Page 11 of Incandescence

Alexander

I stepped away from Maya and closer to the doctor. “You’ve hardly kept things quiet. If you wanted to be all secretive about vampires, you wouldn’t have gone public.”

“Yeah, well, now that everyone thinks I’m a crazy old man, I don’t vocalize my ramblings anymore.”

Maya moved close beside me. “We believe you,” she said quietly. “We’re hoping you’ll believe us too, and that you’ll help us.”

The doctor pushed back his glasses. “And just how do you think I’ll be able to help?”

Maya brushed a hand over her throat. “The vampire didn’t just take us to his nest and feed from us. His blood made us addicts too, and now we need something to neutralize the cravings.”

The doctor blinked. “He fed you his blood?” he murmured. Then he focused on us and said, “Why would you believe I know how to stop these cravings? I’ve learned little to nothing about vampires except in fairytales, and I know even less about their blood.”

“Yet you claim they exist!” Maya burst out.

The doctor’s face flushed. “Because I saw one of them take my daughter from her bedroom.” He swallowed convulsively.

“I saw his fangs drip with my daughter’s blood after he’d pierced her throat and drank from her.

” He pushed a hand over his face. “I just...stood there and watched as he jumped from the opened window with her in his arms.”

Maya’s eyes widened and I shrank a little inside. One of the vampire’s donors—my so called playthings—had been this man’s daughter.

Sophie. It was more than possible. The doctor’s article had been released nine months ago, around the time Sophie had been brought up to the nest. The same woman who’d chosen death over being a vampire’s meal.

Rest in peace, Sophie.

Maya flashed me a questioning look and I shook my head. I wasn’t one hundred percent certain and wondered if it was better the doctor was spared from the truth. I had an unshakeable gut feeling the man lived only to find his daughter.

The doctor subsided into silence and, though he looked haggard, his eyes suddenly gleamed. “You said a vampire had taken you to his lair—”

“Nest,” I corrected automatically.

The doctor inhaled sharply. “You didn’t happen to see my daughter, Nancy, did you? Tall, long blonde hair, honey-brown eyes and always smiling—”

Sophie had been Nancy. Knowing her real name and meeting her father made the woman I’d lived with for a short time more real to me, even though she’d never been deader.

Made me want to quietly mourn for the woman she should have been.

I shook off anguish for her and all the women who’d died in the nest, and said sharply, “No, sorry. I didn’t see her. ”

The doctor pushed his glasses into place yet again and sighed resignation. “Then our conversation is over.”

I stuck a foot in the door as he went to push it shut. “Wait.” He glowered at me and I said quietly, “You’re a doctor. You must know of some way we can neutralize the addiction.”

“A blood transfusion is the only thing I’d suggest,” he said sharply. “Now get out of here before you get me killed too.”

My heart pounded with a surge of adrenaline and I moved my foot away before the door slammed shut. Maya turned to me. “Do you think he might be right?”

I nodded, deliberately toning it down. “Maybe.” All that mattered to me was that a blood transfusion might also see the vampire blood cells die off quicker, making it all but impossible for our host to find us.

But as we walked back down the path, I couldn’t help but notice that the shadows were growing longer and the sun was falling all too quickly toward the horizon. Maya followed my stare skyward, her face pinched and lips tight. Danger would be closing in soon.

The vampire wouldn’t allow us simply to walk away. We were...his.

I blew out a slow breath. “We need to figure out a place to stay. Somewhere we can hide for the night.”

“We already have one.” Maya turned to me. “The eighteenth birthday party. It will probably be crowded with people. I can’t think of a safer place.”

I wasn’t about to stand around and argue. We weren’t exactly flush with options. “How far?” I asked.

The Sydney suburbs weren’t familiar to me anymore and I had no way to gauge distances.

She bit her bottom lip and glanced skyward, adjusting her backpack as she said, “If we speed-walk we’ll get there before nightfall.”

I clasped her hand in mine, taking a small moment to savor the perfect fit, the zing of connection. I squeezed her fingers before I released hold. “Then we’d better run for it.”

The party was already in full swing when we arrived, out of breath and uncomfortably hot. But at least we’d made it a good fifteen or twenty minutes before nightfall...at least we’d made it at all.

I turned Maya toward me and cupped her chin so that she looked up at me. “We can do this,” I murmured, and pressed my lips to her silky soft mouth, kissing her with a tenderness I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of just a few days ago.

