Servant: The Kindred Read online

  “Fabian, come join us.”

  Bored, he looked at Georgie, a young man who favored Goth fashion and an overabundance of tattoos and body piercings. Georgie didn’t understand the merits of subtlety, or that sometimes less was more. Fabian had met him, along with most of the others, through the shop.

  It amazed even him that people proved so easy to lead when one had leadership qualities, as Fabian did. But then, tattooing was a personal business, and it didn’t take long to get to know a person when you put a needle to their skin.

  He didn’t hold the body art against Georgie. In fact, he often appreciated the beauty of an intricately inked human form. It had almost the same splendor as a body torturously carved of all meat.

  But Georgie was stupid. He took drugs that Fabian had not approved, and that was forbidden. Only the narcotics that Fabian himself supplied were permitted. It was yet another method of control, another means of maintaining the upper hand. No one was allowed to ingest any narcotic substance that Fabian did not personally hand out.

  Georgie knew that—but he thought he could show up high and Fabian wouldn’t notice.

  Fool.

  At present, Georgie partook of the bounty Fabian had supplied, his eyes glazed and his movements sluggish. He took extraordinary pleasure in being egregious.

  For Georgie, it was the shock factor, not a proper understanding of the merits involved in partaking of sweet sustenance, consuming the very essence of life. He didn’t fathom the cerebral and sentient fulfillment of what they did.

  As Fabian watched Georgie, his temper spiked.

  Given a choice, Georgie would probably be stupid enough to eat the brains or even the spinal cord, both of which were prone to carrying disease.

  Running his tongue along the blunt edges of his capped teeth, Fabian considered a punishment that might befit Georgie’s irreverence.

  Yes, he knew what to do, knew exactly how to teach the others by using Georgie as an example. His heart began to pound in feverish anticipation.

  God, he loved the adrenaline rush when he planned an attack.

  Parting his lips, Fabian slipped his fingers into his own mouth and loosened the snug-fitting porcelain caps. One by one he removed them, leaving his real teeth exposed. He dropped the caps into the pocket of his coat.

  With consummate delight, he skimmed his tongue along the honed edges of his predator’s bite. Long ago, his front teeth had been filed and reshaped to accommodate his inexhaustible hunger. There were no smooth borders, only jagged rims and his razor-sharp, elongated eyeteeth, meant to pierce the skin and flesh with ease.

  An inferno of heat burned behind Fabian’s eyes when Georgie laughed too loud. He made a mockery of them, ridiculing their sublime practice, when in fact he should have shown due deference to the offering.

  Fabian’s shoulders curled; his long fingers tightened. “Stop it,” he whispered, “right now.”

  But Georgie didn’t hear the warning. He swiped a sleeve along his mouth, wasting the bounty—and Fabian lost the fragile hold on his maniacal rage.

  On a thunderous roar, he launched himself at Georgie, knocking him backward. With a solid thud, Georgie’s head smacked against the chilly cement floor of the abandoned home Fabian had chosen to carry out the delectation of their avocation. Georgie groaned, flailed, and then sank into a stupor.

  Someone screamed. Bodies scrambled to get out of their way.

  In a blind frenzy of need and fury, Fabian sank his teeth into Georgie’s soft white throat. His tongue stroked, located the jugular, and he readjusted his bite.

  Yes. Fuck yes. His eyes sank shut as he fed at the ripped throat.

  He felt Georgie’s futile, insensate struggles. But he was a pathetic boy, not more than twenty, and as weak in body as he was in mind.

  At six feet, two inches tall, Fabian was far stronger. He’d fed many times and gathered the strength of multiple sacrificial souls.

  Nothing had ever tasted as good as this. He relished the raw, wild feeding from a live body with the heart still pumping hot blood throughout the veins. Because of societal intrusions, he’d long denied himself this splendid pleasure. Instead, he’d been making do by hooking IVs to wilting bodies, ensuring the blood supply lasted.

  Now, with this frenzied meal, he moaned with bliss.

  All around him, the others were silent, maybe with awe, maybe with fear.

  He fucking well didn’t care.

