Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

blinked and then shrugged with a dirty look at his son. The man was still sweating. It was likely he was still going to be punished in some way.

Other vampires chimed in, agreeing.

They grabbed Troy and restrained him up against the concrete pillar, heaving over a bottle of their own toxic blood. Two of them forced Troy’s mouth open, pulling his lips apart. Their fingernails scratched into his cheeks. Cramming the mouth of the bottle between his teeth, holding his arms down so he could not push it out, two others poured the rank, steaming mix down his throat. It burned on contact, scalding his gums and tongue.

Searing down his throat, they force Troy to swallow as he could not breathe or spit it up with any success—until the entire contents of the bottle went in. He could feel it as it went down, in his throat, all the way down to his chest, then into his stomach where it burned.

His world felt on fire. Their hands let go. Their voices came at him as if from afar. “Escape that, Meecham.”

Troy collapsed to his knees, clutching his throat, coughing up what he could. He had to get it out. He needed to vomit. He crawled on his knees, gagging, struggling to heave it out—but it was hopeless. It had been like drinking hot tar. It stuck to his insides and fused into his blood.

A breathy exhale filled with grief said over his head as he struggled for air, “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t want to be a vampire either.”

Troy lifted his eyes, gazing through his reddening vision at the source of it. Standing over him, almost not touching the ground, was this woman. He would have taken her for one of the vampires as she had black hair and pale skin, yet in a Snow White sort of way—except her eyes were orange like Tom’s, and there were these bullet wounds all over her which were oozing blood. In her hand was an enormous scythe. Death had come to him in the form of a woman.

His heart immediately sped up, booming painfully hard, pressing to escape his ribs like an over-expanding balloon made of glass. It was going to pop.

“This is it!” The collection of vampires around him cheered like sports fanatics—his father among them. “You now must choose! Join us or embrace death.”

Embrace death. That was the plan. Troy looked to the woman who was watching him with increasing pity, which was weird. Why should Death feel sorry for him?

Sweat poured out of his skin, running into rivers down his neck. His midnight black hair stuck to his head as if he had gone swimming. As he continued to stare at the person before him, he realized this was the angel Carlos had spoken of. His description echoed in Troy’s mind. “An angel. A dark angel. With wings of black like Tom’s, but bigger. Orange eyes, really white skin…” And yet he recalled that Carlos said he could not predict if Troy would meet her because he, Troy, would not die. But that was just Carlos’s point of view. He wanted to die. And Troy reached out for his angel so he could go.

However, she stepped back from him, her voice coming into his mind, stroking the back of his scalp. “Hey! Grabby. Don’t be so eager to leave this earth!”

Was this really Death? Choking on the searing blood in his throat, mustering an answer for this bewildering apparition, Troy said, “I’d rather be dead than become a vampire.”

Immediately the vampire crowd groaned. Troy half expected someone to shout at the umpire.

The dark angel above him scowled at them as she if wanted kick in the vampires’ teeth—or rip all their hearts out. She seemed to have a personal distaste for them. The vampires were hissing at Troy, calling him all sorts of foul things. And his father shouted out after a string of crude epithets, “You are a worthless son!”

He was a lousy father.

“That’s your father?” The dark angel pointed at him.

Seriously. What kind of angel was this? Were all angels this chatty? Troy looked around to see if perhaps there had been a mistake. Another grim reaper available maybe? But he said to her, “Yeah. He bit me when I was a kid. Look. Are you a grim reaper or not? I chose to die.”

She gazed at Troy with such condescension that Troy could see that she thought he was an idiot. But then her orange eyes whipped down to the key fob which was still flashing. She pointed at it. “Who gave you that?”

Unable to believe this, Troy held it up and rasped out through the pain, “Are you serious?”

She nodded, looking inclined to take it.

He moaned. Then he groaned as the pain got even worse. It had dug into his gut now. His stomach had to have been destroyed by the blood. He would internally bleed now.

“If someone from the Seven gave you that,” she said, “I don’t think it right that I should let you die. It does not feel like your time.”

Troy collapsed, grabbing his chest. The pain abruptly changed. He could feel all his veins and nerves ripple with heat, starting at his heart.

“Hey!” A human voice called from the street. Troy hoped he had a gun or a wooden stake, as those vampires would most likely make a meal of him.

Almost immediately that dark angel looked to the air reacting to some sort of change in it. She vanished, whipping out like a bolt of lightning. She had left him to live.

Damn that Carlos. He was becoming a vampire. No death. Troy could tell. He could feel it. He had crossed the threshold of death and come out alive. Damn that woman! Why did she do that? Troy internally screamed while the rest of him seared and his body continued to transform into the monster he never wanted to be.

All the vampire heads turned toward the voice. Troy was no longer cognizant of the happenings around him as the pain swallowed him up. But he was certain the man running toward their group had a sword—and it had just burst into flames. Deciding he was hallucinating, Troy closed his eyes. He curled up on the ground, shaking.

