Good Lord.
Oh my God.
Hell’s bells.
Bloody hell.
The floodgates to memory opened. Once again a young girl sat despondently by the side of the road, waiting for an adult to bring her home.
I remembered her, all right.
I remembered her like it was yesterday.
Goddammit!
“Bronwyn Hunter,” I said quietly. “My name is Crowley.”
Her eyes widened. The spark of recognition that flared in them as I’d pulled her to her feet burst into a bright flame as she gazed at me.
“Crowley.” The word was soft and drawn out, filled with a million emotions. Longing, trust, and an aching desire for something.
Her arms tightened around me, and she leant into me, sighing. “I missed you.”
I allowed the familiarity and rested my cheek on the top of her head, tightening my arms around her. “You remember me?”
“I remember,” she said in a soft, trembling breath.
Of course she’d remember me. My white skin, black hair, and blue eyes, combined with my six feet of height would be difficult to forget.
“An angel.
My
angel.”
I almost missed the words, and smiled ruefully to myself. I was no angel—I was a cold-blooded killer who enjoyed doing what she did far too much for moral comfort.
That reminded me. I was starved and had to eat. Well, I most certainly couldn’t snack on her, could I? What was she doing out at this hour and at this place? She was too young and she had no business here. I would have to bring her home, just like I had twelve years previously. I also had to take a human life, but I could not take hers. I was a killer, that was certain, but I wasn’t
that
brutal. I enjoyed doing what I did, but I didn’t kill people for the sheer hell of it.
“Please excuse me for one moment,” I said, and slipped out of her grasp.
Faster than the eye could follow, I ran out of the alleyway, careful not to look behind at her, searching for the evening’s nourishment. In the distance I heard her soft cry of loss as she watched my retreating back.
I found him almost straight away, puking his guts up in a private stretch of bushes. I tapped him on the shoulders, and when he looked up at me, bleary eyed, runner of saliva hanging out of one corner of his mouth, I noted with satisfaction that it was the boy who had tried to push me around. How fitting.
“You bitch!” He snarled, trying to prove his courage, and staggered to his feet to take a swing at me. I sighed—I really didn’t have time for this.
I caught him and pulled him in close. He struggled, and looked more and more frightened as he realized his strength had no effect on my iron grip. I gazed into his bleary gray eyes, revolted by the genuine hostility I saw in them. I contained my temper with minimal effort. I was to have the last word in our disagreement, and there was no need to be annoying about it.
“You’re a bitter little thing, aren’t you?” I whispered and held his arms by his sides as I leaned in and pushed my drooling fangs through his pulsing jugular vein. I did it with no particular gentleness; even at his weakest he still had wanted to hurt me. I had no time for people like him. Revenge and retribution had always bored me, and I had other things on my mind. I had to get back to Bronwyn.
I felt the heady heat of the salty blood as it filled my mouth and jetted down my throat, a raw flood of vampiric power that satisfied me like nothing else. He moaned and made one last attempt to throw me off, but it was no use.
The liquid hit my stomach, and fire spread through my veins. I relaxed my grip on his slackening arms as his struggles became weaker.
His body almost drained, I dropped him to the ground and nipped a wrist with my sharp fangs. I knelt over him before the wound closed and dribbled my blood on his neck, closing the wounds. He lay there like a rag doll in the expelled contents of his stomach, his cheap, loud shirt half pulled out of his equally cheap, soiled jeans, with the waist-band of his boxers sticking up. He seemed so young and defenseless, but I felt no pity for him. He was just another stupid kid who had too much to drink.
He was still alive, and at first glance people would suspect he collapsed from alcohol poisoning. He would be in hospital for a few days as his body, in a coma, replenished some of its blood supply, and then he would either live or die. It made no difference to me. I would remain undiscovered by humans in either case.
The alcohol he’d consumed leeched into my system.
Oh my God. That was really the last thing I needed. I had to be alert and aware, on guard for any signs of trouble.
My first priority was to get back to Bronwyn and take her home, like I had done twelve years ago.
