Payback

Channeling Morpheus: Payback Jordan Castillo Price All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2008 Jordan Castillo Price

Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is

illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary

gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison

and a fine of $250,000.

ISBN: 978-1-60521-003-2

Formats Available:

HTML, Adobe PDF,

MobiPocket, Microsoft Reader

Publisher:

Changeling Press LLC

PO Box 1046

Martinsburg, WV 25402-1046

www.ChangelingPress.com

Editor: Margaret Riley

Cover Artist: Bryan Keller

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback Jordan Castillo Price The hunt is on… Pretty young men and women like Michael’s best friend, Scary Mary, are disappearing from underground goth clubs all over Detroit. Michael has been tracking buried newspaper articles and obscure medical reports for over two years, and he’s finally found the source of the problem. But he can’t exactly go to the cops and tell them his friend has been murdered by vampires. It’s his duty to start wiping out the scourge, so he’s posing as bait, and he’s got a bag of sharpened hickory stakes to do the job. Everything should go smoothly, given the amount of preparation that Michael’s put into the hunt. He’s got a practiced repertoire of come-hither looks and a full blister pack of the date rape drug, Rohypnol. But he didn’t count on Wild Bill showing up. Bold and sexy, Wild Bill’s the type of guy Michael would have liked to date… if he’d ever gotten the chance. Despite his best efforts, it seems there’s nothing Michael can do to shake Bill loose. Looks like they’re in for a wild, wild ride.

Chapter One I picked up my bag, or satchel, or whatever you want to call it, and checked it again -- even though I knew everything was still there. It had to be, because it’d been pressed against my foot, and if anyone had been rifling through it, I would have felt them doing it. Mallet? Check. Wooden stake -- hickory, of course? Check. Crucifix? Well, yeah. Like five of those. Rohypnol? Check. Holy water? Check. Eyeliner? Check. Yeah, eyeliner. It looks good on me. Scary Mary used to say that. She’d sworn up and down that I was one of those guys who could pull it off. My hand sank deep into the bag and brushed against the eyeliner. Or maybe it was a pen. I inched my fingers down the length of it and felt the tip. Damn. It was a pen. Maybe I could use it for touchup anyway if I sweated off all the eyeliner. Or else I’d have to find the vampire and lure him out of the club before it came to that. “Got a light?” I jumped. I wasn’t scared, though. Just startled. It was way too early for vampires, barely an hour past sunset. But I hadn’t realized there was anyone standing practically on top of me while I was digging through my bag. Or whatever you want to call it. “I don’t…” He was so hot he was practically incandescent. “I don’t smoke.” The guy who’d wanted the light was smiling. Still standing practically on top of me, too. Staring me right in the eye. You’d think that would be all. He asked for a light. I didn’t have one. And then he would move on. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe he’d just been looking for an excuse to talk.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

-6-

He slid himself onto the barstool beside mine. I did my best to look nonchalant. He was… amazing. Tall and lean, with ripped up jeans and spiked blond hair, earrings and a snake tattoo on his neck and chipped black nail polish. And he wanted to talk to me. Couldn’t I have run into him any other night? Like, a night that I didn’t already have a date with a vampire? “Got a name, Mister Lung Association?” he asked me. “Michael.” “Michael, Michael, Motorcycle.” He tucked his cigarette behind his ear and shook my hand. Well, more like he jammed his hand toward me, and I either had to shake it or be knocked off the barstool. “Wild Bill.” A hot guy who had the balls to call himself Wild Bill, straight faced no less, was hitting on me in a mostly-empty bar. My mind reeled. I hadn’t been putting on my approachable vibe. I saved that for the vampires. I’d been going through my bag, minding my own business. And here he was, with a cigarette tucked behind his ear, chatting me up. “Is your name really Bill?” I asked. “Is yours really Michael?” I rolled my eyes. He smiled wider, a weird, tight-lipped grin, and planted his elbow on the sticky bar top. “What’s with the purse?” “It’s not a… look, I’m meeting somebody, okay? Don’t you have anyone else to bother?” He shrugged and half-turned in his seat to spare a glance for the rest of the place. It’d be a cool enough club once it started to fill up, but right now there was only a scattering of people in it. A tight clique of girls in thick eyeliner and hair extensions dominated a pair of pushed-together tables beside the dance floor. A couple swayed together on the glowing tiles. They were so androgynous you could only tell the boy from the girl by the flat planes of his ass. Fog that smelled like cotton candy wafted

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

-7-

around their platform boots. And the remainder of the early crowd hugged the perimeter of the bar, backs to the wall, drinking warily. I pretty much looked like everyone else there. Black clothes and silver studs. Alone and staring. Except that I’d been staring into my bag instead of cruising. “I’ll keep you company, then,” Bill offered. “Until she… or he… shows up.” “He,” I said. Wild Bill’s smile curled the corner of his lips. Damn. If only there was some way, any way at all, I could ditch the vampire and take my chances with Wild Bill. But it’d taken me two whole years to track this vampire down and figure out where he’d been hunting. Two years’ worth of newspaper clippings, of coroners’ reports photocopied by bribable janitors, of buried articles printed out from the Internet, accessed through the library’s computers, that I’ve stared at until their letters slipped out of focus when my body forced me to rest my eyes. Maybe Wild Bill would take a rain check. But I kind of doubted it. Besides, after I left a smoking corpse in my wake, I’d have to get out of town. Fast. A thudding bass line that I almost recognized rattled my molars. I could feel it vibrating in my thighbones through the barstool, and along my ribs where I leaned against the bar. “I love this song,” said Wild Bill, his mouth against my ear. He didn’t stink of cigarettes, which was good. He smelled like citrusy hair paste and a well-worn leather jacket. “Wanna dance?” No. For so many reasons, no. I couldn’t lose my place at the bar. I’d come early to make sure I’d have the best possible view of the front door, the back door, the dance floor and the bathrooms. And no, because I had a leather satchel with fifteen pounds of vampire hunting gear in it. And finally, no, because it would feel too much like I had a hot boyfriend who liked to dance with me. That we went out together. Dancing. And we lived a normal life. Ideas best left alone, given my real plans for the evening.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

