Hell at One Dark Window Read online

  “I woke up what I am now, with the vampire who’d turned me long gone. Never did see him again. Don’t expect I will. I figured out what I was pretty quick, and I determined to make my own way. Kill or be killed, take what I needed to survive, whether money or blood, against the law or not as it pleased me, and move on through however many ages. Fool that I was, I still hoped to find love.

  “Then, one night, I met you, and I knew I hadn’t been such a dumbass after all. Love still existed for creatures like me, and you’re the proof of it. Damned I might be, but you make me feel whole and holy. Always have. Always will.” Barrett bit, not breaking the skin, at Nathaniel’s jaw. “Now, I believe you said you’d spill, yourself. Go on. I’m waiting.”

  Nathaniel nodded. He drew in a deep breath. “I don’t want you to go on whatever job you have planned for tonight,” he said in a low voice. “Ever since you showed up, I saw it in your eyes that you had something big going down. Murder, cards, robbery, whatever it might be, I don’t know. But I think about it, and I’m terrified. Something’s going to happen, something bad, if you leave tonight. I know it, Barrett, I just know it.”

  “Balls!” Barrett gave Nathaniel a light shake. “I’m the Highwayman, remember? Nothing human can touch me.”

  “Not everything out there is human. And those that are might know you for what you are, and try to kill you.”

  Barrett sighed. “Acceptable risk,” he said. “Can’t live my life inside a bubble, Nathaniel. I’d go wild-crazy. Couldn’t do it, even for you.”

  “Then let me come with you. Just this once.”

  “No. One hundred percent no.” Barrett did what Nathaniel had ached to do, tugging him around until he faced his vampire lover. His blue, blue eyes bored deep into Nathaniel’s gray ones, dangerous in their intensity as he shook his head. “I won’t risk you doing what I have to do.”

  “Have to do?”

  “Want to do, then. And need to do.”

  “Why? Why can’t you stay here, with me? I’m asking you, Barrett. As your lover and your friend. Stay.”

  “Love…” Barrett lifted a hand to run his fingers through Nathaniel’s dark hair. He swallowed. “Can’t. Wish I could explain, but that’s not in the cards, either. Just trust me. Think you can do as I ask?”

  Nathaniel met Barrett’s eyes, stare for stare. “Yes,” he said. He lifted his hands to Barrett’s shoulders and gripped hard. “But I want something in return.”

  Barrett’s lips quirked into a smile. “One more tumble before I go?” he suggested, pushing his full, eager cock against Nathaniel’s. “I wouldn’t say no, and I don’t suspect you would, either.”

  “No.” Nathaniel shook his head. “I want you to turn me, Barrett. I want to be a vampire, too. Bring me over to where you are. Tonight. Say yes. Please, say yes.”

  Stanza Four

  Zeke had always been more than halfway tickled at how dumb landscape architects were when it came to decorating apartment buildings. Put in all the security systems you like, but at the same time, plant lots of thick, heavy-growth bushes just perfect for hiding in. All the cover a man could ask for when he had a mind to spy on someone through another typical element of apartments that amused him: the big, shiny glass windows without bars, mostly boasting only flimsy locks.

  If he’d wanted to, he could have made a fine life of crime. But then, he left that manner of sin to others. Those without morals. Men and women who seduced, stole, and killed all for the pleasure of it, or what they stood to gain.

  Zeke prided himself on being righteous, instead. Some might call his methods a tad unorthodox, but, well, they got the job done. And the job he did, someone had to take it on. Otherwise, the monsters might just end up outnumbering the humans. Take over the world and make it their private feeding playground. Vampires and who knew what else.

  Vampires, like the ones who’d killed his best girl. They’d shared the same dream of killing them, killing them all, but the bastards got to her first. After that, well, a goal had become a passion, and a way of life became an all-consuming fire that drove him ever onwards.

  He found the vampires, wherever they hid themselves. Tracked them, learned their habits, their weaknesses, and their haunts. Learned to follow silent as a shadow, a creature not even they could detect following in their wake.

