The Dawning: Bloodlust 2 Read online

  Then there was the missing Jap battle fleet. Somewhere out there in the vast Pacific was a flotilla of Japanese warships, including aircraft carriers, and no one knew where it was or what it was doing.

  He hadn't seen anything in the communications, but Darrel wondered if something was afoot. Many ships from the Pacific Fleet were here in Pearl for various reasons. Repairs, restocking, refits, and the like were all normal, everyday activities in navy life, but it seemed like everyone was here and wanting to get done as soon as possible.

  Some of that was because the skippers were getting nervous. So many ships in one place made a good target, but he never heard anyone say that the Japs would actually do anything. Rumor had it that Hitler didn't want the United States in the war until Europe was controlled, and everyone knew the Nazis and Japs were all in bed together.

  Darrel wasn't worried, though. The Arizona was a good ship, if a little old. Even an old battleship could take care of herself, and the Japs didn't have anything that could stand up to the firepower of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. He chuckled as he thought that the Pacific Fleet could just about sink the Japanese islands.

  He stretched in the sun as he laughed, then froze in place, the chuckle stuck in his throat. A woman walked down the beach in his direction, and he couldn't even breathe.

  She was a little thing, maybe five-foot-nothing, and she had hair like he'd never before seen on a woman. The ocean breeze whipped her long, blonde hair around her shoulders to point gently to the land like some kind of shimmering golden flag on the deck of a flattop. And her body just wouldn't quit.

  Her legs reached all the way from the sand to her ass. He almost wished she were walking away from him instead of toward him because then he could have seen her ass. Instead, he watched her hips as they snapped back and forth on top of the shapely legs that looked a lot longer than they should be on such a little woman. He could feel his eyes jumping back and forth in his head like loose marbles as they followed the delightful motions.

  Her hips were the perfect size, too, just broad enough to accent her narrow waist that the T-shirt she had tied around her torso left bare. From there, things got bigger in a hurry. Her breasts were large, round, and firm, and even from where he sat, he could see them jiggle and her nipples pressing hard against the white material of the shirt.

  Her neck was long and supple, moving in smooth contrast to her hips as she swiveled her head around slowly, looking from the water to the beach as she walked closer to him. When he caught full sight of her face, his mouth went dry, like the time he spent six hours bobbing around in the water as shark bait when he had been blown overboard by the prop wash on his only tour on a flattop.

  Her nose was small and turned up a little at the end, and her skin was clear and looked very touchable. Full, red lips rested in a gentle half smile under the nose, but what really grabbed him were her eyes. They looked like two big sapphires set in fresh cream as it solidified into a face. They sparkled and shown in the sunlight, throwing blue fire in every direction as she glanced around the beach.

  She would probably slap him down like a bad dog, but Darrel had to at least speak to this beauty. If he could get his voice to work through the desert of his mouth. He took a swig of Coke from the wasp-waisted bottle he'd left resting in the sand and decided to try.

  "Hi, there. Looking for some company?"

  She stopped and stared, like she'd only just seen him. Her face went oddly slack. “Um, I wasn't, no."

  He patted the cooler of iced Coke next to him. “You seem to have nothing to drink, and I've got plenty of Coke if you'd like one."

  She just stared, and Darrel wondered if this was how the critters under the microscope felt when the medics looked at them.

  She seemed to shake herself a little. “No, that's all right. Thank you, though."

  He'd spent the last eight years following the old navy tradition of a girl in every port, so he called on all the smoothness he could muster. “Well, suit yourself. If you have someone coming to meet you, I don't think he's here yet.” The beach was nearly empty.

  "Oh, no. I'm here alone."

  "Then you might as well join me.” He gave her his best smile, knowing it was pretty damned good. “While I'm not a commissioned officer, I give you my word as an officer and a gentleman that you're safe here with me."

  She stared at him for a moment, and then a smile broke over her face like the dawning. “I know I'm safe.” She dropped her bag to the sand and sat down beside him. “I'll take that Coke now, if you don't mind."

