Lucas Cain’s lip curled as he sniffed the corpse. “It’s an elf.”
“How can you tell?” Martin Kowalski, his friend and a Seattle police sergeant asked.
“Because, old friend, elves have a foul smell unlike any other creature.”
“I have a pretty good nose Lucas, and I can only smell a flowery odor, like crushed rose petals. I don’t even smell blood, though there’s plenty of it.”
“That’s the smell I’m speaking of. Elves smell like the elora flower. All vampires know this odor. Elora flowers are poisonous to our kind.”
“What the hell is an elora flower?”
“As far as I know, they’ve been gone off this earth for many centuries, yet still we fear them. It can take years to die from the flower’s poison. Unable to feed, a poisoned vampire slowly wastes away. His blood turns thick and white while his skin slowly dries to parchment.”
Kowalski shook his head and shuddered. “That sounds like a terrible way to go. Whatta you think happened here?”
Kowalski called Lucas in to help whenever he had a difficult case to solve. It was after one in the morning when Lucas arrived on First Street to find Kowalski in the dark alley bent over the dead elf. As a vampire, Lucas had an uncanny ability to decipher the mysteries presented by a crime scene, and he enjoyed the challenge. Life could become boring, especially when you were more than a thousand years old.
Lucas stood up and examined the scene, absorbing the dead elf lying half decapitated with his feet under a garbage bin. He noticed something sparkling in the shadows. It seemed out of place. A weapon lay in a pile of debris and filth by the brick wall of an adjacent building. Fragrant blood still dripped from the blade. It had to be the murder weapon.
“This is a specially made sword used for only one purpose,” Lucas told Martin. “The elf was killed by another of his kind. They were probably involved in a blood feud.” He toed the dead body. “This one lost. Good riddance, I say. The only good elf is a dead elf.”
Kowalski pulled out his notebook. “Exactly how am I supposed to word that?”
“Why don’t you say it’s gang related.”
Kowalski nodded. “Of course, elf gangs. That makes perfect sense.”
The meat wagon pulled up and Charlene Lumpock climbed out of the van. She hitched her uniform pants over her belly and swaggered toward the body. “Got us another gang killing?”
Kowalski and Lucas nodded in sync. “Yep.”
“I’m going to head out,” Lucas told his friend. “Call if you need me.”
“Will do.”
Lucas looked back once, saw his huge lumbering friend bend over the body to search it, and then leaped for the rooftops. He made the four-story jump easily and ran lightly along the skyline jumping from building to building while he enjoyed the cool damp evening.
When he spotted the inviting gleam of an all-night bar, he dropped to the street, smoothed his black coat and straightened the collar of his black Armani shirt. The sign outside the bar said Elysian Fields. “We who are about to die, salute you,” Lucas said and marched inside.
He stepped into the poorly lit club and stared. Backlit by soft pink light, an incredibly hot chick sat hunched over a guitar, her long, pale blond hair falling to her knees. She dragged the mike closer and began to sing Robert Plant’s hit Sea of Love in a husky voice. The smoky tones reminded Lucas of Chan Marshall, lead singer of Cat Power, a group who also sang that song.
“Come with me, my love,” she sang. “To a sea, a sea of love. I want to tell you how much…I love you.”
Lucas found himself mesmerized. She was so lovely. Her white skin glowed and her pale breasts swelled out of a lacy pink bustier. A long shimmering green skirt, slit high on her thighs, fell open revealing the mysterious space leading to her crotch. He licked his lips and swallowed. Damn! She was making him salivate.
He took a seat next to a tall man drinking white wine. Lucas shook his head and ordered beer from a local micro- brewery. “Who is she?” he asked the tall guy.
When the man looked at him, Lucas got a whiff of elora as he stared into eyes the color of spring green. Tall-guy was an elf.
The elf looked down his perfect nose and sneered. “Why you so interested, bloodsucker?”
When Lucas glanced around, he saw most of the customers in the bar were also elves. And he noticed they watched the door with more than curiosity.
Lucas shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “Call me crazy, I love good music.”
The elf laughed. “Her name’s Tislin Fairfeather.” He looked around the bar as he sipped his wine. “Watch yourself, bloodsucker. I have no love for your kind, but I also appreciate good music and I would warn you, take care these are not your friends.”
Lucas nodded. “Warning noted. Hey, there was a dead elf found not too far from here on First. Know anything about that?”