-8-

Wild Bill backed toward the dance floor, hands extended in my direction, fingers waggling in invitation. His chin was tucked down, and that grin, that tight-lipped grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes, cut right through me like a sharpened hickory stake. I’d have to blow him off by pretending I wasn’t into him. What else could I do? He backed to the edge of the lit-up tiles, stared at me for a few more beats, then shrugged and twirled onto the floor. Turns out I wasn’t the only one there who thought Wild Bill would look a lot better with those shredded jeans around his ankles. Most of the Eyeliner Club decided they had the sudden urge to dance once he’d hit the floor. A couple of guys peeled themselves off the wall to have an excuse to mingle with the Eyeliner Girls. It wasn’t a gay bar, mostly. But the goth crowd was omnivorous enough that it was anyone’s guess if the boys wanted to go home with the girls, or with each other. Now that sparse dance floor was full, with plenty of people to keep anyone from standing out too much, but few enough that everyone had elbow room. And there was Wild Bill, somewhere in the middle. The pale spikes of his hair bobbed above the crowd. Scary Mary would’ve given him a big thumbs up. I didn’t want to stare, but my eyes kept finding him, lighting on that flash of bleached blond. Eventually I stopped resisting. As long as I didn’t spend too long looking at him, my gaze could flick to the front door, the back door, the bathroom, and then find him again, spotting the guy I’d never have, every three seconds, after I’d scanned all the doors. “Refill?” called the bartender. I turned to look at her, five feet tall and enough metal in her face to throw off a pacemaker. She held the soda gun like she was one of Charlie’s Angels -- the brunette. I nodded and slid my glass toward her. I should be happy to get any attention at all, drinking plain seltzer. I paid her two bucks and tipped her one more. I wished I could give her a bigger tip, but any more than that would raise suspicions and make me memorable. I couldn’t afford to stand out to anyone -- except my date.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

-9-

The bartender turned and cranked out a couple of draft beers in plastic cups. I watched her move, and for a minute I imagined that she was Mary, underneath a few dozen facial piercings and a really weird eyebrow wax. But that was, of course, impossible, thanks to the vampires that’d fed off Mary’s lifeblood like a pack of hyenas. Hell of a way to lose your best friend. I’d always thought we’d grow apart after high school, or at least when each of us started dating seriously, especially if she ended up bagging a closet homophobe. But no. No slow drift for us. Mary had always done everything far more spectacularly than she needed to. But the bartender could’ve been Mary… a little thin, but Mary on a diet? Maybe. I could see Mary as a bartender, ogling boys in black lipstick and tucking tips into her purple lace bra. “Changed your mind?” I turned to fend off Wild Bill again. Mary might have thought he was lickable, but he just wasn’t in the cards for me. It wouldn’t take much, I figured. Another rebuff or two, and he’d move on to easier quarry. Except as I swung around to tell him to get lost, a bunch of details clicked into place: black hair, not blond, long leather duster, not a biker jacket, jeweled choker, not the snake tattoo, cynical smile, not… Not Wild Bill. Someone else. My heartbeat stopped, then started up again somewhere in my throat. “What?” I said. Brilliant. “Your drink.” He glanced down at my full glass of water. “You’re still watching the bartender. Did you want something… else?” What he’d meant seemed obvious enough, I know. His actual words had been too simple to even consider them in passing as a double entendre. Except I only had a tiny sliver of attention on what he was saying. Most of me was busy trying to take him in, all of him -- the way he moved, the way he spoke -- to see if maybe he was the one. My date.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 10 -

I tried not to stare. Nothing more tacky than being obvious. “No, I uh…” I trailed off awkwardly. I wasn’t willing to reduce Scary Mary to a half-sentence about “someone I knew once.” I shrugged. The black-haired guy stared at me, looked into my eyes. He was handsome, of course, with startling golden-green eyes and cheekbones to die for. His hair was more done up than my chin-length bob, long in front and spiked in back. Vamps are always slick, always handsome. And he didn’t seem too concerned about what was tacky, or what was obvious, or what was awkward. I felt a queasy flutter as he did his thing -just looking and looking and looking -- like my spine was reacting to him, sending weird signals to random spots in my nervous system. Holy crap, after all this time I find him… and me with absolutely nothing interesting to say. I wet my suddenly-dry lips and forced my shoulders to relax, my spine to sag. A half smile that I’d practiced for hours found its way onto my face, a mask of sultry indifference. His eyes found mine again. I hadn’t realized they’d ever looked away. But then I figured out why -- he’d been watching me wet my lips. “I’m Michael,” I said. And I made a mental note to practice small talk. Something. Anything. The library probably had a great wealth of information about that, just like everything else you could find there, if you were patient enough to sift through a billion other words. “Gray,” he said. “A pleasure.” His mouth molded the word pleasure like it was something dirty. But what was gray? Oh, right. His name. Of course. If he was my vampire -- and the way I’d suddenly dropped about a hundred IQ points and developed a pronounced throb in my crotch, I was guessing he was -- he wasn’t gonna have a name like Howard or George. I blinked and tilted my head to one side. My long hair slipped down over one eye, and I probably looked just like I’d practiced, waifish and goth in my eyeliner. At least I’d practiced something, and had a bedroom stare to paint over my real expression, which probably would’ve been something like a deer in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler hauling two dozen SUVs.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 11 -

“Cool song,” I forced out, even though I could hardly tell what it was. And I wanted to take it back, it sounded so pathetic. But I guess it was better than what I was actually thinking, which was if his skin was really as smooth as it looked, and would it be cold… or had he fed lately? And what would it taste like as I slid my tongue along that angular jaw, and down the cord of muscle at the side of his throat, trailing his collarbone to his chest, his nipple. And maybe I would’ve even wondered aloud where I got off letting one of his kind get me all wound up like that. After what happened to Mary. He would feel even better than I’d imagined. They all do. That’s how they manage to stay alive for so long. If they were as repulsive on the outside as they were on the inside, nature would’ve gotten Darwinian on ’em a long, long time ago. Evidently Gray didn’t think I sounded too stupid -- or maybe all of us did, once we’d been caught in his gravitational pull. And besides, I had my repertoire of sultry eyeliner glances to work with. Maybe I was actually ahead of the pack, lack of witty banter notwithstanding. I searched for something to look at, other than his eyes, because if I kept looking there, I’d be doomed before I even got started, reduced to a gibbering wreck. My gaze lit on the choker. It was a fancy silver charm with a big green gem set in it, dangling from a black velvet ribbon. “You like?” he said. I don’t think he was talking about the choker. But I nodded anyway. “It’s an antique. I’ve had it for years. The stone’s called a peridot. It’s the only gemstone that doesn’t come in any color but green.” A weird yellow-green that was just like his eyes. I had no doubt that’s the main reason he’d chosen it. Gray slid into the space between my barstool and the one Wild Bill had been sitting on. His thigh brushed mine, and that wouldn’t have happened unless he’d done it on purpose. He touched the side of my tall plastic cup and dragged his finger down, drawing a line in the condensation. “Just water?” he said. He could smell it from where he was standing.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 12 -

