Hooray for updating! This one's gonna be a beast (it's a two-parter, really), but I really want to explore Dinah's background and how she and Jerry met. Also, just want to mention I used a bit of 1920s slang in this chapter, so if something looks or sounds weird, blame our American predecessors for coming with terms like "bee's knees" and "cat's pajamas" xD
Dinah stumbled into the gin mill on shaky legs. Her hair was a mess and she'd be sporting a brand new bruise on the left side of her face very soon, but she didn't care too much about that at the moment. She'd just shot Donald in the chest. She'd shot and, more than likely, killed the man she'd once loved. The sweet, wonderful guy she'd fallen for had turned out to be a dirty rat. How could she not have seen that he was married? How could she have been so stupid as to let herself fall back into second place yet again in life?
She forced herself to walk to the bar and demanded the strongest liquor the tender had in stock. Rather than wait for him to grab a glass as well, she took the entire bottle from his hand and took two swallows of the foul stuff. Recovering quickly from the burning sensation going down her throat, she spied an empty table towards the far wall and plopped unladylike in the sole chair. She just didn't care anymore, not about the way she looked, the fact that she was now only adding to her rap sheet by drinking alcohol (goddamn Prohibition), the splinters that dug into her thighs, nor her relocation to a prison cell as soon as the police caught up with her. Nothing mattered anymore. She'd thought she'd finally found some bit of happiness with Donald, something to keep her sane even as the years of anger and bitterness had built up within her. But even that had been snatched from her…no. It had never been hers. She had been nothing more than a body, a personal call girl whenever he couldn't stand the wife anymore. Could anyone blame her for shooting the bastard, especially after he'd hit her across the face when she said it was all over between them? No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose, she thought sourly.
Dinah began to lose herself in the bottle (whiskey, apparently), her limbs stilling as the liquor burned through her. She didn't notice the lone patron leaning against the wall behind her until he spoke. "You might want to take it easy on ol' Jim, doll," he drawled slowly. He smirked when she jumped and twisted in her seat to face him.
"Excuse me?"
He pointed at the bottle. "Never saw a dame put away Jim Beam like that." He eased a vacant chair away from the neighboring table and pulled it up to join her. "Must be something really bad to make a good-lookin' dame turn to the hooch."
She quickly gave him the once-over, taking in the slicked-back hair with a loose lock having fallen across his forehead and into dark eyes, the pale skin, and the way he seemed to look straight through her. She couldn't deny he was quite a looker, however. No. No, Dinah. Not again. "If it's all the same, I'd rather be alone right now, stranger."
"Well, it's not all the same to me," he replied confidently.
Dinah glared at him, not liking the smugness in his tone one bit. "Go chase yourself, Mac. I ain't got time for no lounge lizards tonight." She didn't know what she was expecting him to do, but laugh certainly wasn't one of the options. "What's so funny?"
"It's been a long time since a woman told me to scram," he answered, honesty in his voice and eyes, but something else, something burning, just beneath the surface.
"So do it." Dinah really didn't need to get involved in small talk with this guy, even if he (and the liquor) did make her briefly forget her current predicament.
"I think I'll stay right here," he countered, that smirk still in place. "Good lookin' girl like yourself all alone in a joint like this; I figure there's got to be some hell of a story there. Want to share?"
"Not particularly." Rather than leave at her coldness, he stayed put and simply watched her as she continued to empty the bottle. Something about his gaze made her uneasy, like there was a caged animal scratching at the gates, but the whiskey eventually took its toll on her inhibitions and loosened her tongue. "I just found out my guy wasn't mine at all." The stranger's gaze, which had been scanning the speakeasy just seconds before, immediately shifted back to her. "Rat bastard was married; I was just his hot piece on the side. We got into it when I told him I didn't want anything else to do with him. He left me a nice little going-away present, too." She gingerly touched her cheek where Donald's had landed, envisioning the purple and black splotch she could already feel forming.
The stranger reached across her and turned her head toward him completely, a gesture that stunned her with its intimacy. His fingers brushed softly over her face, light as feathers, as his eyes hardened. "He hit you?"
