Page 6 of Clay White
I could have countered that even as a small child, I’d known exactly how susceptible to harm I was. In fact, some days I’d gone to bed mildly surprised I’d survived thus far. Some days I still did.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“I think whoever is doing this knows I am here and is trying to lure me closer, but I do not know why. I believe the murders will continue unless someone catches him.”
“What do you want me to do with this warning?” I asked.
“Tell the Bureau.”
“Which no longer employs me.”
“They might listen nonetheless. I’d appreciate if you’d ask them not to hunt me. This time, at least, we’re on the same side.”
I snorted. “I thought you didn’t like it when agents come poking around.”
His expression went momentarily bleak. “I also don’t like it when young people end up dead. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true. And this killer is more elusive than the Harvard Horror.” The ghost of a smile flitted across his face. “Policemen sometimes call for backup, yes? This time, I believe I need backup.”
Grimacing at the mental image of vampires in blue uniforms, I drained my mug a second time. I dug in my pocket and pulled out a pair of wrinkled singles, which I left on the table for whoever had to clean up after us. Then I stood. “I’ll tell ’em,” I said. “Can’t guarantee they’ll listen.”
His answering nod was regal. “Thank you.”
The darkness wrapped around me like a cloak as soon as I left the donut shop, and despite the caffeine I’d just consumed, I was suddenly exhausted. If my wallet had been fatter, I’d have considered a hotel room for the night. Someplace with clean white sheets, sparkling granite and chrome in the bathroom, tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner smelling of lemongrass, and where the only ghosts were polite, corporate ones. But since my cash reserves were low, I trudged in the direction of the nearest BART station.
I’d gone four or five blocks when I heard his light footsteps behind me.
When Marek grasped my wrist and dragged me away, I didn’t resist. He took me down a narrow alley between a laundromat and a housing clinic, and then through a tiny parking lot to a loading dock behind a bodega. In a tight, closet-like alcove, he pushed me back against the concrete wall.
“Long ago, I was taught to finish what I’d begun,” he whispered. And then he kissed me fiercely.
This space was so utterly dark that I was nearly blind, so I closed my eyes to concentrate on the taste of him—bitter coffee—and the feel of his body against mine. This was better than my imagined hotel. The exhaustion drained from me at once, replaced by passion that had been suppressed while we sat in the donut shop. Moaning into his mouth, I grabbed his ass and pulled him closer. I was as hard as I’d been in the Chinese restaurant, and his cock was equally stiff. I spread my legs and bent my knees a bit to equalize our heights, the building supporting my back as we rutted together.
I could have come like that, quick and dirty and desperate. But Marek pulled away, dropped to his knees, and opened my jeans, then used one cool hand to pull out my cock.
A wise man knows that a vampire’s mouth is an imprudent place to put his dick. But I’m not all that wise, and when it came right down to it, there were worse ways to die. In fact I almost laughed at the irony of it. I imagined what the guys at the Bureau would say when they found out—those men and women I’d worked with for years but had never become close to. They’d shake their heads. Call me names. But I think some of them would be envious, deep inside their hardened hearts. Every agent expects to die at the hands of some monster; few picture themselves enjoying the process.
And I was enjoying indeed, nearly delirious with the pleasure of Marek’s tight throat around me and his soft hair between my grasping fingers.
He didn’t bite me. Well, not quite. Sometimes he drew his head back, releasing my cock with an obscenepop, and then with infinite care and delicacy, he drew a fang across the tender skin of my glans, my shaft, my scrotum. It didn’t hurt. The opposite, in fact. That sharpness sparked my nerve endings so deliciously, I had to grasp his hair tightly to keep from convulsing and collapsing.
Marek seemed as caught up in the experience as I was. Vampires don’t need oxygen, yet when he wasn’t sucking me, his breaths came harsh and rapid. And sometimes he paused to press his nose against me and inhale.
My cock was deep in his throat when I came, and I had to stuff a fist in my mouth to muffle the cry. I leaned back against the building, gasping, and Marek stood. He took my hand and chuckled as he licked it—I’d bitten myself hard enough to draw blood.
Before I could fasten my jeans, he kissed me again. Slowly this time. Tenderly. Still tasting of coffee but now also of my fluids—blood and semen, salty and warm.
“Keep yourself safe,” he whispered in my ear. “Don’t give up. Don’t let the darkness overwhelm you. There’s still light within you.” He kissed my cheek. And then he was gone.
Chapter Three
The Bureau’s West Coast headquarters occupied one of those ugly urban buildings that had sprouted up during the late fifties and early sixties. No effort or money had been wasted on ornamentation, and passersby paid it so little attention that they likely didn’t even remember it was there. This particular edifice was four stories of graying concrete in a nondescript neighborhood in one of the many communities that made up Los Angeles, and for several years, it had been more of a home to me than any of the dull apartments where I’d slept. It still felt like home now, even as I entered through the door markedVisitorsand stepped into the cool sterility of the lobby.
Every surface there was hard and smooth; it was a space completely devoid of warmth and life. The smallest noises echoed, and my footsteps sounded like an advancing army. Liz Biggs sat behind a tall reception desk, her back straight and hair as perfectly coiffed as always. “Can I help you, sir?” she asked crisply, as if she hadn’t known me for years.
“Need to see Townsend.”
“You may email his assistant to set up—”
“Now.”
