Black Heart: Coeur de Sade (Black Heart Series) (30 page)

            "Gotcha!" Roger cried in triumph, and made a big mistake.

            My heart sank as I saw Roger's eyes open to look upon his vanquished foe.  Fritz was hardly vanquished.  Did Roger forget werewolves were almost as hard to kill as vampires?  The third wolfman grabbed his wounded friend and dragged him away.  I let them go, not interested in anyone but Fritz and the Coeur de Sade.

            "Don't!" I cried, too late.

            Roger was caught instantly.  I closed my eyes and charged.  Seconds would decide the night.

            "Kill Black Heart!" Fritz rasped out.  "Now.  Then go to Victory Square and wait for the sun to rise."

            Okay, I wasn't expecting that.  I couldn't fight Roger with my eyes closed, and if I even caught a glimpse of the Coeur de Sade while fighting him I was a goner.  So I turned and ran.

            Since becoming a vampire I've rarely regretting wearing high heels.  I kinda liked wearing them all the time now.  My ankles were incredible strong, so I could almost walk as well in sky high stilettos as in sneakers.  Not quite, but almost.  But, running still presented a problem.  I could run pretty fast in heels, but no where near as fast as in proper running shoes.

            I needed to run a whole lot faster than I could at that moment.  Fritz may or may not have understood my predicament, but he was laughing uproariously as I turned and ran.  Roger's wings flapped and I heard him coming.

            Roger flew up, over, and came in to my front.  He wasn't the least bit sneaky about it.  Swooping down, he grabbed for me.  I'm not sure what he planned, but I had other plans.  So I leapt up and wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waste.

            "No!" Roger cried, too late.

            I sank my fangs into his throat.  Not a clean bit, either.  I ripped his throat open.  Blood spewed everywhere.  All over me.  All over Roger.  Five seconds later Roger curled up and puked.

            We fell out of the sky and landed in the back of a Chevy pickup, three parking places from our vehicles.  I heard Fritz running over, and closed my eyes.

            "Freeze!" Fritz said, catching Roger with the talisman but not me.  Have I ever mentioned that Momma didn't raise no fool?  I pulled my knees to my chest, and snapped my legs straight, sending Roger flying backwards a good thirty feet to crash through another car's windshield.  "Bitch!"

            Fritz grabbed my throat with both hands, shoving his thumbs fiercely into my windpipe.  He crushed my windpipe easily, then shook me violently.  Did he think he could strangle me to death?  Not going to happen.

            I brought my arms down atop his wrists, smashing them off my throat.  I rolled away.  Or tried to roll away.  It was a pickup bed and I was stopped mid-roll.  Fritz was up into the bed in a heartbeat, seized me and threw me a good twenty feet to smash through the windshield of another car.  I went through head first, and that left me dazed long enough for Fritz to reach me, and grab my right ankle.

            My least favorite wolfman held onto my ankle, spun me round and round and then let go.  I flew another twenty feet, to smash into the right rear bumper of Roger's Mustang.  Left a big dent.  I bet he'll be pissed if he lived to see another night.

            "Roger!" Fritz shouted.  "You worthless piece of shit, I told you to kill her!"

            More werewolves were running out of the front door of Harvest Moon.  I paused to gawk at them.  Not good.  Why did I have such rotten luck with werewolves?

            I'm not ashamed to admit it.  I was scared witless.  That damned werewolf was tossing me around like a rag doll, and then I saw the rest of his pack descending upon me.  I jumped on my Ninja and took off.  Went right over the curb, through the little grassy strip and onto the road.  Then I turned right and away from them and gave it the gas.

            I thought that would be the end of the werewolves.  Roger had orders to go to Victory Square and suicide in the sunlight.  So I knew where I was going.  It wasn't that hard to get a vampire out of the talisman's trance.  My concern was that a local TV station broadcasted from Victory Square, and Roger would be positively identified as a vampire.  It would destroy his little "normal" life.

            My life was lit up with bright headlights from behind.

            "Well fuck me to tears," I muttered.  "These people are crazier than vampires."

            Fritz's pack was after me.  A werewolf hunting in pickups, jeeps, and SUVs.  Something for the history book, no doubt.  I didn't like being prey, but I felt like the little bunny chased by a savage wolf pack.  Okay, a bunny with long, vicious fangs.

