Blood & Love and Other Vampire Tales Read online

  “Looking for me?” her voice whispered from above and behind him.

  Spinning around on his heels, his eyes rose to the roof of the office building.

  She was perched there. Her eyes were glowing with red fire and her red mouth was pulled into a malevolent smile revealing two long sharp teeth.

  “At last the prey has taken the bait,” he heard her say.

  A strangled gasp escaped his thin lips. “What the hell!”

  “While you dreamed of taking me, I dreamed of taking you.” She easily dropped down from where she was perched and landed lightly beside him. Before he could dart away, she grasped him by the throat and lifted him off the ground.

  “No! No!” he gasped as the predator became the prey.

  “I’ve waited so long for this feast,” she whispered breathlessly.

  Teeth as sharp as razors tore into his flesh and his blood gushed out of him into his adversary’s hungry mouth.

  Sometime later he found himself lying on the cold asphalt staring up into her bloodied face as he felt the last embers of his life ebbing away. She smiled at him as she wiped her mouth with one hand and prodded him with her foot.

  Bending over him, she gazed into his beady eyes and said, “When a woman says no, it’s really best to leave her alone. You just never know who you are fucking with.”

  Vengeance

  He was waiting for her.

  As he did every year on the anniversary of their marriage, he waited for her to return to exact her revenge on him.

  He waited in the faded green armchair where he sat every night. Beads of sweat slid down his unshaven sunken cheeks. As a young man his beard had been black and full, but now at sixty-two, gray spikes poked through his leathery flesh.

  In the corner of the barren living room the rickety fan clattered furiously as it blew a stale and smoky breeze over his clammy flesh. His long, bony feet were bare beneath the hem of his tattered jeans and he sat with them far apart, bracing himself for her arrival. His chest heaved beneath the soggy undershirt clinging to his skin. A faint rattling in his lungs made him wince and he inhaled deeply on the cigarette clutched in his gnarled hand. The other hand was wound around the barrel of his shotgun, his fingers twitching at the thought of her.

  “Fuckin’ bitch,” he wheezed, then coughed.

  His brown eyes, yellowed with age and hard living, stared vacantly at the muted TV. Images flickered over the screen, meaningless and surreal to his tortured brain.

  A sudden clatter made his body tense and his hands gripped the rifle tightly as his eyes swept over the orange and green living room.

  Nixon, his old mutt, emerged sheepishly from the kitchen.

  “Gawdammit dog! Damn you to hell! You know she’s coming! What are you trying to do? Give me a fuckin’ heart attack!”

  Nixon bowed his head and, tucking his tail between his hind legs, returned to his bed in the tiny kitchen.

  “Stupid mutt,” he muttered angrily as he settled down once more to wait for her.

  When he had married Clarice, she had been a beautiful, but simple sixteen-year-old. He was fresh out of the army, twenty-five and cocksure that he had the world at his feet. He had partied hard and had many women before finding the gentle, sweet natured blond with the sea-green eyes. Virginal and naive, she had fallen for his brash bravado and rugged good looks. He was her Prince; her knight in shining armor, the man who would save her from her father’s alcohol-induced beatings. He could still remember her wide eyes staring up at him with rapt admiration through the gauzy silk of her wedding veil. And he could remember those same eyes, swollen and blackened, the next morning as she lay crying on the floor. Stupid bitch’s pathetic lies about her father hadn’t swayed his anger at finding her not so virginal after all. His mother had warned him that all women were whores and Clarice had only confirmed it.

  His fingers fumbled with the crumpled cigarette pack in his lap and he drew out a fresh cigarette. As soon as it was lit, he dragged deeply on it, the smoke filling what little of his lungs was left.

  Damn bitch had been right about the lung cancer. She had so calmly informed him the year before that he was being eaten alive with the disease. God, he hated her.

  Slowly his anxious tired mind drifted back to the days when Clarice had lived in fear of him and not vice versa.

