Asil’s First Date Unappreciated Gifts #6
“How could I have been bitten?” Kelly asked, his eyes widening until the whites were visible all the way around, like a startled horse’s. “I don’t think I’ve exchanged two words with Bruce. How could I have been bitten by a vampire and not known?”
“It is better for you that you didn’t know,” Asil told him. “It means that the vampire hasn’t decided to make you his yet.” Probably the vampire was afraid to draw attention to himself.
Kelly started to say something more and Asil held up a hand. “Sorry, let me think a bit.”
It was possible that the vampire had arranged the whole thing to lure Asil out without the pack at his back, so that he would be vulnerable. It sounded plausible until Asil looked deeper.
Bruce, whom Asil had once known as…Basil something.
Basil Hennington. Basil Billingsley. Basil Featherington.
Something that had made Asil think of chicken soup.
At any rate, Asil had believed him to be gone from this world—he’d heard the vampire had offended Bonarata, who ruled the European vampires.
Basil…Bruce was indeed the kind of creature who might move into a city the size of Missoula and find a group of people he could turn into easy prey.
He was a slinking creature and a loner, Bruce.
But not intelligent enough to foresee what would happen when he was discovered by his victims or their families, because college students were not the kind of people who could disappear without notice.
Asil’s earlier conviction that Missoula and the vampire ball would be without vampires had failed to take stupidity into account.
But after only a little reflection, he was now sure that the vampire’s presence was mere chance.
It had been Asil’s people who had sought out Kelly for the date.
And he was certain it was his pack—because no vampire could have imitated him so well in the emails.
It took familiarity, and Asil had never been that close to any vampire.
And there was this: Alone Asil might be, but he was not vulnerable. No vampire would ever think so. Not even one as stupid as Bruce.
No. This vampire had no idea Asil was anywhere near. Bruce just found he had a nice meal ticket going with a bunch of children who thought it fun to pretend to be vampires.
Kelly had folded his arms around himself and was obviously bursting with questions. But he’d kept quiet.
“It will be all right,” Asil told him.
“Weirdest freaking date of my life,” muttered Kelly.
He was afraid. Asil’s wolf usually liked it when people were afraid, but this one was under his protection tonight. There was no need for the fear.
“We need to go outside and look for a dark space,” Asil told him.
“It’s eight p.m. in the winter on the outskirts of Missoula,” Kelly said. “There’s dark space everywhere.”
Asil frowned at him.
“Fine,” Kelly huffed. But he didn’t smell mad. He still smelled scared.
“Look at me,” commanded Asil.
Kelly looked at him.
“I will not let harm come to you.” Asil smiled, and Kelly took a step back because it was that kind of smile.
“In fact, I will do you and your group of vampire players a good turn—and teach Trace not to meddle in other people’s lives at the same time.
” He took a deep breath and examined the room again with a feeling of utter joy.
The hunt was on.
“Hey, Bruce?” Kelly said nervously.
Bruce turned to look at him, and no matter how hard Kelly tried to see a vampire, Bruce still looked like a freshman who hadn’t quite grown into his own skin.
“You heard about what Trace did to me, right?”
Bruce frowned. “I heard. I don’t know why we couldn’t find someone else to run the LARP.”
“Yeah, me, either.” Maybe because no one else wanted to put the time in to do it right—and because Trace was a decent game master.
“I have an idea that will keep him from ever doing it again to anyone else. Do you know my friend Meg?” Meg wasn’t formally a part of the vampire group, but she did costuming for a lot of them.
“I do.” Bruce smiled, and the avarice that came and went in his eyes made Kelly’s stomach tighten.
“She’s over with Trace and his girlfriend right now, distracting him so I can get you outside without him noticing.
” No lies, Asil had told him. Vampires weren’t as adept as werewolves apparently were at telling when someone lied to them—but this one was very old, and with age came some skills.
Kelly hadn’t known that werewolves could tell when someone was lying.
Asil’s advice rang in his ears. You’re afraid—and that’s fine. Let him know there’s a reason to be afraid and he won’t pay any more attention to it.
“I’m not the first one he’s tormented,” Kelly said. “But I’m going to be the last.”
“What are you going to do?” asked the vampire.
“I’m going to teach him he can’t hurt people without paying a price,” Kelly told him.
