These Flowers Have a Taste for Blood

By Dorothy Darrow

When Luke Wright moves to the desert oasis LeVir Lake with his mom and sisters, he does not expect much excitement—-the town isn’t even on any maps. But when his new (and, coincidentally, extremely sexy) neighbor Jan informs him of the strange laws he has to live by in order to “survive” in LeVir Lake, Luke begins to comprehend that his family has not moved to any typical small town. Life becomes even stranger when Luke meets the decadent LeVir clan—-especially the gorgeous daughter Colette, who has a knack for getting what she wants, and who takes an instant liking to Luke. The longer Luke lives in LeVir Lake, the more he understands why the strict town laws are in place, and the more he realizes the LeVirs are much more than what they seem. They have a plan for humankind, and it involves Luke's soul. But how do you choose between good and evil when both sides want you dead?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorothy Darrow
• Release date: Jan 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466117037

Dorothy Darrow

Dorothy Darrow is a writer and editor from the United States. She has degrees in many creative pursuits, and likes to write supernatural fiction, such as vampire novels. She also likes reading, watching movies, and eating chicken wings. Dorothy Darrow's series: The Vampire Queen: 1. These Flowers Have a Taste for Blood 2. When the Moon Tires of the Night (coming eventually) The Board: 1. Sanaa and Ambrose 2. Sanaa's Scar 3. Sanaa, the Human Consort 4. Sanaa's First Mission 5. The Boy 6. Sanaa and Maij 7. The New Order 8. Maij 9. Sanaa's Fate 10: Ambrose's Advice Fury: 1. A Vampire's Thoughts About the Vampire Queen 2. Cold 3. Carnage 4. Mirror 5. Salutation (coming soon)

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These Flowers Have a Taste for Blood

Dorothy Darrow

Copyright 2012 by Dorothy Darrow

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Written in the U.S.A.

Chapter 1

LUKE WRIGHT WAS A BAD PERSON. This he knew. He also knew he deserved to pay a penance for his sins, but he wished the sun would just go away. The light blazed through his eyelids, waking him from a much-needed doze and just plain annoying him.

He fumbled about for his sunglasses, his adolescent fingers whipping around as if playing a one-handed piano solo. After a moment of pawing, he remembered he had lost his sunglasses somewhere around Jefferson City. Luke halted his fingers and brought his stilled hand to his face. With an irritated sigh, he resigned to keep his hand over his eyes to block the persistent light.

Where were they? What time was it? Luke had fallen asleep and had no idea how far the Wright family had traveled while he was out. His only clue was the rough, empty desert surrounding their vehicle, only scrubby brown plants spotting the landscape and gray mountains on the farthest horizon. The Wright family SUV drove over a cracked and rutted highway, which slit through the arid terrain like the edge of a dull knife. The Wrights were in the middle of nowhere. They had to be near their destination.

Muffled yaps made their way around Luke's ear buds to thump on his eardrums, disturbing his newly-wakened freshness. He increased the volume of his music, attempting to drown out all the quarreling. Beside him, his little sisters Lena and Lucy wrangled over a red crayon. In the front seats, his mother, Lisa, and his older sister, Lara, also bickered, probably over the same thing they had been bickering about before he fell asleep.

The inside of the SUV stunk. Four days of five bodies forced to sit in the car all day and the unholy odor that resulted had permeated the interior as the Wrights moved across the country from the comfort of their native Salem, Massachusetts, to the obscure desert settlement of LeVir Lake, California. For the past three days, they had played a continual car game that consisted of squabbling about music choices, turning the radio on but not finding a good station, turning the radio off, and then squabbling some more. Luke had lost every time, so he forfeited.

He stared out from under his hand at the miles of desert that surrounded them. The sight of it stirred his blood; he already hated that empty land. He was suspicious of LeVir Lake's very existence. It didn't appear on any maps, a fact he inserted into conversation with his mother at every opportunity. He was playing every card he had to persuade his mom to turn the SUV around and take him back to Salem and his friends, including the being a total jerk the entire trip card. Incidentally, Lara was using the same card and doing a much better job.