  Violence had been a way of life for them. He couldn’t remember a day when he wasn’t hitting her. She always made him so fuckin’ mad. He hated her whimpering. He hated her crying. He hated her begging, but worst of all he hated her silence. It was her silence that rainy night on the road that had pushed him over the edge. He had rammed the car into the wall to teach her a lesson. It had been too bad about the baby.

  “Never heard the end of that,” he muttered as he shifted in his chair and drew the rifle closer to him.

  Clarice had forced him into his rages. She knew he was a hothead, but he swore she egged him on. And the damn twins hadn’t been much better. They started out irritating and never stopped. And, they looked just like her, dammit. He hadn’t been able to look at them without seeing her face. It had been all the more reason to hit the whining brats.

  The sharp pain of ash burning his arm made him yelp and he swatted at the embers frantically. He nearly dropped the gun in his haste and swore fiercely under his breath. The crisis over, he inhaled deeply and began to cough violently.

  When Clarice had vanished that night, he had been furious. Yes, he had beaten her within an inch of her life and dumped her in the woods to teach her a lesson, but he had never imagined that she wouldn’t return home, soggy and crying in the rain, begging for forgiveness. He had drunk himself into a stupor and the next day woke to find that Clarice was missing. Missing. He had not been able believe it at first. People started thinking he had killed her. Police had been everywhere and the blood on his clothes hadn’t helped him any. It wasn’t until they had found her body that he had been vindicated. She was found in a river, drowned, they said. Not a mark was on her. At the funeral her skin had been smooth and without the cruel cuts and bruises he knew he had inflicted on her. It had been a mystery to him until three days after the funeral.

  That night he would never forget.

  He had fallen into a liquor-induced slumber on the sofa. A sharp noise had awakened him and he opened his eyes to see Clarice standing over him. It had looked like Clarice at first, but the more he stared at her, the less she looked like his wife. At thirty-two, Clarice’s body had changed significantly from the frail, lithe creature of sixteen he had married. She had grown taller and stronger in frame. With the birth of the twins her breasts had grown fuller and heavier, her hips and thighs filling out. He had despised her new shape even though he knew other men gave her admiring looks. He had liked the child-like qualities he had been drawn to and the woman she became bore no resemblance to his little girl. And that night, as she had stood over him, staring down at him with piercing sea green eyes, her golden hair framing a strong, luminous face, he had known that she was no longer the woman he had just beaten two weeks before. Her lips had seemed fuller, redder, and the sparkle in her eyes frightened him.

  “Hello, Joe,” she had said in a voice he hadn’t recalled being so sensual.

  “Clarice! Shit! You’re dead!”

  “I know,” she said and smiled.

  He had become aware of another presence in the room. A woman with raven hair and dark eyes had been standing behind Clarice.

  “Do it, Clarice. Purge your anger. Destroy what remains of your mortality,” the woman had said in what Joe believed to be an Italian accent.

  “Isabella, I’m afraid,” Clarice had whispered and for an instant Joe had seen his wife’s old fear of him in her eyes.

  “Clarice, you’re dead!” he had repeated, though he wasn’t sure why.

  “He deserves your hatred. He deserves to die. Kill him now,” Isabella had urged her.

  Looking back, Joe wasn’t sure why he hadn’t just run. Maybe he thought he was s
till dreaming. Who knows? But he hadn’t moved. Not until Clarice had grabbed him and had yanked him to his feet. He had been shocked at how easily she had done this feat and by the expression he had seen on her face, she had been surprised too.

  “Yes, Clarice, you have the power now,” Isabella had whispered softly.

  “Damn it, woman, let go of me!” Joe remembered shouting.

  Clarice had lifted him upwards, his feet leaving the ground, and then he was dangling in the air, held steady by her grasp on his throat and belt.

  “Goddamn stupid bitch, put me down!”

  “Do it!” Isabella shouted.

  Clarice’s eyes seemed to glow and then Joe was tossed across the living room into the kitchen. He slammed into the stove and slid to the floor, blood gushing from a gash on his head. He was barely stirring when Clarice picked him up and tossed him over the kitchen table. His nose was broken this time, blood pouring into his mouth and down his chin.