For a normally graceful vampire, I was staggering back to the young, blonde woman I had left down a darkened street in the worst part of town. The lights seemed dazzlingly bright, and now the sight of all the humans annoyed me. I had fed and I wanted to go home and sleep off whatever was in that blood.
I was lucky I had not gone far from Bronwyn, and that I had encountered no people on either trip between her and my victim. I entered the alley and looked around anxiously, unable to see her. I was alarmed. What had become of her?
I forced patience into myself and used my piercing gaze to cut through the darkness. The ultra keen eyesight of a drunk was with me now, and I saw the collapsed body by the side of the pathway. I did my best with my lack of usual coordination to rush over to her. She had been alone for no more than two minutes. Yet even that minute amount of time was often enough for this morally destitute place to claim another victim.
Humans murdered each other on these backstreets, as did vampires. I wasn’t afraid of humans—I was more cautious of other vampires. They could be territorial, aggressive, invariably moody, and sometimes irrational. It was particularly bad when they traveled as a pack. I looked around. I couldn’t see any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
As I unsteadily leant over her fallen body, I touched her soft, smooth neck. I found a pulse with my fingertips and heaved a deep sigh of relief as I turned her over.
Her beautiful green eyes fluttered open, and her red lips curved into a smile as she saw me.
“Crowley.” The word was a sigh. “Are we going home?”
I nodded, cursing my inability to co-ordinate my movements. I would soon be drunk as a skunk. “Yes, I’m taking you home.”
Amazingly, she got to her feet with a little help from me and boldly slipped her arms around my waist as I supported her. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for the almost overwhelming task of going to my car.
“You’re beautiful.” The words were louder this time, and I looked down at her. She was staring at me adoringly, with a healthy dose of lust thrown in for good measure. I smiled to myself.
“Uh huh.”
“And you’re strong.”
“Really?”
“I love you.”
I stopped and smiled at her in genuine amusement. “No, I don’t think so. You just want to fuck me stupid.”
Her face darkened in a flush of embarrassment, and her earnest eyes skittered away from mine. I realized that she’d been trying to do her schoolgirl’s interpretation of the seduction of an older woman. I cupped her face in my hands, forcing her to meet my eyes. I had not intended to humiliate her.
“Forget it.” I willed her to not remember what she’d just said.
She blinked, bleary eyed, and her face returned to its normal coloring.
I peered at her bloodshot eyes. “Let’s go.”
We supported each other as I led the uncertain way back to my car.
I had parked down one of the side streets that ringed Kings Cross, a horrible morass of narrow, one way streets that were heavily patrolled by police who should have more productive things to do. Humanity teemed all around us, most people gazing at us in disgust, making a wide berth around us. Since we were forced to carry each other, it looked as though we were trying to make out while walking down the street. I tried to remember where I’d parked my car, glad that I had not brought my bike with me. I still had it, but I knew what the Harley riders were like in this area, so I only rode it into the city when I wanted to tease them.
After a fair bit of fumbling around the streets, trying to avoid drug dealers, whores, and murderers, I finally stumbled onto my car, heaving a sigh of relief as I took in its sleek, silver lines.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that we weren’t alone, and it wasn’t the humans in the streets around us. It was something else, a presence
. . . most likely another vampire. It didn’t come close to us, but it also wasn’t far. It made me feel almost uneasy. I forced myself to move faster.
I led the limp Bronwyn to the car, leaned her against it, and then unlocked the door—something that took more than one attempt, much to my vague embarrassment. I scanned the darkness near us for the presence, but it was gone.
Although Bronwyn had forgotten what she had said to me, she did not forget that she wanted to get in a good grope before I took her home. I finally managed to get her hands off my body and both of us into the car.
I maneuvered myself behind the wheel and leant back in the seat, closed my eyes, and sighed. I sat like that for a few moments, trying to prepare myself for the arduous task of getting us home. When I finally felt a little more energetic, I glanced at Bronwyn. She lay slumped in the passenger seat, clearly struggling to stay awake. As though they contained magnets, her eyelids slid down to cover her eyes, then snapped open again as she reminded herself to remain conscious.
