Chapter 3

After the abortive attempt to catch our killer vampire, Robert and I went into a huddle and decided to separate. No matter how we managed to catch up with this guy, we were going to need serious back up when we did. There are two organizations that train to deal with vampires gone wild. Since the first was the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, Robert headed to Quantico. As my Agency time had included stints with the Army Special Forces all the way back to Southeast Asia, I caught a ride with him. The FBI plane dropped me off at Pope Air Force Base in NC where I picked up the government car waiting for me and drove to next door Ft Bragg.

The duty officer at the Special Warfare Center obviously wasn't used to having females from the CIA show up at 2 in the morning. Nevertheless, he called the field duty officer and tried to make me feel comfortable while we waited for him to show up. He offered me coffee or a soda. Had he offered "me" along with those I might have accepted. He was cute. I did always have a thing for deep dark eyes and uniforms, especially combined with a lean, muscled body. In some ways he reminded me of that young Lieutenant I had shared time with, in and out of bed, when we were both in South Vietnam.

I was covered in those days as a reporter for UPI. I know that the law forbids CIA operatives from acting as members of the media, but I did it anyway. Maybe it only applies to live agents. I was not involved in the Phoenix Project or anything like that. I was an information gatherer only. I identified various members of the VC infrastructure to the Special Operations Group at MACV. I also supplied information of the Saigon underworld to the MP's and the local police. If during this, a few leading members of say, a child prostitution ring, disappeared, then it was no one's business but my own.

I had met Myron while doing a story on the LRRP's (Long Range Recon Patrols) that later became the Rangers. The intense, driven officer had caught my eye. Fortunately I had caught his eye also and he was able to come to Saigon often enough to make our time together worthwhile.

At first he was the perfect gentleman. I was raised in the old country traditions. Women worked hard, very hard, and died young back then. But my father never treated my mother as anything less than a lady, regardless of the thatched cottage we called home. I expected the same from the men I chose to be with.

I had lured men to my bed before. I had sought information with the implied promise of my bed. Recently I had been forced to deal with an NVA Lieutenant Colonel who thought our exchange of information merited that bed. I can be seduced. I have no prejudices of race or color or sex. I am not some camp follower to be taken in the name of "Liberation" though. He tried to force me. Neither he nor his bodyguards were ever found. I have said that I am not a murderer. I never said I wasn't a killer. That night I had fed without regret.

Myron and I began to see each other. Even if it was just stopping by my office when he came to Saigon, I looked forward to any time I got to spend with him. We went out several times, to eat, to shop, just to wander the streets of Saigon. One unforgettable night we went to a wonderful French restaurant. Previously I had argued him into letting me pay. I, after all, was the one on the expense account. This time he insisted. I knew that he would not dream of believing this entitled him to sexual recompense. That in itself made me promise myself that tonight he would end up in my bed.

After the meal we danced. We danced slowly, feeling the heat between us build hotter than the still night around us, hotter than the jungles that lay too near. I couldn't stand it anymore. As the band broke for a breather, I went to our table and picked up my purse. I looked at him. He dropped money on the table, his eyes never leaving mine and we walked hand in hand into the night.

Tonight I was being lured as much as I was luring. I had no motive other than to be with Myron. I did not seek him for his blood. I sought him because I cared for him. Whatever he wanted tonight I would try to give him.

We entered the compound where I lived, then my bungalow. I remember him taking it all in. I smiled when he called it my "Hootch". Then he took me in his arms and I thought of nothing but him.

He kissed me, softly at first, then more urgently and demandingly as the tension between us built to a breaking point. I could feel his pulse throbbing all through his body. It was so powerful I swore my unbeating heart responded. His hands stripped the clothes from my body, lingering on my cool skin as each garment fell away. Somehow, by the time I was nude so was he.