As the SUV rolled across nothingness, Luke's thoughts descended into a memory of his father. He saw his dad enjoying a nightly walk, unwinding in the cool New England breeze after a backbreaking day of honest work as a warehouse grunt. His father strolled along the side of the back roads as he did every night the sky wasn't pouring rain or dumping snow. Luke had once asked his father what he thought about during those long walks. His father had answered, How lucky I am, Luke. How you and your mom and your sisters make me so lucky. That thought was probably going through his father's head as a brilliant white light burst to life behind him. The flash blinded Luke's mind, and the next thing he could see was his father's body sailing through the clear, star-speckled night air.

Luke's eyelids yanked apart. The vision had lasted less than half a minute, but a cold sweat had broken out along Luke's back and the sides of his neck, chilling his whole body. However, the real chill came from his mind, where deep-seated feelings of guilt had risen and gripped his entire body with icy hooks. He shifted his body toward the SUV's window, pressing his shoulder against the glass, leaning toward the blazing desert, bitterly entreating the heat he hated to remove the remnant shivers of his daydream.

Trapped in the final hours on the road with four very-female females, Luke closed his eyes and absorbed himself in his playlist. He was listening to Silver & Gold, an all-girl pop group whose boppy songs all sounded the same and whose music he would never admit to liking. However, he would totally acknowledge that all of the girls in the group were sizzling hotties. His favorite was Kitten, a skin-baring blonde with all the right curves. She looked like she belonged in Penthouse rather than Teen, and Luke should know. He possessed an extensive pornographic reading collection that had taken him five years to attain. He had gathered the magazines from various sources, but the bulk of the collection came from his neighbor's recycling bin. Luke could only hope his new neighbors were careless, horny people. He had packed his prized collection in a large box marked READING MATERIAL in big, block letters on the side. It was already at the house in LeVir Lake, awaiting Luke's arrival with breathless anticipation.

MOM!

Little Lucy's shriek pierced straight through Luke's ear buds and stabbed his eardrums. He jolted as if he'd been caught doing something dirty.

No screaming, young lady, Lisa scolded, scowling into the rearview mirror at her youngest daughter.

Five-year-old Lucy pointed at Lena. She won't give me the orange crayon.

Lena answered coolly, I'm coloring the color-by-number impressionistically. I'm making all the blue spaces orange. Mother, I'm coloring the ocean.

Lisa was unimpressed. Who had it first?

ME! Lucy shrieked.

Lucille Elizabeth Wright, Lisa admonished with a warning frown, wait for Lena to finish, then you can have the crayon. And no more screaming.

In the front seat, Lara sighed. Really, Mom, you should just have those two put to sleep. Lisa shot an acidic glare toward the front passenger seat. Just a nap, I meant.

Lisa glowered at the road, rubbing her forehead. It meant she had a headache coming on. She'd been doing that a lot lately.

Luke tried to go back to ignoring everyone, but Lucy's elbow kept jabbing him. She was trying to steal the orange crayon without an outburst. Luke shielded his side with his hands, wishing Lena would just go back to her monster novel and give Lucy the crayons. As if answering Luke's wish, Lena chucked the orange crayon at Lucy's face. The littlest Wright almost cried out, but she noticed her mother watching in the rearview mirror and sucked in her frustration.

Luke shook his head at the ridiculousness of his relatives. He repositioned his hand over his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to relax. The unwelcoming desert stared back at him through the SUV windows. Here and there, boulders that had been dormant for centuries awoke to observe him passing. They looked like prison guards monitoring inmates transferring from one jail to another.

Luke closed his eyes against nature. He let Silver & Gold serenade him with their hit Juliet, which had the painfully obvious subject of star-crossed lovers. The song reminded Luke of his freshman English teacher, Miss Tremaine, a hidden beauty waiting for her fairy godmother. Unfortunately for Miss Tremaine, only Luke could see her potential. Luke's shortsighted friends just saw her heavy blouses, long skirts, and mousy brown hair stuffed into a sloppy bun. Luke's friends had always made fun of him for staying behind after class to help clean up the debris from the latest paper ball fight Miss Tremaine couldn't muster the authority to prevent, but he ignored their jibes. Luke had always been a defender of underdogs. His friends had secretly accepted that way back in preschool, but in a high school where plenty of other witnesses noticed and questioned Luke's chivalry, his friends had their reputations to protect.

