Blood Worship
Chasing Vampires Trilogy
Barbara L. Black
Prologue
This place was wonderful. He could not for the life of him (and he chuckled here at his own small joke) understand why he had never come here before. There were endless opportunities here for taking money from the unsuspecting, and there were many, many opportunities for feeding. He loved going downtown at night and roaming amongst them all. All drank freely of alcohol and partook surreptitiously of drugs, making them even more susceptible. There was such a mix of people here that it was positively delightful, and all of them were exposing large amounts of their delectable, warm skin. They absolutely glowed with the warmth of the blood that coursed through their veins, and his eyes followed them with appreciation and hunger.
There were ripe young women with brown skin, dark hair, and limpid eyes. There were light-skinned men with hair nearly the color of his own. Purple-haired tattooed teenagers rubbed elbows with investment bankers. There were young men with old women, young women with old men, men with men, women with women. All were nearly naked, all happy and laughing and trusting. He was nearly giddy with excitement looking around at them all, and he loved the nightlife in this Florida coastal town. This is where he was meant to be, he was sure of it.
He was so handsome that all who passed turned back to stare again. Sometimes they would shudder at the second look and turn away quickly, and he would laugh out loud, tossing back his silver-blond hair, his ice-blue eyes twinkling merrily. Sometimes, just for fun, he would hold the stare of the one who ogled him, not letting them break eye contact. They would flush both with sexual excitement and with fear. He amused himself by imagining the furor if he revealed his hunger and his power to the crowd. They wouldn’t be happy and laughing then, oh, no, they would not. They would cringe before him and pay him homage, as they should.
As they all should.
He felt a rush of exhilaration; the changes he had seen here were amazing. What a world he’d found himself in. This time he would not let his brothers down; he wouldn’t make any mistakes. There would be no troubles as there had been before. He had overstepped his boundaries and grown careless and they had punished him for it, but that would not happen this time. He had learned something from his errors. He would build a following, guard his strength, and let them do all the work. He would keep himself hidden, until it was time to be seen. He must be careful and lie low. He would be wary and take things slowly, until he had a firm grasp on it all.
This time it would all be wonderful. First they would worship the blood, then they would worship him.
He heard a thumping, driving beat that sounded remarkably like a large heart beating, and he followed it around the corner. It was coming from a crowded bar with the words Scarlet Heaven emblazoned in red letters across the front window. He stopped abruptly in the doorway and watched the stage where a man lapped eagerly at the thin stream of blood flowing down the neck of a woman tied to a chair. She was screaming theatrically, and the crowd was roaring.
“Hey, if it ain’t your kinda place, buddy, move on,” said a voice behind him. “Quit blocking the door and let the rest of the freaks in.”
He turned to see a young man dressed all in leather behind him. He smiled tenderly, sweetly, his eyes boring into the one who dared to talk to him so. He watched the man’s eyes dilate until he could barely see the color of the irises.
“It is my kind of place,” he said gently as the young man took a step back, shaken beyond words. “I believe that it is exactly my kind of place.”
Chapter One
Kevin Davis finished shoving his things into his battered backpack and zipped up the top. He felt defeated as he looked at it lying there on the bed. It sure didn’t seem like much to take along. Two changes of clothing and some snacks he had filched from the kitchen. He shrugged.
Oh, well. He had his babysitting money from the stash that he’d hidden in his room. Oh, not the fake stash that Alan had found right away, but the other one. He laughed, the sound a short, humorless bark. Alan was such an idiot; he never realized that the first one was just a decoy. Kevin had been planning this for a long while, and he was way, way smarter than that ignorant Florida cracker would ever be.
He put the note for his mother in the box of tampons underneath the kitchen sink, the one place he knew Alan would never look. He knew she needed them right now – it was hard to hide things from each other when you lived in such a small place. He let a little smile play over his mouth. Hard, but not impossible. If you were smart, that is, unlike Alan the Asshole.
He started out purposefully for the bus station, swinging his arms jauntily, trying to pretend that he was happy. He was really doing it. He was really running away. This wasn’t some capricious decision that he’d made because he was angry. He wasn’t trying to punish his mom. He wasn’t into drugs. This wasn’t because he was gay.
This was because he didn’t want Alan, his mother’s boyfriend, to rape him.
Alan had been dating his mother for about six months. At first, he’d ignored Kevin, which was fine because he couldn’t stand the man. God, how could his mother sleep with that guy? Kevin wrinkled his nose. The man greased his hair back like some fifties hood. He was skinny, except for the huge potbelly on him, and though he couldn’t be more than 35, he had absolutely no muscle tone and his skin sagged off of him like some old lady’s. He also worked as little as possible, and he hadn’t had a job for at least half of the time she’d been dating him. He knew his moms was scared of being alone, but Jesus! How much worse could being alone be?
And as aggravating as all that was, it had all been just an annoyance until two months ago, when Alan moved in with them.
Then everything changed.
