Sweet Oblivion 5: Elixir by Jordan Castillo Price

Sweet Oblivion 5: Elixir
by Jordan Castillo Price

cover art by Bryan Keller
ISBN: 978-1-59596-446-5
Genre(s): Paranormal, Dark Fantasy
Theme(s): Vampires, Gay and Lesbian
Series: Sweet Oblivion
Length: Novella

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1240

Blurb:

Wild Bill and Michael might have thought they made it out of the subterranean vampire nest unscathed, but in her anger, Silk left Michael a taste of her wrath that's impossible to shake.


It's a race against time to cure Michael of a bizarre affliction, and though the hunter and his favorite vamp have few enough friends, Bill can't ash a cigarette without burning another bridge. Now Wild Bill must decide what he's willing to sacrifice to save his lover.


His friends? His scruples? His pride?
His humanity?


Excerpt:

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

I tracked Michael's hand as it traveled down the length of me. Shoulder, biceps, chest. Lingering to trace the ink, the tribal thing over my left tit that covered up the name Deborah -- no great loss to Deb, I'm sure -- down the obliques. Wending through the six-pack. A pause to toy with the treasure trail. "What're you in the mood for?" he asked.
Most people would've answered, "Surprise me." But most people didn't have Trouble with a capital "T" for a boyfriend. "You got such a pretty mouth," I said instead. "How 'bout you spoil me with it?"
He unhitched the fly of my jeans one-handed. "That's all?"
"I'm sure the mechanics'll sort themselves out as we go along."
"That's not what I mean." He bent his head to press a kiss just beneath my navel, and his Clairol-black hair fanned over my belly. He lingered there, tonguing cryptic messages on me that made my nuts shift and the insides of my thighs go all tingly, and when he spoke again, the soft words tickled the patch of skin he'd just dampened. "I want to make sure you don't get bored."
"Do I look bored?" I nudged him in the shoulder with the stiffie that was trying to escape from my jeans.
He turned and mouthed my hard-on through the denim. He knew how to be naughty, Michael did. How to tease his way up to a moment. How to make wicked promises with a sly glance of his silvery bedroom eyes. Bored. Right. I'd have to be dead to be bored with him.
A cool breeze drifted in from the open window and raised goose bumps all over me, but I was in love with the idea of having a window open at the crack of springtime without waking up to a snowdrift for my troubles. It wasn't exactly the world's freshest air, given that Sin City with all its carbon emissions sprawled around us for dozens of miles in any direction, but it was outside air nonetheless -- warmish outside air -- and since I'd been born, bred and undead in the snow belt, I was enjoying me a little southwestern bliss.
Michael smoothed away the pebbly prickle of gooseflesh with his deft, warm fingers. "Should I close it?"
"Nah. I like it."
He peeled my jeans open and pressed a kiss to the ridge of my hipbone, and a fresh crop of goose bumps sprang up that had nothing to do with the breeze. "I like it when you suck my soul out through my piss slit, too," I suggested.
"Mmm. Romantic." He coaxed my hard cock out of my pants. It slapped against my belly, rigid and flushed. Michael traced a vein with the hot, wet tip of his tongue. His eyelids fluttered shut like he was reading my pulse. He probably was.
I ran the backs of my fingers down his cheek. "C'mon, baby, don't tease. Suck it."
I caught sight of the corner of his grin around my boner. He fluttered his tongue and bathed my cock with his warm breath, but he didn't wrap his pretty lips around it.
An arch of my back made my shaft nudge him in the jaw, but no dice. He could keep me on the brink for hours, and he knew it. He'd done it, just to see how hard I'd squirm -- and the thought of that made my cock twitch without any help from my hips. "You want me to beg? I'm not proud."
The gentle puff of Michael's silent laughter tickled my spit-wet shaft. "Uh-huh. And I've got a secret stash of Playboys in the van."
"And what, you're not gonna share?" My pride was old history, but the longer you play your cards close to your chest, the harder it is for anyone to tell whether you're yanking their chain or not. He might as well think I was a sarcastic a-hole. It was easier that way.
"You'd rather look at naked pictures? We can't have that." Michael trailed his tongue higher and stroked my slit with the tip of it. Almost too sensitive. Almost. The heat of his breath bathed my cock head, and I rocked my hips again. This time, he let me do it, sink myself deep inside his hot, wet mouth, and I reveled in the thought that whatever hell we'd been through together, Mikey and me, that this little slice of heaven was worth it.

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Sweet Oblivion 4: Swarm by Jordan Castillo Price

Sweet Oblivion 4: Swarm
by Jordan Castillo Price

cover art by Bryan Keller
ISBN: 978-1-59596-398-7
Genre(s): Paranormal, Dark Fantasy
Theme(s): Vampires, Dark Desire, Gay and Lesbian
Series: Sweet Oblivion
Length: Novella

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1212

Blurb:

For some time, Michael has suspected that Wild Bill's done more than just dabble in art. As with every other piece of his personal history, Bill plays his cards close to his chest. But when he lets on that a mural he painted before his change might still exist, Michael's dying to see it -- and Bill's never been good at saying no.
Only fragments of the building remain, but it's possible Wild Bill's painting is still there. Unfortunately, there's a lot more in the ruins than Bill and Michael bargained for.