Luke opened his eyes. He caught sight of his reflection in the window. His light brown hair had gotten shaggy, especially in the front where it nearly reached his matching light brown eyes. He stretched his chin forward, tightening the skin around his jaw so it squared off by his ears. It used to do that without his help, but lately his jawline hadn't looked as trim. Yet another thing that depressed him. Months of disheartened languor were taking its toll. He knew he wasn't a bad-looking guy, but he didn't see anything special about himself, and he guessed high school girls didn't either. He thought about how unfortunate it was that girls his age never went for the nice guy. Luke couldn't exactly complain since he had never lacked for a date, but the only girls who showed interest in him were popularity-hungry sycophants yearning to ingratiate themselves with Luke's high-ranking friends. Translation: girls willing to do whatever it took to secure a position in the popular clique. Unfortunately for them (and for Luke), Luke wasn't the kind of guy who enjoyed being used, and he had never gone beyond second base with any of those social climbers. Which meant he had never gotten beyond second base, period.

On his last night in Salem, though, he'd hoped that would change. Mandy Simpkins, a girl who rode his bus, and who Luke had harbored a slight crush on since third grade (a smart and pretty girl who was anything but a sycophant), had asked him to take a walk with her, and Luke anticipated a sweeping romantic evening he could carry with him to his certain loneliness in LeVir Lake. As he and Mandy ambled along the four tree-lined blocks that separated their houses, their bodies drifted closer and closer to each other. Luke's arm kept brushing hers, and she didn't move away. His spirits were lounging with the stars. But then, just as Luke prepared to make a move, Mandy started talking about God's Plan, and Luke's interest in her vanished as if someone had flipped a switch. She went on and on about how everything happened for a reason, and that moving from his hometown would help him grow into the person he was meant to be, and his dad was in a better place blah blah blah. Luke ended the night by ditching Mandy on her front stoop and moping the four blocks home. The next morning, his real friends--who knew better than to bring up a scam like God, or even worse, fate--brought him cold pizza and sent him on his melancholy way, promising to visit. Luke knew this wouldn't happen, though. Football training camp started in a week, and of course all his friends had made the varsity team their sophomore year, leaving him behind (even though he most likely would have made varsity too if he hadn't quit sports when he was a freshman).

Luke pushed the memory out of his head. He didn't want to feel sorry for himself anymore. He lowered his eyelids and focused on Kitten's charming voice. But wait a minute...

Shit, Luke slipped.

Lucy gasped. Mom. Luke said the S-word.

Lisa made eye contact in the rearview mirror. Luke, don't swear. What's wrong?

Golly, Ma, my gosh dern battery just wore out, doggone it.

Mom, Lena tattled, Luke's being a smartass.

Lisa scowled at everyone in the backseat. Luke, stop being a smartass. And no more swearing from anyone.

A few minutes passed in miserable silence. Luke tried restarting his music player, but it only held a charge for a couple of seconds, then it died. Luke yanked the ear buds from his ears and sulked, glaring through his hand at the persistent sunlight, blaming it for his troubles.

Lara interrupted the silence. What's that?

Over the horizon, a forest blossomed out of the desert. I bet that's LeVir Lake, Lisa said.

Lucy asked, Where's the lake?

It doesn't have to have a lake, doofus, Lara said. It's just a name.

Why would you name a town LeVir Lake if there is no lake? Lucy challenged.

Their mom intervened, Never mind the lake. I can't even see the town. Just trees and desert.

Lisa continued to follow the aged highway, driving closer and closer to the trees. Luke craned his neck to see out the windshield. The road headed straight toward the woods, but Luke didn't see any breaks in the trees where a car could enter. Lisa continued to follow the road. Luke was afraid she would follow it straight into a tree trunk, but the road veered left at the last second. Lisa turned with it and drove alongside the woods.

Luke scanned the thick tree trunks, which extended at least ten feet into the air before disappearing behind branches. The trees were so dense he couldn't see past the front lines. His eyes flicked from one tree to the next. They didn't look like they belonged in the desert. They almost looked like redwoods, which he thought only grew in the rainy Northeast. How could trees like that survive out there in the dry heat?

After a few minutes of driving with the woods on the right and the desert on the left, a small sign appeared. It displayed a simple red arrow pointing right.

