Vampire Love Story (3 page)

Easier said than done. For now, it was all I could do to suck in a deep breath, let alone walk away. Besides, there was the small matter of a little payback.

Let it go,
I thought.
And get the fuck out of here.

“So you play baseball, Fatty?” Atticai asked to Ron. From somewhere deep inside the tall guy’s trench coat, he removed a length of chain.

Someone in the crowd gasped. Actually, a lot of people did. Lena was watching from the front seat. She looked sick.

Ron dropped the bat. “Look, no harm no foul. You guys can just go.”

“Oh, we can?” the tall began circling Ron. The chain hung limply from his long arm. “How very generous of you.”

“Please—”

“If only life could be so simple, Red.”

“My name is Ron.”

“Thanks for clearing that up, Red. So you met a pretty young girl at a bar, got her loaded, and thought that you and your buddies would do the unthinkable to her. But, somehow, your plans didn’t quite go as planned.” Atticai smiled at his small play on words. He continued circling Ron. The gaunt figure, easily a head taller than the cherub-faced Ron, looked at me and caught my eye. He nodded imperceptively and I understood the meaning. He was thanking me. Atticai looked back at Ron. “Unfortunately for you and your sick plans, you didn’t count on others helping her. You sick rapist fucks never figure that in...that people actually love these girls you hurt.”

“Look, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything. You can even ask her.”

“I don’t need to ask her. Because I can see through you, Red. I can see your heart. I can see your soul. And you know what? You really aren’t a good person. So that is why I’m going to continue giving you the beating that someone else started.”

Ron seemed whiter than normal. Then again, that could have just been a play on light. Either way, he started walking backwards—and promptly tripped over the hose. He screamed as if he had been shot, scrambled to his feet, and made a mad dash toward the front door of the house.

Atticai watched him with a sort of bemused expression on his face, and I thought that was going to be it. Ron would run to his room and everyone would disperse, and I would limp my way home.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The tall man swirled his long chain like a lasso and what he did next defied logic and reason. He threw the chain, which whipped through the air, humming as it went. The chain wrapped around Ron’s legs perfectly and the big dope pitched forward onto the house’s concrete steps. My mouth had barely dropped open, when this Atticai character somehow, miraculously appeared on top of Ron.

Then Atticai opened his mouth, and in the ambient street and house light I could see that he had filed down his teeth. What the hell? A second later, he buried his teeth and face into Ron’s neck. Ron screamed like a girl. Someone else screamed, too. Ron kicked once, twice. More people screamed.

Was I being Punk’d? Was this really happening? Oh, sweet Jesus.

A moment later, Atticai pulled his face away—a face now covered with blood. Ron was lying perfectly still, blood pouring down his neck and splashed over the concrete stairs.

This is real. He really fucking bit his neck. Unbelievable.

Atticai casually picked Ron up by his neck, lifting him completely off the ground. Ron’s legs dangled like a five-year-old’s. And with a primeval growl, the tall freak threw Ron off the stairs and into the bushes nearby.

And that’s when complete mayhem broke out.

* * *

Most of the party goers took off running, but there were some unfortunate bastards who stood their ground trying to defending their frat house turf.

Like I said, unfortunate bastards.

The three guys in trench coats were moving so fast that they appeared more a blur than anything. I was beginning to wonder if I had been the one who had been slipped a roofie. Anyway, time just sort of skipped around. One moment the tall, freaky guys were here. And the next, they were over there. In a blur, a blink. Sometimes even instantly. And since I no longer had a dog in this fight—not to mention I was seriously questioning my sanity—I decided to duck behind the Jeep and see how this all played out.

And then get the hell out of here.

The red-headed woman had now joined the three trench coats. All four, as best as I could tell, were laying beat downs with their chains and whips in a scene that could only be described as surreal, and one that made prison riots look tame. No one here had a chance.

