Wren.
The detective stared at me like I’d grown an extra set of fangs on my chin. “Did your mother tell you nothing?”
“She told me…” I still had him pinned down, but damn it, he was actually good-looking. Think Henry Cavill as Superman hot, except for a somewhat crooked nose that had probably been broken a time or two. Still…definitely not my usual reeks-of-body-odor prey. “This is ridiculous. You’re trying to mess with my head. We’re done here.”
Fangs bared, I leaned in and pricked the skin of his neck.
He was eerily still. No struggle. No tensed muscles.
Damn it to hell and back. I couldn’t fucking do it. I sat up straight, slowly releasing his arms but still straddling him. He felt solid and warm beneath my hips and between my legs. I could already imagine how that warmth might feel inside me.
Then the weight of what he had said dropped on me and pushed those sexy thoughts aside. I wasn’t the only one. Wracking my brain, I tried to remember if my mother had said anything at all about other vampires. I’d asked about my father once. She said he died and it was best to not talk about him. So I didn’t. But now I wish I had drilled her more, made her tell me something, anything, about what we were and where we came from.
But she’d died before I’d had a chance.
“Shit.” I sprang off him and to my feet, licking a tiny droplet of his blood from my fang. It tasted a whole lot better than Rusty’s cholesterol-thickened sludge. Like a meal from a restaurant I couldn’t afford.
He slowly sat up, holstered his gun, and eased himself to his feet while I kept a couple yards between us. “She never told you there were other vampires?”
“The only thing she told me is that I had a father, and he died. I was eight fucking years old, okay? I didn’t know enough to know what I should have asked her.”
He scratched his head. I’d probably confused him with my own confusion, but hey, at least we were on the same playing field.
“But you never thought there might be more of…your kind?”
“Sure, it’s occurred to me since then, but none have made themselves known, and I haven’t gone looking for them. When she died, I was a little busy keeping myself fed so I could grow strong enough to track her murderers down and rip their throats out.”
“What did you plan to do when you accomplished that?”
“Oh, I don’t know, anything from stabbing myself with a wooden stake to falling into a volcano. Why the hell do you care?”
“I can’t tell you anything here.”
“Listen closely, Detective Zac Palmer. If you’re pulling something, I swear I will rip out your guts and strangle you with them before I drain you dry. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am. Couldn’t be clearer.”
“Start talking. How did you find me, and how do you know about my mother?”
He glanced around, then shook his head. “Not here.”
“Okay, then where?”
“We’ll have to take a little road trip.”
“A road trip. To where? Disney World?”
“Yeah, uh, no. There’s a little town called Brightwell. I want to find a certain vampire there.”
“A certain vampire. Do we have a name for this vampire?”
“No.”
“Okay. A specific location?”
“No.”
I crossed my arms. “Wow, that’s a lot to go on, Detective. You just show up out of the blue, interrupt my dinner, and tell me you want to help me. You don’t even know me. I could have killed you already. I still might if you keep annoying me. I mean, what the fuck?”
Did he know I didn’t just kill random humans? I wasn’t a mindless bloodsucker like some of the movies suggested.
“I admit I thought you’d know at least something about your kind,” he said with a shrug, “but that doesn’t matter. You’ll be able to find him.”
“Look, I’m pretty good at tracking if I have a scent or address or something to go on but…”
He approached. I backed away.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” He reached into his blazer, slowly.
I kept my eyes glued to his hand, ready to breeze on out of there if he produced a weapon. Instead, he pulled out what looked like a small flashlight and came close to me.
He glanced down at my arm. “Could you pull up your sleeve?”
Okay, that was random. “Why?”
“We don’t have time for questions.”
“Well, I don’t have time for human asshole ry right now. Tell me what it’s for.”
He glanced around us, then whispered, “I think you have a mark that you probably have never seen. I think it’s the key to this whole thing. This black light should reveal it.”
“The key to what whole thing? I call bullshit, but fine. I’ll play along.” My eyes never left his hands as I drew my sleeve up, exposing my forearm. I turned it over, showing him all sides, including the rose vine tattoo that climbed all the way to my shoulder. “Just an arm.”
He flicked on the flashlight. It had a strange purplish light. “Hold your arm out, wrist up.”
I did what he asked, but this was getting old real fast. “Can we hurry this up? I still need to get my money and guitar back at the bar, and I’ve been in the ‘ladies’ room’ way too long.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get your guitar back. The light will sting a little, but it’s only UVA, so it won’t hurt you, okay?”
I nodded, planting my feet just in case I needed to make a quick exit. “And my money?”
