Sanguine Rave - A Vampire Romance (Paranormal Romance, Vampire)

Sanguine Rave

A Vampire Romance

by

Amanda Bowen

Electronic Publishing 2015

Copywrite, Legal Notice, and Disclaimer:

Sanguine Rave – A Vampire Romance
(c) 2015 by Amanda Bowen.  All rights reserved worldwide.  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the author.  This is a work of fiction.  All names, characters, events, locations and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locales is  entirely coincidental.  This book is for entertainment purposes only.

This book contains mature content and is solely for adults.

EXCERPT

     Detective Harding knew it was unprofessional, and after reading a part of her presumed diary she might well be unbalance.  But he couldn't deny his attraction to her, and before he knew it he reached over and squeezed her hand.  “Rest assured, we'll find out what happened and you can put this behind you.”  He laid a few bills on the table and finished his cup of coffee.  Elle smiled again, her voice soft.  “I have no idea what I'm going to do the rest of the night, I'm so used to putting my time in at Sanguine Rave and now...”  She trailed off as he stood up and she gathered her purse, looking up at him.  “Let me walk you to your car.”  Elle shook her head as she slid out of the booth.  “I walked.”  “Ah. Then let me take you home.”  Such an innocent statement, but she felt her own pulse spike with excitement as she nodded.  Following him closely out the door she caught other eyes checking him out and why not, he was good looking and obviously employed.  He'd parked around the back, his unmarked squad car sitting in a dark corner shaded by a big extended cab pick up and Elle felt her pulse starting to race.  Could she convince him to let her get a taste of what was to come? 

Sanguine Rave

A Vampire Romance

(Paranormal Romance, Vampire, Supernatural)

     David Harding had wanted to be a cop since he was nine years old and snuck into the family room while he was home sick from school and popped in his dad's VHS collection of Dirty Harry movies.  Being a cop was a whole lot different from what Hollywood peddled it as, that was for sure.  There was a whole lot more walking a beat, and a whole lot less driving around in a cool car while evading bad guys who wanted to burn you down.  There were really no arch villains in the real world, and most of the criminals were dirty, desperate regular people who had just decided that it would be easier to take what they needed than toil away in a dead end job.  Most of them were kind of pitiable in a way, a lot more of those people trapped into joining gangs and dealing because of where they were born and a lot less of those truly evil people that made the devil look like a rank amateur.  He was mature enough to be really thankful for that, because God forbid he live in 'interesting times' like the old Chinese curse.  He was content to investigate the petty crimes that came across his desk, and smart enough to know how to get a bigger case like murder actually moving and worked on properly.  He had a little file though, locked in the bottom right drawer of his desk of, to put it bluntly,
weird
cases.  Unsolved things, strange witness testimony, even a few copies of reports he'd had to file himself after witnessing something that failed to make rational sense. 

     Right now he was holding something in his hands that he felt was going to end up in that locked drawer once this investigation was over.  There'd been a fire at a club that had opened up in a run down area that had once held storage and shipping businesses that the economy had driven under.  It had been a near total loss, the firefighters arriving as the fire was well and truly blazing and it had taken them time to find a working hydrant.  Thankfully the fire had started during the day, and no one had been injured or killed.  It looked suspicious though, the Fire Marshall muttering something about possible accelerant trails as he passed Detective Harding.  He'd found the book himself behind the bar, tucked down next to the little mini safe where the tender would put wads of cash safely away until closing and the bar had been lined with metal.  So while it smelled of smoke and one corner was a little singed?  For the most part it had been one lucky little book.  It was obviously a diary, leather cover with a unicorn engraved on it and colored pink.  There was a little gold lock, and a little gold key on a ribbon attached to that.  It reminded him of something his kid sister had kept in high school, truth be told.  He'd tagged it, but ended up taking it back to the station house himself and now he was sitting at his desk reading it with a cooling cup of coffee forgotten while he did.

