Night Moves (The Night Songs Collection) (26 page)

“Babe.” Ryder started to say something but I held my hand up.

“You’ve already proved you don’t want to help me, Ryder.” It killed me to see the hurt on his face. A part of me knew he deserved it for not standing up to Drake. “I’m not going to die because everyone else is afraid to do something.”

I took a few steps over to Drake without acknowledging Ryder or Erin. I couldn’t hear them over Rachel’s howling and babbling, anyway. I had no idea what I was going to have to do to get his blood. My stomach churned at the thought of having to put my mouth anywhere on his body.

“What do I need to do?” I whispered. If I spoke any louder, he’d hear my voice shake.

“We don’t need to have sex.” His tone had softened as well. I resisted the urge to fall to my knees and thank those deities for answering the first of my prayers. What was going to happen when I took his blood? Would I feel some bond for him? Would he feel anything for me? Was he even capable of such a human emotion? “I’ll open up my wrist. All you have to do is drink.”

I nodded as I watched Drake brace himself and lift his wrist to his mouth and break through the flesh with his fangs. Blood darkened his sleeve and ran down his chin as he offered the wound to me. My whole body shook uncontrollably. I grasped his arm and he guided it up to my mouth.

Rachel wailed at the sight of blood in the background.

I placed my lips on his open skin. Even though vampires ran cold, the blood was warm as it touched my tongue. It tasted slightly sweet, thick and syrupy. My body tingled as it slid down my throat, warming my belly. I tried not to swallow. Still I felt lighter, as if all the stress and worry left my body. I could almost feel my muscles building, like I was becoming more efficient. A machine. I opened my eyes and looked at Drake for approval. Colors swirled in my vision like a kaleidoscope. I felt my body swoon, and Drake steadied me with his free hand as he murmured things that sounded encouraging.

Everything about this was otherworldly.

“Okay, that should be good.” Drake took his arm back, his voice slightly husky, licking his wound to clean himself. I stood there bewildered, trying to get my bearings. The universe had changed its composition while I drank Drake’s blood. “You know what to do, Melanie. This isn’t the first time you’ve killed someone.”

I had held as much of his blood as possible in my mouth. Just the little bit I had to swallow changed me. Not enough to make me forget my mission.

I spit the blood in my mouth out in Drake’s face. I wasn’t going to be a slave to him like Erin or Ryder.

“You fucking bitch!” He roared. He came at me, but I ducked him.

Rachel let out a bloodcurdling scream at the sight of so much wasted blood. In the midst of the commotion, the stake flew out from between the bars and skidded across the floor, hitting my feet.

Again, the deities responded appropriately.

Drake’s body shuddered in anger as he stopped his attack to wipe his own blood out of his eyes. Erin screamed, the sound ripped through my body. My ears were so much more sensitive with vampire blood flowing through my veins. I turned to see her fall to her knees, pointing to Drake.

I never saw Ryder plunge the stake into Drake’s chest.

Drake howled, dropping to his knees. Ryder jabbed him over and over, twirling the wood to make sure the impalement meant business. Nothing could be left to chance. He grabbed on to Ryder’s hands, but he shook him off easily as Drake lost strength. Erin tried to pry Ryder away from him, but he pushed her off of him like he was flicking a feather away. Drake withered in front of us as the rest of his blood poured from his eyes, nose and mouth. Finally, he fell in a crumpled lifeless heap.

No longer undead. Just dead.

My brain recognized that Ryder and Erin were in a tailspin, but I was still shrouded in shock. I walked over to the cage and released the latch. Rachel flocked to Drake’s lifeless body like a buzzard on road kill.

Dazed, confused, and covered in a dead man’s blood, I looked back and forth from Erin to Ryder. I smiled. Ding dong, the witch was dead.

No one seemed happy about it but me and Rachel.

“W
hat did I do?” Ryder crouched down, comforting a hysterical heap of Erin in his arms. He looked up at me with fear and bewilderment in his eyes. At first I thought his expression was for Rachel, but he never took his eyes off of me.

“You fixed the problem. I’m so proud of you.” I moved over to put my arms around him, but he shook me off, concentrating on Erin. He wouldn’t even let me soothe him? What the hell? Wasn’t this what we all wanted? I could understand that he was upset that he’d done something so awful, but it was the only answer.

“How could you do this to me?” Erin managed between sobs, slamming Ryder’s chest with her balled up fists. “Oh my God. Oh my God. He’s dead.”

I stood in the middle of the chaos, not sure what to do. Ryder and Erin clearly seemed frightened. Sure, I was still covered in the Drake Kool-Aid, but they had drunk far more than I had. I still couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t be relieved. They were free of the tyrant.

Behind me, Rachel began to seem human again. She was covered in Drake’s blood, but she no longer continued to let out guttural wails as she drank every spilled drop of him. No longer possessed by hunger, she had an inhuman serenity.

I didn’t know what any of it meant.

“You don’t understand what a mess I’ve just created. The Mistress—”

I cut Ryder off. “The Mistress, who couldn’t be bothered to deal with something only she thought was a problem? If she wants Rachel dead, she can do it herself. I wanted Drake dead. I won’t lie. I did. I’m happy. You both should be too.”

“How can you say that?” Erin wailed. She ripped at Ryder’s hair. He just let her. “You killed my everything. Don’t you understand that?”

I rolled my eyes and hated myself for laughing, but I couldn’t help it. “Erin. He was married to someone else. He never belonged to you. You knew that.”

