A cold chill raced through me, like someone had just stepped on my grave, as I followed the old man up the stairs. "You know,"
I said to his crooked back, "you're working for a bunch of monsters."
"I suppose that is a matter of perspective, sir," he said. He opened a door into a room like out of one of those bed and breakfasts I could never afford to stay in. "This shall be your room. I trust it will be to your liking as there is an extensive liquor cabinet. Fresh towels are in the closet. Is there anything else I could provide for you before I leave?"
"What's the chances of you rustling something up to eat? Maybe a couple of sandwiches. One for each of us." Rex perked up at that bit of news. Being right in the middle of castle hell was making him a little forlorn.
"Sandwiches? You wouldn't care for some pasta perhaps, or a Caesar salad?"
"Naw. Just some sandwiches. Roast beef if you got it."
"Very good, sir. Two sandwiches." He backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
"Make that three," I hollered as I examined the room. The bed was an antique four poster with crisp linens and ruffles in descending layers. Rex jumped right up on it and sat on a lacy pillow like they was meant just for dogs. "Should've got a hotel," I said to him as I stretched out. "At least there'd be a TV."
Knowing Lizzie was still alive made me feel a little better, but not much. Directly there came a knock at the door and after I managed to shut Rex up from barking, I opened it to a young lady with a tray full of sandwiches, some potato chips in a silver bowl, and a pitcher of ice water with matching glasses.
"Thank you," I said, taking it from her. She smiled and curtsied and I wondered if she was alive as I watched her slip away. I set one sandwich onto the carpet and pointed Rex down to it. He looked at it, then back to me like I was fooling, but I nodded and he dove into it straight away. In two bites and a swallow, he was done and looking up at me with mustard on his chops. Patience won out and I got tired of him staring so I gave him the second one and stretched out on the bed. I started nodding off, but not before first double-checking my shotgun and laying it out beside me. Rex hopped up on the other side and sprawled out after first licking my face to make sure I was okay. What I meant to say was I was a little scared too, but what come out instead was a bunch of grumbles and threats to kick him off if he didn't get still.
A dream came quick and it was of Lizzie. There was a blue and terrible sadness coloring the edges of my mind's picture of her as she floated just out of reach, inside some quiet, stone place. An earthquake came and the walls shook and a terrible rumbling sound that slowly turned into Rex's growling. He was standing over me and snarling way down low in his throat and I snapped full awake, fumbling for the shotgun. It was no longer beside me.
"No need for violence," a woman's voice whispered and Rex exploded forward, barking furiously.
"Lizzie, is that you?" I called out, knowing in my heart it wasn't but desperate to believe. I sat up, confused and drenched in sweat, trying to reach my arms around Rex and calm him down. It was so dark I could barely make out a form across the room.
"Better than Lizzie," she said. I could see the cold shine of my gun cradled in her arms, then her leaning it softly against the wall.
There was a whisper, a scratch, and a match flared to life, illuminating a vision of dark beauty.
It was a Vampire woman, pale and cold, barely dressed in some sort of emerald green lingerie that sparkled in the dim light of the match. The skin not covered, which was most of it, was pale as pearls and I could see the dark outline of her nipples brushing against the flimsy fabric. As the match burned down to her fingertip, she touched it to a candle in her other hand. The flame caught and she dropped the match, taking a step forward.
Rex was lost in a rage that silenced him, hackles raised and trembling with a desire for her soft throat. "What a cute puppy," she said. "Is he house trained?" I nodded dumbly, lost in her eyes and the mesmerizing sound of her voice. "Why don't we let him out to play?"
"Lady," I said, "I don't know what your aim is, but I got me a grenade here that would turn us both to french fries if you take another step."
She threw her head back and laughed, her black hair swirled like smoke. It was a throaty and melodious laugh that clouded my brain. "Talk about a lady killer," she said. She seemed to float forward on strings. "I am Elita. I mean no harm. I only want to talk about," her voice clicked coldly "Lizzie."
Seemed reasonable to me. Midnight, a half-dressed Vampire vixen in my bedroom and wanting to talk about my true love. This is smart, but there was no harm in talking, after all. "All right, but keep your distance. What do you know?"
"Everything," she said. "May I sit down?"
Her mocking eyes never left mine and leaning over from the waist to place the candle on the dresser between us, her top gapped forward, not so inadvertently showing the pale upper curve of her breasts. My blood quickened of its own accord and a sleepy sort of giving up was stealing through me. I pushed a disbelieving Rex away.
Close as she was, an arm's length, I could feel something hot and dark coursing from her. It was like standing in the middle of a grass fire, feeling the deadly heat and extent of it raging about me. She was pure power, ruinous. Her scent was narcotic and as I dragged my eyes away from the shadows between her breasts, her eyes were fixed on mine.
"Yeah, help yourself," I said weakly "The chair." I pointed. She sat down and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hand. Her hair hung down to frame her face and dancing eyes.
"So you're the mighty Tucker."
"Mighty pissed off," I said, "and looking for answers."
"What do you want to know?" She leaned back into the chair, legs apart and hands resting on the leather arms.
I knew my mouth must be hanging open at the sight of her. I jerked the bedspread off and threw it her way. "Would you cover yourself up?"
