A Night's Tale Ch. 03

As the last rays of the setting sun winked out behind the mountains Heather awoke. She walked out of her sleeping chamber stretching as she secured the door behind her and flopped down on the bed searching for the remote. The large screen TV which was set on the local news channel came on just as the evening news started.

She was headed for the shower when the news story headline caught her eyes. "Third body discovered in the desert in as many months." The blond, smiling, talking head, commentator read off the teleprompter. "According to witnesses and the Las Vegas Police department, this body was also partially eaten by either coyotes or wild dogs. This makes the third missing visitor to our fair city to turn up far out in the desert and the third one to show signs of being eaten by animals. Police are not saying what the cause of death was and so far have not released the identity of the third victim."

She muted the no nothing TV personality, tossed the remote on the bed, and continued to the shower. Stripping off the oversized tee shirt she favored for sleep wear she adjusted the water to her normal temperature and allowed the steaming liquid to flow over her naked body.

Considering what she had learned around town as she lathered her body with the loofa sponge and the cinnamon body wash she had just purchased, Heather decided it was time she looked into these desert dumps a little more closely. After all, the last thing she needed was the cops looking for a night stalker.

Several hours and a good many questions put to the inhabitants of the underside of the city's night life a picture was emerging that the vampire huntress didn't like at all. Benny a local coffee shop owner had the most info. 'He should' she thought. Benny's was one of the local cop hangouts in the downtown area, situated close to the strip but with a large parking area and open 24/7. Benny kept a smaller back area reserved exclusively for the local cops. His food was quick and cheap, his coffee strong and filling a thermos was never a problem.

The fact that the small room was monitored 24/7 and the wait staff was paid to listen and that Benny sold information out of the bar that backed the coffee shop had never occurred to the local p.d. because Benny was never seen in the coffee shop and anyone looking at the ownership records would never connect the two businesses.

For a price Benny had revealed that the cops were stumped, that all the bodies had a cause of death that was listed as heart failure, (i.e. the medical examiner didn't have a clue) and all three bodies showed signs of having run for miles through the desert before they died. All three had claw and teeth marks but the animal that caused it was still unknown, one of the detectives said the coroner would have labeled it a wolf attack but there were no known wolf packs that roamed the southern Nevada desert.

Heather knew the first two victims had nothing in common; the first had been an Oklahoma girl here for the yearly rodeo, disappeared while out getting feed for her horse. Her truck was discovered near Primm, Nevada a casino and outlet center on the Nevada /California border. Her body was found in the desert 40 miles north and west of Las Vegas. The second was a business man from New York here for a convention, who went for a jog, and died 30 miles north and east of town. The third body belonged to a visitor, young, male, athletic, here for the poker tournament; he had gone on a scheduled break and never returned.

The bodies were discovered over a week after they vanished, no indication where they had been for the missing time and the bodies were all next to major roads leading to quick discovery, two had been dead less than twelve hours.

Ages varied from 22 to 38, one white, one black, one Spanish/Inca Indian descent, none had large amounts of money, both the business man and the poker player were married, the cowgirl was divorced. No drugs or alcohol were involved.

Heather had seen the first two crime scenes weeks later and had found nothing, this time she was determined to see what she could find while it was fresh. She tucked her shoulder length red hair under her helmet and rode her motorcycle out of town towards the latest body dump site.

It wasn't hard to find, the place was still swarming with crime scene investigators and cops. She rode past a few miles and went off road. Turning off her headlights and using her natural night vision she circled the scene several miles out.

Heather hid her bike, helmet and shoes behind a large patch of cactus and extending her claws ran out into the night working her way close to and above the cops guarding the perimeter. Cops were predictable, they were watching for someone coming from the road not from the deep desert. She was able to circle close enough to listen to the normal bullshit discussions of the bored patrolmen.

That was when she discovered the blood trail and the scent of both the victim and the killers. The trail lead back into the desert with the victims trail overlaid with the scent of his pursuers. Heather slipped into the dark and followed the trails out into the night.

She found that even with her enhanced senses the trail was not an easy one to follow, especially as the hunters were playing a form of cat and mouse with their prey. They would let him run for awhile then tag him, doing no major damage but causing injuries at each attack. They were also using the tags to herd their quarry to the exact location beside the highway where they killed him.

It took her most of the night to follow the trail back to the point where they had released their victim and started him on his fifteen mile run to his death. Here she could see the slashed ropes where they had freed him and the first drops of blood shed when they started him running.

Heather backed away from the scene and making sure she left no trace of herself, returned to her motorcycle. She arrived back at her high rise apartment just as dawn was beginning to lighten the eastern sky behind the mountains.

The next evening she was out early walking the strip, talking to her contacts and using her enhanced senses to catch any trace of the distinctive scent of the two killers. Heather didn't expect to find them by walking around sniffing for trace; she just knew that weirder coincidences had happened. If the pattern the killers had established held up the wouldn't even grab their next victim until the end of next week, then they would hold the person somewhere until the next dark of the moon when they would take them out into the desert for their fun and games.