“Where do you live?” I remembered the answer, but I wanted to hear her say it.
“7 Georges Road.” Her voice was exhausted and followed by a bone-cracking yawn. “Where do you live?”
I could not refuse her puppy-like emerald eyes. Besides, she was almost unconscious and would never remember the answer I gave, so I told her.
“Wow,” was her only comment.
I’d been dead for quite some time, and with the tricks of robbery I’d picked up from Sembur, I’d managed to amass quite a large amount of money. I had bought a nice, big, private house, complete with healthy security system, so I could sleep the days away with some peace of mind. It was in the deep south of the city, in one of the better suburbs, not far from where Bronwyn herself lived.
I smiled and nosed the car out into the crawling traffic. I hoped that the gods were with us and we arrive home unmolested by police wanting to do random breath tests. I wasn’t very keen on finding myself behind bars, and I didn’t relish the idea of being barbecued by sunlight in a jail cell.
Thank God for a vampire’s reflexes, I thought as I at last steered my car down her street thirty minutes later. I was glad she’d passed out not long after I’d headed out from the city. The ride had been an unending nightmare of honking horns, unfriendly finger flipping, and squealing brakes. I wasn’t sure how many accidents I caused, or how many I’d almost participated in, and I vowed that I would never take another drunk person again.
I saw the Hunters’ house in the distance and it was almost the same as I remembered it. It was freshly painted and the luxurious lawn green and well kept. The garden had more than ten years of growth behind it and had transformed into a flourishing meadow of wildflowers, a fountain, and several obligatory, happy gnomes.
I pulled up to the front of the dark house and gazed at Bronwyn, sprawled out in the passenger seat. Time slipped away as I took in her dirty dress, pooled about her upper thighs; her tear-stained face and the fact that one of her shoes was missing—something I’d failed to notice in the city. The relaxation of sleep washed years away from her face, an almost jarring contrast to her gorgeous, grown woman’s body. I almost expected her to wake and give vent to some heart-rending sobs and a need to use my handkerchief to blow her nose. The only thing that spoiled the illusion was the unlovely, open-mouthed drooling.
“Bronwyn.” I leaned over and nudged her.
“Fuck off!” She tried to roll over and ignore me.
Well, that wasn’t what had happened the first time, was it? I grinned and nudged her harder. The alcohol in my system had given me a major headache, and my stomach was uneasy with its meal of blood.
“C’mon now.” My voice was soft as I gripped her shoulder harder.
“You’re home.”
“Home.” The muffled voice was apprehensive. “Home. With you?”
I frowned, unsure of what she meant. Did she mean that she’d come home to her parents’ house with me, or that we’d gone home to my place? I decided just to answer the literal meaning of her question.
“Yes, with me. Home.”
“Okay.”
She struggled to sit upright from her position against the door and shook her head. She swallowed with a grimace and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“Mum’s going to kill me.” The mumble made me smile. I had often had that thought as a teenager, but it’d never been caused by a bender like this. I had never been a saint by anyone’s definition, but this was not something we did so openly in my day. I had never had a taste for alcohol anyway, and I’m sure that pleased my poor, sighing mother no end.
“Face the music, Bronwyn Hunter.” I stared into her apprehensive green eyes. “Take responsibility for your actions.”
That was the one piece of advice my father had tried to give me, and it fit here. The fact that I’d never been able to follow it myself had nothing to do with anything.
She glared at me and climbed out of the car without a word of thanks for my generosity, but that didn’t bother me. She would undoubtedly remember her manners after she had spoken to her mother. Like a good and concerned date, I watched as she walked up the neatly swept path to the front door, just in case an axe-wield-ing madman leapt out of her father’s flourishing rose bushes to turn her into sushi. As she fumbled in her handbag for her house keys, the porch light came on, and the front door opened. Her mother, dressed in a dressing gown, gray hair standing on end, arms crossed, glared angrily at her hung-over daughter.
“Well?” Mrs. Hunter demanded.
I couldn’t see Bronwyn’s face, but I could feel her struggling to find something to say.