Copyright 1996 by Anne Fraser and M.J. Gardner

Chapter Six

Jake swallowed and felt his fangs prickle. Shit, this was disconcerting. Damn Adrian! Except he had a feeling he was way too late with that curse.

"There's a student pub not far from here," he said. "They can stay open till two now, there should still be some action. I imagine my roomy will be there, unwinding."

"The studious Max?" Evelyn teased. "Then what are we waiting for? Just as long as the Faggot King of Toronto doesn't show up."

"No, he prefers not to hunt the student pubs if he can help it -- too close to home." Jake suppressed thoughts about where Adrian usually did hunt, even though he knew Evelyn couldn't read his mind. "And he's bi, you know."

"I didn't know -- he certainly seems intent on only one gender that I can see. And one particular example of that gender."

Surprisingly, Jake didn't blush. He just shrugged. "I didn't ask for him to fall in love with me," he said softly. "Come on, let's go to the Mad."

The Madison Avenue Pub was a converted red brick Victorian house, like a number of pubs in Toronto. The basement was a room for serious drinking, with high, small round tables, bar stools and a fireplace that in winter made the crowded room far too hot. The main floor was nicer, a restaurant as well as a bar; it had real tables and real chairs, a dart board, a dance floor in front of the fireplace, and a very serious bouncer. No one knew what was in the closed-to-the-public upper floors of the house; though rumors ranged of everything from treasure troves of old two-fours of Blue to chained students who hadn't paid their bar tabs being forced to work by embroidering the souvenir sweatshirts the bar sold.

"Downstairs," Jake said, when he saw Evelyn hesitate on the steps.

And, sure enough, the lean and Levantine Max was unwinding in the basement of the Mad with a pint and a plate of nachos. Jake swiped one of these and ate it, but without any real enjoyment. He caught Evelyn watching him eat with sharp interest.

"This is Evelyn," Jake said, as Max's eyes bulged out at the sight of his roomie's companion. "Evelyn, Max."

"Hello, Max." Evelyn purred.

"Whoa," said Max, checking out Evelyn's figure under that supple Danier's leather outfit. He raised his eyebrows at Jake, clearly saying, 'Grace know about this?' This sort of telepathy anyone could follow, no vampiric powers needed.

"Tell me, do they have dancing here?" Evelyn asked Max, at her most seductive. She seemed to have forgotten that Jake existed.

Jake frowned. Evelyn had said she was hungry, but he wasn't sure that he liked her vamping his friend, literally or figuratively.

"Upstairs," Max gulped.

Concrete Blond's "Bloodletting" vibrated through the walls and floor of the old pub.

"Would you care to dance?" Evelyn asked Max, all doe eyes and pouty lips.

"You're not going to bite Max, are you?" Jake hissed at her as they made their way upstairs to the main pub.

"I'm hungry," she rumbled in something between a growl and a purr.

Jake watched them dance, seething inwardly with a combination of jealousy, fear for his friend and roomy, and a sudden desire to try chomping a neck himself.

The smell of blood was strong in this room. The smell of...? When had he noticed that? And how did he knew that the scent was blood? He shook his head to clear it. It was blood alright. He just knew it.

Jake tried drowning his spinning emotions in a pint of Upper Canada Dark ... or two or three ... but the alcohol wasn't quenching his thirst.

Evelyn was a vampire. He knew that, knew she did what she did to attract prey. He'd never seen Adrian hunt, but knew that the handsome vampire used seduction as his lure, too -- it seemed to be the easiest and least noticeable way of finding a suitable dinner and having a bit of fun. Evelyn had said the actual biting didn't turn her on. Jake suspected that it did turn Adrian on to nibble. He knew he got turned on when bitten. When he became a fully fledged vampire, then what?

Shit, she looked good in that leather. He found himself wanting her, even though enjoying her again would cross the line from a one-night stand to an affair. Grace would never forgive him, but then Grace would never wear a leather combo like that....

As he watched they stopped dancing and Evelyn was whispering something to Max. Well, probably shouting it over the noise of the music and the crowd, but her arms were around Max's neck, making him bend down to her, and her mouth was near his ear. Near his neck. Jake almost got up to interfere, but then Max pulled away, looking a little sheepish. He made some sort of excuse and Evelyn just shrugged and smiled sweetly. She danced off into the crowd.