Excerpt:

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
Steam hissed from the dull chrome hulk of the autoclave and wended up the walls, where it seemed like it could work its way into the electrical system and short out the whole building. All the wiring was on the outside of the walls -- the light switches, the conduits holding the wires, the two-pronged outlets without any ground hole. It was as if whoever'd converted the building from gaslight to electricity had never been fully convinced electric power was more than a passing phase, and soon enough they'd simply need to tear it out to make way for the next ridiculous fad.
I suspected Melba was responsible for the code-nightmare that hummed through her building. Directly responsible.
She must've taken my staring for admiration. "Yeah, I run a clean shop," she said. Her voice was so low and rough the telemarketers probably addressed her as "sir." If she even had a phone.
"Not like you can catch anything over the Dracula Bug," she added, "but back when I trained, you could lose your arm to a staph infection. Then there goes your shop's reputation, right down the can."
"I don't have the --"
"Don't sass me, kid. You want ink or not?"
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. "Sorry."
She tied a red scarf around her curly brown bob. A few strokes of lipstick and she would've looked like Rosie the Riveter, with her men's slacks and her rolled-back cuffs. Except the arms beneath those cuffs were covered with colorful sleeves of ink. Oriental flowers, dragons, traditional motifs like you'd see on someone's grandfather -- just as faded, too, though Melba's skin was still smooth and firm.
"You do piercings, right?" Wild Bill appeared to be talking to one of the many panthers on the wall of flash. "Maybe I should get another tongue stud... or a Prince Albert."
"Don't tempt fate," Melba warned him. "Vamps shouldn't pierce anything that might heal shut."
He glanced back over his shoulder at us and leered. "Wouldn't want to chip Michael's pretty teeth, anyway."
"You think you can shock me by talking about your pecker? Nothing shocks me. People think sex is shocking? That ain't the half of it. I see coloreds and whites getting married now when they couldn't even drink from the same bubbler before. I treated a whole battalion sprayed with mustard gas, skin practically fell right off 'em and they screamed louder than the amputees. And the smell..." Her gaze went somewhere far, far away.
"Which war?" I asked.
"The Great War."
History had never been my strongest subject. I nodded gravely, as if I knew what she was talking about, and made a mental note to check Wikipedia later.
"All right, show me what you want."
I peeled up the sleeve of my T-shirt and showed her the thorn armband Bill had drawn on me earlier.
"That's not how it's done -- you draw it out on paper and I make a sterile transfer."
"Bullshit," Bill said amiably. He hiked up the side of his jacket and pointed to one of his tattoos -- I'm not sure which. He's got a hodgepodge of them that look a lot like the wall of flash. "That's how I did this one."
Melba gave him a withering look, which he ignored, then she said to me, "If you didn't have the Dracula Bug, I'd wash it off you and make you start from scratch, and do it right. Good thing bacteria won't stand a chance against it."
"But I don't --"
Her mouth was at my ear. I hadn't even seen her move -- it was like she'd appeared there. "The blood you brought with you to barter -- you drank some of it. I can smell it on you. Maybe you still eat and crap and run around after sunrise, but that bug's inside you all the same." My heart started hammering in my throat, and she backed off to a more conversational distance. "Don't look so blue. It'll be a fine-looking tat."
Melba pointed at an old dentists' chair that looked like something out of a Marilyn Manson video. "Sit."

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Sweet Oblivion 3: Fluid by Jordan Castillo Price

Sweet Oblivion 3: Fluid
by Jordan Castillo Price

Cover art by Reneé George
ISBN: 978-1-59596-397-0
Genre(s): Paranormal
Theme(s): Vampires, The Dark Side, Gay and Lesbian
Series: Sweet Oblivion
Length: Novella

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1161

Blurb:

It's been a couple of decades since Wild Bill has been able to savor the bite of an ice-cold, freshly tapped keg. Twenty-odd years since the shivery pucker of a cheap, boxed wine has assaulted his palate. But that doesn't mean Bill's forgotten how to party.
Wild Bill and Michael have holed up in a week-to-week hotel in an iffy Milwaukee neighborhood, and even though it's been a year or two, the fringe art happenings are just as edgy as Bill remembers.
There's a girl covered in frosting in the middle of the hors d’ouvres table, and she's begging them to dip. And the host of the party wants to lure them into the range of his mechanical eye. It's all fun and games, until a tryst turns deadly.

