I had a splitting headache for starters. What the hell did that dratted boy have in his blood when I’d taken him last night? I vowed never to take an unaccompanied youngster squatting in an inner city park again. They were more trouble than they were worth.
That thought led on to memories of the formal, and what had happened afterwards.
Then it hit me.
I was in bed and I’d slept with Bronwyn.
Ouch.
Would she still want to have anything to do with me after the day’s sleep? When I slept I knew I looked more than a little like a corpse.
The more dangerous side of the coin was that I had on occasion woken up with a dead human lying close by my sleeping form, and in this case I was damn lucky the same fate had not befallen Bronwyn.
Bronwyn. What she had done was so dangerous I couldn’t do much but wince at the sheer foolhardiness of it.
The arms that had been encircling my body tightened, and there was the soft sensation of skin on skin as she moved around to kiss the top of my head. “Evening, beloved angel.”
I couldn’t help myself; I smiled, partly from relief, partly from soft wonder that she still wanted to be with me at all. “Evening, Bronnie.”
We shifted around so she could settle comfortably in my arms, head on my chest. “I’m sorry. I never really wanted you to see that.”
She looked up at me, mostly with affection, with a dose of amusement thrown in for good measure. “It’s okay. I do really want to know all there is to know about you, the good, the bad and the just plain weird. The first night after you took me in I had plenty of time to notice you weren’t breathing. You look like a statue more than anything else.”
“Well, thank God for that. It’s sorta nice to know nothing hangs out or looks gross while my eyes are closed.” I was teasing her, and she tried to tickle me in retaliation, but I didn’t respond.
“Not ticklish, huh? Is that another side effect?”
“Nope. Was never ticklish while I was alive either.”
She laughed and punched me in the chest, and I mock groaned and tickled her. After a brief tumbling of limbs, I allowed her to straddle my hips, my hands teasing her sensitive nipples. I felt the moisture gathering between her thighs, and I chuckled. “My insatiable mortal.” My frustrating lust and primal urge for blood battled in my blood stream. On the other hand, Bronwyn was clearly enjoying herself too much to be interrupted. Before long, she was calling my name at the height of her passion, clutching me with a strength that surprised both of us.
We lay tangled together afterwards, and my stomach made itself known.
Bronwyn stared at my disobedient midsection. “Hey.” She slapped my stomach, and I laughed. “Knock it off. That’s no way to conduct a warm afterglow.”
I pinned her to the bed. “Uh, sorry.” I gave a sheepish grin. “Perhaps not the best manners, but when it wants blood it wants blood. I have to go and feed.” I tried not to notice the pulsing arteries in her neck. They were always something I registered, but the urge to explore became much more difficult when I was hungry for blood.
I didn’t need to tell her what could happen if she tried to keep me there, so she sighed. “Okay, fine, let’s go out for a bite. I’m hungry myself.” She was hungry all right, but by the look in her eyes it was not for food.
I couldn’t help myself; I kissed her again. “Don’t worry, this won’t take long and then you can do what you like with me.”
She laughed, holding me tight. “Is that a promise?”
“Oh yeah, that’s a promise.”
Bronwyn’s arms tightened around me as we rode through the inner city streets of Newtown. There was a pub on almost every street corner, and I scanned the small clusters of people walking up and down the main road.
I saw a single, staggering young man break off to the left toward a dimly lit side street. Bronwyn’s weight shifted as she leaned forward.
“Hey!” she said. “You see something?”
I nodded and glanced back at her, my stomach growling. “Yes. I’ll be back in a sec.”
“If it’s a woman I’m going to have to put a stake through your heart, you know that, right?”
I laughed as I pushed down the kickstand. “I won’t be more than five minutes. Try to stay out of trouble, will you?”
She gave me a light slap and mock growled as I took off running behind the young man. I stopped and scanned the street for him, and saw him staggering drunkenly up the road.
I feasted without my usual finesse, and barely remembered to dribble my blood over the fang marks in his neck. I left him lying in someone’s hedge and turned around. Bronwyn was leaning against the bike, and three young, male predators were standing before her.
Her body language was tense.
