Strange Bedfellows 49

The delivery boy groaned and mumbled something inarticulate and vaguely rude. I think he was in his 'happy place'. From the tent he was pitching I knew that his mental letter to the Penthouse forum was being expanded on and given some extra salacious details. Looking at the human blood donor I wasn't distracted, and continued to feed from the wing of his angel tattoo on his chest. My fangs were deeply imbedded when I heard something in the house. Okay, I heard lots of something sort of noises but what distracted me was a soft, "Natasha." Like a whisper of breath, not much more than a stray thought, that caused my heart to pound with more than the blood I'd just sucked out of the 'take-out' meal.

Fogging the buff, half naked man's brain wasn't hard. I licked the punctures on his chest automatically. Not that anyone would notice the bite marks in the detailed tattoo but it never hurt to be safe. I grabbed up the only visible weapon in the bedroom -- snagging a wooden hanger from the closet I snapped it into makeshift stakes. Thinking a second more, I broke two more while casting the clothing on the floor and then I went out to see why my Master had called for me. He hadn't used a mind link but instead had whispered my name. And it wasn't the soft whisper of a lover, but more a warning now that I thought about it. I opened up my mind slightly and tried to find him. He wasn't there. That scared me. Simon Conner wasn't some half-assed baby vamp but a Master of a large territory. I tried to find Harry. That space where I usually found him was empty as well.

All I could think was I was totally screwed if two major vampires had been taken out of action.

I put the fake stakes loosely in my right hand and walked slowly towards the living room. The tableau I came upon was very unexpected. The two 'delivery' girls and boy had Simon and Harry ensnared in some sort of magic trap. The girls were half naked -- not a shock given I'd left my personal take-out shirtless in my bedroom -- and bleeding from the necks while the boy was fully clothed holding a small ceremonial looking knife. It was a good ten inches or so and appeared to be doubled sided. Oh, not to mention from the gleam along the sharp blade it was probably silver -- not something vampires or werewolves liked as a rule, but witches and assorted villains seemed to find such treasures. And given the glow of blue-black surrounding my admittedly two favorite vampires I figured that wasn't just a plain old silver butter knife but more along the lines of an athame -- or what I've heard called a 'spirit blade' -- and from how the sturdy young man was waving it around, he seemed to know what it was used for, and adding in that he was walking deosil (like the hand of the clock spins around, also called 'sunwise') I was more than a bit concerned. The white witches I had known in my life tended to do most things widdershins -- counterclockwise. He was muttering things in fake Latin. That gave me some hope. But the fact that both Simon and Harry were frozen tended to negate that itty bit of positive. Damn, I wasn't happy.

None of the humans had noticed me. I saw flickers of awareness from both Simon and Harry. Filled with the tattooed boy's blood I was strong and pissed. This wasn't something I needed. The take-out kid mumbling pseudo-Latin was facing my vampires and didn't see me behind him. The two girls weren't looking at me but were gazing lustfully at Simon and Harry. With my lovely vampiric quickness I launched myself at the mumbling fool. He didn't even see me coming. Granted he wasn't a vampire but I put one stake in each hand and flew at him fangs ready in case the stakes didn't do the deed.

Gee, guess what? Two shards of wood impaling a human cause immediate trauma and given I ripped them upwards once they'd struck downwards it wasn't pretty. The blood from major arteries being severed bathed me and both my vamps in blood. That freed them from whatever spell had been woven. They reached out and snagged both of the females. In a second the two gals fell lifeless to the floor. The speed at which we killed them was a little more than a flicker to the human eyes -- but it wasn't bloodlust but blood fury.

"Thank you, Natasha." Simon wiped his mouth and sighed.

Harry looked pissed off and asked, "Where's yours?"

Pushing my mind back into the spare bedroom I felt for the human's mind and said, "He's probably whacking off."

They chuckled and quickly headed down the hallway.

Tattoo boy wasn't masturbating but had fallen asleep on the bed. But from the twitching and groaning he was reliving the blood loss and fantasizing about what had happened. His mind was filled with exotic sexual positions and fantasy hook ups.

"Guess we'll have to burn those sheets." I quipped.

Harry laughed and said, "And the damn delivery boy, also, more than likely."

Simon agreed and wrapped his arms around me. Kissing my forehead he said, "Thank you again, my Child. You are a treasure." A warmth lit me inside and I grinned.

Harry pulled out his cell phone and began to frantically text. I wondered what sort of encryption program he used. He wasn't happy they'd been ambushed and his safety had been compromised once again. From what I could tell it was more than enough for Harry. Heads were going to roll. After a minute he said, "Well, this sucks."

Nodding I waited. Simon hugged me and kissed the top of my head. I felt safe. Part of me wondered how both of them had been tricked but I didn't ask. My Master was appreciating me. He hadn't fed as much as I had but enough to flood me in a major wave of sensuality and comfort. As his fledgling it was a lush feeling of perfection.

