Taming the Night (Creatures of the Night Book 1) Read online

  A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and he flinched involuntarily as he opened his eyes. He saw care and concern in his uncle’s gaze. He had never seen that look in his uncle’s face. “You okay son?”

  Jerry swallowed and realized that his throat was parched. “Nothing a little juice won’t fix.”

  This brought the customary smile back to his uncle’s face and Jerry could see some of the tension visibly lift from his shoulders. “You are okay if you can joke. You gave me the scare of my life. It was a bad crash.”

  Jerry felt as confused as he was sure he looked. “There was… what happened to the… I… I mean there was a crash but... What about the… the biker. Was there any evidence of the biker fleeing the scene?”

  “Nothing. There were tracks crisscrossing that field. I heard the tape of your pursuit but you didn’t give much of a description of the perp. We have been searching for days and-”

  “Days?” Jerry asked flabbergasted.

  “You’ve been asleep nearly two days. Sarah will have my head for not getting in contact with her. She’s on one of those damn Alaskan cruises and-”

  “There has been no information on the biker in days?” Jerry asked in frustration.

  “Nope, even if there was I wouldn’t give him a hard time. I wanted to simply talk to him about the nature of the accident you were in. It looks like you took impact on the passenger’s side door, but there was no other car at the scene when we got there. Your car flipped six times so there should have been some paint transfer, metal transfer, perhaps even transfer from the other guy going through his windshield and smacking into your unit on impact, but there’s nothing.”

  “Nothing at all. No blood besides mine?” he asked incredulously. He tried to get a clear image in his mind of what happened but it was all… fuzzy.

  “Boy. This aint CSI. Even if we could pull some blood up besides yours, who’s would we check it against? The biker data pool? The guys who run into police cruisers data base?”

  Jerry wanted to grumble and argue but he knew that his uncle was right. This was as close to Mayberry as they’d get without the theme song. Tonia was working hard to bring the department up to date, but she had only been around a few months. She was fighting against years of the old school of thought, and that was a thing that couldn’t be changed overnight.

  “What about the perp? Why do you say you wouldn’t give the biker a hard time?” he asked instead.

  “Well the only thing I can think is that he gave you a fighting chance at least. When Gerald found you you had already been bandaged up and stabilized. It was as if the bastard had felt bad and wanted to make it up to you for having to chase him in the first place.”

  “And how do you know it wasn’t the biker who hit me?”

  “Son. You show me a motorcycle that can get goin’ good enough to flip a Crown Vic six times, and I’ll show you a dead motorcyclist.”

  All Jerry could do in response to that was huff.

  “So how about you?” his uncle asked.

  “What about me?”

  “You gonna tell me what happened out there?”

  “Chief Hernandez. I’m gonna have to ask you to not harass the patient right now. He did just come out of a comma.”

  Victor Hernandez took a step back and Jerry saw him almost turn beet red. “Doctor. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. He just seemed up to it is all.”

  “Well until I release him I don’t want anymore talk of what happened before he got here. He needs to heal.” Trudy Lana eased up to the side of the bed. She had a soft smile on her reed thin face that had been putting patients at ease for years. She was like a breath of fresh air. Jerry had to wonder why she and his uncle seemed so adamant about avoiding each other when there was obviously something there.

  “Hey Doc.”

  “Well. I did tell you to stay out of trees ever since that summer you came to me with a broken leg, but now I suppose I will have to tell you to stay away from charging cars,” she said as she gently stroked the hair back from his face. She had a way of looking him directly in the eye that made him feel more confident in her abilities as a healer.

  She had always been very motherly to him and all her patients. It was the type of thing most big city doctors avoided for fear of law suites, but they hardly had a lawyer here in Taming let alone law suites. “How are you feeling?”

  He did a quick mental check and then smiled. “I can still wiggle my fingers and toes. Someone upstairs must like me.”