“You’d do well to keep your nose out of elf affairs, bloodsucker. We police our own.”
Lucas shrugged. “No harm in asking, is there?”
The music was haunting and Tislin’s voice hypnotic. When the door crashed open and five men burst in, he was unprepared and easily knocked off his barstool. Swiftly rebounding, Lucas’s heightened senses absorbed the situation. The five intruders carried ancient weapons; swords and daggers. They swarmed into the bar and attacked the elves. Lucas found himself awash in the stench of the elora flower. Elves were attacking elves! A slender blonde, his pointed ears visible through his silky hair, headed for the singer brandishing a drawn sword.
Lucas pushed the blond elf aside, leaped on stage and gathered Tislin into his arms. She did not protest when he crashed through the front windows into the street, crouched and sprang to the roof. From there, he ran across three roofs, then jumped atop a four-story and stopped. Someone had built long planters on the roof creating a garden, and then the mysterious gardener had placed wrought-iron benches at intervals next to the planters. He set Tislin on one of the benches.
“I’m sorry I had to be so rough,” he apologized. “I couldn’t allow them to hurt a flower such as you. You sing like an angel.”
Her eyes were huge in her heart-shaped face. “You’re a freaking vampire.”
He bowed. “That I am. And you, my angel, are an elf.”
“Our races have always hated each other, bloodsucker. Why’d you save me?”
Lucas stared out into the city. Why had he saved her? She reeked of deadly flowers, and by doing so he had violated years of conditioning and gone against his own kind. “I don’t know. Maybe it was your voice or the words of your song. I couldn’t allow you to be slaughtered.” He laughed. “It was a crazy impulse. Want me to put you back?”
She shook her head. “No, they might still be there, the Starrs I mean. The Fairfeathers and the Starr clan have been fighting for centuries. I’m Tislin Fairfeather. Who’re you?”
“Lucas, Lucas Cain at your service.” He bowed.
“We thought we were safe here in Seattle so far from sunshine and open sky. We never thought they’d find us.”
“Your clan sounds like it’s losing the war.”
“Oh, we are. We’ve dwindled in numbers. There are less than twenty of us remaining, while the Starrs have found a way to multiply and prosper. Elves have ever been slow to breed and we mature slowly. I can’t understand why the Starrs have become so fertile.”
“There could be one less,” Lucas said. “The cops found a dead elf under a garbage bin over on First.”
She shivered. “What will I do now? Where can I go?”
Lucas sat down next to her. She was an elf, an age-old enemy, but she was also a woman alone, a very beautiful woman. This close to her, the scent of elora was suffocating. He turned his head.
She smiled. “I know, we stink.”
“You have no idea how badly I want to take you in my arms and comfort you. I can’t get over the smell.”
“You don’t exactly smell like a bed of roses,” she said. “More like ten dead squirrels.”
They both laughed. Lucas was still chuckling when a flicker of light coming over the edge of the roof caught his eye. It grew larger and he recognized the light as a fairy. He leaped to his feet as the fairy flew close to Tislin and hovered around her ears.
Fairies were like bugs, flitting around, walking across your skin like roaches. He shuddered, his skin rippling with disgust. Vampires hated fairies. They represented the light inside humans and elves, a light lost in Lucas forever when he became a vampire.
“What’s the insect want?”
“She’s not an insect,” Tislin snapped. “Her name is Morning Glory. She brought me a message. She says the bar is empty. Matt and his men drove off the Starrs. They chased them toward the docks.”
“Then it should be safe for me to take you home.”
She shook her head. “Morning Glory says they now know where we live.” Her head drooped. “They have already been to our house. Everyone there is gone.”
“Dead or somewhere else?” Lucas asked.
“She says there is much death on both sides. We have so few remaining to lose.”
Lucas heard the fairy twittering and tinkling. He understood some of the language, but what the fairy said made no sense. “Did she say take to the trees, the forest is kinder than men or elves, find the flowers? What’s that mean?”
Tislin sighed. “She’s very upset. She thinks I should find a forest of trees and flowers and climb the highest one until this is over.”
Lucas grabbed her hand. He was about tired of all this fairy-elf bullshit. “Come on, we’ll go to my apartment. Tell the fairy to beat it.”
Tislin hung back. “I can’t go with you, Lucas. My mother told me never trust a vampire. You’ll kill me and suck my blood.”