He smiled. “Yes, that too.” Damn him, he could have doubled as Clark Kent. He shined the light on my forearm just below my wrist. I winced. It stung like an electric shock, but I didn’t move. My skin started to glow pink, and as I watched, a bright pink circle blazed to life on my skin. It started to burn, so I yanked my arm back. In the blink of an eye, the circle had vanished.
“Shit, did you just mark me or something?”
“No,” he said, chuckling. “Your mother probably did. Or your father, but that’s how we’ll find the vampire we need.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.” He turned and started walking. “Let’s go.”
He wanted me to go on a road trip with him after pointing out the ‘key to the whole thing’ on my wrist. I still had no idea what he was talking about, but he knew my mother. Or knew something about her at least. Maybe he could help me track down the rest of her killers. Of course, road-tripping with strangers was how someone usually wound up dead. I’d just have to make sure it was him if he tried anything stupid.
I trailed after him. “Fine, but we’re taking my car, and you’re getting my guitar back.”
****
We drove all night, or I did anyway, hauling ass out of Silversage as Zac slept in the passenger seat. It was more than a little awkward, me driving my ’59 Thunderbird (aka Birdie) six hours to Brightwell, Louisiana with a human I’d never met and didn’t plan on eating, though that was still an option as far as I was concerned. His smell was enticing. Like a freshly mowed lawn and licorice spice drops or some shit like that. I’d have been content just licking on him like a human lollipop if he’d let me.
At the Alabama state line, we visited a near-empty truck stop where I used one of the trucker’s showers to wash the last traces of blood off me. I also took off that itchy-ass wig and flushed it. I never wore the same wig twice. When I emerged, dressed in a gray hoodie and black leggings, Zac was waiting outside the bathroom. He did a double take.
“Wow. Another disguise?” He held a large coffee and a bag of donuts, and had traded his suit for a Mets T-shirt and jeans.
“Nope, just me, except the contacts.”
“Suits you. The hair, I mean.”
I shrugged. My natural hair was platinum blonde, nearly white like my mother’s, and cut to a very short style that let me wash it, swipe some gel through it, and forget about it. Definitely natural enough to pass as human. My eye color, on the other hand, was a bright yellow, ringed with orange. Definitely not natural enough to pass as human. So, the designer contacts were a must.
We got back into the car, where Zac opened the bag of donuts and held one out to me. “Oh, sorry, I guess you don’t eat those.”
“Sure I can, but just a bite.”
Zac pinched me off a piece. I popped it in my mouth, savoring the greasy, glazed goodness. The inevitable nausea came with it, but I respected my limits.
“What happens if you eat more?”
“Nothing much, just projectile vomiting.”
“Oh.” He stuck the rest of the donut back in the bag and folded the top closed before setting it in the floorboard.
“So what about you?” It was a long drive, and I still didn’t know a whole lot about Zac Palmer except that he had a nice chin dimple and apparently got his rocks off studying vampires.
“I can eat just about anything. Not too fond of blood, though. My steaks have to be extra well done.”
I huffed a laugh. “Sounds chewy. No, I meant what about you on a personal level? I imagine you have a wife and two point five brats somewhere in an immaculate suburb.”
He exhaled through pursed lips, propping his elbow on the car door while he rubbed his temple. “No. I had a wife.” He paused, jaw tightening as though it pained him to talk about his family. Well, that made two of us. “She died.”
“Oh. How did –?”
“Car wreck.” He zipped up his jacket and scrunched himself up against the door, eyes closed. “I’m going to catch a few more Zs so I’ll be ready to get to work once we get there.”
“Okay.” So that was the end of the All About Zac show, apparently, as unsatisfying as a quick fuck with a trucker who wouldn’t pay up after. Maybe I could get more out of him if I … No, bad Wren!
I let him sleep as I drove another couple hours along Interstate 12 in Louisiana until the sun orange the line between earth and sky. I’d never seen a full sunrise. I always wondered what humans felt when that big ball of hot light popped over the horizon. Does it take your breath away? Bring tears to your eyes? Make you grateful for life, for the steady beat of your heart, the warm blood flowing through your veins?
Waking up with a stretch and yawn, Zac looked at me, then out the window. “It’s beautiful when it rises, especially over the ocean.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Our destination was only a mile or so off the Gulf Coast, somewhere between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. “Maybe if I wore SPF three thousand, a burka, and sunglasses, I could watch it.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be there in just a minute, so we should be able to avoid it. What’s it like, though, if you’re in the sun? Do you sparkle?” There was a hint of a smile in his voice, but I didn’t share his amusement.
