Page 13 of Red Rooster

It was a gorgeous, albeit sticky-hot day. One of those last hoorahs of summer, when the asphalt sizzled, but the air held the first faint whiff of September. A day when the kids ran and whooped and swung around lampposts, trying to wring that last precious drops of freedom out of each day before the new school year started. The air smelled of hot dogs, soft pretzels, and warm garbage.

All of this was lost on Trina, whose worry ratcheted up another notch with each step. Every moment they didn’t find Lanny was another moment he could be in danger, lost, hurt, or in lock-up.

That was the most-likely possibility: that he’d gotten drunk and passed out and been dragged into a holding cell until he sobered up. That was the least-frightening option, to be honest. At least then he’d be safe, and in the company of their own.

She’d just decided that must be it when Sasha didn’t just halt, but froze. All that moved were the ends of his hair, tossing gently in the breeze, and his nostrils as they flexed and tested the air.

“What?” Nikita said, and then he took a deep, audible breath and said, “Oh shit.”

“Vampire,” Sasha said, and shivered like a dog shaking water off its fur. Then, low and angry: “Alexei.”

“He was here?” Trina asked, trying to ignore the way her pulse tripped.

“With Lanny,” Sasha said.

Nikita said, “There was blood.”

“But…” An image of Chase Edwards’s drained and lifeless body popped into her mind and her breath caught hard and sharp in her lungs. “But we talked to him. He wouldn’t hurt Lanny. Would he?”

Nikita turned to give her an unreadable look through the lenses of his shades. “A vampire would do anything.”

Sasha took off at a run down the sidewalk.

They could only follow.

Trina kept in good shape, but Sasha was an unnatural kind of quick. He looked like he was only jogging, but no matter how fast she accelerated – dodging pedestrians with a muttered “excuse me” – he continued to pull away from her, nothing but a bobbing patch of bright hair.

Nikita kept pace with her, though. Steadied her arm when she tripped. Steered her around a newsstand with a few deft movements.

She was a cop, and not an optimistic one, so she knew what they were going to find. Still, it was a shock.

Sasha ducked into an alley. Trina skidded and nearly fell when she did the same, catching herself against the side of the building.

In the alley stood a dumpster.

And behind it, boots sticking out, lay Lanny.

~*~

It hurt when Alexei bit him. Sharp like a bee sting, like the needle teeth of his grandmother’s old Pomeranian who liked to nip ankles. But the pain seemed unimportant, distant, like a memory. It was something he couldn’t flinch away from.

The night around him tilted, a warm blur of light and dark, all its varied scents peeling back from the spicy cologne that filled his sinuses. The heat of the night paled beside the wet heat of Alexei’s mouth on his throat. The warmth of his body where their chests were pressed together. Hot touch of skin where Alexei’s palm cupped the back of his neck.

It should have disturbed him, this closeness with a stranger, being held by a man who was neither brother, nor friend. But Lanny knew only peace. A fuzzy, welcome sort of contentment. He felt a pull at his throat, and his eyes slipped shut, and the black velvet of the void welcomed him with open arms.

He slept. Dreamless and endless, as his cells broke apart and knitted back together in stronger, healthier shapes. Somewhere deep inside his body, a low hum started, like the purring of an expensive imported car. Blood coursed thick, and red, and glossy through his veins, bathing the tumors, eating them away like acid. The legends and the novels had gotten it wrong, over and over, every time: he did not die. No. He transformed. The vampire cells made room for what they needed, and dug deep. Made him their home. Altered his DNA.

He slept.

And when he woke, it happened slowly, and in stages. He became aware of the heaviness of his limbs, the pounding in his head. He felt a shakiness steal through him, like the jitters from too much coffee. Felt his lungs work, and his stomach clench, empty and hungry.

He lay on something soft and he twisted onto his side, blindly seeking the light that he could sense but not see. He opened his mouth and it tasted like he’d been sucking on car keys; traced his teeth with his tongue and got snagged on something sharp – on hisfang. The copper heat of fresh blood bloomed on his tongue, filled his mouth, and two things happened.

His stomach growled, and something that hadn’t been there before in his throat answered. A jungle-cat roar that startled him fully awake.

The sound tapered off into “…holt shit!” as he bolted upright.

The light was too bright, and he squinted against it, just making out his surroundings. He was in Trina’s apartment, on her sofa. And the place…smelled. Not bad, but very much like her, and coffee, and the clean laundry in the bedroom, and his own sweat on the sheets, the musk of sex, soap and shampoo in the drains in the bathroom and…