Night Walker, Parts 3 & 4

by Wrestlr


[M/M, vampire, MC, hypno]

Disclaimer: There's sexual vampirism, sodomy, and maybe a few other minor perversions in this. If you don't like that sort of thing, read something else. Everybody in the story is legal age. Parts of this story may be autobiographical, or it might be all fiction--who can say?

Copyright - 2000 by Wrestlr. Permission granted to archive if and only if no fee (including any form of "Adult Verification") is charged to read the file. If anyone pays a cent to anyone to read your site, you can't use this without the express permission of (and payment to) the author. This paragraph must be included as part of any archive.

Comments to wrestlr@iname.com

Wrestlr's fiction is archived at the following URLs:


Night Walker

3.

It was one of those days, turning into one of those nights. And by that I do not mean a cute "one of those days," like when you find out those high heels you made your trick wear to bed last night have made your waterbed spring a leak, find out the hard way that your ex-boyfriend still has one of your credit cards, and learn from the vet that your small dog is actually a South American rodent that's about to enter its breeding cycle. No, I mean "one of those days" in the sense of a giant asteroid hitting the earth two blocks from your home, frogs raining from the sky, and some crazed promoter thawing out Boy George's frozen head and sending it out on a comeback tour. One of those "one of those days."

A couple of hours after night fell, I decided to head over to the Inquisition to find my nightly "meal." I don't really have any sort of organized plan when I head out on the hunt; I like to vary my routines.

I call a cab, tell the driver to where to take me. He dictates the address into the auto-pilot, and we're off. It's past dark, and the cab weaves and darts through the bits of traffic.

As the cab heads uptown, the storefronts get trendier. The cabbie's got the radio on and some aggressively upbeat song bursts out of the backseat speakers. With my keener-than-human hearing, it's excessive. "Can you turn that down?" I ask. He looks at me in the rearview mirror. I avert my eyes out the window. After a few moments, he twists the volume knob lower.

Down streets flanked with stores and coffee shops. Traffic thins to next to nothing. One vehicle, a van, seems to be dogging us. My throat tightens. Is it Ms. Christian? I feel the old dread. It can't be. I've painstakingly covered my tracks since our last encounter a couple of months ago--even moved halfway across the country here to lose myself in Atlanta's sprawl--but I know better than to underestimate her. I wait a couple of blocks before I dare sneak another glance out the back window. The street is deserted, and I let myself relax a bit.

I can see little more than the back of the cabbie's head: greased-back black hair, thick neck, muscular arms resting on the steering wheel. The eyes that glance at me in the rearview mirror are brown. I scan his ID on the dashboard. Eastern European name. Hungarian? Polish? The smell of male-ness flowing from him is almost intoxicating.

A hundred years before Freud, there was Mesmer, who thought human bodies contained an invisible power, almost a liquid, which he called "animal magnetism." This force was more physical than the mental parlor tricks we today call "hypnosis." Control the flow of the magnetism and you control the mind. Maybe that force is my food. Maybe Mesmer was right.

I'm a vampire, but not the bloodsucking kind; what I feed on isn't blood--or even semen. The one who turned me called it "soul force," in his quaint, religion-tinged way, but I think "life force" is more accurate. I'm not a scientist or a priest, so I don't know for certain. All I know is men have it, and I need it, and orgasm releases it, and sucking their cocks is the easiest way to get it. I never take more than I need, or more than they can spare. I stop before I take too much, before the point of no return.

I toy with the taste of the cabbie's hot fluids flooding into my mouth, how they would taste as I swallowed his energy. But he's driving, so I don't maintain eye contact long enough to hypnotize him. Let it go, I think, there are plenty of others.

The cabbie drops me off at the entrance of the Inquisition. As I pay him, I look him directly in the face, taking in the strong brow, the sensuous mouth, the well-formed chin. I hold his gaze as I pull out my cash. Habit. After a few seconds, his eyes glaze and his mouth falls open. The hunger roars through me.

But we're on a public street. Cars are moving here and there. I see pedestrians half a block away. My hunger is tempting me to take dangerous risks. I break the contact. "Here," I say sharply as I throw the bills into the front seat. His body jerks. He blinks. I turn away and head into the Inquisition without looking back.

