Pool of Crimson (2 page)

I glanced in one of the gallery windows on my way down the street. The art was beautiful, the paintings too rich for my blood, and all I saw was a herd of human cattle ripe for the picking as they moved about the packed room with glasses of wine in their hands. I turned my head and kept walking. I had someplace to be.

I pushed through several middle-aged men and their wives, apologizing as I went. I shoved my way through a thick group of teens surrounding a musician, then a smaller crowd surrounding a street performer blowing fire as I made my way down the block as quickly as I could. I’d already lost too much time.

The alley next to the gallery was dark. I assumed the back exit of the gallery led out here. There weren’t many other options. The alley wasn’t lit and covered in shadows from the street lamp at the corner. Dumpsters were scattered haphazardly down the narrow alley, throwing more shadows into an already dangerous place. I paused under the streetlight and waited. I didn’t want to go down that alley, not if I didn’t have to. There were more dangerous things hiding in dark alleys than just vampires.

I stood motionless for a few brief moments, trying to push the street noise from my consciousness. Muffled whimpers, the sharp skidding of heels on pavement, and a soft slurping filled my ears from the far side of a dumpster in front of me. A woman’s soft plea for help rang clearly over the musician on the street behind me singing Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”.

I took the first step into darkness, edging slowly along the building wall, trying desperately to make as little noise as possible. It was more difficult than I’d thought in stiletto-heeled boots. The click of my heels on the uneven pavement echoed in my head and against the building walls as I moved. I shifted quickly to the balls of my feet, though it was more difficult to balance.

I lifted my sweater and leather jacket slowly to expose the belt strapped against my torso like a second skin. That belt was my lifeline, housing a series of sheathes filled with wooden stakes five inches long and about a half an inch thick. It had been a special order, expensive and worth every penny.

I pulled a second stake, sliding it from the belt easily and soundlessly. I gripped one in each hand, and peeked around the corner of the dumpster. My nose filled with the smell of rotten fruit, stale beer, and cat piss.

Lovely
.

I held my breath to keep from gagging.

There they were; those same damned stonewashed jeans, crouched over a very pretty pair of red patent-leather pumps and two shapely legs. The woman on the ground and the owner of those shapely legs struggled sporadically beneath the slender but unnaturally strong woman in those horrible stonewashed jeans.

Smarmy stood a few feet away, ogling something in his hand that I couldn’t quite make out and ignoring the show on the ground completely. His other fist was clenched tightly around something else as he spoke.

“We thank you for your business. You’ve been paid and fed. Ethan expects you out of his territory by dawn,” Smarmy said stiffly with a greedy glint in his eyes. Stonewashed Jeans didn’t reply as the woman beneath her continued to struggle.

I cleared my throat loudly in the darkness.

Smarmy’s eyes met mine. The vampire’s head snapped up and away from the young woman’s throat, turning instinctually to me with a single drop of her victim’s blood running down her chin. She stuck out her tongue and licked the crimson stream from her face as her gaze narrowed on me.

The woman on the ground gasped for air and tried to speak, or scream. I couldn’t tell. Her breath gurgled in her throat like bursting bubbles as she gasped for breath, and the wound marring her slender neck looked like a sloppy damn mess.

The vampire stood easily to face me, discarding the poor woman as if she was abandoned trash. Smarmy took a step back, out of reach. The woman on the ground scampered behind the dumpster to hide, then curled up into a fetal position with her knees pulled firmly to her chest, tucking them beneath her chin as she hugged herself and rocked back and forth absently. Her eyes focused on the ground as if hoping she could just ignore the horror surrounding her and wake up from the bad dream she was having.

The vampire in stonewashed jeans straightened her cable knit sweater as if she’d been caught in
flagrante
. She was unattractive, with dingy, stringy, brown hair that looked unconditioned as it clung to her head. The ill-considered tattoo on her cheekbone didn’t help. It was an odd symbol, high on her cheek and too close to the edge of her eye to be hidden easily.

