Page 12 of Incandescence

Maya

I slinked out of what I presumed was a guest bedroom with a pillow and two blankets folded under an arm. Everyone who’d lingered in the hallway was now part of the knot of people in the living room avidly watching the show.

I smirked at seeing the buxom blonde woman on the dining table in her underwear, swaying seductively to the music.

When she unclipped her bra and tossed it into the crowd, her big breasts bobbing to the movement, everyone roared with approval.

The roar amplified when she used one hand to pull at her pink nipples and slid her other hand inside her panties.

Alexander stepped toward me, glancing around before he lifted the hatch. “After you,” he murmured.

I nodded thanks and said, “Great distraction.”

He waited until I’d climbed down the stairs before he climbed in after me, then closed the hatch to complete darkness. But the sudden panic I swallowed back wasn’t just from the impenetrable blackness. It was as much from the all-too-familiar vile scent of something between cat urine and ammonia.

I dumped the blankets and pillow on the floor before peeling off my backpack and riffling through it in search of my pen flashlight. Alexander stepped onto the concrete floor beside me as I flicked on the beam that sliced through the darkness.

My heart rate steadied only a little as I moved the light over the row upon row of shelving in front of us that was filled with dusty bottles of booze. I moved the light farther along, to where the shelves ended, leaving a small gap between them and the concrete wall.

I led the way, squeezing through the gap, my stare going wide and my belly sinking at what I’d suspected.

“What is it?” Alexander asked from behind me.

I swallowed past my dry throat, a little nauseous and dizzy from the smells...and the memories. “It’s a meth lab.” I turned to him. “They’re making drugs. If they find us down here, we’re as good as dead.”

“Fuck.” He stared past me at the table filled with common household items.

Aluminum foil, pressure cookers, a camp stove, two blenders, dozens of empty milk bottles, latex gloves, funnels, chemistry glassware, paper towels, pH test kits, coffee filters, cotton balls, duct tape, jugs, thermometers and plastic tubing.

That wasn’t to mention the bleach, gas cans, pool chemicals and propane tanks lined against the wall.

I backed away from the toxic scents that were dangerous even to inhale. “We need to get out of here.”

But when I turned and headed for the stairs, Alexander clasped my arm.

“Wait.”

I stilled at his hoarse order. “The music’s stopped.” He tightened his hand. “Turn the flashlight off.”

I flicked off the light to complete and utter blackness. Alexander was right. Music no longer throbbed through the floorboards, but the faint cadence of voices became clearer as my hearing attuned.

It was Rory’s voice that came through loudest. He sounded belligerent and more than a bit pissed off. “I don’t care who invited you inside. You can’t just come in here searching for my guests.”

“Can’t I?”

I shivered at the voice I already knew all too well. The vampire’s tone was smooth and modulated, with undertones of power. “I’m looking for a dark-haired, slender woman and a tall, well-built man.” His voice changed, almost smoky with persuasion. “You will tell me where I can find them.”

The floorboard overhead squeaked a little as they walked closer to the hallway trapdoor.

“I saw them only fifteen minutes ago.” Rory’s voice had also changed. He sounded passive, his last bit of resistance worn thin. “But I think he might have left with the female. Probably went back home to that dump where they live.”

I held my breath, too scared to move for fear the vampire would pinpoint us.

“Where they live?” the vampire asked in a mild voice, though the threat of violence simmered.

When Rory blurted out where he thought we resided, the vampire drawled, “I know the place. You’re certain that’s where they’ve gone?”

“Not really,” Rory admitted. “I was enjoying Amelia’s strip show.”

Silence reigned for perhaps a minute, and I sensed the vampire deepening his brainwashing of Rory, and probably anyone else in the room.

“If you see either of them again, you will bring them to me when the sun is down.”

As the vampire told them his address, I went hot then cold, giddiness assailing me and my belly cramping hard.

I bit into my lip to stop from crying out, sweat beading on my brow at the effort.

If he took us back to his nest, we’d never leave again.

The leech would chain us to the walls if he had to.

The floorboards creaked again, a tread that moved toward the front door. Alexander put his arm around me, balancing me while my whole world slowly spun on its axis.

“Sorry for troubling you.” The vampire’s voice pierced the air like an arrow, smooth and well-modulated. “Enjoy the rest of your night.”

The door slammed shut and I sagged against Alexander as he turned me in his arms and said in my ear, “Let’s stay here until morning. We’ll sleep behind the stairs...the toxic fumes shouldn’t be anywhere near as strong there.”

I nodded. I didn’t have any better ideas. I was too numb to do anything more than wait in the blackness as he fumbled around making up our temporary bed. I heard his soft footfall before he clasped my hand in his and he led me to the blankets.

“This is never going to end,” I whispered bleakly as I shrugged off my backpack and lay on the blanket he’d folded to better protect us from the hard concrete.

The music throbbed back into life in the house as Alexander lay beside me. I turned to him, needing the comfort of his arms around me. Needing the man who not only understood my fears, but had lived through more than I imagined any human should.

A jagged pain through my belly pushed the breath from my throat in a wheeze. “The hunger pains are coming back,” I said through gritted teeth.

He drew me to him. “Fight through them, distract yourself with other thoughts.”

I sucked in a shaky breath that filled my lungs with dark-spiced male. I touched his face with my hands and pressed my lips to his. Awareness danced through my nerve endings. I wanted more than his arms around me. I wanted all of him. “I need you to be my distraction,” I whispered hoarsely.