Dead Roses for a Blue Lady (10 page)

On closer inspection, it was easy for a trained eye to spot the flaws in the ogress' disguise.

Her fingernails were unnaturally long and curled inward, with elaborate tribal totems etched into them. She was one of the crested variety, as opposed to the tuskers, which explained the elaborate bouffant, which served as camouflage for her peaked skull. Her skin was coarsely grained, more like the leather of a well-oiled catcher's mitt than human flesh. She gave off a raw, animal scent. Her teeth were small and sharp—and there were too many of them, which accounted for her clipped manner of speaking.

"Tiffany," she said, lowering her voice so it no longer sounded like a table saw cutting through sheet metal. "What's been keeping you, child?"

Tiffany glanced in my direction before answering. "The wheel on the cart came off again, and this lady was helping me fix it."

"I'll take over from here, if you don't mind," Fiona said brusquely. She took a step forward, extending her hand towards Tiffany. "Come along, dear. Your dinner's getting cold."

Tiffany frowned, clearly baffled by Fiona's behavior. The presence of strangers had never been enough to keep her stepmother's wrath at bay before. She looked at me again, her brow furrowed.

"No problem," I said, keeping my voice as even as I could. "I'll be more than happy to help push the cart the rest of the way."

Fiona's eyes clicked back and forth, trapped. She was unprepared to face a vampire, yet we both knew she would not relinquish the child.

"Hey, mama—s'up?"

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) The ogre who came to Fiona's aide was young—probably no more than nine or ten years old—but he was already the size of a fifteen year-old boy, with a jutting jaw, beetling brow, wide nostrils and jagged teeth. His shoulders were heavily muscled, with long arms and oversized hands. His legs were bandy and his feet wide, although his build was hidden, for the most part, by ultra-baggy hip-hop pants and shirt and a multi-colored stocking cap pulled low over his thick brow. He was odd looking, but still capable of passing for human in public. Judging from the size of his feet and the width of his shoulders, I expected him to be at least seven feet tall, possibly taller, by the time he reached his full growth at age sixteen.

"No, Garth," Fiona said, patting her offspring's shoulder. "There's no trouble.
Now."

"Come along home, Tiffany, dear," Fiona said, displaying a fearsome set of shark-like teeth as she smiled for my benefit. She knew I would not risk a confrontation with two ogres. I had no choice but to relinquish my grip on the cart. "We mustn't keep your daddy waiting."

There was nothing I could do but stand and watch as Fiona and her hulking son escorted Tiffany towards an apartment building on the corner, like wolves ushering a lamb to the slaughter. For appearances sake, Fiona was actually pushing the heavily laden cart instead of Tiffany.

I knew the ogres would be watching me to see what I would do next, so I turned and headed up the street without looking back. Once I had safely rounded the corner, I broke into a run towards the street behind Tiffany's building. I entered the cramped lobby of the tenement that stood back-to-back with the apartment building the ogres had entered and pushed all the intercom buttons until I was rewarded with a buzz. I ignored the dingy elevator, taking the crooked stairs three at a time. I made the roof in less than ninety seconds.

I quickly learned Tiffany's building had a courtyard, which put at least thirty feet between her rooftop and the one I was on. I moved to the far end and made for the opposite ledge at a dead run. One moment I was bound by gravity, the next I was flying through the air, my nostrils filled with the pungent reek of rotting garbage rising from five stories down.

I hit the rooftop, rolling with the fall like a paratrooper, and came up on my feet. I quickly brushed myself off and trotted to the fire escape at the rear of the building. I eased myself onto the metal stairs, careful to avoid the potted plants and hibachis illegally stowed on the landings by various tenants. I had learned a long time ago how not to be seen, but I had yet to learn how not to be heard. I had to be careful not to alert not only my prey, but their neighbors as well.

It didn't take me long to figure out which apartment was Tiffany's. The reek of cooped-up ogre coming from their third story window was strong enough to cut through the stench from the rotting garbage below. Careful to remain in shadow, I peeked in through the window.