            Strangely enough, my primary concern wasn’t my welfare.  I could always turn into a bat and fly away.  Werewolves couldn't chase bats.  No can do.  But I was very worried about my motorcycle.  It was the only transportation I had left.

            I reached for my pistol, and that meant my hand came off the gas.  The Ninja started slowing down fast.  That didn't work, because I had to grab the handle and gas it again.  Driving a motorcycle and shooting a pistol didn't seem to work well.  I could shoot pretty well left handed, but I couldn't get to the pistol with my left hand.

            Originally, I thought my Ninja would leave them all in the dust.  No problemo.  I was wrong.  Those wolf boys didn't believe in six cylinder engines.  They were all hopped up, and keeping up nicely.  New tactics were called for.

            We were racing down a wide boulevard.  Four lanes, two in each direction, with a grassy strip separating them.  Small live oaks, crape myrtles, and other decorative trees were planted in the grassy medium.  It was a residential area, so houses lined both sides.

            The pack was slowly gaining on me.  I eased up on the gas just a tad, luring them in closer.  When the closest vehicle, a blue Dodge Ram pickup, moved to within ten feet behind me, I veered left and streaked across the boulevard and down a side street.  That messed them all up.  I left a tangle of ripped metal and screeching tires.  I think one of them actually left the road and slammed into a tree.

            "Oopsie," I said, grinning.  Then I noticed two more vehicles turn down the road behind me.  "Tenacious bastards.  I guess they never heard the tragic fate of the LaFere Twins."

            Turning down another residential street, I ran straight up into someone's front yard and laid the bike down.  A second after I killed the engine I was flying out of my collapsing clothes.  Ah, it felt great to be a bat sometimes.

            I flew straight back the way I came, and right at the first truck pursuing me.  Two werewolves were inside, and they couldn't see me.  They weren't even looking for a bat.  Aiming for the center of the windshield, I morphed back to human a second before contact, and slammed my foot through the windshield between them.  A second later I was a bat and flying over them as they went over the curb and crashed into a house.

            The jeep behind them just saw their pack mates inexplicably swerve and crash into a house.  The driver hit the breaks, and I swooped down into the jeep.  There was no top, and four big werewolves were inside.  I morphed to human a few feet above them, and screamed bloody murder.

            "Aaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiii!" I cried, and landed on the back of the only one standing.  He was a passenger in back, and looking at the wreck before them.  I immediately sank my fangs into his thick neck.  He screamed, and I ripped his throat out with my fangs, then reached around and ripped out his windpipe.  "Stupid werewolves!"

            Blood spewed everywhere.  That werewolf just stood there spurting blood and not screaming.  Can't scream without a windpipe.  I didn't waste time gawking, like his pack mates.  I yanked the werewolf sitting beside him out of his seat and threw him atop the closest house.

            The first werewolf swooned, and fell out of the jeep.  I wasn't sure if he would die.  Unlike vampires, werewolves did have to breathe.  But they could heal from some truly horrific wounds and injuries, too.

            The front passenger turned and snarled at me.  He was halfway through morphing into a wolf.  Not a wolfman, so he wasn't an alpha.  I kicked his head through the windshield, and that left him unconscious.  The driver abandoned his jeep at that point.  The jeep started moving forward, jerking because it was too slow for the gear he left it in, so I reached down and ripped off the steering wheel and threw it far away into the darkness.

            Morphing into a bat, I flew back to my Ninja and clothes.  Very quickly, I stuffed my clothes into the pack, and left.  Riding naked on a motorcycle is an interesting experience.  I kinda liked it.  The cop I passed shortly after that didn't like it.  He hit his brakes as I passed going in the opposite direction, but he was already on a call, red and blue lights flashing, siren wailing, so he must've decided naked motorcycle riding wasn't so bad.

            He had a radio, so I didn't stay on that road long.  Finding a nice, quiet side street I stopped and dressed in the dark.  My clothes, for once, were holding up remarkable well.

            Once dressed, I paused to listen and catch my mental breath.  There were more sirens off at the two crash sites.  The second set didn't sound like police, so was probably fire or ambulance.  Werewolves didn't usually need ambulances or hospitals any more than vampires.  But the police might not realize they are dealing with werewolves.  Won't they be surprised.

