B008DSVE7O EBOK Read online

  I didn’t want to turn the light on, so it was a great advantage that I could see so well in the dark. “Honestly, I just need a couple of things,” I said, opening the bottom drawer of the desk.

  I removed a pair of Christian Louboutin pumps from the desk. Next, I took the only framed picture in the office. It hung on the wall behind the desk. It was the only copy of a photo with my parents and me on my graduation day from college.

  I looked up at Benjamin and nodded.

  “Is there anything else?” he asked.

  I shook my head and we left the way we came in, after returning the keys to Harrison, of course.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to turn back and have a taste of our friend, Harry?”

  “Ewww, no, I don’t.”

  “The craving hasn’t started yet, then.”

  “Keeping track?” I asked.

  Benjamin nodded in response. We walked on the sidewalk, heading back toward the garage. Young women and men, dressed in beautiful clothing filled the streets, on their ways to the next bar or restaurant. I wondered what vampires did for fun. Maybe I didn’t want to know.

  “The photograph I understand,” Benjamin said, as we returned to the parking garage.

  I hoped no one was watching us because we took the stairs to the third level with unnatural speed.

  “But what about the shoes? We broke into the building for shoes?”

  He wasn’t necessarily mocking me, more like questioning my sanity. “The shoes are Laura’s and they’re crazy expensive. I’d be a bad friend if I didn’t return them to her.”

  He opened the car door for me with a thoughtful look on his face. After we paid the parking fee and began our drive through downtown Brickell, he continued the conversation.

  “You understand that I’m wealthy?” he asked.

  “Between the house, the Jaguar, and the clothes, you might say that I’ve guessed as much.”

  “Here,” he said, pulling a card out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  I took the card from him and examined what looked like a credit card. I was right, it was a credit card and it had my name on it.

  “What’s this for?” I asked.

  “I told you that I’m responsible for you. I took your life and I’ve obviously robbed you of a successful career.”

  “I can’t take your money,” I said.

  “Give yourself six, seven decades to amass your own fortune. Until then, you can spend my money.”

  Geez, that was a loaded statement. “So, what you’re saying is we’re going to be hanging around each other for the next seventy years?”

  Benjamin laughed, not something he did often since I’d known him.

  “Your perception of time will change as the years progress.”

  “What’s it like? Being alive for centuries?” I asked.

  He was silent for so long, I thought he preferred not to answer my question.

  “I imagine it’s different for everyone,” he said, trailing off.

  I should have stopped then, but I just couldn’t help myself. If I had to hang around this guy for seventy years, I guess I should find out more about him.

  “Who were you when you became a vampire?”

  “There was not so much importance placed on the individual in those days. I was a man. I barely knew my wife and children.”

  “And?” I asked, prompting him. Come on, man! You know what I want to know.

  “And a woman came from the outside. She was wild and mad. I was walking alone at the wrong time. She attacked me, and I began my life as a citizen of the undead.”

  I thought about that for a moment, wondering what it would have been like for me if I’d had a family when I was turned into a vampire. What would my parents have thought if they had been alive? Would I have told them? Or just disappeared? I didn’t know many people in Miami, other than Laura, of course. I guess I didn’t have to worry much about the whole I’m-not-going-to-get-any-older thing for a few years. Man, all this serious talk was bringing me down.

  “I don’t want to go back to the house.” I’d been cooped up in the house for days now and the night air felt crisp.

  “Alright,” he said, “let’s see if I can teach you to spot demons.”

  I smiled, feeling quite proud of myself. Obviously, Benjamin was somewhat impressed with our sparring, and thought I was ready to take this show on the road. I’d seen first hand what the demons were capable of. I wondered how many bars in Miami they prowled every night. How many victims would they claim tonight? Not just the humans, but the vampires too. We were all in danger with the demons running loose.

  “How many vampires live in the area?” I asked.