Lisa obeyed the instruction and turned onto a gravel road. Trees bordered both sides of the car, seeming to inch closer, hugging the Wrights in an unwelcome bear grip. Luke had never had problems with claustrophobia before, but he began to feel suffocated by the towering trunks.

A huge gate waited about a quarter of a mile in front of them. Etched into an arch above the closed double gate, gothic letters spelled out LEVIR LAKE. On either side of the gate, a wall just as tall as the gate constructed of glistening tan stone stretched into the trees as far as Luke could see.

What's that? Lena asked, pointing at the gate. There's a drawing.

The SUV rolled to a stop just outside the gate. Carved into the thick left side of the gate, a large, perfectly round circle adorned the stone. To the right and diagonally down from the perfect circle was another, smaller circle circumferenced by shaky spikes.

It's the moon and the sun, Luke deciphered. The moon is the bigger circle, overpowering the sun.

I guess whoever designed that was a night owl, Lisa joked.

Nobody laughed.

Lisa cleared her throat. All right, Mr. Interpreter, what does the other stuff mean?

Starting to the right of the gate, a series of embossed panels illustrated a story. The tale began with a man and woman holding a baby. Behind them, an etched window displayed a total solar eclipse. At the bottom of the panel, a faceless mass cowered. Luke tried to distinguish the next segment of the story, but the trees obstructed his view. He switched his gaze to the left side of the gate, where the last panel of the wall displayed a triumphant man.

It's a story, Luke declared. He pointed to the first panel. It starts with a baby and ends with a hero. He pointed at the last panel.

Lara scoffed. A story that you can only see the beginning and end of is kind of pointless.

Not if you have a good imagination, Lena said.

Shut up.

Lisa ignored her children as she opened her power window with a mechanical whir. She stuck her head out and examined the area outside her door. How are we supposed to get in? she seemed to ask the trees standing an arm span away.

Luke looked around as well, trying to find a hidden intercom system or coded keypad. He only saw trees.

A horn blasted against the gate. Luke jumped, his butt leaving his seat for a second. It was a moment before he realized his mother had created the sound. She did it again, pressing both hands into the center of the steering wheel, producing a loud, extended, obnoxious bleat.

Lucy jammed her hands against her ears. Mommy, she whined. Lisa honked the horn again.

A thin line formed down the center of the Moon and Sun sequence. The line thickened as two sets of hands pulled the gate open from the inside. Two Hispanic men peeked out at the SUV. Confused creases formed around their faces. They dragged the heavy stone doors into town until they had produced enough room for the SUV to pass. Luke peered past them into LeVir Lake. All he could see was the road they were on continue straight, dividing the town into halves. Not so far away, a tan band underlined the horizon.

Little Lucy asked the question on Luke's mind. Do you think that wall surrounds the entire town?

I think town is an overstatement, Lara said.

She was right. Judging by what they saw beyond the gate, LeVir Lake looked smaller than their subdivision in Salem.

Lisa searched the glove compartment for the directions to their new house. She found it and instructed Lara to navigate. Lara read the first direction: Enter the gate into LeVir Lake.

Lisa drove into town. Luke caught sight of the triumphant man's image again and studied it for as long as he could see it. The depiction seemed somehow familiar. Maybe Luke had seen it in a book or something. He would Google it later once they got the Internet set up.

Lisa drove until the SUV had cleared the gate, then she stopped again.

Turn right onto Prudence Boulevard, Lara instructed.

Prudence Boulevard is a funny name, Lucy said.

We used to live on Squirrel Nut Road, Lena reminded.

Everyone, look for Prudence Boulevard, Lisa ordered.

She drove past colossal houses with empty semicircular driveways, a town square, and a park. A number of people milled about the town, mostly Hispanics, or at least, with Hispanic blood. They stared at the Wright SUV as it passed.

Lisa drove straight across town until the road terminated in a dead end right in front of the huge town wall. She put the SUV in park and looked behind her.

Did anyone see Prudence Boulevard? she asked.

Nobody had. Lisa turned the car around and returned through town the way they had traveled, driving back to the town gate. The gate was closed. Lisa stopped the SUV and again asked her children if they had seen Prudence Boulevard. Again, nobody had seen any other roads.

This is the right LeVir Lake, right? Lara asked.