“He would never face me on his own if he could help it. Meg is going to get him to follow her outside, out of sight. Then you and she are going to watch to make sure no one else follows him out to interrupt, and to vouch that the fight was fair.”
“You’re going to beat him up?” asked Bruce. “Really?”
Kelly didn’t blame him for the doubt in his voice. Trace was bigger, and Kelly had that whole geek thing going.
“Really,” Kelly said.
He was pretty sure he could take Trace if he wanted to. His mother had given him dancing lessons. His father had insisted that any boy who danced that much needed to be able to protect himself—so he had six years of tae kwon do to go with his dancing.
He tried a smile and wasn’t upset that his inner tension made it fail. “I haven’t done anything like this ever. But I can’t let it go.”
“Shawna told me that the date went okay,” said Bruce. “I didn’t see him, but Shawna said he was handsome—and that you guys did an awesome tango.”
There was something funny about Bruce. Kelly had seen it from the first—but he’d done his best to ignore it, figuring it for the awkwardness that went with being a teenager.
But when Bruce smiled back at him, he recognized it for what it was for the first time.
Bruce was pretending to be human, but like a second-rate actor, he got it just a little wrong.
Kelly forced himself to stay engaged in the immediate task.
In response to Bruce’s question, he nodded.
“He was pretty cool about everything and very kindly agreed to play along. But it might not have been okay. I’m getting out of the group—grad school means I don’t have time.
I guess that’s why I decided to do this.
To teach Trace a lesson. There are kids like you in the group, and you deserve to be safe from that kind of pointless harassment.
You might call it my Christmas present to them. To you.”
“Why pick me?”
Kelly grimaced. “That’s easy. Who else could I trust? The people who aren’t panting after Trace are panting after his girlfriend.”
Walking into the dark with a vampire at his back was the scariest thing he’d ever done in his life.
The woods got dark pretty fast as they tramped through the snow.
His breath steamed out of his mouth in the cold air.
He was going to regret having left his jacket in Asil’s car before very long.
He hiked about a quarter mile in the darkness until they came to a fence.
Far enough, he thought, that the sounds of a fight wouldn’t travel.
“Here,” he said, turning around.
“It is very dark,” said Bruce, who was just a shadow in the shadows.
“It’ll do.” Kelly hoped he sounded resolute.
“So while we are waiting for them,” Bruce said, his voice changing just a little, softening into an intimate tone, “I think I have something we might do to pass the time.”
He took two steps closer. Kelly’s back was against the fence and he had nowhere to retreat. Even if he could have, his feet felt oddly heavy and he swayed toward the vampire.
“Shhh, be calm,” said the vampire. “We’ve done this before, you and I. Shawna is dying—I need another servant. You’d like to be my servant, wouldn’t you? Just say yes. It would be an early Christmas present for me.”
Kelly forgot to breathe as Bruce’s words threaded through him like a hook laced with happy thoughts. He just knew that belonging to the vampire would be the best thing that ever happened to him, like winning the lottery.
“Christmas is my favorite time of year,” Bruce continued as Kelly took a tentative step forward.
“So much misery for humankind as they scuttle around spending more money than they can afford, on gifts no one wants or appreciates. A season that points out how miserably little your life is worth. Christmas is a fitting remembrance for a gift humans despised so much they hung it on a cross so it wouldn’t bother them anymore.
I was a priest once. I know, who’d have thought, right? ”
Bruce’s face was revealed for a moment when the clouds opened around the half-full moon and silvery light illuminated their private space. The light distracted Bruce. He blinked, and Kelly remembered that Bruce was a vampire.
“No,” Kelly said, the word dragging out of his throat—but the word broke the vampire’s hold, and he could move again.
Snarling, Bruce whipped his hand out and wrapped it around Kelly’s wrist. Kelly’s response was instinctive, born of fear and six years of training. He twisted his arm until the narrow boney edge of his wrist was at the weakest point of the vampire’s grip and jerked it free.
He didn’t hesitate—he ran, crashing blindly through the underbrush and the uneven, snow-covered terrain that threatened to trip him at every night-blinded step. And behind him, keeping up easily, the vampire followed.
“Run, yes, run,” the vampire chanted to himself. “You ran the last time, too. I like it when my Christmas presents run.” He laughed, a weird half-hysterical laugh, and then said, “Run, Kelly, run.”