Edited by Bella Mariposa
This is an entry into the 2010 Halloween Contest. Please do not forget to cast your vote after reading!!
IMPORTANT NOTE: This story is based on Christine Feehan's Carpathian Vampire series. While the two main characters and the plotline are totally original, the setting and supporting characters are completely hers, and I take no credit for their creation in any way. In the series of books, this story takes place just before
Dark Celebration
(c). For a full disclosure about Ms. Feehan's series and the origin of this story, please see the author's note at the end.
My thanks, as always, to my fantastic editor, Miss Bella Mariposa, who does her very best to see to it that I write same sex, not same sax. Kisses on those pink parts, Butterfly!
Disclaimer: this story includes male/male erotic content as well as violence and blood play. If you are offended by any of these things, please stop reading now.
*
San Francisco, CA
The air coming off the Bay smelled of brine and death. Rhys shuddered and turned the collar of his leather coat up. His Gucci loafers made no sound on the sidewalk as he quickly walked the two blocks from the parking garage to his townhouse. For the first time since he'd helped the San Francisco Police Department recover the body of a missing person, there weren't reporters camped out around the block. Rhys almost cried he was so damn thankful for that, because tonight's job had been particularly gruesome.
The wind whipped up, autumn leaves dancing in swirling eddies across his path. He could feel eyes on him and tensed, immediately looking around and expecting to see a news van. The traffic light on the corner changed, forcing him to stop, but there was no sign of any news vans or reporters lurking anywhere. Still, Rhys was skittish; his was a dangerous business. While it wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last, he attracted some morbid "fans" because of his unusual talent. Rhys had to be extremely careful. He couldn't shake the sensation he was being watched, and let out a breath, casting out with his senses to see if he might be in danger.
Woman 200 yards back listening to Rush Limbaugh on an iPod, feel sorry for her... Two men holding hands on the other side of the street, wow, they're kinda old for that, aren't they? Woman, girl, girl, boy, man, child, woman, man...
Rhys snapped back as the wind blew in from the Bay and again a foul odor hit his nostrils. He hadn't sensed anything out of the ordinary, and he'd gone so far as to scan the people in the cars. But he simply couldn't shake the sense he was being watched. He quickened his pace and hit his front stoop at a run. He had his keys out and slid them smoothly into the lock with his left hand, twisting them gracefully and entering his security code with his right hand. It was a beautiful example of his ambidexterity. All he knew was that he had to get inside,
now.
By the time he was hanging his coat on the hall tree and slipping his loafers off, his heart had slowed and he felt safer. He always did when he was home, though he knew how foolish that was, since doors and locks only kept honest people honest. He'd been to enough crime scenes and seen enough murder victims that he knew the determination of evil men and women didn't stop at a locked door. If anything, the false sense of security people felt in their homes made things worse. Rhys sighed.
He was tired. Worn out, burnt out, and tired. At 19 he should be registering for college at San Francisco State or hanging out up on the Haight...
Or strolling the Tenderloin...
Abruptly he shook his head and went to his bedroom, pulling his clothes off. He dumped them into the dry cleaning hamper then padded into the bathroom. Letting the hot water pound over his pale flesh, he grabbed shampoo and perfunctorily washed the dark red hair that hung down to his shoulders in thick, straight clumps. Rhys stood an inch shy of six feet, and though he tried to work out, even had several of the younger San Francisco PD after him to join them on the obstacle course on the weekends, he couldn't seem to add much muscle to his lean frame. He seemed perpetually stuck at 165 pounds no matter how much or what he ate, and while training with the officers had given him some crazy definition across his chest and abs, he still looked like exactly what he was: a scrawny, ex-goth computer nerd.
Stepping out of the shower and drying off, he grabbed a pair of the Calvin Kleins he was favoring these days and shoved his wet hair back from his face. This last job had really wiped him. He didn't want to close his eyes and see the faces of the victims again. Christ. Every time he took a deep breath he smelled the stink of brine and death that was stuck in his nose. He wished he'd taken Jenkins and McKawley up on their invitation and gone to the pub. He wasn't old enough to drink with the detectives, but at least he wouldn't be home alone, smelling that smell and worrying about being haunted by images of people who'd been tortured, mutilated, and drained of all their blood.
