Vampire Miami (13 page)

He was still laughing, arms crossed once more as
he leaned against the doorframe. Indolent, at ease, immensely
aroused. She could feel his eyes upon her. Was supremely,
horrifically aware of her own pulse, how her heart thumped and
pushed hot blood through her veins and arteries. She glanced at the
back door. Too far. Could she make it back to the bar and find the
gun? To what end? The first bullet had done nothing to him.

He straightened. She knew he would begin to walk
toward her at any moment. She shook her head. No. This couldn’t be
happening. It couldn’t. She had to stall, to buy time.

“How,” she began, voice catching in her throat,
high pitched and panicked to her ears, “how did you find us?”

He merely laughed.

“That was you, wasn’t it, following me before?”
She had to keep talking. “I mean, I thought it was my imagination,
but it was you. Why were you following me?”

“Oh, but that wasn’t me. It really was your
poor, fevered imagination, leaping at shadows. I came straight
here. 2312 NW 2nd Avenue, he said. Easy enough to find.”

Selah didn’t understand. “You knew the address?
How?”

Mild impatience in his voice now. “We were
listening in while you spoke with ‘Fox’ in your Garden, Selah.
Rupert installed a very subtle bug after wiping your Garden clean.
We simply left it there to record and report on any activity.
Simple but effective, don’t you think?”

Selah felt a flicker of fury, that old welcome
flame, but it guttered and died as the vampire stepped forward. “I
appreciate your attempt to buy time, but your friends aren’t coming
back. They never do. Like cockroaches, they scuttle for cover the
moment an adult turns on the lights. As he told you, this gunshot
wound not withstanding, they do indeed seem to abhor violence.” The
vampire took a step forward. “I, however, do not.”

Selah jumped to her feet, and turned to run for
the back door, knowing she wouldn’t make it. It was like every
nightmare she’d ever had that featured her running at the speed of
molasses, as if her legs were knee-deep in honey. She prayed for
another gunshot. For somebody to help her.

Nobody came.

Without warning he was upon her, the length of
his body pressed against her back, hand cupping her chin, lifting
it, pressing her head back against his shoulder, his other arm
pinning both of hers across over her chest. A scream fought its way
up her throat, but she choked it down, refused to give this thing
the satisfaction. Fury caused her to elbow him, to thrash and kick,
but it was no use.

She felt his cold lips on her throat, then the
delicate pinprick of teeth. Felt them slide through her skin,
puncture deep, and her heart stammered, thrilled, was swept away on
a sudden river of burning pleasure.
Nobody said it would feel so
good,
her last thought spun away.
Nobody
.

She relaxed, lowered her arms. His lips were
tight on her skin, sucking and licking as her blood came gushing
forth, surging up from her dark depths into the glorious
incandescence that was his mouth. She felt all sense of self begin
to fall away like grains of sand through her fingers. An intense
pleasure began to mount deep within her core, between her legs, and
it rose urgent and compelling and utterly devastating.

Selah melted into him. Couldn’t think, couldn’t
fight. She stopped being herself. There was only this throbbing
torrent of pleasure, like a cascade of falling stars passing
through her soul, searing her with their passage, burning
beautifully through the fabric of her being and torching her as
they fell, destroying her forever. And she loved it. Welcomed this
destruction, this annihilation of self.

Slowly, she lost all sense of her body. Of his
lips, his hands, of everything except her heartbeat. There was only
darkness, a vast cathedral space that was the void, and it echoed,
reverberated with the steady pulse of heart. Which was slowing.
From its sound it had to be the size of a house, each beat tolling
out her life, each beat a moment of the future that was dying as
its echoes sank into the past. Slower and ever slower.

A part of her realized that she was dying. This
was death in all its finality, but there was nothing she could do.
A memory came to her of her father’s face as he held her mother on
a beautiful day in the park when Selah was only nine, one of her
most treasured and happiest memories. A perfect picture, a perfect
moment, before the war, just before the world went mad and her
mother died. Her heart was beating so slowly now, only once a
minute, once every eternity. The end was here. Selah closed her
eyes, and allowed the image to fade.

