The Building 21

"What do you need me to do?" Tricia's voice came out slightly breathless and laced with desire. At least she'd stopped stroking herself, Jerry thought while trying to figure the best way to ask her to betray another hacker while also giving up her final secrets. He couldn't mind rape her before he got her to Celina's but he could work around that before they left her house.

It came to him in a brilliant flash. He knew how to make her feel like she was still protecting her privacy while giving him what he needed to finance the stalking and killing of the Vampire Council's hellhounds. It was perfect.

Working some of his charm into his voice he went closer to her and said, "I am so worried about you, my dear."

He stroked her face slowly, watching her push into his hand like a cat getting petted. She all but purred with the contact and her breasts pushed tautly against the ribbed tank top. She was aroused by his proximity even though she thought he was imaginary. He didn't care to touch her, but knew she needed the strokes to keep compliant while he spun her into the web he was constructing. Her brilliance with computers and hacking was compromised by her neediness and that she was starting to be able to read his thoughts. She was too close to becoming a vampire for his comfort. She would easily be turned by him if he fed anymore, he reluctantly concluded.

Ever since Tricia Sanborn tried to empty his bank accounts a few years back, he'd been feeding off her and using her to track down bits and pieces about the Vampire Council. He hadn't realized that Celina Holston was part of a local Miami evening newscast team -- leastways as support staff -- until earlier when he'd seen her on screen inadvertently, during a mishap during a live news story. Having to help Edna, a neighbor, find her dog caused him to rearrange his schedule and evening. Now Edna and the dog both were troll chow and he had the same troll over by his company's business park waiting to help dispose of stray vampires, so Jerry Cooper had to get back to his goal of destroying the vampires who'd tried to break him and destroy his world.

"You worry about me? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Why would my dream fantasy lover worry about me? I seriously have been drinking wacky Kool-Aid. Oh shit, my fucking subconscious is stressing. Okay, tell me what is bugging me so much I pulled you out of my brain and nearly lost a million dollar steal? Hmmmm ... " She was boldly flirting with him while dismissing him as a figment of her active imagination.

Jerry pushed into her thoughts and tweaked a little more in her mind. She still rubbed against his hand. "Damn it, you are so cold tonight. Maybe you need me to warm you up some more." She reached for his belt buckle and he bit back a sigh. She was still at waist level in the chair she used to work at her computer, so he didn't know how to not offend her if he pushed her away. She was horny and he needed her compliant and working her computer for a little more information.

"No, we have to talk about your needs," Jerry moved slightly away and spun her chair back around so she was facing her monitor.

"Fuck it, I really need a vacation." She shook her head while looking at her keyboard. "It's bad when a girl can't even pleasure herself more than a minute before she forces herself to go back to work."

Seeing that Tricia was resigned to the fact that she was going to be doing more computer work, he quickly began to put images in her mind while hissing out his commands. He made sure to work all of her fears, at the same time giving her hope if she did what he was telling her that she'd be rewarded. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of doing this a few months ago, but then he only began to fully grasp the intricacies of computers and all the new technology available in the past few months. Boredom and access to the IT department on the job had a lot to do with his increased knowledge.

His genius was in finding what people could and would do with what pressure points. She'd been hard to crack because of her innate paranoia. He hadn't wanted to shatter her mind to find the codes, but now he knew how to get around that and still get her to do what he wanted unknowingly. She nodded while clicking the necessary keys and grabbing out a silver flash drive from her desk drawer. Her profanity laced tirades hadn't diminished any more than her lusty wants, but she was focused on what he wanted.

"Fine, there I go. I've backed up my data properly for a change and will keep the flash drive safe while I go take a ride. I need to get fucked by someone out of the neighborhood and now. I hate going off the island but hell, I just stole over a million dollars from that Bernie Madoff wanna-be! That'd teach him to fuck with the local senior citizens. I may not want to live at Century Village but it doesn't give jerks free reign to pillage the geriatric set. Like he can tell anyone? 'Oh, help me officer, I've had a million dollars stolen from one of my hidden Cayman Islands accounts.' Yeah, that'd go over so well." She giggled and shut her flash drive off and yanked it out from the portal. She began to put it in her desk drawer when a puzzled look flew over her face.