  * * * *

  Elisa saw the man far down the beach, and letting her predator's eyes look into the distance a bit, she could tell he was attractive. He was maybe a foot taller than she and had coal black hair. His eyes, though dark brown, seemed to give off a light of their own, even in the bright afternoon sun.

  She could see all of this clearly. She could even smell the clean scent of his perspiration from more than two hundred yards away. She even heard his breathing stop when he first saw her walking toward him.

  What she didn't understand was why she kept walking towards him. For a Saturday afternoon, the beach was nearly empty, and she could sit down in the sand and be isolated from others. But her legs kept moving her closer and closer to him.

  Elisa took the offered soft drink. “Thank you."

  He leaned his bottle to tap the neck against her bottle. “To Christmas in paradise."

  She laughed as she clinked her bottle to his and drank. “That's good."

  "Yes, it is. By the way, I'm Darrel Crenshaw."

  She took the offered hand. “Good to meet you. I'm Elisa O'Connell.” The touch of his hand felt warm and sent electric tingles up her arm.

  "Elisa ... that's a pretty name. Do people call you Lisa?"

  "No, they call me Elisa."

  He chuckled. “Got it."

  "What of you, Darrel? You said you're not a commissioned officer. What is it that you do?"

  "As surprising as it may be in Pearl Harbor, I'm a radioman in the navy."

  "And as a petty officer now, do you plan to get that commission some day?"

  He frowned. “How do you know I'm a petty officer?"

  She cursed herself silently for looking into his mind. “Just a lucky guess...” Elisa pushed a smile to her face she hoped didn't look too strained. “Three quarters of the men in Honolulu are petty officers."

  He smiled and nodded. “That's true, I suppose.” He seemed to lose himself in thought, but just for a moment. “I don't really know. My dad and his dad were happy being chiefs. I've always wondered what it would be like to sit in that big chair on the bridge, though."

  As she stared at him, she could see him as an officer, not in the coming war but in others, past and future. Elisa knew that her kind often had precognitive dreams and visions, and she had them herself sometimes. She lacked the training and experience to put the jumbled mass of visions together into a coherent story, though.

  She knew, however, that she had met this man before, and would meet him again. Elisa just didn't know how she knew this.

  * * * *

  Wellington Hughes stood on the boardwalk watching the couple far down the beach. Perhaps the centuries had burned all shame from him, but he felt no remorse at spying and eavesdropping on them, just as he felt no remorse for following her to this armpit of an island in the middle of the expanse that mortals called the Pacific Ocean.

  He had had to join the navy to get here without her knowing about it. She would never suspect he would do such a thing and would never think to have her spies look for him among the ranks of the military.

  He chuckled at the idea of spies. All of their kind used mortals as spies. The weak minds of most humans made it easy to control them by gentle nudges to their thoughts and motivations. Just as he could control mortal women through sex and feigned love, he knew Aset Ma'at Amen, or whatever she called herself now, could also control mortal men in the same ways.

  He glanced at hi
s watch. He needed to act, to get her out of this place, very soon. In a matter of hours, this tropical paradise the mortals loved so much would become his kind of world. And hers. In the aftermath, this would not be a good place to go into the inevitable feeding frenzy.

  He listened to them chatting casually, his ears picking up the sounds of their voices from six hundred yards away. He saw their hands touching now and then, and his predatory nose picked up the telltale scents they both gave off as the attraction between them built.

  Wellington heard enough to know the man was a petty officer. Perhaps Wellington's captain's bars would be enough to drive him away. If not, there were other ways to deal with mortals.

  He stepped into the sand and made his way toward the would-be lovers.

  * * * *

  Honolulu, Present Day

  Roland stood in front of the mirror in the hotel room and adjusted his tie. He finished and ran his hands through his once pitch-black hair, turning his head from side to side to look at the streaks of gray above his temples.

