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  “The Frenzied? I’ve heard that name before. Follow me.” He walked across the room to the basement door and flipped on a light before leading me down into the dampness. From the look of the place, it was some sort of music room, a hip, cool music room with tons of pillows, papasan chairs and music posters taped on the walls. Jackson made a beeline for Levi’s record collection and flipped through the albums until he found Elegant Black. Flipping the record over, he searched the cover for whatever it was he was looking for.

  “Here, here it is. Take a look at that.”

  I did as he asked, but other than the word “Frenzied,” I couldn’t read the text. “What is this? Latin?”

  “Something like that. It’s actually an older language than that, but that’s not important. It reads, ‘For the Frenzied amongst us. Let the crimson river flow.’”

  “That’s not your normal album dedication, is it?” I suddenly wished I had my camera and promised myself I’d stop by a record shop and grab a few photos of this later.

  “I’m not saying I believe any of this, but I have to admit there’s been some weird shit going on around here. At least that’s what Naomi tells me.”

  “What has she told you?”

  “That a dark cloud fell off the ceiling and tried to smother Levi. I wrote it off as hallucinations, you can have those when you take as many pills as she does, but she was sure it was real. And Debbie had a nightmare the night she disappeared, a bad one.”

  A scream erupted from upstairs, and Jackson beat a path to the door with me right behind him. It sounded like a tornado was loose in the upstairs portion of the house. As we raced up the stairs, Naomi was running and falling down them. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like she was bleeding.

  “Debbie! It’s Debbie!”

  “Calm down, Naomi. Let me look at your arm.”

  A growl sounded from somewhere above us, and we all froze in our tracks. Naomi fell into Jackson’s arms and cried, “We have to go. It’s Debbie and she tried to kill me, Jackie. She’s sick or something. Oh, Debbie!”

  I could see the wound on Naomi’s arm. She had obviously been scratched, but at least she hadn’t been bitten and had her blood sucked dry. She’d come out better than most.

  “I’m going up,” I announced. I wasn’t feeling brave at all, but I had to see if this was indeed Debbie. I’d left that part out of what I had intended to tell Mrs. Wallace, that sometimes they came back. That sometimes these dead girls reappeared but the various police departments would never admit that detail. They wrote such activities off as a hoax, perpetrated by horrible pranksters, but that would never explain the families who were murdered. The people these “dead” young women cared most about in life were their victims afterward. No, I hadn’t even shared that fact with Levi.

  I remembered the silver knife in my pocket and reached for it. It had cost me a pretty penny, but one couldn’t be too careful, and I figured I’d need it at Crush. Theoretically, silver would do the trick if the Frenzied were actually vampires. Who could say for sure? That was why I had to see her.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Jackson asked with narrowed eyes. His furrowed thick brows gave him a wolflike appearance.

  Come on, Charles. Get a grip. He’s as human as you.

  “Do you think I’m going without a weapon?”

  “Don’t hurt her! Please!” Naomi cried as she attempted to follow me up the stairs. Before I could suggest that they wait in the kitchen, I heard glass break. It was so loud it could only mean that Debbie, or whoever this was, had broken a mirror or a window. Or two. The noise of breaking furniture and the growling from upstairs ceased, but only for a moment.

  As we waited on the stairs, we saw the front door fly across the room and heard a low growl coming from the entrance. I couldn’t quite see the doorway, but I knew it had to be Debbie. Devil-ridden vampire-Debbie. She was here for her mother, just like all the other poor girls had been.

  She growled again, and it ended in an amused laugh. And then the creature spoke but not well. “Na-o-mi…come out, come out, wherever you are!” Naomi’s brown eyes were wide and her face pale as she clutched the stair rail and Jackson. Her arm bled freely now. No doubt this creature would find us easily enough; all she had to do was follow her nose. Heavy, deliberate footsteps walked toward us. Even though the floors were covered in grungy brown carpet, I could hear every step. I heard another long growl and a series of sniffs. Yes, she was coming closer! I waited, but then the footsteps stopped just out of our line of sight.

