Night Prayers (22 page)

Lord

He'd seen them.

Dear Lord, save and protect Your servant.

He'd REALLY seen them.

Vampires.

Mica leaned back against the mottled grey-and-black wall paper and pressed his hand over his mouth. Allison and Luci… Vampires… feeding off Gypsy like he was some kind of giant walking Slurpee.

"God!"

"Man, you got
that
right, pard."

The back of Mica's skull cracked into the wall as he jerked toward the voice. But the beer drinking Furvert wasn't paying attention to him anymore. The man's eyes, as well as every other eye in the SRO crowd was riveted on the stage where a slinky, woman-sized tabby cat slashed the air with her tail.

Allison.

Mica's heart kept pace with the heavy metal beat as he looked around. Somehow he'd managed to find his way back into the club's lounge. He couldn't remember leaving the backstage area… couldn't remember much except the way the blood had glistened on Luci's fangs and how Allison had
transformed
herself into the abomination that was currently bumping and grinding up on stage.

Vampires.

Feeling the bile cauterize his lungs while he swallowed, Mica grabbed the beer drinking Furvert standing in front of him and spun him around.

"Hey, man…"

Mica sank his fingers into the man's shirt front and yanked him close.

"They're vampires."

The man shrugged and pointed to his ears. The music was so loud.
Damn them, Lord! DAMN THEM
!

Mica closed the gap between them and shouted directly into the man's ear.

"I. Said. They. Are.
Vampires
! They'll suck you dry!"

The 'vert's eyes gleamed when he stepped back.

"Shit — you
think
so?"

Mica was about to request another damnation when he
felt
someone staring at him.

And turned.

Gypsy was about twenty feet away — the only man besides himself who wasn't watching the stage. The dark eyes that had always radiated warmth and kindness looked as hard and cold as cut glass.

And as dead.

When he smiled the hardness slid down from his eyes until it masked his entire face.

"Oh, sweet Jesus, Gyp."

As if he could hear the whisper over the gut-numbing blare, Gypsy lifted two fingers to the brim of his cap and winked back at Mica. There was a wide black band digging into the flesh on Gypsy's wrist that Mica had never seen before…

…
where they bit him! Dear Lord, where they FED on him
.

Luci and Allison.

Vampires.

He had to get out.

The crowd of Furverts growled and shouted physical impossibilities as Mica clawed his way to the door. The full impact of what was going on waited until he stumbled in front of Luci's poster, shivering uncontrollably.

When Mica stood up, the emerald green cardboard eyes followed him. Laughed at him.

"Suffer not a witch to live," Mica whispered at the haughty face staring back at him. "Lord… I
understand
why You brought me to this place now. Like Your only begotten Son, Jesus, destroyed the temple in John: 3.19… I was sent here to destroy this bastion of evil. Praise be Your name!"

Mica stepped past the yellow line on the sidewalk in front of the club and looked up into the smoggy night sky.

"I have preached Your Words as a child preaches, safe and secure and protected from danger by Your True Love. But I'm ready, Lord. I'm ready to fight this face to face… hand to hand…"

…
fang and claw
…

Mica licked his lips and nodded. Accepting.

"Whatever you say, Lord."

"Yeh, thought I'd find you out here, Preacher-boy," Gypsy said as he stepped out from around Luci's cutout. "Talking to the Big G again, huh?"

Mica looked down and edged toward the street — shrugged… tried to look relaxed even though his belly was doing back flips beneath his "Peace sign" belt buckle.

"Yeah," he said, "just like
E. T
… always calling home."

Gypsy's chuckle sounded as phoney as a sit-com's laugh track.

"Don't feel like working tonight?" he asked, nodding to the demarcation line.

"No," Mica said quickly. Although he was ready to fight the Creatures of Darkness and his ex-friend
right now
, a little prudent research on the matter couldn't hurt. "I'm not feeling too well. In fact, I thought I'd go home before I… infected anybody."

"I really don't think you have to worry about these gals," Gypsy said, taking a step toward him. "They're unbelievably sturdy."

A police car came and went so quickly — all sirens and flashing lights
— that Mica didn't even have a chance to see it swerve around the corner.
Not that I need their help, Lord. WE can handle this
.

"Yeah, well," he said, sidestepping into the pedestrian flow, "tell Luci she
can dock me a night's pay if she wants to. I think I'll just head on back to the
barn," —
sprinkle a little garlic salt around
— "take a couple of Rolaids,"
—
paint crosses on the door and windows —
"pop an of vid into the VCR," —
sharpen some stakes
— "and say
my
prayers."

And say my prayers!

