Tall, Dark and Slayer, a Paranormal Romance

By Cheryl Sterling

Tired of jaded, seven-hundred-year old male vampires who will never find love again?  Bored with snarky, just-turned female vampires with shoe fetishes?  There are other sides to vampirism. . .
BETTY BANKS has made a living as a purchasing agent for New York City’s vampires.  Artificial blood.  Sunscreen.  Chocolate?  Yes, because all of the vamps in Betty’s world are women, fighting a bloodlust that hits them in their childbearing years.  They’re not immortal yet, but DEE VILLA, a powerful vampire, hopes to soon make that legend into a reality.  Under her influence, Betty’s clients are taking to the streets looking for fresh victims.  Helping Dee is Betty’s grifter father, who sees the Back-to-Nature movement as the perfect con.
GABE MERCER, a childhood victim of the bloodlust, is a cold, calculating slayer.  He’s in town to take out Dee, a threat to the peace the government likes to keep.  When he crosses paths with Betty, fireworks erupt.  Soon, he’s embroiled in a fight to save her business, but to do so, he must first confront his past.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cheryl Sterling
• Release date: Jan 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524212049

Cheryl Sterling

Cheryl Sterling is an American author of several paranormal and contemporary romance novels and short stories. Cheryl is a co-founder and past president of Grand Rapids Region Writers Group in Grand Rapids, MI. She has conducted several workshops that focused on the writing craft and co-chaired their first “I’ve Always Wanted to Write a Book” regional conference. Her passion is learning and improving her craft, but mostly, she is a teacher. Cheryl currently lives in Phoenix with her husband.

Book preview

One

The tampon fiasco should have warned me that things were—pardon the expression—headed south.

Not my tampons. No, sir. For twenty years, I’d been more or less loyal to the brand I’d first purchased in a Sunoco ladies room the year I’d turned thirteen.

The tampons in question—Napa Valley No-Fuss, No-Muss, Self-Absorbing Tampons—were distributed by my company, Vamp-Aid, to my ladies—the vamps. Women vampires. Despite what has been touted in popular culture, ninety-nine point nine percent of vampires are women.

It’s a hormone thing.

Vamps aren’t immortal, don’t incinerate in sunlight and have no trouble seeing themselves in mirrors. Instead, they suffer from a genetic condition that causes a hunger for blood. And chocolate. Both of which I sold to them.

But back to the tampon problem.

If true terror exists, it’s during a full moon in New York City, when hundreds of cycles coincide and no-fuss, no-muss tampons start fussing and mussing. And Vamp-Aid is the sole, Greater New York distributor.

I ground out my seventeenth cigarette of the day in the overflowing ashtray on my WWII-era, gun-gray steel desk and glanced at my watch. Seven-thirty p.m. Plenty of time for the L.A. branch of the U.S. Vampire Control Division to be in the office. So why didn’t they answer the phone?

This is not funny, Rudy, I muttered, ignoring the flashing phone lights and the angry pings of incoming e-mails from my clients. I’d clashed many times with Rudy Tolliver, primo slimeball purchasing agent. He’d done this on purpose to shave a few nickels off his cost. If three-thousand miles hadn’t separated us, I would have gladly wrung his scrawny, lying neck. I sure as hell would not let a little setback like this ruin Vamp-Aid. I’d worked too long to create a stable, profitable business. It was my home, more so than my apartment in Brooklyn, and I’d fight tooth and nail to protect it.

Someone picked up in the vicinity of the twelfth ring. U.S.V.C.D., Myrtle Holloway. May I help you?

I groaned. Fertile Myrtle, so called because she was perpetually pregnant, must be on her eighth or ninth kid by now, I couldn’t remember which. She was clueless as a dodo bird, but where better to put her than an obscure, secret government agency?

Myrtle, it’s Betty Banks. Get Rudy on. Why couldn’t she be on maternity leave? I really didn’t want to hear what darling Tommy, or Sally or whatever See-Dick-Run names she’d used, had accomplished in soccer/music/dance/vomit competitions.

Betty, dear, how are you? The saccharin sweetness in her voice reminded me we’d run out of Splenda, and I’d had to drink my now cold coffee black.

Never mind me. Put that lying, weasily bastard on the phone. I fished out another cigarette, number eighteen, and tapped it on the desk. How was I supposed to quit at this rate?

The phone clicked and some awful Barry Manilow tune blared. Two clicks later and Rudy’s gruff, never-pleasant voice cut off Barry in mid-verse.

