Blood Candy Read online

  “Nice entrance, Vivian,” Rupert said. “Willing to cooperate now? Last offer.”

  Vivian chomped his teeth and barked like a dog. He said near unintelligibly and in an accent far worse than Rupert’s, “Yeh din’ say she’s so fawkin’ ’awt!”

  Jimmy put himself in front of Candy to shield her from the two vampires. Tinch hurried forward in an attempt to direct their attention to him.

  “Get her to the car!”

  “Wrong choice,” Rupert said, nodding to Vivian. “Kill them both. Make it painful.”

  Candy didn’t see what happened next. Jimmy went sprawling over the table, knocking her back into one of the booths. Rupert’s eyes grew wide and he ran his tongue over his fangs when he got a look up her dress. He let go of the waitress and started towards her. The wound on her neck throbbed, both tempting and terrifying.

  Tinch came out of nowhere and punched Rupert so hard Candy flinched from the sickening crack of bare knuckles on bone. Rupert fell back a single step and then his hand went up to his jaw. His wild eyes remained on Candy.

  “Get her out of here!” Tinch yelled. “I have to shift!”

  Jimmy grabbed Candy and pulled her through the broken window. She saw Tinch move inside and then she lost sight of him behind the brick wall between the windows. Jimmy held her beneath her arms, trying to get her to move, to run across the parking lot. She looked back. A black wolf streaked with gray fur lunged forward and tore Vivian’s arm.

  “Holy shit! He’s a wolf!”

  Jimmy wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her along.

  “Come on! Run to the car!”

  Candy didn’t think. She turned and ran, trying to keep pace while screams mixed with vicious snarls filled the diner. She lost her heels somewhere along the way and the abrasive pavement tore her feet. They reached the rusted Pinto and scrambled into it. As Jimmy struggled to get the car started, she glanced back at the diner. Blood dripped from the counter. The waitress wasn’t there anymore. The black wolf jumped through the broken window with Vivian and his bloodied arm in pursuit. They disappeared across a dark field.

  Jimmy hit the gas and peeled the Pinto out onto the road.

  “What the fuck?” Candy shouted. “He’s a werewolf!”

  “Stop yelling!”

  “He’s a fucking werewolf!”

  “I know!”

  Rupert dashed out onto the road in front of the Pinto. Candy screamed like only a terrified girl could. So did Jimmy. A black wolf pounced on Rupert knocking him off the road. Candy’s scream reached an ear shattering pitch as the car barreled towards them. Jimmy swerved in the opposite direction, ramming into Vivian.

  Jimmy jerked on the steering wheel again. “Fuck!”

  Vivian hit the hood, rolled up the windshield and over the car. Jimmy checked his rearview and Candy looked back to see the vampire skipping along the pavement like a ragdoll. Maybe they killed him.

  They both struggled to catch their breath. Jimmy took the ramp to the interstate so fast Candy slammed against the door. He pushed the petal all the way to the floor and the Pinto revved in protest, the engine struggling until the gears caught up.

  “Put your seatbelt on,” he said.

  Candy did as she was told. Then she gawked at him, her wide eyes halfway between fear and wild excitement. Her pounding heart sent waves of exhilaration throughout her body.

  “This is insane,” she said. “This is awesome!”

  Jimmy looked at her as if she might actually be insane, and then he smiled. When his attention lingered on her a little too long she warned that he should watch the road or slow down.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Are . . . ?” Candy started, but she had to catch her breath. “Are you one too?”

  “Yeah,” he said. Candy laughed, not believing it. Her reaction made him grin. “Yeah, I’m a lycanthrope.”

  “A what?”

  “It pretty much means the same thing.”

  “Oh my God. My heart is pounding.” She noticed Jimmy’s hands shaking on the steering wheel. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve just never seen two of them at once before and never like that. You know, ready to fight and all. They usually stay away from us.”

