Thirty-nine

I checked into a downtown flophouse after the confrontation at the warehouse, both to give my body time to heal itself from the gunshot wounds and because I was concerned that the search for me would lead to my nearby ship. I didn’t know how much, or how little, the police knew about my hiding places. Their finding of the warehouse surprised me, for I thought I’d covered my tracks well.

My bloody clothes attracted little attention in that neighborhood. The unshaven desk clerk merely shook his head and grunted as he handed me a towel and a key to my room.

Although I was confident of my ability to escape, I didn’t want to draw any additional attention to my special abilities unless I had to. So far, there were only a few that knew, or suspected, that I was of the Vampyri race, and they wouldn’t be believed without definite proof. No one who had seen my transformation had lived to tell about it.

After darkness fell, with my wounds completely healed and my strength back to normal, I returned to the area of my ship. Creeping through the darkness, I peered around a corner, noting that there were only two guards at the entrance to the warehouse. Probing with my mind, I found their attention directed inward without any suspicion regarding the Nightrunner. Silent as a shadow, I glided past the guards and slipped aboard the ship without being noticed. Once in my stateroom, I began to strip off my stained and smelly clothing.

The fury was like a living being inside me. I leaned over the sink, my hands becoming claws that indented, then tore the porcelain like so much tissue paper. As I started to involuntarily transform, I used all my strength to fight the rage, controlling the impulse to find my mate and destroy everyone who had conspired to take her from me. After all, I reasoned after I had regained control of my emotions, the Transformation Ceremony had made her mine for eternity. I felt certain she would return to me as soon as she was able to escape from her captors.

I walked to my stateroom window and stared out at the oily, black water of the Houston ship channel as it roiled and moved slowly past my ship. There were some things I needed to do, sooner rather than later, while I waited for Tabitha to return to me.

Word of my recent killings was sure to come to the attention of the Vampyre Council. If my slaughter of Quan hadn’t already enraged them enough to take retribution on me, this latest episode surely would. It was time to take matters into my own hands.

I went to a trunk at the foot of my bed and took out a Confederate sword I’d kept from my days as an officer during the Civil War. Slipping on a long overcoat, I secreted the sword under my arm and slipped off the boat. Getting past the guards was child’s play, and I walked down Port Avenue until I came to a seaman’s bar.

Using my Mercedes was too much of a risk now that the authorities knew of my identity, so I waited in the shadows until a drunken patron of the bar stumbled to the parking lot and opened his car door.

One blow to the back of his head put him out for the evening. I dragged his body into the rear of the lot, took his keys, and left the area in his car. I drove toward the Warwick Hotel. My date with destiny approached.

I didn’t know what security devices Jacqueline De La Fontaine might have fixed to her rooms, so when I reached the top floor by way of the stairs, I slipped out the hallway window onto the ledge that ran around the exterior of the building.

I made my way to her bedroom window and peered in, clamping down tight on my mental thoughts so as to give them no warning of my presence. The curtains were open and I could see activity in the bed. Evidently, she was entertaining her two young boy-toys in a most imaginative way. I leaned back against the wall and waited. From the energy they were expending, I suspected they would not be at it for long.

Within thirty minutes, the grunting and growling from the bedroom ceased, followed moments later by deep, steady breathing.

I transformed, letting images of Fontaine’s ripe body trigger the change. Once I was ready, I used a claw to pry the window open and jumped noiselessly into the room, my sword out and ready.

The smell of sex was heavy in the air, making my heart beat fast and my penis start to engorge. Moving as silently as fog, I slipped into the main room of the suite to see if any others were present. The rooms were vacant.

Back in the bedroom, I stood beside the bed, wondering for a moment if I was prepared for what I was about to do. Finally, I understood I had no choice. It was either them, or me.

I slipped out of my clothes and stood there a moment, naked. With a quick double motion, I severed the heads of the two young men lying next to Fontaine. Other than a slight snick as the cervical vertebrae were sliced in half, there was no sound.

Their spurting blood further inflamed my desires and awoke the Hunger within me. As I growled deep in my throat, Jacqueline stirred on the bed, reaching out for her friends as she awoke.

I flicked on the bedside lamp and she screamed as she saw her hand covered with blood.

With a mighty heave, I jerked the covers off her bed, leaving her lying there naked in a pool of her lovers’ blood, their sightless eyes staring at eternity.

One leap and I was upon her. Fear, and the smell of blood, caused her to begin to transform, but I was far ahead of her. I jerked her legs apart and rammed my penis into her, driving her head against the headboard of the bed and making her scream again, this time in pain and terror.

As I pumped and jammed myself into her writhing body, I looked deep into her fear and lust-filled eyes.

“Enjoy this, Jacqueline, your last pleasure in this life!”

As I ejaculated, I grabbed her chin and twisted her face upward, exposing her neck. I opened my mouth as wide as I could and descended on her, tearing her throat open and severing her head from her body. The blood pumped from her carotid arteries like a fountain into my open mouth.

When the blood slowed and finally stopped, I realized, with a shudder, that this was the first time in two hundred years I’d fed without remorse or guilt.

After a shower, I dressed and left by the front door, hoping that, without a head, the body of the Vampyre Council would die.