“Black and Blonde” (Part 4)

“Before you go …”

Here it comes, Black thought.

Raymond laid a companionable arm along Black’s shoulders, and Black allowed him. “… pick a flavour. Chocolate, vanilla or strawberry.”

“I don’t have time for this, Raymond.”

“Then choose quickly.”

Black sighed. They wound a crooked path through the bodies on the floor, stepping over or beyond the lazy reach of grasping hands. In the cavernous foyer, Raymond’s arm pressured Black toward the staircase, a grand curved monument to the Old South though the house itself was styled in the Art Deco mold. Black didn’t care for either fashion. He was more of a minimalist.

He had mentioned time. What he had meant was patience. But Raymond did nothing for free and would get his kicks before Black was permitted to leave. In the master bedroom suite, three juicy young women lounged—blonde, brunette and redhead. The TV was on at the foot of the bed. Candles and incense burned. The smell of alcohol and expensive perfume wafted to meet Black at the door.

“Pick one,” Raymond said. “Take your time,” he added when Black opened his mouth to make an arbitrary choice. “They’re each delicious and more than willing. Go ahead. Get to know them.”

“While you watch?” Black inquired sardonically.

Raymond gave a modest shrug. “I’m obligated to ensure you don’t get greedy. Just one, Ariel. Leave the others for another night.” He smiled beatifically at the girls. The brunette smiled back. Her eyes were dreamy, doped on drugs and doctored wine.

The redhead snickered. “Ariel? What kind of a name is that for a guy?”

“And a cute guy, too,” the blonde added.

“It’s from Shakespeare,” Raymond admonished them. “The Tempest, isn’t it, Ariel?”

Black stared at him, not amused.

“You knew Shakespeare?” the redhead asked. The pupils swam like oil in her wide blue eyes.

Raymond hooted. “He’s not that old, darling.”

“I don’t care how old he is,” the brunette said, getting shakily to her feet. She was lithe and limber, a little too slim for his taste though her surface scent was by far the most appealing. She swayed toward him on bare feet, a fine gold chain glimmering at her ankle. “He’s good looking.”

Black would have stepped back but Raymond pushed him forward. Chocolate caught him in her arms and stroked her hands through his long hair. When she kissed him, he tasted charcoal and cherry wine. Nice.

Not to be outdone, Vanilla and Strawberry pulled themselves erect. The redhead tried to coax Raymond into playing, but he stood back with a severe shake of his head. The blonde elbowed Chocolate aside and laid her lips on Black’s. Her mouth was butterscotch. Too sweet. He pulled away before she was ready and earned a fleeting scowl for it.

“Try me, Ariel,” Strawberry purred, hooking her hands on his belt and jerking his hips against hers. There was ginger in her kiss, and warm cinnamon in her blood. She had deliberately bitten her tongue—a neat trick the other two had yet to learn. Black, dissatisfied with his earlier wharfside pint, fell prey to a rush of his own hunger and pulled her close for another kiss. He dove deep to pull on her bleeding tongue and surfaced, gasping. Strawberry grinned and licked his chin. Her hands worked down inside his jeans, feeling for flesh. She was young, unspoiled by want and harsh living. Sure, she was high on whatever Raymond was burning in the candles, but her skin tasted of cream and her blood was enhanced, not ruined, by the drugs. He stroked her throat with his thumb, pressing hard on the life thrumming through the artery. She arched her neck in response. He pressed harder. She moaned, the lids drooping over her eyes. She was suddenly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life, a riot of colour and taste and smell. He ran his tongue along the path his thumb had traced and laid the curve of his incisors against her pristine skin.

“Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute,” Raymond interrupted, taking the girl by the arm and yanking her aside. She clawed at Black’s back as she went, leaving stinging marks behind. Black himself was on the verge of an animal rage, but Raymond only smiled the silky smile that never reached his eyes and said, “She’s not for you, Ariel. I’m sending her to the dogs. Jett!”

A vampire stepped into the doorway and took the redhead in meaty hands when Raymond surrendered her. She looked bewildered, her mind too muzzy with opiates to register genuine fear, but her eyes on Black spurred him to action. He sprang—and took the full force of Raymond’s forearm across his throat. He fell back, choking. Strawberry was dragged, screaming, down the hall, a gift for the goons on Raymond’s payroll. Chocolate began to cry. Vanilla stood silent and shaking, waking to a nightmare.

“Nicely done, Ariel,” Raymond said. “I’m sure the boys will enjoy her.” He beckoned to the girls. “Come along, darlings; you’re spared for another night. Oh, and Ariel—” again with the smile “—don’t be such a stranger.”