"It seems that there were three men and one woman that headed over to deliver food. My men checked inside and out according to the text I just received." Harry sounded a bit skeptical.

"So do you think now there are some bodies in the trunk?" Simon pointedly asked.

"Well, it's a van so I'd say they are in the back." Harry dryly replied.

Taking a deep breath I inhaled the air. Yep, there were corpses in the van for sure. We shouldn't have missed that, but with our hunger and all, we did. Harry pushed a few buttons and got someone on the phone.

"Well, that was screwed up. You realize your guards let four extra people come in with the delivery van?"

The man answering on the other side sighed. "I don't know how they were missed in the van, we did a complete scan from what I was told. We didn't have a full team on the southern entrance. But it's been fixed now."

That was pretty much worthless but Harry let it pass. Then something dawned on him, "Check the team that let the van pass. They may have been tricked through magic. Treat them as potentially dangerous and use someone with some magic skills to countermand any abnormalities." With that he shut the phone closed and turned to us.

"Looks like your 'date' is starting to rouse." Harry had that right. The remaining deliveryman was tossing and growling softly. I still held two of the stakes I'd made in my right hand. I must have dropped a few with the chaos of killing the bad witch. Simon put his hand out for the remaining ones and I handed them over without protest. I didn't mind my Master taking over. He was a tad upset at being magically ambushed and needed to vent. My choosing to feed in the spare bedroom had saved me from being bespelled with them, which was obviously weighing heavily on Simon's conscience.

Walking to the human, he slapped him across the face. It wasn't a soft whack but rather there was some heat behind it. The man's head lolled to the left, then right with the backhand to his other cheek. Simon didn't pull the slap much, I noticed. His eyes snapped open and he asked, "What the hell?"

He was a bit confused. Pain can do that to a person. That and my removing a pint plus of his type O blood, the good old universal donor type of blood, always a favorite of vampires. A trickle of blood ran down his jaw; he'd bitten his cheek when Simon had cuffed him the second time. Simon reached over and ran a thumb through the blood. Admiring it on his thumb he deliberately licked it while staring at the suddenly aware human. His fangs extended making the gesture oddly disturbing to watch. Seeing Harry behind Simon and me standing on the other side of the bed finally triggered some alarm in his head. He frantically scrabbled back against the headboard while looking over our shoulders.

"No, your little friends won't be joining us. Currently they are rather indisposed." Simon intoned with some serious attitude. I mentally added, 'Which will be just disposed of really soon.' And both of the vampires smiled. They heard my thought and were amused. They had let their fangs drop and my blood donor didn't look nearly as excited as he had just a few minutes ago. I didn't feel the need to flash fangs but then I hadn't been held enthralled by some delivery folks. That stray thought was quickly buried and I kept very still. The air was charged and I wasn't going to distract anyone. It wasn't my dance.

"Dudes, I don't know what you mean." He tried for the dumb surfer lingo. It didn't work for a minute. Simon simply snatched up the human's wrist with his left hand, his right hand was holding the remaining stakes pointed towards the man's heart, and with the speed of a snake striking his fangs imbedded in the man's wrist. He tore open the flesh then slowly Simon began to drain out his life's blood.

"Stop!" The sexy, half-sleepy tones were gone and he was shrieking while trying frantically to yank his arm free from Simon's iron tight grip.

Without the comfort of his mind being fogged the man was in serious pain. And from the slight smile on Simon's face he'd added a few stray dark thoughts that worked on his deeply seeded fears and basic paranoia. His eyes began to roll back in his skull and darted left to right frantically looking for help. There wasn't anyone near to rescue him and it was now well after dark. Harry stood up and tossed back the black out curtains. Slowly he turned to Simon asking, "Should I go open the security shutters to let him see the evening sky before you kill him?"

"Did his friends show us such mercy?" Simon had stopped feeding from his wrist speaking with absolute menace in his words. He was really pissed off at having been ensnared by the witch.

"What are you called?" Simon knew any name that the man told us would more than likely be false. There was power in names when dealing with supernatural creatures. He might not be an actual witch, but he associated with them enough to come to a vampire's lair and allow me to feed on him so we knew he wasn't going to tell us his real name. It didn't matter because most humans had many things they called themselves in their minds, so anything we read while drinking their blood wouldn't necessarily be their true name.

His eyes fluttered open in false hope of being spared. A cunning smile flashed across his face. He thought giving us a name to call him he it would suddenly engender some sort of feeling, caring or empathy. He said, "I'm Gavin."

"Okay, Gavin, why did you come with your buddies tonight?" Simon stroked the inside of the raw, ravaged wrist reminding the human of the consequences of silence.

"I was told there was a hot chick who'd fuck me raw and afterwards there'd be a big bonus if I kept my mouth shut." He spoke without thinking. Mentally I thought 'wrong answer.'