Excerpt:

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

The old loft had been a factory once upon a time. Maybe a place where six-year-olds earned two cents a day drilling holes in buttons. Or maybe a place where Bohunk women fresh off the boat stitched together brand new ready-made stuff for the generations who'd been here longer, middle-class matrons who spoke English.
It wasn't hard to imagine humanity teeming through the place. They wouldn't have been wearing PVC and fishnet back then, of course. But bodies is bodies.
Unless you count the body on the table. "What's that?" I asked her.
Her gaze met mine. "Cream cheese frosting."
What was she, twenty-five? If that. And splayed out on a table in nothing but a thin white coating of frosting, surrounded by sliced fruit. She'd bleached her buzz-cut to match the frosting -- that night, or maybe the night before, judging by the faint note of peroxide I detected over the warring scents of kiwi, pear, apple and grape. "Very creative. You're the artist?"
She shook her head. The cream cheese stopped at her collarbone, so she could do that much without disturbing the setup. "I'm modeling for Ivan."
Ivan. He was the flavor du jour, judging by the snips and snatches of conversation floating around every trendy watering hole on the south side of Milwaukee.
"What's your name?"
"Wild Bill."
"Suzanne. Listen, will you do me a favor? Dip something on me and eat it. Everyone's avoiding me like the plague. Maybe you could get it started."
Twenty-odd years ago, I woulda been all over her like stink on a wino. But even though I thought she was cute -- because, come on, how can a pixie-faced chick covered in frosting not be cute -- I felt like this wasn't my world anymore, and I had no business butting in.
"Please?" she begged me. "This was supposed to be fun."
What can I say? I felt sorry for the kid. It was ballsy of her to be pressing into service as a centerpiece for someone named Ivan. It had probably seemed like a great idea at the time, in a performance art sorta way. Who could've predicted how weird it would be to walk up to the hors d'oeuvres table and find a chick on it? I really did want to help her out. And while I couldn't eat -- not fruit, anyway -- I could at least dip.
I almost took an apple slice. My hand hovered over a fan of them. Twitched. But then I scented the pear, September-hard, and I took a wedge of that instead. "Anyplace in particular you want me to start?"
She blushed. Zing. The smell of it went straight to my nuts like an invisible, fondling hand.
"My arm, or, uh… my leg."
I'd been staring at her tits. No barrier whatsoever between her and the cream cheese. Oh my. I locked eyes with her again, gave her my most reassuring smile, fangs covered, and glanced at her wrist. A pair of handcuffs surrounded her skinny girl-arm, both cuffs on the same wrist.
"Don't ask. I've been on the lookout for someone with a master key. The locksmith wants a hundred bucks to pop it."
"Just act like it's a fashion statement, and no one'll be any the wiser." I judiciously ignored the hard, cold metal and the titillating story that undoubtedly went with it, and dragged the hard edge of the pear down Suzanne's thigh. The frosting parted. I imagine that's how it would've felt to press cuneiform letters into a clay tablet. The pear was a good choice. It made a beautiful line.
I drew a spiral first. Her thigh was firm as a boy's, and had just the right amount of give. I traced an accent line around it. The two lines, side by side, created a sort of negative space, a pinstripe of frosting. Another stroke. Even better.
I felt eyes on me, that prickle that's not quite hot or cold but maybe a little of both, and I glanced up and saw a dark-eyed kid with a mohawk and a pierced eyebrow giving me bedroom eyes. A year ago, I would've made good on that invitation -- 'cos he was sweet on the outside, but better than that, I could tell just by looking at him that he was bitter on the inside -- and that's the siren song that makes even the mustiest of dried-up vamps dash themselves to death on the rocky shore of wanting.
I'd paused mid-swoop, eye-locked with Pretty Boy for a split second, with that cream cheese-covered pear wedge clutched between thumb and forefinger.
Michael stepped between the vamp bait and me, and I felt like my soul, which had been trying to float out through my eyes, had slammed back into me, and I was myself again. I don't think he'd noticed the current of Mesmerism that he'd just short-circuited. "What are you doing?" Michael said, genuinely curious -- about the pear, not the mohawk boy. I finished out the whorl of the line I'd been drawing, and then turned to face him.
He had a red plastic cup of beer in one hand, full to the brim, and a handful of chips in the other. Everything else was black. Black leather jacket. Black T-shirt, black jeans. Filmy black scarf. Raven black Clairol hair. Thick black eyeliner. And tragically pretty, with insides all red and raw as if his best gal-pal had just been sucked dry yesterday. I brought the frosting-covered pear wedge up to his face and painted a thin line of white across his lower lip. "Dipping," I told him. And I slid the pear into his mouth. His tongue grazed my finger as he took it.
"That is so hot," Suzanne said.