Alan had started paying a lot of attention to Kevin. A lot. But only when his mother wasn’t around, and not the kind of attention that Kevin appreciated. He’d felt him watching, seen Alan staring at him when he didn’t think that anyone else noticed. He’d even tried to come into the bathroom a couple of times when Kevin was taking a shower, but he wasn’t an idiot and he always locked the door. And he’d started shoving a chair underneath the door handle as an extra precaution. Alan kept saying to let him in, he needed to pee, but why didn’t he use the master bathroom?
Kevin had made sure that his mother had told Alan that he was gay early on in their relationship. Kevin snorted. If you could call it that. More like a train wreck than a relationship if you asked him. Alan had mostly ignored him before that, and the trouble started right after she told him.
Now Alan always acted like he hated him, slapping him around every chance he got. He called him faggot and sissy when his moms wasn’t around, and when Kevin objected, Alan pushed him to the floor. Touching, he was always touching him in some hurtful way. He made sure that it never went so far that Kevin had marks, but he knew what was coming. It was getting worse all the time now and pretty soon something bad was going to happen.
It’s why he was leaving.
He’d finally figured it out. It had taken him a while, but now it was all clear. At first, he’d just thought Alan was a homophobic asshole. Kevin wrinkled his nose. It was sick. Alan was sick. Sometimes those church people who lived down the street called him unnatural and a deviant, but Alan was the deviant, not him.
Alan wanted him, and he was angry about it. He wanted to have sex with him, and he wanted to hurt him when he did it. He’d call it a punishment, Kevin just bet. Just what the faggot boy deserved.
He would catch him alone sometime soon, and it would start the way it always did,
with Alan slapping him around. Then ol’ Alan would finally screw up his courage - Kevin laughed grimly to himself, that was a good one, screw up his courage - and he would do what he’d been wanting to do all along. He’d rape him and he’d hurt him, leave him bleeding on the floor, and he’d act like it was all Kevin’s fault. Because he didn’t want to admit that he really wanted to fuck guys. That would make him a fag, and he was too macho to be a fag.
And nobody would believe that Kevin hadn’t wanted it, maybe not even his mother, and Alan would only get a slap on the wrist. Or maybe they wouldn’t believe Kevin at all, maybe they’d think that he’d seduced Alan and then tried to cry rape. He was legal, after all: He’d turned eighteen two days ago. Since he was fourteen years old, he’d made it very clear exactly in which direction his sexual interests lay. Everybody knew it. It had been a matter of pride for Kevin. He wasn’t going to pretend to be something that he wasn’t.
It might be the 21st century, but people still had the same prejudices that they’d had in the previous ones. He’d come in for his share of hazing, even from people he had thought would understand. So he knew that there was no use talking to anybody about it. He’d tried to say something to his Moms, but she’d brushed it off and acted like she didn’t understand. Kevin knew that she just didn’t want to understand. If she believed him, she’d have to kick Alan out.
And then she would be alone.
Pretty fucked up, if you asked him.
As he paid for his ticket and got on the bus, he tried not to think about how much he was going to miss his Moms. He laughed to himself, but it wasn’t a happy sound.
Maybe he was just like her, because he didn’t want to be alone, either.
***
Ah, good, he approaches our young friend, the old one thought hungrily. He watched avidly as they walked behind the building together, a bright red tongue flicking at the lush contours of his lips. Closer, my child, closer.
He took a deep breath, drawing the boy’s scent deeply into his nostrils, filling himself with the smell of his prey but careful to remain hidden in the shadows. He was too hungry to go nearer. He didn’t want to scare off their little pigeon. This one was nervous already, and no doubt he would run screaming if he caught just a glimpse of what stared so ravenously at him from the shadows.
His eyes burned, and he almost flew from his hiding place. He had left it too long, too long, and he must not do this again. The hunger was almost uncontrollable. He must feed more often, or he would turn on his own followers and drink them dry. And then he would have to start all over again, searching for those who had the skills and the connections he needed. That would take too much time; it would be a waste of his energies.
He would just feed more often.
The boy was trying to act cool, but he was nervous. He was pale, and he looked unwashed. No doubt all that he owned in the world was contained in the crumpled backpack he clutched.
Be quick, Dan, my trusted one, the hunter whispered and knew that Dan heard him when he looked over to the place where he hid. The old one cursed to himself. Hadn’t he told him repeatedly not to look at him? The boy cocked his head to one side and looked his way, staring straight into the shadows where he was hiding. The old one prepared to leap, but Dan leaned forward and whispered something in the boy’s ear. He placed a hand on his shoulder, and the boy didn’t flinch away. He leaned into Dan instead.
Good, that was good. He hadn’t seen him.
Dan had mentioned money, of course, because money was what they all wanted, these absurd children. The paper that would buy them things, dull their pain, fix their lives. He smiled to himself. But money would not change this one’s life, because it would be over as soon as he agreed to Dan’s proposition.
He just would not know it. Yet.
The boy shook his head and held out his hand. Dan argued, but the boy shook his head again.
The old one cursed to himself. Give it to him, he whispered. Give it to him now. We will take it back from him later.
Dan put the money in his hand, and the boy nodded. He shoved it quickly into his pocket. The old one smiled. The boy thought himself street smart, but he was too foolish and too trusting, and that worked to their advantage. He would soon grow to regret his credulousness.
