Night Prayers by P. D. Cacek Read Free Book Online Page A

from yawning while he told her
— in imaginative graphic detail — everything he was going to do to her, but couldn't stop the smile when his zipper jammed.
    Dead or not, no woman deserves to be slapped across the face.
    A moment later the roles — and positions against the wall — were reversed.
    The look of shock was still blooming in the skin-head's eyes when Allison's fangs cut an incision line under his jaw from ear to ear and popped his top.
    Instant convertible.
    But then she tossed it and got down to some serious feeding. Tossed it and didn't even bother to check where. Damn! And she was trying to be so careful. By the time the police found the skin-head's final resting place,
if
they found it, she'd be —
    Allison stopped and ran a cold tongue over her colder lips.
    Where would she be?
    Here? Somewhere else? Hook some inter-state trucker with promises of eternal life and find new hunting grounds before giving him the of "fuck-suck-see ya, shmuck" routine.
    And splitting.
    Like Seth had.
    Allison kicked a broken wine bottle into a pile of cardboard boxes and felt the memory of a chill race beneath her skin. If she stuck around too long somebody was
bound
to connect her with the killings… even in Hollywood that sort of thing wouldn't go unnoticed indefinitely.
    All they had to do was dust Buck's car for…
    "My
purse
!"
    She hadn't even thought about it until now, but in her hurry to leave the scene of the crime, shed also left her purse — in which could be found her driver's license, MacDonnel-Douglas Photo-I.D. card, MasterCard and (presently useless) blood type card.
    "Oh… fuck."
    "He — steal your — purse, lady?" A low voice mumbled. "Guess that means you — don't have any — change. Huh?"
    Allison turned slowly toward the sound as her fangs slid into position and watched the largest of the cardboard boxes tremble while something crawled out of it.
    The man was rail thin and stooped… hollow eyed and hollower cheeks. Years on the streets had taken more out of him than she ever could.
    For the first time that evening Allison was looking at a man who didn't inspire even the tiniest pang of hunger.
    Or maybe she was finally full.
    Her stomach rumbled softly.
    "Who asked
your
opinion?"
    When the man finally stood as upright as he was going to get and faced her, Allison pulled in her fangs and quickly measured the distance between her and the narrow exit.
    There was something about the bum… something just underneath the soiled clothing and skin… something that made her dead flesh crawl.
    "Y-you hungry?" he asked, staggering toward her. Another scent wafted over to her: Cheap wine and even cheaper sterno.
    This time her stomach took the hint and lay still.
    "N-no. Thanks. I just ate."
    "Yeah," he said, jerking his head toward the headless corpse and smiling. Three of his front teeth were missing — two up, one down. "I know."
    Allison's body took over even as her mind was still recoiling from the shock of having been seen. In less time than it once took her heart to beat, Allison had the man by the front of his ragged, sweat-brittle flannel shirt and three inches off the ground.
    "Anth wha are you goith't'do abouth ith?" she growled around fully extended fangs. "
Thith
!"
    "Hey… no, it's okay," he said calmly.
Too
calmly for a man suspended five inches off the ground by a reanimated corpse that sucks blood from the living. Maybe he'd been an agent before the street caught up with him. "You're new in town… aren't you?"
    He was trying to pick her up.
    Jesus!
    Allison let go and heard his jaw clink together as he landed. He didn't seem to notice.
    "But it's… okay," he said, stumbling toward the body. Halfway there he fell to his hands and knees
— and continued at a crawl. "I know what't'do. 'Kay? Just leave it all't' Big Mike. Big Mike'll do what needs't' be done. Just like the others."
    The others?
    Allison slowly began to move in on the hunched figure digging through the dead man's pants