  I tugged on Jackson’s shirt, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. I waved him back up the stairs, and he and Naomi obeyed as quietly as possible. Here we were, three trapped rats on the staircase. I was too afraid to go upstairs—what if there was more than one of them? And I was afraid to go downstairs too, but I had to see her. I had to see what poor Debbie Wallace had become.

  “Na-o-mi,” Debbie hissed but made no further move toward us. Then she began to run at full speed toward the staircase. Her morgue gown still hung off her deathly white body, but her eyes glistened blue and her mouth was surely wider than it had been in life. It was open and showing white teeth and bright red gums.

  Naomi screamed, and Jackson swore as she raced up the stairs. Naomi was the obvious focus of this attack, but none of us would be safe. Like an animal, Debbie pounced on Naomi, pinning her down on the stairs and snapping at her throat as Naomi screamed in horror. Jackson was kicking at Debbie, but the vampire didn’t even appear to notice. I remembered the knife in my hand and with a scream of my own stabbed the girl in the back once. She stopped her attack immediately. I removed the blade and struck her again as she rolled over, and her body began convulsing like she’d been hooked up to an electrical panel.

  “Mom! Mommy! Mommy!” she began to scream as the body began to smoke. Without waiting, I plunged the knife in again as near as I could get to the heart.

  “No! Debbie! Please, leave her alone!” Naomi screamed as Jackson dragged her to the top of the stairs. “Please!”

  Debbie stopped moving, and she let out a strange sigh as a trickle of blood leaked out of her mouth. She was dead. But then again, she’d been dead when she got here.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to both Debbie and Naomi as I drove the knife into the girl’s heart squarely once more. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

  Her flickering eyes fell on mine, and then there was no more shine. No more life in the corpse of Debbie Wallace.

  This time she was truly dead.

  Chapter Eighteen—Levi

  The size of the crowd outside Crush made me sick. Don’t these people know what this place is? This is a killing floor. A dead zone. The Frenzied lived here. Or at least partied here. A group of young women wearing short skirts and faux fur jackets blew kisses in my direction. The blonde walked toward me as if she intended to invite me to join them, but I walked the other way. I decided to skip the line and look for another way inside. I found it quickly. There was a painted black door at the back of the building, which opened as soon as I spotted it. Whoever was on the other side surely knew I was coming; I was certainly expected.

  I heard the Creep’s voice in my head, “Sustainer, welcome! I am so happy that you didn’t disappoint us.”

  I felt like a hundred eyes were on me, watching my every move. They surely were. As I stepped through the door, it closed behind me even though there was no bouncer, no living person there to close it. Black metal stairs sprawled out below me. There was no way but down. The Creep waved a bony finger at me, and I followed. It was hard to fight the urge to run back, but I was pretty sure the door wouldn’t open for me. The inside of the club was just as black as the door, but there was glitter mixed into the paint and the black walls shimmered slightly. They seemed to undulate with a life of their own as lights flickered and cast strange shadows amongst the dancers. A long skinny black bar was positioned along a far wall. Black velvet circular couches were full of pale-faced partiers; lines of blow w
ere on the table next to me. One girl who looked as young as my sister tapped her nose as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back. When she opened them, her eyes met mine, but they were lifeless. From the drugs or the Frenzied, I couldn’t say. She smiled at me, also an empty gesture, but I didn’t smile back. I quickly averted my eyes.

  The Creep met me at the bottom of another staircase, a stretched, leonine grin on his face and hands on his hips. Suddenly, I felt like I knew him and not just from his scaring the shit out of me on the bus. I’d seen him play. Yeah, that’s right. He played at the Squire’s Club; he was with the Rattlers. Or he had been before they broke up. But I thought those guys had died in a plane crash? Maybe a car wreck? I couldn’t recall the details.

  “It is no matter,” he said. He’s reading my mind again. “Come with me, Levi Wallace. Alice is waiting.”