  Then, he killed them. Put stakes through their shriveled black hearts and sliced off their heads with his trusty bone saw. Set fire to the carcasses and laughed to see the bastards burn. One more down was one fewer monster in the world.

  He’d been called crazy. A mercenary. A vigilante. A lunatic.

  Zeke didn’t consider himself any of the above. If anything, he was a savior to mankind. He’d not been crucified, but the blood he shed washed humanity clean of sin every night.

  Besides, it paid pretty damn good.

  This particular vampire he’d been set after had proven more than generally interesting to study. He drank blood, sure enough, but rarely made a kill, and even then took mostly from drug dealers, pimps, and petty crooks. Odd, to be sure. Usually, folk called Zeke in when someone they loved had gone down to a set of fangs.

  His employers were more than somewhat tight-lipped about why they wanted this Barrett put to an end. While it didn’t matter so much to Zeke, he’d indulged his own curiosity as to why they might want the vamp’s death. When he found out, he almost split his sides with laughing.

  Barrett wasn’t just any vamp. He was the “Highwayman,” a thief who preyed on thieves and thief lords. A twisted, undead hell of a burglar, who broke into vaults and bank accounts easy as winking. Walked off with an untraceable fortune every time — well, almost every time. He’d gotten himself quite a reputation, he had. Zeke figured his employers, a group of gray-suited, white-haired men with narrow, sour mouths, had been properly robbed, and wanted their pound of flesh. Since it happened to be monster flesh, they called on him.

  Well. Tickled he might be, but Zeke took his commissions serious-like. He’d been paid half in advance, with half yet to come when he came back with photos of Barrett’s body staked and burning. Besides, it’d be a fine feather in his cap to be known as the bastard tough enough to take the “Highwayman” down.

  Finding him had been stupid-easy. Barrett, like all men living or dead, proved to be a pure fool for love. He didn’t even try to hide his fascination with his mortal lover, an ordinary man, a writer named Nathaniel who kept to himself in his small apartment except for trips out to gay bars, where he’d most often stood around lonely and alone despite his looks until Barrett had swooped in to make a claim.

  Take tonight, for example. Barrett had strolled right on up, not even looking to see if anyone watched him, and gone straight into Nathaniel’s apartment. Already set up in the bushes, his spy cameras in place, Zeke had been witness to a very fine show of man-sex. He didn’t lean that way himself, but damn if he hadn’t gotten good and stiff over the way those two fucked like wild animals.

  He’d had to pull back a little when Nathaniel came to the window, naked, not thinking that someone might be taking a peep at his bare ass, and Barrett followed right behind. They’d spoken to each other, soft and low, for the longest time. Pissed Zeke off, on account of he’d left his listening devices behind. Stupid, amateur mistake.

  Not that it mattered. He could read lips well enough to figure Nathaniel was trying to argue Barrett out of going on a big job that night, and that Barrett wasn’t having any of it. Then they’d turned to face one another, and Zeke had eased back out of hiding.

  He stood, grinning, teeth white in the darkness, and reached for a pair of wire-cutters to snip the building’s security alarms. Easy as breathing, if you knew how, and systems cheap as this one were a breeze to disable.

  Humming to himself, Zeke busily planned away. Maybe… just maybe, he wouldn’t go for a direct kill. It turned his stomach to see a human so head over heels with a filthy vamp, no matter how hot they might be in the sack, and he figured it might be fun to t
each the one a lesson before he killed the other.

  Well pleased, Zeke sang a jaunty little hymn off-key under his breath as he snipped and clipped wires, making ready for his grand entrance. He just had to wait for the right moment…

  Stanza Five

  In the wake of his question, Nathaniel stood patiently and rode out the waves of uncertain fear. Once, Barrett had made him promise Nathaniel would never ask that of him, and Nathaniel, understanding why at the time, had given his word. Now, he’d taken it back. He knew that Barrett was a creature to whom a vow was worth more than just words, and to break a promise to the vampire was taking a chance on losing him and his love forever.