  “I’ll say. You were thrown from the car and it looks as if it rolled right over the top of you, tearing at you as it did. It must have been quite some accident.”

  Jerry saw the hesitation on her face as she said the words. Was there something she wasn’t saying? Had the car torn at him or had if been a big hairy monster? Surely a doctor could tell the difference. Where was the biker woman? Was she alright? Had one of those things carried her off? If that was the case where was her motorcycle?

  The second thing he’d noticed the other night, right after how beautiful she was, was her bike. It was a Harley with a purple flame hugging the tank. It looked like it should be too big for her but she had ridden it like they were twins in the womb.

  The woman, the monsters… if he wasn’t mistaken… she had saved his life. Had one of those things gotten her? Was she even real? Why couldn’t he focus, remember things clearly? His head began to hurt the harder he thought about what might have happened.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Jerry gave his attention back to the Doctor. She immediately pulled a little light from her pocket and checked his eyes and then made him follow her finger as she moved it. Once she was satisfied she asked him again. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I was hit by a truck, but besides that I’m okay.”

  “Well your temperature’s good and you seem to be coherent, but I’m going to keep you overnight for observation. Make sure you wake up after going to sleep and all that. You had major neck and head trauma and now that the swelling has gone down a bit you should be okay.”

  Jerry cast his uncle a suspicious glance and Victor was quick to look away. “Swelling? Give me a mirror.”

  “Like the doctor says, a few days and…” Jerry was on the verge of throwing back the blanket and going to the bathroom, IV and all, when the door came open.

  “Here we are. Some juice and ice chips. And I have a mirror in my purse, you just stay right there.”

  “How did-”

  “Oh the whole hospital probably just heard you screamin’ for a mirror.”

  She sat the tray on the little table in front of him and then hurried over to her purse. Apparently she had slept over as well. For the first time ever, Jerry saw Trudy loose a bit of her grace as she gave Tonia what appeared to be the evil eye. Tonia floated around as if she didn’t notice. Jerry’s uncle turned an even deeper shade of red as Tonia walked past. What was going on here?

  “Here you are,” Tonia said as she opened a compact and held it up to his face.

  Jerry nearly swallowed his tongue. The entire left side of his face was swollen and purpled from his hair line, to his neck, to his shoulder, and it felt like a few of his ribs were bruised as well. He turned his head when he was finished inspecting his face and waved the mirror away with his casted arm.

  It wasn’t the bruises or the scratches that frightened him really. He’d played football, he knew contact injuries well. No, it was the tan. He was nearly as tan as if he’d been out on the beach for a month. How? Maybe the car had caught fire and burned his skin. He couldn’t even pretend to take that lie. Maybe he could lie to himself and say that the injuries were not from some wild animal, that they had indeed come from the accident, but what about the tan? A wild woman hit a button that lit the field up like the fourth of July was how.

  “Here. Drink some juice,” Tonia offered as she reached over to help him up. She held his head while he sipped from a straw.

  “He should be able to hold his own he
ad up,” Doctor Lana snapped.

  They all turned to look at her and she looked down at her clipboard as if she hadn’t snapped at all. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours. If you need something just buzz the nurse’s station,” she said without looking up before she made a fluid exit. The door barely made a click as she closed it behind her.

  “What was that all about?” Jerry asked. Victor shook his head and Tonia quickly went to collect her things.

  “I’ll be at work if anyone needs me. I’ll be back with some real food for you Jerry before I go home,” Tonia said, her green eyes sparkling with a smile, as they always did. Tonia was headed towards fifty but her red hair and green eyes didn’t show a hint of it.

  When she was gone Jerry looked to his uncle again. “What is that all about?”

  “You’ve got bigger things to be worried about than what old fools will do.”

  “Well Unc. You can’t stay a bachelor forever,” Jerry teased with a smile.

  “Says what law? I want to see it.”

  “How about the one that says man was not meant to be alone and all that.”