"Shit, sounds just like my old man's idea of
a. fun
evening." Gypsy took another step. His smile was so cold it sent shivers down Mica's back. "Why don't you come back in. You barely got a chance to see Allison. She's really hot for you, you know. Luci told me."

Allison.

A cramp sucker-punched Mica's colon and he doubled over.

"I can't, Gyp," he moaned. "I really don't feel —"

Mica looked up to discover he was talking to Luci's poster and nothing else. Gypsy had gone back into the club… gone back to
them
.

Pressing his elbows into his twitching belly, Mica took off running — ignoring the looks and snide comments he was getting.

There was so little time… so little time to fill the hole he'd left in his soul when he walked out on Piper.

Yes, Lord, WALKED OUT… but it's okay now… because I can fix it… I can make up for the evil I did her by destroying REAL evil in her name's sake and Yours and

Allison's.

Allison closed her eyes and let the images conjured from Alice Cooper's
Trash
take control of her body. It was almost like being back at a slumber party
— shocking, then
impressing
the other girls with the latest "go-go-girl" moves.

It had been fun back then.

But it was
more
fun now.

Allison opened one eye and smiled. And fed the howling mob a quick series of pelvic thrusts.

And the fans go wild!

She could feel the rising heat from their collective blood pressures lap across the runway like a warm sea. They wanted her… they
all
wanted her. So what else was new?

Seth had wanted her, too — as a self-serve refueling stop on the eternal damnation highway. Breathing or dead, men were still only interested in the package.

What did you expect, Alley-cat
? Luci's disembodied voice whispered to her over the throaty shouts.

Power.

Careful, thinking like that is the surest way to get a pointed stick up the old aorta.

I'm not afraid of THEM
, Allison thought back as she did three slow pirouettes
(if mama could see me now)
, ending in a split that brought the crowd to its feet.
What the hell could they do? Really
?

You've got a lot to learn, Alley-cat. A whole HELL of a lot.

Breaking the contact as easily as hanging up a phone
(I'm learning enough, thanks)
, Allison lay back against the stage and arched her spine, until she'd gotten enough curve to toss her legs up over her head. Landing on her toes, she grabbed her nil and flicked it in the face of a well tanned twenty-something guy in a Long Beach University tee-shirt. College man
— majoring in surfing and pussy.

Well,
she
was the pussy tonight.

Squatting, Allison gave the kid a quick glimpse at the flesh beneath the fur before flicking her tail back over what her mother had called "no man's land". Standing, she moved slowly, running long-nailed fingers up over her belly and breasts until they came to the pink bow at her throat.

Mica's face settled over Joe-College's.

Damn him.

She chose the tabby "costume" to get back at the Preacher-boy for that afternoon (sanctimonious bastard)
— to give him an unhealthy dose of reality and then sit back and watch him squirm.

revenge

And he'd been there… at the club… somewhere. Allison was sure of that. Her stomach did back-flips just like the ones she'd had at the cemetery. Right before she went on. And she knew it wasn't because of butterflies.

Mica
had
been there. But he wasn't there now and for some reason
that
bothered her.

"Aw, c'mon, honey! Give it to me!"

Allison looked down at the college student — violet eyes, black hair, billboard smile, clipped moustache, and muscles large enough to make their impression on the shirt
— and stifled a yawn. She slowly untied the bow around her throat.

Go for it, girlfriend
, Luci's voice whispered to her.
This one looks like there'd he enough for leftovers
.

Stomach grumbling while Alice Cooper's chuckle ended the song, Allison leaned forward and dangled the end of the ribbon just beyond Mr. Long Beach's reach. An updated version of the old Cat-and-Mouse game that had the mouse d'jour elbowing other rodents out of the way.

I knew you were a natural exhibitionist the moment the Preacher-boy hauled your ass in here.

Allison dropped the ribbon without actually seeing which of the combatants had grabbed it. It really didn't matter
— O, A, or B… it tasted the same.

Only the memories were different.

Only the lives were different.

But she'd go on and on and…

When she got to the curtain, Allison turned and glanced over her shoulder. Joe College waved the bedraggled looking ribbon over his head like a banner. He must have ripped it out of another man's hand — there was a blood smear down along one side.

Whimpering at the stain, Allison ran her tongue slowly over the bristly fur touching her lips. She could already taste the Preacher-boy's blood.

NO! Not the Preacher-boy… the college-boy… what the hell am I saying?

The crowd was still cheering, congratulating the
COLLEGE-BOY on
his quick hand-eye coordination, as she ducked through the curtain.

If Allison's heart had still been capable of movement it would have torn its way out of her chest.