I thought about the Rohypnol in my bag. Totally odorless. So I’ve read. I shrugged. “Don’t like hangovers.” That was true enough. My mouth was as dry as if I’d just woken up after a keg party, and I wet my lips again. Gray’s eyes flickered down, watching my lips just like I’d stared at his necklace. I gritted my teeth and wished he would just get it over with and skip the whole pretense of seduction. If he wanted me, I was his. Obviously. Like any mere mortal would be, if he’d decided they were on the menu that night. I grabbed my glass and drank, and the cold, carbonated water felt like it glanced over my tongue without even wetting it. I was exponentially more nervous than I’d thought I would be. But anything to get myself to stop wetting my lips. Even though the lip thing seemed to lure Gray in way more easily than any of my practiced fuck-me eyes. “Buy you a drink?” I asked, wondering how I could possibly spike it in the club with him standing so close to me. He hadn’t been pressed against my thigh in even one of the rehearsals I’d gone through in my head. Gray smiled. I told myself it was a mocking smile, but it looked strangely sincere. Maybe he’d been practicing in front of a mirror, too, and had managed to strip some of the irony from the expressions that came naturally to him. If he even had a reflection. Sources differed on this. Gray put his hand on my plastic cup, fingers brushing mine, slippery with condensation. “I’ll just help you finish this one,” he said. Only he didn’t move to drink it. Not right away. He was too busy staring, staring, staring deep into my eyes. I let go of the cup reluctantly and he raised it, never taking his bright green eyes off me as he drank. I swallowed hard. It’d never occurred to me to drug my own drink. It was too late now, since he obviously wasn’t going to let me out of his sight, not even to blink. And since he’d drained my cup in one long pull. He leaned in close as he set the empty cup on the bar. “Let’s go somewhere we can… talk.”

Chapter Two This time there was an ironic twist to his smile. But nothing worse than I’d expect from any other guy I’d been exchanging lame pickup lines with. Gray slipped out from between the barstools and spread his arms in invitation. It was a campy gesture, but heck, so was everything that’d been leading up to it, including the bad banter and the quarter-inch-thick eyeliner. I slid off the barstool and followed, drawn to him like a sparrow getting sucked into a jet engine. We slipped through the crowd, all the pale-skinned boys and girls in black striped stockings, black hair dye and black leather who were starting to show up at the bar in clusters now rather than twos and threes. We slipped by a whole line of them waiting to get their ID checked. We were the only two going in the opposite direction, toward the crisp night air instead of the cotton candy fog. It felt surreal outside, my eardrums wooly from the loudness of the club, my back damp where my leather jacket was snug against my T-shirt. Gray fell into step beside me, same height, same build, a shade over six feet and rangy. We could almost be brothers. Except for the way we kept touching, the sleeve of my plain biker jacket against the side of his long black duster. My hip against his. “So tell me,” he said, his lips brushing my hair as he spoke low in my ear. The sound of his voice sizzled down my spine. “That bartender. You want her? I’ll get her for you.” The thought of my not-Mary, naked and vulnerable all over again, snapped me out of the haze of lust I was floating in. “Huh? Oh… no. No, not her. I’m not into girls. Not like that.” I walked faster, wishing that I couldn’t see from the corner of my eye that he was staring at me, not even needing to look where he was walking. “She

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 14 -

reminds me of someone,” I said, offering a silent apology to Mary’s memory. “That’s all.” “You sure?” said another voice just behind me, bold and brash in contrast to the velvety purr of Gray’s seductive murmurs. “ ’Cos it looks like we’re gonna overflow the bed anyway. Might as well get all the bang we can from our buck.” I squeezed my eyes shut for just a second, without breaking stride. I’d only heard that voice briefly, over the blare of Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy, but I recognized it anyway. Wild Bill. He rammed into my side like we were in a mosh pit and shoved me into Gray. He draped his arm around both of us at once, driving my bag of wooden stakes into my thigh, hard. The three of us ground to a halt in front of a rickety newsstand that was boarded up for the night. “Wild Bill,” he said, thrusting his left hand at Gray, body checking me in the process. Gray raised an eyebrow. “I’ll say.” He took Bill by the fingers, flipped his hand palm down, and grazed the back of Bill’s knuckles with his lips. Gray straightened back up. Bill cocked his head and considered him. “I had dibs on Michael,” said Bill. This was news to me. “But I might be willing to share.” They stared, stared, stared at each other for a minute that lasted an eternity. Gray poured on his vampire charm so thick it almost choked me, and I felt Bill tense against my side. Gray didn’t let go of Bill’s fingers. Bill didn’t seem to mind. He fit my thigh between his legs sideways and just kept on leaning in, crotch riding my hipbone, the safety pins through his worn leather jacket catching on the zipper tabs on mine. Like I could manage to hold him up, and me too, while Gray worked his hocus-pocus. Bill’s face crowded me from the left, Gray’s from the right, and the two of them were eyelocked in some kind of battle. At least they were enjoying it, judging by the fact that both of them were grinning. “You’re not quite as pretty as Michael,” said Gray, finally, “but you’ll do.”

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 15 -

Bill’s grin got even wider. “There’s more to me than meets the eye.” Bill gave a tug that yanked Gray forward and closed the gap between them. Between all of us. It was half three-way kiss, and half warm, wet drive-by shooting. Someone had a tongue stud -- Bill, I guessed. And it was over before I knew it, leaving me there swaying in my boots with my head spinning. Bill had already disengaged, walking backward up ahead of us with his eyebrows raised as if to say, “Well, what’re you waiting for?” and Gray had to give me a nudge in the right direction to keep me from keeling over on the spot. Gray slipped his arm around my waist to propel me forward. No more sly glances and covert brushing of hips. Wild Bill had escalated things to tongues. If we didn’t hurry, he might strip naked on the sidewalk. Despite what Gray had said, I thought Wild Bill was the hottest one of us all. Gray’s lips ruffled my hair. “Is your place nearby?” Well, of course it was, since I was a transient who only needed enough storage space for a single small suitcase and a bag of wooden stakes. I always thought the vampire would lure me back to his lair. I’d never imagined everything happening in that cheap pressboard motel room. But so many things were turning out nothing at all like I’d imagined. Bill let us catch up to him, then slipped a hand into the pocket of my leather jacket and pulled out my key. The plastic key fob had the motel name silk-screened on it in bright green paint. “Tidy Inn,” said Bill. “Just a hop, skip and a jump away.” He slipped his index finger into the keyring and twirled it in a circle as he started skipping along in his combat boots. “I can hardly wait.” “A motel?” said Gray, as Bill worked off excess energy by swinging around a lamppost like Gene Kelly. “I’m just passing through,” I said. Though I’d been there over a month, it was true enough. I’d be on the road again by sunrise.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 16 -