“I don’t fucking sparkle. Me and the sun don’t get along too well.”
“How so?” He sat there blinking at me, waiting for an explanation.
Frowning, I swallowed hard, still tasting Rusty’s nasty blood on the back of my throat. It wasn’t really fair to expect me to do all the talking, while he offered nothing about himself beyond a penchant for vampires and a dead wife.
But his curious puppy-dog eyes and chin dimple were annoyingly persuasive. Was that some human superpower I didn’t know about?
Fine. I hated uncomfortable silences. “I don’t immediately burst into flames or anything that dramatic. It’s more like a severe sun allergy, like those creepy little kids in that movie, 'The Others,' only amplified. A little bit isn’t going to kill me, but I’ll end up with an annoying rash at best and second- or third-degree burns if I’m in the sun longer than ten or twenty seconds. Longer than that, and my skin will basically slough off, followed by the rest of me, until I’m a pile of ashes. Or so my mother told me, one of only a few useful bits of information she volunteered that helped me survive this long.”
“I’m sorry she didn’t tell you more.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“How did you two survive alone? Did you go to night school?”
“School? Oh yeah, I went to school, wore a uniform and everything. Came home every day to fresh chocolate chip cookies right from the oven.”
“Really?”
I smirked at him. “No, not really. I fell asleep in nasty basements and woke up in nastier motel rooms. Mama taught me to read and do basic math. Sometimes we were lucky enough to get a working TV so I could watch the History Channel or some cheesy-ass vampire movie. But mostly, I learned to hide and hunt and how to never get too attached to any place…or anyone.”
Quiet followed. I squirmed in the driver’s seat, suddenly aware of how stiff and cold and dead I was compared to him. He stared straight ahead out the windshield, glancing at me a couple times before consulting his phone.
“Up here,” he said, consulting his smart phone. “There’s a hotel downtown. Take exit five.”
“Okay.” A half mile before the exit, I had to ask for the fiftieth time. “Why are you doing this? How do I know you’re not leading me into a trap?”
“I guess you don’t, but how do I know you aren’t leading me into one? You could have easily killed me last night. Or while I slept.”
He had a point, I guess. I could definitely still kill him, though it would be a shame to not enjoy his pretty face for a while longer. Plus, my curiosity was overwhelming at this point. I hadn’t studied my heritage, though those questions had lingered in the back of my mind over the years I’d spent tracking down those who had killed my mother.
“Who is this vampire you’re looking for?” I asked. “Is he related to me?”
“I’m not really sure, to be honest. I had a lead on his location, and that somehow he is connected to you and Bronwen.”
“But why do you care? What are my mother and I to you?”
He was silent for a moment, rubbing his chin and the five o’ clock shadow that had darkened his face overnight. “An assignment,” he said with a note of finality. “I need to find out just how interconnected the vampire clans are, and how the social hierarchy works among them.”
“Sounds very scholarly. But why do you need to know this?”
“We believe vampires are contributing to corruption of human politics.”
“Since when do humans need help with corruption?”
He chuckled. “True enough. But those of us who care want to fight it in any way we can.”
“You want to fight vampires?” His intentions were still murky to me, but at least he was talking. How much of it consisted of truth rather than lies, I didn’t know, but it did help pass the time.
“Not exactly. We don’t know how deep their associations are with the powers that be. But there have been assassinations on both sides that lead us to believe they’re a lot more connected than they appear. And if they go far enough up the political ladder, we could have a war on our hands.”
“Assassinations?” I swallowed past the mental picture of my mother’s severed head that had wedged its way into the forefront of my thoughts. “Like my mother’s, you mean?”
“Yes, and others.”
“What do you know so far?”
He inhaled deeply and rubbed his eyes, blinking the sleep from them. “There are four clans divided among the continental US. I know your mother was someone of importance to the Southern Clan, and that she went missing about twenty-five years ago before turning up dead seventeen years ago.”
My mind flipped through all the times we had traded one town for another, sheltered in cellars, abandoned houses, and asylums, where spirits lurked in the edges of the shadows while we slept, curious about the pale, blood-supping creatures who seemed even deader than they were. Little did I know that she’d been hiding that whole time, from someone or maybe several someones who wanted her dead.
“She was important how?” I asked, finally escaping from the restraints of my memories.
“I’m not sure, except that she was some sort of leader.” He paused, his gaze flicking to me before he focused on the road ahead. “There was some talk of her having a child. But I’m not sure how many knew about you or the details. It was hard enough for me to track you down since I’m just a lowly human, but I took a chance and banked on the rumors being true.”