  Caution made it necessary to plan out the menu, to make each kill last. For far too long now he’d had to resort to a discreet drinking of the stored liquid mixed with anticoagulants and blood thinners, and to meting out the supply in small doses.

  He was an alpha male, savage by nature, at the top rung of the proverbial food chain. His basic nature prodded him toward pursuit, domination, and slaughter. At least, on occasion.

  When it was well deserved.

  The others crowded closer. He felt their palpitating fascination. Slanting his gaze to the side, he saw one woman lick her lips and stroke her own nipples.

  His cock hardened.

  His pulse thrummed.

  Filling his mouth with the metallic blood, he sat up and let Georgie, now a lifeless entity, drop limply to the floor.

  He turned to the woman—her name escaped him—and saw her big breasts were heaving, her eyes slumberous with sexual excitement. Many would see her as a perverted soul, defective in her desires.

  Fabian relished her reaction.

  He grabbed her wrist and hauled her in close, then closed his mouth over hers and let her take Georgie’s blood directly from him. It was the rarest of gifts he bestowed on her, and she didn’t disappoint him.

  She moaned, choked, and then her tongue slicked over his, over his lips and chin. He ripped her shirt away and squeezed her nipples, twisted. Crying out, she bit his chin, launching into her own primal derangement.

  Fabian liked it that everyone watched them, that he would be the center of attention as befitted his importance.

  With Georgie no longer a viable member, he had an audience of six, which was perhaps one too many.

  He shoved his hand beneath the woman’s skirt and fingered her roughly through her panties. She panted, fell back with her legs spread.

  A dangerous offering to a man in the middle of a bloody fete.

  Fabian smiled and bent to her hot, fleshy thigh. He licked, nuzzled, testing the give of her soft body, aware of the warmth from her own flowing blood just beneath her smooth, silky skin.

  He looked up at two other young men, both of them wide-eyed with fascination, watchful with expectation. As he recalled, one was an accountant, the other a cashier for the local grocery.

  They were both easily led. “Hold her.”

  At his order, the woman jerked with new awareness of her precarious position. Now panicked, she tried to fight, but oh, it was far too late for that.

  His minions were quite willing to do as he bid them, if for no other reason than a macabre curiosity as to his intent.

  One of the lads held her arms against her furious struggles; the other caught her free leg and pinned it back painfully so she couldn’t kick Fabian.

  If she did, he’d kill her for certain. In fact, her outcome was yet undecided. But he inclined toward leniency; after all, they needed a new source of nourishment and Georgie was dead.

  With her plump proportions she’d likely suffer them for a week or more, especially if they showed due moderation.

  Salty tears, blackened with makeup, tracked her cheeks, mixing with the blood on her mouth and chin. She sobbed and pleaded to no avail.

  Beside her, the scent of Georgie’s body, his blood and his violent death, spurred on their passion.

  “Silence her,” Fabian said, and someone cupped a hard hand over her mouth, muffling her entreaties for a mercy that none of them possessed.

  Hooking his fingers in her panties, Fabian pulled them to the side, exposing the soft white groin, the thin skin and most fragile flesh. He co
uld see the delicate blue veins, could almost feel the life flowing through her.

  His heart threatened to erupt with the grisly provocation of it.

  Her snuffling sounds of terror blurred in Fabian’s mind, receding until all he could envision was the steady pumping of her blood through her veins. Slowly, relishing the moment, he bent and sank his teeth into her groin.

  He could smell her pungent, aroused sex, and taste the piquancy of her luxuriant fear. The sensual, potent medley put him into an anesthetized languor.

  She screamed in agony, but the sound only incited them all.

  She wouldn’t die, Fabian decided; he wouldn’t allow her that easy release. Her exquisite taste would not be squandered in a loss of control.

  Her wound would heal, and she’d be anointed in the ritual of serving others.

  Seeing her plight would surely inspire the rest of his minions to greater understanding.

  She tasted even better than Georgie had, but Fabian no longer fed from hunger. No, Georgie had taken care of that.

  He fed now to show his superiority.