We rounded a corner and there it was, the Tidy Inn, in all its underwhelming, motel-ish glory. Flat roof. Rectangular pool, covered for the season. A white resin lawn chair beside every door. Bill bounded ahead to number twelve and fit the key in the lock. “Hi, honey, I’m home,” he called into the darkened room. Then he marched in like he owned the place. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the light. Gray and I crossed the threshold together. Either our conjoined entrance constituted me inviting him in, or that old vampire legend about vampires and invitations was a bunch of horseshit -- like most of them were, a load of crap concocted by hack writers and cabals of Hollywood producers. I flipped on the light, and let my bag fall against the nightstand. And I congratulated myself for at least keeping my head about me enough to remember to leave the stakes within reach. For a minute there, back at the bar, it’d felt like maybe I could fall so far into Gray that I’d forget everything I’d been rehearsing. Gray was still watching me, that hungry look in his eyes ten times as intense now that we were back in my room, no one to see but Bill. Wild Bill was my saving grace. He distracted me from Gray’s charms enough to let me come up for an occasional gulp of air. What remained to be seen was whether he’d haul me to shore and suck the sea out of my lungs, or if I’d end up drowning him, too. Bill went over to the TV and started flipping through the cable music channels. Wild Bill, in my room. I watched his ass as he leaned forward to read the screen and pick out a generic punk station. Gray stepped between me and the TV and slid his hands over my shoulders. I did my best not to wince as I forced myself to look at Gray again. A lot of his power was in his gaze. I don’t get the physics of it, but maybe if Einstein’d been locked in a room with a vampire, he would’ve come up with a theory that made at least as much sense as E=mc2. I couldn’t make myself meet Gray’s eyes, not quite, even though I

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 17 -

could tell by the tightness in my ribs that mutual eye contact wasn’t necessary for him to exercise his vampire look on me. All he had to do was stare. But then another pair of hands worked their way out from under Gray’s arms, nails dark with chipped black nail polish, and the sight of Wild Bill putting the moves on Gray was nearly enough to make me forget to breathe again. Ever. “You’ve got one sweet, tight bod on you,” said Bill, his light, bantery voice now gone serious and low. I gasped out loud, and Gray’s eyebrows rose. I could still feel him staring at me, even when I focused on the sight of Bill’s hands working their way into the front of Gray’s duster. “Is that what you like, Michael?” said Gray. “You like to watch?” That little part in me that’d been tracking the bastard for two years was screaming at me to keep up the illusion that everything was normal and say something sexy. But this other part of me -- a really annoying part that Bill had somehow managed to awaken at the club -- was insisting that I actually had no idea if I liked to watch. Or if I liked to be tied up. Or peed on. Or led around on a leash. Because when Scary Mary had been sucked dry, I was so young that the only thing I’d had a chance to figure out yet was that I liked boys. “You don’t have to bait him,” said Wild Bill, and Jesus Christ, he had a big handful of Gray’s hair in his fist. Bill dragged Gray’s head down to the side, exposing the long, pale line of his throat. “Michael will talk when he’s good and ready.” He made eye contact, smirked, then closed his eyes and ran his tongue up the side of Gray’s neck from choker to hairline. I swallowed. It had been Bill’s tongue stud that I’d felt at the newsstand. Gray’s throat was a bare, flawless curve. Behind him, Bill was somehow managing to make their leather coats squeak against each other by rubbing their bodies together in a way I couldn’t quite see -- but the sound of which was getting me hard. “Pretty necklace,” said Bill, and I had no idea how he could even rub two words together while he was licking a vampire. “You steal that from your Grandma?”

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 18 -

“It’s a peridot,” I said. My voice sounded weird, like I was in some kind of trance. “So Mikey does know how to talk after all!” said Bill. “Thanks for backing me up.” I was hard. No one had even touched me, and I was hard. Gray took my hand and raised it to his lips while Bill was busy making their leather squeak. His breath was warm against my palm, his tongue wet between my fingers. He felt like a regular guy. Oh, fuck. What if he wasn’t a vampire? Would that really be so bad? At least I could figure out what I liked. “Undress him,” said Bill, and I realized he was talking to me. About Gray. My hand went to Gray’s neck. It was wet with Bill’s spit along one side, and the necklace, the silver setting with the stone the same yellow-green as his eyes, was hot to the touch. “Leave that on,” said Bill. “It looks good on him.” My hands shook as I unbuttoned Gray’s duster while Bill whispered promises of ball licking into the hair at the nape of his neck. Bill pulled the heavy coat off Gray’s shoulders and it slipped to the floor. Gray’s back arched, and he managed to rub both of us at once, his shoulder blades pressing into Bill, his hips grinding against mine. I think maybe he was purring. Or if he wasn’t, he sure should have been. Three-ways. Yes. Evidently that was something I liked. Or would have, if I’d ever gotten the chance to explore my options. It was tempting to just pretend that dragging two hot men back to my bed was exactly what I was doing, and not trying to figure out a way to get rid of Bill temporarily, and get rid of Gray permanently. Maybe I could just pretend for a few minutes that the only thing happening was sex, while Gray was still a docile, purring creature. Before he turned into a man eater. But I didn’t know exactly when that would happen. So I couldn’t let my guard down.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 19 -

Gray dragged his fingertips up my stomach and chest, my hair, my cheeks, as he raised his arms overhead for Bill to strip off his plain black T-shirt from behind. I felt my breath catch as Gray’s clothes were peeled away, and it felt obscene to be so turned on by something so evil. He watched me as I stared at his bare chest. He was pale, but no whiter than I was. He easily passed for human. Gray stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers, spiderweb touches, then tangled his fingers in my hair, urging me forward to taste him. And if the three-way kiss on the street had been surreal, this was even weirder, because I was flashing back to the scene in Coppola’s Dracula where the Count sliced his own chest open so Mina could drink his blood. My mouth pressed into Gray’s skin. There was no blood. It was only my own pulse hammering into the back of my throat until I tasted iron. I felt Bill’s hand covering Gray’s. It pulled my head more firmly into Gray’s chest. I dragged my teeth over his skin, lower and lower until my lips brushed his nipple. Gray moaned. I think I felt him tremble. Crap. How was I ever gonna get rid of Bill now? Gray slipped his hand from my hair and took me by the shoulders, steering me back toward the bed. My knees buckled as soon as my legs touched the mattress, and I sprawled back on my elbows with my cock bulging against my jeans in high relief. Wild Bill’s jacket was so thickly studded with pins and chains that it hit the floor with a jingle, followed by a T-shirt too faded to read and a pair of combat boots yanked off in no time flat and kicked to either side of the room. In contrast to Bill, Gray seemed to be moving in slow motion. He bent over me and touched my face with a look of wonder in his peridot eyes, and stared at me as if he’d known me once, a long time ago, and maybe he could place me if he just racked his brain hard enough. His fingers weren’t cold. Wild Bill’s hand on my crotch brought me back to the present. Gray too, I think. Bill was grinding naked into Gray’s back, reaching around him to stroke both of us through our jeans. His fingers felt like they were everywhere, sliding down, between