  His uncle huffed. “Eve. She started this whole mess.”

  Jerry thought of his own disastrous relationships and had to agree. A wave of fatigue washed over him and nearly carried him away. “I suppose I could sleep a little. Will you let me know if anything turns up on the perp?”

  “I’ll let you know if anything turns up on the vehicle and driver that hit you or the biker. Don’t think you’re getting out of answering my questions because of any amnesia or that. And… I’m glad you’re okay. If anything happened to you…”

  The statement hung in the air and suddenly images of his father’s funeral flashed through his mind. A young boy holding his uncle’s big hand in one hand, and his mother’s smaller one in the other. They all stood there as his father was lowered into the grave, one loosing a husband, one loosing a best friend and brother-in-law, and the other loosing the whole world. A robbery gone badly and his father had been the first on the scene. It hung over this small town like a cloud.

  “Naw. I plan on stickin’ around for a while. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

  Victor nodded before he turned and headed out of the room. Jerry knew that that was as much of an ‘I love you’ as he would get and he was glad of it. The last thing he needed was to have his uncle hanging over his shoulder acting weird. Something happened to him out there and he planned on finding out what. And he knew exactly where to look as soon as he got out of this hospital.

  * * *

  Alicia pulled up in the driveway of her rancho style house. By the light of the moon it looked so magnificent, its adobe clay walls illuminated out here in the middle of the desert. She reached across the front seat of her Ford Focus and grabbed the bag of subs that she’d picked up for dinner. She looked up in the mirror to be sure that her scarf was tied in a flattering way around her head to protect her ears.

  She hated the cold. She didn’t usually worry about the way her hair looked since it wasn’t beneficial to be attractive while being a detective. But when it was time to head for home, she did everything she could to look just that much softer. She loved being soft, comforting, and pretty at home. She just wished she was a better cook. She shrugged it off. Everyone couldn’t be good at everything. When she was satisfied that she looked okay she stepped out of her car and made her way towards the house.

  She noticed before she got to the door that it was open a crack. This didn’t set her on alarm right away. Maybe Thomas was out walking Jazzy. She pushed the door all the way open and then paused. The door was not open because her husband had forgotten to close it. It was open because it had been kicked in and was hanging by only one hinge.

  Instantly she dropped the sandwiches and pulled the gun she had strapped to her belt. “Thomas! Jazzy!” she called out as she made her way swiftly through the den and then the kitchen. There was stuff everywhere… had they been robbed? She was on her way to the back bedrooms when she saw him. She screamed and holstered her gun as she ran to him. The pool of blood beneath him was so large. She meant to check his pulse but his head was nearly severed from his body. A wail erupted from her chest and she fell over him.

  “Thomas,” Alicia screamed as she sat up in bed coated with sweat. She had to breathe for a few minutes and calm down. Her hand was clutched around one of her silver daggers and she felt tensed and prepared for battle. Slowly she replaced the knife beneath the pillow where she slept.

  She went to the window and opened the curtain, letting the afternoon light spill across her floor. She had slept longer than she’d meant. It had probably been about two or three days, she wasn’t sure. Breaking her back had taken considerable healing time. She could have continued on her way with it broken but it would have hurt worse and taken longer to heal.

  Not that it mattered how long she stayed in this little backwoods town. With the number of wolves on the field the other night there wasn’t bound to be another wolf for miles around. Plus, the only witness was sound asleep. No one would notice the drugs in his system. The type of chemicals she’d used weren’t even on the radar as far as she knew. Something Bateman had given her just in case someone got too nosey. It could put a person to sleep for days and they would wake up feeling groggy and disorientated as if they’d had a bad dream.

  She sighed. It would be a shame never to see the handsome officer again. She could have had some real fun with him. She smiled as she remembered the way he’d looked when she’d tried to hand him the detonator. “Forty virgins,” she murmured with a chuckle.