Never known for my tact, I plunged ahead. Rudy, you horse’s ass, what’s the idea of sending me defective tampons?

Now, doll, he began. He’d heard my diatribe before and could usually outwait my temper with a continual stream of platitudes.

I wasn’t buying. I’m not your doll. Rudy, all hell’s breaking loose. Get me the right stuff. Pronto, Tonto.

He chuckled. Somewhat evilly, I might add. Nice one, toots.

My grip tightened on the receiver. I’m not your toots. Send the Class A tampons by Fed-Ex and take back the Class D-for-defective ones p.d.q., and no restocking fees like you tried to pull last month. I’m not paying for bad merchandise.

Napa Valley No-Fuss, No-Muss, Self-Absorbing Tampons were invented by a brilliant feminine products engineer who should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Once used, the tampons are dropped into a special, tastefully decorated bag. Chemicals inside react to the higher than normal iron content of the vamps’ blood and poof! No muss. No fuss. A little red dust sealed in an unbreakable pouch. No temptations for my vamps. Yes, temptation. They are vampires, after all, and—well, I’d rather not think about that side of their bloodlust.

Rudy chuckled again, clearly in a boys-will-be-boys and vamps-will-be-dames kind of way. "So there was a slight mix-up and some of the sticks got coated with the wrong stuff. You’d think you gals would want a few jollies in your life."

Red haze enveloped me, and it wasn’t from the burning embers of my cigarette butt. "Jollies! Damn it, they’re not supposed to implode while in use. What do you think they are? Vibrators?"

Babe, he said, drawing on something. A joint? A hookah? That’s the thanks I get. And after I made you the exclusive, East Coast distributor of Heat-N-Go artificial blood?

Neither here nor there, Rudes. His point stung. Individual servings of Heat-N-Go had single-handedly saved me from bankruptcy a few years back. Fix it. Now. And don’t call me babe.

My growl must have intimidated him. He sighed, grunted, actually. All right. Give me a day or two. For you, O, anything.

He clicked off, leaving me fuming. O! How the hell had he learned the nickname the vamps had given me?

Ten years earlier, when I’d started Vamp-Aid, my clientele had warped my name—Betty Banks—to Blood Banks (hardee-har-har) to BB, then to 2B. Naturally, that led to Hamlet and from there to Ophelia. Hence, my current handle of O. I was happy they didn’t choose to call me Gertrude or Desdemona. O has its problems, but so far—knock a wooden stake—nobody has called me Big O or deteriorated into any colorful euphemisms for female genitalia. It was only a matter of time.

I ground out my cigarette, number eighteen, and composed a short, apologetic email to my clients placing all the blame squarely on U.S.V.C.D. They may supply me with most of my stuff, but that didn’t mean I had to cover for them. Bastards.

I resisted another cigarette, hard liquor and any recreational drugs over the next few hours as I put out fires left and right. The only thing crankier than a tamponless vamp is a PMSing one or a ravenous one. For the most part, PMS happened last week, and Heat-N-Go took care of the hunger problems. I diffused most of the vamps’ tampon anger by offering ten-percent off their next order, vowing to subtly nudge up the prices in a month or so for those who’d complained. Hey, business was business and I liked the rent paid.

Besides, I didn’t have a lot of scruples, thanks to premier con man Al Banks, the paternal half of my immediate family tree. My mother, Maria, from whom I’d inherited my long black hair, brown eyes and olive complexion, had pulled her own con by dying soon after my birth. Al had been stuck with me, and I’d been raised on the great American road. There aren’t too many ethics lessons taught in the booths of truck stops.

Around eleven o’clock, the hue, if not the cry, had died down. Thoughts of a hot, cheesy pepperoni pizza tempted me to close shop for an hour. As a night owl, I figured eleven seemed a good time to break for lunch.

I’d snapped on my answering machine and had reached for my jacket to ward off the mid-October chill when my cell rang. Not a lot of people have my personal number. I checked caller ID and debated answering. Jeremy Nolan. Hunger beckoned, but he was my number one delivery guy. I’d talked to him hours earlier about the tampon fiasco, so he must have another crisis on his hands.

Jer, what’s up? I checked to make sure I had cigarettes in my pocket. A shriek from the cell stilled my hand. Jer? The skin at the back of my neck tingled. Hell, my whole scalp tingled.

A strangled cry answered me.

Jeremy? Where are you? I grabbed my keys and ran for the stairs and the parking lot one floor below.