The Inquisition is a bar, all glitz and black metal and low lighting and dramatic angles. I'm not one to let aesthetics stand in the way. From the doorway, my eyes take a slow sweep of the place. No blondes in sunglasses. No sign of anyone resembling Ms. Christian or my pursuers. The air inside here rushes up my nostrils, heavy with the stink of cigarette smoke, beer, and bodies. My mouth waters.

I stroll into the bar. It's hopping. Dark, noisy, crowded--an "anything goes" kind of place. The Inquisition has, as they say, a reputation. Deserves it, too. The kind of dive where things happen and everyone turns a blind eye. A really mixed clientele, if you want to glorify the regulars with that term, and tonight's crowd--and it's dense--is typically varied. The rough crowd looking to get drunk and raise hell. Upscalers slumming. Gay, straight, or some combination--no one at the Inquisition much cares. A few retro-Goths, arty bohemians, and college students looking for atmosphere, cheap booze, and free sex. Hustlers, hookers, the lonely, and the strange. These are my people, and I am happy to be among them.

I've been here a few times before. Not enough so they know me, but enough to know them. I've never had any trouble here, though I don't always have the luxury of being picky. But I'm not looking for a long-term thing. One night is fine.

I survey the crowd, looking for dark glasses. The crowd is so thick, no one will notice me, which suits me just fine. I've picked up a dislike for witnesses. If I wanted to make a bad joke, I'd say that there are people who don't appreciate me very much and want to show it with a stake dinner--through my heart.

There--against the wall to my left. A quick glimpse as the crowd ebbs and flows, a human tide. Was that a young blond man in sunglasses? My pursuers wear a special type of sunglasses--it blocks my mental connection and keeps me from taking control of them. Robs me of my major weapon. Unlike the bloodsuckers, my kind can't turn into bats or a mist or what-not. Sure, we aren't as vulnerable to sunlight, but we're just as vulnerable to beheading or a stake through the heart. Our mental trick is stronger, and that's our major edge. Those sunglasses cancel it. That's one reason I hunt in dark places like the Inquisition. A man in sunglasses stands out.

I move. I don't know if I've been seen, so I need to be somewhere else, just in case. I know an emergency exit through the back storeroom. I drill deeper into the crowd, bee-lining for it.

At the back of the bar, I finally catch sight of the man again when the crowd parts momentarily like the Red Sea. He's blond, yes, but no trace of the sunglasses. He's young--maybe 20. Cute but and he doesn't match the usual muscle-bound goon type that Ms. Christian favors. Blondy is almost angelic, working that college-boy look. Looks vaguely familiar in a generic way, but I can't place the where or why. He's talking to some chick; not the usual modus operandi. He catches me staring and smiles confidently. This is the fundamental happiness of youth in America: the world is theirs and they will conquer it.

There's one way to tell. I ride the eye contact into his head and give his pleasure centers a good, swift kick. I hit him hard. When the mental orgasm starbursts through his body, he quakes. His knees nearly buckle. If he's with the people pursuing me, this is the part where he'll call in his backup and they'll move in for the kill. Or try to, anyway. But Blondy just blinks. When he can make his eyes point in the same direction again, he looks back at me, surprised, then grins again, like he's In Love or something. Which is good--those are the reactions of a regular man, not one of Ms. Christian's steroidal goons. I break the contact quickly. Maybe I was just jumpy, but I'm thinking I should still hunt elsewhere tonight. Maybe it's time to be moving on again.

He looks for me for a few moments after I disappear. Hell, who wouldn't after what he just felt? He's probably thinking it's puppy-love at first sight. Yeah, well, we shared a moment, Blondy. When he doesn't catch sight of me again, Blondy gives up and goes back to hitting on his chick friend.

By telling myself it was just nerves, I calm myself down. By the time I'm sliding along the back wall of the bar, I'm practically laughing at myself for mistaking Blondy for one of Ms. Christian's thugs.

My belly growls--that snaps me back to reality. No time to be maudlin. I've got to take care of business; I've got to feed. I push my way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, edging toward the back. From the tiered platform to the side of the dance floor, I can observe. Okay, I'll be direct: not observe. Hunt.

The Inquisition is an old-fashioned bar, meaning it doesn't have those automated order-taking tables. No, you have to order the old-fashioned way: by yelling yourself silly over the deafening music in hopes that the bartender can make out what you're saying.