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 20 -

my balls, and up to trace the shape of my shaft, intense even through the zipper fly. “The two of you planning on keeping your pants on all night?” Everything was moving too fast. What about talking? What about kissing? What about them turning their backs so I could make Gray a special cocktail that didn’t involve any actual cock? Bill backed up enough to let Gray undo his belt. I figured I should set up my drink before Gray got too busy to drink it. “I’m thirsty,” I said. I was still fully dressed. Gray stopped staring at me long enough to watch Bill prance over to the minibar naked. Bill had a Celtic wing design tattooed across his upper back, and it looked like he was ready to take flight as his shoulder blade rolled back when he opened the tiny refrigerator. “Ooh. Margaritas in a bottle. A sugar rush and a buzz all in one.” I should’ve been too preoccupied to notice his ass. But I wasn’t. I looked. Wild Bill had one sexy ass. “Get me a water,” I said. Because I knew Gray could drink water, and he liked sharing mine. All I needed was a chance to add a few little white pills. Technically, one tablet would make him mellow and dopey enough to subdue. But I could hardly force him to drink down the whole bottle without sounding like a total freak. A few sips would have to do. A toneless, rhythmic post-punk song came on and Bill swayed to the beat, rubbing the sweating plastic water bottle down his chest, over his sleek, muscled stomach, and up and down the inside of either thigh. The movement drew my eyes down to his pubes -- brownish, trimmed but not shaved, and of course his cock. Hard. Red. Brushing against the side of my water bottle. “Taking the chill off,” he said, flipping the bottle at me. I lurched to one side before it hit me between the eyes. Gray had to move to avoid getting beaned, too. He’d done it a little too quickly, blurring. Definitely not human. He tried to act like Wild Bill hadn’t just startled him. He made a big show out of unbuttoning his fly, arching his back, his gaze sliding from Bill to me. Bill grinned his

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 21 -

impish, tight-lipped grin and grabbed hold of his hard cock, pumping it in his fist while he watched Gray strip. I cracked the seal on my water and drank half of it down. I really was thirsty. Or maybe my mouth was just dry from the nerves that were brought on by the knowledge of what I was about to do. Gray pushed his tight jeans down over his hips. His cock stood at half-mast, thick and flushed. I wanted him to touch it, like Bill was touching his. I wanted to be watching the next time he moaned. “Suck it.”

Oh crap. That was me. I’d said that aloud.

Bill and Gray seemed game, though. Gray inched farther onto the bed and

shoved his jeans around his knees, while Bill took a few quick gulps out of his prepackaged margarita and then dove for the bed without letting go of the bottle. His other hand was still pumping his own cock, and he went for Gray with only his mouth. “Mmm, yeah.”

That was Gray. I did see him moan. And it was fucking incredible.

He had one hand on his cock, the other on Bill’s head. I’d almost say it was

threaded through Bill’s hair, but I don’t think anything could actually penetrate whatever it was that made Bill’s hair defy gravity. Gray handled Bill’s face as reverently as he had mine, tracing fingertips over Bill’s cheekbone, then feeling his way over the line of Bill’s brow. Bill wasn’t quite so delicate. He jammed his face onto Gray’s cock so hard he gagged a little. And he fisted his own cock faster while he did it. Wicked wet noises of a cock slamming into Bill’s throat filled the room. Gray’s eyelids fluttered shut. His breath hissed in. I caught a glimpse of fang.

Oh God.

I hopped out of the bed like I couldn’t wait to get my clothes off. I figured the

sounds of rustling leather and denim would cover the noise of me popping the tablets

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 22 -

out of their foil-backed blister pack. And if I positioned myself right, I’d just look like I was taking off my boots. The sounds Gray’s cock made in Bill’s mouth seemed even louder while my back was turned. Bill sucked Gray’s cock in deep, humming with the TV all the while, then pulled off with a big slurp. Tiny, wet sounds led me to imagine an intricate tongue dance, complete with stud dipping into the slit. I dropped three Rohypnol into my water, and shook it up as discreetly as I could while I yanked off my boots and jeans in one pull. I turned around and Bill stopped jerking himself off so that he could push up from the bed without letting go of his drink. “That’s right, pretty boy,” he told me. “Bring your naked self over here and join the party.” He shifted to one side so that Gray’s cock jutted directly between us. “How ’bout a little kiss?” said Bill. He even managed to smirk with a vampire’s cock pressed against his mouth. I leaned toward Bill, toward Gray’s spit-wet cock. I could have met Bill’s mouth where it was, our lips wrapping around the glans together, tongues teasing the underside of the slick head while we strained to kiss around it. But at the last minute, I turned. My lips brushed Bill’s earring. “Get out,” I said, so softly it was only a breath. I pulled back to see if Bill had understood me. His eyes were on mine as he flicked the ridge of Gray’s cockhead with his tongue stud. He shook his head once. No. Damn it. I wanted to strangle Bill, but I figured Gray would just get off on it. And given that Gray being a vampire was spoiling an otherwise perfectly awesome encounter, I’d be damned if he had a better time than I did. I leaned toward Gray’s cock. My bottom lip brushed the head. Bill’s breath was warm on my mouth. His tongue slipped under Gray’s cockhead and grazed my lower lip, quick and wet. Gray grabbed a handful of my hair, gasping. “Please,” he whispered, his voice fragile and small. “Please, please, please.”

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 23 -

I pressed hard, straining to taste Bill around Gray’s cock. Our lips met, sliding over the smoothness of it, and our tongues swiped at each other beneath it. Gray had my hair wrapped tight in his fist, and “oh please, yes, please…” had become a meaningless chant. I trusted the power coiled in his fist more than I believed the vulnerability in his begging. Bill struggled to position himself without letting Gray’s cock get away. Which was good, I guess, because if he left the blowjob to me, I’d have to bear the full brunt of Gray’s focus. Bill got a knee onto the bed, jostled me, and shoved Gray’s cock farther into my mouth by bumping it with his lips. Gray hissed. It didn’t sound quite human. Bill sighed, his breath tickling my wet mouth, and shoved his margarita into my hand so he could get himself situated. He wiggled the rest of the way onto the bed. And then he reached out and slipped his hand over my cock. It was my turn to gasp. “Fuck, yeah,” he said around the tip of Gray’s cock. Gray’s fingers tightened in my hair. If I didn’t stake him soon, I’d have a bald patch to show for my troubles. I had to get him to drink the water. But Gray let go of my hair the moment I moved to sit up. Wild Bill just pumped my cock even harder. All I wanted was to get Gray to take a drink. I decided to give him an example. I wouldn’t get drunk from just a sip of margarita, would I? I tipped it back. Damn, it was good. Sweet, like candy. I held it up as if I was drinking deeply, but I only had a couple of swallows. Wild Bill’s thumb slipped over my piss slit, and I nearly choked. “C’mon, Michael. Booze and dick. They were made for each other.” He pulled on my cock like he could steer me with it while he made an elaborate show of licking Gray’s hard-on from base to tip. “My mouth is dry,” I said, stealing another sip of the margarita, hoping that I could make Gray develop a case of dry mouth with my spiked water right next to his elbow.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 24 -

“Know what really makes my mouth dry?” said Bill. “Breathing hard.” He sucked the head of Gray’s cock into his mouth and his cheeks flexed, like he was performing a secret move with his tongue in there that I wasn’t privileged enough to see. Gray hissed again. Bill slurped his way back off Gray’s cock so he could keep chatting. “Good thing the sight of a hot, hard dick makes my mouth water, or I’d have to bring a gallon of water to bed with me.” He thumbed my slit again, and I shuddered. Did he know what I was trying to do? Could he be helping me? “What makes you breathe hard?” I asked him. He swallowed Gray’s cock down and glided back off it, slow and wet. “Pretty dark-haired boys,” he said, smirking as if it were a private joke.