He just needed to find another job, fast. He sat down in his big, comfortable leather chair and brought his website up, logging in as the administrator and checking his messages. He scrolled through them quickly, deleting junk mail, cleaning out spam, and moving the, "Are you for real?" inquiries into his, "I'll get to these when I have time," file. He rapidly found and replied to two inquiries that he would not be accepting, because he didn't do missing kid cases. The third inquiry, though, brought an instant hum up along his forearms, and as he read, the tingle spread up his arms, across his chest, and down his abdomen. He'd gotten the tingle before; it meant the job was one he had to take, or he'd be haunted by it. But he'd never gotten a full-body tingle, and it scared him. Scared and excited him, because he realized as he vetted the email address and verified the bank routing number that he knew the sender. Hot damn, he'd been waiting for this.
****
Dunedin, New Zealand
Szeren Kizevicius stared out at the lights of Dunedin, not really seeing the hustle and slide of the second largest city on New Zealand's southern island. The last of the crates lay open on the floor in front of him, layers of thick, spongy polystyrene and hanks of beautiful, blood red, watered silk scattered around him like discarded toys. His hunger beat at him and he wanted nothing more than to be done with this task and this city, and his existence.
He held the last of the swords in his elegant, broad-fingered hands, testing its weight and balance. Like all of the blades created by the Kizevicius clan, it was perfect, a shining example of Carpathian craftsmanship and excellence. Glancing over at the other wooden crates already sealed and ready for shipping, Szeren's hunger was a hot ball of pounding agony in his gut and he knew he needed to get this done and get gone. Looking down at the sword in his hand, which just happened to be the sword destined for his Prince, the sword created for the House of Dubrinsky, Szeren wanted to believe he held an instrument of divine justice, but it was just a big, sharp knife. Szeren wished he could destroy them all, twist them into curls of meaningless metal and magic, but short of flying to the North Island and the Taupo volcanic zone where he could climb Mount Ruapehu and throw the damned things in, the swords of his clan would long outlast his weaker flesh. Once, he'd created instruments of precision and strategy like the one in his hands with skill and passion and great joy in his heart. Now, he created nothing, and he felt even less.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt emotion of any kind. His world was a gray void filled with endless nights of patrolling streets that depressed him with their modernity. He remembered the shores of these beautiful, wild islands when the Maori guarded them from canoes, when huge black and white raptors stalked moas from the skies and the kauri trees were still soaking up the secrets of the world through their roots. The threat of the undead, which should have decreased in the time he'd lived here in the Land of the Long White Cloud, was on the rise instead. He had not been born a warrior, but an artisan, a swordmaker. He took up the swords his clan spent their entire lifetime crafting only because Vlad decreed the vampires must be sought out and put down, and he'd paid dearly for his obedience. Szeren expected the color to drain from his world as his ability to feel happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, trepidation, tenderness, and every emotion in between slowly faded away every time he killed one of his fellow Carpathians who had chosen to turn vampire. The loss of his gifts, of his ability to shape, mold and create, though, pained him far more than the loss of color and emotion. Szeren could stand it no longer.
He checked to be sure that the sword was locked securely into its scabbard, then laid it gently onto a layer of pure silk, blood red for the precious liquid of the House tied to the blade by magic and locked within the forging. Kizevicius swords had traveled in only one fashion for over five hundred years, and Szeren wasn't about to let his own lack of affect or feeling interfere with that. Folding the silk precisely, he snapped the titanium case closed over the sword and carefully settled the case onto the layers of polystyrene already prepared and cut to fit snugly inside the wooden crate. Szeren traced intricate safeguards over the case before packing the rest of the foam in and hammering the lid onto the wooden crate.
He was done. Five wooden crates sat about the condo, ready for transport. He did not care for having to involve humans in his affairs, and certainly not in something like this, but he had little choice. A heavy sigh crawled up out of his throat.
"Mister K? All right then?"
Szeren turned slightly to look at the older woman standing by the door wearing a coat and holding a handbag. She looked like somebody's mother, and she was staring at him with a worried expression on her face.
"All right?" she asked again, her voice even softer.
Szeren stood, coming to his full height of six feet, three inches, his well-muscled frame looking posh and stylish in the simple Levi 505s and black T-shirt he wore. He moved to the bank of dark, polarized, tinted windows, the better to peer out at Dunedin. He was on edge this night, and knew it was because he had to feed before he could leave the city.
"Yes, thank you, Elspeth." His voice, a lovely, cultured mix of British, Dutch, and the lilting cadence that was unique to New Zealanders drifted across the dark luxury condominium and caressed the older woman's ears. She smiled at him and answered in her own crisp British accent.
"When will you be returning?"