  But Nathaniel had to ask. He couldn’t not. If Barrett planned on heading into danger, Nathaniel wanted to be able to help. He cared more about having the extra strength to bail his lover’s ass out of the muck than he did about his own humanity.

  He just hoped Barrett could, or would, see as much, instead of walking away with his unbeating heart well-nigh broken.

  Barrett’s crystal-blue eyes stared into Nathaniel’s with the unblinking, snakelike intensity that disturbed anyone who didn’t know vampires, didn’t know Barrett in particular. Nathaniel saw past the power of the look into the feeling behind it, and there he read shock, anger, fear, doubt, and… yes… an almighty temptation.

  “Lover…” Barrett said at last, his voice hoarse. “You swore.” He raised one rough, smooth hand to brush a wisp of hair from Nathaniel’s cheek. “What’s got you wanting to change your mind now?”

  Nathaniel gazed back without words. He knew Barrett could read the answer in his own eyes. “You know why,” he said when Barrett had searched him for a good while. “Please. For me.”

  Barrett’s throat worked. He swallowed, dry and raspy, a painful sound. “No. Don’t ask it of me. I meant it when I told you ‘never ask,’ and I haven’t gone to changing my mind since. You think you could play hero? You think I need a hero? I don’t want anyone watching over my shoulder, not that I don’t understand and love you all the more for your heart’s going out to me. I do get that much. But to make you what I am — to take away all that I crave in you — heat and breath and a beating heart to love with — no. Hell, no. I could, but I won’t, and there’s the end of it.”

  “Barrett —”

  “No, I said. And no, I meant.” Barrett pressed a finger across Nathaniel’s lips. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he whispered, soft and raspy. “Don’t know how much I need the life wrapped up in your love? Come what may, I’ll risk it all against losing so much of what makes you, you. I would never change you unless it were the only way to keep you with me. So, please. ’Kay?”

  Nathaniel pulled back and away, planting his feet firmly on the cool apartment floor. He met Barrett’s gaze, eye to eye, unafraid. “You think I don’t know what I’m asking for,” he said, soft and flat. “Don’t underestimate me. I was making my way in this world long before I met you. I’m gay, I’m a loner, and I’m my own man. I know when I want something, and I know how to get what I want. I’ve fought my way through all manner of struggles to be my own man. On my own terms.

  “You made me promise I wouldn’t ask you to turn me, and at the time, I understood. Now, though? It’s different. I’m not a fool, Barrett, nor am I weak. I know what the world’s like more than I ever did. It’s a dark, ugly, dangerous place, and if you want to survive, you have to become one of the monsters, or disappear down their maws.”

  He held up a hand. “I know you’d never hurt me. But what about your kin, Barrett? I’ve heard people whispering to each other as they pass in the streets at night. No one likes the fact that you, even you, a renegade, an atheist set against their ancient ways, has taken a human lover and not used him as a regular meal or a fuck-toy. You’ve dared to fall in love with me — and they know it. You think they won’t use that against you? Won’t come after you, one night, when neither of us is thinking to keep an eye out?”

  Nathaniel saw the knowledge written across Barrett’s face. Yes, he was aware of all Nathaniel had said, and more that Nathaniel probably didn’t know yet.

  “You’re worth the risk,” Barrett insisted, expression hard. “To hell with them, where we all belong, but they can go first if they think about getting between you and me.”

  “You can’t kill them all.”

  “Can make a damn good try.”

  “Before they put an end to you — and to me?”

  Barrett looked as if there was something he wanted to say, but after a moment’s pause, shook his head. “So you think that’s the answer? Make you a monster to keep you safe from the other monsters?”

  “That’s the only way.”

  “I won’t hear of it.”

  “Barrett —”

  “No, I said, and no, I meant,” he gritted out. Despite his anger, he seized Nathaniel’s mouth in a desperate kiss. “Don’t ask again, come what may. Please, lover. Show a bit of mercy, and don’t.”