Did you see any other LeVir Lakes, Lara? Lisa snapped. We'll look one more time, and if we still don't find it, we'll ask someone for directions.

Lisa drove back down the road until the dead end curbed them again. She slammed the SUV into park and smacked the steering wheel with both hands. A short whimper escaped from the horn.

This is terrific, Lisa vented. Of course my parents would give me a crummy house on a stupid road that doesn't even exist.

Mom, Lara soothed, let's just ask for directions.

Lisa pursed her lips together and stared at Lara. Lara stared back, knowing exactly how to deal with her mother in that state. Lisa huffed through her nose, forcing herself into a calmer condition. She glanced into the rearview mirror at the rest of her children. She offered them an apologetic shrug. Lucy gave her a patient smile in return. Luke just rolled his eyes.

Lisa turned the car around once more, asking her children to look for someone to assist them. But as they traveled a fourth time through the center of town, all the people who had been outside staring at the SUV were gone. The Wrights searched for any kind soul to help them, but everyone had disappeared.

They were three quarters of the way back to the gate, and Lisa was fuming again. She was about to lose her temper when Luke finally spotted a local. A teenaged girl waited beside a sudsy Rolls Royce, smiling amiably at the SUV as if she were expecting it.

Lisa stopped the car and Lara hopped out before the girl could disappear like everyone else had. Lara approached the girl, who oozed hospitality as she welcomed Lara's questions.

Luke gawked at the girl. How had he not noticed her every other time they had driven past? She was a knockout. A blonde, she showed off her porcelain-skinned, svelte body in a bikini top and jean cutoffs. A large metallic choker all but covered her swanlike neck, and despite an oversized sun hat shadowing her face, Luke could see the blueness of her eyes from the SUV. Plus, as if her natural beauty weren't enough, she was soaking wet from washing the Rolls (seemingly the only other car in town) and what little clothing she had on clung to the intimate parts of her body. Luke barely noticed when his sister returned to the SUV as he stared at those parts.

What did she say? Lisa pressed.

Apparently, this is LeVir Lake Avenue. Prudence Boulevard is a one-way street that circles the town. We need to go this way until we see what looks like a really wide sidewalk. That's Prudence Boulevard. We turn left onto it. She said it goes the way of the wall.

What does that mean? Lisa asked, irritated.

Maybe it means follow the story, Luke muttered his suggestion, still focused on the girl.

Lisa shook her head. I hope the moving truck driver didn't have this much trouble finding the house. She launched the SUV, muttering about road signs. Luke kept his eye on the blonde, turning around in his seat, until she stepped behind the Rolls and out of his view. He turned back around, the tiniest smile on his face. Maybe that town wouldn't be so bad after all.

Two houses straddled Prudence Boulevard, making it look like a driveway. Lisa almost passed it again before Lara discovered it with a yell. Lisa swerved left, nearly knocking the SUV onto two wheels. Lucy gripped Luke for protection from their mother's driving.

The SUV followed Prudence Boulevard, which moseyed about the town in a continuous circle. They crossed over the last stretch of LeVir Lake Avenue, passing the familiar dead end, and proceeded to loop around the other half of town. Prudence Boulevard literally followed the wall, never leaving more than a couple hundred feet between itself and the glittery stone. Luke examined the squished yards and houses of the residences on the wall's side of the street, and he hoped the Wright's new house wasn't one of them.

As the SUV yet again neared the gate to LeVir Lake, the Wrights recognized the moving truck that contained most of their possessions. The two younger girls shrieked and pointed. After four and a half days of living in the SUV, they had finally found their new address.

Lara's jaw dropped as Lisa pulled into the driveway. Is this our house?

The house was at least three times larger than their home in Salem. The brown brick walls towered over them, gradating from dark to light as it reached the terra cotta roof. Luke gawked at the huge, carefully tended front lawn. The grass was greener than it had any right to be in the middle of the desert. As Luke opened his car door, surprisingly temperate air embraced him. If he hadn't just ridden half a day through the most boring desert in the world, he would have never known that on the other side of the town wall were miles and miles of barren, scorched, unforgiving nothingness.

