Sneak Peek - Chapter One

Lennox Engineering Hall, Freeman University, Upstate NY

Present Day

Beth D’Angelo let out a long, slow breath to manage her growing frustration. The bangs she was trying to grow out had escaped her ponytail and flew about in all directions. Mindlessly, she pushed them back behind her ears.

No matter how long she stared at the photos displayed on the computer screen in front of her, she could not figure out why the alignment was not right. Without the correct alignment, she couldn’t measure the size of the fuel droplets. Without the data on the fuel droplets, she couldn’t write her report. Without a finished report, she couldn’t satisfy her senior research requirement, and she wouldn’t graduate at the end of the semester. In fact, at this rate, it would take Beth just as long to get her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering as it would take her peers to get their PhDs.

Letting out a groan, she plucked a pencil from the tin can sitting on the lab counter and flipped through her notepad, determined to go through the setup one more time.

From what she could tell, all the different parts of the experimental apparatus—the housing, the camera, the fuel source, and the igniter—were assembled correctly. The release mechanism also functioned the way it was supposed to—when she pressed the button on the controller, the housing dropped from its starting position thirty feet up in the air. The fuel droplet was generated and ignited as the housing fell, all at the proper timing, all according to plan.

The problem was capturing the whole thing in a series of photos. For some unfathomable reason, Beth could not get a picture of the burning droplet in the center of the camera’s view. It was always off. She had tightened the camera to the housing, moved it to a different location, and rotated it. She had used a different camera, started taking pictures earlier, and at one point even tried using two cameras. No matter what she did, though, nothing seemed to work.

Brushing the hair out of her face again, Beth logged off the computer, then packed up to go home. Maybe research wasn’t her calling. She certainly didn’t seem to have the patience for it.

At this point, though, it didn’t matter. There was no time to put together a different experiment. It was already February, and projects were due just before spring break in April. That left her with only two months to get the data she needed, write up her report, and present it. She had to finish.

Beth glanced at her watch as she put her arms through her puffy winter coat and wrapped a thick scarf around her neck. It was a few minutes past ten. The bar- hoppers and clubbers would be out in full force, enjoying another Saturday night of debauchery in Collegetown.

Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, Beth walked out of the lab, locking the door behind her. As she made her way up the stairs to the main floor of the aging structure that housed the Borlyn Center for Mechanical Engineering, she admonished herself for staying so late. She hated being in the building alone at night. The halls were so quiet compared to the daytime hustle and bustle of students, and the periodic rumble of the heating system turning on as the late winter chill attempted to penetrate its walls always made her jump.

As she hurried toward the exit, motion sensors lit up one section of the hall at a time with a click. She tried to keep her gaze focused on the well-lit section she was in, refusing to acknowledge the darkness in front and behind her.

The creak of the metal door on its hinges as Beth pushed her way outside at last was disturbingly loud against the quiet backdrop of the empty building. Once outside, the sounds of revelry coming from the bar scene two blocks away immediately reached her ears, carrying well in the chilly night air, and she found the laughter and voices oddly comforting.

Beth had reached her car and was about to put the key in the door to unlock it when a woman’s shrill squeal hit her ears. Startled, Beth almost dropped her keys. As she paused, listening for more, the squealing was replaced with girlish laughter, which was then followed by the voice of a young man saying something unintelligible, precipitating even more laughter from the girl.

Beth’s gaze tracked the voices to the wooded area just past the parking lot, and she slowly shook her head, sighing. Drunk college students often wandered from the bars to the wooded area on the other side of the5Kathryn Amurraparking lot, seeking the secluded cover of the trees. It was foolish and dangerous, in Beth’s opinion. In fact, one girl last October had almost died out there in those woods. The campus police found her on Sunday morning, unconscious and half naked with strange marks on the back of her neck. She had been very drunk, apparently, as she couldn’t even remember how she’d gotten there or who had been with her. Of course, the guy never came forward for questioning. The girl had just been lucky that the weather had been on the mild side for upstate New York that time of year. She could have died of hypothermia.

Beth pulled out of the parking lot and onto the side road that ran from the Engineering Quad toward Central Campus, then took a left on East Avenue and made her way past the Arts and Sciences buildings and into North Campus, where many of the University’s sorority and fraternity houses were located. Her apartment was a tiny one-bedroom on the second floor of a shabby-looking brick building nestled between two of the University’s rowdiest fraternities. It was rather ironic.