The guy behind the bar wears a monk's robe with the hood pulled back and a big rip from the collar all the way down to his solar plexus. A golden crucifix gleams against his smooth, tanned chest. His name is John. Or Jim. Or ... maybe Joe. One of those really common J names that I can never keep straight. He smiles at me as I lean forward over the bar.

"Hey, Night," he yells. I notice he'd had to glance down, probably at a hidden display set to do face-pattern recognition on the regulars. Someone probably told him the regulars like it when he pretends to remember their names. He yells, "The usual?"

Hm, I wonder, exactly how much information has the bar got stored in that database about me?

I smile back. "Hey, cutie," I yell. "Just out of curiosity, you wearing anything under that robe?"

He winks. "You'll just have to find out for yourself."

John or Jim or Joe and I have been flirting ever since he started working here, but we've never managed to connect for--well, you know what I mean. We were now at that awkward stage where we'd asked all the easy questions--"So what's your name? Where are you from? Where'd you go to school?"--and forgotten all of the answers. So we were kind of running out of things to say. I keep thinking I should take notes when I flirt, to avoid situations like this.

The Inquisition is on the verge of becoming the "in" bar this season. I watch some stripper in manacles and chains dancing on the other end of the bar--I think he is supposed to be one of the heretics being imprisoned. I keep expecting to see the chains swing up and smack him in the face, but I guess he's had a lot of practice avoiding them.

The Inquisition went to this theme six months ago, and it already feels tired to me. Before this, it had been the Colosseum, and the theme had been Roman gladiators. I had actually found that one kind of amusing, if only because the centurion outfits they had for the staff had been so cute. Before that, it had been the Cruiser, and the staff had all been in Baptist Navy uniforms. Well, at least the music is interesting this time around--I had no idea there were so many rock groups doing dance covers of Gregorian chants.

I take the drink that John/Jim/Joe hands me with another wink. He is already heading off to the other end of the bar where someone is waving a cash card, so I turn around to survey the crowd again as I take a sip. I can't shake that nervous feeling. I had kind of been hoping to run into Eric--he can usually bug me out of this mood--but he's nowhere to be seen. No one in sunglasses either, so I'm safe.

A disco clone slides up next to me at the bar. He keeps staring at me while he waits for his drink. Which is odd, because most of the clones won't give me the time of day. And I mean that literally--I asked one a couple of days ago, and he just sneered at me. I take a careful look at this one, trying to figure out what he wants and what he has that I might want.

Like most of them, this kid is a walking advertisement for better living through chemistry. He has that sort of hyper-muscular build that you can only get through steroids, and that dizzy-happy look that comes with doing Bliss. I had tried Bliss once, just to see what it was like. Didn't much care for it. It was sort of like Ecstasy, only more so. It made me horny, and affectionate. And not particularly discriminating.

Still, you have to hand it to the pharmaceutical wizards. Where would gay men be without them? They came up with steroids to make guys muscular, and Bliss to make them affectionate. Now if someone could only invent a drug that would also make them considerate, funny, and pleasant to be around. They could market it as a "personality pill."

I can't help but notice that my attentive friend is also sporting a hard-on. That's when I recognize him. "Hello, Lance."

"Hey, Night. Wow! The workouts must be going well--you're putting on some muscle there."

Lance uses that remark as an excuse to put his hand on my chest. Lance is not particularly subtle. Or well-informed. His sudden interest in me started a couple of weeks ago, when he saw how much time Eric was spending around me and jumped to the conclusion that I must be rolling in money. I hadn't bothered to correct him on this point yet. After all, someone needs to teach the boy about the dangers of not doing his market research.

Lance lets his hand slide down my chest, and finally withdraws it about the time it reaches my navel. My brain knows that I don't want to sleep with Lance or feed on him--Bliss does weird things to the life force, and the last time I fed on a Bliss-head I was nauseous for three days afterward--but some other parts of my anatomy are starting to respond to his come-on. I find myself doing a visual inventory of his body, starting with his legs and working my way up. Lance looks to be in his mid-twenties, and the boy certainly does have some very nice parts. By the time I get to his shoulders, my brain has come to the party as well, speculating on what he likes to do in bed, what positions we'd find ourselves in, what his life force would taste like. Then I get to the smile. Those slightly sharpened canines. Then those weird, unnaturally green eyes. That Bliss-coated expression. Somehow, I know sex with Lance wouldn't be nearly as much fun as the flirting. As is all t! oo often the case.

