Grace of Smoke

Grace of Smoke

by David M. Bachman

Copyright 2014 David M. Bachman

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter One

Ray had officially been a vampire for less than twenty-four hours before he had killed three humans. Now, he was killing more of them … or at least he was trying. They had started it, just as they had before. He was only fighting back. He simply hated that he had to keep killing people just to stay alive. And, even more than that, he hated that nothing at all seemed to be going right this time.

Kat was dead. He had watched her die, practically torn apart by another hail of gunfire from all directions. Strobe-like flashes of fire from out in the darkness, so many guns, so many bullets, and so many of them had found their mark. Somehow, none of the shots had struck him, even though he had been standing right in front of her as it had happened. And now she lay dead, curled up on her side, riddled with holes, a pool of crimson spreading out and soaking the dusty desert floor underneath her petite body.

Now, they were coming for him. Drawing his gun, it felt as if it was glued inside its holster. Pressing the trigger, it had felt impossibly heavy, the pull exceedingly long. Click. No bang. He smacked the underside of the pistol, ensuring the magazine was properly seated, and in doing so, his muscles felt sluggish and weak. He racked the slide to chamber another round. The slide dragged, feeling like he had lubricated the gun with cold molasses. As he released the slide to let it slingshot forward, the cartridge jammed halfway in the chamber – a failure to feed. He tried smacking the back of the slide to ram it home. No luck.

They were shooting at him now. The shots were falling all around him, none of them hitting his body. Somehow, the accuracy they had shown before in killing Kat was gone as they tried to kill him. He didn’t move. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. His feet felt as though they were glued to the ground. He tried to jerk himself into motion, but instead he only fell back and aside, landing upon his rear. The fall was impossibly slow, the ground absurdly soft, like he was fighting on the moon.

He could see the men stepping out of the shadows as they fired. The shooting just seemed to go on and on and on without end. Puffs of dust sprung up all around him as bullets ricocheted off the ground, narrowly missing him as he struggled to get in the fight.

He continued fighting to get his full-size Smith & Wesson M&P forty-five to work. It never jammed, not like this. Why now? He dropped the magazine, racked the slide a few times – it still felt sticky – and he jammed the mag back in, trying again to chamber a round. It jammed again.

He cursed, tossing it aside. He went to draw his other gun with his left hand, a nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson M&P Shield. The gun slipped from his fingers. He cursed again, fumbling to grab the gun that he had dropped. His finger snagged the trigger. It went off. He flinched. Something hit his right side and the pain was immediate. He had shot himself. Stupid!

The men were close now, practically standing right over him. Ray reached for his knife. It wasn’t there. Had it fallen out? No, he simply hadn’t bothered to put it on his belt. He checked his pocket. That knife was also missing. He looked for the Shield that he had dropped. It had simply vanished. He had nothing but his hands and feet. They had guns. He was pretty much screwed.

The men had stopped shooting and were standing over him now, just aiming their rifles down at him. He couldn’t see their faces. Their heads were just a shapeless blackness, as if they wore dark hoods that even lacked holes for their eyes. Ray looked over to where Kat had fallen. She was gone, leaving only a puddle of bright red blood-soaked mud behind. They had taken her. Someone grabbed his shoulders. Now they were going to take him. Now he was going to die, too.

He did the only thing he could think of, using the only weapon he had left. He grabbed the wrist of one of the hands that was holding him and shaking him, and he jerked it aside. He bit into it, burying his teeth in the soft flesh of that forearm. For an instant, the attacker froze. And then, as the refreshing taste of blood filled his mouth, so hot and delicious, he heard someone cry out in pain. It wasn’t the voice of a man, but instead a woman. It was a familiar-sounding voice. It was Kat.

Ray! Ray, stop! she yelled as the blurry sight of her gradually formed before his eyes. She was straddling his waist now, her forearm still in his mouth. Ow, God, Ray! Stop! Stop!

He was so confused by this development, he simply froze for a moment. Finally, something struck him in the side again, the wound to his side suddenly an agonizing pain. As he cried out, he let go, and Kat pulled her arm free of his mouth and immediately climbed off of him. Shapes formed out of the darkness – walls, furniture, a ceiling fan. He brought himself to sit up, blinking away the fog of confusion. The pain in his side and the taste of blood in his mouth brought everything into focus rather quickly. He was home. He was on his bed. Kat stood beside the bed, holding a fresh, bloody bite wound to her right arm, and looking at him with an absolutely terrified, stunned expression. He felt a similar look forming upon his own face as he realized what had just happened.

Oh my God, he finally said. Kat?

Yeah, it’s me! she answered. You almost bit my arm off!

