create a telepathic bond. I won’t let his transfixing gaze
capture my soul. I won’t give my full cooperation and surrender freely and
fully to this fiend’s formidable dark, hellish gift.
She pressed her lids
tighter together.
I won’t. I won’t.
Please, God, help me.

Skully slapped her face. “Look at me!”

Of their own accord, her eyes flew open.

 
Skully
smiled, revealing glinting dagger-teeth of both animal and devil.

Tigra rubbed her stinging cheek. “What are you going
to do with me?”

He shoved her forward again and nudged her to move
faster with the tip of the knife. “My future plans for you aren’t
yet
pertinent. We were talking about
your interference. Until you started meddling, I wasn’t ever really under
serious suspicion. The police were too busy watching Hugh and checking on his
brother to show more than a cursory interest in me.”

She ached to turn around and face the wily demon
again.
I have to distract him.
“What’s all the stealing about? You make good money as an aerialist, yet
apparently you’ve been stealing valuables in every town we hit? How much money
does one man need?”

“I don’t know about one man, but two vampires who
wish to live like royalty and plan to live many more lifetimes, the amount
required will be gargantuan.”

Hearing him admit what she already knew continued to
stun her while the
new information
sent additional waves of terror through her.
“There are
two
of you?” She
trembled at the thought.

“There
will be
two before sun up.”

Saints
preserve me. Did he have a cohort in crime? Was he nearby? How will I find the
strength and wisdom to fight two monsters?

I have to
keep him talking.
She glanced back
and noticed his skin had turned
halblar
, death blue
or
ha’foir
, corpse blue. She took shallow breaths,
trying not to inhale the unmistakable reek of decay. How had he concealed the
evil part of himself for so many years? Probably the same way she hid her
duality—remaining an enigma required privacy, secrecy, and security. “Are we
almost to Madam Mystic?”
Lord, let her
still be alive.

He laughed hollowly. “Oh yes, I almost forgot about
her. She’s just ahead. Let’s go put her out of her misery,” he said in a
deceptively merciful tone.

****

Hugh paced in front of Tigra’s dark caravan, her
words repeating in his mind. “
If it’s not
too late, I could come by your place
.” But over an hour and a half had
passed and she hadn’t shown up and she wasn’t home. She hadn’t said where she
was
going,
only that she was meeting Madam Mystic. But
Madam Mystic’s place was dark as well. His neck prickled. He sensed trouble.
Jerry, one of the
little men
clowns
waddled by holding hands with a monkey. He’d never seen Jerry without the
monkey. “Thanks for replacing the ball cock on my toilet,” Jerry said.

“Anytime.
It’s part of my
roustabout duties.” He let out a gust of air. “You haven’t seen Tigra, have
you?”

“Matter of fact, I have. About an hour ago, after my card
game with the guys, I saw her unlock the fun house and slip inside. It was sort
of weird; the place is closed for the night.”

“An hour ago?
She could be hurt
inside.
Thanks, Jerry,” he said over
his shoulder.

“She’s probably all right,” Jerry called. “I saw Skully go
into the place about fifteen minutes before she did.”

Hugh froze in his tracks.

“I heard the motors come on,” Jerry said. “They’re probably
checking the equipment for Lester.”

Hugh knew Lester ran the fun house. Calling Tigra or Skully
didn’t make sense. If the equipment wasn’t working right, why hadn’t they
called him or one of the other roustabouts? Tigra ran the office so there was
the outside chance she was needed to order equipment, but Skully was an
aerialist, not a handyman.
And what about her meeting with
Madam Mystic?
Besides, after the kiss Skully planted on her, Hugh didn’t
want him anywhere near Tigra. “Thanks, Jerry.” Hugh took off running, heading
for the fun house.

It took only seconds to pick the outdated lock. Edgy, he
slipped inside the ghoul house and called Tigra’s name. His panicky voice
echoed back at him. Crazed and running out of control, he searched the place.
His heart almost stopped beating when he spied the metal stake on the floor by
the slide of terror. She was definitely in trouble. And he didn’t know where
she was.

He shoved the stake into his tool belt,
sat down on the slide steps, and put his head into his hands.
Okay, Skully wouldn’t take her to his
caravan. The most logical place was one of the caves.
But
which one?
His gut wrenched
and his mind exploded with an emotion so crushing, so devastating, it was
beyond anything he’d ever felt before.
Dear
God, let her still be alive.

****

Struggling to stay calm and reliable, Hugh
re-locked the Fun House entry door. Then panic gripped him again and he ran
through the darkened arcade like a madman, his stomach in knots. Leaping
turnstiles, he left the circus grounds and headed for the hills. He’d been
right about Tigra from the beginning. She was all heart and her concern for
Madam Mystic had thrust her into the hands of a blood-thirsty vampire. Hugh ran
faster. He’d been a fool not to let her know he loved her more than he’d ever
loved anyone. Without Tigra, he’d be a shell of a man going through the
motions, with no zest for life. He had to save her from a monstrous death. And
ironically, saving her would save him.

 
He entered the
wooded shadowy silence, moving swiftly through the soft muted colors of the
night until he reached foliage thick and tangled enough to conceal him while he
morphed. Once he shifted, he moved deeper into the shadows. The moon reflected
on an aluminum gum wrapper. The trampled and crushed moss it rested on
indicated more than one person had recently passed this way.
Please, Lord, don’t let me run into any
hunters or someone from animal control.

