Paint It Black by Nancy A. Collins Read Free Book Online Page A

Me.

    Kitty.

    Judd woke up at two in the afternoon, as usual. He worked six to midnight four days a week and had long since shifted over to a nocturnal lifestyle. After he got off work he normally headed down to the Quarter to chill with his buddies or, more recently, hang out with Sonja until four or five in the morning.

    He yawned as he dumped a couple of heaping scoops of Guatemalan into the hopper of his Mr Coffee machine.
    Sonja. Now there was a weird chick. Weird, but not in a schizzy, death-obsessed, art-school freshman way like Kitty.
    Her strangeness issued from something far deeper than bourgeois neurosis. Sonja was genuinely out there, wherever that might be. Something about the way she moved, the way she

    Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer ( http://www.novapdf.com ) handled herself, suggested she was plugged into something Real. And as frustrating as her fits of mood might be, he could not bring himself to turn his back on her and walk away.

    Still, it bothered him that none of his friends - not even Arlo, whom he'd known since high school - liked her. In fact, some even seemed to be scared of her. Funny. How could anyone be frightened of Sonja?

    As he shuffled in the direction of the bathroom, he noticed an envelope shoved under his front door. He retrieved it, scowling at the all-too-familiar handwriting.

    Kitty.

    Probably another one of her damn fool love letters, alternately threatening him With castration and begging him to take her back. Lately she'd taken to leaving rambling, wigged-out messages on his answering machine, ranting about Sonja being some kind of vampire out to steal his soul. Crazy bitch.
    Sonja was crazy, too, but hardly predictable.

    Judd tossed the envelope, unopened, into the trash can and staggered off to take a shower.

    I greet the night from atop the roof of the warehouse where I make my nest. I stretch my arms wide as if to embrace the rising moon, listening with half an ear to the sound of the baying dogs along the riverbanks. Some, I know; are not dogs.

    But the vargr are not my concern. I've tangled with a few over the years, but I prefer hunting my own kind. I find it vastly more satisfying.

    The warehouse's exterior fire escape is badly rusted and groans noisily with the slightest movement, so I avoid it altogether.
    I crawl headfirst down the side of the building, moving like a lizard on a garden wall. Once I reach the bottom I routinely pat-check my jacket and pockets to make sure nothing has fallen out during my descent.

    There is a sudden hissing sound in my head, as if someone has abruptly pumped up the volume on a radio tuned to a dead channel, and something heavy catches me between the shoulder blades, lifting me off my feet and knocking me into a row of garbage cans. I barely have time to roll out of the way before
    something big and silvery smashes down where my head was a second before. I cough and black blood flies from my lips; a rib has broken off and pierced my lungs-again.

    Kitty stands over me, clutching a three-foot-long silver crucifix like a baseball bat. Although her madness gives her strength,

    Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer ( http://www.novapdf.com ) it is obvious the damn thing is still heavy. I wonder which church she managed to steal it from.

    The dead-channel crackling in my head grows louder. It is the sound of homicidal rage. Shrieking incoherently, Kitty swings at me a third time. While crosses and crucifixes have no effect on me - or on any vampire, for that matter - if Kitty succeeds in landing a lucky blow and snaps my spine or cracks open my skull, I'm dead no matter what.

    I roll clear and get to my feet in one swift, fluid motion. Kitty swings at me again, but this time I step inside her reach and grab the crucifix, wresting it from her. The crucifix is at least three inches thick, the cross beams as wide as a man's hand. At its center hangs a miniature Christ