He lifted me in his arms and slowly carried me to the bed. He set me down and just stood for a moment, his eyes running up and down my body with a sensuality that was almost a physical caress. He pushed my legs apart and knelt between them. His hands ran up my stomach to my breasts and he leaned forward to kiss me again. And again.

We were both covered in a sheen of perspiration. It felt so good on my body. It made me warm. His strong arms surrounded me and his rough callused hands caught me under my back and lifted my body in an arch. His tongue drew larger and larger circles over my breasts, beginning on the nipples and moving out. His mouth drew each one deep into his mouth, suckling them and then releasing them into the cool air from the ceiling fan.

Oh, he knew how to make love. His kisses between my breasts, trailing down over my stomach, inch by inch, driving me wild with passion. I surrendered myself to him, begging and pleading with him to take me. His lips passed over my wet sex. His head slowly moved around in tiny circles as his tongue stroked me until I was ready to overpower him and take him.

He felt it. He knew I was perched on the edge of a delicious madness. He released my body. For one moment that lasted for hours, it seemed, he was poised above me. His cock touched my open pussy. Then with one long deliberate motion he entered me.

I screamed with that very first penetration. He filled me, not just with his cock but with his entire being. His mouth took mine even as his shaft possessed me. Our tongues wrapped around each other, our bodies melted into one. His cock deep inside me made me a part of him. Our bodies slipped and slid along each other until he finally emptied his hot seed in me.

Even in the throes of my orgasm, with his face buried in my neck and my mouth right over his throbbing jugular, my fangs never dropped. Had I been perishing from starvation I could not have bitten him. All I needed was him.

When he finally fell asleep that night, I couldn't. I had pillowed my head on his chest, my fingers tracing the muscles there, listening to the beat of his heart. I wanted to stay there, not just for that night, but nights and years of nights to come.

Oh dear lord, I was falling in love with him. It wasn't possible. Vampires don't fall in love with mortals. Even if I revealed what I was and he could accept it, there was no future for us. He would grow old and die while I went on.

Someone might impatiently ask why I didn't make him a vampire along with me. No matter the love that I felt, I could not take away the sun, his family, his friends; as were taken from me. Even if he agreed, asked for it, I could not do it. I wanted to hear that heartbeat. I wept quietly in the night.

I told him nothing of what was in my heart. I believed he knew it though, and it struck a chord in him too. I didn't know what to do but to string things out as long as I could. When you live forever you tend to look far ahead. I just looked forward to the next time I saw him.

One evening we returned to the restaurant where we had had our first real date. His tour was going short and I knew that soon a decision of some kind would have to be made. We stood on the veranda, enjoying the night air as we waited for our table.

I turned my head and saw a familiar face dropping off the side of the porch. Recognition dawned as I realized he was a VC sapper I had seen once while interviewing a senior member of that organization. I inhaled deeply, through my nose, to catch the variety of smells in the direction of the restaurant. Mingled with the ever present nuc-mong sauce and a number of other scents was an acrid smell. I froze for one long instant as I realized it was a fuse burning.

I turned and grabbed Myron and pitched him down the steps away from the doorway. "Get down," I screamed. I should have followed my own advice. Instead, I flung myself in the door. If I could just get to the bomb I knew was there...

I didn't. I never even heard the explosion. I just saw the fireball coming towards me, and then nothing at all.

Consciousness returned. Where the hell was I? I asked myself that question when I woke up in a mausoleum in 1573 and it seems to keep coming back to me every so often. I very rarely like the answer. This time was one of the worst ones.

I groaned. I seemed to be lying on a steel plate, or slab of sometime. I was nude too. Now I've often awoken that way, but I didn't like the implications of that at all this time. I hurt all over, as bad or worse than I ever have in 4 plus centuries.

It sure was dark in here. I felt around me with my hands. Oh shit, metal surrounding me very closely on all sides. Very reminiscent of a coffin in fact. I was hyperventilating, even though I don't need to breathe. Buried alive doesn't do much for a vampire. Kind of hard to feed 6 feet under.