My first impression was that the room was full of jellyfish. Then I realized what I had thought were tendrils drifting from the ceiling were actually scores of yellowed, insect-encrusted fly-paper strips. The room looked to be the kitchen as well as the living room. It was also the bathroom, judging from the tub next to the decrepit stove.

Tiffany's father sat at the filthy Formica dinette table near the window. He was dressed in a dirty polo shirt and a pair of stained khaki pants. With his sallow complexion, bleary eyes,

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) and unshaven jaw he looked like a junkie. He was strung out, all right. But not on smack or crack or even that old standby, demon rum. No, the drug he was on was far more insidious than any that could be snorted, smoked, guzzled, or run up.

As I peered in the window, the front door of the apartment opened and Fiona and Garth entered, followed by Tiffany, who was once again pushing the heavy cart. The moment the door was closed behind them, Fiona's mouth pulled into a snarl that would have backed down a mandrill.

"Stupid, horrid little bitch! How many times have I told you
talk to no one!?!"

She cuffed the girl's ear so hard she fell to the floor. Tiffany's father flinched as his daughter was struck, but did not open his mouth or try to stand up.

"Yeah," Garth said, grinning like a jack o-lantern, drool dripping from his lower lip.

"You're stupid! Stupid!
Stupid."

Fiona whirled and slapped Garth in mid-taunt. The young ogre rubbed his jutting jaw, an uncomprehending look on his face.

"What'd I do, Ma?"

"You're no better than she is! You don't even realize how much danger we were in out there!"

Garth furrowed his brow and stuck his lower lip out. "I could have handled it..."

"She was
enkidu,
you witless fool! She would have torn you apart like fresh bread!"

Garth blinked a couple of times as he attempted to process the information he'd been given. He pulled the stocking hat off his head, revealing a bald, leathery pate and a peaked skull.

"That was a
vampire!"
he said after a long pause.

Fiona did not bother to answer, but merely shook her head in disgust. Her gaze fell on Tiffany, who was still huddled on the floor, struggling to control her tears.

"Stop your whimpering, you little wretch! " She grabbed Tiffany's arm, roughly yanking the child onto her feet. "You still have chores to do before you're fed!"

"Let go! You're hurting me!" Tiffany cried as Fiona's bird-like talons bit into the flesh of her upper arm.

Tiffany's father's eyes flashed and his body jerked as if he'd been given a jolt of electricity.

"Let her go, damn you!"

Fiona let the child's arm drop and turned to face Tiffany's father. 'My-my-my!" she sneered. "Looks like you need another fix, sweetie. I can't have you growing a backbone on me now, can I?"

Tiffany's father twitched and a look of anticipation mixed with sick fear crossed his wasted features. She was threatening him with what he both dreaded and lived for. He licked his lips with a dry tongue.

"Please," he whispered hoarsely. I couldn't tell if he was begging for mercy or pleading for more.

Fiona pulled her sweatshirt off, baring her upper torso. Her breasts were large and heavy, the nipples the size of a man's thumb, the aureole the color of bruised flesh. Tiffany's father's twitch became a fullblown tremor, vibrating in his chair like a tuning fork, staring at Fiona with a mixture of lust and horror. Garth smirked as his dame removed her leggings and began to chuckle in anticipation. Tiffany lowered her head and hurried from the room, her cheeks burning bright red.

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) The ogress stood nude before her human husband, her taloned hands planted on her hips, legs splayed to better display her sex. Her lips pulled into a twisted smile as she studied her victim's face.

"Oh, yeah. You're jonesing bad, aren't you?"

She grabbed Tiffany's father by the throat, lifting him from his seat as if he weighed no more than his daughter. His eyes bugged slightly from the pressure, his mouth working like a goldfish's, but he did not put up a struggle. Fiona tossed him onto the kitchen floor, where he lay on his back, the only signs of life were the movement of his eyes and the erection tenting his pants.

The ogress straddled Tiffany's father, unzipped his fly, and after a few seconds of rummaging, pulled free his hard penis. She laughed and glanced over at her son, who grinned and nodded his head, clearly sharing a joke between them. Then, without further preliminaries, Fiona lowered herself onto Tiffany's father and began pumping her hips. I was reminded of a farmer milking a cow instead of the sex act. This was something she had to do to keep control of her situation, nothing more, nothing less. Tiffany's father's eyelids trembled like those of a junkie on the needle and his jaw dropped open.

