1 Chapter 1
Niall walks away from the club. Away from the cute kid with the pouty mouth and the curly blond hair. His footsteps echo off graffiti-covered walls. He doesn’t look back.
He doesn’t need to.
He can smell the kid’s arousal from here, feel the vibrations as he moves. Not walking, more like bouncing, too much energy to be contained in one pair of cut-price Converse. He can hear the kid’s breaths coming hard and fast, and the beat of the boy’s heart throbs in Niall’s chest, too. Jamie, that was his name. Hi-I’m-Jamie-this-is-my-first-time-here
It hasn’t been Niall’s first time at the Pit for many a year, but he’s still got it. Hell, if you go by the number of guys who come on to him, he’s got more of it now than he’s ever had. Come back when you’re legal, Jamie.
Hey, I’ve been legal age since, like, forever. Wanna see my ID?
Niall stops. Turns. The kid’s wearing that aw shucks you caught melook that must have gotten him out of all kinds of trouble with his mom and dad. It’s not going to get him out of trouble tonight. “You following me, kid?”
“You want me to?” Jamie rocks forward on his toes, like a greyhound ready for the off.
Niall guesses that makes him the lure. He’s always wondered: if the dogs ever caught that damn fake hare, would they know what to do with it? He figures he’s about to find out. Or perhaps Jamie is. “Maybe. If you’ve got the balls for it.”
Now it’s the cheeky grin. Man, that kid must’ve had his teachers eating out of the palm of his hand, back in school. “Want me to show you?”
Oh, you will do, Jamie. Trust me on that. “Maybe.”
“It’s, uh, kinda public round here.”
“That it is, Jamie, that it is.” Niall walks on. Turns down an alley. Opens a door, its paint cracked and peeling like a drag queen’s makeup at night’s end, still disguising the strength beneath.
The door shuts behind him. And the kid, of course. “What is this place?”
His voice echoes in the hollow space that smells of damp and dead air. “Home. You got a problem with that?”
“It’s kinda…”
Empty. Cold. Dark.“Missing your home comforts?” Niall can feel the heat as the blood rushes to Jamie’s face. He’s drawn to that warmth, that life, but he resists. Opens the door from the empty store room to the part of his home he actually lives in. Flicks on a light.
Breath, like a sigh behind him. “Shit! You had me worried for a bit there! Hey, this place is pretty cool. You’ve got some serious Goth vibes going on here, you know?”
Yeah, Jamie, I know. All the black—well, that’s just practical. Doesn’t show the stains, especially in the dim light of the low wattage bulb that hangs, naked and abashed, from the ceiling. And the wrought iron, and the arches on the windows with their thick coat of blackout paint like a blind man’s shades… “I like a place that feels like home.”
“Man, it feels like a graveyard, is what it feels like,” Jamie says, a laugh in his voice
Right first time, kid.
“Hey, you got anything to eat around here?”
Now, Niall laughs, although he does it silently. Is this kid for real? Niall can almost taste him from here, feel that firm, tender flesh against his lips. “Oh, yeah. Got something special—” Niall doesn’t finish the sentence. Whirls, his teeth bared, ready to strike.
The kid’s not there.
Niall blinks—and then something slams into him like a pile driver, and he’s looking at three inches of wood sticking out of his chest. Blood bubbles, sluggishly, from the wound.
“Fucking vampires,” Jamie says, and leaves as Niall collapses to the floor.
* * * *
The wound’s already started to heal by the time Niall’s conscious again. Makes pulling out the stake a bad acid trip in psychedelic shades of agony. Niall sobs, choking on his own blood. It tastes sour, like week-old milk that’s been left out in the sun. He struggles not to retch. He’s light-headed, almost mad with hunger. Mustn’t give in. Daylight burns. Remember that. Doesn’t kill, but it burns. Leaves scars. Takes a month or more to heal.
Can’t go out. Wait. Wait for nightfall.
* * * *
Seconds drip from the clock on the wall, form a spreading pool of time on the concrete floor. Or maybe that’s just the blood. Niall laughs but it’s more like a sob as the hollow pain in his gut spreads, multiplies, eats up the wound in his chest. Daylight is the fire that’s burning him from inside, and that’s wrong, it’s wrong, but Niall’s not sure anymore and he needs so much…
* * * *
Taste of blood in his mouth. Pain in his arm. His mind, clearer now but still fogged with time, its tarry thickness coating his thoughts, suffocating him. Time…
Time to go out. Feed.
