Read Online Blood and Bullets by James R. Tuck - Free Book Online Page A

vamp community. No other bloodsuckers would posse up to avenge them.” Pushing with my feet spun me to look at Larson sitting in his chair. He looked really uncomfortable. As my dad used to say before he left this shitty world, he looked as uncomfortable as a nine-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
    Either that or as a whore in church.
    â€œHow did you wind up in that alley tonight to meet me?”
    A thin hand rose from his lap and rubbed the side of his face. Nervous gestures dominated him. Touching his face, adjusting his glasses, licking his lips. All of them done over and over, almost like a habit. He swallowed and said, “I was listening for information at Varney’s when I was approached by a girl who offered to tell me where I could find a vampire to stake.”
    Varney’s was a tiny Goth club on the southside of Atlanta. It was a hole in the wall, full of all the Goths who were still stuck in the nineties scene. So imagine a tiny room where everything is painted black and red and full of sweaty, overweight middle-agers dressed in black, wearing greasepaint makeup, heavy mascara, and black fingernail polish. I had never, ever heard of a vampire even setting foot in there.
    â€œDid you get the name of this girl?”
    Larson shook his head.
    â€œWhat did she look like?”
    Larson scratched his chin. “She was young. So young I don’t even know how she got into the club. She had long blond hair. It was pretty tangled.”
    â€œLet me guess, she was wearing a bright yellow sundress?” Larson nodded. I turned back to Kat. “I bet this was the same vampire who sent me to see Larson here. Did you pull a match from the picture I sent you?”
    She popped back into her chair and began typing and clicking again.
    Larson leaned over to me. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “That was a vampire I talked to?”
    No wonder he tried to stake me. He didn’t even recognize a vampire when he was just a few feet away from one. I looked over at him and raised one eyebrow. “Yeah, it was, but don’t worry, she’s a pile of dust now.” I turned back to Kat and she shot me a look. I smiled big at her. So what if I was yanking Larson’s chain a little? He had tried to stake me earlier tonight, so I was justified.
    A picture unfolded on the screen. The face staring out was the same vampire who had sent me into that alley earlier tonight. In this picture she was a smiling, happy girl posing for the camera. My head swam for a second as the memories tried to surface and I shoved them back in their box. Father Mulcahy tapped on the table to get my attention. The scar tissue he uses for eyebrows lifted over one eye at me. He knew how close the picture was to my daughter, hell, he had performed her funeral along with my wife and son, and he also knew how I am about that. To distract myself, I pointed at the picture and looked the question at Larson. He nodded and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
    â€œAlyssa Burton, age fourteen, disappeared from Cross Plains, Texas, approximately three months ago. There is a reward of one hundred thousand dollars for information leading to her return.” Kat turned and looked at us.
    â€œA hundred grand is a hefty reward. Are the parents wealthy?” I asked. Kat shook her head.
    â€œFrom my research, no. Dad is a hardware store owner in Cross Plains, but it isn’t a very big town. The reward has apparently come from her family, friends, and the community as a whole. Her family is stable. Father and mother still together, two younger siblings ages twelve and seven. I found pages of hers on a few social network sites and they all indicate she was happy. There are also almost twenty pages on those same sites looking for information about her and offering the reward that was set up by her friends and maintained by them even now.”
    Three months is a lifetime for teenagers. If they