Since the scattering of their tribes and the rise of the human empires, ogres have managed to continue by making sexual slaves of human males and using them as camouflage while raising their young. The mucous membranes of an ogress' vagina are impregnated with chemicals that act like a cross between Spanish Fly, Viagra, and crack mixed with DMSO.

The moment a human male sticks his dick in an ogress, he's in for the fuck of his life, no two ways about it.

Ogresses seek out widowed or divorced human males and utilize their desperation for sexual relations to gain control of them. The human males they pick are usually passive types to begin with, and once the ogresses work their erotic arts, they are completely in thrall. In time, the human host-mates lose interest in bathing, eating, drinking. . .everything but the one thing they must have.

I grew bored watching the ogress rape her human decoy and wondered where Tiffany had gone. I eased myself over the fire escape railing and crawled head-first around the corner, clinging to the brick face like a lizard on a garden wall.

I found Tiffany in a cramped bedroom, peering into a baby's crib. The floor was littered with empty beer bottles, upended buckets of take-out barbecue ribs and fried chicken, with gnawed bones scattered about the floor like jackstraws. A plastic pail behind the door was overflowing with disposable diapers. The crib was painted white and had a large picture of a yellow duck carrying a red umbrella emblazoned on the headboard.

"Look who's awake from his nap! Can you give cissy a smile, Cully? That's a good boy!"

Tiffany smiled down at the occupant and gave the Winnie-the-Pooh mobile hanging over the crib a spin. "What? You want me to play peekaboo?" She picked up a stained blanket draped over the foot of the crib and held it in front of her face. "Where's Cully? Where'd Cully go?" Whatever was in the crib gurgled in delight. "Peekaboo! There he is!" she said with mock surprise as she dropped the blanket away from her face. It was the first time I saw something resembling a little girl in her eyes.

The bedroom door crashed open with such force it was knocked off its hinges. Fiona filled the threshold. She was still nude, her monstrosity bared for all to see. Her toenails were long and curved, like the claws of an iguana. Her carefully maintained bouffant had

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) unraveled, revealing her oddly pointed skull. Still, as ogresses go, she was quite the looker.

"You know you're not supposed to play with the baby!"
Fiona shrieked as she advanced on Tiffany.
"You're a bad girl!"
Fiona rasped. "You know what happens to
bad girls,
don't you?"

Tiffany mutely shook her head. She was too frightened to even cry.

"They get eaten up by monsters," the ogress said, licking her lips with a pointed tongue.

As Fiona grabbed Tiffany, the child finally found the breath to scream. It was a high, thin cry, like that of a kitten being tossed down a well. Fiona snarled and backhanded the girl, sending her flying across the room, where she slid, unconscious, between the bed and the wall.

That was my cue.

The ogress spun around as I entered the apartment in a shower of glass. Her lips drew back in a jagged grimace. "I told you to keep your distance, vampire! The morsel's
miner
There was no point in trying to tell her that I was not interested in Tiffany as food. She wouldn't believe me even if I tried. So I bared my fangs and growled deep in my chest.

Before I could move on Fiona, I was slammed into a wall hard enough to shake the plaster loose.

"I've got her, Ma! I've got her!" Garth crowed.

Fiona's piggy eyes bulged in consternation. "Garth! Get away from her!"

"You should really listen more to your mother," I said, as I grabbed his head and jerked it in a direction it was not designed to go. There was a loud snapping sound, like that of a bundle of dry kindling being broken in half, and the ogre fell to the floor. I was lucky I was dealing with a preadolescent. Had he been a year or two older, there would have been no way I could have broken his neck.

Fiona stared at the body of her son sprawled at my feet for a long moment, then raised her head to look into my face. Her lips pulled back, exposing rows of needle-sharp teeth and charged, her talons at the ready.

Her fingernails were hard as horn and sharp as knives, slicing through my leather jacket like it was tissue paper. I felt something warm and sticky spread across by belly. She had drawn first blood, and if I didn't want to find myself tripping over my own guts I would do well to keep some distance between us.