Jordan Castillo Price Morpheus 01 Payback

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

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First published in 2008, 2008

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Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

CONTENTS

Channeling Morpheus: Payback
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Epilogue
Jordan Castillo Price

* * * *

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

Jordan Castillo Price
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2008 Jordan Castillo Price
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Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

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Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

Jordan Castillo Price
The hunt is on...
Pretty young men and women like Michael's best friend,

Scary Mary, are disappearing from underground goth clubs all
over Detroit. Michael has been tracking buried newspaper
articles and obscure medical reports for over two years, and
he's finally found the source of the problem. But he can't
exactly go to the cops and tell them his friend has been
murdered by vampires. It's his duty to start wiping out the
scourge, so he's posing as bait, and he's got a bag of
sharpened hickory stakes to do the job.

Everything should go smoothly, given the amount of

preparation that Michael's put into the hunt. He's got a
practiced repertoire of come-hither looks and a full blister
pack of the date rape drug, Rohypnol. But he didn't count on
Wild Bill showing up.

Bold and sexy, Wild Bill's the type of guy Michael would

have liked to date ... if he'd ever gotten the chance. Despite
his best efforts, it seems there's nothing Michael can do to
shake Bill loose. Looks like they're in for a wild, wild ride.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Chapter One

I picked up my bag, or satchel, or whatever you want to

call it, and checked it again—even though I knew everything
was still there. It had to be, because it'd been pressed against
my foot, and if anyone had been rifling through it, I would
have felt them doing it. Mallet? Check. Wooden stake—
hickory, of course? Check. Crucifix? Well, yeah. Like five of
those. Rohypnol? Check. Holy water? Check. Eyeliner? Check.

Yeah, eyeliner. It looks good on me. Scary Mary used to

say that. She'd sworn up and down that I was one of those
guys who could pull it off.

My hand sank deep into the bag and brushed against the

eyeliner. Or maybe it was a pen. I inched my fingers down
the length of it and felt the tip. Damn. It was a pen. Maybe I
could use it for touchup anyway if I sweated off all the
eyeliner.

Or else I'd have to find the vampire and lure him out of the

club before it came to that.

"Got a light?"
I jumped. I wasn't scared, though. Just startled. It was

way too early for vampires, barely an hour past sunset. But I
hadn't realized there was anyone standing practically on top
of me while I was digging through my bag. Or whatever you
want to call it.

"I don't..." He was so hot he was practically incandescent.

"I don't smoke."

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

The guy who'd wanted the light was smiling. Still standing

practically on top of me, too. Staring me right in the eye.

You'd think that would be all. He asked for a light. I didn't

have one. And then he would move on. But maybe it was
more than that. Maybe he'd just been looking for an excuse
to talk.

He slid himself onto the barstool beside mine. I did my

best to look nonchalant. He was ... amazing. Tall and lean,
with ripped up jeans and spiked blond hair, earrings and a
snake tattoo on his neck and chipped black nail polish. And he
wanted to talk to me.

Couldn't I have run into him any other night? Like, a night

that I didn't already have a date with a vampire?

"Got a name, Mister Lung Association?" he asked me.
"Michael."
"Michael, Michael, Motorcycle." He tucked his cigarette

behind his ear and shook my hand. Well, more like he
jammed his hand toward me, and I either had to shake it or
be knocked off the barstool. "Wild Bill."

A hot guy who had the balls to call himself Wild Bill,

straight faced no less, was hitting on me in a mostly-empty
bar. My mind reeled. I hadn't been putting on my
approachable vibe. I saved that for the vampires. I'd been
going through my bag, minding my own business. And here
he was, with a cigarette tucked behind his ear, chatting me
up.

"Is your name really Bill?" I asked.
"Is yours really Michael?"

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

I rolled my eyes. He smiled wider, a weird, tight-lipped

grin, and planted his elbow on the sticky bar top. "What's
with the purse?"

"It's not a ... look, I'm meeting somebody, okay? Don't

you have anyone else to bother?"

He shrugged and half-turned in his seat to spare a glance

for the rest of the place. It'd be a cool enough club once it
started to fill up, but right now there was only a scattering of
people in it. A tight clique of girls in thick eyeliner and hair
extensions dominated a pair of pushed-together tables beside
the dance floor. A couple swayed together on the glowing
tiles. They were so androgynous you could only tell the boy
from the girl by the flat planes of his ass. Fog that smelled
like cotton candy wafted around their platform boots. And the
remainder of the early crowd hugged the perimeter of the
bar, backs to the wall, drinking warily.

I pretty much looked like everyone else there. Black

clothes and silver studs. Alone and staring. Except that I'd
been staring into my bag instead of cruising.

"I'll keep you company, then," Bill offered. "Until she ... or

he ... shows up."

"He," I said.
Wild Bill's smile curled the corner of his lips.
Damn. If only there was some way, any way at all, I could

ditch the vampire and take my chances with Wild Bill. But it'd
taken me two whole years to track this vampire down and
figure out where he'd been hunting. Two years' worth of
newspaper clippings, of coroners' reports photocopied by
bribable janitors, of buried articles printed out from the

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Internet, accessed through the library's computers, that I've
stared at until their letters slipped out of focus when my body
forced me to rest my eyes.

Maybe Wild Bill would take a rain check. But I kind of

doubted it. Besides, after I left a smoking corpse in my wake,
I'd have to get out of town. Fast.

A thudding bass line that I almost recognized rattled my

molars. I could feel it vibrating in my thighbones through the
barstool, and along my ribs where I leaned against the bar.

"I love this song," said Wild Bill, his mouth against my ear.

He didn't stink of cigarettes, which was good. He smelled like
citrusy hair paste and a well-worn leather jacket. "Wanna
dance?"

No. For so many reasons, no. I couldn't lose my place at

the bar. I'd come early to make sure I'd have the best
possible view of the front door, the back door, the dance floor
and the bathrooms. And no, because I had a leather satchel
with fifteen pounds of vampire hunting gear in it.

And finally, no, because it would feel too much like I had a

hot boyfriend who liked to dance with me. That we went out
together. Dancing. And we lived a normal life. Ideas best left
alone, given my real plans for the evening.

Wild Bill backed toward the dance floor, hands extended in

my direction, fingers waggling in invitation. His chin was
tucked down, and that grin, that tight-lipped grin that crinkled
the corners of his eyes, cut right through me like a sharpened
hickory stake. I'd have to blow him off by pretending I wasn't
into him. What else could I do?

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

He backed to the edge of the lit-up tiles, stared at me for a

few more beats, then shrugged and twirled onto the floor.
Turns out I wasn't the only one there who thought Wild Bill
would look a lot better with those shredded jeans around his
ankles. Most of the Eyeliner Club decided they had the sudden
urge to dance once he'd hit the floor.

A couple of guys peeled themselves off the wall to have an

excuse to mingle with the Eyeliner Girls. It wasn't a gay bar,
mostly. But the goth crowd was omnivorous enough that it
was anyone's guess if the boys wanted to go home with the
girls, or with each other.

