Road Trip, Chapter 3
Title: Road Trip
Fandom : Moonlight
Characters : Mick, Beth, Josef, Simone
Rating : R, for some sexual content and strong language.
Spoilers: Post -"Sonata"
Summary: Tenth in my post-Sonata series. Josef hires an RV to take the gang across country to meet Simone's parents. Fun, humorous, and dangerous adventures await them. Told in alternating pov's of all the main characters.
A/N: Hope you are liking this story. You are? Well, write to me and let me know what you think. In detail. Pretty please?
Chapter 3
MICK
We traced the vamps’ scents through the casino’s kitchens, the angry yells of the chefs following us to the alley exit. Amid threats of calling security, we went out into the night. The sounds of struggling and pained exclamations led us to the woman, who had waylaid a hapless busboy who had been taking out the trash. She’d apparently hidden behind the dumpster and was now pinning the kid against the wall, going at his jugular. Clutching my stake in one hand, machete in the other, Josef and I sprang into action. Unfortunately for Yvonne, Josef got to her first.
She must have been so involved in her feeding frenzy that she didn’t sense us until the last minute. Her last minute, actually. Josef pulled Yvonne off the boy, and before I could stake the pitiful creature, Josef had cleanly beheaded her. I watched in annoyance as the vamp’s head rolled unceremoniously down the alley, coming to a sickly stop in the gutter. The busboy slumped down the wall to the ground.
“What the hell did you do that for?” I said, crouching by the boy, tearing a strip from the bottom of his t-shirt to help staunch his bleeding neck. Mercifully, he’d passed out.
“She had it coming, Mick, and you know it. Don’t worry-I’ve got the number of the local Cleaners.”
Josef began looking around, nose in the air, trying to catch the scent of Yvonne’s fiancé.
“They split up,” Josef said. I looked up from the kid and met Josef’s eye. A vision of Beth and Simone, alone and helpless in their hotel room, flashed in my mind.
“Go!” I told him. “I’ll catch up.” Josef disappeared down the alley. I listened to the pulse of the boy, and it was steady. He’d live. I hoisted him up in my arms and laid him gently on the steps by the hotel door, then, picked up the two parts of Yvonne and tossed them into the dumpster. Hopefully no one would find her before the Cleaners did. Then I hightailed it toward the casino next door.
It was easy to find the alley door Josef had used, because he had merely ripped the doorknob off to get inside. This door didn’t lead to a kitchen; it was some sort of service entrance. I went down a darkened hallway, following Josef and the other vamp’s scent to the service elevator. I pounded the “up” button. Before getting on, I called Beth. She picked up on the first ring.
“Mick! Are you guys okay?”
“Yeah. Did Josef call?”
“No, why? You got separated? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later. You and Simone sit tight. That male vamp is in your hotel now. What room are you in-I’ll be up in a minute.”
“Eleven --”
But she was interrupted by her own startled yelp. Then the line went dead.
“Beth? Beth!”
I stopped waiting for the elevator. I found the stairs and jumped straight up as high as I could, grabbing the railing and swinging myself over it so I could see what floor I had reached. Eight. I took the rest of the climb by jumping a flight at a time to the eleventh floor. I couldn’t smell vamps in the stairwell, so they must have used the elevator to get up there. I prayed that if I couldn’t make it in time, Josef would.
BETH
As luck would have it, Simone and I were quickly able to secure a hotel room and make our way to wait for the elevator. I could feel the nervous energy coming off Simone in waves. She was agitated in a way I’d never seen her before as a human.
“I can smell him,” she said under her breath. “He’s around here somewhere, but I don’t have the experience to hone in my senses. “ She pounded the elevator button for the fourth time. “Where’s that damned elevator?”
Of course, this uncertainty made me extremely nervous as well, and my eyes darted around the lobby as we waited. I wished the guys would hurry up and call us.
The ding of the elevator’s arrival made me jump, and we entered it the moment the other guests came out. Simone pressed the button for the eleventh floor, and it seemed to take forever for the thing to get moving again.
On our floor, we quickly made our way to room 1121. I know Simone was slowing her pace for my benefit; she was more than eager to put a few walls between us and the vampire that could be stalking us. She locked the door behind us and went to the window. She was not pleased to see that we had a balcony--easy access for a vampire.
She took out her phone and called Josef, I assumed. She must have hit voice mail.
“Dammit, Josef, what the hell is going on? That vamp is in our hotel. Call me!”
I was just reaching for my own phone when it rang in my hand. Thank God. Mick. He told me he and Josef had gotten separated, and I was just about to tell him our room number when the door to our room was kicked in. I dropped my phone in fright as the vampire came inside, advancing toward me, his face turned and ready to attack.
“Get the fuck out of our room,” Simone said angrily, her face contorting as her fangs dropped down. This was the first time I’d seen her this way, and I looked on in fascination, despite my fear. The guy just laughed.
“Listen, infant, your hanging out with this tasty human without feeding off her is downright unnatural. I just want a little taste. I haven’t had anything like her in a long time, so step aside or we’ll make this personal. Somehow I don’t think you’d like the way I do personal.”
Simone stood her ground. “She is under my protection, and we’re both under the protection of those older vamps you saw us with tonight. They’re on their way up here, and somehow I don’t think they’ll hesitate at all to make this as personal as they possibly can.” He advanced on us, but Simone stayed between him and me. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and cling to Simone’s back in terror, but I was frozen in place.
Then the vampire backhanded Simone across the face with such force that she flew across the room, toppling the round table and landing on the floor beside the bed. I didn’t have time to see how badly hurt she was before the vampire was grabbing my upper arms and pulling me in toward his eager fangs. My knee came up and bore into his groin, but it didn’t seem to faze him at all. In fact, I think it excited him even more.