Jake tried to follow her visually, but her short figure was lost amidst the healthy Canadian youth.

"Boo," said Max, and Jake spilled his beer and came close to embarrassing himself otherwise, too.

"Shit," he said.

"Strange girl you've found." Max said. "I think she was coming on to me."

"Don't flatter yourself," answered Jake coldly. "It's not what you think."

Max frowned, mental wheels spinning. "Jake, she's not another one, is she?" Max felt his neck, since he knew some of his roomie's odder friends. "Isn't she pushing it a bit, by being here?"

"Piss off, Max," Jake replied. "I don't know what you're talking about." He watched Evelyn narrowly as she moved back into view.

A guy danced up to her, sloppy drunk, thick glasses, the pocket of his sweat-stained polo shirt sagging with mechanical pencils and an over-sized calculator. For a second the only expression on Evelyn's face was cold calculation. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, she smiled and started dancing with him, her body undulating like the cobra in a snake charmer's basket.

"You spend the night with her last night?" Max asked as non-judgmentally as he could.

"MYOB. You weren't in last night, what do you care who I spent the night with?"

"Touchy, touchy. Jake, I'm worried about you. You aren't sleeping, you aren't eating .... Are the changes accelerating? Inquiring Jewish doctors in the making want to know."

Jake grunted as Evelyn danced ever-closer with the stranger. She was definitely in full seduction mode, and he felt his passions rise. "I've got fangs," he admitted to Max, but didn't take his eyes off Evelyn.

"Holy teething pains, Batman! Does the Prof. know about it?"

"Yes."

"And...?"

"And nothing. He says the teething pains will pass." Jake made a face, remembering what Adrian had really said.

"That's it?"

Jake slammed his fist down on the table, nearly splintering the wood, and making the beer glasses and nearby students jump. "Why the fuck does everyone expect Adrian to be able to do something about it?" he demanded.

"Easy, Jake," advised Max, looking around. People were staring.

Jake glared at his beer until attention had passed from them.

"Nothing will stop the changes," he continued in a lower but no less passionate voice. "I'm a bloodling, Max. I've got no control over it, Adrian has no control over it. When I die, I'm going to become a vampire. I think I'm more than halfway there now. I might be the only living vampire in existence, which is a damn scary thought. What, precisely, do you expect 'the Prof.' to do about it? He's apologized. It was inadvertent. I'm stuck with it."

"Sorry," Max whispered, backing away wide-eyed from his steaming friend.

"Jesus. I'm sorry, Max. I'm sorry. Look at me. I'm scaring my friends. I scare myself." He glanced out at the dance floor, but Evelyn and the "geek" were gone.

"Where did they go?"

"Jake, doesn't Grace come home tomorrow?" asked Max pointedly.

Jake stopped himself just short of saying something to Max that would probably have ended their friendship. He craned his neck but there was no sign of Evelyn or the geek.

He's just a meal, Jake told himself. He had seen the look on her face when the geek approached her, hadn't he? Well, hadn't he? Jake was suddenly unsure.

No matter, he couldn't do anything about it now. Evelyn's victim -- or date -- was not someone he knew. He wouldn't know where to find them.

"So, what is going on Jake?" asked Max with unusual solemnity. "I know you're upset about this ... "bloodling" thing, but what does she have to do with it?"

Jake shook his head. He didn't want to talk about it. He felt like he was caught between the living and the dead. Evelyn and the world of the night; Grace and the world of the living. He wanted her now, really wanted her, but would he want her tomorrow? Would he want her when he saw Grace again?

Maybe that's what he needed. Just to see Grace and get some perspective on this thing. After all, Evelyn wasn't acting like he was her steady boyfriend or anything. Friends, right? She was a just one of his vampire friends.

"Oh, god," he muttered into his beer.

"Where did you meet her?" asked Max.

"Just drop it."

Max shrugged, clearly reluctant to let it go, but unwilling to further enrage his friend.

"I'm hungry. I'm gonna get a burger. You wanna come?"