Heather knew an average of twenty people a week went missing in the Las Vegas city area alone. Most were people that wanted to disappear, wives or husbands leaving their spouse for one reason or another or kids running away from home. Some were just thoughtless people that forgot to tell someone that they decided to do this or that instead of what they were expected to do and these showed up eventually. Actual kidnapping was rare despite the over used clique seen nightly on the idiot box.

Just after midnight Heather dropped by Krave, her favorite night club for two reasons. One it was the hottest club on the strip and two it was always filled with young people looking for a good time. It didn't take her long to separate one from the herd and invite her home. The beautiful brunette was smoking hot, voluptuous, and ready to fuck.

The two women were wrapped around each other before the apartment door closed, fingers searching buttons and zippers and clasps, eager to unwrap and explore the soft skin and rapid heat of their bodies. Nipples became erect, moist heat steamed from soft folds as tongues and fingers probed and teased. They crashed through the bedroom door and onto the bed already thrusting, pressing, and stimulating one another. Kisses started at the neckline and with agonizing slowness descended to the hollow of the throat and slid down into the valley between the mounds, climbing to the tight nub at the top. Sucking, nipping, and pulling the flesh into hot wet demanding mouths. Pressing soft lips against tight firm stomach muscles, licking past concave little navels to the mounds pressing up in need. Tongues exploring the delicate folds, searching for the elusive button as finger begin to probe the warm cavern below. Thrusting, pressing, separating, exposing, each digit, and member doing its best to bring on the explosion, the little death.

Breathing slowing, bodies cooling, enjoying the silky sensuous feeling as fingers trail across thighs and buttocks and breasts and the heat rises again. Slower this time, taking the time to explore and admire, to test and tease, find the responses and play to the soft muffled cries. Regaining the heights and the need, the urgency and the flash as the flood breaks in wave after perfect wave and the body arches only to return to the earth and the calm after the storm.

Staring into each others eyes, the brown set losing focus and the face relaxes becoming younger as the muscles loosen. It all becomes a dream, loose and flowing, liquid and apart from the sensations, the quick sharp pain that becomes just the hot wet draining away of all the cares of the world and dark, so dark, so quiet.

Heather tucked her into the big bed, between the silk sheets covered by the down comforter. She watched her sleeping face and the slow rise and fall of her breasts until the light from the window intruded into the room. She wrote a quick note leaving it on the pillow next to the woman.

Heather went to her secret room, her sleeping chamber and sealed the door behind her as she prepared to rest, enjoying the feeling that came from both the blood and the sex. She slept.

Nearly two weeks went by before she heard of another missing tourist that fit the profile. A woman staying at one of the strip hotel/casinos for a convention went to her room to change for dinner with friends, when she hadn't shown up two hours later the friends went looking for her. Her clothes from the convention were on a chair but no sign of the woman. Her purse and hotel key still in the room, no sign of violence, and no sign of the woman.

Heather checked her computer; the dark of the moon was the next Saturday, two days after Christmas. 'Ok,' she thought. 'I have the who, and the when, I just need the where.' There was a lot of desert surrounding Vegas and so far the killers hadn't returned to the same area twice. She pulled up Google Earth, a topographical map and checked out where the bodies had been found the first three times.

Since she knew the entire layout of the third victim's route she began there taking notes on terrain and roads. Then she looked at the areas around victims one and two finding several similarities. Heather decided to confirm what she was beginning to suspect was the starting point of the second run for your life scenario. It only took her a couple of hours of searching the rural roads to find the pieces of rope where the game had started for the businessman.

Now that she knew what to look for, she searched for places where the game might be played this time. She soon narrowed it down to five possible locations. Heather went out to each to get a feel for the areas wishing there was some way to narrow it down further. At the third possible area she caught the scent, just a whiff, but certainly the scent of one of the killers. She smiled knowing she had them now. The killers had come out to check the area two days before the game started again. This was the going to be the last game.

Heather awoke early in the night of the dark moon; she dressed quickly and slipped into the backpack she had prepared ahead of time, by the time it was truly dark she was sitting comfortably in a crevice in the rocks overlooking a large section of the rural back road where she expected the game to begin.

She sat in the almost perfect stillness that only the undead can manage, extending her senses until every sound, every scent, every movement of the small desert creatures creeping around in the night became part of her world. The later it got to be the quieter the desert became, by midnight the only things registering on her senses were the night creatures and their struggles for survival.

The next two hours passed in quiet anticipation, but by two thirty Heather was beginning to think she had picked the wrong area or maybe they had decided against this area for some unknown reason.

Finally she saw a van approaching without lights. She watched as it pulled off the road about a mile away, two people got out of the front of the van, opened the rear doors, and pulled a bundle from the back. She could see the glint of a knife as the bundle was cut open. A woman emerged still bound by ropes, naked except for a pair of tennis shoes.

'Good, now let her get a nice head start so she's away from you two freaks and then you and I will see if we can change the game.' Heather knew she didn't have a chance of saving the woman until she was far enough away from her captures because once Heather joined the game they would kill the woman in an instant before trying to deal with her. She would wait until the chase actually began, then take out the freaks one at a time.

