Otherworld Nights Read Online Free PDF Page A

angst-ridden cinema vampire, bemoaning the choice she’d made in life. I was no flighty youngster, easily distracted from duty, abhorring responsibility. I was Cassandra DuCharme, senior vampire delegate to the interracial council. If any vampire had come to me with this problem—“I’m having trouble making my annual kill”—I’d have shown her the sharp side of my tongue, hauled her into the alley with that drunk, and told her, as Aaron might say, to “piss or get off the pot.”
    I turned around and headed back to the alley.
    I’d gone only a few steps when I picked up a sense of the drunkard and excitement swept through me. I smiled. That was more like it.
    The quickening accelerated as I slid into the shadows. My stride smoothed out, each step taken with care, rolling heel to toe, making no sound.
    I spotted a recessed emergency exit a dozen feet ahead. A shoe protruded from the darkness. I crept forward until I spotted a dark form crumpled inside.
    The rush of his blood vibrated through the air. My canines lengthened and I allowed myself one shudder of anticipation, then shook it off and focused on the sound of his breathing.
    A gust whipped along the alley, scattering candy wrappers and leaflets, and the stink of alcohol washed over me. I caught the extra notes in his breathing—the deep, almost determined rhythm. Passed out drunk. He’d probably stumbled into the first semi-sheltered place he’d seen and collapsed.
    That would make it easier.
    So what was I waiting for? I should be in that doorway already, reveling in the luck of finding so easy a victim.
    I shook the lead from my bones and crossed the alley.
    The drunkard wore an army jacket, a real one if I was any judge. I resisted the fanciful urge to speculate, to imagine him as someshell-shocked soldier turned to drink by the horrors of war. More likely, he’d bought the jacket at a thrift shop.
    His hair was matted, so filthy it was impossible to tell the original color. Above the scraggly beard, though, his face was unlined. Younger than I’d first imagined. Significantly younger.
    That gave me pause, but while he was not the old drunkard I’d first imagined, he was certainly no healthy young man. I could sense disease and wasting, most likely cirrhosis. Not my ideal target, but he would do.
    And yet …
    Almost before I realized it, I was striding toward the road.
    He wasn’t right. If I made the wrong choice, I’d regret it. Better to let the pressure of this ominous date pass and find a better choice tomorrow. I headed for the park.
    I stepped off the path. The ground was hard, so I could walk swiftly and silently.
    My exit startled two young men huddled together. Their gazes tripped over me, eyes glittering under the shadows of their hoods, like jackals spotting easy prey. I met the stronger one’s gaze. He broke first, grumbling deep in his throat. Then he shuffled back and waved his friend away as he muttered some excuse for moving on.
    I watched them go, considering … then dismissing.
    It was easy to separate one victim from a group. Not nearly so simple when the “group” consisted of only two people. As the young men disappeared into the shadows, I resumed my silent trek across the park.
    My goal lay twenty paces away. He’d ignored a park bench under the light and instead had stretched out on top of a raised garden, hidden under the bushes and amidst the dying flowers.
    He lay on his back with his eyes closed. His face was peaceful,relaxed. A handsome face, broad and tanned. He had thick blond hair and the healthy vitality of a young man in his prime. A big man, too, tall and solid, his muscular arms crossed behind his head, his slim hips and long denim-clad legs ending in work boots crossed at the ankles.
    I circled north to sneak up behind his head. He lay completely motionless, even his chest still, not rising and falling with the slow rhythm of breathing. I crossed the last few feet between us and stopped just behind his