"Where?"

"Mickey D's, I guess."

Jake didn't know if he should go or not. Would Evelyn come back here for him? He didn't want to think that he had left her behind. How long did it take to drink someone's blood?

And would she come back here at all?

"I, uh -- " he started to say, but then he saw her, weaving through the crowds toward their table. She was not smiling; the seduction switch was definitely turned off.

She took Jake's hand. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" asked Max with bluff good humor.

"Where are we going?" asked Jake, refusing to be pulled to his feet.

"Just come on," she insisted, and then said pointedly to Max, "Just Jake."

Max subsided into his seat, obviously put off by her change in attitude. Jake rose and followed her out into the night. It was too noisy to talk in the Mad anyway, and he didn't think he wanted to shout out much of the conversation they might have.

Evelyn flitted along the sidewalk like a shadow, and Jake had a hard time keeping up with her. He didn't have a chance to ask anything.

They stopped at the side door of an undergrad residence. Evelyn unlocked it with a key. Jake noticed a green rabbit's foot and a bottle opener hanging from the key ring; somehow he didn't think it was hers.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Sh," she cautioned, and led him up to the third floor. The bass thumping of a stereo, muffled by walls and closed doors was all Jake could hear as they padded down the hall.

Evelyn unlocked one of the room doors and slipped inside, pulling Jake with her.

Inside only the goose-necked desk lamp was on, but it's 40 watt brightness was enough to illuminate the cubicle of a dorm room and the geek Evelyn had picked up at the Mad laying on the bed -- fully clothed -- and snoring.

Blood oozed from two small puncture wounds on one wrist.

Evelyn's fangs marks, Jake thought, staring at them. They were hardly more than pin pricks, about what you'd get from a stab with a knitting needle. They looked so harmless, and yet he knew you could kill someone with a bite like that, and a long drink.

The twin punctures from his own fangs would be farther apart, Jake thought, and then started to hyperventilate. He was actually imagining what kind of a mark he would leave. He was really considering....

"He conveniently passed out once we hit the room," Evelyn was saying with delight. She looked Jake in the eye. "This is a great opportunity for a first taste, Jake."

Jake just stared at her. She looked so little and fragile. She looked so pretty and sweet. But she was a vampire: she was deadly as a snake.

And now he was one too.

No, he shook his head. Not yet. He didn't need blood.

Evelyn picked up the student's punctured wrist. He didn't move, just kept on snoring at a steady pace.

"Open your mouth before you bring your fangs down." She demonstrated as she spoke. "You'll bi' yourself oderwise."

She lifted the wrist to her mouth, her eyes locked on Jake's all the time, and sank them slowly and cleanly into the student's flesh. He stirred in his alcohol stupor, but didn't wake up.

You don't suck wid your mouf," continued Evelyn, withdrawing her teeth. There was blood on them. "You do it from the back of your throat. You'll see, it comes naturally." And she took another drink, closing her eyes with pleasure, the way somebody might during a really good back rub or the way she had last night when ....

Jake was not repulsed. That was his first thought. He should be, but he wasn't. He was fascinated. And more than a little aroused. Did drinking blood feel the same as being drunk from?

Watching Evelyn, her eyes half-closed, sucking at her victim's wrist with the tenderness of a lover, was making Jake's own blood beat loudly in his temples. He was seized with the desire to bite her, and then to.... He looked down at the other, naked wrist. He could see the pulse beating just below the skin.

It was too much. He turned and ran blindly for the door, leaving Evelyn staring uncomprehendingly at him. He fled for the safety of home and bed, dived under the covers and lay shaking till dawn.

Some time in the late afternoon the now hungover geek got up and spent some time hugging the toilet bowl. He noticed the crusted blood on his wrists, but he was too sick to think about it.

After a few more hours of oblivious sleep he got up and showered. The blood puzzled him; the three sets of puncture wounds were even more disturbing. What the hell had he been doing last night?

The more he looked at his wrists, the more frightened he became. Who had he been with last night? What kind of sick things had they done? He inspected the rest of his body, but everything else seemed to be healthy, whole and unmarked.

"That's it," he muttered as he dried himself off in front of the mirror, "no more beer."