Luke marveled at the size of the front lawn. It was perfect for touch football with his friends. He felt a temporary lift in spirits before he remembered his friends were three thousand miles away. The lawn wasn't all that great anyway. The more grass someone had in his front yard, the more likely a random neighborhood dog would take a crap in it. A crap-filled yard sucked for touch football. Luke was glad the Wrights were never really one for pets. He personally didn't understand the appeal. He had a hard enough time taking care of himself without having to worry about some dumb animal.

Luke gets permanent lawn duty, Lara yelled as she bounced out of the SUV.

That's not fair, Luke whined. Mom.

Not now. Lisa was still awestruck by the house. Luke figured someone who had grown up in mansions would be accustomed to large houses, but her eyes kept scanning the façade, her jaw descending and the corners of her mouth perking as she comprehended the size of the dwelling. Luke shrugged, climbed out of the SUV, and stretched his legs on his way to the front door.

Luke, his mother called as she shook out of her daze, don't wander off and leave your stuff here for us to move.

Luke didn't listen. He reached the front door and grabbed the knob. It was unlocked. The red-painted door opened without a squeak--something Luke wasn't accustomed to. He left the door wide open, allowing a draft to circulate through the house.

Luke examined the first floor, starting with the fully furnished living room. Red-stained wood, dark red leather, and wrought iron furnishings and décor graced the room. Everything was of the finest quality, from the elegant furniture to the state-of-the-art entertainment system. It wasn't the kind of decorating Luke had expected from a house his grandparents owned, what with the bright white wainscoting and pastel wallpaper in their Hamptons house that had made him nauseous with its over-the-top chipperness. He liked the darker design, though it still possessed the sickeningly sweet smell of old money and old leather.

The next room was a fully equipped kitchen stocked with any and every appliance the Wrights could need, though Luke couldn't envision his mother or sisters--none of whom possessed a knack for cooking--juicing anything anytime soon. His father had been the chef of the family, and Luke had tried to learn from him, though it seemed he had inherited his mother's propensity for burning everything she couldn't just stick in a microwave. It was a good thing Luke liked TV dinners and sandwiches. He checked the cabinets. All empty. Luke was relieved that his mother had decided to keep the dishes (along with their bedroom sets) as she sold off nearly everything else the Wrights owned to finance their move west. She had refused to take any more money from her parents for that cause, though they had ended up buying most of the Wrights' possessions anyway. Luke tried to imagine the old 32-inch tube television that had been in their living room for as long as he could remember replacing his grandparents' 60-inch high-definition projector screen--they were too good to watch anything other than classic movies the way they were meant to be viewed--and he somehow couldn't fathom it.

The kitchen connected to the dining room, where a polished wooden table stretched across the floor. Luke estimated twelve people could sit comfortably at that table. The Wrights didn't need all that space. Their Salem house had been the perfect size. Luke found himself exploring the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room for the growth chart his mother had maintained since Lara was born. He found only a freshly painted doorframe.

Having lost his eager curiosity, Luke shuffled out of the dining room, passing a half bathroom darkened by the house's black and red color scheme.

The next door Luke opened led to the master bedroom. The vastness of the room dwarfed the king-sized four-poster bed it held. Red-stained wood made up the bed frame as the sheets and pillowcases shone crimson, accompanied by a bright scarlet comforter. A matching armoire, vanity, and dresser completed the set. The master bathroom was black and red like the half bathroom in the hall, but the master bathroom contained two sinks, a Jacuzzi, a clawfoot bathtub, and a separate shower, all with room to spare.

Luke finally realized why Lisa had agreed to move there. Her parents must have described the master bathroom to her. Compared to the stall she had to share with her husband in the Wrights' old shack, her new bathroom was like her own personal Turkish bathhouse.

Luke ended his tour of the first floor with the parlor, the type of room he never would have believed would be in a house he inhabited. Parlors belonged to rich people who liked showing off their richness with unnecessary rooms. Expecting red wood and sanguineous cloths, he was shocked to find the parlor bathed in white. The couches and chairs were spotless. A white wood Luke had never seen before formed the tables. The curtains were delicate white lace. The fireplace was marble. Luke decided not to enter that room. Besides the fact that he didn't dare soil the whiteness, the blatant opposition of the parlor to the rest of the first floor kind of creeped him out.

The time had come for Luke to go upstairs and find his new bedroom. He circled the first floor again, hunting for