He swallowed. Her impossibly sweet, hot, coppery blood glided down his throat. What the hell was wrong with him? He had been dreaming, having a nightmare. How could he not have known that it was Kat trying to wake him? How had he mistaken her for someone that was trying to kill him? And why the hell had he bitten her like that? Any other time, his first instinct would have been to punch someone, not bite them. How had his teeth replaced his fists as default weapons?

The feel of his tongue running over his teeth quickly reminded him. Ray was a vampire now. He was still getting used to the idea. It was still weird, still new to him. And apparently, he had decided to take a bite out of Kat, not by choice but instead by some weird kind of instinct. She looked at him in a way that seemed to express that she felt somewhat betrayed. Like a sick, wounded dog, he had snapped at someone trying to help him – someone that loved him.

I’m … I’m so sorry. I didn’t … God, Kat, I’m sorry, he stammered, still blinking sleep from his eyes as he sat upright. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Kat immediately took a step back, looking genuinely afraid of him. He felt awful, getting that kind of a reaction out of her.

Are you awake now? she asked.

Ray shook his head quickly, slapped his own face a couple of times, and pressed upon the aching wound to his side. It didn’t hurt as badly now, but Kat striking him in the ribs to free herself had definitely revived the pain for a bit. Even for a vampire, bullet wounds took some time to heal.

I think so, he said. He licked his lips automatically, feeling weird that such an action seemed so involuntary. I’m so sorry, Kat. Are you okay?

Yeah, I’ll be fine, she assured him, glancing at her own wound. I think you were having a bad dream.

No kidding. I’ve never had one where I bit someone like that.

She held up her arm, looking underneath. I’m making a mess.

He hopped to his feet, a movement that was a bit too quick for him still. He stumbled, almost falling into her, but he regained his footing soon enough. The effects of just that quick taste of blood, mixed with the lingering grogginess of sleep, had left him feeling just as drunk as if he’d slammed three beers.

Ray led her over into the bathroom, one of two directly connected to the master bedroom. It was sort of like a his and hers setup, with one side having a shower while the other bathroom had a very large bathtub. He led her into the hers side, which happened to be the closer of the two at that moment. She leaned over the sink and laid her slender arm in the basin, turning on the tap. The cold water was actually pretty warm at that time of year, being mid-summer. Even at night, the water that passed through pipes in the heated ground still held some of the day’s warmth. Ray glimpsed the time on the clock as Kat rinsed the wound to her arm – three-thirty in the morning. They had been asleep for almost five hours already.

He moved to stand beside her, checking out her wound in the bluish glow of the nearby LED night light above the bathroom countertop. It was pretty nasty, a clear half-moon of teeth marks on the top of her forearm and another on the underside near her wrist. The upper looked like the worse of the two, his elongated upper canines having obviously penetrated the deepest. The sharpness of his other teeth had done a fine job of slicing right into her tender skin, though. Ray was horrified by the wound, not just how bad it looked but also the simple fact that he had done this to her.

God, Kat, I am so sorry, he said once again. I didn’t know what I was doing.

I know, she said through her clenched teeth, carefully rubbing her fingers around the edges of the wound. It was bleeding rather profusely. I know you didn’t mean it. You were dreaming.

I don’t know why I bit you. I mean, not just because of the dream, he said, but just the fact that I actually bit you. I’ve never bitten anyone before. Never even wanted to.

It’s normal. You’re a vampire, remember? she said. Vampires bite people. It’s just what we do. It's part of the job.

He grabbed the nearby hand towel, pulling it off the swivel ring from which it had been hanging upon the wall beside the mirror. Is it normal to go biting people every time you sleep?

No, she said, but it’s normal if you’re going into bloodlust. I think that’s what made you do it. You were going into bloodlust while you were sleeping.

But … why?

Your body is still trying to heal, she said, reaching for the cold water handle. You got shot. You lost a lot of blood. If you can't get real blood, then you need other stuff. Some meat, some sugar, lots of water … stuff like that. You need carbs, protein, and iron, and you need water. You need to make new blood. She turned off the water. Her arm was still bleeding badly. I’ll need to put something on this to make it stop bleeding.

He held up the towel, having anticipated this. Use this.

No, I don’t want to mess up your towels.

It’s an old towel. I have extras. Here, he said, carefully laying the towel over the wound and then wrapping it. This isn’t sterile, but we can use it to stop the bleeding. Once it stops, we can put some gauze on it.

You don’t need to do that. It won’t bleed for long. It should gel over soon. She looked up at him, wincing only slightly as he applied a bit of pressure to the wound. Kat smiled. You’re always helping me.

Of course. It’s my job.

Not like this, she said. Fixing my wounds isn’t your job.