    
I'm not really sure why I decided to start writing this
, other than maybe I just don't want to forget some of the things I've gone through and I've noticed this sort of hazy view I've developed of the past.  I don't know if that's because of what I am, a sort of built in mental defense mechanism to make things seem fine as the years go on, or what.  Some things though, are as bright and clear as if I was just going through them, so that doesn't make sense to me.  I can remember how excited I was to get my driver's license, when Billy James asked me to my Senior Prom, and how proud my parents were when I graduated as Salutatorian of my High School class.  But those are just moments, and everything else is like looking through an old lace tablecloth that your grandma left out in a house full of smokers.  My name is Elle, short for Ellizebet, and my family name is Bathory.  Thankfully my classmates weren't too hot on history or I'd have endured a lot more jokes about my distant relative and her infamous mass murders (alleged!).  Considering what I ended up being, I guess the universe couldn't resist though.  I mean how weird is it, that my last name is Bathory and I ended up being a vampire?

     I should probably explain that, just to nail it down for myself.  It's not like I'm writing this as a confession or hoping someone finds it and reads it on down the line and spares a little sympathy for the farm girl that ended up a hunter of the night.  Right?  It's not like anyone would believe it, it's way easier to pretend there isn't a creature of nightmare walking around freely, or that there are even things like me at all.  If you saw me, you'd never believe it unless I decided I needed a snack or thought you were a threat.  I'm not very imposing, I certainly don't look like a killer.  When I was alive I had trouble when it came to killing pests, if there was a snake in the barn bothering the horses I'd try to catch it and let it loose outside where it belonged.  I still look the same as I did the night I was 'chosen', a barely turned twenty one with a fresh and innocent face.  Like my dad used to say, I couldn't scare a puppy in a thunderstorm.  But that was before, and well let's just say if I need to I could scare a college linebacker into needing Jesus.

     I'm not all that old even now, really.  Guessing off of the top of my head, I just recently passed my forty-sixth birthday.  I bet that would be disappointing to some people, with this sort of popular idea that all the things like me are supposed to be way old, ridiculously so.  I can't imagine honestly what it would be like to be a thousand years old, especially considering the trouble I have with memory now and it hasn't even been a hundred years!  I think that would make me crazy, to have all that weight of past history and no real...connection to it.  It was hard enough to adapt to changing styles, when I was changed legwarmers with sparkly yarn were the coolest and all the hot kids pegged their jeans.  Don't even get me started on skinny jeans, ugh.  I had to be smart too, to get the money I have in order to live comfortably, I'm certainly not ultra rich and I don't live in an historic old mansion in need of repairs somewhere in old Hollywood.  (Though I did hear an interesting rumor about someone that actually is supposed to be there, but it's not like I met the guy).

     Not needing to buy much in the way of groceries though, saves a surprising amount of money.  If you're reading this I suppose it's pretty obvious by now that I'm a vampire.  You could try and comfort yourself into thinking that I'm delusional and just think I'm a vampire, but that's just not true.  What is true is that as long as someone doesn't destroy my heart or cut off my head, I'm pretty much promised to live forever.  Which I guess has some pretty good points to it.  I don't get old, I don't get sick, or tired.  I don't have to watch my weight or wonder if my butt is going to spread out like the back forty of our old farm when I get...well to the age I actually am.  Wow, that was sort of weird.  It just sort of hit me while I was writing it, that I'm the age my mom was when she passed, but I still look the same as I did the last night she saw me alive.  I can't say that I miss my parents all that much, all part of that sort of memory haze.  I know objectively that I should miss them, miss the friends I had, the people I cared about, heck even Billy James.  But I just don't.

     I'm Elle, I'm a vampire.  Every now and then I need to drink a few ounces of blood to keep me going.  I don't have to kill to feed, and I've always been smart enough to have listened to the man that made me what I am and never went without.  I've heard the stories of what happens if you don't feed, and if you make yourself an issue over killing a human – or a bunch of humans, someone will show up and make sure you're not an issue anymore.  Just because I'm stronger, faster, and can do a few neat tricks doesn't mean that someone couldn't put me right in my place and even a human can catch one of us off guard.  That's a natural order at work.  Fighting it doesn't change it, and it's not like I could go back and regain what I lost if I did.  The man that changed me, did it on a whim.  I was a moveable feast, a snack.  But something made him ask me what my name was after he'd had his drink and I remember feeling sleepy as he laughed his head off until red tinged tears tracked his face.  He was surprisingly gentle, considering that he was pretty much killing me and I remember how he took care of me after.  He even let me go home and get a suitcase full of clothing and things I thought I couldn't live without before we just took off and traveled around.  I left my parents a note saying I was leaving with some boy and not to worry.  I'm pretty sure they worried anyway after I never contacted them again.