Ellen... The rest was lost in more shrieks. A woman screamed obscenities.

My mind skipped over the schedule I’d given him yesterday. Ellen Wagner. Good God, I’d sent him to Hormone Central. Ellen Wagner was one of the looniest of the vamps, a psycho capable of ripping us Normals into ticker-tape confetti.

Abort, abort. I took the stairs two at a time. Jeremy, get the hell out of there.

The bitch is crazy, he yelled.

It was the last thing he said to me.

I threw myself on my Victory motorcycle and hit the street at a dead run. The echoes of Jeremy’s screams of agony sliced into my nerves like a Japanese Ginsu knife. I knew I wouldn’t find him alive. Ellen had caused problems in the past. He didn’t stand a chance.

It broke my heart. Damn, just Friday, he’d volunteered to work extra hours. I’d sent him home. It was his sixth month anniversary with his girlfriend, and I wanted him to be with her rather than help me. I should have warned him about Ellen.

Choking back tears, I tried to call Vince Tagliani. He was a cop and an ex-boyfriend. A dangerous combination—guns and anger, but our breakups never lasted long. I always went back to him then promptly broke it off when he started talking about kids and white-picket fences.

He didn’t answer. I stopped trying. He couldn’t do anything but mop up the mess. Ellen would disappear for a few months, and the cops would conveniently forget about the crime during her absence. When vamps go rogue, they usually do the boroughs a favor and take out the unseemly side of society.

The investigation might be different for Jeremy. He was a good kid from a decent family. His death would be listed as something else, of course. A hit and run. Gang violence. Vampires are thought of as myths by the vast majority of the population, and the government liked to keep mass panic to a minimum so official recognition doesn’t exist. Maybe the cops would seek out Ellen and administer their own brand of vigilante justice. Maybe not.

It had rained earlier, and the air smelled like wet leaves, wet garbage and New York funk. The bike hit something dead in the street, and I fought to right it. The Victory was too big for just anybody, but I’d inherited Al’s lanky frame and stood at five-ten without heels. I pulled into the tony Upper West Side address, stopped the Victory and stowed it next to Jeremy’s blue BMX. The door to the building was unlocked. Ellen still might be lurking around.

Time to try calling the big boys again. I didn’t feel super brave.

Vince answered on the third ring. Babe.

In one word, I heard forgiveness for our last fight, his hope I’d add multiple babies to his gigantic, Italian family and the smoky thread of whiskey he’d probably been drinking. I shoved aside inappropriate thoughts of hot, monkey sex and concentrated on the danger at hand.

Vince, I’ve got a rogue vamp on my hands. I think she killed Jeremy. My voice broke a little. The reality of Vince’s fate wrapped another layer of lead around the cold lump of my heart. Damn it, the kid didn’t deserve this.

Betty? Where the hell are you?

I could imagine him bolting to his feet, his free hand searching his pants pocket for the key to the lockbox where he kept his gun. He’d automatically note the time and fumble for his shoes, the first thing he always took off when he came home. They’d be in the hallway with three other pair. I gave him the address, knowing backup would be there within minutes. Cops like a good vamp hunt to break the monotony of rapists, arsonists and gang members slicing themselves into sushi.

Betty, don’t do anything stupid, he warned.

My hackles rose at his assumption of fragility on my part. Tagliani, she took out Jeremy. You think I’m going to knit tea cozies waiting for you guys to show up?

The bulb to the streetlight was dark. Fried or shot out? Firearms didn’t seem like Ellen’s weapon of choice.

"I’ll have guys there in three minutes. Stay where you are!" I could hear the veins in his forehead popping.

Yeah, yeah. Before he could say more, I snapped the cell shut and pulled out my Walther handgun. Let the bitch try to bite me with a 9 mm up her nose.

I sidled up to the building. For the scene of a potential violent crime, the place was, forgive the pun, dead. Of course, the rain pretty much kept everyone inside, but I didn’t expect to see any potential witnesses hanging around. I toed the door open with my green Sketchers and let it swing on appropriately squeaky hinges. When no one jumped out at me brandishing a knife, I peeked around the corner.

Nada. Zilch. Disappointment filled me. Not that I wanted to see Jeremy’s carved up corpse anytime soon, but it meant I’d have to go deeper into the bowels of the building. Bowels weren’t my forte. I’d rather hang around in the larynx region. Tongue, even. Someplace close to the appropriate exit.