  Joe had sputtered and screamed in a rage. When Clarice bent over him, he struck her so hard his hand hurt. She hardly reacted to the impact at all. She merely stared at him then yanked him up off the floor.

  “Guess what, Joe? You can’t hurt me anymore,” she said in a low voice and began to laugh.

  The rest of the beating was a blur of blood accompanied by Clarice’s laughter. In the end, when he thought he was going to die, she didn’t kill him. Instead she had dropped to her hands and knees and started licking the blood off his face and hands. Joe remembered how terrified he had been and yet strangely aroused. The woman called Isabella dropped down beside him and ran her tongue over the huge wound over his left eye.

  “Kill him now,” Isabella whispered.

  Clarice looked up, her lips red from his blood and shook her head. “No, I have a much better plan for him.”

  Joe had been crying and whimpering. Isabella’s tongue had been so cold against his forehead and cheeks. As her long tongue had snaked out at him, he had seen her long sharp teeth and in that moment he knew what they were and what Clarice had become. He had nearly died of fright.

  He had passed out from sheer terror.

  The next day they found him outside a bar at the edge of town. The police thought he had been in a drunken brawl. He had tried to tell them the truth, but they hadn’t listened. Instead the social worker had come to see if he had a suitable home for the twins. Clarice kept returning to beat him senseless and leave him in alleyways and even once on the police station doorstep. The kids were soon wards of the state and then transferred to a foster home. Joe had been desperate to get them back. They were his kids after all, even if they were a fuckin’ nuisance. His hysteria over Clarice only made him look like a fool and the town people began to avoid Crazy Joe. He had tried to see his kids once. A friend, one of the few he had left, had seen them at a nice house in another town. In the middle of the night he had gone to see them, well, actually, kidnap them.

  Clarice had been waiting for him.

  Perched on top the rambling old Victorian house that was slightly shabby and yet homey, she had glared down at him. Isabella had been there, too. Joe was sure Isabella was the one who had turned Clarice into the monster she had become. He had stood on the lawn staring dumbly up at Clarice until she had dropped down three stories to stand before him.

  “Listen, Joe. It’s over. The life you had is dead. The children are happy and safe here. If they can’t be with me, then they sure as hell won’t be with you,” Clarice had said in a low, threatening voice.

  “You can’t stop me,” Joe had declared nastily.

  “I can and will,” Clarice assured him.

  She had taken a step toward him but he had come prepared. He pulled out a knife and held it out threateningly.

  “I’m taking the kids back!”

  “Give it up, Joe,” Isabella had said, suddenly standing beside him.

  “Listen, you lesbian bitch! You took my wife, but my kids are mine!” Joe shouted at her.

  Isabella had just laughed with amusement and shook her head.

  “You’re so stupid, Joe!” Clarice snarled. “Isabella is my mother. And you are pathetic and weak and will never have our children again.”

  “I don’t care what she is! She took you from me and the kids!”

  Clarice’s face grew livid. “Listen here, you disgusting pig! I begged her to bring me over to her world. I would have died otherwise! I owe her my life! She saved me from you!”

  Joe still remembered how it felt when he had plunged the knife into Clarice’s heart. It had sunk in so hard and so firmly he had shuddered. And he remembered how she shoved him back against the car and punched all the windows out as he cowered before her. Finally, she had lifted him high into the air and slammed him into the hood of the car, all the while the knife had been sticking out from between her breasts. And that was all he recalled until the next day when they arrested him for trespassing.

  Joe shifted in his chair and lit another cigarette. He puffed on it for a few seconds then let it dangle from his thin lips as he moved the ashtray to his lap. She was coming now. He knew it and was ready.

  His mind drifted back once more.