I manage to extricate myself from Lance and push away from the bar, into the crowd. I tag the throat mike inside my collar and check in with Sherman: no messages. Enough preliminaries--it's time to get on with the hunt.

I'm pushing my way through body after body. This time of night, pickings are easy. This man here, so fashionably dressed, bumps a gym-built shoulder into me as he tries to dance. "Sorry," he slurs drunkenly, not looking at me. I grin, savoring the feel of the energy inside him, like a housewife tests the flesh of a tomato before adding it to the dinner menu. Yeah, he's a good candidate. I might come back for him after I check out the rest of the buffet.

I move on. Pickings are good tonight. There's an urgency in the air that feels almost like sex itself. People are looking to get laid. I can use that.

As if on cue, a dozen slumming young stockbroker-types bound into the bar, heading my way, loosening ties and taking off suit jackets. The men are tall, an array of blondes. One of the fine, thirty-ish women is stockingless in black Gucci sandals. She smiles at me. Suddenly, I picture her ten years younger. She becomes a humming, happy beanpole girl with suntanned legs and a cowlicky blond tomboy close-crop. The men lose years with her, turn into wide-shoulder soccerheads in plaid baggy shorts and gold hoop earrings and knotted sweaty rawhide necklaces. Yum.

Shoulder to shoulder, the brokers pass without a backward glance. I sigh. Now would be the cool moment for my dinner de jour to appear. Man of my dreams, I say to myself, come to Daddy.

I settle on two young executive-wannabes leaning against the bar, talking. I size them up as I approach. Both are handsome twenty-somethings. Their suits are so much alike they could be clones: expensive jackets, power ties in the right colors, white dress shirts, crisply pressed slacks, shoes that practically shout "pricey Italian designer." One is short and dark, with a muscular body and angry eyes that dart around the bar as he drinks his beer. He's a firecracker. His buddy is taller, leaner, with sandy hair and a mild expression. They are unlikely companions.

When I'm beside them, I motion to John/Jim/Joe behind the bar. "Give me another hit of the usual," I say. "And fresh drinks for my two friends, too."

The businessmen turn and look at me. The shorter one is suspicious; the taller, merely curious. After a beat, they give their orders to John/Jim/Joe. By this point in my life, I've mastered the art of small talk with strangers. Sure, I know nothing about them except their names when I slide in beside them, but I know how to get them talking. I know how to shift the attention away from myself. For a moment, I'm afraid they're going to launch their business cards at me, but instead they offer their hands and we shake. The sandy-haired man is Beau. His angry friend is Nick. By the second round, they start warming up to me. By the third, we're best buddies. I focus my thoughts as we talk, gently probing into their minds, setting things up to hypnotize them, if that's what I have to do to get them out of here.

Let's try this the old-fashioned way--the buddy approach, I decide. They're in town for a conference. I smile, feign interest while they fill me in on corporate life, how golf compares to tennis for schmoozing the boss, which cities have the best restaurants and airports, the stories behind their latest bonuses. Over their shoulders a couple of times as they talk, I catch sight of Blondy, the young blond guy I saw earlier in the crowd. He's hovering around the periphery as if he's watching me. Too late, Blondy, I think, catch me next time and you'll get your chance.

I pay more attention to these businessmen. Subtly at first, then with increasing blatancy, I nudge their heads and the conversation toward sex. They're both only too willing to follow that thread, and soon there's a tension crackling among us, like ozone before a lightning strike.

Beau, I notice, is not paying much attention to me. He's trying to look around me at something. Or someone.

I ease over beside him, follow his line of sight. The crowd parts. A few yards away, Miranda perches on a stool, legs elegantly crossed. Beautiful. Like me, she's predator, but of a different sort. She's wearing a Little Black Dress, her trademark, the equivalent of a tactical nuclear weapons strike on the straight male libido. Back erect, slightly arched to show off her proud tits. Aloof but sensuous--she has perfected this look, and I admit she looks damn good. In this low light, she looks completely convincing. She sips her drink, eyes cutting seductively right at us. No--right at Beau.