Now that sparse dance floor was full, with plenty of people

to keep anyone from standing out too much, but few enough
that everyone had elbow room. And there was Wild Bill,
somewhere in the middle. The pale spikes of his hair bobbed
above the crowd. Scary Mary would've given him a big
thumbs up.

I didn't want to stare, but my eyes kept finding him,

lighting on that flash of bleached blond. Eventually I stopped
resisting. As long as I didn't spend too long looking at him,
my gaze could flick to the front door, the back door, the
bathroom, and then find him again, spotting the guy I'd never
have, every three seconds, after I'd scanned all the doors.

"Refill?" called the bartender. I turned to look at her, five

feet tall and enough metal in her face to throw off a
pacemaker. She held the soda gun like she was one of
Charlie's Angels—the brunette. I nodded and slid my glass
toward her. I should be happy to get any attention at all,
drinking plain seltzer. I paid her two bucks and tipped her one

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

more. I wished I could give her a bigger tip, but any more
than that would raise suspicions and make me memorable. I
couldn't afford to stand out to anyone—except my date.

The bartender turned and cranked out a couple of draft

beers in plastic cups. I watched her move, and for a minute I
imagined that she was Mary, underneath a few dozen facial
piercings and a really weird eyebrow wax. But that was, of
course, impossible, thanks to the vampires that'd fed off
Mary's lifeblood like a pack of hyenas. Hell of a way to lose
your best friend.

I'd always thought we'd grow apart after high school, or at

least when each of us started dating seriously, especially if
she ended up bagging a closet homophobe. But no. No slow
drift for us. Mary had always done everything far more
spectacularly than she needed to.

But the bartender could've been Mary ... a little thin, but

Mary on a diet? Maybe. I could see Mary as a bartender,
ogling boys in black lipstick and tucking tips into her purple
lace bra.

"Changed your mind?"
I turned to fend off Wild Bill again. Mary might have

thought he was lickable, but he just wasn't in the cards for
me. It wouldn't take much, I figured. Another rebuff or two,
and he'd move on to easier quarry. Except as I swung around
to tell him to get lost, a bunch of details clicked into place:
black hair, not blond, long leather duster, not a biker jacket,
jeweled choker, not the snake tattoo, cynical smile, not...

Not Wild Bill. Someone else.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

My heartbeat stopped, then started up again somewhere in

my throat. "What?" I said. Brilliant.

"Your drink." He glanced down at my full glass of water.

"You're still watching the bartender. Did you want something
... else?"

What he'd meant seemed obvious enough, I know. His

actual words had been too simple to even consider them in
passing as a double entendre. Except I only had a tiny sliver
of attention on what he was saying. Most of me was busy
trying to take him in, all of him—the way he moved, the way
he spoke—to see if maybe he was the one. My date.

I tried not to stare. Nothing more tacky than being

obvious. "No, I uh..." I trailed off awkwardly. I wasn't willing
to reduce Scary Mary to a half-sentence about "someone I
knew once." I shrugged.

The black-haired guy stared at me, looked into my eyes.

He was handsome, of course, with startling golden-green
eyes and cheekbones to die for. His hair was more done up
than my chin-length bob, long in front and spiked in back.
Vamps are always slick, always handsome. And he didn't
seem too concerned about what was tacky, or what was
obvious, or what was awkward. I felt a queasy flutter as he
did his thing—just looking and looking and looking—like my
spine was reacting to him, sending weird signals to random
spots in my nervous system.

Holy crap, after all this time I find him ... and me with

absolutely nothing interesting to say. I wet my suddenly-dry
lips and forced my shoulders to relax, my spine to sag. A half

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

smile that I'd practiced for hours found its way onto my face,
a mask of sultry indifference.

His eyes found mine again. I hadn't realized they'd ever

looked away. But then I figured out why—he'd been watching
me wet my lips. "I'm Michael," I said. And I made a mental
note to practice small talk. Something. Anything. The library
probably had a great wealth of information about that, just
like everything else you could find there, if you were patient
enough to sift through a billion other words.

"Gray," he said. "A pleasure."
His mouth molded the word pleasure like it was something

dirty. But what was gray? Oh, right. His name. Of course. If
he was my vampire—and the way I'd suddenly dropped about
a hundred IQ points and developed a pronounced throb in my
crotch, I was guessing he was—he wasn't gonna have a name
like Howard or George.

I blinked and tilted my head to one side. My long hair

slipped down over one eye, and I probably looked just like I'd
practiced, waifish and goth in my eyeliner. At least I'd
practiced something, and had a bedroom stare to paint over
my real expression, which probably would've been something
like a deer in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler hauling
two dozen SUVs.

"Cool song," I forced out, even though I could hardly tell

what it was. And I wanted to take it back, it sounded so
pathetic. But I guess it was better than what I was actually
thinking, which was if his skin was really as smooth as it
looked, and would it be cold ... or had he fed lately? And what
would it taste like as I slid my tongue along that angular jaw,

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

and down the cord of muscle at the side of his throat, trailing
his collarbone to his chest, his nipple.

And maybe I would've even wondered aloud where I got

off letting one of his kind get me all wound up like that. After
what happened to Mary.

He would feel even better than I'd imagined. They all do.

That's how they manage to stay alive for so long. If they were
as repulsive on the outside as they were on the inside, nature
would've gotten Darwinian on 'em a long, long time ago.

Evidently Gray didn't think I sounded too stupid—or maybe

all of us did, once we'd been caught in his gravitational pull.
And besides, I had my repertoire of sultry eyeliner glances to
work with. Maybe I was actually ahead of the pack, lack of
witty banter notwithstanding.

I searched for something to look at, other than his eyes,

because if I kept looking there, I'd be doomed before I even
got started, reduced to a gibbering wreck. My gaze lit on the
choker. It was a fancy silver charm with a big green gem set
in it, dangling from a black velvet ribbon.

"You like?" he said.
I don't think he was talking about the choker. But I nodded

anyway.

"It's an antique. I've had it for years. The stone's called a

peridot. It's the only gemstone that doesn't come in any color
but green." A weird yellow-green that was just like his eyes. I
had no doubt that's the main reason he'd chosen it.

Gray slid into the space between my barstool and the one

Wild Bill had been sitting on. His thigh brushed mine, and that
wouldn't have happened unless he'd done it on purpose. He

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

touched the side of my tall plastic cup and dragged his finger
down, drawing a line in the condensation. "Just water?" he
said. He could smell it from where he was standing.

I thought about the Rohypnol in my bag. Totally odorless.

So I've read.

I shrugged. "Don't like hangovers." That was true enough.

My mouth was as dry as if I'd just woken up after a keg
party, and I wet my lips again. Gray's eyes flickered down,
watching my lips just like I'd stared at his necklace. I gritted
my teeth and wished he would just get it over with and skip
the whole pretense of seduction. If he wanted me, I was his.
Obviously. Like any mere mortal would be, if he'd decided
they were on the menu that night.

I grabbed my glass and drank, and the cold, carbonated

water felt like it glanced over my tongue without even wetting
it. I was exponentially more nervous than I'd thought I would
be. But anything to get myself to stop wetting my lips. Even
though the lip thing seemed to lure Gray in way more easily
than any of my practiced fuck-me eyes.