What she hadn't counted on was the couple playing with the woman before the chase. Heather could do nothing but watch as the female began kissing and fondling the struggling prisoner from behind as the male kicked apart her legs and groped the woman's privates.

They played with her body, twisting her nipples causing their crying victim to scream from pain and humiliation. Heather knew they were getting themselves off on her fear and terror. The male undressed, tossing his clothes into the van, he took the woman from his partner and threw her to the ground. While he began his rape his partner disrobed and locked up the van. She rejoined her mate, kissing and torturing the screaming woman as he was fucking her.

Heather quivered with the need to stop the unholy rape going on but she knew that to reveal her self now would just get the woman killed. She would have to stick to her original plan and wait for the actual chase to begin.

Heather watched as the female of the pair began to change. Every muscle on the slim body stood out as if the body was strung way too tight. The woman's scream was that of a person in agony as her skin rippled and fur sprouted along her back covering the rest of her body as if it were poured from a single point and washed over her. Heather could hear the crunching sounds as the bones reshaped themselves. The woman's face elongated, becoming a snout and the teeth grew into sharp and distended fangs.

The woman being raped hadn't noticed the change until it was almost complete. She screamed at the sight of the werewolf standing over her. She looked into the face of the man raping her and said something that Heather couldn't make out.

"Don't do it!" Heather murmured in a whisper as she watched the man grin. He lifted himself up on his arms, staring into the face of the woman he held pinned to the ground. While still fucking her, he began the change. The woman's scream was a combination of horror and fear and pain as his body underwent the metamorphosis while still inside her.

He rolled away from her as his change completed and Heather could see the blood and slime on his engorged cock as he stood, throwing back his head, and howling his triumph.

The woman rolled away and scrambling on all fours began to crawl, then staggered to her feet and ran. The two werewolves let her escape as they circled and nipped at one another. Heather watched until the two started fucking before quietly making her way down from the rocks. She needed to be ahead of the hunters and between them and their quarry.

The vampire quickly found the woman who by now was staggering more than running, blood running down her inner thigh leaving a trail the hunters would have no trouble finding. Heather watched as the woman stopped for a few seconds, then hearing the howling behind her started running again.

Heather slipped over to where the woman had paused, as she hoped there was a small pool of blood. She dipped her fingers into the blood; she then went off in a different direction from the woman leaving drops of blood trail as she went. She smeared blood along rocks and cactus then circled back to the woman's trail and using her enhanced senses to find the minute traces the woman had left, eliminated the trail. Now the werewolves would find the trail split and would have to split up.

She returned to a place where she could see where the trail split and waited for the hunters. 'Fucking horny bastards.' She had to wait almost a half hour before they came loping through the desert easily following their quarry. She smiled as they circled the spot where the woman has stopped, confused by the two trails leaving the area. They followed one trail for a few seconds then returned and followed the second. Only one wolf came back and hurriedly took off following the first trail again.

'Got ya.' Heather moved to the high point she had spotted above the first trail and waited for the wolf to pass below. The vampire flung herself into the air extending claws and fangs as she dropped onto the large wolf's back. She settled for ripping her claws into his side and neck before flipping herself off him and landing several yards away. The large black furred man-wolf rolled and stood snarling deep in his throat before launching himself at her.

Heather ducked under the swinging claws and huge arms of the werewolf slicing through his soft underbelly with her own claws. She rolled to her feet and leaped using her foot claw to smash into the side of his face, knocking him to the ground. He spun before she could land another blow and slammed into her taking her to the ground. Heather flipped onto her feet as the wolf scrambled for his footing; they circled each other for awhile both looking for an advantage. When the wolf threw back his head to howl for his mate, Heather attacked.

She dug both sets of finger claws into his shoulders, squeezing as hard as she could and when his head lifted sank her fangs into his throat. His claws tried to rip into her back as he fought to break her hold, but failed to pierce the body armor Heather wore beneath her leather outfit. His struggles grew weaker as the blood loss took its toll and then his dying body changed back into the naked man Heather had watched rape the woman. She snapped his neck as she pushed away from the dead body.

The few slashes and cuts on her body were beginning to heal when the female's claws slashed across her face and neck the impact throwing Heather into the rocks and away from the dead body of her mate. The werewolf sniffed at the body for just a moment before letting out an anguished howl. Heather barely had time to brace herself before the werewolf slammed into her, teeth going for her throat.

The two fought and rolled across the desert, the female werewolf fighting like a berserker. Teeth and claws slashed and ripped with incredible strength as the female sought revenge for her murdered mate. Heather was losing, no matter what she tried the anguished werewolf was just too fast and too insane with grief for her to get a moments respite.

Heather was down, the claws of the werewolf digging into her throat, her head being slammed over and over into the rocks on the ground. Her vision was blurred, her strength fading. The jaws of the creature were dripping saliva into her eyes and it was all she could do to keep the snapping teeth from ripping into her face.

Heather felt more than heard the thud of the rock as it buried itself in the skull of the werewolf but she watched as the life and rage faded from its eyes and the body went limp in her hands. She pushed the corpse off to one side, lying back exhausted as she stared at the naked woman with blood dripping off her body.