He downs the rest of his beer in a hurry. He's trying not to leer--he's so eager he's almost panting. I know what his flushed expression means. The drinks here aren't stiff, but I know what is.

The crowd closes, blocks her from view. I lean forward and practically yell so he can hear me. "That's Miranda."

Now he notices me. "You know her?"

"You could say that."

"She's hot!"

Which was true, if you like the type. "I didn't know you were into that."

"Huh? What'd'ya mean? She's hot."

The crowd parts, like a curtain. Miranda onstage.

"Her dick," I yell. "She hasn't had the surgery yet."

His eyes bug. "Her dick? That's a he?"

Whether I'm telling him the truth or not, whether Miranda is a real woman or not, isn't the issue. The issue is, I'm not losing this without a fight. Nothing personal, Miranda. To Beau, I yell, "You got it, ace."

"How do you know?"

I say, "I know a lot of the regulars. Her trick is to get straight men to pick her up. She gets them home, gets them so horny they don't care when they discover something unexpected in her crotch. Most of them stick around and fuck her ass anyway. She has an amazing `kill ratio.'"

"Oh ... my ... God!" Beau yowls. Miranda tilts her head back and shakes her hair slightly. When she looks back at us, Beau's eyes are bulging and his jaw has dropped. She knows I've told him something, and she glowers at me before turning her back to us in a snit.

The crowd closes. When it parts a second later, Miranda is gone. She has yielded this hunt to me.

I grab Beau by the arm and the scruff of his neck and shake him gently. "Don't worry, dude--there's plenty of women here. Real women." Though I don't add that tonight I'll fight to the death before I let him go home with one. "You need to de-stress, big guy." Nick is watching us closely. I let go of Beau's arm but keep my grip on his neck. I massage it gently but firmly, giving it a friendly squeeze and pressing up when he breathes in, then relaxing my hand and stroking down when he exhales.

"Ummm ... feels good," he says, letting his head fall forward a little.

"Like that?" By timing my strokes to the swell and fall of his chest, I'm hoping he'll come to associate the rhythm of his breathing with the rhythm of my hand on his neck. It's an old trick.

I slow my rhythm down, nearly imperceptibly, then a little more, and his breathing slows too. His eyes are shut. His body language is relaxing. It's not a trance--he's starting to pass out on me.

Okay, so he's too drunk for anything subtle, like my ability to influence his mind. "Hey," I shout into his ear over the pounding music. I slap his jaw with my free hand. "Wake up. Don't pass out on me. The night's not over yet."

I can't hear what he says, but I think his lip form the phrase, "I'm awake," or some slurred version of it.

Time to get my agenda moving. "Must be tough on you guys," I say, "being on the road so much. By the time you get home, I bet you're ready for whatever it takes to get your rocks off."

Nick shoots me a hard look. They both sense that we've crossed a line, that we're not just making idle conversation any longer. "Yeah," Nick says calmly. "It gets to be a big problem sometimes."

I let the silence hang in the air for a moment. "I can take care of your problem," I say carefully. My eyes dart to Beau's face and probe at his head, then back to Nick's for a little of the same. "For both of you," I add.

They're both feeling the rush from my influence playing in their heads. They're horny. Beau already has a hard-on. Nick is at least half-hard and rising.

They exchange glances. Nick raises one eyebrow. Two seconds later, Beau gives a small nod. They both turn their eyes on me again. Nick is the firecracker; if I control him, I control the situation--and his friend Beau too. I stare directly into Nick's eyes, a long, intense moment that results in his face going slack as the hypnotic effect of my gaze overwhelms him. I jerk my head toward the back door beyond the pool tables without breaking the eye contact. Into Nick's head I send the command [follow], and for Beau's benefit I say aloud, "Follow me." My tone is calm, authoritative, but the hunger pounds inside me like a wrecking ball.

I lead them out the back door into the alley behind the bar. I don't waste time on preliminaries. I drop to my knees in front of the two businessmen. I reach for and unbuckle Beau's alligator belt, then Nick's, unzip their flies, tug down their slacks and their designer underwear. Both of them watch me: Nick's dark eyes are narrowed, Beau's more calm and steady. Nick's dick hangs heavily between his muscular thighs--thick, dark, uncut. Beau's is pinker, blue-veined, with a fleshy red head and balls hanging low and ripe. Dinner is served.