The image on her face resonated in my mind. The mark meant something, I was sure of it. The tattoo was done in red as if she’d been tattooed with blood. The small red spider had a dark black trident emblazoned across its back like a brand. The whole tattoo looked as if it could move across her face. It gave me the creeps.

She glared at me with annoyance sparkling in her luminescent eyes for a moment before she spoke.

“I don’t have time to deal with you.” Her tone was cavalier and contemptuous, like I was nothing but a pest.

Arrogant bitch!
I ground my teeth together in annoyance.

Don’t let her get to you.

I smiled at her, a touch of menace curling my lips as I flipped the small wooden stake in my hand a hundred and eighty degrees and flung it to the center of her chest with all my strength.

She stood stunned as the stake penetrated her skin through the thick cable knit. I used the several seconds she stood gaping at me in surprise to draw the sole of my boot up and drill the stake through her ribcage with a swift solid kick to her chest. She grabbed at me in a frenzied attempt, arms flailing as she sank to her knees. Her snarls ricocheted through the alley, a ferocious sound of fury as she crumpled.

The life behind her eyes died, shifting to a glassy, unresponsive white film. Her skin shrank and pulled against her muscles and bones with a tearing sound that made my stomach turn. I’d misjudged how old she was. Her decaying corpse looked like she’d been undead decades, long enough to know better.

Smarmy stared at me with wide, indignant eyes. He hadn’t cared one way or another if I’d killed her. Frankly, he looked pleased. I’d probably saved him some work. He’d gotten what he wanted and shoved it into his jean’s pocket, which required more effort than it should have. His jeans were too tight and his shirt too open for common decency’s sake.

He lunged for me in a quick, uncoordinated move that was all arms and legs with no direction. I stumbled back a step or two, trying to avoid the talon like fingernails cutting the air like razor blades. He grabbed the lapel of my jacket and pulled me toward him, yanking me off balance and into his chest. His coarse chest hair brushed against my cheek, and I fought the urge to retch. He couldn’t hold my weight, and we fell to the ground in a mangled heap. I landed on top of him, straddling him at the waist.

I brought my fist back and swung down at his exposed face. His nose cracked beneath my knuckles in a sickening crunch of cartilage. He screamed before bringing his hands up to cover his now blood-soaked face.

“You stupid bitch,” he snarled through his fingers.

“Ah,” I said casually. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t like me.”

He bucked beneath me, tossing me from his body. He rolled to his knees, then crawled quickly out of my reach. He rose to his feet and glared at me. I got to my feet, too, ready for another go, but he remained in place, his beady eyes darting about the dark alley.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he said with a quiver in his voice. He focused on a spot on the ground where his blood still dotted the concrete. He looked like he wanted to take a step. His right foot pushed forward, then moved back in hesitation. He met my eyes again with the first signs of fear. His steps backward were slow and uneven as he hissed at me. He actually hissed at me. I didn’t know humans could make that sound but he did.

“I’ve done nothing I wouldn’t do again,” I said with a quick upturn of my lips in a self-satisfied smile. I casually brushed a piece of dirt from my sleeve. “And I know one thing,” I started with a confident smirk as I turned my full glare on him. “I’ll sure sleep better tonight.” Smarmy’s face turned red and his lips pressed into a flat line between his teeth as he looked from the pile of dead flesh then back to me.

He turned on his heels and ran in the other direction without another word, reaching in his pocket for what looked like a cell phone.

I followed him for a few steps, but shook my head in disgust as I watched him disappear around a corner back toward the crowds. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop him without being seen. I never would figure out why humans flocked to vampires. Humans were lower on the food chain. After all, death was the only constant like living with a full-grown lion and thinking that the lion won’t eat you.
Yeah right!

I should have followed him, but I couldn’t outright kill him. He was human. The only thing I could do was let him go and hope he wised up. I didn’t have much hope for that. By the looks of him, he didn’t have many viable options. Vampires or porn: and the Ron Jeremy look went out in the 80’s.