Chapter Three “Enough talking,” gasped Gray. His voice was so low and rough that he sounded like a growling animal. “Ride my cock.” Wild Bill sat up on his knees and wrapped his fingers around Gray’s, and they stroked Gray’s hard cock together. “Got any condoms?” Bill asked me. Before I could even answer, he leaned across Gray and stuck a hand in my vampire-hunting bag. “No, not there,” I said. “In my jacket.” He ignored me and pulled out the Rohypnol. Jesus Christ. “Allergies?” he asked. What? Oh. He was covering for me. I tried to will my heart to beat again. “Uh… yeah.” “No wonder your mouth is so dry. Antihistamines’ll do that to you.” He rattled the blister pack at Gray, who was stroking himself lazily with their intertwined fingers, and also watching Bill much more closely than he was letting on. “Want one?” said Bill. “They say antihistamines make you come harder.” “I’m sure performance enhancing drugs won’t be necessary.” Gray let go of Bill’s hand and peeled his tight jeans the rest of the way off while Bill pawed through my jacket. No question in my mind that Bill was on to me. But was he on my side? Or was it all fun and games? Hard to tell, since Gray wrapped himself around me as soon as he’d stripped down, cutting off my view of Wild Bill and filling my whole world with his peridot eyes. He lowered me onto my side and pressed his mouth against mine, parting my lips with his tongue. It seemed like one of us should close our eyes if we were kissing, but Gray was too busy watching me, and I was too scared to stop looking.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 26 -

I kept my tonguing shallow, worried that I’d feel the overwhelming need to verify his fangs with direct contact. I’d seen the fangs. And I’d seen Gray blur when he moved. I didn’t need any more proof. Gray held me against him, hands restless on my back. He traced every muscle, working his way lower and lower until he cupped my ass, drawing my crotch against his, our hard cocks brushing. My breath hitched, his too, and his fingertips moved deeper, brushing my asshole with the same tentative fascination he’d used when he touched the rest of me. “I want you too,” he said against my mouth, and I had no idea how he could stand to talk while he was staring at me like that. “I want you both.” “We’ve got all night,” I said, hoping it would all be over soon. I tried to force my ass not to clench at the feel of his fingertip. It seemed to have more sense than my cock where Gray was concerned. The sound of a condom wrapper tearing open crinkled over the fadeout of a song. I wondered how it’d gotten to the point where condoms were necessary. I wasn’t supposed to be naked. Gray should’ve been dead by now. And Wild Bill should be back at the club, flirting with the Eyeliner Brigade. Bill handed off the unwrapped condom and Gray turned onto his back to roll it on. I moved to get up, but Bill pressed my shoulder. “Stay there,” he said. “I’ll blow you while he fucks me.” How matter of fact. How crude. How crazy fucking sexy. “I’m thirsty,” I said. Bill rolled his eyes and shoved the margarita into my hand, the water into Gray’s. “There,” he said. “Drinks all around. Unless someone wants a beer. There’s beer.” “This is fine,” I said, taking another sip. Sweet and tart and tequila. Maybe it’d wash away the seductive taste of vampire. I did my best not to stare as Gray tipped back the water bottle and drained it. I had to bite my lip to keep myself from cheering. I had another sip of margarita. The

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 27 -

three pills in the water were enough to knock out King Kong. All we’d need to do was keep Gray busy until they took effect. “Drink up,” said Bill. “There’s more in the minibar.” Gray slinked off the bed and ran his hand over Bill from hip to shoulder, sizing him up like chattel. Bill nudged my knees apart and stepped between my legs, stroking my thighs, my hipbones, my cock with long sweeps of his palms. I reached over the side of the bed and set the half-empty margarita on the floor. Bill shoved me closer to the edge, so that he could just lean over the bed with his ass in the air and my cock would be right there for the sucking. “You get to watch me getting fucked,” he said. “Lucky you.” I had no idea if he was serious, or messing with me. He looked serious. But he’d seen the stakes. What was going through his head? He had his lips wrapped around my cockhead before I could wonder about it too long. His tongue stud was hard, smooth pressure against the underside of my cock. “Bill,” I said, touching the side of his crunchy hair, but I had no idea what it was I wanted to tell him, not with Gray standing over us, staring at us like we were a smorgasbord. He placed one hand on Bill’s lower back, held his cock with the other. I didn’t see him shove it in, not exactly. From my angle on the bed, all that I could see was Bill’s face, eyes closed, mouth running up and down my cock. Then there was the curve of his back, the tattooed wings, and above that, Gray’s sleek, pale body, stomach muscles flexing as he pressed himself in. Bill grunted. I felt the sound vibrate over my cock. There would’ve been a lot bigger noise if anyone pushed into me with nothing but the lube that came with the condom. But I was guessing I wasn’t exactly the most experienced person in the room. Gray made a long, low noise deep in his throat. His head fell back, yet another pale, long-necked pose, and the peridot charm winked from the hollow of his throat on its black velvet ribbon. He just held himself inside Bill, fingers digging into Bill’s hips. “I’m glad you came here,” he said. Bill replied with something like, “Nngg.” His mouth was still full of my cock.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 28 -

“You can’t imagine how you look, the two of you together,” he said, pulling out, easing back in. “Oh, Michael. I want to watch you fuck him. I want to fuck you. I want to come in your mouth. I want both of you to come on me…” His voice went almost singsong and his eyelids fluttered shut. His abdominal muscles flexed as he worked his hips, his cock deep, deep inside Bill. “Come on my face, come in my hair. Kiss on my cock… yes, do that again, later. That was incredible…” Bill grabbed hold of my nut sac and started stroking between my balls with his thumb. I tried to push his hand away. I needed to keep my eyes open, and I was positive that if I came, Gray would use the half-second when my eyelids fluttered shut to vamp out. All I had to do was keep my eyes open until the drugs hit Gray’s system. Fifteen, twenty minutes. Half hour, tops. Bill pulled his mouth off my cock and dove into my balls tongue first. Damn. Keeping my eyes open wouldn’t be easy. And Gray was still talking up a storm. “Mm, yeah, baby. That’s right. Suck those balls. Oh, fuck -- tight, tight ass…” The sound of Gray’s hips slapping into Bill’s ass seemed insanely loud, until Bill gave my balls a good slurp, and that noise was even louder. A moan, then… and oh God, that was me. I forced my eyes open. I didn’t remember closing them. “Please, please, please…” That whispery begging again. As if we had anything more to give him and we were holding out, as if he wasn’t buried down to the root and pounding away, deep and hard. I shivered, and Bill’s tongue slipped under my balls to tickle the skin behind them. I did my best not to squirm, and he rewarded me by grabbing my cock, a sure grip, gliding up and down. Bill tilted his head and pressed his face in deeper. I tried to push away -- it seemed too intimate. Something I should save for that boyfriend I’d never have. But Bill grabbed me by the hips and dragged me against him, while one of Gray’s thrusts shoved him forward at just the right moment.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 29 -

