Vampire Blues: Four Stories Read Free Page B

to a row of parked cars. I picked up speed gradually, keeping the van in sight.
    The couple whipped past me, a blur really. I saw the man’s head snap around, following. Or trying to follow me. No doubt his jaw had dropped open, too.
    I chuckled and lowered my shoulders, picking up speed. Street signs, small trees, and fire hydrants all whipped past me. A small dog barked at me from an open car window, but its yipping receded behind me almost instantly.
    I came to the first intersection, and I was in luck. A green light. I debated slowing. The debate didn’t last long when I spied the van hang a left far ahead.
    I hit another gear entirely. A gear I didn’t know I had.
    Lights blurred past me so fast that I shouldn’t have been able to control my body. I should have been completely out of control, slamming into whatever crossed paths in front of me. But it was the opposite. I had complete control of my body—and I saw everything with clarity. Perhaps even supernatural clarity, nearly predicting where cars and people would be.
    Wind thundered over me, plastering my clothing to my skin, whipping my hair into a crazed frenzy.
    My legs felt so damn strong. My energy endless.
    I could do this all night. All the way to the rising sun.
    I’m not sure what people saw, or what they think they saw, or even if they actually did see me. I was through the intersection so fast that if someone looked down, or looked away, or even blinked, they would have missed me.
    I felt movement to my right and veered away just as a car pulled rapidly away from the curb and hung a U-turn. The driver never saw me, I’m sure of it.
    The light at the next intersection was red. I slowed down gradually, reluctantly, coming up behind a row of cars. I side-stepped smoothly onto the sidewalk and wove quickly through a group of women who were much too loud and drunk. I suspected I was in the midst of one of those “girls’ nights out” that I’m always hearing about. Does drinking with my sister count?
    By the time I reached the sidewalk, the light had turned green. I crossed with the others, except, unlike the others, I was already on the far side of the street before they had taken a few steps. I heard gasps behind me, and saw many heads turn, but they were now so far behind me that I didn’t care and I’m sure they were doubting their own sanity.
    And now I was running so fast that I wasn’t entirely certain that my feet were touching the ground. Wind blasted me. Lights streaked. Bugs were obliterated.
    The next light was green and I was just a blur. I felt like a blur, too. I felt inhuman. I felt elemental. Like the wind. Something from the sky, the earth.
    Cars came and went. People came and went. I swerved, I dodged, I hauled ass, and finally I hung a left and was nearly upon the van, which was just turning into a warehouse.
    I swerved to the other side of the street and spent a few seconds coming to a full stop. I might be immortal, but I still had to contend with physics. Well, sort of. Cars are manufactured with brakes. Bi-peds? Not so much.
    From behind an old-school station wagon, I watched the van come to a complete stop along the side of the building. The baker emerged from the van, and as he did so, a car door opened from another vehicle parked near the warehouse.
    His pretty young assistant stepped out and met him with a warm hug. Bingo!
    Together they slipped inside the dark building through a side door. My mind raced. What was this place? What the hell was going on? I didn’t know the answers to either question, but one thing I did know: Men were fucking pigs.
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    I stepped up to the building and scanned it.
    So what kind of building was this? Why were they here after hours? Was this some kind of underground sex club? Were unspeakable sexual acts being performed just behind these doors? I pictured a sea of naked bodies, all undulating rhythmically to hypnotic music, drugs everywhere, naked limbs