Charlaine Harris: Many Bloody Returns

“God, no!”

“I beg your pardon?” she said as she drew her hand back, sounding like her old self.

“No offense, but I never cared for Lolita , and you’re just too damned convincing.”

“I thought all men fantasized about young girls.”

“I prefer women.”

“I see,” she said, sounding more thoughtful than offended.

“Were you like this when you were eighteen?”

“Well, I probably would have dressed in comparable fashion, given the choice, but for one, we didn’t have the money, and for another, Mama would never have allowed it.”

“Good for her,” Mark said self-righteously. “Now, if you could make yourself up as a coed, maybe midtwenties…”

“Pervert,” she said amiably.

Mark exited at a rest area they’d seen a mile before the Allenville exit, and parked around back. Stella got out and, after checking to see that nobody was watching, slipped into the bushes to make her way to Benny’s over land. Mark returned to the highway to drive the rest of the way.

The truck stop was bustling with vacationers, locals, and truckers. Mark snagged the last open booth and ordered a cheeseburger with no onions, fries, and a beer. Then he pulled out his laptop and a stack of paperwork so it wouldn’t look suspicious if he stayed around for a while.

Mark knew Stella had arrived before he saw her, thanks to their sire-vampire, or dam-vampire, relationship. But he tried not to watch as she found a seat at the counter, made a show of counting out how little money she had, and asked for a burger and a small Coke. When he finally risked a glance in her direction, he saw that she’d let herself get a touch grubby during her trip through the woods, making the illusion of a runaway that much more convincing.

For the next hour and a half, Mark ate, sipped his beer, fiddled with papers, and watched as people wandered past Stella. She made eye contact with every lone man she saw, and some of the women, but while reactions included delight, disgust, and lust, nobody reacted like the predator they were looking for. She even asked a couple of the men for rides, but nobody took her up on it.

The crowd thinned, Mark was running out of things to do, and Stella had been nursing the last quarter inch of her Coke for half an hour when Mark decided that their quarry hadn’t come in that night. They might well have to stake out the place for weeks, especially if the killer was a trucker or commuter. Stella’s repeated presence would be noticed, even if she changed her look, so he’d started considering other young-looking vampires they could enlist to play bait when he saw the cook coming out of the kitchen.

The man looked like he was in his midthirties, stocky, with greasy hair Mark hoped was caused by his own body chemistry and not the food he prepared. He slipped an order of fries in front of Stella along with another glass of Coke.

She tried to thank him, but he scurried away before the waitress could see him.

Stella, still in character as a hungry runaway, scarfed the fries down. Mark was impressed. She could still eat regular food, but her body gained no nutrition from it, and since her senses were so refined, she rarely enjoyed the taste. Eating the burger must have been a strain, and to add fries on top showed how seriously she was taking their investigation.

Another half an hour passed. Mark was about to gather his belongings and give Stella their prearranged signal to call it a night when the cook snuck back out of the kitchen and placed another full glass in front of Stella, again not meeting her eyes when she tried to thank him.

The hairs on the back of Mark’s neck prickled. Random generosity wasn’t unheard of, but something about the man’s furtive movements bothered him. Besides which, the man was supposed to be working in the kitchen, not watching customers.

While Mark was trying to work it out, Stella drank down the Coke and left enough money on the counter to pay her check. Then she stood up and wobbled, as if she’d lost her balance. Mark’s eyes narrowed. Vampires, at least vampires as old as Stella, didn’t lose their balance.

Their plan had been to leave separately, with at least five minutes between their exits, so Mark stayed put, despite his consternation. What was Stella playing at anyway? Trying to look more available by pretending to be drunk, even though all she’d had was Coke? Cokes, he corrected. Two of which had been given for free by a man who was acting decidedly odd. “Jesus!” Mark whispered. The bastard had put something into Stella’s drinks!

He shoved his things into his briefcase, threw money onto the table, and headed for the door. He stopped by the car, hoping Stella had used her key to get in, but when she wasn’t there, he tossed the stuff into the trunk and grabbed a tire iron.

He slowly walked through the parking lot, checking for Stella’s scent, and caught it leading out across the field in the direction of the chicken barn. There was another scent mingled with hers, the strong sweat from the truck stop cook.

They’d lured out their predator, and in normal circumstances, Mark would have had no doubts about Stella’s safety, but the way she’d been weaving as she went out the door worried him. He couldn’t have been too far behind, and he was moving with the speed even a young vampire could muster, but he couldn’t see them, and he quickly lost the scent.

Had his nose misled him? Had the man gotten Stella into a car or even met up with a confederate? Where were they? He was alone in a field, with nothing in sight but the truck stop behind him and the chicken barn before him, when he realized where they had to be. He ran toward the barn.

As he got closer, he heard talking and recognized Stella’s voice, even though it was slurred.

“Where are we? Who did you say you were anyway?”

“Just a friend,” a man’s voice said, and Mark guessed it was the cook. “I thought you might need a place to sleep. See, there’s a bed here.”

“It smells funny.”

“That’s just the chickens. If you lay down, you’ll be asleep in no time, and it won’t bother you anymore. Here, let me help you take your shoes off.”

Stretching up, Mark could peer into the window of the room where Stella and the man were, and even from the outside, he knew the smells in that room had nothing to do with chickens. While he watched, he saw Stella’s eyes drift shut, and she slumped to the floor.

“That’s my girl,” the cook said, and reached for her.

Mark had seen enough. He ran around the building until he found the door. It was locked, but he shoved his shoulder against it, splintering it. More chickens than Mark had ever seen at one time fluttered wildly, clucking and shrieking and making even more protesting noises as he ran through them to get to the door that lead to Stella. The man had heard him coming, of course, and was waiting behind the door as Mark burst in. Mark had been expecting it and dodged at the last minute, which was enough to deflect the knife thrust from his back to his arm.

Unfortunately it was the arm with the tire iron, which slipped from Mark’s grasp as he whirled around to face his attacker.

It took Mark only an instant to take in the scene, the man standing in front of where Stella lay sprawled on the bed. He was about to launch himself when a hand moving so fast it seemed to appear from nowhere latched itself onto the killer. Between his legs. Gripping his genitals.

He crumpled with a sound that would have been a scream if he’d had enough breath for it.

Stella went down with him, still squeezing. The expression on her face had nothing to do with the nymphet she’d been pretending to be and everything to do with a vampire.

“All right, you son of of a bitch,” she said. “Tell me who Jane Doe is before I rip your prick off!”