Nocturnal Urges Page 12

  “Do you think that matters?” Elyse spat.

  Ryan took another step. “He’s not me, Elyse. If you want me, come for me.”

  Elyse grinned, a horrible, sadistic smile that bared her white teeth. “First him. Then her. Then you,” she cackled.

  “Not happening, hon,” Freitas said, edging closer.

  Elyse hissed again.

  “Please, Elyse,” Ryan said. “This can still end well.”

  Elyse smiled, and for a bare instant, Isabel caught a glimpse of the sane woman still inside her, a woman filled with despair. “No, it won’t,” she said, and lowered her teeth to Duane’s throat.

  Duane screamed. Ryan leapt forward, pulling Duane away just as Elyse’s teeth grazed into his throat. As Ryan and Duane fell away from the bar, Elyse leapt up onto the bar, still hissing.

  Freitas shot Elyse twice, and still she held on, screeching out her hate as she tried to jump down toward Ryan. Freitas shot her a third time, and Elyse tumbled to the floor.

  Isabel ran over to Ryan and Duane. “I thought bullets don’t kill them,” she said breathlessly.

  “They don’t,” Freitas said, training her pistol on Elyse’s bloodied, twisting form. “It just slows them down.”

  Brent knelt beside Duane, pressing a handkerchief against the bloody wound. Duane was conscious, staring at Elyse.

  Ryan crawled over to Elyse, kneeling beside her. “What would you have?” he asked, his voice filled with a terrible sadness.

  “You know,” Elyse whispered.

  Ryan glanced up at Freitas, who stepped back. Then he turned to Elyse, and lowering his head, sank his teeth into her ivory-pale neck.

  Elyse cried out, a terrible wail of misery, horror and sadness. It seemed to fill the room, echoing beyond its walls, a sound that brought tears to Isabel’s eyes and echoed inside her chest, where she was conscious of her heartbeat as never before.

  Ryan drank, and Elyse’s voice began to fade. Slowly, it disappeared, and her shaking ceased.

  Ryan lifted his head, and turning away, wiped the blood from his mouth. Then his shoulders began to shake and Isabel went to him, drawing him into her arms with all the strength she could muster. She held him, let him grieve, and because he mourned, she mourned with him.

  * * * * *

  If Isabel never saw the inside of the police station again, it would be too soon.

  “You might have shared all this stuff with me before, you know,” Freitas said.

  “Turn in someone who might be innocent, just to save my own skin?” Ryan said. “Not very gentlemanly. I suspected Elyse, but suspicion is a long way from proof. And I did not want to believe her capable of such horrors.”

  “A few things I don’t understand,” Isabel said to Freitas. “You knew Elyse worked the same schedule as Ryan. Why arrest him and not Elyse?”

  Freitas rolled her eyes. “As I will no doubt be explaining at my next personnel review, for the fiftieth time, I did not arrest Ryan. I brought him in for questioning at an ungodly hour because I thought it would be quiet that way. And yes, that means someone in my department tipped the TV news crews, and yes, that’s a conversation I’ll be having with my higher-ups.”

  “But why Ryan?” Isabel pressed.

  “History,” Ryan said. “My murder conviction.”

  “Elyse,” Freitas said, nodding. “I apologize, Mr. Callahan. Your file wasn’t entirely clear on that point.”

  “She came across in the mid-1950s, but we did not see each other again until she came to Nocturnal Urges two months ago,” Ryan said. “She told me my sentence had been commuted. But she had never forgiven me. She hated what she was, and hated me for making her into a monster. I tried to help her, wanted to help her, to atone. She took out her fury on all men for the sins of one.”

  Isabel placed her hand on Ryan’s. “You are not a monster,” she said softly. “You loved her, and that’s all that matters.”

  Freitas stood up. “If you don’t mind, I have about a year’s worth of paperwork to file,” she said.

  Ryan stood as well. “Will you get into trouble for allowing the bite?”

  Freitas smiled, a tired, sad smile that mitigated her cop’s eyes. “What bite?”

  Isabel took Ryan’s hand, and smiled at Freitas. She walked through the police station at Ryan’s side, and when they stepped out into the faint pearl-pink rays of the rising sun, she stepped close to him and leaned her head on his shoulder.

  Together they walked away from the sunlight, into the shadows between brick and stone, disappearing into the darkness together.

  About the author:

  Elizabeth Donald’s first published work was a two-sentence essay in the Westfield (Massachusetts) Evening News titled “Why My Mom is the Greatest”, which took first place when she was ten.

  Since then, she has made her career as a journalist and fiction writer. Her short stories have been published by: De Novo Studios, The Murder Hole, Thirteen Stories and DogEar Magazine. Her web column, Scarlet Letters, has won several national awards, as has her work as a journalist. “Nocturnal Urges” is her first published novel.

  Elizabeth welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at P.O. Box 787, Hudson, Ohio 44236-0787.

  Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

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