Into the Night

copyright 2007 by Esther Mitchell 

    “You are a vampire.”

     She sounded  skeptical.  Hell, she looked skeptical.  Geronimo sighed. No one ever said this confession stuff was easy.  Might as well bite the bullet.  “Yeah.”

     Claire rolled her eyes.  “And you cannot come up with a better lie than that?”

    “It’s not a lie!”

    “Juste.  A vampire who walks in daylight.”  She threw up her hands in disgust.  “Now I have heard everything!”

    The problem dawned on Gerry, then, and he cursed beneath his breath.  This wasn’t about her not believing in vampires.  This was about what she believed about them.  A dark smile tugged his lips.

     “There’s more than one kind of vampire, Claire.”

     One slim, blond brow lifted.  She still looked unconvinced.  “C’est fait?  I have not heard of vampires who are not…how would you say? Allergic to sunlight.”

    He leaned against the tree, following her restless motions as she paced in a tight circle.  “You’ve got Hollywood brainwashing, is what you’ve got.  Nosferatu can be killed by sunlight, supposedly.  They’re essentially dead, anyway, which I guess makes them susceptible.  I am not, and nor have I ever been, dead.  In fact, I’ve never met a Nosferatu.”

     She whipped about to face him.  “Then how–?”

    This was more difficult.  “About ten years ago, I was investigating a chemical weapons facility as part of a team like START.  I assume you’ve heard of them?”

    She nodded.

      “Yeah, well, some people aren’t as accomodating as the Russians were.  The entire team stumbled into an unshielded nuclear site.  Radiation poisoning killed everyone else on the team.  Somehow, I got lucky.”  He couldn’t keep the scornful irony out of his voice if he tried, so he didn’t.  “My blood was irradiated.  The doctors never saw anything like it, before, and they weren’t sure what to do with me.  They figured they could treat it like leukemia.  Just guve me a bone marrow transplant and new blood.”

   “It did not work?”

    “Hell, no.”  He ran a hand through his hair.  “Some kind of mutation had already taken place, and the new blood just kept dying.  Even worse, I was drained all the time, so tired it took more effort than I had just to lift my arm.”

   She looked curious now, and at least she was listening again.  “How did they fix it?”

   “They never really did.  Matt found someone who’d developed a serum that slows the rate of blood death, and allows me to function longer without a transfusion, but I still need blood.  And I need energy, which I get by feeding off the energy of others.  A psychic vampire.”

    The tip of her tongue darted over her lips, and her eyes telegraphed nerves her expression didn’t otherwise show.  “And how do you… feed?”

    Hunger and humor blended in him as he watched that tongue move.  This probably went way beyond what she was ready to accept about their partnership.  His desire for her certainly did.  “Blood or energy?”

    “B-both.”

    He pushed off from the tree, ate up the space between them in a single, fluid motion.  “I get normal blood transfusions.  Drinking blood would be useless.  It just breaks down in the stomach.  As for energy,” he closed the distance until even a breath wouldn’t fit between them.  Hunger churned in him as he stared down into her emerald eyes.  Slowly, he dipped his head toward hers, and softly brushed his lips across hers, causing her eyes to widen as she sucked in a surprised breath.  His lips tugged up in a seductive smile.  “I’m afraid I’d have to show you.”

copyright 2008 by Esther Mitchell

    This was dangerous.  Too bad danger was her middle name.  Shayne smirked as she crept toward the bungalow, the day’s humidity clinging to her in a light film.  Hawaii was the last place she expected to find a monster, but she followed his trail here, and she was determined to take out this terror everyone talked about.  After all, he was the reason she killed herself, she thought with a derisive chuckle.

    Her breath shallowed as she neared the small building.  Rumor had it that Dimitri Lapinov had senses unlike any other man.  That he was a hundred years old, and could kill a man - or a woman - from hundreds of miles away.  She snorted softly.  She’d believe it when she saw it.

    Light danced through the window nearest her, and Shayne’s heart pounded as she edged up to the opening and peeked inside.  As she did, her heart froze, and her lungs constricted as every drop of blood fled her face. 

     Shit, shit, shit!  It was him!  Her mind flashed back, and she groaned as she remembered the handsome, scarred man she literally ran into in the hotel lobby two days ago.  An evening of too much drinking, and one incautious comment, and she ended up in bed with a stranger.  The same man she was hunting, apparently.  She blinked, forced herself to draw air against the redness creeping into her vision, then blinked again as she realized the room before her was now empty.  Where the devil had he gone?

    “You are looking for me, da?”  His heavily accented voice, against her ear, sent a shiver equal parts dread and desire through her.  Slowly, Shayne turned, and her breath sighed away from her lips as she stared up into dark eyes, made darker still by the troubled scowl on his scarred face.  Oh, yeah.  She was in big trouble, now.

copyright 2008 by Esther Mitchell

      She was in so much trouble.

      Amber toyed nervously with the cloverleaf charm around her neck, her eyes closed and her lips moving in unconscious reassurance that the wheels would hold as the plane touched ground and bounced slightly.  The engines squealed and wound down, and she released her breath in a sigh of relief.  She wasn’t supposed to be back here.  They told her to stay in Hong Kong.  But she couldn’t.  Not now.  Not without Gerald.

     The plane rolled to a halt, and Amber sighed with relief.  Grabbing her knapsack - her only luggage, she hefted it to her shoulder as she stood and moved toward the entrance.  She needed off this plane, away from the final reminder of Gerald’s death.  She was back in Ireland, and she was determined to make a better go of it, this time.

     As she stepped out into the bright Autumn sunshine, she drew a breath of air, and swore she could smell the crisp fields of home, beneath the taint of jet fuel and asphalt.  If she was very lucky, Nick hadn’t squandered away the family inheritance, and there would be something left to come home to.  Gods knew, she needed someplace to heal.