  Benjamin headed toward the beaches. I worried for a hot minute that I wasn’t dressed properly for the South Beach nightclubs, until I remembered what Benjamin said about how it’s different for everyone who realizes he or she is going to live forever. Did I care about what I was wearing in the grand scheme of things? No. A nice, tight skirt, blouse, and heels would do just fine. Besides, if I walked into any place with Benjamin, it didn’t matter at all.

  “Why do the demons target the bars anyway?”

  “Bars and dance clubs mainly. People are drunk, there’s usually a lot of drugs. It’s easy for people not to notice the demons around them when they can’t even remember where they parked their cars.”

  Benjamin drove us over the bridge into Miami Beach. I’d already been living in Miami for a couple of years, but I still couldn’t get over the sight of driving over the bridge. It was a complete knockout. The water seemed mysterious in the dark and the bright lights of the city signaled like beacons for a party.

  I looked over at Benjamin in his impeccably stylish three-piece suit. Okay, maybe I cared a little about what I was wearing. “Don’t take us anywhere too nice. You may be dressed the part, but I should have worn something a little more, you know... wowza!”

  Benjamin laughed. “You obviously haven’t seen yourself from behind in that skirt. You’ll get in anywhere.”

  I looked away and remained silent for the rest of the drive into Miami Beach. We pulled up to The Citizen when it was about eleven o’clock. I’d never even attempted to go to The Citizen—too intimidating. We were waiting to leave the car in valet when my anxiety sparked.

  “So, what’s the plan here?” I asked, using the visor mirror to apply lipstick. Cherry red would be bold enough to get out of the Jaguar and into the nightclub with Benjamin. From the outside, The Citizen was more of a lounge. I could already tell from the people waiting in line that there would not be any bumping and grinding on the dance floor. I could add up, in shoes alone, about fifty thousand dollars in designer names. It was like the red carpet outside of the bar.

  When we finally reached valet, the attendant opened the door for me. I stepped out and Benjamin met me at the front of the car. He surprised me by running his hand down my back and finishing with a grip on my ass. He pulled me in close to his side and I struggled not to trip over myself. We walked like that, with his hand on my ass, right up to the entrance of The Citizen. As we approached the bouncer’s post by the front door, I opened my mouth to protest. I wasn’t about to wait in that line just to get into a bar. I was sure we’d end up waiting for at least an hour. But when I got a sideways look at Benjamin, I knew we’d be walking right in. Benjamin carried himself like he was the biggest, baddest, fuck of them all. And for all I knew, he was.

  These people could sense it. The women mistook their fear for attraction. They all wanted him and they wanted to kill me for being with him. We walked right through the door of The Citizen without any questions.

  I perched on the barstool next to Benjamin. He remained standing. I gestured to the open bar stool next to me, but he dismissed the notion with a quick shake of his head, as if to say, “I don’t sit on stools.”

  “Do you know what my favorite drink is?” I asked, eyeing the people around us. There were mostly men at the bar, stalkin
g women with their eyes.

  “Blood?” Benjamin responded.

  “No.”

  “Well, it should be.”

  “It’s a—”

  “Whiskey,” he said, smiling at me sideways.

  “How sweet. You remember from the night we met.”

  “You wore black.”

  “And you wore my blood.”

  “Ouch,” Benjamin said, grinning all the while.

  “Yes, that’s what I said. So what are we doing here exactly?”

  Benjamin turned around, leaning his back against the bar, giving him full view of the room. His shoulder rubbed against my bare arm, and although the material was exquisite, I hated the way his suit felt against my skin. There are few things I find sexier than the feel of a man’s suit against my skin. Except Benjamin wasn’t the one that I wanted to have those feelings about.

  “We’re watching,” he said.

  I swiveled the stool around and did my best to lean back on my elbows. “What are we watching for anyway?” I ventured to ask.

  “Suspicious activity.”