I walked the few steps to the spot where we’d tussled and found something he’d left behind lying on the ground. It definitely wasn’t mine. I bent down and evaluated it carefully before I reached out and picked it up. The tiny little thing hummed in my hand. It was warm, almost hot, against my skin. A pulse of magic washed through me, like dipping my skin in hot wax, racing up my hand and arm as I stood with it clutched in my grip.

It was a circular braided disc made of what looked like delicate branches. They were too thin to be tree branches, dried vines, or herbs maybe. In the center was a black stone, speckled white like a robin’s egg and smooth to the touch. There was a hole in the center of the flat stone, creating a ring, as if it was meant for jewelry instead of this ... thing. I flipped it over a few times in my hand. It was light, and the magic humming through my fingers made my hand tingle where my skin made contact with the object.

Slipping it into my pocket for safe keeping until I could get it home and really examine the strange object, I turned to leave the alley and go home. I needed to find out what the thing in my pocket was and why Smarmy had wanted it so badly.

A hoarse whisper from behind the dumpster caught my attention and I froze, turning slowly at the sound. Frightened, tear-filled eyes focused on me in horror. I looked closely at the woman’s neck. She appeared to be suffering from shock and slight blood loss since the bleeding had stopped once the vampire pulled away. Most vampires’ saliva had an anticoagulant in it to maintain blood flow so they could continue to feed. Once the vampire pulled away, the blood would slow naturally. The wound looked worse than it was. She’d live.

I met her dazed expression and wide eyes. Mascara streaked down her face, following the trail her tears had taken. I wasn’t sure if she was afraid of me or everything that had happened, and I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to feel any more like a monster than I already did.

“What do I do now?” she whispered to me in the darkness. Her voice sounded pathetic and small. There was a part of me that hated her just a little for the victimization in her voice. She still clutched her legs to her chest, as if that would protect her.

I could have told her that everything would be all right, and she wouldn’t have nightmares about the attack for the rest of her life, but I knew better. Her fingers trembled as they touched the damaged skin at her neck. I watched her with anger- laced pity as she stared down at the blood on her palm.

Lying down and dying would never keep you safe. You only lived if you fought back. Sometimes that killed you faster but if you fought, the vampires never lingered to play with you, which was always worse than death.

“Go home. Eat a cookie or drink some juice and forget this night ever happened,” I said flatly. I walked out of the alley and back toward the noise and light of the street, leaving her behind.

Standing on the corner under the streetlight was the vampire from the gallery and his familiar dark eyes, watching me with a faint and almost imperceptible upturn of his full lips. I turned back to look at the woman behind the dumpster as she stood on her own two feet, wobbly but upright. She stumbled the other way, and I met his eyes again. He watched me with the same heat in his gaze that I’d seen in the gallery and now he knew my name.

Stupid!

I was one of the few that still believed in vampires, ghouls, ghosts, werewolves, and all the monsters that lurk in the dark. I’d seen them. I’d killed them, and I feared them. Now one of them knew my name.

Chapter 2

Two days, seven shops, and one annoyed vampire hunter later, I walked into a darkened shop in Westerville that reeked of Patchouli and incense. I pressed open the door and the wave of thick-scented air bombarded my senses. I instinctively pulled back. It wasn’t the smell that stopped me; it was the taste of the air and the push of magic that seemed to shove me out. Something didn’t want me there.

Finally, the right place!

I forced myself past the magical ward at the door and strode down the center aisle like I belonged there. The shop looked like a cheery Hallmark shop, bright with the light from the early afternoon filling the place from the wide front window. The shelves were orderly and filled with herbs, oils in cute little bottles with tidy ribbons, and shimmering stones in crafty little wooden bins. There were canisters of feathers and jars filled with dried things that I didn’t want to know the name of.

The easy, nonthreatening new-age crystals and incense were in the front of the store with cute stuffed bunnies on display at every end cap. As I continued down the aisle, I noted that the shelves became filled with more potent things; rare power stones, jewel-encrusted daggers behind glass, animals that had been stuffed and posed for effect with sharp teeth and snarling jowls, and unidentifiable jars filled with what smelled of formaldehyde.