Melissa MacNeal - Beyond Redemption

Had Alex Moore been erased from their memories when the orphanage disappeared? Would the magistrate recall who I was? Pandora should've given me more details before she left! But she probably knew I could only handle a few adjustments at a time, now that I'd witnessed the magnitude of her vampire magic.

Just after dusk I stepped out for a breath of air. The wind had died down, and Redemption had settled into its evening routine with the closing of its shops. Since I couldn't go home to eat, and no restaurants served an evening meal, I considered my options as I walked along. I could invite myself to dinner with friends, but I wasn't ready to explain my situation. And what if they didn't remember me?

As I came to Redemption Cemetery, something drew me toward the mortuary- some morbid sense that answers awaited me there. Lord, how I hoped I wouldn't find Billy laid out on that table, pale and lifeless…with puncture marks like Lucy Legg's!

The memory of Miranda Dammet's embalmed body, naked except for those galoshes, should've steered me clear of the undertaker's lair. The wind whipped my overcoat-another sign I shouldn't rush in where the quick and the dead parted ways. Yet the glimmer of light in the cellar window drew me like that proverbial moth.

I licked my lips nervously. I told myself I could ask Nat Dammet if he'd seen or heard anything unusual of late-just making polite conversation- One peek, and I forgot about conversation. What I saw in the mortician's work room was anything but polite.

Muted notes from a Victrola reached my ears, to accompany some very strange dancing. I could've gone the rest of my life without seeing the sheriff's hairy, buck-naked bulk-but to watch Virgil Furmeister swaying in the arms of the equally bare magistrate nearly turned my stomach.

Yet there they were, fuzzy bellies rubbing, fleshy thighs brushing on the downbeat of each measure as they waltzed around the mortician's work table. Dammet sat on the dais with that abomination who was once his mother, his fingers drumming against her buckles. He, too, was nude-quite a nice specimen, compared to the other two-and he was fondling that blunt nub his mama's knife had left him. When his glance went between their legs mine followed, but I looked quickly away. Those old goats sported ramrod peckers! I sensed they'd soon be at each other-and that this wasn't their first time.

Then a flicker of pink caught my eye, and I bit back a laugh. There in the dimness, where Dammet prepared the dead, a very lively vampire appeared-but only in her spirit guise. She straddled the sheriff's head, lifting her little-girl dress of pink gingham to tease Judge Legg with a look at her pussy. When she slid lower, Harry moved in to kiss her slit-and instead planted a hot one on Virgil's lips. Virgil, who appeared as entranced as the magistrate, kissed back-probably thinking he, too, was sampling the girlish vampire's assets.

Miss Pink switched quickly from one male face to the other, so fast they couldn't follow her. Her lips formed alluring words, while her lithe body undulated with the music. These men were marionettes on Pink's strings, because both old fools believed whatever she'd told them. They deserved to be dancing with each other on this cold winter night while the undertaker looked on.

I slipped through the door and closed it quietly behind me. Dammit, I had matters to discuss with the judge! And maybe I could plead my case more easily because I'd caught him in this compromising position. He and Furmeister were still kissing, but Nat Dammet spared me a glance.

"Well, well, Counselor-what brings you out on such a frigid night?" His gaze went up and down my overcoat. "I've often admired your taste in clothes and wondered if the man beneath them would have the same…taste. So to speak."

"You'll never know," came my tight reply. "Rumor has it you do unthinkable things to people who…get laid on your table, and I didn't come here to find out."

Dammet's hand stilled on his impish dick. "That, Mr. Moore, is slander. I'll see you in court if you think-"

"I think it's a pretty fair call," I asserted, my voice rising to catch the attention of the others. "I have it from a reliable source that you were screwing Lucy Legg while you prepared her body for the funeral. This same person said Lucy's neck had been broken-"

The magistrate's head swiveled away from Pink's pert little breasts.

"-and saw two very suspicious puncture wounds, perhaps made by a vampire."

Everyone froze. The candlelit sanctum got deadly quiet. Miss Pink's eyes flashed her anger-and I had to admit my enthusiasm had run amok. But then she relaxed; saw the potential for having more fun at everyone else's expense. For who would find her guilty of being a vampire and live to tell about it?

She separated the two old buzzards by climbing into the judge's arms as though it were her favorite cradle. Then she winked at me. "Proceed, Andrea," she mouthed. Gleefully anticipating how this scene would play out, Miss Pink released us all from our suspended animation.

"That does it, Moore. You're stark raving mad if you believe in vampires," Judge Legg blurted. "My dear Lucy was brutally murdered by Billy Tripplehorn, whom you then whisked out of town. That's aiding and abetting, Mr. Moore! Makes your client appear more guilty, and implicates you, as well. I'm taking you off this case!"

"Fine-because you can't try Billy for murder! Here's the proof that you falsified his confession!" I replied, pulling the two papers from my pocket. "Miss Lucy tried to trap Tripplehorn into marrying her, because she was carrying YOUR baby and saw no other way out! And when Billy escaped with me, you didn't want your dirty little secret revealed. So you wrung her neck!"

The magistrate's face went crimson, like he might keel over, while Virgil and Nat got wide-eyed and quiet. So Pink whipped things up a notch.

"I think we need a reenactment!" she crowed, materializing into a solid, sprightly little girl who jumped down from the judge's arms. "Let's pretend this table is the church-and Virgil, you can play Billy. Nat, you stay put. You and your mama can tell us if this whole nasty affair really happened."

The mortician looked peeved about being a mere witness, but when the vampire lifted her pink gingham skirts, pulled down her matching panties, and wagged her ass at the deputy, Nat Dammet's gaze became as steady as his mama's. Harold Legg stood apart, as though caught in Pink's web: I suspected all of them had been in her sway since before I'd arrived, for they now seemed oblivious to my presence…willing to perform at the wiggle of her finger.

"The way I heard it, Lucy lured Billy Tripplehorn into taking her from behind-in the alley between the church and the courthouse!" the vampire began in her little-girl voice. "And he got so excited, there in front of God and everybody, that his big ole dick lifted her off the ground! Show us how it happened, Virgil. You saw it, same as I did!"

The deputy's enthusiasm made up for his lack of acting ability: like a ram in rut he plowed into Miss Pink. While I knew the wily vampire was floating of her own accord, her impassioned whimpers made it seem realistic. As the toes of her patent leather shoes left the floor, Judge Legg stiffened in more ways than one.

"Oh Billy, Billy, please fuck me!" Pink mewed, grasping the table leg so she could pump backwards. "It's nearly five, and if Daddy sees us-"

On impulse, Nat Dammet grabbed the lid from a nearby brass canister and banged it with his palm-WHANGGGG! WHANGGGG!-to imitate the chiming of the courthouse clock.

"-he'll be so mad at his little girl, he'll beat me, Billy!" the vampire wailed. She jerked her head, signaling me. "But no! You can't leave me, Billy! Just because that lawyer-"

I caught my cue and had to obey the force that drove me into this drama once again. "Come with me, Tripplehorn!" I cried, grabbing Furmeister by the arm. "Miss Lucy wants to get caught, and she wants to catch YOU! She's nothing but trouble!"