Lucas shook his head. “Not in a million years. The taste of your blood would gag a maggot.” He smiled. “Come on, you’ll be safe with me. I’ll look for your family later. We’ll find out where they went and then I’ll take you wherever they’ve gone.”
She allowed him to pull her to her feet. Face to face for the first time, he realized how tall she was. Her skin was like alabaster and her lips were like two ripe peach slices. His attraction to her was ridiculous.
“Tell Moonflower to scram.”
Tislin giggled. “Her name’s Morning Glory.”
“Yeah sure, tell her to go away.” He shivered. “She gives me the creeps.”
Tislin whispered something to the fairy. It tinkled its reply, and then shot into the dark. Lucas touched Tislin’s face.
“Your hands are like ice,” she whispered as she stared into his eyes.
Hers were the color of the ocean, blue pools with green and gold flecks, and so large, he felt he could fall into their depths and not come up for weeks.
“And you are warm and soft, so very soft.” He must be getting accustomed to her scent because he no longer smelled it…or maybe he just didn’t care. He bent his head and kissed her. She opened her mouth to the invasion of his tongue and sucked. His head swam.
Breaking the kiss, he turned away, bent over and gasped. “You’ve put some kind of elf spell on me. I can’t even smell elora anymore.”
She touched his shoulder and the light contact sent chills racing through his body. His erection threatened to burst through the tight jeans.
“I haven’t ensorcelled you, Lucas. It is you who have put me under your power. I feel as though you have placed a glamor spell on me. I can’t stop looking at you and…and thinking thoughts, thoughts no elf woman should have for a vampire.”
Her words fueled his desire. He captured her in his arms and held her against his body. With one finger, he turned her chin up so she looked at him. “I want you. Come home with me, please.”
Tislin’s eyes were half open. She licked her lips. The expression on her face was so sensuous Lucas moaned. “Damn, woman. You’re the most erotic creature I’ve ever known.”
When she touched his mouth with one finger, he grabbed it. “Say yes,” he breathed.
In a soft voice so low he had to strain to hear it, she said, “yes.”
He scooped her into a tight embrace. She wrapped her long arms around his neck and he launched himself off the building. It took only minutes racing through the streets at speeds only a vampire could attain to reach his condo. He took the stairs rather than wait for the elevator. At his door, he stopped.
“You sure?” he asked with one eyebrow raised.
She answered by closing her eyes and nodding.
He carried her to his room. The curtains were open revealing a vast amount of the Seattle skyline. Twinkling lights created a kaleidoscope across walls painted a luminescent black, like oil on water.
They stood staring into the night for several minutes. Then Tislin slowly dropped her skirt and removed the pink bustier. Lucas gasped when he saw the perfection of her body. She was completely hairless, her torso long and her hips round. The swelling pink nipples of her thrusting breasts invited his lips to taste them.
In a flash, he too was naked. Scooping her into his arms, he gently laid her on the bed. His heart filled with an unfamiliar need to protect this perfect flower. He desired her but he loved her as well. This emotion was also new. Lucas had never been in love.
He slowly caressed her legs, stroking them, massaging her shapely calves and her delicate feet. She groaned. “That feels marvelous. I thought vampires would be violent, greedy lovers.”
“Maybe with common women, but never with a precious creature such as you. You make me feel more alive than I’ve felt in hundreds of years.”
He slid into bed beside her and took her in his arms. Their kiss was a deep melding of tongues and lips. Lucas lifted her breasts and tenderly pulled each nipple. Tislin arched her back and cried out. “Take me, Lucas. You’re driving me insane.”
When he rolled onto her, he rose up to look down. Her legs were open and her inner women’s parts pink and inviting. He rubbed the head of his organ back and forth across her ripe clitoris until she screamed. Then, unable to stop himself, he stabbed it into her.
She was tight, velvety and hot. He quickly molded his organ to fit her and produce the most friction in all the right places. Feeling slightly detached, as though his body belonged to someone else, he moved inside her. From his mountain-top perspective, he watched himself plunging in and out of her heat. He saw her arch her back and wrap her legs around his waist. Nothing like this had ever happened to Lucas. His body was enveloped in the strongest, wildest sensations. He felt the need to bite, but smothered it, biting his own lips instead.
When he knew he was close to finishing, he rolled over taking her with him. She rode him, lifting herself up and down frantically as she strove to reach completion. Lucas closed his eyes and allowed her to take him along as she climaxed, her sex squeezing his in spasm after spasm.