I jogged back up the street and stood behind them. Bronwyn saw me, and her shoulders sagged in relief.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked them politely.
The tallest of them, a good inch or two shorter than me, turned around and eyed me appreciatively from top to bottom. He was stylishly dressed in designer ripped jeans, and had two days of stubble on his handsome face.
“I don’t know, love,” he said, taking a step closer to me as the second young man who’d been trying to interest Bronwyn took a step closer to her. “You interested in going into the pub for a couple of drinks?”
The second young man put his hand high on Bronwyn’s thigh, and my temper snapped. I took a step toward the Ken doll. “No, I’m not, and neither is she. Hands off.”
Ken Doll’s face turned into Darth Vader’s. “No need to be like that, love. I was just asking you for a friendly drink.”
“I said, hands off.”
“Playing hard to get?”
I pulled myself up to my full height and glared at him. “No, I’m not playing at all. Go away and leave us both alone.” I growled, low and deep in my throat, and even Bronwyn looked as though she wanted to take a step back.
Ken Doll looked up into my eyes, his own dark and angry. We exchanged glares for a moment, and he walked away.
“Fucking bitch.” His soft voice came back to me as they retreated into the pub.
Bronwyn sank into my arms, sighing. “Thanks, angel. I love you.”
I tightened my arms around her and breathed in the gentle scent of her clean hair. “You’re welcome. I love you too.”
She pulled back and smiled. “Okay, what do you want to do now?”
An idea came to me, and I grinned. “When was the last time you went to the zoo?”
“I haven’t been since I was a kid.”
“You want to go now?”
She giggled. “Sure. With you around I’m sure it’s going to be a unique experience.”
I joined in her laughter. “I hope you meant that in a good way.”
A minute later, we were on the bike again. As I pulled into the traffic, I saw Ken Doll come out of the pub, his cold eyes boring holes into us.
I took us to the zoo, and we parked in the darkness of a narrow side street, close to one of the walls. It was simple for me to scale the wall and take her with me, clinging to my back with her arms around my neck, although it did garner me a peculiar stare. After I had told her of my true nature, I behaved a little less like a normal human and more like a normal blood sucker, but only in small doses. She needed time to adjust to each new thing about me.
We wandered through the enclosures, my unnatural presence upsetting some of the animals. It drew the attention of the security guards, whom I found to be a bit of a hindrance, but easy to avoid.
They had to rely on their flashlights to see the path in front of them; I did not. Each time they investigated a noise, I made sure that we hid not more than two feet from where they were. After a while, avoiding the guards became irritating, so I finally stole a kiss from Bronwyn while we perched on the edge of the wolf enclosure. We struggled not to giggle as we watched the security guards tramping clumsily before us, looking for signs of things that should not be there. I closed my eyes and gave a quick nod to the wolves, and they obeyed my request to begin an eerie howling. The guards rushed to bright lights and warm, enclosed spaces. I thanked the wolves as courteously as I could, and they accepted this, wishing us well with baleful, yellow stares and lupine bows.
Bronwyn stared at me, taken aback, and I shrugged. What was I supposed to say? So I could talk to wolves, who knew? They were interesting creatures. Some were nice and some weren’t, but wasn’t that true of every other living creature on the planet?
I took her to the lion enclosure. The big cats stared at us with baleful, untamed eyes.
I picked the largest one because we knew each other well. Calm and unafraid, I met his malevolent, yellow stare.
“Watch this.” I ran up to the top of the enclosure, Bronwyn’s hiss of surprise following me. I strolled along the narrow edge, arms outstretched so Bronwyn could see where I was going.
“Christ!” Bronwyn said. “Come back! You’re gonna bring down every security guard on us.”
I grinned. “No I won’t. The only thing I’m sorry for is that the glass is too thick for you to hear my little kitties purring. They sound like they have holes in their mufflers.”
“What? Purring?” she said. “You’re not going in there.”
I looked down into the darkness. It was easily a drop of about fifteen feet.
Child’s play.
I jumped down, landed lightly, and bent my knees to cushion the blow. I gazed out at my round-eyed lover and smiled at her alarmed, hissing intake of breath. I stood still, allowing the cats to become used to me, to approach me, and to decide whether I was predator or prey.
