Page 30 of The Monster of Darkspell Comics

Fanny

I feel like I’m floating on cloud nine as I move around the shop, humming to some love ballad since I’m feeling especially sappy today.

I’m just in a really good mood, and even the weather seems to be celebrating with me as the temperatures today are cool and fog has been clinging close to the ground, giving the desert a dreamy look.

Mating with Pashar was beyond what even my wildest imagination could conjure up.

It takes everything I have not to cling to him like one of Chewy’s vines while he works, but I know the feeling is not one-sided since his eyes frequently drift over to me.

Perhaps I should have taken him up on it when he suggested closing the shop for a few days to “nest.” It actually sounds really good, but I didn’t want to just do that to Ms. Kremble without warning.

Though it is Pashar’s vacation, he is still running a business in her mall.

So, instead, I content myself with tormenting him with little wiggles as I work whenever there aren’t customers around.

I’m also wearing the tightest pair of jeans that I own and feel like the seam of the pants is trying to cleave my butt in half the rest of the way, but they look good, and I can feel his eyes tracking the movements of my ass when they aren’t glued on my cleavage peaking from the top of my intentionally chopped up Motley Crue shirt.

I give another experimental bounce, and he swallows a groan. “That’s it. I’m going to see Anayolia. She’s had enough time to get her bearings this morning. At this rate I’m going to be dead before I get you home again,” he growls, drawing a gleeful giggle from me.

Stacking his work into a neat pile, he stands and straightens and casts a provocative look in my direction as he stalks toward the door.

“Bring back lunch,” I shout after him and giggle again at his growl.

“I’ll feed you something,” he threatens before slipping out the door.

Promises, promises. I grin as I watch him for a long moment until Chewy’s vine taps my ankle insistently. I look over at her and see her little pod-like head peeking out at me. Her color is surprisingly robust today, and I wonder if that has to do with how foggy it is.

“I really should talk Pashar into getting you a humidifier. Or at least taking you home with us at night if you are looking this good with just a few hours of fog in the air,” I say to the plant.

“Do you always talk to ferns?” a masculine voice asks just behind me.

Jumping in surprise at the sound, I whirl toward him as Chewy’s pod disappears entirely back into her fronds.

“Oh, it’s you,” I say with a relieved laugh as the Dungeon and Dragons dude standing just inside the door gives me an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” he says, his smile awkward. “I was just walking by and happened to see you in here. I wanted to thank you for recommending the bookstore.”

“No sweat,” I reply cheerfully as I abandon the counter and walk over to him. “Honestly, I’m surprised that you didn’t know about it, unless you’re a more recent resident here.”

“Guilty as charged,” he laughs. “My buddies and I got lost and just kind of ended up here. It’s a strange little town, that’s for sure. I’m sticking around mostly because of my friends. They aren’t ready to leave yet, you know. Thankfully, work is pretty easy to find around these parts.”

“I can’t disagree. Pashar set me up with this job pretty quickly,” I reply.

“Pashar, is that the guy who is usually here?” he asks.

The way he phrases the question—some small shift in his tone—makes me look over at him curiously. “Yeah. He owns the shop. I’m not sure whether he’s looking for another employee. If you are thinking of applying, it wouldn’t hurt to come back and see him when he’s here.”

“Oh! No, I’m good,” he replies with an awkward smile. “I just wasn’t sure. The way he was around you, I had assumed that he was your boyfriend.”

“He is,” I reply cheerfully. “Well, actually, it’s more like he’s my husband now. We just tied the knot, so to speak.”

His eyebrows went up. “Have you really? Congratulations,” he says as his eyes drift casually back to Chewy before he looks at me again and smiles, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

Truth be told, he appears distracted, as if his attention is currently more inwardly focused.

“Seriously. I was hoping that just maybe I would have a shot, but I guess that’s fate. ”

“Yeah,” I reply and give him a strained smile. “Well, I better get back to work. I hope those books really work out for you.”

He nods quietly, and I turn my back to him as I resume working, hoping that he takes the hint.

I don’t hear him move. There is nothing but the background sound of the mall before suddenly a rag with a cool, sweet smell is thrust over my mouth and nose.

I claw at the hand holding the rag to my face and blindly attempt to kick him in my struggle to get free.

My foot makes contact with his shin, and he curses beneath his breath, but his hold doesn’t relax, and I don’t have the energy to try again as the chloroform fumes carry me swiftly into unconsciousness.

I don’t know how long I drift in the blackness of my own shuttered mind.

All I know is that when I wake up, I’m disorientated.

My head swims dizzily while a headache beats behind my eyes, provoking my stomach into attempting to empty itself at the same time.

At least I appear to be lying someplace cool.