Exit five loomed ahead, so I merged onto the off-ramp. “How did you track me down?”
“Just followed the body trail. You’ve been pretty efficient in killing known lowlifes, all of them in the same fashion, throats ripped open, blood drained.”
“You’re welcome.”
He grinned. “Turn right at the stop light.”
I did as directed, then drove through another mile of boring farmland until we reached an urban area that resembled those of many small cities in the south. The historic district made up the town’s heart, but with all the new paint, paving, signage, and LED ‘gaslights,’ one could argue the validity of its true historic worth.
“Here, we can get a room.” Zac gestured to a hotel sign – Hotel Enigma – that jutted over the sidewalk to the left.
“We?”
“I mean you. I’ll get you a room since I assume you’re not a fan of the sun, and I can gather a little more information while you sleep.”
“If you insist.” I turned into the small parking garage, which was tricky with a not-at-all-compact '59 Thunderbird.
“For a vampire who’s in hiding, don’t you think you should drive something a little smaller and less…” He waved his hand around as though he didn’t know how to finish that insult to my preferred transportation method.
“Less what? Awesome? I don’t think anyone will expect a vampire to be driving a classic like this.”
“Hiding in plain sight? Like your Melody Songsmith persona?”
“Something like that.” I found a parking spot and hurried out of the car, then grabbed my backpack and guitar from the back seat as the sun popped between buildings and blazed over the concrete wall of the garage. It felt like the burning rush of heat from opening a convection oven.
I zipped inside through the glass door that led to the lobby. Zac followed a few seconds later carrying a small duffel bag of his own. Hotel Enigma’s air conditioning quickly cooled my heated skin, except for one spot on my arm, the same spot that Zac had uncovered with his UV light. It didn’t really burn so much as tingle, like an electric buzz. I pulled up my sleeve and stared at the faintly glowing circle.
Zac wrapped his hand over it and shook his head. I took that as a sign that this wasn’t a brag-worthy tattoo like the rest I had. A custodian came by with a dust broom and nodded at us, but his gaze lingered on me as he passed. I pulled down my sleeve.
“Come on,” Zac whispered, and I followed him to the front desk. He flashed a Clark Kent smile at the older black woman working behind the front desk.
Her name tag read Karen, General Manager. “Good morning. Checking out?”
“No, checking in, actually. My wife and I have been driving all night. I hope you have a room available.”
“Oh sure, honey. All I need is a credit card and your driver’s license.”
Though I pretended to be browsing the tourist brochures advertising petting zoos, canoeing, and civil war reenactments, I could feel Karen’s eyes on me. Was I glowing all over or something? Maybe it was my nose ring. She seemed like the Sunday-school-teacher type, not the nose-ring-and-tattoo type.
A couple minutes later, key card in hand, we rode up the elevator to the fourth floor and got off. A whiff of something hit me – like blood, but…dead blood. Like my mother’s had smelled the night she died. I froze in the hallway.
“Come on,” Zac whispered.
I followed him to room 410, where he scanned up and down the hallway before opening the door. We quickly slipped inside. Sunlight blinded me, so I ducked into the tiny bathroom. He locked both the deadlock and chain lock, then ran to the curtains and drew them. Once the sunlight had been drowned out, I emerged and sat on one of the queen beds. The flowery bedspread wafted up scents of human bodily fluids, so I tore off the bedspread and flopped down on the bleached sheets. It wasn’t like I’d die of gonorrhea or something, but…ew.
“What did you experience out there? Feelings? Smells?”
“I smelled blood, but I don’t think it was human.”
“Vampire?”
“Maybe. It was kind of faint. But this…” I pulled up my sleeve and showed him the lightly glowing circle on my forearm. “It seems to be pulsing, actually. And it’s tingling, like a small electrical charge.”
I sat up, staring at the faint pink marking. Zac came over with the UV light and shined it on my arm again. The sting made me wince, but I held still. Adjacent to the first marking was a very faint blue diamond shape, one end of it touching the pink circle.
He turned off the light and nodded. “Perfect.”
“What is it though? What does it mean?”
“It means we’re close. He’s probably been here.”
“The vampire we’re looking for?”
“Exactly.”
“And how will we find him?”
“Just follow the yellow brick road,” he said, pointing at my arm.
****
I slept through the day, cocooned in the sheets and blanket. The only sounds that disturbed me were a few slamming doors, a jackhammer somewhere on the sidewalk below, sirens, and a car alarm.