            Then I remembered the torn out windpipe.  Maybe he needed medical help.

            I still had lots of questions.  The werewolves just wanted to pull my limbs off one by one.  The vampires just wanted what they wanted, and didn't particularly like too many hard questions.  There was only one person I knew who would tell me the truth, as he saw it anyway.

            "Guess it's time to kiss and make up with Bone Daddy," I said, pulling the cell out of my pack.  I froze.  There wouldn't be any more calls with that cell.  "How did that get smashed?"

            Not good.  That meant a face-to-face meeting.  I looked up, using my vampiric senses to determine the time.  Okay, I didn't have to look up to do that.  I just did.  One of my charming quirks.

            "Wow, it's still early," I muttered.  Maybe eleven o'clock.  Sunset was seven, so I'd done all that in four hours.  Seemed like a lifetime to me.  Looking back in the direction of the Harvest Moon, I frowned.  "I have a while before Roger can kill himself at Victory Square.  Hell, he's probably flying around up there looking for me right now."

            That wasn't a fun prospect.  So I climbed back on the Ninja and headed for Boney's stomping grounds.  Or was that his Pimping grounds?  Either way, it was Harry Hines in northwest Dallas.  I rode with the lights off.  Didn't want to make it too easy for Roger to spot me.

            Staying off the main thoroughfares, it took longer than it should to reach Harry Hines.  I wasn't real confident in finding Boney there.  It was always iffy before midnight.  He wasn't an early evening person.

            The first obvious hooker I spotted was one of Boney's girls.  Her name was Jill Hepburn, but everyone called her Boots.  She had a penchant for boots, and wore nothing but boots year round.  Boots was twenty, but looked fifteen if you didn't look too hard into her brown eyes.  With her face scrubbed clean she was only average, but she was one of those girls who just popped with makeup on.

            Boots was walking down a particularly dark stretch of Harry Hines.  Not a safe place, and Boney would have a fit if he knew she was there.  Her dark hair was fixed up big, and she wore a shiny gold top, blue latex micro mini, fishnets and gold thigh boots to match the top.  Yeah, no mistaken what she did for a living.

            "Need a lift, Boots?" I said, pulling up beside her.

            "Sable!  Long time no see, babe," she said.  She looked me over.  "Nice boots.  Me likey."

            "Knew you would approve," I said, grinning.  "Where's Boney?  Is he working tonight?"

            Boots shrugged.  "He was parked in front of Crazy Girls last I saw.  His usual place, you know?"

            "No, I didn't know it was his usual place.  Good to know, though," I said, and patted the seat behind me.  "Hop on and I'll take you to him, or somewhere with a lot more light."

            "Lordie," she said, rolling her eyes.  Then she stepped up real close to me, and her nose nuzzled my right cheek.  "Everyone worries about me way too much."  She kissed my cheek and I felt the coolness of her lip print.  "When's the last time you fed?"

            My mouth started to water and my throat tightened.  I was suddenly starving.  Fang Whores knew how to fire up a vampire's appetite.  I'd never been with Boots for blood or sex.  I knew she was hot for me.  Vampires can tell such things.

            "This is not a good idea.  I shouldn't be poaching on Boney's girls," I said hoarsely.

            I was that far gone, and rather startled by it.  She was just oozing sex and need and desire, offering herself up on a silver platter.  She brushed her lips across mine, then turned her face aside.  This wasn't why I stopped, but she was working me like a pro. My hands were trembling as I put them on her hips.

            "He doesn't own me," Boots said.  She smiled wickedly, then threw her leg over the bike and sat on the gas tank.  Sliding down the tank, she pushed me back on the seat a bit.  Boots cupped my face in both hands, and looked deep into my eyes.  "Take me."

            I couldn't help myself.  A second later she was mesmerized.  She let out a tiny little noise, full of wicked pleasure and submission.  My hands slide up her sides, to her breasts and then around to her back.  Her arms encircled me and pulled me in tight.  Then my left hand rose up into her hair and jerked her head back a bit.  Just enough to let her know I was in control.  Her glossy red lips parted as she sighed, and I kissed her long and deep.