While they were like oversized housecats and sort of cute, they certainly smelt quite bad. God, hadn’t their keepers ever heard of a bath? Weren’t lions supposed to like water?
Finally I saw the one I played with the most. “Come here.”
He was half-grown, with a scruffy, coarse ruff and an unusually active, playful disposition. Well, as much as could be had for an animal that spent more than half its life asleep.
The look on his face was rather funny.
Oh fuck, not
you
again
. I hid my smile and met him eye to eye. It was an action that cats normally hated, but this young male seemed to enjoy the challenge.
With his most regal air, he sighed, dipped his head, and came up to me for a scratch behind the ears, just like a nice little kitty. I could never understand why they did this for me, since it was so out of keeping with the normal behavior of wild animals. I could think of two possible reasons, either of which could be wrong. First, they were not truly wild animals because they had been born in captivity.
Second, I honestly don’t think they knew what to make of me. I didn’t have the scent of prey the way humans had, but I didn’t smell like an inanimate object, either. I think in the end they finally decided I was a nice, mobile scratching pole for them to use.
His fur was warm, the texture amazingly beautiful to my cold fingers.
“Nice to see you again, old friend.” He closed his eyes and sighed, leaning into my touch.
I looked up at Bronwyn. She was staring at me, transfixed, a healthy dose of fear and wonder on her face. She was pale, and every time one of the cats moved, she jumped.
“Crowley! Can you hear me? Be careful!”
“I’m fine. They won’t hurt me.” I smiled at her, while the cat gave me a bit of chest to tickle.
“How do you know?”
“They already tried it once or twice. Didn’t work so I reckon they’ve given up.” I grinned, ruffling his thick hair. He purred, enjoying the attention.
Bronwyn rolled her eyes. “Please? Please? I only just found you.”
I grinned. “Okay, okay, I’m outta here.”
It took me less than two minutes to climb up the side of the enclosure and dash down to be by her side. She smiled and then poked me in the chest with an unforgiving forefinger.
“Don’t. Ever. Do. That. Again. You scared the fuck out of me.”
Each word was punctuated with a stab. “I thought they were going to rip you to shreds. Ah, ah, before you say anything—” she held up her hand “—I know, I know you’ll be fine. But what about me? What makes you think I want to see you ripped to pieces?”
I gave her a sheepish grin, captured her exasperated gaze, and kissed her on her soft lips. She responded after a moment, and my knees felt a trifle weak. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I haven’t had to worry about much for so long that I forget what I’m doing is just plain weird or dangerous at times.”
“I love you and I think you know what I’m gonna say next, don’t you?” She kept her arms around my waist and looked into my eyes.
The vestiges of fear lurked in her steady, gentle regard.
“I’m an idiot?”
Her soft laughter matched mine. “Yes, beloved, you’re an idiot.”
I kissed her soundly, and she stared intently at me, pupils heavily dilated. I took her hand and tugged her along before her scrambled senses had time to react. “Let’s go. Want an ice cream?”
She knew I couldn’t have any, but could not resist indulging. Her one great weakness was for ice cream. Almost any flavor would do, but she had a special passion for cookies and cream. I bargained with ice cream any time I wanted her to do something.
She sighed into my neck when I scooped her up into my arms so we could run faster.
We sat by the old fountain in Kings Cross, bodies touching, Bronwyn delicately licking her ice cream. It was a few hours from dawn, and mortals, more and more inebriated, staggered past us, steadfastly ignoring us. I did not want to attract any more attention than I needed to, so I silently told them all to leave us alone. For once, my magic worked as it should, mainly because most of them were more concerned with either getting home to sleep it off or finding some quiet corner to be sick in.
I don’t know why we kept ending up in Kings Cross; more than likely it was my stomach dictating my actions though it wasn’t giving me any trouble now. The other reason was that I loved its anonymity, warring with the small town feel it had about it. It had been renovated to look like a tourist area rather than a red light district, but the veneer of cleanliness could not hide its true nature. Overall, it was a bit like a brothel or an opium den disguised as the play area at a children’s restaurant.