"Buy you a drink?" I asked, wondering how I could possibly

spike it in the club with him standing so close to me. He
hadn't been pressed against my thigh in even one of the
rehearsals I'd gone through in my head.

Gray smiled. I told myself it was a mocking smile, but it

looked strangely sincere. Maybe he'd been practicing in front
of a mirror, too, and had managed to strip some of the irony
from the expressions that came naturally to him. If he even
had a reflection. Sources differed on this.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Gray put his hand on my plastic cup, fingers brushing

mine, slippery with condensation. "I'll just help you finish this
one," he said. Only he didn't move to drink it. Not right away.
He was too busy staring, staring, staring deep into my eyes.

I let go of the cup reluctantly and he raised it, never taking

his bright green eyes off me as he drank. I swallowed hard.
It'd never occurred to me to drug my own drink. It was too
late now, since he obviously wasn't going to let me out of his
sight, not even to blink. And since he'd drained my cup in one
long pull.

He leaned in close as he set the empty cup on the bar.

"Let's go somewhere we can ... talk."

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Chapter Two

This time there was an ironic twist to his smile. But

nothing worse than I'd expect from any other guy I'd been
exchanging lame pickup lines with.

Gray slipped out from between the barstools and spread

his arms in invitation. It was a campy gesture, but heck, so
was everything that'd been leading up to it, including the bad
banter and the quarter-inch-thick eyeliner. I slid off the
barstool and followed, drawn to him like a sparrow getting
sucked into a jet engine.

We slipped through the crowd, all the pale-skinned boys

and girls in black striped stockings, black hair dye and black
leather who were starting to show up at the bar in clusters
now rather than twos and threes. We slipped by a whole line
of them waiting to get their ID checked. We were the only
two going in the opposite direction, toward the crisp night air
instead of the cotton candy fog.

It felt surreal outside, my eardrums wooly from the

loudness of the club, my back damp where my leather jacket
was snug against my T-shirt. Gray fell into step beside me,
same height, same build, a shade over six feet and rangy. We
could almost be brothers. Except for the way we kept
touching, the sleeve of my plain biker jacket against the side
of his long black duster. My hip against his.

"So tell me," he said, his lips brushing my hair as he spoke

low in my ear. The sound of his voice sizzled down my spine.
"That bartender. You want her? I'll get her for you."

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

The thought of my not-Mary, naked and vulnerable all over

again, snapped me out of the haze of lust I was floating in.
"Huh? Oh ... no. No, not her. I'm not into girls. Not like that."
I walked faster, wishing that I couldn't see from the corner of
my eye that he was staring at me, not even needing to look
where he was walking. "She reminds me of someone," I said,
offering a silent apology to Mary's memory. "That's all."

"You sure?" said another voice just behind me, bold and

brash in contrast to the velvety purr of Gray's seductive
murmurs. "'Cos it looks like we're gonna overflow the bed
anyway. Might as well get all the bang we can from our
buck."

I squeezed my eyes shut for just a second, without

breaking stride. I'd only heard that voice briefly, over the
blare of Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy, but I recognized it
anyway.

Wild Bill.
He rammed into my side like we were in a mosh pit and

shoved me into Gray. He draped his arm around both of us at
once, driving my bag of wooden stakes into my thigh, hard.
The three of us ground to a halt in front of a rickety
newsstand that was boarded up for the night. "Wild Bill," he
said, thrusting his left hand at Gray, body checking me in the
process.

Gray raised an eyebrow. "I'll say." He took Bill by the

fingers, flipped his hand palm down, and grazed the back of
Bill's knuckles with his lips.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Gray straightened back up. Bill cocked his head and

considered him. "I had dibs on Michael," said Bill. This was
news to me. "But I might be willing to share."

They stared, stared, stared at each other for a minute that

lasted an eternity. Gray poured on his vampire charm so thick
it almost choked me, and I felt Bill tense against my side.
Gray didn't let go of Bill's fingers. Bill didn't seem to mind. He
fit my thigh between his legs sideways and just kept on
leaning in, crotch riding my hipbone, the safety pins through
his worn leather jacket catching on the zipper tabs on mine.
Like I could manage to hold him up, and me too, while Gray
worked his hocus-pocus.

Bill's face crowded me from the left, Gray's from the right,

and the two of them were eyelocked in some kind of battle.
At least they were enjoying it, judging by the fact that both of
them were grinning. "You're not quite as pretty as Michael,"
said Gray, finally, "but you'll do."

Bill's grin got even wider. "There's more to me than meets

the eye." Bill gave a tug that yanked Gray forward and closed
the gap between them. Between all of us.

It was half three-way kiss, and half warm, wet drive-by

shooting. Someone had a tongue stud—Bill, I guessed. And it
was over before I knew it, leaving me there swaying in my
boots with my head spinning. Bill had already disengaged,
walking backward up ahead of us with his eyebrows raised as
if to say, "Well, what're you waiting for?" and Gray had to
give me a nudge in the right direction to keep me from
keeling over on the spot.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Gray slipped his arm around my waist to propel me

forward. No more sly glances and covert brushing of hips.
Wild Bill had escalated things to tongues. If we didn't hurry,
he might strip naked on the sidewalk. Despite what Gray had
said, I thought Wild Bill was the hottest one of us all.

Gray's lips ruffled my hair. "Is your place nearby?"
Well, of course it was, since I was a transient who only

needed enough storage space for a single small suitcase and
a bag of wooden stakes. I always thought the vampire would
lure me back to his lair. I'd never imagined everything
happening in that cheap pressboard motel room. But so many
things were turning out nothing at all like I'd imagined.

Bill let us catch up to him, then slipped a hand into the

pocket of my leather jacket and pulled out my key. The
plastic key fob had the motel name silk-screened on it in
bright green paint. "Tidy Inn," said Bill. "Just a hop, skip and
a jump away." He slipped his index finger into the keyring
and twirled it in a circle as he started skipping along in his
combat boots. "I can hardly wait."

"A motel?" said Gray, as Bill worked off excess energy by

swinging around a lamppost like Gene Kelly.

"I'm just passing through," I said. Though I'd been there

over a month, it was true enough. I'd be on the road again by
sunrise.

We rounded a corner and there it was, the Tidy Inn, in all

its underwhelming, motel-ish glory. Flat roof. Rectangular
pool, covered for the season. A white resin lawn chair beside
every door.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Bill bounded ahead to number twelve and fit the key in the

lock. "Hi, honey, I'm home," he called into the darkened
room. Then he marched in like he owned the place.

He hadn't bothered to turn on the light. Gray and I crossed

the threshold together. Either our conjoined entrance
constituted me inviting him in, or that old vampire legend
about vampires and invitations was a bunch of horseshit—like
most of them were, a load of crap concocted by hack writers
and cabals of Hollywood producers.

I flipped on the light, and let my bag fall against the

nightstand. And I congratulated myself for at least keeping
my head about me enough to remember to leave the stakes
within reach. For a minute there, back at the bar, it'd felt like
maybe I could fall so far into Gray that I'd forget everything
I'd been rehearsing. Gray was still watching me, that hungry
look in his eyes ten times as intense now that we were back
in my room, no one to see but Bill.