That helps a little. Groaning miserably, I roll to my side and pause for a minute while my stomach dry heaves.

Someone reaches over and passes a wet rag to me, the cool material pressed into my hand.

I gratefully take it and mop my face as it sinks into my head that I had really been drugged by that shit.

But why? Damn, was he that hard up for gaming companions?

Coughing, I roll to my side and slowly open my eyes. I blink against the head-piercing rays of light that hit my eyes and bite back a cry as I squeeze my eyes tightly shut.

“Ah. One second,” a vaguely familiar voice murmurs, and I hear the sound of blinds lowering as the sunlight mercifully cuts out. “There, that should be better,” he murmurs.

I open my eyes again and strangle on a shout of alarm when I see the person crouching beside me. David Sweeney smiles at me, unbothered by my reaction.

“Don’t look so scared,” he says as he slowly straightens to take a chair a short distance away. He crosses his arms across his chest as he stares at me. “After all, I’m here to save you .”

“Save me?” I echo in disbelief. My eyes fly around the room. “Where—?” The words die on my lips as Dungeons and Dragons comes out from the shadows, his eyes almost appearing to possess a sheen of silver over them.

He doesn’t even look at me, but frowns impatiently at David. “I’ve done as you asked; now give me what you promised.”

“You asshole,” I choke out, strangling on my own fury and made impotent by a body still trying to recover from the chloroform.

His gaze flicks to me but returns to David as the other guy laughs.

“Don’t be too hard on Adam here,” he says in a cajoling voice.

“Much like you and me, he ended up in this hell, but they had the misfortune of running into a half-starved vampire. Sadly, the vampire killed Adam and his friends, turning them. He was one of my experiments, I’m afraid,” David sighs.

“I didn’t think that the ghoul at that inn would free him just to spite my efforts.

Nor that he would attack me. The damned ghoul would have killed me if I hadn’t found a place to hide before the sun became too unbearable for him.

Then it was just a matter of checking out with the day staff none-the-wiser. ”

That certainly cleared up some of what happened at the inn. Jasper had been surprisingly tight-lipped, but it was likely to protect his other guests. Had he investigated the matter after they spoke to him in the market? But what the hell was David Sweeney up to that he starved a vampire?

“W... what efforts?” I whisper.

“Enough talk,” Adam snarls as he bares very prominent fangs. “You promised me a cure. I’ve helped you, even lured my friends to you so that you could use them, and got the local vampiric youths to spy for you. Now give me what you promised,” he hisses.

David gives him a disapproving look but sighs as he stands and walks over to a large cabinet that is built into the wall of what looks like the inside of a camper.

The appointment—was that for the camper or to meet with Adam?

I groan to myself. Did it even matter now?

My jaw tightens as I watch him remove a vial and turn to hand it to the vampire.

“Here. Take this the next time you feed, and the antibodies should fuse with the blood before it soaks into your system.”

“I will feed now, then,” Adam says eagerly as he turns toward me, hunger and desperation bright in his eyes.

“Not her,” David snaps angrily. “I told you how important my research here is. I told you—I need her.”

“Whatever,” Adam replies crossly. “I don’t see what’s so special about her, or why you pushed me to acquire her now for you. I don’t think a nibble would hurt anything.”

“That is because you’re an idiot,” David drawls.

“She is one in a million right now, and I’m not going to allow you to screw that up by tainting her with your vampirism.

I need to study her exactly in this state because, unlike vampires, who get transformed from an infection in the bite, other cases of transformation of humans into a non-human being begin with exposure to very specific pollutant. ”

He proceeds to smile at me in a way that makes my skin crawl.

“You see, Adam, humans apparently have a very special sort of chemistry that is lurking within their DNA, just waiting to be activated through sexual contact. You can almost consider it like the effect of an STD, if you will. The best way to try to find a cure for it is to acquire samples at the very early stage of the pollution, when the human body is in the midst of the change. Only then am I likely to find an even dispersal of changed, changing, and unchanged genetic material. It took me a long time to find her—many hours of lurking around that town and that damned mall. So, you will have to forgive me if I insist that you feed elsewhere. Just reapply the sunblock I supplied you with before you go out. The afternoon sun is going to burn off the rest of the fog cover.”

“Yeah, okay, sure,” Adam mutters. He glances over at me and gives me a small smile. “Hey, sorry about this. For what it’s worth, you are pretty cute. I just can’t live this way. The vampire life is not as glamorous as it looks in the movies.”

“What a loser,” I mumble as I allow my eyes to slide closed, shutting both of them out. It’s not like I can escape anyway, which is confirmed in the next moment when I feel the cool touch of metal cuffing my wrist to where I’m lying.

Bastard. I hope that Pashar disembowels both of them.