  “I can’t promise that.” Nathaniel’s lips felt bruised from the kiss. The agony on Barrett’s face made his heart ache, yet he had to press on. “It’s not just the vampires, you know. What about the humans? Plenty of them know what you are, and that I’ve tossed my hat in your ring. They already think I’m an abomination before God and man for favoring my own sex in bed. But fucking a vampire? There’s more than a few who’d be happy to put a bullet in my brain right before they planted a stake in your heart.

  “Add to that your way of life. Stealing and hacking and causing no end of trouble for people who have serious influence, then laughing in their faces. So far, you’ve been damned lucky, but we both know luck never lasts forever. What happens when someone finally catches up to you? To me? To us?”

  He stepped back in and held Barrett tight. Stared up at his vampire lover, willing him to understand. “It’s both camps against us, Barrett. I’ve got to do something.”

  “I know.” Barrett’s voice cracked. “I know. But not that.”

  “What, then? There has to be something.”

  “Maybe there is. But Nathaniel, do me the honor of one more trip to heaven in your arms before I go talking about things that could send all we have crashing straight to hell.” Barrett stroked him desperately. “Please, lover? For me?”

  Nathaniel gazed up at Barrett. He bit his kiss-swollen lip in deep thought.

  And Barrett swooped down to take him up on his word.

  Stanza Six

  Barrett bent down and tilted his head to press his lips against Nathaniel’s. Despite wanting to argue, Nathaniel couldn’t help but respond in kind, eagerly pushing back for more of his lover’s touch. The vampire’s hands wandered, roughly kneading over Nathaniel’s back and down to his ass. He pulled them flush against one another, groin to groin, hardened cocks crashing together. A shock of bliss ran down Nathaniel’s spine at the feel of Barrett’s cock. He rubbed against it, shameless as Barrett always made him, wanting him more and more again.

  Taking advantage of his free hands, Nathaniel slipped one between their bodies and stroked Barrett’s cock, slick from their earlier lovemaking, and wet anew with fresh arousal. The rich, coppery-blood scent of Barrett’s come filled the air as the vampire moaned into their kiss and ground into Nathaniel’s touch.

  Nathaniel took no care for his own eager cock, begging some attention. He lavished all he had to give on Barrett, stripping him hard and fast. Vampires liked it rough. Nathaniel had long since learned the trick to it, and knew what Barrett craved in a hand job. He gave his lover what he craved, and more — ruthless strokes up and down, hard enough to hurt a mortal man; his thumbnail digging into the slit at the tip, rough jerks at his heavy-hanging balls.

  As he moved, Barrett’s kisses grew erratic, sloppy, until his mouth began to move in random, clumsy touches to Nathaniel’s face, ungraceful and beautiful, messy and hot as the fires of hell. Nathaniel licked his lover’s skin where he could reach, tasting salt and blood and something like powdere
d stone. His head began to buzz, ears ringing, but by God, it was too good to stop.

  Barrett gave a yell, then jerked and spasmed in Nathaniel’s arms. Thick, heavy gouts of come spurted out over Nathaniel’s hand, coating it with seed until it dripped from his fingers. Nathaniel waited, trembling with the need for release. Then, as Barrett met his gaze, eyes dazed now instead of piercing, Nathaniel deliberately lifted his sopping fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean, one by one. He made it to the ring finger, drinking in Barrett’s drugged, post-orgasmic awe, before his own cock spasmed, his hips bucked, and his orgasm burst through him without so much as a touch.

  Barrett caught Nathaniel’s hand and suckled the rest of his seed from the pinky finger. He pulled them together, sticky and wonderful, hot and cold, boneless and revved up as a firecracker with its fuse alight. “And you wonder,” he murmured, “why it is I won’t chance losing you.”

  Nathaniel shut his eyes and shook his head. “I had to ask,” he said. “You may not believe it, or like to hear it, but you mean more to me than life itself.”