As Beth pulled into her usual spot under a large tree in the lot in front of her building and turned off the ignition, her cell phone rang. It was her best friend, Xiaolin Feng.

“Hey, Lin, what’s up?” Beth chose to stay in the warm car for a few minutes while they talked.

“Beth, where are you?” Lin was naturally terse, but her kind heart and quirky sense of humor had drawn Beth in from the moment they’d first met as freshmen in their residence hall. Neither got along with their roommate that year, and their mutual misery had made the bond between them that much stronger.

“I’m sitting in my parked car outside my apartment building. Why?”

“Can you come over?”

Beth let out a sigh she hoped her friend couldn’t hear. “You want me to come over right now? I just got back from the lab and I’m tired. It’s almost ten-thirty.” She really didn’t feel like doing anything other than taking a long, hot shower and falling asleep under a pile of blankets.

“Beth,” replied Lin in an exasperated tone, “It’s Saturday night, and you’re not eighty years old. Most people our age don’t even go out until ten or eleven on the weekend. I need to talk to you about something.”

Beth leaned back in her seat, accepting defeat. “Fine, I’ll come over, but I can’t stay long.”

“All right, old lady. See you in a few minutes.”

Beth chuckled as she contemplated whether to walk eight minutes to the house Lin shared with some international exchange students or drive, but upon seeing drops of rain land on the windshield, she decided on the latter. She turned the key in the ignition, and the car hummed to life once again.

****

Thomas stood near the wall in the living room-turned-dance floor of Epsilon Delta Pi, a fraternity known for its loud parties and endless supply of alcohol. The rhythmic bass of the current song, which sounded a lot like the last song, pulsed through him, almost like a heartbeat. Holding a full bottle of beer, he gave an aloof but encouraging nod to a cute redhead who was looking his way. She smiled back at him. Then, as expected, she extricated herself from a conversation with two frat boys who were trying to7Kathryn Amurrasweet talk the pants off her.

Poor boys, Thomas thought, unsympathetically. They didn’t stand a chance with him in the room.

“Hi,” said the redhead, extending her manicured hand. “My name is Ashley.”

“Hello, Ashley,” he replied, taking her hand in his and rubbing his thumb seductively over her knuckles. “My name is Thomas.”

He heard her suck in a quick breath at his touch and smiled warmly at her. This is too easy.

Up close, he noticed the thick layer of makeup the girl wore, like a mask on her face. She was insecure about her freckles, so she hid them with a generous amount of foundation. Her eyebrows were traced over with a dark shade of brown, and her eyelashes were obviously not hers.

Thomas breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the human scent of her. It was not just the smell of her blood—sweet with just a hint of minerality—that thrilled him. It was the smell of strawberries and pears that came from the shampoo she had used to wash her hair hours before; the fragrance of lilacs from the perfume she wore; the salty scent of that thin layer of perspiration beginning to form under her arms and in between her breasts as she admired his tall stature and perfect features. As all these scents mingled in his nostrils, his body stiffened in anticipation. To say he would enjoy his next meal would be a ridiculous understatement.

“It’s pretty loud in here,” said Thomas, leaning in close so that the girl could feel his breath across her cheek. “Do you want to go somewhere a little quieter so we can talk?”

Even before she spoke, the girl began nodding slowly, a smile spreading across her face. “Yeah, sure. That would be great.”

Thomas detected alcohol on her breath, a mixture of beer and red wine. She was not falling over drunk, but she’d had enough that she would adequately enjoy what Thomas was about to do to her. More importantly, she would remember none of it in the morning.

Thomas reached down and took the girl’s hand, then led her to the stairs.

“Do you live here?” she asked, doing her best to keep pace with him in her high heels and tight skirt.

“No, but I’ve been here before. I know where we can go.”

Pulling her into an empty bedroom at the top of the stairs, Thomas closed the door behind them. He didn’t need to look at her to know what she was feeling. He could smell it.

Without a sound, Thomas stepped toward the redhead, his movements smooth and catlike. She sat down on the unmade bed and smiled coyly up at him in invitation.