She sighed, and I flicked my tongue between her opened lips, tasting her vanilla sweetness. My dick jerked involuntarily even as she pulled back, her eyes glinting. “We can. We’re survivors.”

My lust dimmed a little as I wondered about her past. I knew so little about her.

But I had no time to dwell on it. I only hoped that sometime soon, I could find out everything there was to know.

Instead I nodded, and took her hand in mine before we walked through a crooked wire gate and along a path toward the opened front door.

I guided her around a couple making out, the man’s buttocks white in the growing shadows, the woman’s blouse unbuttoned and her breasts exposed. Maya looked up at me with wide eyes and I sensed her unease, along with a shiver of desire.

I swallowed a groan. Our first time together would be in private, her gasps for my ears only, her nakedness for my eyes alone.

We entered a crowded living room, my stare meeting the older brother’s. He grinned on seeing us and lifted a hand before he turned toward his younger brother and shouted, “Hey, Daryl, look who just showed up!”

Daryl pulled himself away from a knot of semi-adults drinking beers and passing around a bong. A goofy grin lit up his face at seeing us. “Well, fuck me, this is unexpected.”

He approached us in a swaggering and unsteady gait, then leaned down and kissed Maya on the lips. Before I could react, he turned and planted a kiss on my mouth too.

I swiped at my lips and he barked out a laugh and said, “Don’t worry, mate, I might be partial to both.

” He grabbed his groin and gave it a gleeful rub.

“But my birthday gift left me completely drained.” He twisted around and said, “You’ve met my brother, Rory, and these here are my mates—bozos the lot of ‘em, but I wouldn’t be without them. ”

I followed him and stayed polite as he introduced us to one friend after another, one of whom nodded even as he blew a thick plume of smoke our way. I clamped my lips at the bong smoke. How high would we be by the end of the night?

At least it might hold off our blood cravings for a little longer.

“So grab yourselves some beers and enjoy the party,” Daryl ended, somehow speaking clearly while sucking down the last of his own beer and looking as if a breeze would blow him off balance.

When he disappeared through a haze of smoke and music which was louder than tolerable, we grabbed a beer each and walked freely through the house. We needed to check out its layout and try to formulate some kind of plan.

But it was a ground-level house, with nothing to shield us from a vampire who could brainwash possibly everyone in the room—particularly when they were high on weed and numbed by alcohol.

I turned to Maya. “This won’t work—”

My words froze as I watched one of the partygoers lift a hatch that was concealed in the hallway floor, before the man disappeared underground to what I assumed was a cellar.

Maya noticed too, her face relaxing just a little as she twisted back to face me. “Maybe it will work?” she suggested.

I looked around. No one was taking much notice of anyone else. If we could slip inside the cellar and stay there the night, without anyone seeing us, even a vampire’s brainwashing wouldn’t matter. He might sense we were around, but the cloying scents of smoke and sweat might put him off our trail.

I turned to Maya. “See if you can grab some blankets, anything clean. I’ll get the party distracted somehow.”

When she went to do as I asked, I caught her arm and murmured, “Stay where there are people.”

“I will,” she said, before disappearing through the crowd.

I watched her go, reassuring myself she’d be okay, even as the hatch lifted and the guest climbed out, a bottle of rum in one hand and a bag of something else in the other.

I blew out a slow breath and stepped toward the brothers. It was time to make a distraction.

Daryl was now fighting to stand, but I gave him full marks for lasting the distance with so many toxins in his body. I turned to his older brother, Rory. “Hey, great party.”

He nodded. “Fucking oath it is.”

I grinned. “Only one thing’s missing...”

Rory swayed. He looked as though he was catching up to his younger brother in the drinking stakes. His bleary stare focused on me. “Yeah?”

“You had a hooker.”

Rory’s face split into a wide grin. “Yeah, I shared some pussy with my brother.”

“So, where’re the strippers?” I leaned close. “Or is one of these gorgeous women going to put on a show?”

He nodded, a light in his eyes. “You’re fucking right!” He looked around the room, his voice booming over the music. “I need a beautiful volunteer.” Everyone turned to him. “Which sexy woman wants to perform a striptease?” He held up a bag of weed and shouted, “With this as the prize!”

At the cheers and hoots of encouragement, I faded back into the crowd. When the music changed into something hot and seductive, I smiled. No one would notice us disappear into the cellar.