He would wait for them in the house, and the boy would not be frightened at first. Then when he sees me among my followers and realizes our purpose, his terror will rise.
The old one smiled. Their terror was so delicious. It was hard to say which he liked best, their fear or their blood.
Dan put his arm around the boy and moved toward the car he had parked in the shadows.
The boy suddenly bolted, running unbelievably fast. In seconds, he was around the building and on the crowded street. Dan couldn’t keep up, and he stopped when he saw that he had no chance of catching him. He put his hands to his head and bent over in pain as he heard the howl of rage inside his head.
Find me another. Find me another! Do it now. Bring someone to the house within the hour or you will take his place.
Dan pulled his phone out of his pocket, sweating and shaking. That girl who’d just joined them had a friend that she wanted to bring in with them, but that plan had just changed. The friend could be tonight’s surprise party guest.
His fingers trembled so much he could hardly dial the number. Please pick up, he thought. Please, please, please.
When she answered on the second ring, Dan almost cried with relief.
***
Jessie Hartwell was dreaming of her mother when Mrs. Davis knocked on her bedroom door to tell her that a police officer was on the phone and wanted to talk to her.
“I always liked that name Kira,” Mom was saying. “It always made me think of the sound a hawk makes when it’s flying. Kira. It’s a real strong name, don’t you think?”
Jessie looked over her shoulder to see Mom curled up on that raggedy old couch she refused to get rid of.
“It’s too comfortable to throw out,” she always protested. “I’ve got it broke in just the way I like it.”
And Jessie always laughed when she said it, because the last three words always came out ‘Ah lahk ee-it’. Mom always said she could control her accent unless she was drunk, tired, or full of strong emotion – and she was full of strong emotion all the time, so she could never really control it. It slipped out whenever it wanted to.
“She wasn’t strong enough, though, baby. That name couldn’t help her out of the place she got into,” Mom said, and she sounded as if she’d come straight from Alabama yesterday, instead of the fifteen years it had been.
“Something bad’s happened, baby. Really bad. You got to be fearless, ‘cause it’s going to be hard. Scary things gonna happen. Bloody things.”
And while Jessie watched, horrified, the ratty old couch began to fill up with blood. It ran in a red river over her mother’s lap, who didn’t seem to notice. Jessie could smell it, the blood, that awful metallic odor filling the room. It oozed past her mother’s waist and she lifted a hand now dripping with it to wave at her. Jessie watched in revulsion as the droplets went flinging across the room to land on the floor in front of her, glistening and somehow malevolent. The blood wanted her, and it trickled sluggishly toward her, joining with the other drops to form a larger mass that was trying to reach her…
“Momma,” Jessie said, though she’d stopped calling her that years ago. “Momma!”
“I got to go now. Remember what I said, baby,” she said intently, the blood almost to her chin. “It’s real important.”
“Jessie, are you awake?” Mrs. Davis knocked a little harder on the door, really rattling it this time. She knew that Jessie was hard to wake in the mornings. “There’s a police office on the phone who wants to talk to you.”
The minute Jessie opened her eyes, she knew that Kira Matthews was dead.
***
Mrs. Davis put a hand to Jessie’s cheek, where it trembled noticeably. Jessie pulled
her hand down and held it tightly in her lap. Mrs. Davis wasn’t holding up too good, Jessie thought. Ordinarily her plain, good-natured face had its own kind of serene beauty, and a natural neatness helped. But stress had left its toll today, and she looked the seventy year old woman that she was, and a homely one at that. Her round little cheeks were sagging, her graying hair was going every which way, and the straps of her slip were showing through the top of her dress - not how she would normally appear in public. Jessie hadn’t wanted her to come to the police station with her, but Mrs. Davis had insisted, and Jessie had given in.
“It’s all right,” she said in reassurance. “They just want to talk to me about Kira. I’ll be okay, Mrs. Davis.”
“It’s too much, too much,” the little old lady murmured. Her hand in Jessie’s felt cold, even though the air conditioning in the police station definitely wasn’t keeping up its workload. It was in the high 90’s today, and the humidity was nearly 100%. South Florida was always hot, even in the wintertime.
“Maybe you should talk to a lawyer first,” Mrs. Davis said. “That poor girl. What was she doing down on the beach in the middle of the night? How could this have happened?”
“I guess that’s what Sergeant Bennett wants to find out.”
“Why is he calling you down here so early? I told him on the telephone that you’d been home all night with me, but he insisted you come down here this morning.”
“He probably has to interview all of Kira’s friends, Mrs. Davis,” Jessie said. “I don’t need a lawyer for that.” She squeezed her hand gently. “You’ll be with me, and if you think I need to get a lawyer any time during this interview, we’ll stop and get one. Ok?”
The little woman seemed mollified. “All right, Jessie. I just don’t want you getting upset. It’s only been six months…”
“I’ll be ok,” Jessie said, cutting her off. She didn’t want to think about that right now. “You’ll be with me.”
She was glad when a tired forty-ish man dressed in rumpled clothing came out of an office and called her name. She didn’t want to continue this conversation.