Wild Bill was my saving grace. He distracted me from

Gray's charms enough to let me come up for an occasional
gulp of air. What remained to be seen was whether he'd haul
me to shore and suck the sea out of my lungs, or if I'd end up
drowning him, too.

Bill went over to the TV and started flipping through the

cable music channels. Wild Bill, in my room. I watched his ass
as he leaned forward to read the screen and pick out a
generic punk station. Gray stepped between me and the TV
and slid his hands over my shoulders.

I did my best not to wince as I forced myself to look at

Gray again. A lot of his power was in his gaze. I don't get the

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

physics of it, but maybe if Einstein'd been locked in a room
with a vampire, he would've come up with a theory that made
at least as much sense as E=mc2. I couldn't make myself
meet Gray's eyes, not quite, even though I could tell by the
tightness in my ribs that mutual eye contact wasn't necessary
for him to exercise his vampire look on me. All he had to do
was stare.

But then another pair of hands worked their way out from

under Gray's arms, nails dark with chipped black nail polish,
and the sight of Wild Bill putting the moves on Gray was
nearly enough to make me forget to breathe again. Ever.

"You've got one sweet, tight bod on you," said Bill, his

light, bantery voice now gone serious and low.

I gasped out loud, and Gray's eyebrows rose. I could still

feel him staring at me, even when I focused on the sight of
Bill's hands working their way into the front of Gray's duster.
"Is that what you like, Michael?" said Gray. "You like to
watch?"

That little part in me that'd been tracking the bastard for

two years was screaming at me to keep up the illusion that
everything was normal and say something sexy. But this
other part of me—a really annoying part that Bill had
somehow managed to awaken at the club—was insisting that
I actually had no idea if I liked to watch. Or if I liked to be
tied up. Or peed on. Or led around on a leash. Because when
Scary Mary had been sucked dry, I was so young that the
only thing I'd had a chance to figure out yet was that I liked
boys.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

"You don't have to bait him," said Wild Bill, and Jesus

Christ, he had a big handful of Gray's hair in his fist. Bill
dragged Gray's head down to the side, exposing the long,
pale line of his throat. "Michael will talk when he's good and
ready." He made eye contact, smirked, then closed his eyes
and ran his tongue up the side of Gray's neck from choker to
hairline.

I swallowed. It had been Bill's tongue stud that I'd felt at

the newsstand.

Gray's throat was a bare, flawless curve. Behind him, Bill

was somehow managing to make their leather coats squeak
against each other by rubbing their bodies together in a way I
couldn't quite see—but the sound of which was getting me
hard.

"Pretty necklace," said Bill, and I had no idea how he could

even rub two words together while he was licking a vampire.
"You steal that from your Grandma?"

"It's a peridot," I said. My voice sounded weird, like I was

in some kind of trance.

"So Mikey does know how to talk after all!" said Bill.

"Thanks for backing me up."

I was hard. No one had even touched me, and I was hard.
Gray took my hand and raised it to his lips while Bill was

busy making their leather squeak. His breath was warm
against my palm, his tongue wet between my fingers. He felt
like a regular guy.

Oh, fuck. What if he wasn't a vampire?
Would that really be so bad? At least I could figure out

what I liked.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

"Undress him," said Bill, and I realized he was talking to

me. About Gray. My hand went to Gray's neck. It was wet
with Bill's spit along one side, and the necklace, the silver
setting with the stone the same yellow-green as his eyes, was
hot to the touch. "Leave that on," said Bill. "It looks good on
him."

My hands shook as I unbuttoned Gray's duster while Bill

whispered promises of ball licking into the hair at the nape of
his neck. Bill pulled the heavy coat off Gray's shoulders and it
slipped to the floor.

Gray's back arched, and he managed to rub both of us at

once, his shoulder blades pressing into Bill, his hips grinding
against mine. I think maybe he was purring. Or if he wasn't,
he sure should have been.

Three-ways. Yes. Evidently that was something I liked. Or

would have, if I'd ever gotten the chance to explore my
options. It was tempting to just pretend that dragging two hot
men back to my bed was exactly what I was doing, and not
trying to figure out a way to get rid of Bill temporarily, and
get rid of Gray permanently. Maybe I could just pretend for a
few minutes that the only thing happening was sex, while
Gray was still a docile, purring creature. Before he turned into
a man eater.

But I didn't know exactly when that would happen. So I

couldn't let my guard down.

Gray dragged his fingertips up my stomach and chest, my

hair, my cheeks, as he raised his arms overhead for Bill to
strip off his plain black T-shirt from behind. I felt my breath
catch as Gray's clothes were peeled away, and it felt obscene

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to be so turned on by something so evil. He watched me as I
stared at his bare chest. He was pale, but no whiter than I
was. He easily passed for human.

Gray stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers,

spiderweb touches, then tangled his fingers in my hair, urging
me forward to taste him. And if the three-way kiss on the
street had been surreal, this was even weirder, because I was
flashing back to the scene in Coppola's Dracula where the
Count sliced his own chest open so Mina could drink his blood.

My mouth pressed into Gray's skin. There was no blood. It

was only my own pulse hammering into the back of my throat
until I tasted iron. I felt Bill's hand covering Gray's. It pulled
my head more firmly into Gray's chest. I dragged my teeth
over his skin, lower and lower until my lips brushed his
nipple. Gray moaned. I think I felt him tremble.

Crap. How was I ever gonna get rid of Bill now?
Gray slipped his hand from my hair and took me by the

shoulders, steering me back toward the bed. My knees
buckled as soon as my legs touched the mattress, and I
sprawled back on my elbows with my cock bulging against my
jeans in high relief.

Wild Bill's jacket was so thickly studded with pins and

chains that it hit the floor with a jingle, followed by a T-shirt
too faded to read and a pair of combat boots yanked off in no
time flat and kicked to either side of the room.

In contrast to Bill, Gray seemed to be moving in slow

motion. He bent over me and touched my face with a look of
wonder in his peridot eyes, and stared at me as if he'd known

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

me once, a long time ago, and maybe he could place me if he
just racked his brain hard enough. His fingers weren't cold.

Wild Bill's hand on my crotch brought me back to the

present. Gray too, I think. Bill was grinding naked into Gray's
back, reaching around him to stroke both of us through our
jeans. His fingers felt like they were everywhere, sliding
down, between my balls, and up to trace the shape of my
shaft, intense even through the zipper fly. "The two of you
planning on keeping your pants on all night?"

Everything was moving too fast. What about talking? What

about kissing? What about them turning their backs so I could
make Gray a special cocktail that didn't involve any actual
cock?

Bill backed up enough to let Gray undo his belt. I figured I

should set up my drink before Gray got too busy to drink it.
"I'm thirsty," I said. I was still fully dressed.

Gray stopped staring at me long enough to watch Bill

prance over to the minibar naked. Bill had a Celtic wing
design tattooed across his upper back, and it looked like he
was ready to take flight as his shoulder blade rolled back
when he opened the tiny refrigerator. "Ooh. Margaritas in a
bottle. A sugar rush and a buzz all in one."