  It didn’t bother her a bit that the room was stifling hot and that sweat was rolling off of her in beads. The man who was out cleaning the pool stopped as he looked up and saw her. His jaw dropped open. She smiled and waved at him. She was completely nude. She found that she loved to shock people. The woman she used to be would have dropped dead before being caught nude in public, but that woman was long gone.

  She turned away from the window before she strode over to the bathroom and clicked on the light. A roach ran off the countertop and disappeared beneath the sink. She had stayed in nicer places… and worse. She preferred to stay away from hotels with central air and security cameras. Bateman preferred it for her as well. She stopped to look at herself in the mirror. Her broken bones and stomach wounds were healed. The bruises were already yellowing. By tonight there would be no evidence of any fight at all.

  She smiled at the thought. She would relish another battle right about now. She turned and looked over her back. Tattooed over both shoulders down to her hip bones were the wings of an Angel. The left corner of one of the wings contained a small badge with a poem and the words ‘Thomas Sierra’ in old style script.

  “Lay down my love, lay down my heart, to be with you forever, to never be apart, our bodies can’t contain us, we are angels, God’s loving art. I’ll be with you forever, forever in my heart.”

  She recited the poem twice more before she blew a kiss to the badge and wiped away a tear. She stepped into the shower as she let the hot water massage her bruised skin. Her body would heal. It always did.

  Chapter Three

  Alicia stood back as she watched the other player eye the table, looking for the best angles. She wanted to scream at him in frustration. If he moved any slower she would die of old age before they finished this game. He was a burly man with a long white beard that was braided down the front of his t-shirt. His ragged black T-shirt looked like it hadn’t been washed in a month. It stretched menacingly over his distended belly. He wore a leather vest over his T-Shirt. She was pretty sure he’d been wearing it so long that it had been in the original Easy Riders movie.

  Maybe he himself had been a young slender man once, riding the highways free and wild on his righteous hog. It was apparent, however, that that had been a long, long, time ago. He was merely a shadow of himself now. Finally he bent to the table and placed the pool stick on his fingers whic
h were arched just so. He looked at her triumphantly as he sunk a difficult shot.

  There was lots of money on the table and he was sweating profusely. She motioned towards the table as if to say that he should continue. Most of the bikers in the bar were watching the game now. At first they had drifted over because of her looks. She wasn’t conceded. She just knew that they found her attractive. Especially when she wore her jean daisy dukes, her knee high leather boots with spiky heels, and her red leather bustier. Her hair was wrapped around a thin solid silver spike, exposing the length of her neck and shoulders.

  She found this outfit to put her at advantage, especially when she was sharking. Men seemed to let their guard down when a beautiful woman with blood red lipstick on her full lips walked into the room. She just thought it a waist that such beauty would be spent on a monster like herself. She was sure that if she ever met the devil, he would be one beautiful son of a bitch. She looked over the men in the room. None of them had an idea what she was, and that was both frightening and… exciting.

  The biker took aim and very carefully poked the white ball with his long custom made leather wrapped pool stick. She could tell by the direction the ball went that it was her turn and she didn’t even wait to see where the solid yellow ball went before she got into place. He had called the corner pocket and missed. He cursed as he slapped more money on the edge of the table.

  She decided that she had made enough money with his last miss and swung her silver plated pool stick into position. The lines and angles lit up on the table for her and it almost seemed too easy. In quick succession she called out the proper pockets and sunk some of the most impossible shots the bar patrons had ever seen. They murmured in disbelief when the ball bounced from side board to side board before they dropped in the pocket she’d called.

  She dropped her balls, all his balls, and then the Q-Ball, causing the man to have to pay her double what was already lying on the table. Suddenly the man, who looked like he weighed a solid ton, and was at least seven feet tall, looked like a bull ready to charge. His face turned red and his eyes narrowed on her. She felt adrenaline flood her own body in response. She scooped up the money that was already on the table before she turned to face his enraged form.