“What do you want, bitch?” Chad spat at me, a loogie landing squarely on my face. Chad was a six-foot dirty blond in his mid-thirties, with heavy acne scars and bad breath. No, never mind that I was hardly the picture of good hygiene. With all I’d been through the past two weeks, this was the closest thing I’d had to a shower.
Wiping away the spittle that was rapidly cooling against my cheek, I didn’t bother to hide my expression of disgust. My other hand tightened around his throat. A dainty squeak popped out of Chad. His bulging eyeballs flicked south to confirm he was indeed a foot off the ground, his feet dangling like a rag doll’s.
Okay, so my newfound undead existence came with a few cool perks.
We stood out back of the bar he frequented, The Hairy Harbinger. Chad had stepped out for a smoke, and that’s when I cornered him. No one was likely to hear his yells over the pounding classic rock and raucous slot machines coming from inside.
“Come on, Chad,” I purred. “Don’t be like that. You were there the night that girl was murdered.”
“What are you talking about?” he rasped, still trying to pry my fingers off his throat with no success.
The guy seemed more defensive than confused by my presence. There had been no spark of recognition in his eye when I showed up, which made him an even less likely suspect for my murder.
“I’m talking about the girl who was found with her throat ripped out. You were spotted on the scene.” I jerked my head in the direction of the alley, two blocks over.
“I told the cops what happened. They let me go,” he protested. Resentment simmered in Chad’s eyes. Chad wasn’t the brightest bulb in the vanity.
I lowered Chad so his feet touched the ground, but I kept my grip tight. At the prospect he might get loose and run, a thrill went through me, tightening my nipples as the predator inside me awoke. I blamed the fast thrum of his veins under my palm. His blood was distracting, tantalizing, and despite his ugly mug, arousal curled in my belly.
I recoiled at the thought. Not for him,eww.
Still, the prospect of a hot, human meal…his blood sang to me. It would be so sweet to sink my teeth into his neck and drain him dry. I suppressed a shiver. It was risky to be this close to a human when I barely got enough vermin blood to stay sane. But I had to track down the truth. Find out what happened to me.
I pushed away thoughts of ripping his throat out and said, “Yeah, well, I ain’t the cops, so tellmewhat happened.” I gave him a shake, hard enough to leave his teeth rattling.
Before leaving the morgue, I’d managed to locate and read my file before I stole a lab coat and hightailed it out of there. In the manila envelope were pictures of my body. My limbs were splayed out at awkward angles, my lips bluish gray, eyes wide and empty. Head tilted to the side, the mangled meat of my ripped-up neck was on perfect display for the camera. I was wearing a little black dress and heeled boots, but there was no trace of a purse, phone, or any form of ID. There was a note attached that it was a possible mugging, but the wounds looked like they were inflicted by an animal. I was tempted to grab a pen and write in “vampire attack,” next to the original note.
The coroner had also tried to run my fingerprints, but the scanner errored out. I’d examined the pads of my fingers, finding they were unusually smooth. Too smooth. As far as the coroner was concerned, I was still a Jane Doe.
Ugh. What a lame name. I was tempted to grab the pen a second time to write in a better one.
But the most important thing I’d gleaned was the location where my body had been found. I resorted to hanging around that very alleyway, looking for clues, when I picked up bits of conversation from a couple guys smoking outside a bar around the corner, The Hairy Harbinger. The place was a dark hole in the wall that stank of weak beer and vomit.Can I serve you a knife wound along with that cheap whiskey?
The two men casually chatted about how Chad stumbled on “that dead chick with the nice set of legs.” They mused on whether he’d done it, since it wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten rough with the ladies.
After two weeks of hanging around to see if Chad would show up, I finally approached one of the smokers. For the low price of 250 dollars, he would coax Chad back out. I’d managed to get the dough, and now that I had the sole lead to my past in my hands, it was worth it.
“Like I told the cops”—Chad over-enunciated each word with palpable hate—“I was smoking outside, waiting on a friend when I heard someone scream. Coupla tourists straight off the Strip stumbled onto the body. I didn’t see shit.”
His heart pounded erratically, and his eyes darted here and there, confirming what I suspected of Chad the Charming.
“You’re a liar,” I said, giving him my best psychotic smile. His eyes widened, and he went still as his gaze fixed onto my mouth. Right. Vampire fangs. Forgot those would come in handy for scare tactics.
Suddenly words were spilling out of him in a waterfall. “I was smoking, like I said, but while I was waiting, I saw someone in the alleyway. It took me a minute to realize they were dumping a body.”
Anticipation gripped me. Finally, a freaking clue what happened that night. I’d been killed somewhere else. I’d need to figure out where I’d been and why the vampire moved my body. Weren’t bloodsucking fiends uncaring of the bodies left in their wake? “What did they look like?”
When Chad emitted another squeak, I realized I needed to loosen my grip a bit. “Sorry, you got me a bit excited. Now tell me what they looked like.” A part of me still insisted no one would miss this lowlife scumbag. I could drink him dry and leave the world a little brighter.
No.I clamped down on my instincts and fought the thirst with everything in me. My thirst would not control me, and I would not become a murderer.
Chad’s gaze moved passed me and something changed. His face drained of color and if I weren’t holding him up, his legs would have failed him. The tiny hairs along the nape of my neck stuck up at attention. As if I knew with certainty lightning was about to strike me right on the two inches of exposed flesh between my coat and hairline.
Releasing my grip on the man in front of me, I twisted around, already wishing I hadn’t.
What I saw was scary enough to kill me…again.
The figure stalking toward us was no regular being. Despite having the visage of a man, power flowed out from him in a majestic dark mantle. Though I didn’t need to breathe, panic sliced through my chest as the air was sucked out of the space around me. My stomach plunged and my already cold body dropped to arctic temperatures.