The man with the blazing sword charged into the horde of vampires as they shrieked and scattered to get out of his way. He hacked into whomever did not move—but there was no reason for any vampire to stay for the likes of Troy Meecham. Not even his father stayed for his son. The vampires who could fly, did—and they escaped first. Those who had to go on foot ducked into the shadows as fast as they could. But all who could, abandoned their victim. He was done for anyway.

“Troy!” shouted out a voice Troy had hoped to hear and at the same time wished he was far away. Already Troy was starting to hear the beats of the hearts around him. A gentle checking hand rested on his neck, groping for a pulse—then grabbed his wrist.

There were more hearts coming. And Troy could smell their blood. It was fresh, though a few in the group had garlicky blood. pizza smell, really. Troy opened his eyes and gazed up at his too-late rescuers.

“Oh, Damn!” His best friend Randon swore, looking like he hardly had any sleep. His dark blue eyes were ringed with red, his black hair a windswept mess. “They didn’t!”

Troy nodded along the filthy ground, wheezing. “They did.”

He could see Randon’s wife, Silvia standing next to him as guard. Even in the dark she was that haunting gothic beauty with licorice hair. Troy envied them. Not only were they still human, he had envied them when he had heard they had eloped to avoid family problems. They protected each other—the witch’s familiar and the coven-less witch.

Behind them, Troy saw a guy in a striped tee shirt with a rope of garlic and a wooden stake. He looked familiar, though Troy could not place him. The man’s hand was enveloped in a red fire which harmed not him but would be deadly to the vampires he was warding off. He also had a shrunken head dangling from a fob on his belt.

Randon helped Troy sit up.

“Man, you weren’t kidding when you said you two looked like brothers.” The man in the striped tee shirt put out his flaming hand. There were no scorch marks on him. He slung the garlic rope around his neck but kept his distance as he fought with a wooden stake against the vampires who had not gotten away in time and were now on the offensive. “Are you sure you are not related?”

“Is this the time?” the other friend with the flaming sword shouted, slashing at one vampire who had unwisely remained to fight. Two other men ran into the vampire fray from the road, guns in hand. And when they came into the firelight, Troy saw it was his friends Matthew Calamori and Tom Brown. Tom’s pale face was like a ghost, startling several vampires to break off and run. Further back, Troy heard two other hearts in the vicinity. Two other humans were watching.

“Oh no…” Matthew came up to Troy, helping Randon. His brown eyes raked grimly over Troy. “They got to you.”

Tom swore, kicking out at another stray vampire.

Then a cop car pulled up, followed by another vehicle. Out rushed two policemen, one staying near the car while the other ran up with the owner of the second vehicle, who oddly was carrying a red sword which seemed to glow with a similar light to the man with the flaming sword. When they got closer, Troy recognized the dark-haired cop to be Joshua Johnson—whom he and his friends always called JJ. The two extra heartbeats maintained their distance.

The rest of the vampires scattered.

The guy with the flaming sword put out the fire, approaching Randon. “How is he?”

Randon shook his head, pawing over Troy’s body in search for any fresh wounds. Of course there were none. He peered into Troy’s reddening eyes, cringing within. “Somehow… I didn’t think it was possible to force someone to be a vampire.”

“It’s possible,” Silvia said.

The group gathered around them.

Through his pain, Troy could hear one of the far heartbeats speed up then rush towards them. Several heads turned. The sword guy pulled his weapon out again, then stared at the newcomer in shock. “Hanz? How’d you get here?”

“Train.” Hanz, a fair haired Nordic kind of man, walked through the group and crouched down next to Troy, feeling his neck and examining his eyes. The other heartbeat also approached, but slower. Panting as this near man’s blood smelled especially sweet despite the tinges of garlic in it from pizza, Troy resisted the urge to take a bite. His teeth elongated from desire. The man examined Troy’s neck wound while the blood there was finally clotting.

The man who had come in the car after JJ’s police car recognized this newcomer Hanz and tried to pull him back. “You can’t help him, doctor. He’ll just hurt you.”

Doctor? Did they call a doctor for him?

“I’m not afraid,” that young doctor said. “There has to be something we can do.”

“I told you, Red.” The swordsman gave a meaningful look to other swordsman who indeed had red hair. “We don’t know enough about vampirism to assume he is going to have a blood lust,”

But Troy wanted to end this argument. “I can smell all your blood,” he wheezed out, trying to warn them.

The Nordic doctor felt along Troy’s throat. Then he pulled out a flashlight which was on a keychain. Turning it on, he said, “Open your mouth. Say ‘ah’ and let me look at it.”

This was ridiculous. But Troy opened his mouth, though he said, “I can hear your heart as well.” He opened his mouth wider, sticking out his tongue.

Those around him exchanged tense looks.

“Yeah?” The doctor examined the scorched quality of Troy’s throat and