Then, without cause, it began to beat once more,
began to beat with sudden and new vigor. Began to beat to a growing
tempo that rose in speed and power until it seemed like a hundred
war drums surrounded her in the darkness—which was not true
darkness after all. Selah opened her eyes in the void and saw
stars, constellations, no longer falling but hanging in space with
beautiful brilliancy. She was high up and everywhere her heart
boomed out its imperative. Looking down, Selah saw the surface of a
vast black ocean, stretching from horizon to horizon and rippling
with its myriad waves.

She began to fall. Began to plummet toward its
surface, feet first but then she turned so she was a speeding
bullet, eyes wide and tears streaming behind her as she shot down
with terrifying speed. Her heartbeat was now a violent crescendo, a
smear of sound, and Selah felt amazing, had never felt so
ecstatically alive. She opened her arms, welcomed the impact, and
at the very last, closed her eyes.

She hit the ocean.

And awoke into a darkness that was no longer
absolute.

She was lying on the floor. The vampire lay but
a yard from her on his side, hissing as he breathed in short gasps.
Eyes wide with terror. Blood smeared across his lips and chin.

Her blood.

Selah felt luminous. As if she were radiating
moonlight, here in this dark room. Her body vibrated with energy,
with electric potential. She lay still, not understanding what had
happened, not caring. She could make out details now in the bar
with painful clarity. See the chairs and tables where they lay, the
mess of broken glassware on the ground, the shadowy depths of the
room beyond. She turned her gaze upon the vampire. His fine-boned
features writhed with despair. Tears of blood gathered in his eyes,
brimmed, and then spilled over.

“
What have you done?
” he cried, voice
cracking with terror.

Selah sat up, as lazy and languorous as a cat.
She stretched, one fist behind her head, the other straining toward
the ceiling. Felt the long muscles of her back uncoil. Good lord,
she felt good, she felt
marvelous.

“What have you done to me?” said the vampire. He
drew his knees to his chest, shivering and jerking as he did
so.

Selah ignored him. She couldn’t focus on any one
thing. Moving slowly, like a ballet dancer taking her first steps
onto a grand stage before an expectant audience a million strong,
she walked across the floor, so light that she felt she could slip
the bonds of gravity with one burst of energy, one glorious leap.
She walked to the door and stood within it, gazing out at the
street.

What beauty. The great moon had risen high and
painted the world with its delicate silver hue. She feasted her
eyes hungrily on the street before her, drinking in the sight as if
she had never truly used her eyes before. A thousand details, a
million facets to the world. Everything sharp and detailed and
true. She reached out and touched the iron doorframe, ran her hand
down it gently, feeling each and every metallic sliver and fleck of
rust against her palm.

The vampire cried behind her, working himself
out of his numbed fear and into deep, chest-wracking sobs of pain
and perhaps even joy, a cascade of alien emotion beginning to pour
forth from his depths, as if a frozen core had cracked deep within
him and was finally pumping forth.

Selah stepped outside and lifted her face to the
moon. She was invincible. She was the night; she was anointed by
the beauty of the world. A part of her demanded to know what was
happening, but she ignored it. Ignored everything but this dark
majesty that cloaked her.

Selah saw the gleam of smooth steel but a few
blocks down the street, and realized that she was staring at a
motorcycle. It was a Japanese roadster, its electric blue and white
paint muted under the light of the moon, half hidden down an alley.
Selah turned and walked back inside. Moved with confidence to where
the vampire lay, where he shivered and stared at her in confusion
and consumed with harrowing wonder, and reached into his pocket. He
didn’t fight her, didn’t resist. She drew forth his keys and
without a backwards glance walked outside and down to the bike.

His ride. He must’ve come out here as soon as
the sun had set. She brushed her fingers along its length, its
organic curves. Beautiful, a gorgeous machine. She slung one leg
over the seat and sat, slid in the key, turned it, thumbed the
on
switch, and gunned the throttle. The engine rumbled
powerfully to life, the muted purr of a great lion. She imagined
fire curling in its belly, a fire similar to her own. She
straightened out the bike, heeled the kickstand back, and turned
the accelerator. With a shattering roar like a thousand panes of
glass hitting the road all at once, the bike leaped forward, almost
bucking her off, but Selah laughed and leaned in low and kept the
accelerator turned all the way.