  What the hell do we classify as suspicious activity? Searching the room, I analyzed any behavior that didn’t look human or normal. I wondered if I still looked human. Was I technically not human anymore? I thought about asking Benjamin, but then, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer.

  The lounge was smaller than it appeared from the outside. Now that I was inside, I thought there must be offices in the back or at least private rooms for VIP guests. Despite the dim lighting, giving the upscale lounge a certain seediness to it, I could see clearly as a vampire. It felt strange to have predatory senses at my disposal. Sweeping over the groups of people at several tables, I fastened my eyes on one man. He was certainly doing his sleazeball best to get a woman to go with him to the back of the bar—

  away from everyone else. I kept my eyes locked on him for several minutes until I realized that he was just that, a sleazeball. Only now, he saw me watching him and began to walk toward me.

  His greasy hair was slicked back, and not in the incredibly handsome way that Benjamin wore his. He was just plain gross. He wore a black dress shirt that was too tight and his pants were too small, but not in a way that made him even slightly attractive. I groaned internally when he approached me. At first, I made an attempt to look interested in my phone; however, decent, social courtesies do not always register with the sleazeball population.

  “Buy you a drink?” asked Tight Pants.

  “No, but thank you for asking,” I said, much too politely.

  “Oh, you don’t have to thank me. Just have a drink with me. Or maybe we can make this party private? C’mon,” Sleazeball said, reaching for my arm.

  “Don’t,” Benjamin said, his voice calm. He intercepted Sleazeball’s hand before he had a chance to touch me. Holding Sleazeball’s forearm, he pushed him away. Then Benjamin turned to me.

  “Let’s dance.”

  He pulled me along with him to the dance floor. “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” played through the bar. He brought me close to his body and I succumbed to his hand on my waist. Naturally, he was a good dancer.

  “You know, I could have snapped his neck. You didn’t have to intervene.”

  “He was spoiling our date.”

  “This isn’t a date, Benjamin,” I said, as he expertly spun me around, pulling me back into his chest.

  “Of course it is. We’re out, aren’t we? This is what people do, right?”

  “We’re not people.”

  “We have to fill up our time just like anyone else. Wouldn’t you agree?” he said, his voice humorless.

  “I thought we were demon spotting?” I asked, looking up into his eyes. The arctic color seemed to glow in the muted illumination of the lounge.

  “We are, and we are also blending in,” he said, dipping his head an inch closer to my ear. “There are three demons. They take humans to the back room; however, I have yet to see a human return. They have already identified us for what we are.”

  “How do you know all of that?” I asked, my eyes darting around the room.

  “I told you, just observe the room. If you hadn’t been flirting with strange men,” he chided.

  “I wasn’t flirting with anyone.”

  Benjamin turned me, with expert timing. “Not to mention that it’s rude to flirt with other men when you’re on a date.”

  “Not-a-date. So now what do we do? We have to stop them, right? They’re killing people?”

  “Just follow my lead, Olivia,” he said. “You and I are the bait. There is nothing they desire more than our blood.”

  I nodded, and for the moment, allowed myself to enjoy the music. I had never danced with a man who actually knew how to dance with a woman. My first memory of dancing with a boy was at the elementary school graduation dance. I forgot the boy’s name, but not his green shirt that was much too big on him. We danced at arms’ length and went around in a small circle. The next dances came in middle school and were equally awkward.

  Then, there was no dancing in high school until the senior prom and it was mostly group dancing because my prom date was a jerk and refused to dance to anything. Flash forward to the next year as a freshman in college, where the dancing was several nights a week at dance clubs. In retrospect, the bumping and grinding to the latest pop singles was shameful. This dance, with Benjamin on the other hand, was something entirely different and highly enjoyable.

  For one thing, I loved Smokey Robinson singing “You Really Got a Hold on Me”. I couldn’t help singing along to the words ever so quietly.