  “Alice?” I asked in a voice that sounded more broken than I intended. The room was full of strange smoke, not from weed or incense—although there was plenty of both, this was something else. This was a kind of living smoke. Oh my God! Was that a ghost? An ephemeral white figure fluttered in front of me; a strange smoky appendage brushed against my skin and then sped away down a long dark hallway. I heard the Creep laugh at my discomfort.

  I thought of Lisa lost in this maze of evil, for surely that’s what this was. People or maybe things that posed as people were everywhere. A man dressed in leather and a woman with a strange hat and painted skin whispered to one another as we walked by. Everywhere there were people talking, kissing and whispering. Music poured from somewhere; there was no band and I could see no speakers, but the sound of a thumping guitar filled the place. I felt sick and wished with all my might that I wasn’t here, but I had to find Lisa.

  Lisa! Can you hear me? I love you and I am coming for you, I promise. I heard nothing. Nothing from her at any rate. I did hear many voices that whispered my name, and some again called me Sustainer. Some spoke in what sounded like ancient languages, but they were all saying my name. That much I knew.

  I followed the Creep down another set of stairs; after the third or fourth flight, I began to become disoriented. Each level we descended had a different fragrance. At first the fragrances were attractive, even stimulating in a strange erotic way, but as we descended those aromas became more intense and morphed into something entirely different. I began to smell other things like blood and cruelty and death. How could I smell cruelty? It doesn’t have an aroma, does it? I could not understand my own thoughts now. I felt disoriented. The god-awful blood smell grew stronger; it was like being in a meat locker! The closer we got to our destination, wherever that might be, I realized that I was leaving the real world—the human world—behind. Maybe forever.

  Rock-and-roll music played on all levels, but it changed like the aromas. It became more frantic, much more intense as the Creep led me deeper and deeper into a maze of rooms. He’d become calm suddenly and glanced at me with his shiny eyes only a few times. Yes, they were shining now. Oh, God! Lisa! He did not mock me now but became the face of seriousness, and there was something else there too. Reverence, perhaps? Fear? I couldn’t begin to identify his expression, nor did I care to. All I wanted was Lisa, but where to find her? Did the Creep really know where she was? Or had it been his plan all along to leave me here in the midst of these devils?

  A young woman with long dark hair waited for us. At first I thought she was some kind of statue from the way she held her hands. She was so still, like an inanimate object, but then she stepped out of the blackness with a dull glow about her. She was as tall as me, with long, shapely arms and perfect features. Yes, she was perfect and beautiful. Probably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I heard the Creep laugh beside me, but it did not deter me from staring at her. She was pleased too; she liked that I thought she was perfect even though she didn’t speak. But I knew. I just knew.

  The woman wore a cropped black shirt and harem pants, but her smile revealed sharp teeth and as she raised her hand I saw the longest red fingernails I had ever seen. Any thoughts I had of her as some sort of Venus vanished, and she was pleased with that too.

  “Welcome, Levi. I am Alice. I will take him from here, Nikolai,” she purred, but there was no sweetness in her voice. “You may go. Drink your fill.” The Creep half-bowed to her and gave me the peace sign before he walked away to another room down the hall. I felt my blood go ice-cold.

  “Lisa!” I called after him. “Where is Lisa?” He flashed his horrible grin and disappeared through a wall of red beads. There was moaning coming from the other side. Whether from pleasure or pain, I could not tell. “Please, I need to see my girlfriend. He said she was here.” She didn’t reassure me and wasn’t moved at all by my tears.

  Alice isn’t human. Not human at all.

  She cast those glittering eyes on me briefly. I knew it would avail me nothing to plead my case to her.

  Follow me, Levi.

  What else could I do? We traveled down a long hall until we came upon a large red door. It looked freshly painted and was wet to the touch. I don’t know why I touched it, but the paint stuck to my fingers. The strange woman observed me doing so but did not scold me or speak at all. At the center of the door was a massive door knocker, a bat’s head with an ornate knocker hanging from its fanged mouth. She reached above her head for the knocker and rapped once, and then the door opened. The room was not dark but full of candlelight—strange ornaments hung from the ceiling, and weird mobiles of red stones spun about in a breeze. Incense filled the air, and there was a familiar album playing. I knew it by heart. Elegant Black!