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Sweet Oblivion 2: Snare by Jordan Castillo Price

Sweet Oblivion 2: Snare
by Jordan Castillo Price

Cover art by Bryan Keller
ISBN: 978-1-59596-388-8
Genre(s): Paranormal, Action/Adventure, Dark Fantasy
Theme(s): Vampires, The Dark Side, Gay and Lesbian
Series: Sweet Oblivion
Length: Novella

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1112

Blurb:

With summer ending and temperatures dipping low at night, Michael's eager to get his leather jacket back, and although Wild Bill could easily vamp any sales clerk into giving Michael some new duds, it wouldn't be quite the same as the jacket he left at his parents' house. Not unless the malls have begun selling clothing with Rohypnol and ketamine sewn into the seams.
The return of the jacket comes with a price: a new cell phone from Michael's parents. Surprisingly, Wild Bill encourages Michael to keep the phone. After all, Michael wouldn't want to be the only twenty-one-year-old in the world without one. Seems innocent enough... right?
But you never know where an innocent gift will lead. Michael worries the phone may be some shiny bait, meant to lure him closer to his family, and then, college. Everyone seems so intent on getting Michael to enroll, but he's busy looking to catch a vampire...

Excerpt:

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

The odor of rot was unmistakable. Decay has its own earthy-sweet foulness that can't possibly be anything else. The alkaline underpinning of chlorine masked the aroma slightly, but it was still there, a force of nature, inevitable, inexorable.
I knelt by the side of the pool and scooped out a handful of slimy brown leaves. When was the last time it had been cleaned? If I had a skimmer, I'd do it myself. The kids at the shallow end didn't seem to care that they were covered in seed pods and had dead bugs stuck in their hair. I should probably take a lesson from them and stop being so picky. After all, no one ever accused me of being a neat freak.
But the smell of rot -- that was different from the other smells I lived with, cigarettes, and bodies, and sex. I didn't know if I'd ever slough it off.
There was the possibility that I'd get the motel clerk to come out and give the pool a once-over. All I had to do was ask. And if he said no, I could ask again -- while I reached out with my mind and tried to imagine him having a big change of heart and being bowled over by the desire to make me happy. It didn't always work when I tried to do that. But sometimes, it did.
It would feel amazing to knife through that water. The pool was old, and therefore deeper than they usually make them nowadays, with all the litigation-happy predators looking for an excuse to file suit. It had a diving end. I've always loved diving, the suddenness of it, the drama. The plunge.
"Do you even own a pair of swimming trunks?"
My sister's shadow stretched over me. She hadn't startled me or anything. On some level, I'd felt her coming -- I just hadn't shifted my attention to her quite yet. I looked up at her. She'd worn makeup. A hint of plum eyeliner, a touch of mascara. I smelled hairspray.
And leather. She had my jacket clutched against her chest like a shield.
"I could wear cut-offs."
"I guess. So, where's your boyfriend?"
"Sleeping." If you call it that. Wild Bill does, and he even claims he can wake up any time he wants. I have my doubts.
"Sleeping? It's almost sundown."
"He stays up late."
She held her hand up, palm out. "Don't say any more. I don't want to start picturing it."
I rolled my eyes and stood. She would've said that whether or not I was gay. It was her obligation as a sibling to act like my sex life was gross.
We walked to a poolside table. The cheap plastic chairs had the beginnings of mildew creeping up the legs. More rot. I held out Julie's chair for her, and she shot me a strange look before she sat.
"What's with that?" she said.
"What?"
"Never mind. It's just weird, is all. We were still kids when you left. Now we're grown up."
We were? I thought she was exactly the same. She laid my jacket across the table. I wondered how thoroughly she'd searched it. Enough to find Jim Harman's card and email him. But enough to find the stashes of Rohypnol and Ketamine I'd sewn into the seams? I could hardly check, with her sitting right there. And even if she had found it, I don't think she would've guessed what I was using it for. She'd probably just think I was partying.
"When're you coming back?" she said. "For a visit, I mean. Thanksgiving?"
"I hadn't really thought that far ahead."
She shoved herself into the back of the chair hard enough to tip it off its front legs, and she rocked it, and sighed. "Must be nice. I feel like my life is planned down to the last second."
"Take a semester off."
"Yeah, right."
"I'm serious. Pick a place you've always wanted to see, and just go. Rent a room and get a job that's enough to pay your rent, any old job, doesn't matter. But being somewhere new -- where you don't know anyone, and everything's different -- that's when big ideas hit you."
"What big ideas?"
I shrugged. The nature of life and death and vampires, mostly. But I guessed that most people's big ideas were probably different from mine. "Four months. It's not really that long, when you think about it."
Her eyes went wistful. She had mom's brown eyes, and the same brown hair as all of us. Hers was sun-touched around her face. "I know you're right. Four months. It's nothing. But mom would skin me alive."
"You're nineteen, you can --"
"Look, you don't get it. You never cared what she thought about you."
"That's news to me."
"Oh, come on. You know what I mean. Girls are closer to their mothers. We have more to prove."
That actually was news to me. "Why?"
Julie made a huffy noise and shook her head. I suspected she really did need some big ideas of her own, but other than suggesting she give herself the time to allow those ideas to find her, there wasn't much more I could do.
Seeing her made me feel heavy-hearted in a way I wasn't sure I understood. If I told her that vampires existed, that I even had proof now, she'd still think I was crazy. The idiot doctor dad had sent me to had convinced the whole family I was just too creative for my own good. And sensitive. And that I needed to spin this fantasy world to compensate for Scary Mary's death.
Creative. Sensitive. Shit, maybe he'd known I was gay even though I never breathed a single word about it. Doctors creep me out.
I changed the subject to the new strip mall I'd noticed on Route 40, and we talked about shopping while the sun lowered, and finally set. Across the leafy pool and up one story, our door swung open and Wild Bill sauntered out onto the wraparound balcony. He was barefoot and shirtless, and his jeans rode low on his hips. He paused and lit a cigarette. Julie noticed my attention had shifted, and she turned to look. "And there's Sleeping Beauty now. Whoa. He is hot. You didn't tell me he had all those tattoos."
Bill leaned forward and rested his elbows on the railing. Hard to read his expression. Bemused? Maybe.
"So he's not going to come down and say hello?"
"He's… reserved."