  “I can’t believe he turned into a wolf.”

  She held Jimmy in her gaze, imagining him as a wolf. He pushed the old car close to eighty miles per hour. After ten minutes he slowed down and took an exit onto a country highway. Not long later he pulled into an isolated motel.

  “Why are we here?” Candy said.

  “This is the closest safe house, a place we can go in an emergency. Tinch will meet up with us here and we can try to get in touch with the others.”

  He parked in front of room fifteen, told Candy to stay in the car, and then he went to the front office. A few minutes later he returned with a key and motioned her to come out. Once she had run over to his side, he opened the door, shut and locked it behind them, and then flipped on the light switch.

  Jimmy closed the curtains on the two windows. The room was small, containing little more than a single size bed, an old television, and a nightstand with a telephone. The bathroom at the back had a shower that barely looked big enough for half a person. He sat on the edge of the bed and huffed out a sigh of relief while running his fingers through his thick hair.

  “So what now? We just wait?” Candy said.

  “Yes.”

  “What if Tinch is in trouble? Should you call someone?”

  “If there was anyone to call. If he doesn’t show up in about an hour we’ll need to move on.” He seemed confident Tinch would be fine against the two vampires.

  Candy watched him for a moment, gazing into his brown eyes while her heart wound down from all of the excitement. He was attractive in his own way, and he was a werewolf. She had never felt this alive in her life. Jimmy gazed up at her, looking somewhere between lost and like a kid presented with the toy he had wanted all of his life. Now she understood those scenes in movies—the adrenaline combined with the excitement, her pounding heart and his handsome features. She reached down and grabbed hold of his shirt, pulling him up off the bed. He offered no resistance. Candy locked her lips onto his while he stood there awkwardly with his hands hanging down at his sides. His mouth had to be pried open with her tongue to get in there.

  Candy wasn’t sure how much kissing experience he had; he was certainly no good at it. But it was still right up there with some of the best kisses she had ever experienced once his tongue joined in with hers. Excitement and adrenaline made a world of difference.

  Finally, his hands went to her hips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let her weight push him down onto the bed. He groaned when she landed on top of him and Candy laughed before going back in for another kiss. He wasn’t a terrible kisser now that he was warmed up, she supposed, and he had become more brazen with his hands.

  “I can’t believe you’re a werewolf,” she whispered near his ear.

  “Uh,” he said. “A lycan—”

  “Whatever.”

  Candy ran her hand beneath his shirt. His chest was boney, undefined, but she didn’t care. His bravery increased even more; he put a hand behind her head and pulled her mouth to his.

  The door sprang open and Tinch roared, “Jesus, Jimmy!”

  Chapter Four

  Candy sat on the end of the bed with her face glowing red while Jimmy lingered near the bathroom door with his eyes on the floor. Tinch had used the phone and now waited impatiently for a return call. No one had said a word to each other since he came in. The sky outside had long ago changed from twilight to the full glow of the morning sun. Candy was so tired she wanted to curl up and fall asleep. All of the night’s excitement and adrenaline had been quickly replaced with exhaustion.

  “Nothing happened,” Jimmy said.

  “I’m not judging you,” Tinch said, looking more worried than upset. He had on a pair of jeans an
d a flannel shirt he hadn’t been wearing before. He also didn’t reek anymore, instead smelling like he had been dunked in a barrel of cologne.

  “Hell, I remember what it was like at your age,” Tinch went on. “But what if I had been someone else, like Rupert? Times like these a man needs to be thinking with his right head.”

  Candy glared at him and thought about telling him to mind his own business, but when he met her gaze she decided it would be best to join Jimmy in staring at the floor. The phone rang and Tinch snatched it up. He was quiet for a moment while he listened to whoever was on the other end.

  “We have a problem here,” he said. “No, a real problem.” He listened for a few seconds. “Listen, if you were up to your neck in shit like we are you wouldn’t be questioning me.” He listened again, his face growing grimmer. “I understand.”