The red-headed woman, who had just disposed of a guy twice her size by throwing him hard against a tree trunk, suddenly stopped and looked straight at me. I wanted to duck, but too late. Her eyes narrowed and then she did something surprising. She nodded slightly and motioned with her head. I frowned and was briefly overcome with a sensation that she recognized me somehow, although I was damn certain I had no clue who she was. She motioned with her head again, and my confused, dense brain finally understood the gesture. She wanted me to get running.

Well, that sounded like a hell of a good idea, and so that’s exactly what I did. Well, as I best as I could. With a sharp pain ripping through my injured back—and pain that was eclipsed by a powerful surge of adrenalin—I bolted down the driveway.

And that’s as far as I got.

Before I could even get to the sidewalk one of the trench coats guys had tripped up my feet. I fell to the ground. I tried to fight him off, but it was no use. He had the strength of ten men. He was impossible to move. I was a world-class mixed martial arts fighter and this Goth dude was keeping me down? I rolled over and he bit down on my neck. What the hell was this crazy jerk doing?

With everything I had—and using every wrestling technique Tommy had ever taught me—I broke his grip on me and heaved him off me. All in one motion. And as he went spinning and stumbling, I leaped to my feet and grabbed my neck. He regained his balance and turned and faced me, eyes wide with wonder and confusion.

I looked at my hand. There was a small amount of blood on it. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

“You should have never come,” he hissed, and lunged towards me again, his mouth wide. This guy also had his teeth filed. Jesus, they all had some sort of vampire obsession.

I landed a punch that did him little damage, although it slowed him down some. He simply shook his head and kept coming. The punch I had landed would have laid out most people.
People
being the operative word here.

And in a move that would have made any MMA fighter proud, he grabbed my hand in a blink and pulled me forward. The movement was so sudden and fierce that I lost my balance. He yanked me again and now I pitched forward onto the grass. Not the world’s most graceful take-down, but it worked. Not to mention he still had me by the hand, which he had yanked awkwardly behind me.

Awkwardly and painfully. Too painfully. I turned my head and saw that the son-of-bitch had bitten down on my wrist. I tried to free myself but I was in a hell of an awkward position.

He bit down harder, tearing away some of my skin.

This guy was now drinking the blood from my wrist. I could see him actually swallowing. I looked towards the grass and the other two guys were biting their victims, too. I began to feel faint.

“Don’t hurt him, Wyatt!” shouted a voice, although it was hard to be sure from where, exactly. Blackness had seriously started encroaching along the edges of my vision. The voice might have been coming from the van. “He’s the only one who helped me!”

And with that, the guy let go of my wrist. My hand dropped and I fell forward on my face, oddly drained of all energy or will to move, even if for a few seconds.

As I lay there, feeling as if I had been attacked by a grizzly bear, I could hear the sounds of approaching sirens. I’m no stranger to sirens or even being arrested. If you grow up a street brawler like me, you get used to both; however, I was too weak to even move.

Now I seriously felt drugged, and my neck and wrist hurt like hell.

Atticai was suddenly by my side, he knelt down, which took him a heartbeat longer than most people, since he was so damn tall. He lowered his face to mine and I was struck instantly by the strong scent of coppery blood. Indeed, blood was dripping in big globs down his chin. My stomach turned.

“Is this true?” Atticai asked me.

“Is what true?” I could barely muster out.

“Did you help Lena?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

He glanced over his shoulder to the others. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.” He looked back at me and actually grinned through all the blood. “And you’re coming with us.”

Amazingly, he gripped the back of my shirt and lifted me clean off the ground. I found myself briefly dangling—and gagging for air—before he threw me into the back of the open van like a sack of potatoes. Everybody followed in behind and the side door was slammed shut.

Wyatt, the same guy who tried to feast on my arm, started the van and threw it into reverse. Dirt and grass and mud kicked up and soon we were bounding over the sidewalk and back onto the street. There, he shoved the gearshift into drive and the van literally squealed away, briefly slewing sideways.

Most of the seats had been removed. The others freaks were hanging out the windows. Only Lena and the red-headed girl were looking at me.