An owl flew up, wildly flapping its wings as it deserted a
twisted mesquite. He jumped.
Damn my drum
tight nerves!
His fortifying breath drew in smells of earth, vegetation,
and rotting wood. He’d hoped to pick up Tigra’s feral scent and Skully’s musty
scent. By the stake he’d found in the fun house he was positive Skully was the
vampire.

With his lungs almost bursting with angst, he
squinted into the shadowy darkness, aware of every fluttering leaf, every
bowing limb. He hadn’t gone far when he caught the mingled scents of tiger and
mustiness. His already pounding heart quickened its pace and his nerves grew
tauter by the second. Instinct and the moaning wind pushed him ahead faster. Light
patches of fog floated in vaporous layers about the tree trunks. Ahead were two
huge granite boulders and beyond that the series of caves.

Hugh locked in on the
blended scents and followed them into the
shadowy
mouth of the dark and menacing cave just ahead.
Was there was more than
one entrance? The fact Skully was still free indicated, as a vampire, he had a
well-honed survival instinct and probably a foolproof escape route. Right now,
that didn’t matter as much as getting Tigra away from him.

 
Edging
forward more slowly now, he merged with the shadowy, dank darkness. With his
keen eyesight, he followed the tunnel, keeping close to the stony wall. He
froze at the sound of Tigra’s and Skully’s voices ahead and spied the dim glint
of a lantern.

Chapter
Twenty-One

Tigra desperately wanted to run, but she had to wait
and try to save Madam Mystic…if she was still alive. The lantern Skully carried
stirred the eerie, demon-like shadows of the cave into a hellish hurricane of
turmoil. Finally, as they rounded the bend in the tunnel she spied the mystic,
nude, shivering, gagged, and trussed up like a turkey. “What have you done to
her?”

Skully smirked, his eyes tracking Tigra’s every movement,
revealing his raw predatory tendencies.
“Nothing much, yet.”
His fangs glinted. “But now that you’re here, we can start the party. As I’m
sure you’re aware, there is a strong sexual aspect of vampirism. Biting someone
is a very intimate act. Compounded by the removal of blood in a commingling of
fluids, it is reminiscent of the sexual act itself. Doesn’t that titillating
thought make your thighs tingle?” He winked at her. “The three of us are going
to have a very good time. When I arouse you ladies, your blood will pump hotter
which adds to the erotic allure and my enjoyment.”

Madam Mystic, her eyes wild and her face swollen,
made a muffled sound of protest.

With all the guts Tigra could muster, she stepped
forward, removed her thigh-length cardigan sweater and covered the trembling
fortune teller’s nudity.

“Very compassionate,” Skully said, sliding his
hungry gaze over her black lacy bra and firmly contained breasts.

“Let us go, Skully. Doing sexual acts against one’s
will is an inexcusable deviancy.”

“So? That’s what I’m about—taking pleasure whether
offered or not. And
a taking
against
one’s will is part of the fun and challenge. Unfortunately, sexual arousal
generally kills the victim. But in the end, no one complains.”

“That’s because they’re dead.” She wanted to add
you
ass
, but thought it wise to skip the
name calling.

“Ah, but their last breath
is taken in ecstasy.”

“Says
you.
Their body spasms are no
doubt from great pain.”

He met her gaze with
glowing red eyes. “Why do you persist in hashing out this bitingly dark subject
when we could be having a wild time?”

His Hungarian accent, although somewhat charismatic
and erotic, grated on her nerves. She gave him a sidelong glance, feeling
disgust clear to her toes. “How can you do such hell-spawn atrocities to
innocent women?”

“Lust for the flesh, desire for a savage revenge, a
lust for power, and the determination to spill blood of enemies and those who
try to stop me.” His smirk revealed dagger-like glinting ivory. “And that
includes you, my love.”
To give us any
chance at all to live through this, I have to keep him talking.
“Were you
ever a religious man in any of your lifetimes?”

“If I were, it would be blood under the bridge, my
dear. Why do you ask?”

“If possible, I’d like to
touch your humanity.”
Tigra fought to hold her voice
steady. “
Deuteronomy 12:23 reads something like this:
To save your everlasting soul, be sure you
do not eat the flesh or drink the blood
.”

“The wording is not exact, my dear. But I comprehend
where you’re going with it. However, your attempt at inducing guilt is futile.”
He shook his head. “You are such an innocent, using infantile nonsense against
me. Don’t you get it? I am an opponent of your deity and I use blood as revenge
against God and mortality.”

Damn the
soulless heathen!
His answer tore
at her sensibilities, and she felt her nerves jerk, her body trembling, and
herself morphing. She fell to the stony floor and helplessly convulsed and
writhed out of control. It was as though she were spinning through space,
rotating and spiraling first in one direction, then another. She felt Skully’s
stunned gaze on her and met his wide eyes as the muscles throughout her body
began to throb, followed by agonizing pain. Sweat trickled down her back. She
raked her fingers through a wild, thickening tiger-orange mane. Her eyes pooled
with tears as the attacks of pain came in waves, each surge sharper than the
last. A howl ripped itself from her throat.

Skully laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned. I’ve captured
myself a tiger woman.”

Feral hatred charged through her. She gave a low
growl, bared her teeth, and rose slowly to a crouched position. Then she leapt
on him; blood-red dagger-claws bared and dug into icy flesh. She wanted to
reduce him to dust and draw the nothingness that once had been a soul from him.