His tongue swiped over my ass, slippery and wet and terribly agile. “Please, please, please,” Gray whispered, thrusting hard. Could vampires come? I had always thought they couldn’t, not by fucking. That they got off from drinking blood instead. But here he was, wearing a condom as if he were just a regular guy, and looking for all the world like he was going to shoot his load any minute. I forced my eyes open -- they’d shut again, damn it -- and Gray’s long bangs were stuck to his forehead and cheek, his head lolling back, glimpses of fang peeking under his top lip, whole body tense while he lost himself in Bill’s ass. The peridot charm tapped him in the throat with each thrust. I told myself that he could easily lunge forward and feed in less than a second once he’d gotten tired of chasing his orgasm the conventional way. I had a hard time picturing it, though. Gray was too pretty to be a monster -- at least, that’s what my body was telling me, soaking in the sight of him while Wild Bill pointed his tongue and eased it straight up my ass. My back arched off the bed, and I grabbed something -- his hair, his spiky hair as stiff as broom bristles, and my hips thrust and thrust and thrust as Bill fucked me with his wicked tongue. Everything on me tensed -- my arms, my belly, even my asshole. And then, bam. “Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God,” Gray moaned. Well, it was a change from “please.” I opened my eyes -- yeah, they’d shut again while I was geysering come into Bill’s prickly hair -- only to find Gray gone stiff all over, lips peeled back to flash major fang. He twitched, and his breath forced its way through clenched teeth. Another twitch, and his shoulders sagged. He exhaled slowly. That thing about vampires not coming? Urban legend, evidently. Bill crawled up my body, his tongue sliding from my hip to my nipple and over my neck, hiding Gray’s post-orgasmic shudders from me. I pressed my mouth to his ear. “Be careful,” I said. It hardly seemed like enough. Like there weren’t words I could use that didn’t sound like a cheesy seventies horror flick. “He’s dangerous.”

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 30 -

Bill replied by grabbing me by the jaw, turning my head, and forcing his tongue into my ear. Another hand stroked my side, feathery Gray-touches, and I felt around and found him pressed into Wild Bill’s back, the three of us sprawled sideways on the motel bed. Bill and Gray both faced me, both ran their hands up and down my side. It lulled me, that feeling of hands, and I knew it was crazy to feel secure in any way, but somehow I did. I’d never been one to roll over and fall asleep right after I shot my load, but somehow all the kisses and the stroking were making me drowsy. “Don’t drift off on me,” said Bill. “I haven’t come yet, and I’m stiff enough to stab someone.” My eyes snapped open. Bill was grinning, lips tight, corners of his mouth curled up. “Roll onto your back,” Gray told Bill in a quiet, satiated voice. “We’ll make you come.” Wild Bill held my gaze for just a moment before he shouldered Gray away enough to let him turn over, and he tucked his hands behind his head. Yeah, he was as hard as he’d claimed to be. But that comment about stabbing someone -- what was that about? He knew what I was up to. He had to know. And still, he wouldn’t leave. Was Bill really that into me, or had he tagged along for another reason entirely? Maybe I wasn’t the only Van Helsing in town. Gray reached across Wild Bill’s chest and stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers. His green eyes were sexy and heavy-lidded. He didn’t wear eyeliner. He didn’t need any. His thick, black eyelashes were dark enough to frame his eyes like kohl. He gave me a half-smile, flashing fang on one side, and pulled me into a kiss over Bill’s chest that was just the barest hint of our lips brushing. His tongue trailed across my lower lip, then his sigh played over the moistness it left behind. Gray guided my hand to Bill’s hard cock. It was bigger than either of ours, and thick, too. It felt weird to notice that, Bill being my not-boyfriend and all. I stroked Bill’s

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 31 -

cock while Gray toyed with his balls, and both of us rested our cheeks on his chest while we sucked on his nipples. This must’ve been how it was for Scary Mary. A tangle of bare limbs, wet tongues and stiff, flushed, spit-wetted nipples. She’d had three vampires to tangle with. I had only one. Wild Bill was there to help me, too. I could do it. Bill slung his arms around our shoulders. “Go ahead. Do it hard. I won’t break.” Oh. Right. I’d started getting caught up in my head and losing myself. I focused on Bill by bearing down on the skin around his nipple with my teeth and jerking him off harder. He sighed and arched his back, flexing his hips so that his cock encouraged my hand. Gray left off sucking and stroking Bill and watched me play with him, the antique charm resting beside Bill’s nipple, Gray’s peridot eyes gone dreamy. “Was it always this tiring?” said Gray. I thought he must be talking to me. He was looking at me, after all. But I had Bill’s nipple in my mouth, and Bill answered first. “You tell me.” “I don’t usually…” Gray sighed. “I thought we could do more. Pass him back and forth. Sample everything. But it’s taken so much out of me.” My lips had slackened on Bill’s nipple. My drool rolled down the side of his chest. “C’mon, Mikey. Don’t leave me flapping in the breeze. Get busy.” I realized I’d stopped stroking his cock again. My hand just rested there on top of it, limp and useless. It seemed like so much effort to grasp him. It was much easier to just lie there. “And you…” said Gray. “You… I fucked your ass. So tight.” Now Gray’s voice sounded funny. Drunk. Wild Bill sat up. I rolled onto my back, arms splayed on the bed. The popcorntextured ceiling spun. “Up you go, Michael,” he said. He stacked a couple of pillows and then lifted me by the armpits and propped me against them. “I think you do like to watch.” Gray was sprawled on his back, his half-open eyes staring up at the ceiling.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 32 -

“I thought I’d use you like a baggie full of Crisco,” Bill said to Gray, who didn’t seem to be hearing him. “But then you were such a gentleman, wearing that condom for me and everything, that I’ll look like a jerk if I do.” He crossed his arms and looked at me. “What do you think? Should I fuck you, or stake him? I think I’d get off either way.” Was he kidding? He didn’t look like he was kidding. He’d been all smiles back at the bar. I missed that. I wanted to see him smile again. Bill picked up Gray and dumped him right beside me. Gray’s head lolled over the edge of the mattress. “No comment, huh?” He brushed my long hair out of my eyes, lifted my drooping eyelid with his thumb. “I’d better play it safe, then. I could ride that sweet ass of yours for hours, but you’re already halfway down the road to the nuthouse. You know that, Mikey, don’t you? You’d almost be a good vamp-hunting wingman, the way you wear your heart on your sleeve. Pain, longing, loneliness… especially loneliness. Vamps feed off that just as much as blood. We can see it shining in the darkness. It calls to us. You’re like one of those backyard bug zappers. Irresistible.” Something tapped my cheek. And again. I focused on Bill. He crouched over Gray and me on the bed, and he’d just slapped me. He had a stake in his hand. “I’m not in this for the long haul,” said Bill. “I only had one vamp on my shit list. This one.” He reached out with his free hand and grasped the peridot charm. He gave a tug and the black velvet ribbon snapped. “He uses that stupid fucking line about the jewel and its color every single time. Went by the name of Ambrose the first time we met. Different hair. Different clothes -- it was the late eighties, so the hair was bigger, the pants were skinnier, and everyone smelled like patchouli. But the necklace? That stayed the same. Good thing. I might not have recognized him without it. Your memory plays tricks on you when you turn into a blood-sucking monster.” I felt something cool against my palm and forced my eyes to focus on it. Wild Bill had pressed a hickory stake into my hand. He twined his fingers through mine and we held the stake together.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 33 -