Buildings blurred past. The hot, humid night air
shrilled past her ears. Dead traffic lights. Abandoned cars that
were little more than obstacles to veer around. The motorbike
responded as if it were part of her body, its great ponderous
weight turned somehow into air and darkness beneath her. Hunched
over the bike she kept the throttle down. Didn’t even bother
looking at the speedometer. She was going too fast, and it was
still not fast enough.

For the first time in her life, she had some
kind of power. For the first time ever, she had an edge over the
world, and she didn’t want to let it go. Years of being ignored,
being insulted, of being told that she was no good, would never
amount to anything, would never be a success. Years of people
pretending to see through her, of friends cutting her down, of boys
insulting her when they weren’t trying to get in close at the
parties. For the first time, she had something overwhelmingly
powerful, and even though she didn’t understand it, was growing
terrified of it, she exulted in the fact that it was hers and hers
alone.

With a yank she pulled the bike off the street
and onto the sidewalk. Telephone poles whirred past, a newspaper
box was smashed aside, glass shattering. An obstacle rushed toward
her, a car driven up onto the curb, and she wrenched the bike back
onto the street. Almost lost control, almost felt the tires slide
out from beneath her, but she pulled it back into line with the
sheer strength that flowed through her limbs.

One avenue after another. The occasional car
whipped past, headlight strobing the darkness, faces pale as they
stared out of windows at her in shock. She released the handlebars,
opened her arms, and closed her eyes. The wind was devouring her.
With a mad laugh she opened her eyes and saw a broad avenue ahead.
She veered out wide and then at the last moment tapped the brakes
and sawed to the left and screamed into a wide turn, nearly
sideswiping a car before the tires caught and she rocketed down a
much larger street.
Biscayne Blvd.
read a sign. She knew
where she was. This was the route they had taken last night to the
Beach.

A name flashed through her mind:
Rupert.
He had her father’s Omni. She wanted it back. It made no sense to
go after it, but then nothing made sense, and who could oppose a
goddess? A vengeful goddess closing in on her prey from out of the
howling depths of night. She ripped the bike over to the left, saw
the onramp, took it, and then shot out over the water of the
Intercoastal along that glorious bridge. She was going so fast now
that she couldn’t think. The wind was a banshee in her ears,
forcing her to slit her eyes, tearing at her hair with frenzied
claws. She pushed the bike as fast as it would go. She loved this
stretch of road, this line of speed she gouged out of the
world.

It lasted but moments before she was on the far
side. She slowed down, slid over to the right, and then turned down
the Boulevard. Past the first lights, the bike alive between her
thighs, obedient and challenging. Past homes and the occasional car
that drove as if mired in mud. Slipping ever closer to her prey.
Over that final little bridge, the same left, and down the street
on which Angelo had parked.

Elated, she slowed and drove through the alley
and out onto Lincoln Road. She knew this was not allowed. That this
was not how one set about surviving in Miami. She didn’t care.
Couldn’t care. She was riding high on the greatest wave of euphoria
she’d ever felt, her head brushing the stars. She slowed and
stopped the bike. Propped it up with one foot.

Everybody stared. Playboys and executive types,
women in stiletto heels and security guards. Young and old, the
crowd about her froze. People looked up from their dinner tables
before the restaurants, everybody’s eyes wide, terrified by this
challenge to the fragile stasis of the night.
This isn’t
done
, a voice whispered in her mind.
But, oh,
she
whispered back,
it is now.

She twisted the accelerator savagely and bolted
forward, front wheel lifting off the ground as she blazed a trail
down Lincoln, the bike’s engine a shattering roar. Security guards
yelled out, and out of the corner of her eye she saw two of them
raise their guns and take aim. She ducked her head and used all her
skill and focus even at this heightened level to weave forward
between the gawking people, slipping back and forth and knifing
through them all, leaving the guards behind. A blink, a moment
later, and she was out on Collins, turning so sharply to the left
that her knee brushed the road and tore away her jeans. She bounced
up and over the far curb, nearly collided with the wall, pulled
back onto the road and was through, roaring right toward
Magnum.