At this point, I did squeeze my eyes shut, praying that Mick or Josef would come rushing through that door to save us. I felt the coldness of the vamp’s vice-like grip, the cool dampness emanating from his open mouth as he leaned in for the kill. But then, over the loud pounding of my heart, I heard the sound of an object whizzing through the air, hitting the vampire in the back with a sickening thump. All at once, I was released from my icy bonds, and I opened my eyes in time to see the creature fall to his knees, then collapse forward onto the mauve carpeting, still and stiff as a board.
When I saw what had brought the vampire down, I laughed out loud in surprise. Sticking out of his back was Simone’s sandal, its four-inch, wooden, spiked heel imbedded into his dead heart, immobilizing him.
“Never underestimate the power of fine footwear,” she quipped, removing her other shoe and walking over to admire her uh, fancy footwork. As if on cue, first Josef, then Mick plowed through the doorway, stakes and machetes at the ready, obviously expecting a fight. I wish I had had a camera to capture their expressions as they took in the scene, their eyes widening slightly at the sight of Simone’s shoe and the damage it had wrought.
We stood there, proud little smiles flitting about our lips, as the guys walked over to the incapacitated vamp, toeing Simone’s shoe gingerly. Finally, Josef looked up at Simone.
“Well, you certainly put your foot into this one,” he deadpanned.
Mick looked at Josef in mock annoyance. “Dammit, Josef! I was going to say, you sure brought him to heel. Which would make more sense, given that it was her shoe and not her foot that staked him.”
“You’ve got a point,” Josef said.
“So did she,” they said in unison. They met each other’s eyes, each trying valiantly to keep a straight face. They both lost the battle and chuckled in appreciation.
“Look, Mick,” said Josef proudly, “Simone staked her first vampire! And look how resourceful she was.” He kissed her lips with a resounding smack, draping one arm casually around her shoulders. I watched in amusement as their playful kiss suddenly turned passionate enough that I had to look away.
Mick pulled me aside.
“Are you okay?” His hands went automatically to my upper arms, and I flinched involuntarily. He had noticed my reaction, of course, and pulled up the butterfly sleeves of my blouse to see the fingerprints, still deep red and more than likely to be painful bruises by morning.
“Hey!” he said, nudging the prone vamp’s side none too gently with his boot. “I ought to tear your head off for this.”
Josef pulled away from Simone at Mick’s uncharacteristic outburst.
“What happened?” Josef demanded.
Mick indicated the marks on my arms, and Josef took out the machete he’d re-holstered. “Allow me, Mick. That’s reason enough for me to reunite him with Yvonne right now.”
“What? You killed her?” I asked.
“She was snacking on a busboy next door. Damned near drained him.” He looked at Simone. “She’d violated one of the rules I’ve been teaching you. Our prime directive is to keep our existence secret. Feasting on the unwilling in a public alley is too dangerous, I don’t care how hungry she was.” His serious eyes alighted on me again. “Her boyfriend here was about to do the same with you. I can’t believe you’d deny me the privilege of ending him, Beth.”
I sighed. I’d learned something about vampire justice this past year--it’s a bitch.
But Mick intervened. “Well, he’s can’t do much to anyone now. Call the Cleaners and the local Council, and let’s get this taken care of so we can get the hell out of here.” I couldn’t agree more, and gladly snuggled into Mick’s side. He kissed my head sweetly, and I could feel his relief seeping into me, calming my post-traumatic jitters.
While Josef was on the phone, Mick noticed Simone’s bare feet. He knelt down beside the vampire, pulling out Simone’s shoe from his back and quickly replacing it with his stake. The vamp let out a hiss of pain, then resettled into his forced stasis. Mick stood, and, holding the sandal by the strap, took it into the bathroom to rinse off the heel. Ewww. He brought it gallantly back to Simone.
“I’ll just stay out of the way of those,” Mick smiled at her. “You’ve got a couple of lethal weapons there.”
“And so much more stylish than a stake,” she replied, sitting on the bed to put on her shoes again. “You know, I could start a whole new line of footwear, for the modern lady vampire.”
“Not just vampires,” I ventured. “Girlfriends of vampires could use a pair too.”
Josef snapped his phone shut. “You’d make millions,” he said with a smile. He turned to Mick. “They’re on their way. We can just shut the door and leave the mess for them to clean up. They’re on the one downstairs too.”
“Won’t the Council want to question us?” Mick asked.
“They know me here, and trust what I say. They also have my number if they need an official statement. Besides, the bloom has come off this rose for me this trip. Let’s go back to the Whale and blow this shithole.”
We all concurred. We left the hotel room, only able to pull the door to, given the broken door frame. But Cleaner response time was legendary, so I had full faith it would all be taken care of with no one the wiser.
As we got on the elevator, I heard Josef say to Simone: “Your aim is definitely improving, sweetheart.” They looked lovingly into each other’s eyes and laughed softly. I’d have to ask Simone what that was about later.
And so we left the gaudy lights of Vegas behind, first by motorcycle, then by RV. It was getting late, so I pulled out my bed and made it up, while Josef and Simone took the driver and shotgun positions, the plan being to drive until dawn. I went to the bathroom and changed into sweats and a t-shirt, then climbed into bed.
Mick, who had kept his jeans on for propriety’s sake, settled on the bed beside me.
“You okay?” he asked, still concerned. I knew he felt the stirrings of the same old guilt he always felt when I was hurt at the hands of his kind.
“I’m fine. I have three wonderful body guards watching over me.”
He smiled gently and kissed me goodnight, spooning his bare chest to my back, breathing words of love and gratitude into my ear.
I fell asleep to the sounds of my vampire friends’ soft talking in the cab, the gentle swaying of the RV, and the comforting feeling of Mick’s jean-clad body wrapped around mine.