He didn’t try to rescue the redhead. He didn’t try to spirit the blonde and the brunette away when no one was looking. He left the mansion with a sour taste in his mouth and a bitter truth in his heart.

He didn’t like vampires. He didn’t like them at all. 

* * *

Well, there was one he didn’t mind. Much.

He manhandled the Duster around and coasted in neutral to the bottom of Hogg Hill, where the car was abandoned until further notice. It was late and he had a long walk back to the waterfront.

Aurora had helped to get him a room in the hotel where she worked. Small and sparsely furnished, it suited him perfectly because the window faced north and direct sunlight was never a problem. The rent was cheap, the neighbours respectful, and the cockroaches didn’t bother him. The zoned-out kid at the front desk barely noticed him when he came in, and he met no one on the stairs as he climbed to the third floor. His room was at the far end of a narrow corridor lit by twenty-watt bulbs. His eyes were strained in the murky light; he couldn’t imagine how the mortal residents managed to avoid the crap littering the floor. Condoms, syringes, greasy sheets of newspaper, broken beer bottles—the carpet was so dirty that it crunched under his boots. Times hadn’t changed, only the nature of the refuse had been altered.

He had installed a new deadbolt though the door was worn enough to fold under a determined fist. It wasn’t tight security, but it was better than nothing. The bolt slid back with a solid click. As soon as Black touched the doorknob, he knew he had company.

Oh, great.

He didn’t know how he felt, so he tried to feel nothing as he pushed the door wide and fumbled for the light switch.

She was tumbled in the ratty La-Z-Boy, one leg draped over the chair’s arm, the other crooked at an angle that was half-challenge and half-invitation. The shirt beneath her jacket was open to the navel; the nipple of one breast peered out like an eye through a lace curtain. She had changed her hair again. Gone were the lustrous locks, replaced by a chic bob the colour of burnished walnut. Her eyes were brown, too, but they had not changed. They were still the same lazy, self-indulgent, siren’s eyes he remembered from the last time—and the time before and the time before and the time before. She fixed him with those eyes and didn’t dare a smile.

“You’re not happy to see me.”

“I’m always happy to see you. That’s the problem.”

She smiled then, and Black closed the door. She looked good—but she always did. So did man-eating tigers. “I was worried you might still be angry with me,” she said.

“I’ve been angry with you for more years than I can count.”

“Of course you have.” She cast a dubious glance at her surroundings. “Each time I see you, I’m disappointed. I hoped you would have done better for yourself.”

He ignored the jibe. “Does Raymond know you’re here?”

“I didn’t come to see Raymond. I wanted to see you. I miss you, Ariel.”

“You need me, you mean. What have you done this time?”

Her eyes widened with faux innocence. “Can’t I just stop by to say hello?”

“Why start now?”

“Maybe I’ve changed.”

“Maybe hell just froze over.”

She pulled in her legs and got to her feet. Six-two in heels, she was built like a dancer, too tall and boyish to be credited as beautiful in her time. A freak in the seventeenth century, she was supermodel material in the twentieth. She cracked it like a whip, too: she stalked across the floor and hooked a finger in the collar of Black’s t-shirt, reeling him in for a kiss that burned like dry ice. He didn’t know she had bitten him until he tasted his own blood, thin and acidic with the taint of cheap wine. His heart stuttered along with his resolve; no matter how angry he got with her, she leaked into his system like water into a rock. When the water froze—and it always did—it blew him apart.

“Clare—”

She took his hand and slipped it inside her shirt. Her nipple was hard when his fingers found it. “See, I have missed you,” she murmured. “I’m halfway there just thinking about it.” She grabbed at his free hand but he clenched it and tucked it beyond reach at the small of his back. Clare laughed. Undaunted, she made a play for his crotch instead. He had a brief memory of the girls hanging on Raymond, then she had him and his own hand tensed on her naked breast.

Why fight it? Why not view her as the whore she was and use her the way she used him? She wouldn’t care. She might even come to love him for it. Then he could pay her back for the grief she had caused him over the years; she and Raymond, the sick delinquent pair who had tortured a peasant boy for fun and left him to die when they were done. She had saved him in the end—if her brand of immortality could be considered salvation. It was a feasible plan, one he considered every time he saw her. Make her love him then make her pay. Simple. Brutal.

Impossible.

He responded as always, free-falling into bed, a victim of his own pleasure as much as hers. They rolled together, wrestled, struggled, pushed and pulled and teased and tormented and laughed and wept and sweated and bled until the north light brightened at the window and sent them to sleep in each other’s arms.

to be continued ...