     He told me his name was Isaac, like from the Bible and that he'd been around for the American Civil War.  I wasn't too sure I believed him then about either the name or how old he was, because he barely looked older than I did.  He had a quiet sort of weight in his eyes though, that ultimately made me believe everything he told me by the end.  It might not have seemed like much of a life, but for as long as we were together I learned everything I could from him until the night he told me that we needed to be apart for awhile.  That I shouldn't worry, because he'd find me again when it was time.  I sort of wonder though if he wasn't just saying that to try and protect me while he drew off attention.  Anyone hunting us (and there are people that actually do just that, though mostly they're written off as crazy), would have been looking for a couple, not a heartbroken girl put on a bus to Galveston and told to keep going after she got there.

     I used to look over my shoulder, hoping that he'd fade in out of the shadows with his crooked grin and tossing his dark hair out of his eyes.  He never did though, not to this very night.
Elle's Diary, pages 10 – 25

*** Four Days Prior***

     Elle loved Sanguine Rave.  She loved it because it was her spot, a place she'd built out of a ruined and abandoned building and made into the in place to be.  It wouldn't last of course, clubs like this came and went but it was a foothold, and when the popularity dropped she had a plan on how to change it and get it back again.  But right now it was the hottest thing going, and she was happy to ride that wave.  The music was loud, the smoke machines going and young lithe bodies writhed on the dance floor as the night's DJ started his set as she arrived.  She'd meant to go to her office and drop off her purse and the book in her hand.  It was a bit of a vanity, her diary that she wrote in faithfully during her down time for reasons too personal to share with any of the people she'd worked with to get this place going.  They were more ephemeral to her than they could ever imagine, even though it had been their money funding her little dream.

     But the bar back had called in sick, and she'd ended up diving right in to help out, purse snugly on top of her book tucked away near the little safe kept to keep on hand cash from becoming a tempting target.  Elle was happy though to be slinging drinks, feeling the life of the place swirl around her and she just couldn't help the smile that was stuck on her lips. 
Her place
, that felt more permanent than it had any right to.  People like her just didn't have permanence, that was just how it was.  She'd gone through another full tray of beers when the man entering the bar caught her eye.  Elle couldn't have said just what it was that drew her eye to him and kept him noticed, but there was just something about him that made her smile move to a grin of satisfaction.  He was young, full of vitality and he just looked absolutely
delicious
in more than just a sexual way.  Elle didn't usually find herself reacting to someone like this, especially someone who sort of screamed 'hey I'm a cop' with how he walked, a bit on the balls of his feet and with a squared stance that radiated authority as he moved through the lively crowd and right toward the bar.

     If Elle had a pulse, it would have been fluttering as her bartender tipped his head towards her as she handed off a tray of drinks to one of her waitresses.  She wiped her hands on her apron and smiled as he stepped up, putting on a suitably inquisitive face as he showed her his ID.  Her eyes glanced over it, catching his name and she subtly projected her voice so he could hear her over the noise of the bar.  “What can I help you with, Detective Harding?”

     He looked her over with that way of his that caught every little detail.  Young, she looked a little
too
young to be part owner of a club like this, barely of drinking age if that.  But money talked, he was guessing and her clothing was more suitable to an older woman than a party girl.  Simple, tailored slacks in black, a white button up shirt he'd bet was silk, her long hair caught in a ponytail.  She moved like a skittish filly though, a nervous grace to her as she filled the drinks with a professional air and something about her told him she'd known some hard work at some point in her life.  She looked city, but he'd bet the last dollar folded in his wallet she'd been country in the not too distant past.  There was a cute little drawl to her voice that he picked up on even with the music throbbing around them and part of him wished he could have met her under other circumstances, somewhere else.  He took a flyer out of his pocket, a police artist's sketch taken from a few sources and held it out to her.  When she took it, he smiled – a lot of places like this, he'd get a cursory at best glance and a denial of knowing who it was even if he knew they were lying.  She looked it over carefully before showing her bartender who nodded and then made an upward motion with his chin.  Harding followed his line of sight and saw his target, and he leaned forward toward the little lady.  “Don't worry, I'll try not to interrupt your business any more than necessary to escort him out.”