  "Maybe I should get this colored."

  Valerie laughed. “Don't you dare.” She came and slipped her arms around his neck. “I think it's sexy."

  "Yeah, but you're biased.” He put his arms around her waist. “You look great tonight. Delicious in fact."

  "Flattery will get you everywhere."

  "That's my plan.” He pulled her to him, his lips pressing firmly to hers as his tongue parted her lips to plunge deeply into her watering mouth.

  Unbidden, her mind flashed back to the scenes from the Arizona Memorial earlier. The great battleship again was whole and fighting for her life against the surprise attack.

  An attack that Valerie somehow knew shouldn't have been a surprise at all. She'd heard in school all the theories of how the president and military had known the attack was coming. She'd heard dozens of different conspiracy theories, all with gaping holes, that it was all a ploy to get the United States into the war. None of the theories held water.

  This feeling was different, though. Somehow, she knew someone could have warned the navy about what waited off the north coast of Oahu on the morning of December 7, 1941. With a lifetime of study and perspective to their credit, most historians today agreed that the attack on Pearl Harbor had been botched. The carriers had been untouched, as had the fuel depots and most of the repair facilities. The infrastructure of the navy and Army Air Force had remained essentially undamaged. While the loss of the ships, planes, and men had been a heavy blow, it hadn't crippled the Pacific Fleet.

  But more than two thousand people died. And it didn't need to happen.

  Even though she knew nothing of military strategy, Valerie somehow knew that a simple show of force by the navy and army air force would have sent the Japanese Carrier Attack Force scampering for the high seas.

  Suddenly, the image of a man who looked very much like Roland filled her mind. He stood on the deck of a ship dressed in civilian clothes, but he wore the white cap of a sailor. Bullets ripped the deck around him, and men screamed, some calling out orders, but most in terror. This big man stood his ground and fired a rifle at airplanes as they passed overhead.

  As if turning her head in the vision, she saw a wall of the superstructure. Neatly stenciled white lettering read, USS Arizona.

  * * * *

  Honolulu, December 6, 1941

  Elisa found that she liked spending time with this man, this mortal. He wasn't the first mortal she found enjoyment with, but she felt like she had known him for many years, many more years than the twenty-eight years he'd lived.

  At some point, she found that he'd taken her hand in his, and it felt good there. Warm waves lapped up her arm, like the gentle breakers on the beach just a few yards away, sending alternating shivers and feelings of safety through her. His laugh came easy and natural, and he always seemed to have two smiles, one for himself when he looked at her and another for her when she needed one.

  Darrel sighed and looked out to sea. “I have to be back at the ship in just more than twenty-four hours. We shove off in a few days."

  She'd learned over the last couple of hours that he had a wonderful sense of humor and that he could take good-natured kidding as well as he could dish it out. “Moving on to the next port and the next girl, then?"

  He laughed a little. “Seems that way, doesn't it?” He turned away from the sea to look deeply into her eyes. “This will sound like a line, but it doesn't have to be that way."

  "You're right. It does sound like a line."

  "I guess I deserved that shot."

  The predator in her stirred the hair on her neck, and she felt compressions in the air behind her. Someone approached them. She casually looked around, and her heart almost stopped in her chest.

  Set Ankh Halus was dressed in the uniform of a navy captain, and he stopped a few yards away.

  Darrel made no move to stand up, but nodded to the man. “Afternoon, Captain."

  "Good afternoon. I am Captain Hughes, and I would like to have a word with the young lady."

  Fury welled in her, but she managed to keep it out of her voice. “I have nothing to say to you."

  "I think you do. Is it Elisa now?"

  Darrel stood up slowly. He was a good three or four inches taller than the captain and half again as wide at the shoulders with muscles like rocks bulging through his shirt, but Elisa knew that didn't matter. At least it wouldn't matter if Hughes decided it didn't matter.

  "Captain, I think the lady doesn't want to talk to you."