She laughed again and wrapped it around her shoulders, somehow managing to make even a damn quilt look sexy. "Is that it?"
"No. I want to know where Lizzie is, and if she's okay."
She sighed. "Your devotion is so touching." I couldn't tell if she was still mocking me or just downright mean. She sighed. "She's fine, I guess. Though speaking as a witness, the change is," she flicked the tip of her tongue around the edge of her lips, "most unpleasant. In fact, I imagine wherever she is right now, she is terrified, suicidal, and very, very hungry. So in answer to your question, no, I guess she's not okay."
I sat up in bed. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You are boring me, Tucker. And boring is so very disappointing. She's a Vampire now. She's dead. She's gone from you. You cannot get her back. She is no longer of your world."
Despair and rage swept through me and tears came. Rex barked and I swung around like I aimed to cuff him. He looked up at me hurt and hunkered down out of sight. I leaped up and in a bound was standing over her. I took her by the shoulders and lifted her up from the chair. The blanket fell back and the strap of her negligee slipped down from her pale shoulder revealing more than the round tops of her breasts. Her body was flushed and scorched my fingers. Smoldered with a life I feared had recently belonged to someone else. "That's a lie. That's a goddamn lie," I shouted into her face.
She laughed and I hated her for it. "It's true. Elizabeth Vaughan is no more, Tucker. Look into my eyes." I made the mistake of doing just that and my breath came short and shallow. The rage was burning in me, threatening to burst out and I knew that was exactly what she wanted. "You know I speak the truth."
I dropped her and she made no move to cover herself or sit up, just watched me. My mind was reeling like I was about to black out and I steadied myself against the wall, held my hand to my head and cried, the tears falling into the shadow. I begged God that this whore was lying. That Lizzie was all right, and that she was human still. Nothing made sense, and I mourned for the death of sense and of love. Then a hand slipped around my waist.
It was Elita, standing now. Rex ran around us barking and tangling me underfoot so that I staggered into her, but she supported my weight easily She guided me to the bed. Her hand was small and even through the thickness of my clothes I could feel the heat of it against the small of my back.
"Poor Tucker," she said. "So sad." She laid me out and crawled on top of me. "I can help you. Lizzie is lost to you. At least until she learns the power of her condition. It takes years. A century. You'll be gone and forgotten. She will be forever."
Her words snaked deep into my thoughts and I pictured me old and alone and Lizzie as beautiful as last week up in the mountains with the sunlight in her hair, and then Elita was tugging at my shirt and it was gone and her body was pressed to mine so that I could feel the contours, the heat. Her hands slid across my chest, nails raked into my back and her mouth glided along my abdomen. She bit at me, teased my nipples with her tongue and I knew this was terribly bad, but my limbs were frozen with a dreadful paralysis like I wanted to die then, and by her pale hands. The realization that Lizzie was lost from me forever unhinged something in my heart and it howled like a wolf and tore at the soft underbelly of my mind.
She was tugging at my belt and her hands, on fire with pleasure, caused an unearthly desire to swell in me. She was wild. Her mouth was all over me and then, finally she pressed it to my mouth and it burned like fire on my lips. I could taste the sweet, bloody taste of death on her and something in my soul recoiled.
Rex saved my life, once again. About the time I had all but given up, he come flying over the bed like a canine missile and slammed into her side. It jolted her good and she tore her hands off me and swiveled her head around, a savagery painted there.
He darted out of reach and she regained her composure, turning her attention back to me.
She redoubled her efforts, but my mind was clearing now, slow, like muddy water. I let my body be borne backward by her momentum, carrying us across the bed and close enough to reach the Casull out from under the pillow. She was tugging on the waistband of my jeans as I thumbed the hammer back and pressed the muzzle to her temple.
"A dozen of you ain't worth one of Lizzie," I said. A terrible, hoarse shriek ripped out of her throat and her whole body trembled with rage like an animal. She would have gladly ripped my heart out and made me watch while she ate it, but I kept the pistol up against her tight. "Now get off me. I love her. And I aim to get her back. Your behavior only tells me I ain't too late."
I was surprised at how quick she regained herself. Like when a cat falls and pretends it was what she'd meant all along. She stood, her hair in wild disarray and lingerie falling off at the shoulders.
"You have no idea what you're missing. The pleasures I would have shown you."
"I have a pretty good idea," I said, keeping the pistol leveled right at her black heart. "Whyn't you just save us both some trouble and tell me where I can find Lizzie."
"If I knew where she was, do you think I would have come to you?"
"I'll find her. If I have to take this whole goddamn city apart, I'll find her."
She leaned close to me, unwavering. "You may not like what you find."
"You're right. I'll love what I find. All them years you been around, guess you still don't know what that means." She spun with a wordless curse and was gone.
Rex jumped up beside me, wagging his little stump and trembling. What I meant to say was thanks for distracting her but instead I said "What? I didn't do nothing." He curled up into a ball and kept one eye disdainfully upon me. "You're the one who let her sneak up on us." I eased the hammer back down and stuck the pistol back under my pillow "I didn't do nothing," I said again as I closed the door and retrieved the shotgun, double-checking that it was still loaded. "Don't be like this." No answer. "Fine," I said, pulling over the blanket still smelling of her, "but if any more of 'em get past you tonight, I'm gonna get me a cat."