Second only to the blissful oblivion of draining the blood from a human, this was what gave Thomas the most pleasure—the dance between the hunter and the hunted, the taker and the giver. That was what all these humans were, after all—givers. They were made to produce blood, and he was made to drink it. This girl, whose lips parted in expectation as Thomas sat beside her, she wanted him to take her. Her body, her blood—it was all one and the same.

Her eyes followed Thomas’ movements, wide and unblinking, consuming him even before he consumed her. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, her fingers intertwined and moving restlessly against each other in a shallow attempt to hide the fact that what she wanted more than anything else was to touch him and have him touch her.

He didn’t even have to try. All Thomas had to do was look at the girl and smile, and she was willingly and happily his. He was her master, and the realization of that thrilled him, time and time again.

Thomas ran his fingers slowly through her curly red locks. “I like your hair.”

The girl blushed, though the mask of make-up she wore dulled the rising color in her face.

Then, without warning, she leaned into him and pressed her lips against his. It was an awkward, childish kiss, but it roused him just the same.

As she withdrew, seemingly embarrassed by her own boldness, Thomas cradled her head between his hands and drew her to him once more.

Perhaps the pleasure he derived from this foreplay was because of the anticipation of the blood to come, or perhaps it was instinctual, a natural mechanism for preparing his victim. He had learned over time that the more willing his subjects—the more enjoyable the experience was for them—the less likely it was that they would remember they were bitten. And this girl was just as willing as he was, without even knowing what she was submitting to.

The first kiss was not very sexy. Thomas kept his mouth closed, and it was brief, but the girl melted into him, nonetheless. She craved Thomas, almost as much as Thomas craved the blood flowing through her veins. She wanted him to want her, needed his validation. It didn’t matter to her the reasons why. And he was more than happy to oblige.

When they parted, her hands moved to grasp the back of his head, her fingers burrowing into his thick hair, and this time it was she who pulled him in for another kiss.

Thinking about how her blood would taste on his tongue, Thomas tilted his head slightly, kissing her more deeply this time. She moaned softly and arched her back, pressing her breasts against his chest. She was his, and, knowing that, Thomas could wait no longer.

Slowly, he leaned her back until she was lying on the bed with him. Moving her thick hair out of the way, Thomas pressed gentle kisses along the curve of her neck.

“You have a pretty neck,” he mumbled against her skin as he rolled on top of her. The girl’s pulse quickened and her rib cage rose and fell beneath him in fast, shallow breaths of desire. The feel of the blood under her unbroken skin roused Thomas to the point of physical pain. He had to drink. There would be no carnal pleasure tonight. Only blood.

“Just relax, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly into her neck.

She mumbled something and moved her head to the side to give him better access. What a good girl.

Drawing his lips back from his teeth, he bit into her neck and the warm, sweet liquid filled his mouth.

“Oh,” he heard her utter, but she made no move to push him away.

As a reward for her compliance, Thomas put his free hand on the girl’s breast and rubbed it a little, and she moaned again.

Time seemed to stop as Thomas filled himself with blood from the wound. When the girl grew quiet and stopped squirming beneath him, he parted his mouth from her flesh and looked down at his victim. Her eyes were closed, and anyone who didn’t know better would think she was asleep, having the most wonderful dream. Placing his fingers on the other side of the girl’s neck, Thomas felt for her pulse. It had slowed a bit, but not dangerously so. She would be fine.

Reassured, Thomas bent down again to clean the wounded area with his tongue, then picked the girl up and laid her more comfortably on the bed. The puncture wounds were at her hairline near the back of her neck, and, more likely than not, they would go unnoticed until practically healed. Even if his victim did find them, she wouldn’t know where they had come from. She would not remember much about that night.

Licking his lips in satisfaction, Thomas stood up, and immediately the room spun a bit around him, the effects of the alcohol in the girl’s blood, which now flowed within his own body. It was the closest he could ever come to the buzz of a stiff drink.

He stumbled over to the window and opened it, feeling the cold breeze against his now warm skin. The music from the party down below was still spilling out into the night, but it was time for Thomas to leave.

Despite his semi-drunken state, he jumped onto the ledge in one fluid motion and closed the window behind him. Looking around to make sure there was no one who would see, he leaped to the ground below, then started walking home in long, graceful strides, like a lion returning to its den, proud and victorious after a successful hunt.