  Tinch put the phone on the receiver and then stared at the wall.

  “What’s the word?” Jimmy asked him.

  Tinch rubbed the scruff on his neck and then went to pace near the door. “The same as always. I’ll have to persuade the council in person.”

  Jimmy cursed. Candy didn’t know what was going on. The tense mood in the room infected her, pitching her voice into a worried squeal.

  “What’s that mean? What’s going on?”

  Judging by the agitated look on Tinch’s face, she thought he might say what she dreaded most. She repeated it in her head over and over again—I can’t go home!

  “I need to go to the reservation in New York,” Tinch said. “Last night proved the vampires are moving on us and they’re not doing it because they’re bored. There’s nothing for them out here other than us.”

  “But why? What about the treaty?” Jimmy said.

  Tinch shrugged his shoulders. “Candy is in danger. I’ve never seen a vampire track someone down like that before. I’ve never seen them stirred up like this outside of the cities.”

  “Why are they chasing us?” Candy said.

  “They didn’t chase us to that diner,” Tinch said.

  “What?” Candy looked to Jimmy. He didn’t seem to know either.

  “Rupert’s after you. I don’t know why. Vampires do what they want nowadays and those Brits are the worst. I don’t know why he’s after you and I’ve never seen one act like that before. Did he tell you anything?”

  Candy shook her head. She’d rather not think about what had happened between her and Rupert, but she did for Tinch.

  “Not anything I can remember,” she said. “He hit on me. . . .”

  Tinch filled her in. “He glamoured you. You may have thought you wanted to leave with him, but he made you do it against your will. It’s one of the oldest vampire tricks and most effective on young minds.”

  “Glamoured?” Candy remembered Tinch saying that at the diner. She remembered the way the waitress and cook had reacted to Rupert, as if they would do anything he told them to do. As if they loved him.

  “No time for explanations right now,” Tinch said.

  A silent moment passed, during which time he brooded and rubbed the short growth of beard on his face. Candy closed her eyes for a second and nearly toppled asleep off the bed.

  Tinch stood up and said, “Everyone to the car.”

  “Where are we going?” Jimmy asked before Candy could.

  “The Kennel. She needs a safe place to stay. I’ll drive first, Jimmy. I should be fine the whole way but if I start to nod off I’ll need you to take over.” He opened the door and looked around outside for a minute. Then he held the door open. Candy followed behind Jimmy.

  “What’s the Kennel?” she said. It sounded strange, almost ominous. “Is that another safe house?”

  “Kind of. There are more of us there.”

  The thought of more werewolves didn’t exactly sit well with her. Sure, they were kind of awesome and had saved her life, but they were werewolves, and she had seen plenty of movies where werewolves ate people. She waited nervously for Jimmy to open the car door for her while Tinch started it up. She stuck her handbag down on the floorboard and then looked at her cell phone. There was a charger for it in the handbag with a lighter attachment, but she was too tired to worry about it. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  * * * * *

  “It’s a beautiful day, love.”

  Hand in hand, Rupert led Candy down a row of tall hedges trimmed into various life size forms; a horse and rider; an elephant; a couple connected at their outstretched hands. Candy had on a light pink summer dress with red bows weaved into the hems. Her feet were bare in the plush grass and the sun blazed directly overhead. A breeze from a pond in the distance cooled the sweat on her face and neck.

  They walked past a fountain where water streamed down into a basin from the trumpets of white marble statues in the likeness of boys with little angel wings. “That’s very pretty,” Candy said. “Do you throw coins into it?”

  “If you’d like,” Rupert said. “What would you wish for?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” There was so much she could wish for. One thing popped into her mind. “Maybe a big plate of pancakes. With lots of syrup.”

  “That’s an odd wish.”