“But he was still mine.” She cried. “I liked things the way they were.”

“His wife, his wife’s family. Shit, babe. If you thought Drake was trouble, I can’t protect you from what happens next.” Ryder shook his head.

“What
did
you protect me from? You delivered me straight to him! Like a present!” I didn’t care if Ryder thought I was crazy. “Ryder, I’m proud of you. Because I love you. I believe in you more than you believe in yourself. Now you have no one to hold you back.”

I crouched down beside them, reaching out to Erin who swatted my hand away. “Don’t touch me.” She seethed.

“Erin, I want you to have someone who loves you. Someone who appreciates you. Respects you. You’re my best friend. I may not have always acted like it lately, but now that I have you back, I don’t want to let you go. You’re amazing.” I kneeled down beside them, still, my voice breaking. “You deserve someone who will shout it from the rooftops, not hide you in a closet.”

“It’s true, Erin.” Ryder said, stroking her hair to calm her. “You do deserve better than that.”

Erin began to calm down, exhausting herself, pulling away from Ryder, wiping her face and smoothing her hair. She breathed in as deep as she could, letting her whole body rise and fall with each breath. Not much was left of Drake, Rachel had made sure of that. She made an effort not to look at the bloody, fleshy lump in the middle of the dark wood floor, cascade of lights from above making the liquid shimmer and twinkle grotesquely.

“So what do we do now?” I asked Ryder. I had no experience in hiding dead bodies. I just left mine out in the open and split. I also had no experience with brand new vampires and we needed to deal with both.

Ryder surveyed the room, still gorgeous and inviting, even with the gore piled in the middle of the exotica. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. “We’re going to need to clean things up. Rachel is going to have to come with us.”

“Please don’t lock me up again.” Rachel’s voice was small and rusty from screaming. “Please. I’ll do anything.”

“We won’t, sweetheart.” It hurt me so much to hear Ryder taking care of all of us. He must have been so wonderful with his girls. “There’s plenty of room. I can teach you what you need to know, but it’s not going to be easy. Talis won’t want you in her territory.”

“I know that. I can’t stay here forever.” Rachel nodded. “I just don’t want to act like an animal anymore. You don’t act like an animal.”

I could sympathize with Rachel. She had already died once, unsuccessfully. Now in Las Vegas, surrounded by the people she’d strived to be with, she was basically waiting to die again. We had a lot in common.

We all split up, working quietly. We found green industrial strength garbage bags most likely meant to clean up after functions in this room. Yeah, we had a party all right. Rachel and Ryder worked on scooping Drake’s remains into the bag. Erin and I gathered any of Drake’s immediate belongings that would mark this room as his final resting place.

“Polina is losing her shit.” Erin scrolled through his phone messages. “No wonder he cheated on her. This chick is crazy.” She looked up at me and smiled sadly. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

I pulled her in close as she started crying again. “It’s going to be a new chapter for all of us.”

W
e weren’t the first to do this.

The sun rose above the Arizona desert as Erin and I dug far from the road.

“God, I hope we don’t find anyone else out here.” I remarked as I worked. My nervousness made me want to keep talking. Erin was on another break. I tried not to let it annoy me. Not only were we burying her lover, she just wasn’t made for this kind of dirty work. “All those gambling debts and gangsters. I could practically feel the ghosts when I drove through here before.”

“I don’t care what we find. I just want this to be over with.” Erin sighed, picking up her shovel again and pushing it into the hard sand. I had climbed into the ditch below to deepen it. “What am I going to do, Mellie?”

“The same thing you were always going to do. You weren’t planning your life around him.” I looked up at her. “Please tell me you weren’t.”

“Just as much as you shouldn’t be planning your life around Ryder.” She started working harder.

I stopped to look up at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He won’t give you blood, Mel. It’s pretty much the vampire equivalent to not being able to commit. Not that they ever really commit. I hate to intervene in other people’s relationships, but you need to know. It might be all rosy now, but what is that going to mean for you down the line?”

“It didn’t mean Drake committed to you.” I hit her with sand, kind of by mistake, kind of on purpose. “We’re working on it.”

“Are you both working on it, or just you?” Erin asked.

“I don’t have the choices you do. I’m still wanted by every police department in the country. I have no options but to work on it. Maybe now that Drake isn’t looming over him, he will feel like he’s got more control over other things. It’s a control thing, I think. He told me the blood was the only thing that was truly his. I understood.” There was no harm in confessing to Erin anymore, as far as I knew.

Erin helped me climb out of the hole, and we both pulled the garbage bag out of the trunk. It was heavy and awkward. Drake wasn’t all in one piece. We stumbled over to the ditch, trying not to fall in with the mess on top of us. We dropped the bag in the hole and started burying our secret.

We stomped over the dirt to make the unsettled spot less noticeable. Drenched in sweat, covered in dirt, and exhausted, we fell back into the car, and began the slow, careful drive back to the road. Thankfully, it was still early enough that no one was driving through the middle of nowhere.

Erin fell asleep on the way back to Vegas and I struggled to stay awake as I drove. I wanted to wake her for the company, but she needed the rest more than I did. It surprised me she was able to sleep at all.

Her car was still at the Alta Vista. I didn’t dare drive there and give anyone any trail back to Ryder’s house, so I brought her back with me. Waking her gently, I had her come in the house with me and led her into the extra bedroom, forgetting we had another house guest as well, Rachel.