Beau first. I bury my face in his balls. Pungent odor of musk and sweat. His hairs tickle my nose. I open my mouth, slide his dick in, slowly bobbing my head up and down. Beau's dick swells to full hardness, filling my mouth impressively. Beau sighs and begins humping my face, fucking my mouth with slow, easy strokes. I tug his balls with one hand, reach up to tweak his nipple with the other. He groans; his dick gives a sharp throb in my mouth.

I spit in my other hand and start beating Nick off, sliding his silky foreskin up and down the shaft. His dick is thick, and I can barely get my fingers around it. I pull Beau's rod out of my mouth and beat off both men together, a dick in each hand. Beau's low-hangers swing heavily between his legs. Nick's are pulled up tighter, hugging the base of his shaft. I look up at the two businessmen, then focus on Nick. This eye contact is all I need, and I ride it right into his head, probing at the pleasure centers in his mind and giving them a little tickle as I stroke their cocks. Nick gives a startled gasp. I do the same thing to Beau, and his knees buckle. They stare down at me, astonished, and I grin back at them.

I alternate my attention on the two dicks in front of me, sucking on Nick's for a while, teasing him, teasing at his head, bringing him to the brink, then switching back to Beau's. I slide my hand under Nick's shirt, feeling the hard bands of his abs, the smoothness of his skin under my fingertips, the rough little nubs of his stiffened nipples. My other hand squeezes the muscles of Beau's ass, feeling them clench and relax, as his dick slides in and out of my mouth. I've got these two men wound tighter than a top, and their cocks twitch in front of me, wet from my spit, arcing up, as hard as cocks get. Every time my mouth sweeps down on their cocks, I stare up into their eyes and enter their minds, nudging their pleasure centers with increasing intensity. Beau gives a little whimper with each downward stroke of my mouth. Nick groans loudly when I switch my attentions to him. I'm drawing music out of these two instruments of flesh in front of me. I'm a virtuoso.

Their excitement ripples into my mind. I sense it, feel it pulse in my brain, ratcheting up my hunger to higher levels. It's almost hell for me as well, teasing them like this, bringing them to the brink of shooting, only to draw them back again. But this self-torture excites me, whips me into a frenzy of expectation. Nick pumps his hips frantically. His moans bounce off the alley's brick walls. When I switch back to Beau, Nick whimpers in frustration. Soon, Beau is moaning again, tremors shaking through his body as I work his dick ravenously while Nick watches us with feverish eyes.

I can't take the torment of my hunger any longer. I slide my mouth down Beau's shaft as I push into his mind with the command [release]. Beau gives a mighty groan, and his body spasms. His dick throbs in my mouth, and his hot load gushes into my throat. I suckle at his dick like a baby on its mother's tit, savoring the taste of his energy as it floods into me. I close my eyes in sheer pleasure. His strength flows into my body as Beau crumples to his knees, dropping deeply into my thrall.

Nick is next. I skin back his dick and run my tongue around the flared head. My other hand glides under his shirt, squeezes the hard muscles of his torso. I leave his dick full in my mouth, my node buried in his pubes. My finger tease his balls, the heavy balls that hold that sweet, sweet load of his that will soon be gushing down my throat. "Yeah," he croons, "that's right. Work on those balls." I reach behind and run my hands over his ass, pull his cheeks apart, worm a finger around his asshole at the same moment my mouth slides over his dick. My eyes hammer up into his, and I send a mental orgasm through him, triggering his physical orgasm. His body shudders and he cries out as his sperm jets out to join Beau's. His energy gushes into me, and I gulp it greedily.

I'm taking the last of it when the door leading to the bar flings open, silhouetting four people crowded in the doorway. I recognize Ms. Christian and her gang immediately--and behind them, Blondy. Shit! I think, and I'm already on my feet and running down the alley.

"Grab that cocksucker!" Ms. Christian shouts, and I hear them in pursuit.