  And that’s when I saw him.

  Rex Teaser lay tied to a weird bed in the center of the room, and he was covered in blood. It was a savage sight, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the bed. It looked a bit like a hospital bed, but it had a wooden headboard carved with grotesque faces. The bed had no sheets and was tilted slightly; blood pooled at my feet and on the floor. They were draining Rex—killing him!

  “He is not dead, not really.”

  The woman or whatever she was touched Rex’s face lovingly with her red fingernails and kissed his full lips, but it did not rouse him. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, the blood pooling thick around his feet.

  Oh, God, he was so bloody!

  “He will be dead if you leave him like that. Please, he has to go to a hospital. And I was told my girlfriend was here. Lisa. Where is she?” I asked as I took a half step back away from the blood that seemed to follow me wherever I stepped.

  “Nikolai was toying with you, I am afraid. Having a little fun; it is in his nature to do so. There is no Lisa here, but I am sure as our newest Sustainer you could claim anyone you want. No one would refuse you, for the right price,” she said with a smile as she lifted her hands. There were tattoos on her palms, strange writing that made me shiver. I detected an accent but could not identify it.

  “You took Lisa, and I want her back. You monsters killed my sister, and I won’t let you have Lisa too. You won’t get away with any of this!” I wasn’t sure where I was going with that threat. I was really in no shape to make demands on this woman, but my frustration and grief overwhelmed me. “If you’re going to kill me or make me a vampire, just do it! Get it over with!”

  Stepping through the blood completely unfazed, as if she did not notice it, the woman pounced on me, her brown hair flying behind her. With a fierce grip on my neck, she shoved me down to the floor and I shut my eyes and squelched a scream. If I was about to die, I wasn’t going to cry or beg for my life. My life was my own, and I would die on my own terms. Or at least I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of begging. To my surprise, she didn’t kill me but licked my face and sniffed me. I was sure she would bite me any second, but the pain never came. I sensed a struggle within her; she wanted to kill me, she wanted it very badly. Her eyes glittered and her lip curled to show me her deadly teeth, but she either could not or would not strike. I wasn’t sure which.
r />   Be careful, Levi. You know she can read your mind.

  And even as I had this thought, she released my neck and made a strange purring sound. Then she tossed her hair back as she shook her head and growled. Her eyes glittered steadily, and she gathered herself together and became “human” once again. I was reconsidering begging for my life.

  “Your blood is precious, Levi Wallace. To kill you would be a crime. We have use for you yet. You will sustain my new king while he recovers, but do not fear. I will watch over you to make sure he doesn’t kill you. Not right away. He will be so hungry when he becomes one of the Frenzied. So. Very. Hungry.”

  My mind raced with a hundred scenarios and none of them good. While we’d been talking, I could see that Rex had stopped breathing. He was dead now. But if he was like she said, how long would he stay dead? I didn’t understand any of this. Why me? How was it that I should be here?

  “Of course you do not understand. How could you? How could you know how precious you are and how long we have waited to bring you to us? You could not know this. But you will understand soon enough. To be a Sustainer is an esteemed position in our world, Levi Wallace. And although it will hurt in the beginning, you will soon come to desire it. I will watch over you, young Levi.”

  “You plan to feed me to Rex Teaser? Is that what you’re saying? Is he going to be like you? Why would you do that?” Stall for time. Think, damn it!

  “Because like all of you mortals, my Beautiful One wants to stay beautiful forever. I have done nothing to him that he didn’t ask of me. The truth is, many ask but only a few are selected. Only a few are beautiful enough, talented enough. In your own way, you are much like Rex. But the powers of this world are allied against you, Levi Wallace. Your blood has given you purpose. And in that, I think, you are lucky.”