“He doesn’t even remember me. Insulting, huh? Sure, I got some new ink since the last time we tangled, but still. I had to quit my day job, all because of him. He should at least have the decency to remember my face. “He must’ve thought I was dead. He sucks ’em all dry and then snaps their necks -- but you know the way he operates, Little Bug Zapper, don’t you? He must’ve just done a chiropractic maneuver on me instead, because he didn’t finish me off, after all.” “Hhhh…” I tried to make a word. I couldn’t. “Did you know that roofies would channel Morpheus for a vampire, send ’em spinning off into dreamland, or was it beginner’s luck?” His hand squeezed mine around the stake. It felt as intimate as kissing him around Gray’s cockhead. “Not just luck, I guess. There’s talent involved, too. You’re a natural.” Wild Bill smiled at me, showing his teeth. Fangs. My jizz gleamed in the blond spikes of his hair. He bowed his head and kissed the pulse point at the inside of my wrist, and then guided the stake to Gray’s belly, just under his ribs, angled up. “Don’t worry about the mallet. You don’t need it. I’ll help you give the stake that extra push.” I thought it wouldn’t happen at first. The stake was sharp, as sharp as wood can be, but Gray seemed too solid to pierce. More pressure from Bill’s hand, and then we were in. The stake slid through Gray’s body. I felt it sink into his heart. I’d expected more of a reaction from him, screams and tremors, possibly even smoke and flames. But Gray just sighed and went still. His half-open peridot eyes stared at a blank spot on the wall. Bill stopped holding onto my hand and it fell against Gray’s stomach. Gray’s skin had turned cold. The popcorn ceiling swam into view, and then Wild Bill’s face. “I wish you could talk,” he said. “I’m tempted to keep you. Oh, I’d be sorry in the end, but you have no idea, all the dirty things I wanna do to you. With you awake to enjoy them, of course.” Bill pressed his lips to mine. The tongue stud grazed my lower lip. “Even if you weren’t zonked out on roofies,” he whispered, “whatever you said still wouldn’t count

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 34 -

as an actual agreement. I’d always vamp you, just by looking at you. I’d never know if you were into me for real.” Wild Bill needed to stop talking. His mouth was made for kissing… and other things. I tried to demonstrate the proper use of his mouth to him, but even at a scant quarter inch away, it was simply too far for me to reach. My eyes rolled up. The ceiling seemed much darker than it had a moment ago. Black around the edges. And the edges crept closer and closer, closing in, until finally my whole world was black.

Epilogue I woke up at the Greyhound station in Cleveland with an evil taste in my mouth and my satchel full of stakes wedged between my back and the molded fiberglass chair. My single small suitcase was on the floor behind my feet. I patted down my leather jacket and found my wallet in the interior breast pocket. I never keep my wallet there. I flipped through it. My ID was upside down, but nothing was missing. I thumbed through one more time to see if Wild Bill had left me anything, even a three-word note scrawled on a Tidy Inn matchbook cover, but no such luck. I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. I’d found the vampire, and now he was dead. I should be happy. But instead I only had more questions. I’d been working under the assumption that all vampires were evil. But now I had to wonder if maybe that wasn’t necessarily the case. Wild Bill hadn’t bitten me. And he hadn’t left me passed out in the hotel room with Gray’s body, either. That would mean that vampires could choose whether or not they went around acting like jerks and killing people. I think that made what happened to Mary even worse. Gray, or Ambrose, or whatever his real name was, had been a killer. But what if he hadn’t been? I probably would’ve staked him anyway, without even realizing that I’d need to be sure I was taking out one of the bad guys. Still, there was a safety valve. The vamps who didn’t kill wouldn’t leave body trails for me to piece together in the first place. There was a vending machine along the far wall, and I stood carefully, testing my feet. I was wobbly, but I could walk. I shuffled over to the machine and located the bottled water. Three bucks apiece -- highway robbery. But my tongue felt like it was wrapped in an old sock, so it’d be worth it. I fed a five into the slot and watched the corkscrew drink holder spin until my water inched forward and clunked into the chute.

Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

- 36 -

As I bent to pick it up, I realized I could see my reflection in the vending machine glass. Something caught my eye, and I reached up to touch it. The peridot charm hovered over the hollow of my throat on a black velvet ribbon. Wild Bill. I’d been doing my best not to dwell on him, since he hadn’t given me so much as a cell phone number. Why’d he have to go and leave me a souvenir? Especially after that speech about how he wanted to keep me. Damn him. I told myself he was a vampire. I told myself I didn’t even know what city he was in by now. But even though I kept telling myself that, what I mostly remembered was that Bill’s mouth had felt amazing. Bill hadn’t left me much to go on, but at least I had a name, more or less. That was more of a lead than I’d had with Gray. I had a face, too. Gray might have forgotten what Bill looked like, but there was zero chance of that happening with me. First thing in the morning, last thing at night, and practically every other waking moment between, I’d be thinking about Wild Bill, his battered leather jacket, his tattoos, his strange, mocking smile. His eyes. And so I set myself up on the Internet at a small, neighborhood branch of the Cleveland Public Library and started casting my net for Bill. Scary Mary would’ve thought Wild Bill was hot, and she would’ve told me to go for it. I know she would have.

Jordan Castillo Price Jordan grew up in the steel mill warrens of Buffalo, NY, spent some formative drinking years in Chicago, and migrated north to small-town rural Wisconsin once she realized she was going to kill the next person who bumped into her with a shopping cart. She did a six-year stint in art school and played bass in a punk band that crashed and burned just before their first CD was pressed. At least she got a cool boyfriend out of the deal, since she ran off with the drummer. Jordan has a weekly show on erotica writing tips and techniques at www.packingheat.net. She suspects some of her listeners aren’t much interested in writing, and just tune in to hear her say naughty words. Readers interested in freebies, snippets, and peeks into the writing process should check out JCP News, a monthly newsletter where Jordan posts links to free eBooks and serialized M/M stories. Visit www.jordancastilloprice.com to sign up.