  He fed from sheer pleasure.

  He fed as a show of dominance.

  And then, like any good master, he stepped aside and let the others take a turn.

  He didn’t mind sharing. And besides, he had to leave for work soon. Today, he would arrive at the shop more fulfilled than he’d been in ages.

  Maybe, with the added drug of fresh blood, he’d be able to surmise how he knew the skinny woman he’d seen with the cops. He’d been too far away to see her clearly. All he’d noted with certainty was her weakness, her vulnerability. Yet when he’d looked at her, despite her pathetic flaws, he’d felt a strong familiarity.

  Somehow they were acquainted. But how?

  He would figure it out, Fabian decided as he stood back and watched the others descend on the woman.

  She made a most delectable meal.

  But somehow he knew, if he captured that skinny woman and tasted her, she would be the most sublime.

  Anticipation gnawed on his serenity; he could hardly wait.

  Chapter 4

  Gaby dressed without hurry, distracted by the mayhem of her thoughts. She wasn’t sure where to look for the girl, but staying in Luther’s home wouldn’t elucidate things. She needed to be doing . . . something. Anything.

  Hanging around, waiting for Luther to return, made her feel doubly dependent and pathetic.

  She couldn’t abide either.

  She locked away her manuscript for safekeeping, hoping that by the time she needed to finish it, the child would have an ending that ensured safety and security.

  Because she wasn’t certain where the bus route might be in Luther’s neighborhood, she bundled up in a dark hooded sweatshirt. She might be walking for a while, not that she minded. Strolling around the area would help her familiarize herself with the new surroundings. She needed to find a good place nearby to stow her beat-up car. She needed to learn the various routes and where they led.

  After clipping a digital audio player to her waistband and putting headphones in her ears, Gaby ventured out. Luther had bought her the music player, and she enjoyed it more than she’d thought possible. Even the music he’d initially chosen for her, edgy and loud with a hard thumping beat that she felt inside herself, was perfect for her.

  In some ways, he knew her well.

  In other ways, he didn’t know her at all.

  The gray sky and brisk wind added a nasty chill to the air, but Gaby paid no heed as she concentrated on the side streets and main intersections, learning the area and committing it to memory.

  After several miles of walking, she found a bus stop and joined others huddling under a lighted metal enclosure that would protect them from the rain.

  Recognizing the difference between the squalor of the areas she usually frequented and Luther’s middle-class comfort, Gaby stuffed her knotted hands into her sweatshirt pockets.

  Truth be told, she felt more comfortable near the dregs of society, in the projects and government housing units. There, surrounded by crime and immorality, around people driven by indifference and desperation, she felt at home.

  Mort, her old landlord and now a friend, had kept his building clean and semi-secure, especially since the comic book store he owned was attached to the living quarters. But at night, she could hear the drunken arguments, the domestic abuse, the drive-by shootings and gang disruptions.

  And it . . . comforted her.

  There had been a bus stop not two blocks from Mort’s front door, but not even a bench remained at the designated location. Miscreants of the serious and not-so-serious kind had repeatedly demolished it, as much out of boredom as a display of street cred. No one had bothered to replace the seat or the shelter.

  Though she hated to be fanciful, Gaby missed the old place. At least while staying there, she’d understood her life and her purpose.

  Then she’d met Luther, and he’d turned her whole existence upside down. Running from him had seemed the safest bet. For a time, she’d stayed with hookers and put up with Jimbo, their pimp.

  She’d changed her look, changed her location, changed almost everything about herself except her duty—and still Luther had found her.

  Bliss claimed they were destined to be together.

  So dumb. How could that possibly be?

  Gaby hunched her shoulders, driven inward by her thoughts.

  She did believe in Bliss’s intuition, but Bliss was little more than a child, as much an outcast as Gaby herself. Until Gaby stepped in, she’d been a hooker.

  Now she was a friend.

  Damn, how many freakin’ friends did she need, anyway? She was starting to collect them the same way a mangy dog collected fleas. She’d gotten by for a long time all on her own. Other than Father Mullond, the priest who’d helped her understand her calling, she’d had no one.