I should've been too preoccupied to notice his ass. But I

wasn't. I looked. Wild Bill had one sexy ass.

"Get me a water," I said. Because I knew Gray could drink

water, and he liked sharing mine. All I needed was a chance
to add a few little white pills.

Technically, one tablet would make him mellow and dopey

enough to subdue. But I could hardly force him to drink down

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

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the whole bottle without sounding like a total freak. A few
sips would have to do.

A toneless, rhythmic post-punk song came on and Bill

swayed to the beat, rubbing the sweating plastic water bottle
down his chest, over his sleek, muscled stomach, and up and
down the inside of either thigh. The movement drew my eyes
down to his pubes—brownish, trimmed but not shaved, and of
course his cock. Hard. Red. Brushing against the side of my
water bottle.

"Taking the chill off," he said, flipping the bottle at me. I

lurched to one side before it hit me between the eyes. Gray
had to move to avoid getting beaned, too. He'd done it a little
too quickly, blurring.

Definitely not human.
He tried to act like Wild Bill hadn't just startled him. He

made a big show out of unbuttoning his fly, arching his back,
his gaze sliding from Bill to me. Bill grinned his impish, tight-
lipped grin and grabbed hold of his hard cock, pumping it in
his fist while he watched Gray strip.

I cracked the seal on my water and drank half of it down. I

really was thirsty. Or maybe my mouth was just dry from the
nerves that were brought on by the knowledge of what I was
about to do.

Gray pushed his tight jeans down over his hips. His cock

stood at half-mast, thick and flushed. I wanted him to touch
it, like Bill was touching his. I wanted to be watching the next
time he moaned.

"Suck it."
Oh crap. That was me. I'd said that aloud.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

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Bill and Gray seemed game, though. Gray inched farther

onto the bed and shoved his jeans around his knees, while Bill
took a few quick gulps out of his prepackaged margarita and
then dove for the bed without letting go of the bottle. His
other hand was still pumping his own cock, and he went for
Gray with only his mouth.

"Mmm, yeah."
That was Gray. I did see him moan. And it was fucking

incredible.

He had one hand on his cock, the other on Bill's head. I'd

almost say it was threaded through Bill's hair, but I don't
think anything could actually penetrate whatever it was that
made Bill's hair defy gravity. Gray handled Bill's face as
reverently as he had mine, tracing fingertips over Bill's
cheekbone, then feeling his way over the line of Bill's brow.

Bill wasn't quite so delicate. He jammed his face onto

Gray's cock so hard he gagged a little. And he fisted his own
cock faster while he did it. Wicked wet noises of a cock
slamming into Bill's throat filled the room.

Gray's eyelids fluttered shut. His breath hissed in. I caught

a glimpse of fang.

Oh God.
I hopped out of the bed like I couldn't wait to get my

clothes off. I figured the sounds of rustling leather and denim
would cover the noise of me popping the tablets out of their
foil-backed blister pack. And if I positioned myself right, I'd
just look like I was taking off my boots.

The sounds Gray's cock made in Bill's mouth seemed even

louder while my back was turned. Bill sucked Gray's cock in

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deep, humming with the TV all the while, then pulled off with
a big slurp. Tiny, wet sounds led me to imagine an intricate
tongue dance, complete with stud dipping into the slit. I
dropped three Rohypnol into my water, and shook it up as
discreetly as I could while I yanked off my boots and jeans in
one pull.

I turned around and Bill stopped jerking himself off so that

he could push up from the bed without letting go of his drink.
"That's right, pretty boy," he told me. "Bring your naked self
over here and join the party."

He shifted to one side so that Gray's cock jutted directly

between us. "How 'bout a little kiss?" said Bill.

He even managed to smirk with a vampire's cock pressed

against his mouth.

I leaned toward Bill, toward Gray's spit-wet cock. I could

have met Bill's mouth where it was, our lips wrapping around
the glans together, tongues teasing the underside of the slick
head while we strained to kiss around it. But at the last
minute, I turned.

My lips brushed Bill's earring. "Get out," I said, so softly it

was only a breath.

I pulled back to see if Bill had understood me. His eyes

were on mine as he flicked the ridge of Gray's cockhead with
his tongue stud. He shook his head once. No.

Damn it. I wanted to strangle Bill, but I figured Gray would

just get off on it. And given that Gray being a vampire was
spoiling an otherwise perfectly awesome encounter, I'd be
damned if he had a better time than I did.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

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I leaned toward Gray's cock. My bottom lip brushed the

head. Bill's breath was warm on my mouth. His tongue
slipped under Gray's cockhead and grazed my lower lip, quick
and wet.

Gray grabbed a handful of my hair, gasping. "Please," he

whispered, his voice fragile and small. "Please, please,
please."

I pressed hard, straining to taste Bill around Gray's cock.

Our lips met, sliding over the smoothness of it, and our
tongues swiped at each other beneath it. Gray had my hair
wrapped tight in his fist, and "oh please, yes, please..." had
become a meaningless chant. I trusted the power coiled in his
fist more than I believed the vulnerability in his begging.

Bill struggled to position himself without letting Gray's cock

get away. Which was good, I guess, because if he left the
blowjob to me, I'd have to bear the full brunt of Gray's focus.
Bill got a knee onto the bed, jostled me, and shoved Gray's
cock farther into my mouth by bumping it with his lips.

Gray hissed. It didn't sound quite human.
Bill sighed, his breath tickling my wet mouth, and shoved

his margarita into my hand so he could get himself situated.
He wiggled the rest of the way onto the bed. And then he
reached out and slipped his hand over my cock. It was my
turn to gasp.

"Fuck, yeah," he said around the tip of Gray's cock. Gray's

fingers tightened in my hair. If I didn't stake him soon, I'd
have a bald patch to show for my troubles. I had to get him
to drink the water.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

But Gray let go of my hair the moment I moved to sit up.

Wild Bill just pumped my cock even harder.

All I wanted was to get Gray to take a drink. I decided to

give him an example. I wouldn't get drunk from just a sip of
margarita, would I? I tipped it back. Damn, it was good.
Sweet, like candy.

I held it up as if I was drinking deeply, but I only had a

couple of swallows. Wild Bill's thumb slipped over my piss slit,
and I nearly choked. "C'mon, Michael. Booze and dick. They
were made for each other." He pulled on my cock like he
could steer me with it while he made an elaborate show of
licking Gray's hard-on from base to tip.

"My mouth is dry," I said, stealing another sip of the

margarita, hoping that I could make Gray develop a case of
dry mouth with my spiked water right next to his elbow.

"Know what really makes my mouth dry?" said Bill.

"Breathing hard." He sucked the head of Gray's cock into his
mouth and his cheeks flexed, like he was performing a secret
move with his tongue in there that I wasn't privileged enough
to see. Gray hissed again. Bill slurped his way back off Gray's
cock so he could keep chatting. "Good thing the sight of a
hot, hard dick makes my mouth water, or I'd have to bring a
gallon of water to bed with me."