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Sweet Oblivion 1: Brazen by Jordan Castillo Price

Sweet Oblivion 1: Brazen
by Jordan Castillo Price

cover art by Bryan Keller
ISBN (13): 978-1-59596-202-7
Genre(s): Paranormal, Action/Adventure, Dark Fantasy
Theme(s): Vampires, The Dark Side, Gay and Lesbian
Series: Sweet Oblivion
Length: Novella

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1086

Blurb:

It’s a sultry July night, and Wild Bill is content. It’s deliciously warm outside, the fireworks are about to start, a whole pint of freshly-tapped blood is on the menu, and his boyfriend hasn’t murdered anyone in months.
Too bad Bill’s contentment isn’t shared by Michael, who’s tired of his own lack of experience. He hints that a new lover in their bed might broaden his horizons. Their first encounter might have been a threesome, but it certainly didn’t end well for the third participant.
Even now, Bill can’t seem to shake the memory of the hickory stake protruding from the chest of his old nemesis. Lust wars with guilt as Wild Bill tries to figure out how to bury his past, once and for all.

Excerpt:

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

A shrill scream cut through the air. Something burning. Then a sizzle, and a cascade of sparks. A rugrat no older than five with her hair in crooked blonde pigtails darted past the front of the van, waving a sparkler. It trailed a glowing zigzag pattern through the dark. The kid screeched again. Every dog within a two-mile radius pricked up its ears.
It was a warm night. Gloriously, deliciously, flagrantly warm. I’d splayed myself out on the roof of the van, basking in the heat so contentedly, you’d think I’m a lizard on a sun-baked rock. Too bad I’m not -- life would be a hell of a lot easier. But no. I’m just your common, garden-variety vamp.
In the height of summer, I’m out for the count nearly sixteen hours of the goddamn day, what with the hasty sunrise and the tardy sunset. But at least I’m warm. And so in July, in those few precious hours when I’m vertical, sometimes I can even forget about that nasty little condition of mine, and just enjoy the act of being.
I sucked in a lungful of the night air. Freshly-cut grass. Sparklers. Funnel cake. Sunblock. Pabst Blue Ribbon. And about three thousand humans, give or take, each of them with a circulatory system coursing with a mouth-watering red cell cocktail.
The thirst for blood gnawed at my guts. I had another drag of my cigarette instead. And even with the Marlboro smoke tickling my nose hairs and prickling my eyes, I knew it when Michael, my heart of hearts, entered my long-range sensors. Sure, I could smell him. But I could smell about four hundred other people nearby, too. Michael? I felt him. I was a giant tuning fork, and he was the note that had just bent up to meet my quivering harmonic.
I watched him slice through the crowd. He’s tall, and his black-on-black contrasts with the bright colors and white whites that most other Missourians rotate out of their closets in these long, steamy dog-days.
It takes brass balls to carry off a scarf at the cusp of July, especially paired with a worn-out Bauhaus T-shirt and a pair of jeans. But every time I tell myself to stop drinking from him where people can see, he looks at me with those big eyes of his and suddenly I’m nothing but a raging, mindless hard-on -- and I slice him open right on the neck, where my mouth happens to fall when I’m buried to the root in his sweet ass.
Has it occurred to him, I wonder, to give me a good smack and tell me to bite him somewhere else? Probably not. He’s so used to spurting while I feed off him that a stray breeze hitting his throat is all it takes to give him a boner these days. He wouldn’t be seen in public without his silky black scarf any more than he’d leave the van without his jeans on.
A hunger pang wrenched my stomach as Michael broke free from the pack and headed for the van. He stopped beside the driver’s side door and looked up at me. “Wild Bill,” he said -- as if there might be anyone else sitting on the roof he’d wish to address. “I found someone.”