Afterwards, they lay spent in each other’s arms. Lucas held Tislin tightly, unable to get over the fact he had fallen in love at first sight with an elf. When the door burst open and the condo suddenly filled with elves, Lucas was momentarily surprised. But he quickly recovered.
“You tricked me,” he shouted at Tislin.
The five elves were all males. They surrounded him, each elf carrying a stake and a sword. Elves are almost as strong as vampires. Lucas was in deep trouble.
“You led them here to kill me,” he accused Tislin.
She knelt on the bed shielding her naked body with the spread. “No, Lucas. These are Starrs. They’re here for me.” Her voice shook as she spoke. “Leave him be. Take me instead. Just don’t hurt him.”
The leader, a huge elf over seven-feet tall brandished his sword. “Don’t worry, Fairfeather. We’ll get him and then we’ll kill you. How could you sleep with a vampire? You’re disgusting. It’s an abomination.”
The elves closed in on Lucas. When Tislin’s words sank in, he knew she loved him as he loved her. The knowledge had a strange effect on him. Fear for himself died. All he suddenly cared about was saving Tislin.
Lucas leaped as high as he could, plastering his body to the ceiling. Startled, the elves tried to stab him. The tallest elf, the leader, attacked. Lucas backed around the ceiling until he was over the bed, then he launched himself on the elves. The weight of his body carried the leader to the carpet. The tall Starr’s sword pierced his side, but he ignored the pain. With a shout, he ripped the elf’s head off, rose to his feet in a blinding move and flung the head at the other four.
The remaining elves had surrounded Tislin and were moving in for the kill. She stood proud and naked in the center of the four, whirling and turning as she tried to keep them all in front of her while she sang an ancient elf war song. The big elf’s head smashed into the group, nailed one and knocked him to the floor.
“Tislin,” Lucas shouted and tossed her the leader’s sword.
She grabbed it by the hilt and began slashing, scoring a hit on the downed attacker. Lucas moved behind one of the elves, grabbed him and threw him through the windows and into the star-filled night. With the numbers abruptly evened, the two remaining ran toward the open door. Lucas caught one and Tislin ran after the other. She dived on the running elf, knocking him to the floor while Lucas tossed his captive out the broken windows after his friend.
“Watch that first step,” Lucas called. “It’s a doozy.”
The last elf stood in the center of the bedroom bleeding stinking blood all over Luca’s white carpet. The elf held his hand over the gushing wound in his arm while he glowered at them.
Lucas slowly circled his last elf opponent. His nose had picked up another scent. An elusive scent tickled his nose from inside the stench of elora flowers. “I think I know why the Starr clan is multiplying,” Lucas said. “Can you smell what I smell, my darling?”
Tislin moved to stand beside him. She still held her blade. “There is something different. It smells like…like sex and beer.”
“That’s the smell of a maenad. I think the Starrs have solved their fertility issues by crossbreeding with maenads. No wonder they’re crazy.”
The elf screamed. “So what if we have. At least we’re not dying out like the Fairfeathers.” He lunged at Lucas, hands clenched into claws.
Lucas went down under the elf’s weight, the stench of maenad and elora overwhelming. The elf wrapped his hands around Lucas’s neck and squeezed. He was incredibly strong. Lucas struggled to break free as the elf gnashed his teeth, drool running down his chin. Fighting desperately, Lucas finally managed to wrap his hands around the elf’s throat. Grunting and thrashing, Lucas fought to get free and to kill the elf.
The elf suddenly went limp on top of Lucas. Wet, warm liquid flowed across his naked chest. Lucas threw the elf’s stinking body off and saw Tislin standing over him holding her bloody sword.
She held out her hand. “Come, my love, toss this one after the rest.”
Lucas took her hand, leaped to his feet and pulled her into his embrace. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he whispered. “I love you.”
She gazed shyly into his eyes. “What about my family? They’re going to hate you.”
“Does this matter to you, my darling?”
She tilted her head, her slanted eyes smiling. “If I can’t be with you, I’d rather be dead.”
He swept her into his arms and swung her around. “I have to drink blood to live, you know.”
“All my relatives smell like elora flowers, you know.”
“I have no relatives and I’m dead.”
“I don’t have very many but I’m alive.”
“All my friends will think you stink.”
“All of mine will know you stink.”
“We’re so different, Tislin. Can this work?”
She gently touched his face. “We’ll make it work. Love will find a way.”