He thumbed my slit again, and I shuddered. Did he know

what I was trying to do? Could he be helping me?

"What makes you breathe hard?" I asked him.
He swallowed Gray's cock down and glided back off it, slow

and wet. "Pretty dark-haired boys," he said, smirking as if it
were a private joke.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

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[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Chapter Three

"Enough talking," gasped Gray. His voice was so low and

rough that he sounded like a growling animal. "Ride my
cock."

Wild Bill sat up on his knees and wrapped his fingers

around Gray's, and they stroked Gray's hard cock together.
"Got any condoms?" Bill asked me. Before I could even
answer, he leaned across Gray and stuck a hand in my
vampire-hunting bag. "No, not there," I said. "In my jacket."

He ignored me and pulled out the Rohypnol. Jesus Christ.

"Allergies?" he asked.

What? Oh. He was covering for me. I tried to will my heart

to beat again. "Uh ... yeah."

"No wonder your mouth is so dry. Antihistamines'll do that

to you." He rattled the blister pack at Gray, who was stroking
himself lazily with their intertwined fingers, and also watching
Bill much more closely than he was letting on. "Want one?"
said Bill. "They say antihistamines make you come harder."

"I'm sure performance enhancing drugs won't be

necessary." Gray let go of Bill's hand and peeled his tight
jeans the rest of the way off while Bill pawed through my
jacket.

No question in my mind that Bill was on to me. But was he

on my side? Or was it all fun and games? Hard to tell, since
Gray wrapped himself around me as soon as he'd stripped
down, cutting off my view of Wild Bill and filling my whole
world with his peridot eyes.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

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He lowered me onto my side and pressed his mouth

against mine, parting my lips with his tongue. It seemed like
one of us should close our eyes if we were kissing, but Gray
was too busy watching me, and I was too scared to stop
looking.

I kept my tonguing shallow, worried that I'd feel the

overwhelming need to verify his fangs with direct contact. I'd
seen the fangs. And I'd seen Gray blur when he moved. I
didn't need any more proof.

Gray held me against him, hands restless on my back. He

traced every muscle, working his way lower and lower until
he cupped my ass, drawing my crotch against his, our hard
cocks brushing. My breath hitched, his too, and his fingertips
moved deeper, brushing my asshole with the same tentative
fascination he'd used when he touched the rest of me.

"I want you too," he said against my mouth, and I had no

idea how he could stand to talk while he was staring at me
like that. "I want you both."

"We've got all night," I said, hoping it would all be over

soon. I tried to force my ass not to clench at the feel of his
fingertip. It seemed to have more sense than my cock where
Gray was concerned.

The sound of a condom wrapper tearing open crinkled over

the fadeout of a song. I wondered how it'd gotten to the point
where condoms were necessary. I wasn't supposed to be
naked. Gray should've been dead by now. And Wild Bill should
be back at the club, flirting with the Eyeliner Brigade.

Bill handed off the unwrapped condom and Gray turned

onto his back to roll it on. I moved to get up, but Bill pressed

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my shoulder. "Stay there," he said. "I'll blow you while he
fucks me."

How matter of fact. How crude. How crazy fucking sexy.
"I'm thirsty," I said.
Bill rolled his eyes and shoved the margarita into my hand,

the water into Gray's. "There," he said. "Drinks all around.
Unless someone wants a beer. There's beer."

"This is fine," I said, taking another sip. Sweet and tart

and tequila. Maybe it'd wash away the seductive taste of
vampire.

I did my best not to stare as Gray tipped back the water

bottle and drained it. I had to bite my lip to keep myself from
cheering. I had another sip of margarita. The three pills in the
water were enough to knock out King Kong. All we'd need to
do was keep Gray busy until they took effect.

"Drink up," said Bill. "There's more in the minibar."
Gray slinked off the bed and ran his hand over Bill from hip

to shoulder, sizing him up like chattel. Bill nudged my knees
apart and stepped between my legs, stroking my thighs, my
hipbones, my cock with long sweeps of his palms.

I reached over the side of the bed and set the half-empty

margarita on the floor. Bill shoved me closer to the edge, so
that he could just lean over the bed with his ass in the air and
my cock would be right there for the sucking. "You get to
watch me getting fucked," he said. "Lucky you."

I had no idea if he was serious, or messing with me. He

looked serious. But he'd seen the stakes. What was going
through his head? He had his lips wrapped around my
cockhead before I could wonder about it too long. His tongue

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stud was hard, smooth pressure against the underside of my
cock. "Bill," I said, touching the side of his crunchy hair, but I
had no idea what it was I wanted to tell him, not with Gray
standing over us, staring at us like we were a smorgasbord.

He placed one hand on Bill's lower back, held his cock with

the other. I didn't see him shove it in, not exactly. From my
angle on the bed, all that I could see was Bill's face, eyes
closed, mouth running up and down my cock. Then there was
the curve of his back, the tattooed wings, and above that,
Gray's sleek, pale body, stomach muscles flexing as he
pressed himself in.

Bill grunted. I felt the sound vibrate over my cock. There

would've been a lot bigger noise if anyone pushed into me
with nothing but the lube that came with the condom. But I
was guessing I wasn't exactly the most experienced person in
the room.

Gray made a long, low noise deep in his throat. His head

fell back, yet another pale, long-necked pose, and the peridot
charm winked from the hollow of his throat on its black velvet
ribbon. He just held himself inside Bill, fingers digging into
Bill's hips. "I'm glad you came here," he said.

Bill replied with something like, "Nngg." His mouth was still

full of my cock.

"You can't imagine how you look, the two of you together,"

he said, pulling out, easing back in. "Oh, Michael. I want to
watch you fuck him. I want to fuck you. I want to come in
your mouth. I want both of you to come on me..."

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

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His voice went almost singsong and his eyelids fluttered

shut. His abdominal muscles flexed as he worked his hips, his
cock deep, deep inside Bill.

"Come on my face, come in my hair. Kiss on my cock ...

yes, do that again, later. That was incredible..."

Bill grabbed hold of my nut sac and started stroking

between my balls with his thumb. I tried to push his hand
away. I needed to keep my eyes open, and I was positive that
if I came, Gray would use the half-second when my eyelids
fluttered shut to vamp out.

All I had to do was keep my eyes open until the drugs hit

Gray's system. Fifteen, twenty minutes. Half hour, tops. Bill
pulled his mouth off my cock and dove into my balls tongue
first. Damn. Keeping my eyes open wouldn't be easy.

And Gray was still talking up a storm. "Mm, yeah, baby.

That's right. Suck those balls. Oh, fuck—tight, tight ass..."

The sound of Gray's hips slapping into Bill's ass seemed

insanely loud, until Bill gave my balls a good slurp, and that
noise was even louder. A moan, then ... and oh God, that was
me. I forced my eyes open. I didn't remember closing them.

"Please, please, please..."
That whispery begging again. As if we had anything more

to give him and we were holding out, as if he wasn't buried
down to the root and pounding away, deep and hard. I
shivered, and Bill's tongue slipped under my balls to tickle the
skin behind them. I did my best not to squirm, and he
rewarded me by grabbing my cock, a sure grip, gliding up and
down.

