End of the Road (18 page)

“
End of the line,
Buttercup. Everybody out.” He grabbed a blanket from behind the
seat and hopped down.

“
What is this
place?”

“
You’ll see. Come
on.”

She got out of the truck and stumbled on a
tussock of grass. “I can’t see anything. You must have eyes like a
cat.”

“
Scared?” He was a gray
smudge against the trees.

“
You wish,” she
lied.

He ghosted over to her.

“
Here.” He took her hand in
his own firm, dry one and she let him lead her down an invisible
path. Gradually her eyes adapted to the void. She began to see
something, a faint movement in the air ahead.

A clearing opened up around them, full of
tiny, flickering points of light. Thousands of fireflies filled the
space. They blinked in the grass, they hung from the branches, they
flashed in the surrounding air. The minute beacons floated from the
ground up into the tree tops, merging with the stars.

“
Oh!” She grabbed Joe’s
arm. She could feel him grinning beside her.

He opened up the blanket, pulling her down
next to him as he sat. She bolted up, startled. His arm came around
her, warm and strong. She stiffened, caught in her own indecision
like a small forest creature trapped by headlights. She should
protest. Why wasn't she protesting?

“
Relax,” he whispered into
her ear. She turned to look at him. His face was deep shadows and
silver in the starlight. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t
want to. I just like to come here when I’m mad at the world. You
seemed plenty mad to me.”

“
How did you find this
place?”

He shrugged. “Just driving around. Sometimes
I like to camp out. This is one of my spots.”

“
This is
amazing.”

“
I like it. All those bugs
are supposed to be mating. The ones sitting still and blinking are
the females. The males are the ones flying around. Only some of
them are a different species, and they mimic the females to draw
the other males near so they can eat them.”

“
That’s
terrible.”

“
It’s life. And that light
they give off is the most efficient light in the world. It’s called
cold light because one hundred percent of the energy becomes light.
In a light bulb, ninety percent of the energy creates heat and only
ten percent becomes light.”

She turned to him. “How do you know all
this?”

He shrugged again. “I like knowing
stuff.”

“
You’ve got everyone
fooled.”

“
I like finding out about
things. It’s school I can’t stand. Some species have eggs that glow
when they’re poked.”

“
You’re putting me
on.”

“
Nope.”

“
I feel like I’m inside an
atom.”

“
Nerd.”

“
That’s just
mean.”

“
But you’re real cute for a
nerd, Buttercup.”

“
Gee, you say the nicest
things.”

“
Still mad?”

She blinked, aware her bad mood had
evaporated. “No, why?”

“
Because.” He tugged on a
lock of her hair, pulling her closer to him. He leaned in to bridge
the gap between them and closed his lips over hers. He sucked on
her upper lip, savoring, then teased her mouth open with his
tongue. His mouth was decisive and intent on hers.

Kitty’s world tilted. She fell through
stars, kept falling as fireflies lit her up from inside. She felt
like a pop-bottle rocket with a lit fuse.

She wrapped her arms around his neck to save
herself, anchoring to the warm reality of his tongue in her mouth.
He lowered her to the blanket and lay beside her, burying his face
in her neck, nibbling his way up to her ear and sucking on the
lobe, hot breath sending frissons of pleasure through her. She made
little mewling noises that had him smiling against her skin.

Kitty lowered her arms and placed her palms
against the hot skin of his chest, tentatively exploring. Joe
leaned over her, his hair a curtain around his face, shutting out
everything except his gleaming eyes. As his hand slid up under her
top and the heat arrowed down inside her, she realized he was
right. She wasn’t going to do a thing that she didn’t want to
do.

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~ ~ ~

“
Anywhere” is an excerpt
from the prologue of
Maximum
Security
, the third book in C. A.
Newsome’s
Dog Park
Mysteries
.

C. A. Newsome lives in
Cincinnati, Ohio, with her three rescues. She and her furry family
go to the dog park every morning. Visit her web-site at
http://carolannnewsome.wix.com/author-c-a-newsome

Chapter 17

Natural Selection

By J R C Salter

Ira felt his legs break as
he landed on the concrete pavement. He looked up and saw the
Immortal staring down at him through the tenth floor window. That
bastard had stabbed him with a picture frame. A
picture frame
! After everything
Haagenti had done to increase his speed, his strength, his ability
to resist light, his regenerative capabilities, Ira was to die from
a splinter.

Ira felt his bones knit
back together and he stumbled to his feet, holding to the wound in
his back. He could feel the taint of wood flowing through his
veins. He didn’t have long. Perhaps he should feed, drain his blood
of the poison and replace it with fresh. He sighed. He didn’t have
the strength for that; he could barely walk.

He looked back to the
window. The Immortal was no longer there, and he heard no sounds of
fighting, but the faint words of the demon reached his ears.
Haagenti said nothing he hadn’t heard before.

‘
Quit eavesdropping,’ Ira
said to himself, ‘You’ve got more important things to worry
about.’

Now the reality hit him. He
had lived through almost two centuries, and in all that time he had
met two, maybe three other vampires. None of them
male. 

He mentioned it to Frances
once or twice; even suggesting that they try to repopulate the
vampiric species. Of course this was back when he thought he still
had another century or so before he died, so he didn’t push it,
thinking he had time.

She seemed disgusted at
the notion. How could she be so selfish? Their race was dying out,
and every attempt throughout history to procreate with humans ended
with stillborn or sterile children. And it wasn’t as if
she
was his ideal mate
either; she was too tall, and too female. He laughed bitterly at
the irony. But she wanted none of it; all too concerned with her
apotheosis to give any thought to their kind.