The impending police raid gave me false confidence and pushed me forward. If I had any sense, I’d hang back and wait for them, but I’d never let sense interfere with justice. I wanted Ellen. She lived at the end of the hall on the second floor. I’d delivered to her once before and knew the layout.

Taking the elevator didn’t feel like a cloak-and-dagger way to approach a murder scene, so I headed up the stairs. A perfect place to be ambushed, but I believed all the bad karma had been directed Jeremy’s way. The smell of death hit me even before I opened the stairway door. There’s nothing like the stench of entrails and extenuation to clear one’s sinuses. I’m glad I didn’t have the pizza, after all.

All hopes of not running into Ellen vanished as I heard her muttering the closer I edged toward her place. Great. I didn’t relish a showdown at the O.K. Corral. Personally, I’d rather shoot her in the back and exit, stage right. Not very moral of me, but then again, she’d probably turned my assistant into Jeremy jerky.

The muttering grew louder, and I started to make out individual words. Things like meat eater and bloodlust and organic. I didn’t understand the last, unless she’d gone psycho hippie on me, and I didn’t want to know about the first. Filleting Jeremy smacked wrong on so many levels.

His left arm stretched into the hallway. A line of razor cuts marched from elbow to wrist. She couldn’t have got much blood from him dead, so a certain amount of torture must have taken place.

I briefly closed my eyes and said a silent prayer. I hadn’t grown up with formal religion, but Abuela Vasquez’s Catholic rumblings had rubbed off on me during the three years I’d lived with her. I didn’t buy into the Jesus-as-savior package, but I knew Jeremy had, and it was his soul I prayed for.

Ellen’s mutterings changed to unintelligible chanting. I checked my gun and moved in. A deep, fortifying breath later, I stepped over Jeremy’s body and entered her apartment.

She looked up. In the few times I’d met her, Ellen had reminded me of Glenn Close. Short, blondish hair, a square jaw and piercing blue eyes. The bloodlust had turned her into Cruella DeVampire. Stark-raving bonkers. A prerequisite to murder, but the transformation shocked me. Skunk-streaked hair. Maniacal smile drenched in blood red lipstick. Literally. Insane eyes. Oh, and the black leather bustier, garters, fishnet stockings and six-inch heels.

Cruella DeVampire goes Dominatrix.

The Fashion Police need to be called, I said, ignoring the leash that led from her hand to Jeremy’s neck. You’d look better in pastels.

She smiled. I would have preferred a growl or swearing. Smiles can be so deceiving. Betty, she said in a soft purr, her eyes measuring me. Not for a sauté pan, I hoped.

Ellen. I echoed her tone. Honey, have you been taking your meds?

The smile closed, thankfully hiding pieces of Jeremy stuck in her teeth. I’d tried not to notice the long cut on him from neck to navel and the ensuing spillage. Damn, but he’d been a good kid. Ellen wiped off an eight-inch knife on her bustier, which didn’t absorb too well. The blood dripped down into a large, spreading pool on the floor.

You look like my type, AB positive. The blade slapped each side of her left breast as if she was a human knife-sharpener. If she didn’t watch out, she’d slice off something important.

I kept the Walther ready. I should have shot her, but justice has those pesky scales, and I wanted an explanation.

Honey, you don’t want my blood, I told her. It’s tainted. Cigarettes, you know. It’d be like sucking on an ashtray.

Oh. She frowned. Then I’ll have to kill you.

She raised the knife.

The gun misfired.

Two

New York City suited Gabriel Mercer, large, impersonal and anonymous. Just the ticket for a quick hit. He’d dropped his bags in the apartment rented for him, found the Walther left there for his use and caught a cab.

At least, I didn’t have to take the subway. With heightened security, he couldn’t afford to be caught with a loaded, untraceable weapon. He’d take advantage of the quick, impersonal transportation of a cab, even if this particular one was driven by a new immigrant who’d twice wandered in the wrong direction from Ellen Wagner’s apartment building.

It really wasn’t acceptable to show up late to a vampire slaying. The tardiness, more than the purpose for the visit, bothered him the most. He was known within the Association for clean kills. The success of the last job assured the next one.

He paid the cabbie and sent him on his way. The less chance for a witness, the better, though he’d be out of the city in a few days. Eliminate the most dangerous vamps, have the bounty added to a practically untouched bank account and move on to the next hit. In. Out. Gabe prided himself on his surgical precision, in both his professional and private life.

