Promise Keepers

My trenchcoat rustles with each step as I walk the darkened street. Each one flashes bare leg from the tops of my knee high, patent leather boots to the hem of the short vinyl skirt. My scalp itches under the black wig I wear, and I’m scanning the shadows from behind a mask of thick make up and dark shades.

Just another lady of the night, looking for a customer.

Twenty feet ahead of me, a shadow detaches itself from a pool of darkness. There’s the faint animal shine of eyes as he looks in my direction. When I’m closer, he asks, “Are you lonesome tonight?”

“Maybe.”

“How much?” Like all of them, he needs to touch, raising a hand to let one fingertip trace the line of my jaw as I stop in front of him.

“Depends on what you want,” I reply, letting a coy smile curve my lips.

“You, a bed, a few hours,” he smiles back, blue eyes gleaming.

“Few hours, nothing kinky?” At his nod, I tell him, “Two hundred.”

“Done.” He’s drawn very close, smiling down at me.

xxx

A nearby motel provides the bed in a clean, but shabby room. He’s paid for the night, not just a few hours. “Wash the paint from your face,” he tells me as he begins to undress. I step into the bathroom after depositing my coat within easy reach of the bed. He calls quietly, “Leave the boots, but the rest…take it off.”

I follow his orders, and step back into the room in nothing but the boots, to find him sitting on the edge of the bed. The evidence he’s already fed this night juts up eagerly as he stretches a hand towards me. “Come, cara mia.”

He slides back onto the bed, guiding me to straddle his thighs. The taint of blood under the smoke of whisky is faint copper. There’s room, I decide, kneeling over him with one hand on his chest, and I reach for the top of my boot with the other as we kiss.

Inside it, there’s a slender needle of wood with a very sharp tip. I have it halfway out when his hand closes over my wrist, and he chuckles against my lips. “I know who you are, cara mia.”

My mouth goes dry. I depend on distraction to take them out. Vampires are stronger, faster, but so easily led by their lusts, whether for blood or sex. He pulls my hand away from my boot. “I’ve watched you, Hunter. I chose you.”

“Did you?” My voice is a faint rasp, pulse jumping in sudden fear.

“You’re all alone. No one allowed close, no one to love,” he whispers. Another kiss, and I’m on my back under him, trapped, arms stretched above my head, wrists pinned by one large hand. “Like me.”

“I’m not like you.” This is it. I’ve grown too confident, and I’m going to pay the price with my blood and life.

“Cara mia,” he breathes in my ear. “A deal.”

“What sort?” I push away the sudden hope that springs up. Vampires offer only lies.

“A night of love, in return for eternal rest,” he murmurs, brushing a kiss on my cheek. “For a little while, no loneliness for you, and then a peaceful end for me. I’m weary, cara mia.”

“You’re lying.”

“If I were, you’d already be drained or turning,” he replies. The wig is pulled off and tossed away from the bed. “I want an end, but I’m too selfish to want it to come abruptly.”

Another deep, lingering taste of smoke and copper. I can’t help but respond. Vampires are sensuality incarnate. “Suicide.”

“Peace, at the hands of one I’ve done no harm to,” he agreed. “Do we have a deal, cara mia?”

I still think he’s lying, but I don’t have much choice. I’m trapped, at his mercy. I stare into his blue eyes…and I see it. See the same thing the mirror shows in my own. “Yes.”

xxx

His name is Cristov, and he’s over seven hundred years old. My weapons are laid just out of easy reach as he promises he won’t spill my blood. He’s skilled, and that overwhelming sensuality already has my body burning with need. We make love; he tells me about himself as we rest, then there’s more heat. Hours of it, until we’re both sated and the sky is beginning to gray around the cheap drapes covering the small window.

“Let me sleep,” he asks me, a fearful pleading in his voice. “Let me go to my final rest with the memory of you in my arms, cara mia.”

He’s kept his promise. I nod in response, listening to his heartbeat begin to slow as I lay against him. “Don’t forget me, cara mia. Remember I wasn’t a monster at the end,” he murmurs as he brushes a kiss on my forehead.

“I won’t,” I promise. His heartbeat fades away, his eyes closing as his body goes limp. I’m still as his skin begins cooling against mine. For a little while, I was neither alone or lonely. Cristov gave me the illusion of love.

I sit up. I’ll treasure that, I think.

Reaching across his body for one of the slender stakes, I do what needs to be done.

His dust clings to my face, mixing with the tears I wasn’t aware of shedding.

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hunter, fantasy, horror, vampire, slayer, flash_fiction, gayla_drummond and short_stories