Technically, he hadn’t always been her boyfriend. In fact, that label was so fresh that he hadn’t even worn it for more than a few days, if even that long. Originally, she had hired him to be her day courier, a human paid to run errands for a vampire that she couldn’t do during daylight hours. She had been attracted to him from the start, flirting with him a lot, but he had kept things professional between them … at least for the first two weeks. Then, she had suggested they go out to dinner. Then there had been the attack at the Square J gas station and, well, Ray became her bloodspawn, inhibitions had been thrown to the wind, and now they were officially in love. It wasn’t the strangest story that Ray had ever heard, but it was certainly one that he had never expected to find himself living.

He shrugged. I didn’t think I was still your day courier. I can’t do a lot during the daytime, now that I’m a vampire.

You can, but it’s not easy. You have to wear lots of clothing and sunscreen. That sucks in the summer. She let out a disappointed sigh. You’re right. I need to hire another day courier.

So, I guess this means I’m fired, huh?

No. You’re not fired, Kat said with a smile, standing on her tip-toes to kiss him briefly. I’m giving you a better job.

Oh? What job is that?

Bodyguard, she replied, and lover.

Kat pulled him into a much longer, deeper kiss. He kept one hand upon the towel wrapped around her wounded arm, but with the other, he ran his fingers through her silky, straight, dark brown hair, his hand coming to rest at her waist. She lowered her hand and reached to embrace him, pulling him firmly against herself. The pressure on his right side from her left arm, however, brought a sound of discomfort from him as the pain of his own injury flared to life once again. She broke the kiss, looking a little bit sad.

I want you, Ray, she sighed, but I know you can't right now. It sucks. One of us is always hurt. Every time we have a date, something always happens. Someone always attacks us.

It was true. The first time they had gone out on a date together, it had ended with Kat getting pepper-sprayed and cut up by a couple of rednecks at a gas station. The same knife that had slashed and stabbed Kat had still been covered in her blood when it had been thrust into Ray’s left side. The deep, thorough exposure to her blood had accidentally initiated his Change, meaning that only four days later, Ray was a Commoner vampire and Kat was now his Maker.

After registering with authorities, per the Vampire Integration Compliance Act, Kat had taken him out to a vampire bar to meet some of her friends and to celebrate the completion of his Change. The Christian Resistance of Sanguine Sin, otherwise known as the CROSS, had been waiting for them at her home. As soon as they had returned to Kat’s place, a group of men had shot her home full of holes, firing hundreds of rounds, before attempting to storm the residence. Ray and Kat had defended themselves with guns of their own, leaving a total of four men dead. County, state, and even federal authorities were still looking for the two other men that had escaped.

Two out of two times, their dates had ended in violent attacks, the second being worse than the first. Understandably, Ray was a little leery of tempting fate by suggesting they ever try for a third date. He wanted her and she wanted him, but they had not yet consummated their love. And even the word love was new enough between them that he’d only just admitted to her (and himself) just a few hours prior that the feeling was mutual.

Things had moved quickly between them … and dangerously. Was someone upstairs trying to tell them something? Had the attacks been acts of divine intervention meant to say slow it down or perhaps even all right, knock it off because they were on the wrong track? Ray had been the hesitant one before. He still had some worries – not so much doubts, just concerns. Now that they were bound by blood and officially a couple, he had no reason to hold back. No reason, except … what if it just wasn’t meant to happen?

Maybe we should just skip the whole dating thing…?

Kat suddenly looked alarmed. You don’t want to date me now?

He felt stupid for having even suggested that. No, he wanted Kat. He loved her. He knew her well enough, and he adored everything about her. She gave him purpose, gave his life meaning and direction. If Ray had never met Kat, he would have still been wandering aimlessly through life, spinning his wheels, flailing his arms in freefall through the years towards death.

It wasn’t simply that Kat was beautiful and attracted to him; rather, it was that she genuinely needed him, and she sincerely appreciated everything about him. She wasn’t shallow or critical. She wasn’t judgmental. And she certainly wasn’t desperate. Someone as gorgeous as Kat could have had damn near any man she'd wanted, human or vampire. Sure, she was a little bit clingy, but considering that she was the target of a group of religious extremists, and because Ray had twice acted to protect her, it was perhaps understandable.

The last thing in the world he wanted was to stop seeing her. He wanted … no, he needed her in his life. Maybe that made him co-dependent. Whatever. It made him happy to know that he was needed by someone whom he loved. So what if all of this involved fangs, blood-drinking, and allergies to garlic, silver, and ultraviolet light? He wasn’t used to it, but he would adapt. After all, they did call it the Change for more than one reason.

I mean, let’s not bother going out, he corrected himself with a smirk. What about drinks and a movie at home? We never did get around to doing that the other night.

You’re right. We didn’t, she agreed. She still seemed unhappy. But that’s not what I really want.

I know. And believe me, he said, I want that just as much as you do. I just need to heal some more.