  The cold steel moved across Hughes's gray eyes, and Elisa heard a rumble in his voice, like the grating of rocks deep in the ground in an earthquake. “What you think matters not at all.” He leaned his head to one side and smiled. “Shall I make that an order?"

  Darrel chuckled. “Let's see now. I beat the crap out of an off-duty desk jockey because he's getting pushy with a woman. Won't be the first time I get busted in this man's navy."

  "Being busted to seaman will be the least of your worries.” Elisa saw Hughes's hands flexing, preparing for the change.

  She stepped between the men and put her hands on Darrel's chest. “No, it's all right. I'll listen to what he has to say."

  Hughes nodded. “A wise move...” He pointed to a picnic table about fifty yards away. “You and I can talk there."

  Darrel's eyes never left the captain's. He nodded, but didn't look at all happy. “OK. I'll be right here if you need me."

  She forced a smile. “I'll be just fine."

  Elisa followed Hughes to the table. He waved his arm in regal fashion. “Please be seated, my love."

  "No matter how much you may want otherwise, I am not your love, not any more than I have ever been.” She sat down.

  "Very well, but I do care about you. This is not a good place for you. You have surely had the dreams."

  "I have, and I know the war is coming here soon."

  "No, Elisa, not soon. Tomorrow morning, only seventeen hours from now."

  She shrugged. “The details of the lives of mortals are of no concern to me."

  "They should be!” His hand morphed to the claw of their kind, the talons digging deeply into the cement tabletop. “Your history is one of continued involvement with the mortals. This man is just another example."

  "And what concern of yours is that?"

  "You know as well as I that the coming carnage will trigger you—and all of our kind here—into a feeding frenzy. The blood will push us beyond the point of control. We must leave here. Now."

  She laughed at him, despite the look she'd come to know over the last four millennia. “Do you plan to take me from here by force, then? That will reveal us to the mortals as surely as the feeding frenzy.” This man was amazingly dangerous when angry, and he was very angry now.

  "No, I do not.” He smiled, and it looked sinister, plotting. “But I can remove your reason to stay."

  "You wouldn't dare!"

  As soon as she said it, she knew t
hat he would dare. Over the many centuries, he had, in one disguise or another, removed many of her mortal lovers from the evolutionary chain. What would one more matter to this monster?

  "You know me far better than that.” The evil smile broadened, threatening to meet at the back of his head. “Of course I would."

  A new approach came to her. As ludicrous as it sounded, why not appeal to the monster's sense of right and wrong, to his sense of romance? She allowed the pending change, the preparation to fight him, to fade away.

  "Hughes, I ask you to not kill him.” She hesitated, gathering her thoughts. “There is something about this man, something familiar, like I've known him before."

  His claw faded back to a normal human hand again. Hughes stared at her for a long time. “Do you know that mortals reincarnate?"

  "That's what the priests taught me as a child, yes."

  "No, not what the purveyors of religion spout. Their souls come back to live again until they complete whatever task it is that the gods have planned for them.” He glanced at where Darrel stood watching them. “It is possible that this man has been in your life before."

  "Then I ask you not to harm him.” She paused, studying the face of the monster who had damned her to this eternity. “If you really care for me, don't harm him."

  "What purposes will that serve? It does nothing about you leaving this place before the morning."

  She smiled. “It will show that you do care and have a hint of humanity left in you."

  "After more than a hundred centuries, perhaps there is no such humanity left.” He paused. “What about leaving this place?"

  "I can't. Not now."

  "Then the mortals will find you feeding on the dead and dying.” He stared at her for many moments. “Perhaps even on this man."

  "That remains to be seen."

  Hughes chuckled. “You are the literal eternal optimist. Very well. The man shall not die by my hands or actions, and you may do as you like.” He reached across the table to brush his fingertip down her cheek. “Take care, my love."

  Hughes stood suddenly and walked away down the beach.

  * * * *