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Bill tilted his head and pressed his face in deeper. I tried to

push away—it seemed too intimate. Something I should save
for that boyfriend I'd never have. But Bill grabbed me by the
hips and dragged me against him, while one of Gray's thrusts
shoved him forward at just the right moment.

His tongue swiped over my ass, slippery and wet and

terribly agile.

"Please, please, please," Gray whispered, thrusting hard.
Could vampires come? I had always thought they couldn't,

not by fucking. That they got off from drinking blood instead.
But here he was, wearing a condom as if he were just a
regular guy, and looking for all the world like he was going to
shoot his load any minute. I forced my eyes open—they'd
shut again, damn it—and Gray's long bangs were stuck to his
forehead and cheek, his head lolling back, glimpses of fang
peeking under his top lip, whole body tense while he lost
himself in Bill's ass. The peridot charm tapped him in the
throat with each thrust.

I told myself that he could easily lunge forward and feed in

less than a second once he'd gotten tired of chasing his
orgasm the conventional way. I had a hard time picturing it,
though. Gray was too pretty to be a monster—at least, that's
what my body was telling me, soaking in the sight of him
while Wild Bill pointed his tongue and eased it straight up my
ass.

My back arched off the bed, and I grabbed something—his

hair, his spiky hair as stiff as broom bristles, and my hips
thrust and thrust and thrust as Bill fucked me with his wicked

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tongue. Everything on me tensed—my arms, my belly, even
my asshole. And then, bam.

"Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God," Gray moaned.
Well, it was a change from "please."
I opened my eyes—yeah, they'd shut again while I was

geysering come into Bill's prickly hair—only to find Gray gone
stiff all over, lips peeled back to flash major fang. He
twitched, and his breath forced its way through clenched
teeth. Another twitch, and his shoulders sagged. He exhaled
slowly.

That thing about vampires not coming? Urban legend,

evidently.

Bill crawled up my body, his tongue sliding from my hip to

my nipple and over my neck, hiding Gray's post-orgasmic
shudders from me. I pressed my mouth to his ear. "Be
careful," I said. It hardly seemed like enough. Like there
weren't words I could use that didn't sound like a cheesy
seventies horror flick. "He's dangerous."

Bill replied by grabbing me by the jaw, turning my head,

and forcing his tongue into my ear.

Another hand stroked my side, feathery Gray-touches, and

I felt around and found him pressed into Wild Bill's back, the
three of us sprawled sideways on the motel bed. Bill and Gray
both faced me, both ran their hands up and down my side. It
lulled me, that feeling of hands, and I knew it was crazy to
feel secure in any way, but somehow I did. I'd never been
one to roll over and fall asleep right after I shot my load, but
somehow all the kisses and the stroking were making me
drowsy.

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"Don't drift off on me," said Bill. "I haven't come yet, and

I'm stiff enough to stab someone."

My eyes snapped open.
Bill was grinning, lips tight, corners of his mouth curled up.
"Roll onto your back," Gray told Bill in a quiet, satiated

voice. "We'll make you come."

Wild Bill held my gaze for just a moment before he

shouldered Gray away enough to let him turn over, and he
tucked his hands behind his head. Yeah, he was as hard as
he'd claimed to be.

But that comment about stabbing someone—what was that

about? He knew what I was up to. He had to know. And still,
he wouldn't leave. Was Bill really that into me, or had he
tagged along for another reason entirely?

Maybe I wasn't the only Van Helsing in town.
Gray reached across Wild Bill's chest and stroked my cheek

with the backs of his fingers. His green eyes were sexy and
heavy-lidded. He didn't wear eyeliner. He didn't need any. His
thick, black eyelashes were dark enough to frame his eyes
like kohl. He gave me a half-smile, flashing fang on one side,
and pulled me into a kiss over Bill's chest that was just the
barest hint of our lips brushing. His tongue trailed across my
lower lip, then his sigh played over the moistness it left
behind.

Gray guided my hand to Bill's hard cock. It was bigger

than either of ours, and thick, too. It felt weird to notice that,
Bill being my not-boyfriend and all. I stroked Bill's cock while
Gray toyed with his balls, and both of us rested our cheeks on
his chest while we sucked on his nipples.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

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This must've been how it was for Scary Mary. A tangle of

bare limbs, wet tongues and stiff, flushed, spit-wetted
nipples. She'd had three vampires to tangle with. I had only
one. Wild Bill was there to help me, too. I could do it.

Bill slung his arms around our shoulders. "Go ahead. Do it

hard. I won't break."

Oh. Right. I'd started getting caught up in my head and

losing myself. I focused on Bill by bearing down on the skin
around his nipple with my teeth and jerking him off harder.
He sighed and arched his back, flexing his hips so that his
cock encouraged my hand. Gray left off sucking and stroking
Bill and watched me play with him, the antique charm resting
beside Bill's nipple, Gray's peridot eyes gone dreamy.

"Was it always this tiring?" said Gray.
I thought he must be talking to me. He was looking at me,

after all. But I had Bill's nipple in my mouth, and Bill
answered first. "You tell me."

"I don't usually..." Gray sighed. "I thought we could do

more. Pass him back and forth. Sample everything. But it's
taken so much out of me."

My lips had slackened on Bill's nipple. My drool rolled down

the side of his chest. "C'mon, Mikey. Don't leave me flapping
in the breeze. Get busy."

I realized I'd stopped stroking his cock again. My hand just

rested there on top of it, limp and useless. It seemed like so
much effort to grasp him. It was much easier to just lie there.

"And you..." said Gray. "You ... I fucked your ass. So

tight." Now Gray's voice sounded funny. Drunk.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

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Wild Bill sat up. I rolled onto my back, arms splayed on the

bed. The popcorn-textured ceiling spun.

"Up you go, Michael," he said. He stacked a couple of

pillows and then lifted me by the armpits and propped me
against them. "I think you do like to watch."

Gray was sprawled on his back, his half-open eyes staring

up at the ceiling.

"I thought I'd use you like a baggie full of Crisco," Bill said

to Gray, who didn't seem to be hearing him. "But then you
were such a gentleman, wearing that condom for me and
everything, that I'll look like a jerk if I do." He crossed his
arms and looked at me. "What do you think? Should I fuck
you, or stake him? I think I'd get off either way."

Was he kidding? He didn't look like he was kidding. He'd

been all smiles back at the bar. I missed that. I wanted to see
him smile again.

Bill picked up Gray and dumped him right beside me.

Gray's head lolled over the edge of the mattress.

"No comment, huh?" He brushed my long hair out of my

eyes, lifted my drooping eyelid with his thumb. "I'd better
play it safe, then. I could ride that sweet ass of yours for
hours, but you're already halfway down the road to the
nuthouse. You know that, Mikey, don't you? You'd almost be
a good vamp-hunting wingman, the way you wear your heart
on your sleeve. Pain, longing, loneliness ... especially
loneliness. Vamps feed off that just as much as blood. We can
see it shining in the darkness. It calls to us. You're like one of
those backyard bug zappers. Irresistible."