The pang intensified. “Do tell.”
“She’s over there by the balloon-pop. But we have to be quick. She’s here with her friends, and they’ll come looking for her if we keep her much longer.”
“Never let it be said that I’ve kept a lady waiting.” I swung my legs over the side and dropped down beside Michael, soundless, other than the clack of safety pins and buttons on my leather jacket -- which I can wear in ninety-degree-plus weather without breaking a sweat. And it’s easily ninety degrees in this baseball diamond that’s halfway between Columbia, Missouri, and the middle of nowhere.
The girly-girl on the menu was a cute young gothy thing, of course. Because who else would give my eyeliner-beau the time of day? Let alone be cajoled by him into a one-night stand as a blood donor.
As we approached, she picked Mikey out of the crowd first, and I scented her when her arousal spiked. I knew the feeling. His proximity did the same thing to me. Then she saw me, in step beside him. I’m guessing she thought we wanted to double-team her. And in a manner of speaking, we did -- though not quite in the way she’d imagined.
We closed in on our Clairol-scented prey in a loose formation. I liked giving my food the option to cut and run. It usually didn’t. Girly-girl was no exception. “Rachel,” Mikey said, “this is Wild Bill.”
“The vampire.” She sized me up, and her skinny, drawn-on eyebrows knit. “Vampires smoke?”
“Why not?” I took a drag, blew smoke over her shoulder. “Lung cancer can’t take hold in me. The world is my oyster.”
Michael caught her by the shoulder -- and oh yes, scent blossomed, creamy good girl-hots. He didn’t know. Or did he? Maybe on some level, he could smell it too, since my vamp-toxins coursed through him. Maybe that’s how he picked out the soup of the day with such uncanny accuracy. “Back behind these trees,” he said.
Rachel hesitated, but I’m guessing only because it was expected of her, what with her lack of a Y-chromosome and all. The male meal tickets that Mikey scopes out for me always charge into the darkness full speed ahead. He slipped his arm around her, and she pressed into his side so they could push their way out of the crowd together.
I got a few paces ahead of them, then spun around and walked backwards. Cute couple. Too bad I wouldn’t be able to talk my boy into a three-bee, where fun would be had by all. I patted down my jacket pockets. No condoms. Well, that clinched it. No threading the needle tonight, not with Rachel in the middle, anyway.
The cluster of evergreens did more than just filter out the noise of the crowd -- and it did that admirably. Its resinous haze cloaked the pervasive, insistent scent of humanity. This little nook held Mikey, some trampled grass dotted with dandelions, the stars overhead, the pale girl with big, dark eyes, and me.
And I was starving.




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Channeling Morpheus: Rebirth by Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Rebirth
by Jordan Castillo Price

Cover art by Bryan Keller
ISBN (13): 978-1-60521-100-8
Genre(s): Paranormal
Theme(s): Vampires, Gay and Lesbian
Series: Channeling Morpheus
Length: Novella

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1057

Blurb:

Michael has never put much stock in clichés, but there’s one he probably should have listened to: You can never go home again.

His family assures him that plenty of young people take a few semesters off between high school and college, that a year of travel is practically a prerequisite nowadays. Somehow Michael’s neglected to mention he’s not just driving around aimlessly, stopping only to have sex with his chain-smoking boyfriend -- he’s hunting vampires.

After a disastrous family reunion, Michael unearths a vampire commune where he and Wild Bill can settle down. But Michael is the only human in residence, and the other vampires can’t stop themselves from sniffing around him.

In the words of Wild Bill, “This can’t be good.”

Excerpt:

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

“We all know how hard losing Mary was on you,” my mother said.
How could she? I stared at the wall, fixed on a point over her shoulder, anything to avoid her eyes. Her kitchen felt small and strange. The curtains were new, I noticed, though I couldn’t have told you what the old ones looked like if my life depended on it. But the things that had stayed the same, while looking slightly different from the way I’d remembered them -- the refrigerator magnets, smaller, slightly faded, the spice rack, now dark with age, with its single mismatched jar that replaced the paprika Julie and I had knocked over when I chased her through the kitchen with a foot-long night crawler -- those things filled me with dread, and also with the realization that a road trip to Terre Haute, Indiana, had not been my most stellar idea.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Mary.” I realized it wasn’t true as soon as it was out of my mouth. Me, tracking down vampires and keeping them from hurting people? It had everything to do with Scary Mary.
“You’re not the only one who’s ever lost someone. For the last two and a half years, I thought I’d lost a son.”
My mom is such a bitch. She was glad to see me for maybe ten seconds, and then her face hardened, and her lips got so thin I thought they’d disappear. This was the look that said, “I was picking up laundry in your room and I found this magazine.” HotBoyz, to be exact. I’d told her that Scary Mary had left it there. And Mom claimed she believed me. But she’d given me that look that conveyed she was none too pleased that her son jerked off to pictures of naked men.
“It’s not unheard of for people to travel before college.” Mom started out tentative, but picked up steam as she went along, selling herself the idea. “I read an article that says lots of students think of a travel year as an unofficial prerequisite nowadays.”
“I’m not thinking about college right now.”
“Your test scores were so high. It’s late to apply for the fall, but your father could talk to the dean. You’d think that after, what is it now, ten years? Eleven. After all these years at the university, he’d be able to ask one little favor.”
“Some things are more important than college.”
“And the tuition would be taken care of. That’s part of your father’s benefits package.”
“Do you even hear words when I talk?”
That stopped her, finally. She pressed her lips together so hard they went white around the edges. The back door slammed, and feet pounded through the laundry room. “Is he here yet? Did I miss him? Stupid accident on the tollway. I was behind this dump truck for an hour and a half, and my phone died…”
Mom and I both stared at Julie as she burst into the kitchen. She sounded just like Mom. Exactly. Same cadence and rhythm to the words, like a car without a parking brake rolling downhill. She stopped when she saw me, though -- staggered as if I’d backhanded her. “Oh my God.”
She mashed herself against me and buried her face in the front of my shirt. I patted the back of her hair, which smelled amazing. She and I had never been huggy -- unless you count the photos of us playing Beverly Hills 90210 when I was eleven and she was nine. That was before she started high school and realized that her big brother was the antithesis of cool. That the jocks went out of their way to shove him into the lockers when they passed by him in the hall, and call him a fag -- which he already knew, and suspected that one or two of them might be as well, the way they stared at his lips when they thought he wasn’t looking.
“You smell like a frathouse buried in ashtrays.” She shoved back and looked at me. “And what’s with that scarf?”
I swallowed, and hoped it hadn’t slipped out of place. “You look good…”
“No, seriously. You smell. Are you homeless or something? Did you come here for money?”
“Julie,” Mom said. Just her name, but the tone was, “That’s enough, young lady.”
“I don’t want money,” I said. I didn’t need it. I had Wild Bill.
“No? You have a job?” Julie scoured me up and down with a look that said she doubted anyone would hire me.
“I’ve had jobs. We’re traveling right now.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Michael brought his friend,” Mom said.
And this is where I realized that the whole idea that I could come home again was seriously twisted. Not only was I finally coming right out and telling them I was gay, I was breaking the news that I had no plans to go to college, and have a neat little apartment, and work a safe little job.
But I couldn’t tell them why.


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Channelling Morpheus --Tainted by Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus: Tainted
by Jordan Castillo Price

Cover art by Bryan Keller
ISBN (13): 978-1-60521-075-9
Genre(s): Paranormal, Action/Adventure, Cyber-Punk
Theme(s): Vampires, Gay and Lesbian
Series: Channeling Morpheus
Length: Novella

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1003

Blurb:

Vampires agree that vampirism must be spread through sex, because if a bite on the neck could turn someone, the world would be overrun with legions of bloodsuckers by now. So Wild Bill’s been careful. The last thing he’d want is turn anyone. Especially his boy toy.

Despite Wild Bill’s caution, Michael’s looking pale and thin… more so than usual. He wears it well, just like the leather jacket, the black-dyed hair and the eyeliner. But for someone as starved as he is, food should hold more of an appeal. And is that a preternatural grace Bill detects in Michael’s movements?

Excerpt:

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

Heartless, soulless, generic and commercial. You gotta love these “big box” stores. I’d never set foot in one until I had a someone other than yours truly to look after. Never needed to. As long as I had enough smokes to keep me busy and a warm-blooded meal ticket nearby, I was happy enough with the clothes on my back.The homicidal eye-candy I’d hooked up with had more needs than I did. Like food. Pens and notebooks. Somewhere to eat and sleep. And do the nasty.So I bought us a van.That’s how it all starts, I guess. You let something stick, and the next thing you know, you start accessorizing it.I pulled a card of earrings off a revolving rack full of shiny, shiny trinkets. Not bad. “I’m taking this,” I told the clerk behind the counter, who smiled and gave me a finger wave. I tucked the earrings into my pocket.Handbags. Slippers. Pantyhose. Sunglasses. I pulled a pair of cheap plastic shades off the display and tried them on. Thankfully the notion about vamps not casting reflections is just a weird idea someone dreamt up after chugging too much absinthe. How else would I be able to pick out a decent pair of shades if I couldn’t make sure they looked good on me?But of course they did. I snapped the price tag off and put them on. Better. The hyper-bright fluorescent lighting had really been doing a number on my impressionable retinas.Hats. Wallets. Scarves. I stopped and stared. Some of ’em were grandma-scarves, sure. But some of ’em were slinky and long. I took a black one, pulled off the tag, looped it around my neck. Nice.I sniffed the air. Lots of humans teeming through the store, even at quarter to ten. Despite the smorgasbord of scents, I zeroed in easily enough on the one I wanted.Michael.He stood at a glass countertop shaped just like the jewelry island, except this one was full of cameras and phones, and other little gadgets I’d never heard of, and had no desire to know what they did.I unwound the scarf from my neck and wrapped it around his. Not only would he feel less self-conscious about the series of thin, neat cuts I’d left on him with my trusty flip-around knife, but he’d give Marc Bolan a run for his money in the jerk-off fantasy department. I’d refrain from telling him that, since given his age, I couldn’t hope for anything more than a blank stare in return.He leaned into me, pressed his side against my side. “Look.” He pointed at a plastic rectangle.“Yeah?”“It’s a computer.”“It is?” It was the size of the cigar box I kept my paintbrushes in, back in the Dark Ages.“If I had one of those, I wouldn’t need to spend so much time at the library. We could park outside a coffee shop and I could hop online.”I was probably giving him the same look he would’ve given me if I’d told him he’d pass for a member of T-Rex. “So get it.”He went real quiet. “It’s almost thee hundred dollars. Plus tax.”I squatted and pressed my nose against the glass. I didn’t understand money at all. Smokes had gone from a buck twenty-five a pack to six, while computers had dropped from five grand to a lousy three hundred -- plus tax. Good thing I never had to pay for anything. I’d get taken for a ride, for sure.There was a kid in a blue polyester vest behind the counter who’d been doing his best to look close and available, but also courteous and unobtrusive. He wasn’t too successful. Mostly he looked awkward. “Gimme one of those,” I told him. “The pink one.” Because if a computer company was ridiculous enough to make a paperback-sized laptop in pink, how could I not get that one? “Ring it up however you need to. We’re taking it.”He pressed some keys, scanned the box, and gave it to me. I handed it to Michael. I could tell he wanted to whisper some token protests at me, but he also wanted his new toy badly enough that he knew better than to complain about it.When he finally did find his voice, he said, “We should probably get a car charger.”
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Excerpt: Channeling Morpheus 3: Manikin by Jordan Castillo Price

Title: Channeling Morpheus 3: Manikin
Number in Series: 3
Author: Jordan Castillo Price
ISBN(13) 978-1-59596-419-9
Word Count: 16K
Price: $3.99
Release Date: 08/08/08
Editor: Margaret Riley
Cover Artist: Bryan Keller
Genres and Themes: Paranormal, Action Adventure, Dark Side, M/M Vampire

Blurb:
Marushka loves pretty things: lace and velvet, porcelain and pearls. She sews elaborate costumes for all of her dolls, and she spends hours arranging their hair just so. Her collection is growing; she’s added a very pretty trinket, and his name is Michael. She can’t wait to dress him up.

Michael always suspected mentally ill vampires grew worse and worse as the years went by. He’d never realized how unhinged they could get.

Now Michael is in way over his head. Will Wild Bill save him? Or was it only wishful thinking on Michael’s part that their connection ran deeper than sex… or blood?

Excerpt:
The straight razor slid along the tops of the toes on my right foot. “Shoosh, shoosh, darlink. If you tremble, I might nick you. We mustn’t ruin your skin.”
I rolled my eyes down in my head, which I couldn’t move even a fragment of an inch, and told myself not to freak out. The vampire would keel over any minute. I’d slipped her three tablets of Rohypnol, and I knew from experience that three was more than enough.
Part of her, the edge of her hair, was visible in the dim streetlight that threaded through a window high in the bathroom wall. Her hair was flame red, in long, smooth curls like Shirley Temple. It was so dim in the bathroom that the red looked brown, or even black.
I swallowed. The metal apparatus that she’d clamped around my head and neck put so much pressure on my Adam’s apple, even that small motion was painful.
The razor slid up my calf. The steel was cold. The tub was cold, the water was cold, too -- and I couldn’t stop shivering. “Marushka? Can we take a break? I’m freezing.” If she let me warm up for a second, I’d probably still be shaking from the realization that the Rohypnol was taking its sweet time in knocking her out. But I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
“I know.” Her voice oozed sympathy, and she was probably even sincere. “But this is better for your pores. Once the gooseflesh smoothes out, your body will be like silk.” She wielded the razor around the curve of my knee with such delicacy that it was only the merest whisper of cold metal.
I ached to shove her away -- she hadn’t strapped down my arms, even though the ancient leather restraints were in plain view, because I’d managed to convince her that I was just as crazy as she was. That I was into it. Whatever it was she was doing.
It wouldn’t have mattered if my hands were free or not. She was so much stronger than me that I’d never be able to fend her off, even if she didn’t have a length of freshly-honed steel in her tiny white hand.
I grit my teeth, and I waited for the Rohypnol to do its job.
**
Manikin is available 8/8/08 here:
http://changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=958
Jordan Castillo Price
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