  I didn’t even care that Benjamin could hear me with his supersonic vampire hearing. Our bodies were pressed up against each other and I felt incredibly light on my feet. His arm wrapped around my side, with his hand cupping the curve of my bottom. Then, he hitched me up a little bit so that I was supporting most of my weight on his body. The movement was so quick, that it caught me off guard. Before I could react, Benjamin’s mouth was on mine. I wondered what it would feel like to kiss him, or for him to kiss me. My chest felt tight, and instinctively, I wrapped my arms around his neck.

  After everything that happened this week, I needed a good, strong kiss. When he slowly parted my lips with his tongue, I just about melted on the dance floor.

  I should have been embarrassed by the public display, but I wasn’t. When his mouth left mine, I almost groaned. Benjamin nibbled on my earlobe for a moment before saying, “Just follow my lead.”

  Oh… right… this was all part of a plan, of course.

  I knew that.

  He started for the rear of the lounge, heading toward the back rooms, though someone might have assumed we were headed for the ladies’ room. He pulled me along behind him, with his hand still firmly secured on my ass. I giggled and threw my head back, playing the part, no longer disillusioned by the incredibly sexy kiss. We walked down a long corridor lined in midnight-blue wallpaper. At the end of the hall, we reached a door. Benjamin opened it, with me stumbling in behind him. He turned to me, pushing me up against the heavy, wooden door. I didn’t have a chance to take in my surroundings, because he was on me in an instant. I don’t know how he managed to hitch my leg up around his body, what with me in the tight pencil skirt, but he did. He made a trail with his mouth, starting at the base of my neck. He worked his way up quickly before stopping at the place just below my ear.

  “One to your left,” he whispered, quickly. “I’ll get the others.”

  The moment he pushed off my body, I focused on my target to the left. He was standing over a thin brunette, sprawled across an unused bar top. I jumped up in the air and came down on him, crushing his neck with my elbow. He slammed into the bar, creating a shallow dent. For the moment, he was unconscious. He’d been feeding on the woman’s soul and I caught him off guard. Benjamin had enough time to finish with the other two demons. I didn’t even check to see if he was all right, because the victim next to me wasn’t dead. S
he wasn’t exactly alive, either. She hung on by a thin thread as the demon had almost drained her completely of her soul. I could see the silver mist still hovering around the demon’s mouth.

  It was the woman’s soul.

  Instantly, I knew I had to return the soul to the woman’s body. I think I heard Benjamin say, “There’s nothing you can do.” I was too focused to really absorb what he was telling me. Instead, I cupped my hands around the demon’s mouth and coaxed the soul into my hands. The mist behaved organically on its own. With great care, the soul gathered into my hands, but I didn’t dare move until I felt I had it securely between my slender fingertips. As if handling plutonium, I walked over to the victim, still lying across the bar. Her arm was hanging in such a way that it made me sick. I held the soul over her chest, the place where her heart should be. I could still hear a faint beating as the woman was not quite dead, yet.

  It seemed like an eternity as I held the soul over her heart, though it was probably under a minute. I didn’t dare move a muscle. I felt the soul tip over gently, through my fingers, and become reabsorbed into the woman’s body. Another minute passed as I waited to be sure that the woman was all right. Her breathing grew stronger and I heard her heartbeat pick up. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to the sound of blood pumping through her veins. For the first time since I’d been turned into a vampire, I felt... hunger.

  “Benjamin,” I said, getting a look at him for the first time. He was watching me with strange eyes. It was like he was seeing me for the first time. “Can you hypnotize her into going to a hospital and forgetting what happened here tonight? Is that possible?”

  He nodded. As I listened to him murmur into the woman’s ear, I walked over to the demon to make sure he was dead. All I found were his clothes in a heap on the ground. Benjamin stood next to me after he was finished with the woman.

  “So, they disappear when they die in this world?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where do they get clothes, anyway?”

  “They steal them when they come over. I’ve never seen them cross. Actually, they keep the location of their portals hidden well. But, I imagine they come over naked, and then steal the clothes from the first humans they encounter.”