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Something tapped my cheek. And again. I focused on Bill.

He crouched over Gray and me on the bed, and he'd just
slapped me. He had a stake in his hand.

"I'm not in this for the long haul," said Bill. "I only had one

vamp on my shit list. This one." He reached out with his free
hand and grasped the peridot charm. He gave a tug and the
black velvet ribbon snapped. "He uses that stupid fucking line
about the jewel and its color every single time. Went by the
name of Ambrose the first time we met. Different hair.
Different clothes—it was the late eighties, so the hair was
bigger, the pants were skinnier, and everyone smelled like
patchouli. But the necklace? That stayed the same. Good
thing. I might not have recognized him without it. Your
memory plays tricks on you when you turn into a blood-
sucking monster."

I felt something cool against my palm and forced my eyes

to focus on it. Wild Bill had pressed a hickory stake into my
hand. He twined his fingers through mine and we held the
stake together.

"He doesn't even remember me. Insulting, huh? Sure, I

got some new ink since the last time we tangled, but still. I
had to quit my day job, all because of him. He should at least
have the decency to remember my face.

"He must've thought I was dead. He sucks 'em all dry and

then snaps their necks—but you know the way he operates,
Little Bug Zapper, don't you? He must've just done a
chiropractic maneuver on me instead, because he didn't finish
me off, after all."

"Hhhh..." I tried to make a word. I couldn't.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

"Did you know that roofies would channel Morpheus for a

vampire, send 'em spinning off into dreamland, or was it
beginner's luck?" His hand squeezed mine around the stake.
It felt as intimate as kissing him around Gray's cockhead.
"Not just luck, I guess. There's talent involved, too. You're a
natural."

Wild Bill smiled at me, showing his teeth. Fangs. My jizz

gleamed in the blond spikes of his hair. He bowed his head
and kissed the pulse point at the inside of my wrist, and then
guided the stake to Gray's belly, just under his ribs, angled
up. "Don't worry about the mallet. You don't need it. I'll help
you give the stake that extra push."

I thought it wouldn't happen at first. The stake was sharp,

as sharp as wood can be, but Gray seemed too solid to
pierce. More pressure from Bill's hand, and then we were in.

The stake slid through Gray's body. I felt it sink into his

heart.

I'd expected more of a reaction from him, screams and

tremors, possibly even smoke and flames. But Gray just
sighed and went still. His half-open peridot eyes stared at a
blank spot on the wall.

Bill stopped holding onto my hand and it fell against Gray's

stomach. Gray's skin had turned cold.

The popcorn ceiling swam into view, and then Wild Bill's

face. "I wish you could talk," he said. "I'm tempted to keep
you. Oh, I'd be sorry in the end, but you have no idea, all the
dirty things I wanna do to you. With you awake to enjoy
them, of course."

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Bill pressed his lips to mine. The tongue stud grazed my

lower lip. "Even if you weren't zonked out on roofies," he
whispered, "whatever you said still wouldn't count as an
actual agreement. I'd always vamp you, just by looking at
you. I'd never know if you were into me for real."

Wild Bill needed to stop talking. His mouth was made for

kissing ... and other things. I tried to demonstrate the proper
use of his mouth to him, but even at a scant quarter inch
away, it was simply too far for me to reach.

My eyes rolled up. The ceiling seemed much darker than it

had a moment ago. Black around the edges. And the edges
crept closer and closer, closing in, until finally my whole world
was black.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Epilogue

I woke up at the Greyhound station in Cleveland with an

evil taste in my mouth and my satchel full of stakes wedged
between my back and the molded fiberglass chair. My single
small suitcase was on the floor behind my feet. I patted down
my leather jacket and found my wallet in the interior breast
pocket. I never keep my wallet there. I flipped through it. My
ID was upside down, but nothing was missing. I thumbed
through one more time to see if Wild Bill had left me
anything, even a three-word note scrawled on a Tidy Inn
matchbook cover, but no such luck.

I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. I'd found the

vampire, and now he was dead. I should be happy. But
instead I only had more questions.

I'd been working under the assumption that all vampires

were evil. But now I had to wonder if maybe that wasn't
necessarily the case. Wild Bill hadn't bitten me. And he hadn't
left me passed out in the hotel room with Gray's body, either.
That would mean that vampires could choose whether or not
they went around acting like jerks and killing people. I think
that made what happened to Mary even worse.

Gray, or Ambrose, or whatever his real name was, had

been a killer. But what if he hadn't been? I probably would've
staked him anyway, without even realizing that I'd need to be
sure I was taking out one of the bad guys.

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Still, there was a safety valve. The vamps who didn't kill

wouldn't leave body trails for me to piece together in the first
place.

There was a vending machine along the far wall, and I

stood carefully, testing my feet. I was wobbly, but I could
walk. I shuffled over to the machine and located the bottled
water. Three bucks apiece—highway robbery. But my tongue
felt like it was wrapped in an old sock, so it'd be worth it. I
fed a five into the slot and watched the corkscrew drink
holder spin until my water inched forward and clunked into
the chute.

As I bent to pick it up, I realized I could see my reflection

in the vending machine glass. Something caught my eye, and
I reached up to touch it.

The peridot charm hovered over the hollow of my throat

on a black velvet ribbon.

Wild Bill. I'd been doing my best not to dwell on him, since

he hadn't given me so much as a cell phone number. Why'd
he have to go and leave me a souvenir? Especially after that
speech about how he wanted to keep me. Damn him.

I told myself he was a vampire. I told myself I didn't even

know what city he was in by now. But even though I kept
telling myself that, what I mostly remembered was that Bill's
mouth had felt amazing.

Bill hadn't left me much to go on, but at least I had a

name, more or less. That was more of a lead than I'd had
with Gray. I had a face, too. Gray might have forgotten what
Bill looked like, but there was zero chance of that happening
with me. First thing in the morning, last thing at night, and

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

practically every other waking moment between, I'd be
thinking about Wild Bill, his battered leather jacket, his
tattoos, his strange, mocking smile. His eyes.

And so I set myself up on the Internet at a small,

neighborhood branch of the Cleveland Public Library and
started casting my net for Bill. Scary Mary would've thought
Wild Bill was hot, and she would've told me to go for it. I
know she would have.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Payback

by Jordan Castillo Price

Jordan Castillo Price

Jordan grew up in the steel mill warrens of Buffalo, NY,

spent some formative drinking years in Chicago, and migrated
north to small-town rural Wisconsin once she realized she was
going to kill the next person who bumped into her with a
shopping cart. She did a six-year stint in art school and
played bass in a punk band that crashed and burned just
before their first CD was pressed. At least she got a cool
boyfriend out of the deal, since she ran off with the drummer.

Jordan has a weekly show on erotica writing tips and

techniques at www.packingheat.net. She suspects some of
her listeners aren't much interested in writing, and just tune
in to hear her say naughty words.

Readers interested in freebies, snippets, and peeks into

the writing process should check out JCP News, a monthly
newsletter where Jordan posts links to free eBooks and
serialized M/M stories. Visit www.jordancastilloprice.com to
sign up.