  They paused at the edge of the fountain. The trickling water distorted the speckled brown stone at the bottom of the basin and the bodies of giant goldfish rippled with the surface of the pool above. An odd feeling passed over Candy when she looked into Rupert’s depthless eyes.

  “This isn’t real, is it?”

  “It’s real if you want it to be,” he said. His smile, meant to ease her, instead made her uncomfortable. “Why don’t you wish to forever be with me?”

  Candy didn’t feel it would be proper to tell him that she thought he was a dork. He frowned and grabbed her wrist.

  “Proper ladies don’t refuse men like me,” he said from behind clenched teeth. “You don’t want to go back to your drunken mother, do you? To that run down shack she calls a home? She’s the worst kind of hypocrite, your mother, always going on about the Lord and how your life needs saving when it’s she who brings a new man into her bed each month. That’s no life for a young lady such as yourself. This is where you belong.”

  Rupert gestured to something behind Candy. She turned and shielded her eyes with one hand from the glare of the sun. A four story mansion stood on the other end of the yard with an expanse of tall trees in the distance. It almost didn’t look real, like something she would only see in a picture or painting, like a place a princess or starlet might live. It looked absolutely wonderful except for the shadows moving in the windows, pulsing as if they had life of their own.

  Candy looked down at the long, blue dress embroidered with silver and gold she was now wearing. She smoothed out a crease and turned back to the vampire.

  “How do you know about my mother?”

  Rupert tapped her forehead. “It’s all in there. We’re connected now, you and I.”

  “I think I know what I’d like to wish for.”

  “Oh?” said Rupert with a satisfied smile.

  “I want to be a wolf. I want to run through the woods with the wind in my face.”

  The bright day suddenly darkened. Candy lifted her head to look at the sky. Ominous clouds rolled overhead. When she looked back at Rupert, he was glaring at her, baring his teeth and fangs. She took a step back and bumped into the fountain. Someone called her name off in the distance. Over and over Jimmy called out to her while darkness spread out from Rupert to consume everything.

  * * * * *

  “Candy!”

  She shot up in the back seat of the Pinto.

  “What!”

  Jimmy backed away from the opened door. “We’re here.” He looked dead tired. “I thought you were in a coma for a second there.”

  Candy got out of the Pinto and stretched. She had the oddest dream with goldfish and pancakes, or something like that—and with Rupert. She couldn’t remember everything. She only knew she hated it and she didn’t want to rememb
er. Running a hand through her messy hair, she surveyed her surroundings. They were in a neighborhood in only God knew where and it looked to be mid-morning. She didn’t see Tinch anywhere. She grabbed her handbag and closed the car door.

  “Where are we?”

  “The Kennel.” Jimmy walked towards the center house in the cul-de-sac.

  “Which is where?”

  “Tinch didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell you.”

  Candy kept her arms crossed in front of herself as Jimmy led her up the driveway of what appeared to be a rundown shack. As a matter of fact, all of the houses in the cul-de-sac were in the same derelict state. Gutters hung down from roofs, windows were broken, and what little paint remained barely clung to the wood. When Jimmy opened the door and stepped into the entrance, she couldn’t get her legs to move.

  “Come on in,” he said, waiting at the threshold for her. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “There’s everything to worry about. I’ve nearly been killed twice and I have no idea where I am.”

  Tinch appeared behind Jimmy. “What’s wrong?” With a glance at Candy his question was answered—she looked like a frightened deer caught in the wolves den. “You can trust us, Candy.”

  That was just it: Candy didn’t know if she could trust a werewolf, never mind a whole house full of them. She could maybe trust Jimmy because he was her age, but she couldn’t say the same about Tinch. She had seen him turn into a wolf—a huge wolf with teeth that could shred her to bits. Then again, he had gone out of his way to save her life. Twice.

  She shook her head. Why be paranoid now? She didn’t know what to think anymore. Had they wanted to do something to her, they would have surely done it by now. It was irrational to think they had brought her there to cook and eat her.