Zac slept a couple hours in the other bed, then spent the rest of the day “gathering information,” whatever that meant. He returned as I was waking just after sundown and knocked five times - our chosen signal. I looked through the peephole just to be sure. He stood there with a bag of fast food, waving. I opened the door and stood aside to let him in.
“Sleep well?” he asked.
“Like the dead.” I stretched and grinned up at him, fangs and all.
He laughed nervously as he went to the desk and deposited the food. “Nice eyes.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” I’d taken out my contacts because they annoyed the shit out of me when I slept. “What did you find?”
“We need to head to the east end of town. There’s a jail there.”
“A jail? Is this guy a criminal?”
“Allegedly.”
Time for another round of let’s extract one-word answers from Zac. “And what exactly did he do to land himself in jail?”
Zac hesitated, slowly removing his burger from the bag. “Murder.”
A cold shiver ran through me. Rabbit ran over my grave, Mama used to say. “And who did he murder?”
“Allegedly murdered.”
“Okay, who did this mystery vampire allegedly murder?”
“I’m not totally sure until I get more information. He may be innocent for all I know.”
I couldn’t tell if he was hiding anything. His expression was set in stone. His heartbeat maintained a clock-like rhythm. “And what business do we have visiting an alleged murderer in jail?”
“We need him, and I don’t think he’s dangerous.”
“Well, if you say so…” I rolled my eyes. “But if he goes berserk on your ass, don’t come crawling to me. Address?”
“That I don’t know exactly. I’ll need you for that. We'll roll out of here a little closer to dawn.”
"Why wait?"
"Don't worry. I have a plan."
"Of course you do." I rubbed my arm, which still tingled. It hadn’t let up, but the sensation had an odd calming effect on me, almost like I’d felt with my mother – safe and at home.
“I’ll hop in the shower while you gnaw on your hamburger.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from adding, Wanna join me? Had I fully trusted him, I’d have no problem riding him for a few hours. No way would I make myself that vulnerable. But…how long had it been since I’d had a good fuck? I honestly couldn’t remember.
****
“Sure you don’t want me to drive?” Zac asked as we got in the car.
“Quite sure, thank you. Nobody drives my car but me.”
“Okay, but you’ll have to pay attention to the mark on your arm so we know when we’re getting close.”
“It’s a game of vampire Marco Polo. I got this.”
“If you say so. Let’s head east on Market and get on the bypass.”
Maybe the sleep and shower had made me overconfident. But I felt pretty awesome in my clean black leggings, black army boots, and black tank top. I skipped the wig, but I wore a fresh pair of green contacts so I wouldn’t totally freak people out.
In the dim car interior, it was easy to see the magic tattoo glowing on my arm. The farther we drove, the brighter the blue diamond became, and the faster the light pulsed.
A weird sense of urgency kept my eyes wide and scanning the road ahead. “If this is a jail, wouldn’t it be closer to town? Or are we talking state pen or insane asylum?”
“No, I don’t think this one is known to the general public.”
We went through an intersection on the near-vacant bypass. The sensation lessened. I hit the brakes and did a sudden U-turn, tires squealing on the damp pavement of a humid Louisiana summer.
Zac grabbed the “oh shit” handle as he slammed against the passenger door. “What the –!”
“Wrong way.” I turned left down a narrow highway with no road sign on the metal sign post. The symbol on my arm grew brighter and buzzed like a tattoo pen on high speed. “This way.”
I stomped the gas, concentrated on shifting gears to keep Birdie growling along the curvy, pothole-scarred highway. Tree limbs draped with Spanish moss hung low overhead. They smacked the windshield as though warning us to go back the way we came.
I couldn’t stop then even if I wanted to. No clue where we were headed, but I knew we had to get there. Up ahead on the right was a scattering of gravel and an opening in the trees. The buzzing on my arm grew almost unbearable, so I stomped the brakes again and pulled just off the highway.
A small gravel road snaked off through the darkness. There were no signs, but a few lights flickered in the distance. I got out of the car, as did Zac, who still looked shaken up from the wild ride.
“So,” he said quietly, “I take it we’ve found him.”
“Maybe.” I allowed my night vision to light up the dark forested road, detecting both shapes and temperatures. Yellow human shapes moved in the distance, each holding cooler lines the shape of what else? Guns.
“This is no ordinary jail, is it?” I whispered.
“No.” Zac racked the slide of his gun. “You feel like he’s in there?”
“Oh, yeah.” And then a name wiggled its way into my thoughts. “Ashe. His name is Ashe.”