  And she’d been fine and dandy all alone. It was better. For her, for everyone else.

  But things had changed irrevocably.

  An older woman gave Gaby a sympathetic smile, and she realized how darkly she scowled.

  Shit. She turned away from the granny and turned up her music until it made her eardrums vibrate.

  Disgruntled by the rapid changes taking place in her life, Gaby kept her distance from the warmly clothed men and stylishly dressed women at the stop. Leaning on a brick structure, she surveyed the traffic, both human and automotive.

  People laughed or talked, some with umbrellas open, some with collars up. A few had devices in their ears and appeared to be in deep conversation with . . . no one.

  Even those waiting for the bus were in a hurry to get somewhere, likely nowhere important. That mind-set, the on-the-go lifestyle, made no sense to Gaby.

  These people acted safe, as if anyone ever truly could be. They had no awareness of the ugly societal deformities that loomed around them. Homicidal psychopaths lurked everywhere, disguised as neighbors, family, friends, or lovers. Fiends of every disorder existed hand in hand with innocents.

  Yet none of these people had a clue.

  And Gaby could never forget. Not for a second. God, she was out of place here, and sooner or later Luther would realize it.

  The bus finally came and Gaby waited until everyone else had boarded before taking a seat toward the back. No one sat by her, but several people stared.

  Was she that transparent? Did even strangers recognize her deviant presence among them?

  Their auras filled the bus with a churning hue of expectation, urgency, boredom, and complacency. Not one of them understood the day-to-day peril they faced.

  Choosing to ignore them, she turned to stare out the foggy window. Like veins on emaciated flesh, raindrops traveled haphazardly over the dirty glass, occasionally crisscrossing and blending, only to branch out again.

  Gaby contented herself by watching as tidy buildings gave way to shops with crumbling bricks and peeling paint. One by one, the social scale of the bus’s
occupants changed. The “nice” people got off, and a new element boarded.

  The hypnotic hiss of bus tires on wet pavement, the gray day and drizzling rain, softened the reality of bars and tattoo parlors that replaced groceries and salons.

  Falling into a lull, Gaby lost herself in her raucous music—until her unfocused gaze snagged on one particular tattoo parlor. Beautiful swirling colors and font shapes drew her attention to an ornate sign indicating the artwork available inside.

  But around that sign, encompassing the façade of the tidy, well-kept building, a thick, dark impression of reality swirled. This aura wasn’t so much a glow as a smoky film in dirty colors of sulfur and mustard, rich with pain and anger.

  Gaby pressed a hand to the window and stared. Black boreholes pierced the shades, and through those holes, small white explosions, spurred by artificial stimulation, told Gaby that the tattoo parlor partook of some serious drug use. Shades of grave imbalance indicated a lack of sanity. A crazed sociopath lurked inside.

  Gaby’s senses kicked.

  This wasn’t a true alarm, but more like sensory awareness of things being out of place. It thrilled her to have found a firm purpose.

  Adrenaline rushed through her lax limbs as Gaby stood to make her way to the front of the bus. The second the driver stopped, she got off, removed her earphones, and surveyed her surroundings.

  Even the air smelled different here, not as green, crisp, or clean as it did near Luther’s home. Here, she smelled the smoke of factories, the odor of rotting garbage, and the sticky stench of unwashed bodies.

  This was her world.

  She knew what to do here.

  Renewed by familiarity, Gaby started back up the street toward the tattoo parlor, but before she’d gone more than a few steps, the vicious snarling of dogs drew her gaze.

  Across the street, three young men with two pit bulls on leashes approached the gated area of an old elementary school. The school’s windows were all shattered or boarded up, but in the yard a ramshackle playground inhabited by an old moldy sofa and a few treadless tires remained.

  The men were muscular guys, tall and cocky, and their dogs begged to be unleashed.

  A young, dark-skinned woman quickly gathered up three children and left the area. A husky woman yelled something at the men and shook a fist, but quieted when the dogs lunged, trying to get free of their restraints. The men laughed, and the angered woman snatched up a child off the old couch and fled.