  After that, he had no life other than his odd jobs, constant drinking, and the occasional one night stand. The town ostracized him and when he moved, he never found another place that would welcome him. He was mean, foul-mouthed, and generally disagreeable. After she was certain he was staying away from their children Clarice no longer haunted his every move. Instead, she took to coming every year on the night of the anniversary of her death to beat the living hell out of him. After a decade, Isabella no longer came with Clarice. For a few years Clarice came alone. And every year Joe was beaten to within an inch of his life. And then she started coming with him. Joe hated him the moment he saw him. A cocky little bastard he was. The thick Brooklyn accent, dark wavy hair, piercing black eyes, and a sure smile irritated the hell out of him. Clarice called him Vince. Joe knew they were lovers and he felt enraged at the thought. Vince would stay in the shadows and watch with amusement as Clarice beat him without mercy. And for that, Joe hated him all the more.

  The only time Vince ever hit him was when Joe said, “What a fuckin’ eyetalian asshole, you’ve got there.”

  Vince had suddenly come at him from the shadows and slapped him hard enough to make him deaf in one ear. “Italiano, shithead. I’m Italian, not eyetalian, moron. Hear the difference?”

  “Let him go, Vince. He’s just a stupid hick with no morals or brains,” Clarice had sighed.

  “Mobster Vampire, is that what you are?” Joe had dared.

  “That’s it! He’s dead!” Vince declared.

  Clarice had actually rescued Joe from her irate boyfriend. She pulled Joe away and held Vince off. Of course, she had then beaten Joe senseless.

  Last year had been the worst. She seemed to take special pleasure in taking her time. Joe had tried to run and hide in another state in a rundown hotel. Of course, she had found him. The fact that he had tried to run amused her but made her angry. And then she had told him the whopper.

  “You reek of death, Joe. Reek of it. Jeez, I can smell it so strong,” Clarice had said with distaste.

  “Definitely dying,” Vince agreed.

  “Lung cancer. Yeah, that’s the smell. Cancer. Eating you already. Jeez, Joe, you’re a dead man,” Clarice decided and wrinkled her nose.

  And she had been right.

  Joe fumbled with the pack and pulled out his last cigarette. For a long moment he stared at it, savoring it, then he slipped it between his lips. He caressed the gun for a long moment then pulled out his lighter. He was as good as dead so he might as well go out happy. Inhaling deeply, he allowed the luxury of closing his eyes for a mere moment. The night had been long and full of unpleasant memories. It was the same ritual every year but this year he hoped to shake things up.

  His eyes flicked open and through the haze of the smoke, Clarice’s eyes came into focus.

  “Sh
it!” he nearly choked on the cigarette and burning embers fell into his lap.

  Clarice watched with amusement as he thrashed about trying to beat out the small flames. Vince was already lounging in the corner of the room, dressed in all black leather and looking too handsome and sure of himself.

  Clarice looked the same. Beautiful as always. The figure he had found lumpy and unattractive was now lush and provocative beneath a simple white blouse and jeans. She was straddling a kitchen chair, arms folded on its back, watching him.

  “Stupid bitch!” Joe managed, his cigarette wobbling on the edge of his lips.

  “Nice to see you, too,” Clarice answered. She leaned the chair forward and plucked the cigarette from his lips. She raised it to her seductive mouth and breathed in the smoke. Holding it inside for a moment, she seemed thoughtful, then the smoke gushed out of her nostrils and lips and she sighed.

  “Nasty,” she decided. She held it over her head and Vince plucked it from her fingers.

  “These things killed you, moron,” Vince sneered and dragged hard on the cigarette. “Damn, that’s awful,” he decided then raised it back to his lips.

  Joe watched with hard hateful eyes as Vince deliberately took relish in smoking Joe’s last cigarette.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perks to being immortal abound,” Vince decided snuffing out the smoldering stub.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Joe finally said.

  “I noticed the gun. You tried that before. Didn’t work,” Clarice reminded him.

  “I made a decision, Clarice. The cancer isn’t going to get me and neither are you,” Joe stated. He shoved the gun in his mouth as fast as he could and his finger closed over the trigger.

  Pain, sharp and excruciating exploded in his mouth and it took a moment for him to realize that he had not killed himself. Clarice was standing over him holding the gun as she gazed up at the hole blasted in the ceiling. His trembling fingers touched his swollen mouth and he realized Clarice had jerked the gun out of his mouth, shattering several teeth and cutting his lips.