Dinah flinched at the growl his voice had become. She'd never heard anyone make a sound so animalistic, let alone on her behalf. "Yeah," she breathed. "But I gave him a bigger present thanks to my friend Mr. Colt." She saw how his eyes widened and pulled away from his touch, thinking she'd said too much. "Anyway, the cops'll find me soon. You won't wanna be around when they do, mister."
He chuckled darkly, a smooth, achingly sensual sound that cut through her liquor-induced haze. "Let 'em come," he said confidently. "I have a way of handling the boys in blue."
"And what way would that be?"
"I tell them to go away and they do."
She couldn't help it. The laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it. This man had to be out of his mind, he was so ridiculous! "Is that right? And how, pray tell, does that work for you and no one else? You got some magic powers or something?"
"Something like that," he replied coolly, not a hint of joking.
Dinah simply looked at him for a beat, one part of her wanting desperately to believe it, the larger part telling her to start running right now. She laughed again, this time more nervous than amused, and reached for the near-empty bottle. "Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, Mac."
"You want me to prove it?" Even drunk, she didn't miss the glint in his dark eyes and the way his mouth turned up at one corner in a smirk that was quickly becoming very appealing to her. He turned away from her to the closest patron, the man just starting to get liquored up. "You," the stranger said, his voice hardening into a tone so different from the one he'd been using with her. The other man looked up with a glare. He opened his mouth to tell the stranger off, but closed it as his face became as blank as a doll's. "Go walk into that wall and see yourself out the back door."
Dinah watched in a mix of wonder and horror as the man did as instructed, his face audibly hitting the stone wall before he found the back exit of the joint. She slowly looked back to the stranger, a ball of nervous excitement growing in the pit of her stomach. "How'd you make him do that?"
She gasped and recoiled slightly when he turned back to her. His eyes had become completely black and his wolfish smile revealed twin incisors as sharp as needles. Her eyes flitted around the room in an effort to avoid his piercing gaze. "I really need to lay off the hooch," she whispered under her breath. Her curiosity, however, wouldn't be so easily ignored. She lowered her voice further so only he could hear her. "You're really a…a vampire?" The man raised his fingers to his forehead then extended the hand to her in confirmation, his smirk never leaving his face. "What's it like?"
"What's what like?" Now he was just teasing.
"To be…what you are. To have no fear. To spit in the face of God." Try as she might, she couldn't keep the wonder from her voice.
He laughed, a genuine sound that drew more than a few stares from the other people in the bar and made Dinah's heart flutter. He leaned closer so that his breath wafted over her face when he spoke conspiratorially. "I can show you instead, doll."
It was Dinah's turn to laugh now, mostly from the absurdity of the entire situation. "You're a piece of work, you know that? Thanks, but no thanks. I quite like not bursting into flames whenever I step outside."
"A small price to pay when you think about it," he countered. "You get to control your own life, go wherever you want, do whatever you want, and no one can make you do anything if you don't want to. You answer to no one."
"What about the whole needing blood to survive thing? What happens when the food source runs scarce?"
"Look around, Dinah. At the rate everyone's jumping into bed with each other the human race won't go extinct for a long time. Plenty of food…" He glanced at the other patrons, a hunger flashing on his face for an instant.
She suddenly froze. "How do you know my name?" She certainly didn't remember introducing herself.
The stranger grinned before turning back to look at her. "I've got my methods…Dinah." Something about the way he said her name made her shiver. It was possessive, primal, and unbearably erotic. She felt the edges of her mind go fuzzy, and not from the copious amount of alcohol. Looking directly into his fathomless eyes she found herself unable to tear herself from his gaze. Must be how a rabbit feels just before a wolf grabs it for dinner. She became vaguely aware of his hand lighting upon her cheek, drawing her closer and closer to those haunting eyes and lethal teeth. His thumb brushed over her skin, full of promise. When she saw he meant to touch his mouth to her she tried to pull away; she didn't know if he meant to kiss her or bite her, and both seemed so wrong at the moment. He held her firm, however. "Don't fight me," he whispered. She obeyed, her mind trying to keep up with what was happening.