She appeared slightly reassured by that. Kat moved away just enough to raise the edge of Ray’s shirt, taking a peek at the wound to his side. She ran her slim, soft, delicate fingers over his ribs just below the wound. Instead of hurting, it only tickled.

You’re healing fast. You’ll feel better soon, she told him. Kat dropped his shirt, tugged at the waistband of his shorts, and looked up to him with a grin. You know, there are some other things we could do…?

He chuckled, catching her meaning, but he shook his head. He leaned down, gave her another kiss, and caressed her cheek affectionately. Those dark brown eyes, looking black in this dim light, glimmered with mischief and anticipation. God, she was so beautiful.

I want to be fully healed before our first time, he said. That way, I won’t have to hold anything back.

Ooh … promises, promises, she teased.

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Chapter Two

Kat held her arm over the sink and carefully unwrapped the towel from her arm, checking it. Ray was surprised to find that the bleeding had already stopped. It had only been a couple of minutes since he had chomped on her. This whole vampire physiology thing was pretty amazing sometimes.

Vampires had a strange mechanism in their blood chemistry that was like an advanced form of clotting. Human bodies tended to form a dry, hard scab over a wound, something that could take hours to form and didn’t stop serious bleeding. Vampire wounds had a tendency to form a sticky, gel-like barrier in a short time that quickly stopped bleeding from very serious wounds, remaining flexible for the first few minutes or hours before drying to a more solid, human-like scab as it healed. Wounds that typically required sutures for a human could be sealed by simply applying a bit of pressure and a field dressing, sometimes not even requiring that much, because the wound site would gel over quickly and stop the bleeding.

Ray had been shot through the right lung with an AK-variant rifle not even twenty-four hours ago. An approximately thirty-caliber hole had been blasted right through him, a little hole in the front and a slightly bigger hole out his back. As a human, a shot like that would have either killed him or at least left him stuck in a hospital bed in the intensive care unit for quite some time with a collapsed lung and whatever else.

However, now he was already up walking around like this and breathing quite normally, the wound to his torso obviously still being tender but quickly improving. The bullet might have nicked or even fractured his ribs on the way through, but as far as he could tell at that point, apparently his bones had started gluing themselves back together pretty well. He was lucky in that he had been shot with standard military-grade full metal jacketed ammunition, rather than hollow points or, worse yet, frangible ammunition. If he’d been shot with a hollow point bullet in that same 7.62x39 caliber, the damage would have been much more severe. Worse yet, if the guy had used silver-plated bullets or frangible ammunition, he would have surely died at the scene.

Kat had come through the attack completely unscathed. It was only now, in the presumed safety of Ray’s house, that she had been injured … by Ray, of all people. She would heal, and with much greater swiftness and ease, but he still felt like a total ass for hurting her when he was supposed to be protecting her.

She carefully wiped away the blood that had dried around the wound by dampening a corner of the towel and dabbing at it gently. Ray suggested that they wrap it with gauze to protect it, but Kat refused, insisting that it would just be a waste of material. It would heal soon enough on its own, and the gel layer would protect it just fine as long as she was careful not to do anything to break the seal.

Kat stood close to him, wrapping her other arm around his waist and laying her head upon his chest with a sigh. God, I’m so tired.

Maybe you should go back to bed? he suggested. It’s not even four yet. It’s not like you’ve got to go to work tonight or tomorrow.

I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about everything. She looked up at him. Are you going back to sleep?

I wish, Ray replied, shaking his head. I could lay down with you, but I know there’s no way I’ll ever sleep. I’m too wound up. I feel kind of jittery.

That’s the start of bloodlust. You need to eat. She held up her arm. I should have let you feed on me. You need more blood.

He shook his head again. I’ll find something to eat in the kitchen. I’ll bet you’re probably a little hungry, too. I don’t think either of us has had anything to eat since yesterday.

Yeah. She brightened up a bit. Let me cook for you. I know what you need.

Ray simply shrugged. Kat enthusiastically led him out of the bathroom, through the bedroom and dining room, and into the kitchen. The brightness of the light over the sink was uncomfortably intense for a few moments as he clicked it on without thinking.

You need different lights, she informed him, shielding her eyes from the glare for a few moments. You won’t need so much light now at night.

It was true, his night vision was remarkably improved. He could not see in total darkness, of course, but it took a lot less ambient lighting for him to be able to see things quite clearly. One side-effect of vampirism with most races was that it caused one’s pupils to become permanently and fully dilated. This did allow them to see better at night, but it also made bright lights very uncomfortable, even painful, and their eyes could only adjust so much to make up for it.

Ray had been using a few strategically-placed LED night lights throughout his house to allow him to see just enough at night to make his way safely through the house whenever he returned at night, but they had always