His gaze swept the neighborhood. A quiet street made quieter by the continuing drizzle, another point in his favor.

The door to the apartment building was unlocked. He slipped through it warily, gun drawn. A quick check inside showed a long corridor and no occupants moving about. Better yet. He took the stairs, shunning a possible entrapment in the elevator. He followed the scent of honeysuckle up the steps, the aroma sweet and reminding him of the warmth of his grandfather’s farm where he’d spent childhood summers. Shaking off the past, Gabe opened the stairway door and was immediately assailed by another scent. Death.

The hair on the back of his neck rose. He was either too late, or the Association had sent someone else to do the job. He’d heard of it happening—the main office throwing competition under a hit man’s nose to keep him wary and toeing the line. A form of insurance, he guessed. Gabe wouldn’t put it past them. He had to be constantly on guard against their shady procedures. Any office that dealt in killing lacked the values to win the Employer of the Year award.

Voices rose at the end of the hall. Women’s voices. All doors but one seemed hermetically sealed, so he headed toward the one, an increased urgency in his gait. Adrenaline pumped into every cell. A heightened sense of awareness made him notice the beige-on-beige color scheme, a burned out light bulb and the continued scent of honeysuckle tainted by blood and the unique smell of a person’s insides.

The arm of someone obviously dead intruded into the hall. He didn’t stop to wonder who it belonged to but stopped short of the doorway for reconnaissance before entering. A scream cut through the air before he could get in position. Gabe raised his Walther and swung through the doorway, sidestepped the victim and rolled to the left.

Tripped to the left, rather. Someone else blocked his way. Without looking down, he continued rolling until he felt a non-sticky surface beneath his feet. He came up in a crouch, his gun drawn level with the fourth occupant of the room. Ellen Wagner. Gabe recognized her from the text he’d been sent. Breathing heavily, she stood over both of her victims. A smile of pure satisfaction and evil slashed her red-rimmed mouth.

Gabe fired twice. The bullets pierced her heart and stopped its beat forever. She didn’t even have time to look up in surprise. He preferred it that way. No condemning glares. No threats of retribution to him and his descendents. A request for atonement would have been nice once in awhile, but he never gave them a chance. The one he’d cared about the most had never atoned for her sins, why should his victims?

Wagner fell. Gabe didn’t glance at her again, but moved forward. One of her victims, a woman, was still alive. He knelt at her side and quickly assessed her injuries. Non life-threatening, no stab wounds, but a few slashes on her left arm and hand, bleeding freely. A nasty head wound, probably from the coffee table that sported hair and blood on its corner. The impact had knocked her out and added to the copious amount of blood staining the white carpet. He grabbed a dish towel from the nearby kitchen and pressed it to her skull, pushing aside a swath of dark hair to reach the wound.

Because his livelihood depended on details, he automatically noticed hers. Early thirties, olive complexion, a long and lanky body. Nothing extraordinary about her clothing—jeans and a sweatshirt, but the neon green sneakers were definitely distinct. So was the Walther 9 mm wrapped in her hand. Standard issue from the Association. Why in hell hadn’t she used it? If she was an agent—if—he couldn’t leave her in the middle of a double homicide. If not, well, he’d like to know her involvement. She might be a threat to the Association, in which case, he’d have to do a pro bono hit.

The wail of incoming sirens made up his mind. Gabe tucked her gun in his pocket.

Not a small woman. Curvy and tall. He wouldn’t have to look too far down from his own six-two, provided she gained consciousness to face him. He shoved aside thoughts of that possibility and worked his way toward the windows. A good hit man always had a back door in place before going through the front. The cops would be pouring up the stairs, ready to take out a homicidal vamp. While they occupied themselves, he’d use the fire escape. Not so easy, he thought, as he lifted the Amazon through the opening and rolled her onto the stairs. He closed the window behind him. Not that the cops wouldn’t notice his footprints leading to it, but his action would delay them. He was a big fan of delaying arrest as much as possible.

The rain had increased to stinging sheets. Working blind, Gabe negotiated his burden down the short flight and dropped to the ground, almost losing her. He grunted and redistributed her weight. There should be a law. Agents should exercise, work out, tone up, and have some compassion for the person willing to save their sorry ass when they messed up an assignment.

He didn’t find a cab for two blocks, in which time his back and shoulders felt the pressure of her weight. No use complaining, though, he’d been lucky to find any cab at all. Plans of changing vehicles halfway to his destination dissolved in the downpour. He’d take his chances with the