I yank garbage cans down behind me; I hear someone crash into them, but I don't look back. The alley entrance is ahead. It seems impossibly far, and the footsteps are gaining. I'm still groggy from my feeding, my coordination is off, and I stumble and fall. Someone lunges toward me. I kick out, landing my foot in his belly. He grunts, doubles over. I'm on my feet, lurching forward, thinking, I'll never get away.

Since my kind aren't as formidable as bloodsuckers in a fight, I need an equalizer. This one, which I'm clumsily trying to pull out as I run, was made by Smith & Wesson.

Garlic, stakes, crosses--we all know the list of things that hurt the bloodsuckers. Tasers aren't on the list because they weren't invented yet. Someone hits me with one from behind, and my body explodes in pain, and I collapse, and my gun clatters away into the shadows.

Hands grab my arms and yank me back. Three men descend on me. I'm trying to struggle but I'm pinned down on the sidewalk. Manacles click around my wrists and ankles. The men roll me onto my back, frisking me, relieving me of my throat mike and palm display. I try to stare into my attackers' eyes, but their sunglasses block me.

The woman, Ms. Christian, walks up to me and squats down. "Hello, Night," she says. "That is what you're calling yourself these days, isn't it?"

I look into her face, but like the others, her sunglasses prevent contact. My throat tightens with an emotion I haven't felt for a while: dread. Lucky for me, I hide it well. "Long time, no see, Ms. Van Helsing," I say, purposefully using her maiden name. "You're not still mad about your husband, are you?"

I can't see her eyes through her dark glasses, but her back stiffens. I've definitely hit a nerve.

Christian straightens up, just as an unmarked van screeches up to the curb nearby, a little too rapidly. "Put him in the van," she says carefully.

"Look," I say, "just make it quick." Across the street, in a group of dark-haired disco clones heading for the Inquisition's entrance, I see a familiar shock of gold hair. Eric and his friends gawk as Christian's goons yank me to my feet and hustle me toward the van.

Christian chuckles--an evil sound, even for her. Her voice is soft. "Night, my friend, I've invested far too much time and energy on you to finish you off so quickly. We're going to drag this out as long as possible."

4.

I'm squeezed in the back of Christian's van, between two of her thugs. One is dark--Greek perhaps, or maybe Sicilian, with a thick mustache and curly black hair. The other is a red-haired giant of a man with muscles that squirm under his tee-shirt like rats in a canvas sack. A redhead, a Greek, and an angelic blond kid--these aren't Christian's typical Aryan goons; no wonder I didn't spot them immediately. Still, Red wears a crucifix around his neck, and on his left biceps there's a tattoo of Jesus' head bleeding from a crown of thorns. Another crucifix dangles from the rearview mirror. All that's missing is a dashboard Jesus. Ms. Christian knows these things don't affect my kind, but she used to hunt bloodsuckers, so I guess some old habits die harder than others.

The dashboard clocks says it's a little past 2 in the morning. Ms. Christian drives, Blondy up front with her. She careens through the city, past factories and tire yards. Twenty minutes later, she pulls up in front of a ramshackle brick building, cuts the engine. Red opens the door and pulls me out after him. I'm tall but both thugs still tower over me. They remove the manacles from my ankles so I can walk, then Red and the Greek half-drag me into the building. Christian and Blondy are close behind.

A long, narrow corridor, flanked on both sides by closed doors. I neither know nor care what this building used to be, but it looks abandoned now. From the looks of it, it has been deserted for quite some time. Funny--I thought the Baptist Militia had better resources than this. Ms. Christian stops before a door no different than any of the others. She punches numbers into the keypad that controls the door lock: 1776. Figures. Right-wingnuts like the Reverend Senator Stonewall's Christian Alliance Party can be pretty predictable sometimes.

If I'm ever going to get a chance, this is it. I jab Red sharply with my elbow. His sunglasses mean I can't waste time trying to hypnotize him, but even with the wrist manacles, I'm strong enough to yank my arms away while I've got surprise on my side.

I dash back down the hallway. Footsteps rumble behind me, but I stay focused on the stretch of floor before me, running as hard as I can. I wish the myths about vampires were true, that I could change into a bat and just tear out into the night, but that's just the bloodsuckers. As is, I can barely keep ahead of these bastards.