"No fucking way. That's too easy. I know!" She got up and went to her bedroom. Jerry trailed after her curious as to why she wasn't putting the flash drive in the drawer with the rest. She walked to an old beat up wooden cigar box sitting on one of the half dozen bookshelves in her room filled with novels, brick-a-brac and other treasures. She opened up the box on a middle shelf and tossed the flash drive inside. Jerry saw there were various ticket stubs, a long string of faux pearls and a small box of matches. Nothing that immediately was recognizable as expensive and yet he knew without asking that they were all meaningful to Tricia in some manner.

She noticed him in the room and said, "Now this is more like it. Let's get you naked and deep inside me."

Jerry pushed into her mind and directed her to go print out directions to Celina's house. Aloud he said, "We'll play once we get to Celina's. She's something quite special."

A pout and then she whined, "Fine we'll go see your 'special' friend." Jealousy laced the words.

"No, no. Tricia, you are the only one for me. We will play with her together. She's got some talents you really will like." He figured Celina's ability to drain a human dry in minutes could be construed as a talent. Not to mention the vampire's talent at capturing major vampires like himself. He'd done his research and Celina had been used as bait in more than one of the Council's traps.

Tricia looked momentarily bothered by something then said, "I've never ... " before trailing off without finishing her thoughts.

Jerry grinned, "Remember, this is all your fantasy. It has nothing to do with what you've done before, but what your mind thinks. Besides this is all just a dream. You are still sitting in front of your monitor drifting off. You've had a busy night and are slowing down."

She stumbled a bit at his last mind push and fell onto the bed, "I should sleep right here. And bring you with me into bed."

He wanted to growl but instead picked the flash drive out of the box when her eyes shut and then sat on the edge of the bed saying, "First let's see if you can print those directions. You have a lovely dream coming."

Her eyes fluttered open and she grinned, "I like coming ... okay, just let me shut down the computer."

She stumbled slowly down the hallway back to her spare bedroom slash office nearly falling twice. The mental power Jerry was using to coax her into a semblance of compliance was beginning to take a toll on the human. He knew he was literally frying her synapses with all the vampiric strength he was using to combat her stubborn foolishness. She kept trying to override his ideas with her own and the battle was deep inside her brain. He didn't need her resistance, but wanted her to just do as he commanded without trying to argue. He couldn't afford to have her mind shatter now, because he needed her for the next part of his plan. She'd be ideal bait for the temptation of Celina. He'd seen into that vampire's thoughts and desires enough to know she wasn't all she pretended to be. She had a very dark side that he was more than happy to exploit when the time was ripe. And from everything happening, he decided it definitely was picking season.

Tricia sat down slowly in the office chair at her computer desk and furrowed her brow as she tried to print the directions she found to the vampire's home. He resisted doing anything else besides wait for her to finish printing the directions and closing the computer down. He knew that the police would eventually find her little home and her computer. She hadn't erased the history -- a normal step in her process -- because of Jerry's soft suggestion earlier to hurry so they could go to bed, along with telling her Celina's name for her to find on the employee list at the station. Distracted and skipping that step meant the detectives would find her hack into the news station database and print out of directions to Celina's house. Eventually. It wouldn't do to have her little games exposed before the trap was arranged and all the monies transferred with the exception of a bit left for the cops to steal. He liked to share someone else's wealth far more than his and it was due him by the Council. He loved the irony of using the money she'd stolen to kill off the enforcers ever so cruelly and ever so slowly. Tricia was a delightful find for the equation, as was the troll setting up home in the business park by his work. The two of them would create a masterpiece of horror for vampires to ponder over for years. Hell, centuries if he did it correctly.

And after all the time that had passed, he planned on doing it correctly.

Tricia finished up and began to walk back to her bedroom. That wasn't what Jerry intended for her to do. He wanted to get her to drive over to Celina's now. Dawn was a few hours off, but if he worked quickly enough, he could bag and tag Celina and get her to the warehouse he'd chosen before anyone was the wiser. And the way Tricia was listlessly walking, no longer animated, he worried she was suffering from something more than severe anemia. Looking back at her office area he noticed there were a few cans of diet Mountain Dew and nothing else -- none of the normal assorted snacks on the desk or empty plates. Leaving her for the moment he ran for the kitchen where he began to open the fridge and cupboards in search of food. He was stunned to see them nearly empty. It wasn't a matter of not having money, because she certainly had plenty of that, but her obsession with cracking bank accounts and filling her pockets had caused her to run out of food. It wasn't something that she had just done in the past week or so but from the dried out vegetables in the bins in the fridge it had been weeks. He had to find her food.