“Or maybe a G,” Lien said, “because a little is cut off the right side. It might even be a Q, depending on the font.”
Frustrating, because any of these letters worked with the first two.
Harry closed the notebook with a sigh and shoved it back in his coat. “Well, it was worth a try, but it didn’t get us anywhere.”
Not until they knew more about Lane. In the meantime, the exercise used part of the evening and distracted Lien from the fact he had still not eaten anything. Garreth committed what they had of the ZIP and city name to memory…for when it could be useful.
The rest of the evening crawled by in an agony of gritting teeth against the hunger. Garreth drank enough tea to float a freighter. Lien started pressing him to eat something. Finally he gave in, but insisted on serving himself. Out in the kitchen he took a helping of rice and the pork and heated it in the microwave so she and Harry would smell it from the family room. The aroma also helped mask blood scents for a while.
He tried salving the hunger by imagining himself eating the rice and pork, remembering the sauce’s sweet tang, the crisp coating on the pork nuggets…even as he carefully buried everything at the bottom of the trash.
The hunger refused to be tricked.
Finally he began faking yawns. “Thirty hours sleep or not, I’m ready to hit the rack again.”
He retreated to his room, where he stood at the open window sucking in air free of any blood scent. While waiting for Harry and Lien to come up, too, he removed the bandage from his neck. Just in case of…trouble. As unobservant as witnesses tended to be, they did remember things like bandages. When he listened at their bedroom door and finally,
Vaulting the fences to the end of the block and heading for the nearest bus stop, Garreth found he could still not think about what he intended to do…or how to do it. Or where. He let his body take him, guided by its new instincts. With little surprise, though, after several transfers he found himself in North Beach amid streaming humanity.
Of course…Lane’s turf, rich with game. The rigid isolation he imposed on himself on the bus shattered, flooding him with the sounds and smells around him. Smells of perfume, aftershave, deodorant, sweat…but above all the rich, salty hot scent of blood. It ignited a renewed frenzy of hunger.
He stumbled down the street, eyeing everyone…the hunger urging him to pick someone, the rest of him heartsick, hating that urge. How could he bring himself to attack another human being as Lane did? What if he refused? Would starvation kill a vampire?
Occasionally a woman passed whose scent seemed especially strong and he turned toward her like a compass to north…only to pull back, afraid. How long had it been since he last picked up a girl? Before he met Marti. He had been turned down a fair number of times in those days, he recalled. A refusal now meant more than a blow to the ego; it meant no supper. Worse, what if she came with him? What if he killed her?
He could not do it. He just…could…not…do…it!
In panic, he turned up a side street and ran away from the crowd, away from the blood smells fanning his hunger, and did not stop until the next corner. There he leaned against the wall of a building, swearing at himself. Some vampire he made. What was he going to do?
Gradually, he became aware of voices around the corner, sharp, full of anger and fear. A man’s: “Richie says you’re holding out on him. He don’t like that.”
“I’m not,” a woman replied. “I do the best I can. I swear.”
Garreth recognized Velvet’s voice. Edging up to the corner, he peered around it. The hooker stood backed against the building by a man waving a switchblade under her nose.
“Well you better do better, baby, because Richie says you’re running in the red. You ain’t cost-effective. So unless you get your act together, you will be
Good old Richie, Garreth thought.
He rounded the corner. Two long strides put him on top of the muscleman, clamping a hand on the wrist of the knife hand just as the man registered Garreth’s presence and started to turn. Garreth bent the wrist back. The forearm gave with a sickening crack. He let go of the wrist and smoothly took the knife as the muscleman collapsed screaming to the sidewalk.
Garreth stepped over him and put a hand under Velvet’s elbow. “Come on; let’s get out of here.” He hurried her away.
Her eyes looked the size of dinner plates. “Why’d you do that? He wasn’t going to cut me this time. Now Richie will get mad.”
“Tell Richie the muscle was getting carried away and about to use the knife for fun when a friendly flatfoot came along. Better yet, drop a dime on him and we’ll nail him to the wall before he does have you carved up.”
She bit her lip. “Sometime, maybe. For now, thanks.” She glanced sideways at him. “Say, what’s the story on you? First I hear they found you stiff in an alley with your throat torn out, but here you are walking around breaking arms with one hand. You look younger somehow, too.”
He restrained a grimace. Drink blood, the Elixir of Youth. “I owe it all to clean living and a pure heart,” he said aloud.
The blood ran hot in her. He smelled it: fear-driven, richly salty, and with it, the near audible hammering of her heart, just now beginning to slow after the terror. He drew a deep breath and, folding the switchblade, dropped it in his pocket. His hand shook with the driving urgency of his hunger.
He felt her looking at him and saw her smile knowingly. She had noticed his increase in breathing and misinterpreted it, he realized.
“Hey, baby. Maybe you’d like to party?”
He shook his head. “Don’t make me run you in for soliciting a cop, Velvet.”
“Did I mention money? This is on the house. Call it saying thanks. Come on.” She reached up to ruffle his hair. “Let me show you blondes really do have more fun. Not just a head job in an alley, either.”
He started to say no, but something else in him, something controlled by the ravenous thirst, made it to his tongue first. “Okay.”
She tucked her arm through his. “It isn’t far. You’ll like this.”
The same thing Lane said to him that night. An inward shudder at the memory almost made him walk away.
He should have. Hunger aroused him even more than if he felt desire, and its effect impressed even Velvet… but the sex brought no release with the blood smell of her filling his head, burning his throat, making his teeth ache. Until hunger took all control from him and forced him to her neck…kissing it, exploring, fangs extending. Under him, she sighed in pleasure as his tongue found the throb beneath her skin.
The sound goaded him. He bit down, and…
Nothing! Only a drop of blood rose to tantalize him where each fang pierced. He had missed the vein! A scream of frustration echoed through his head, then screamed
Garreth recoiled, scrambling away from her in revulsion at that image. Do to her throat what Lane did to his…
Velvet stirred drowsily on the bed. “Don’t rush off, baby. I actually enjoyed that and you look ready to go again.”
He struggled into his clothes, desperate to leave before the monster consumed what humanity remained in him. “I’m sorry; I have to work.” He buckled his belt.
She sat up, frowning irritably. “Well, wham-bam-thank-you ma’ am.”
He grabbed his coat, not daring to look at her. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Thanks. It was good for me, too.” Which came out like the lame afterthought it was.
“Cops.” She snorted. “Always in a hurry to come and a hurry to go.”
He fled. In the street he pulled on the coat while walking away as fast as he could and gulping night air to clear her scent from his head. He kept walking, paying no particular attention to the direction, as long as it led away from the crowds and bright lights.