His lips had almost touched hers when a knock on the table shattered the silence around them. Dinah jumped at the sound, pulling away from the stranger as her vision cleared (more or less) and she returned to herself. He let out a low groan at the intrusion, seeming more annoyed than embarrassed as she was. They both looked to the third person who had knocked, Dinah's head ducking down as she registered the dark blue uniform and glinting silver badge. "Dinah Morris?" the cop said with an almost bored tone. So she'd been found; that didn't take long. And by a cop who was on the joint's payroll; the owner would have sold her out anyway just to stay open. "Miss Morris, you're going to need to come with me."
Dinah didn't answer; she couldn't. Her mouth refused to cooperate with her. The stranger spoke instead. "Now why would the lady want to do that, bull?"
The cop glanced at him but kept his focus on Dinah. "That ain't really any of your business, is it, mister. Miss Morris, I'm gonna have to place you in custody on suspicion of murder."
She tried to sink further into her chair as the hard reality hit her full force. She'd killed her lover. She'd KILLED a man! She fought back the harsh sting of tears even as the dark-haired man came to her rescue. "Don't know what you been hearing but Dinah's been here with me all night. When would she have had time to kill somebody?" That made her look up. She stared at the stranger as she tried to understand why he would cover for her. He looked right back at her with a boyish grin, not a care in the world about lying to a cop's face.
The bull looked at the man fully now. "We know she was involved with the stiff before his murder, and we got two witnesses saying they heard yelling and a gunshot from the apartment just before this woman"-he pointed at Dinah-"left the building. No mistaking."
"I dunno who you been talking to, sir," he replied easily, "but Dinah's been with me all evening. You really wanna argue this?" The cop looked ready to argue indeed, but something stopped him. His eyes went as blank as those of the other man who'd looked directly at the stranger. "You're going to go back to your precinct and tell your boss the case is cold. No one saw anything; there was no woman. The stiff was heard yelling at thin air in his apartment before shooting himself with his own pistol. You got that?" The cop nodded dumbly. "Now take a walk, bull."
Dinah watched, stunned once again, as the cop did as he was told and turned on his heel. She continued watching him even after he'd disappeared through the door. She laughed. This whole night was just too ridiculous to be true; she had to be dreaming…or in some kind of booze-induced fantasy. "Why on Earth would you tell him to do that?"
The stranger shrugged. "He annoyed me," he said simply, as if that explained everything. She saw his eyes fall to her neck, that hunger that thrilled and terrified her returning to his gaze. "Now, back to where we were…"
She stood before he could touch her cheek again, wobbling only once before regaining her balance. The man…vampire…whatever stood with her. She didn't realize just how tall he was, or how lean; the suit he wore so elegantly did little to hide his slender form. "Yeah, thanks for covering for me, but I gotta get home. I gotta get out of town before your little voodoo wears off and they come looking for me again."
"I'll at least walk you home," he offered eagerly. "These streets ain't safe for anyone lately, let alone you."
"'Preciate it, but no thanks." Dinah did her best to avoid his searching gaze. "Don't need to get anyone else involved in my mess. I can manage on my own."
"Can I at least visit you before you split town?" This guy just doesn't quit!
She couldn't help it; she laughed again. "Tell you what, if you can find me, you can visit." Why not? If this is really a dream or hallucination or whatever, what's the harm?
He smiled again, still brimming with sexuality, but also a hint of genuine pleasure. "Is that a promise, Dinah?"
She waved him off as she handed a wad of bills over to the bartender for her drink. "Yeah, sure. Why not? It's not like I got anything else to lose." She had made it to the doorway when she stopped. She turned to the stranger, finding him only inches from her and still looking at her with those smoldering eyes. "Never did get your name, stranger. Only fair since you already know mine…"
She didn't flinch when he took her hand (she felt mighty proud of herself for not jumping at the contact) and brought it to his lips, gently kissing the back of it. A bit old-fashioned, but I'll take it, she thought ironically. "Name's Jerry, sweetheart."
"Jerry," she tried, liking the way his name felt rolling off her tongue. "Nice to meet you." An awkward pause passed between them, Dinah growing uncomfortable under his scrutiny. She cleared her throat and removed her hand from his. "Well, g'nite, Jerry. See ya around."
She never heard him whisper "Sooner than you know, dollface" to the night air, never saw the way he watched her with blatant lust as she walked down the street. He ran his tongue over his teeth with a grin, turning back into the bar to bide his time.
What you guys think? Reviews are love!