The door is directly ahead, like the gate to heaven. I fling myself against it. It bursts open, and suddenly I'm outside again, air rushing against me like a kiss from God Himself. I bolt down across the parking lot, around the corner of the neighboring building--and directly into a pile of broken lumber. I plow right into it, legs flying, boards in the air. I barely hit the ground before Christian's men pile on top of me, cursing me, pelting me with their fists and feet, snarling like wolves. I give the fight everything I'm worth, snarling along with them, kicking and thrashing savagely. It's a lost cause, though--there are too many of them and I'm hampered by the manacles. It only takes a few minutes before they've got me face down on the ground. Ms. Christian has caught up and stands in front of me, her eyes wild with rage. She's yelling at Red: "You stupid asshole! You almost let him get away!" Red's face darkens, but he says nothing.

There's no fight left in me. The thugs drag me back to the door where I staged my escape, and Christian opens it this time without incident. Surprisingly, the room is empty and completely ordinary. I don't know what I was expecting--maybe a stone dungeon straight out of a grade-B horror flick. Instead, it's just some windowless storage room. Concrete floor. Empty metal shelves lining the walls. Pipes rise from the floor at the far end, run up the wall, and exit through the ceiling. Red and the Greek unlock the manacles, pull my arms around one of the six-inch pipes, and fasten them back.

Ms. Christian is finally regaining some of her composure. She's grinning grimly. I still can't read her eyes through the sunglasses. "We're going to leave you now," she says. I know she's not doing me any favors. She continues, "For a long time, actually. Typically, a vampire starves within four days if he doesn't feed. But some of them, the strong ones, can drag on for over a week." Her gaze roams down my body. "What do you say, Night? Feel like trying for the record?"

I laugh. "All this because your husband developed a taste for cock?" I shake my head. "You're so pathetic."

Christian clamps her jaw shut. Yeah, I scored a direct hit--lucky me. She forces a smile; when she speaks again, her voice is tight. "I've got one last surprise for you, Night." She turns to Red and the Greek, snaps, "You know what to do." She stalks out, Blondy trailing after her.

Red and the Greek step forward. I slide to the floor and coil myself. I'm expecting another beating, and I'm ready to lash out with my legs. To my surprise, though, they stop a few feet out of my reach. In unison, they undo their pants, let them slide down their legs. They start getting their dicks hard, start jacking. Their faces are blank; even through their sunglasses, I can tell their eyes are closed, their minds focused on whatever fantasies they need to get themselves off. Another time, I might have enjoyed the show. Red's dick lives up to the promise on his giant's body; it's a club--thick, scarlet, uncut, its head flaring out into a meaty little fist. The Greek's dick is proportionate to his tight, compact body: dark and roped with veins. His balls swing low between his thighs with every stroke. I can just imagine the tasty energy in each man and, despite myself, my mouth waters.

Red's hand slides under his shirt and across his powerful abs. His hips pump--quick, savage thrusts--and his dick head winks in and out of his fist. The Greek's strokes are slower, more sensual. He spits in his hand and slides it passionately down the shaft of his cock, letting the sweet sensations sweep over him.

I glance at the door. Christian stands in the partially opened doorway. She's staring at her men's naked asses. I sneer at her, "Why don't you come over here and sit by me, Ms. Van Helsing? You'd get a much better view." Her face goes hard again.

Red is the first to shoot. Groaning, he arches his back as his load pulses out and splatters against the floor a few feet away from me. His body spasms with each spurt. When he's finished, he shakes the remaining cum off his fingers onto the floor. The Greek quickens his strokes. Sweat on his forehead. His balls pulling up tight. He whimpers when he cums, his load jetting out and joining Red's on the floor in front of me.

Both men silently pull up their pants. Without looking at me, they stalk out of the room.

"Sweet dreams, Night," Ms. Christian sneers.

"Bite me," I snarl back. It's a lame comeback, but the circumstances aren't exactly conducive to sparkling wit.

Ms. Christian turns off the light, closes and locks the door. I sit in the darkness. The scent of the two sperm-loads the men left behind wafts up to me, rich, tantalizing. My belly cramps with hunger. I tug on the pipe as hard as I can. It doesn't budge. The smell of their jizz is getting stronger. Now I understand why Ms. Christian had her men jerk off. I can't block out the sex odor. I close my eyes and think about how the one who turned me had died. Of all the ways for a vampire to die, starvation is the worst.