He reached the end of the
street and held onto the corner of the building. Looking up, he saw
a cathedral and smiled. Surely he can find someone to help him
there. He staggered along the green and pushed the doors open. A
silent, cavernous hall greeted him. A few burning candles hung from
the vaults, giving the sanctuary an eerie yellow glow.

Ira walked down the aisle,
holding to the pews for support. He looked up at the large crucifix
hanging above the altar. He wondered, yet again, why such a
pacifist religion would have such a gruesome image for a symbol.
The effigy was incredibly detailed; blood dripped from Jesus’
forehead where the crown of thorns pricked him; his muscles
strained at the weight of his body being held by the two nails
rammed through his palms; a gash across half his waist poured blood
staining his loincloth. But above all, the man’s face seemed to be
in agony.

‘
It’s to remind people that
he suffered for the sins of humanity.’ Ira turned to the voice, the
cathedral was empty two seconds ago. He saw a beautiful young man
sitting in the nearest pew. Shoulder length, straight brown hair
fell across his white shirt and his blue eyes gazed into Ira’s
soul. He held his hands crossed in his lap, but moved one to offer
Ira a seat.

‘
Where did you come from?’
Ira said as he sat. He winced as his wound opened a
little.

‘
Let me take care of that.’
the man said. He reached behind Ira and touched the
wound.

He felt a cold tingling
sensation and then ... nothing. Quickly, he reached behind himself
and felt dried blood covering new skin instead of the injury. He
looked at the man, ‘You’re an angel.’

The other man nodded, ‘My
name is Sarakiel.’

Ira’s eyes widened, an
angel of death, ‘Have you come to take me?’

‘
After just healing you?
I’d consider that a waste.’

‘
Then what are you here
for?’

‘
To appeal to your better
nature.’

‘
Others have tried to
convince me to defect. Yahweh is a monster.’ Ira stood and began to
walk out.

‘
And you’re not?’ Ira
stopped, ‘You drink the blood of your fellow man.’

‘
I don’t commit
genocide.’

‘
Neither did
He.’

‘
No. A few people survived,
but he killed enough of them. More than I have. And I do it to
survive.’

‘
But you don’t need to. You
can live off animal blood.’

‘
Tried it. It didn’t agree
with me.’ Ira walked down the aisle towards the doors.

‘
I’m giving you a new lease
of life; don’t let Satan take your soul.’

The angel’s voice echoed
through the chamber as Ira left. He needed to feed. And soon. The
healing didn’t seem to make him stronger, though he no longer felt
he was dying. As soon as he left the cathedral and entered the cold
air outside, the thirst filled him more than he had ever felt. He
was suddenly aware of all the beating hearts in the city; every one
of them pumping thick warm life through humans as they slept. He
would need to break into a house, but that was dangerous; last time
he did that, he nearly had a baseball bat embedded in his skull.
Picking off stragglers, or people walking alone was the best
strategy. Especially when weak. Women were easier. And children the
simplest, though neither yielded as much blood as men.

He took a few steps along
the green, then his legs lost all strength and he fell to his hands
and knees.

‘
Hey, friend, are you
okay?’ came a voice from behind him. Ira looked up and licked his
lips. He smelled the coppery aroma of fresh blood pumping through
the veins of a large man. He turned around and saw his prey. He was
young, about to hit his prime, and well muscled. It could be
difficult, but if he acted quickly, the man would be dead in
seconds.

The man bent down and
offered Ira a hand. Ira looked at it and saw pulsing blue veins
branching across his wrist. He took the hand, feeling the warmth of
his flesh, and the man pulled him to his feet. He looked into the
man’s eyes, blue and dilated in the darkness, they glistened with
the life he was about to extinguish.

Without making a sound, Ira
bent the man’s head to the side and clamped his sharp teeth on his
throat. The blood poured out filling his mouth with the sweet thick
fluid. He swallowed in great gulps as the man struggled against his
assailant. Ira felt the man’s arms beat against his body as they
fell to the ground. The blood escaped his lips for a second,
spilling some to the ground and over his clothes. It was a waste,
but he didn’t care, the thirst was incredible. He nearly choked as
he gulped another mouthful, and the man beat his back, the blows
becoming weaker and weaker as the life left him.

Then suddenly he felt the
other man’s jaws around his own neck. The pain of blunt teeth
ripping through his flesh made him pause in shock. But only for a
second; he carried on; he needed to kill this man before the man
killed him. They were locked there, mouths biting each others’
throats, and Ira felt his own body growing weaker, but it still had
to be stronger than his.

Slowly, the realisation
came to him that the other man was feeding on him rather than
merely defending himself. The man’s arms clamped around Ira and
rolled over to dominate the vampire.

Ira couldn’t understand it.
Losing blood made a man weaker. This wasn’t another vampire, Ira
wasn’t foolish enough to make that mistake. What was happening? He
let go of the man’s neck and tried to push him away, but the man’s
hold was too strong. He struggled and writhed beneath the heavy
muscles of the large man, helpless as the world began to go
black.

As Ira fell limp, the man
stopped and stood up, blood smearing his mouth and chin. He looked
into his eyes, now yellow and reflecting the light from a distant
streetlamp.

‘
W-what are you?’ Ira said,
the words coming in a feeble whisper.

The man felt his neck and
looked at his hand, wet with blood, ‘I ... I don’t know. But I feel
strong. And thirsty. For blood.’

‘
You’re ... you’re not
human?’

‘
I was, but now I’m one of
you.’

Ira shook his head with all
the force his frail body could muster, ‘That’s not how it
works.’

‘
It is now.’

Ira lay there, his life
slipping from him, as he watched this new creation walk into the
night.