I wanted to ask where the hell they were taking me, but I was still weak and oddly drained of energy. And so I did the only thing I could think of, I closed my eyes and hoped I would awaken from this nightmare.

I must have passed out.

When I opened my eyes again, the redheaded woman was lying next to me. She had my wrist in her hand and was putting rubbing alcohol on the bite marks. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“A little,” I said.

“Wyatt is very sorry for biting you. He thought you were one those pricks at the party.”

“Yeah, sorry, dude. That was totally my bad.” Wyatt said to me from the driver’s seat. “I thought you were making a run for it.”

I had no idea how to respond to a guy who had just bitten my neck and drank blood from my arm. I’m sure my expression said it all, probably a cross between
What the hell?
and
Seriously? You drank my blood?

Instead of answering, I turned back to the redheaded girl and asked, “Where are we going?”

She looked at me with a softness that was a complete one-eighty from what I had seen earlier, when she was whipping dudes into submission. “We’re headed to the Flatlands. It’s just north of Arrowhead.”

“We’re in the mountains?” I asked. If so, that means we had been driving for over an hour.

The girl nodded. “We weren’t about to stick around and allow you and Lena to get arrested.” She grinned a little. “We’re not complete monsters.”

Being arrested was nothing new to me. Then again, explaining the bite marks on my wrist and neck to the police might be hard to do. Yeah, it was probably best to get the hell out of there. Then again, getting the hell out of there with these weirdos might not have been my best choice, though.

Atticai was sitting up against the inside of the car door. With his long limbs bent sharply, he looked a bit like a preying mantis. He had his arm around Lena. A protective gesture, I thought. Kind of like an older brother protecting his little sister. Anyway, Atticai was staring at me, and it was making me feel very uncomfortable. I’m not used to feeling uncomfortable. I decided I didn’t like the feeling. Normally, a guy openly staring at me like that was grounds for a serious beating. But because I was so physically drained, I decided I would let Atticai slide for now. Yeah, let’s go with that reason.

He stared at me for another few seconds and then asked, “Did you really beat the shit out of those five guys before we got there?”

I thought about his question. I wasn’t sure if the king freak would be impressed by that or threatened. Finally, I shrugged and said, “Yeah, I did.”

“With only your hands?” he asked.

“And my feet,” I said, making a kicking motion that looked awkward because I was still lying down.

Atticai nodded. “Impressive,” he said. He was now stroking Lena’s hair, who was sort of sitting there impassively. I couldn’t tell if she liked his touch or not. Anyway, he was treating her more like a pet than a human being, which I found creepy as hell. He looked back at me. “So what’s your name?”

“Josiah.”

“Well, thanks, Josiah. I’m not sure what would have happened to Lena if you hadn’t stepped in.”

Was this guy for real? Was he really acting this normal? He and his buddies just got done literally ripping the flesh and drinking the blood of the party goers, and he was just sitting there, calming petting Lena.

I shivered. Something very weird and very wrong was going on here. And I was trapped in the van, still weak as hell from having my own blood feasted on.

Sweet Jesus.

The third guy spoke up. “What are you?” he asked. “Some kind of superhero?” He was sitting in the front passenger seat next to Wyatt. He was as thin as the others and just as pale, and he was often grinning, as if he found all of this funny.

I sat up a little more, feeling some of my strength coming back. Or willing my strength to come back. The redheaded girl and Atticai were still staring at me. I guess I was just going to have to get used to these creeps staring at me. Granted, having a beautiful redhead staring at me was certainly less creepy, but not by much.

I said, “I just wanted to help Lena.” I looked over at her again. Now she glanced at me and smiled, even while Atticai continued running his fingers through her hair. She had a sort of
zen presence
about her now that she was obviously very safe.

Or maybe she’s just as freaked out as you,
I thought. But I doubted it. She knew these people. And she wasn’t afraid.

“Well, you guys seemed to have things pretty well under control,” I said, purposely not mentioning the part where they also seemed to have enjoyed a late night snack.