Passion Play

"I'm looking for a man."

Neanderthal eyebrows lifted. "You're in the right place, babe."

Sweat-scent rode the smoke and Cheryl found herself sucking straw-size breaths through her mouth. "His name's Nightshade."

The bartender paused a heartbeat. Green cone shades illuminated the felt on each of the dozen pool tables — islands of light amid the dense gloom. He nodded to the furthest corner.

As she walked that way, Cheryl felt eyes like laser beams scan her body, stopping in places of preference — her high-thigh skirt, the short red t-shirt. No one said a word; they didn't have to. She wasn't unfamiliar with this macho world, although she never felt completely comfortable in places like this. She always felt alone.

A game was underway in the corner. While one man leaned over the table, another seven clung to the darkness near the wall. A stack of paper money balanced precariously on the edge of the pool table.

The sandy-haired man was just about to make a shot when Cheryl's heels stopped clacking on the hardwood. He turned as if the silence was noise, said "Fuck!", dusted his cue tip with blue chalk angrily and assumed a classic pool-player's stance. His cue pushed forward and struck the white ball too hard, at the wrong angle. The ball spun crazily and dropped into a pocket. He sent a murderous look in Cheryl's direction as he retreated to the wall. She folded her arms across her chest, feeling both guilty and defensive.

Someone materialized out of the shadows. Tall. Lean. Long hair tied back, as black as the eight ball. His dark denim jeans and open black leather jacket fit his form like skin on a snake. A silver cross earring glinted in one lobe. She saw letters down the front of the midnight t-shirt:

A
B
O
AB
Universal Recipient

Dramatic, she thought, then modified her judgement. Melodrama.

He stalked the table, circling it twice with sexual grace, eventually stopping at a corner so that he faced her directly. All eyes were on him. In fact, most of the room had paused to watch. He lay the cue ball behind and to the right of the head spot then dusted his cue slowly, the motion sensuous. He leaned low across the felt, the leather of his jacket crackling softly. The light brought out a translucent quality of his flesh; shadows highlighted his cheekbones and a strong chin. A handsome corpse, she though, and he flinched slightly as if he'd read her mind.

He made a bridge with his right hand and lay the stick across it. Cheryl noticed the handle. Mother of pearl inlays glittered beneath the yellow bulb. From everything Aleron had told her, that was just his style.

The shot was a perfect set up. Cue ball. Eight ball. Cheryl's groin. He hunkered down behind the white, eyes close to the felt, and adjusted his bridge unnecessarily, going for drama again. She watched the cue ease back, the tip aim at the bottom of the white. The air cleared and the space between the two of them hollowed into a tunnel where time hovered.

Suddenly his head shot up. Yellow eyes soldered into her green ones. Eyes the color of flowering Buffalo-bur — the Nightshade family. He winked at her at the same time his lips twisted cynically downward. Mesmerized by his stare, she heard more than saw the cue slide as if in slow motion. The cue ball started forward fast then suddenly stopped dead in its tracks. It shifted direction and spun under itself across the table. White barely tapped black. Black rolled willingly into the hungry mouth waiting to devour it.

Reality fractured as if one of the green glass shades had crashed to the floor and shattered. Noise. Movement. Balls clinked, smoke clotted the air. He was already unscrewing his cue, returning the two halves to the case, pocketing the money. Walking past her.

"Nightshade!" she called sharply.

He stopped but did not turn.

She watched his broad shoulders tense as she said, "Aleron sent me."

Now he turned, an animal focusing. A hungry animal. Ferocious. Before he could say or do anything, she said sternly, "My name is Cheryl. We need to talk. In private."

He handed over his case to the bartender in exchange for a key to a store room. Cheryl entered first and walked toward the antique pool table in the middle of the small room, surrounded by three walls of empty beer cases. When he was inside, he closed and locked the door.

"Turn on the light!" Cheryl said, feeling the threat of blackness.

Coming here, into his territory, wasn't such a good idea, she realized. Tense energy rushed toward her. She backed into the table, trying to avoid what she now realized was unavoidable, and braced for the inevitable. His powerful vibration overwhelmed her. In the darkness his lips barely brushed hers on their way to her throat. His incision was quick, precise, almost surgical. Painless. In no way dramatic. Obviously he wasn't the type to waste time when he was hungry, even if he had plenty of time to waste.

Cheryl felt energy drawn from her veins, sucked up through her heart and down from her head. Cold silver light exploded on the inside of her eyelids, freezing her thoughts. Her limbs went glacial and began to numb. She struggled to shove him away but he was stronger, as she knew he would be. He could leave her near death. Vulnerable. Or worse. "Stop!" she pleaded, but the word was almost inaudible.

Finally he did stop. Not when she asked, when he was ready. As he moved away, Cheryl's body collapsed onto the pool table, the weakened rind of a fruit after the pulpy juice has been sucked out.

More light flooded her brain, a myriad of stabbing colors. At first she though it was an hallucination from rapid blood depletion. But the faint chatter, the clink of ceramic balls striking one another told her he'd opened the door and she was losing him. "Wait! Please," she gasped.

He closed the door. He didn't have to. She knew that. His energy was still impatient and as bright as hers had become faded and dim.

Cheryl propped herself up and looked in his direction. She could not see him but knew he could now see her clearly in the dark. "I need help."

"Call a doctor."

"Aleron said I could trust you."

"Aleron lied."

"Before he died he told me where to find you. He said to tell you he's calling in his chips. You owe him. Pay me."

He was on her before her pulse could move along the small amount of blood remaining in her body. She suspected if there had been any blood left worth taking he would have yanked it from her veins and left her to the mercy of the mortals.

He grabbed her hair. His eyes glowed supernaturally, shooting yellow sparks at her in the darkness. His pale face flashed disbelief and pain. She knew he and Aleron had been close, once, and suddenly understood why.

Whatever his face betrayed, his words belied those...