The Nightlife: San Antonio Read online

  THE NIGHTLIFE SAN ANTONIO

  Published by Travis Luedke

  Copyright 2014 by Travis Luedke

  Book Cover Art by http://www.alchemybookcovers.com/

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Adult Reading Material (17+)

  Contains scenes of graphic sex and violence

  unsuitable for underage readers

  Publications by Travis Luedke

  The Nightlife Series:

  I The Nightlife: New York

  II The Nightlife: Las Vegas

  III The Nightlife: Paris

  IV The Nightlife: London

  V The Nightlife: Moscow 2014 (COMING SOON)

  ~ Stand-alone novels in The Nightlife Series ~

  BLOOD SLAVE

  THE NIGHTLIFE SAN ANTONIO

  BLOOD SLAVE ii 2014 (cOMING SOON)

  Young Adult novels by TW Luedke (Travis Luedke)

  the shepherd

  Other series novels by Travis Luedke

  UPON THIS ROCK 2015

  Description:

  Vampires, Mafia & Mayhem:

  The Nightlife San Antonio is violent, sexy, and occasionally violently sexy.

  All she wanted was to escape the police. All he wanted was to get laid. They both got more than they bargained for.

  EMT on call, Adrian Faulkner resuscitates a beautiful woman after a Mexican mafia shootout. He can't explain why he picks her up in the hospital parking lot three days later and then ducks the San Antonio police and the Feds. Well, the hot sex might have something to do with it.

  She needed to hide. With no memory of even her name, she didn't know from who. She only knew she wasn't safe.

  Adrian soon learns she is much more than a damsel in distress, and he’s stuck with her. It isn't long before the past she cannot remember begins to catch up with them both…

  THE NIGHTLIFE SAN ANTONIO is a non-stop thrill ride through the shadowy border world of mafia politics and vampires – and sex.

  Chapter 1

  Cockroaches left starbursts of red as they skittered across the slick blood splattered on the tile floor of what once was a nice little southwest hacienda. San Antonio EMT, Adrian Faulkner, crunched one of the critters under his boot while he and his partner, Jose, marched in tandem, a stretcher carried between them. Adrian led the way straight for the woman laid out in a thick, red pool of her own blood. Across the room, the heavy jowls of SAPD homicide detective, Juan Coronado, shook along with the rest of his inflated body as he hummed, “La cucaracha, la cucaracha, ya no quiero caminar …”

  Seeing her condition, Adrian damn near dropped the stretcher as he went down on his knees beside the woman. He checked her vitals and shared a look with Jose. She was barely breathing. The detective watched Jose strap an oxygen mask around her face while Adrian tore into packages of gauze. The bastard cop kept humming his little ditty, as if this woman’s life was irrelevant.

  “Por que le falta, por que le falta, marijuana a fumar…”

  Adrian didn’t speak much Spanish, but, he suspected that this mafia house had probably seen untold bricks of Mexican weed and cocaine flowing through its doors.

  Scrawny but wired and perpetually busy, Jose’s hands shook when he cut the woman’s shirt and bra open with surgical shears. Adrian ripped open another pack of gauze and slapped a whole stack on the gunshot wounds on her belly and right breast to maintain pressure.

  Jose looked at the blood welling between Adrian’s fingers. Their eyes met and exchanged the knowledge that this woman was on the verge of death. “She’s bleeding out. We need an IV, and we need to get her home, now.” Home, for this girl, was the ICU at the Baptist Medical Center, if she made it that far.

  Adrian nodded, keeping a constant pressure on her bandages. He didn’t dare let up. “I got her. You get the rig hooked up.”

  Jose popped the top off a needle full of dopamine and shot it straight into her arm. “She’s in hypovolemic shock – not enough blood in her body.”

  Adrian breathed in the noxious fumes of cheap cologne as the callous detective squatted down to get a closer look at her. Coronado was balding and had obviously given up trying to grow a head of hair – he had it buzzed down to stubble. The detective slid her glossy black hair away from her face and turned her chin up.

  Adrian’s hands were fully occupied with the life flowing through his fingers, but what he really wanted to do was punch this fat bastard for touching his patient. The woman was so damn beautiful. Clean the blood flecks off her face and she was runway model material. Thin, muscular like a runner, she still had some delicacy in her neckline and cheekbones. Skin pale and clammy, her breathing too shallow, Adrian held her life in his hands. He could feel the weak thread of her pulse beneath his fingers, her heart laboring to keep up the fight for her life.

  Dammit, not another one. He’d already seen two DOA’s this week.

  If he was religious, now would be a good time to pray. This girl needed the grace of God, assuming God’s grace wasn’t all used up. Some people lived, some died. Didn’t seem to have much to do with God.

  Coronado looked at him, and back at her. “Take good care of our girl. We need her alive. She has some stories to tell.” Coronado’s eyes were pure business. The detective didn’t care about the girl. He simply wanted a witness for his investigation.

  Jose finished inserting her IV and tapped Adrian’s shoulder. Adrian nodded. He didn’t want to let go of his bandages. Without pressure, she’d bleed out in a couple of minutes, and there was already way too much of her precious fluid on the floor.

  He didn’t have a choice, she needed to go home, now.

  “On three.” Adrian pivoted around to get into position, his hands still pressed tightly against her. Jose looked at her blood-soaked bandages and just nodded.

  Adrian let go and quickly scooped her shoulders up off the floor while Jose held her legs. “One, two, three.” They lifted simultaneously and settled her onto the stretcher.

  Adrian took the opportunity to tear open several more bandages and shove them on top of the red gauze on her chest. The gesture felt futile, pointless. This beautiful woman’s life was leaking out through multiple gunshot wounds. Not much he could do to stop it. After a certain amount of trauma, the human body just quits. The heart cannot continue without sufficient blood.

  She needed a transfusion, like five minutes ago.

  The ICU would handle it, and all her other problems, if they got her there in time.

  The feds sauntered in the front door, slicked up for a night on the town, and blocked Adrian’s path to the ambulance. Only Federal DEA agents would wear dress shirts and khakis to a murder investigation. Adrian looked to Jose, and then Coronado, who was shaking his head. Mexican Mafia cases attracted feds like the grisly floor drew cockroaches.

  Adrian growled low. “Move it dude!” He wasn’t about to let these assholes stand in the way.

  One officer stepped to the side. “Sorry.”

  The other guy walked right past Adrian to address Coronado. �
��So what do we have boys? Guns, drugs, Mexican Mafia, all of the above?” The big white guy with a trimmed goatee had a fat, toothy grin, smiling at calamity.

  Mexican Mafia provides good job security for feds.

  Adrian pushed past them with Jose in the lead, but kept glancing back to the cops to catch whatever details he might glean. He really wanted to know what the hell had happened. Who shot this woman so many times? Half his attention on the woman on the stretcher, he listened in on the cops’ conversation.

  Coronado was shaking his head. “We got a guy in lockup at the station. Caught him driving down the end of the block. Ran a stop sign. He has some gang tattoos we’re looking into. No guarantee he’s involved, but it’s a good possibility. If he was here, all he left behind was a dead body, and some spent shell casings. No murder weapon, and we haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet. That’s about it.”

  Jose yelled at Coronado from inside the truck. “Hey, she ain’t dead yet!”

  His latex surgical gloves stained red with the woman’s blood, Adrian snapped, “She will be if we don’t get moving.”

  Jose nodded in acknowledgment, jumped up to shut the back doors and strapped into the driver’s seat. Adrian braced for the sudden lurch as Jose took off like an illegal crossing the border, skating red lights and swerving around the idiots who didn’t get out of the way fast enough.

  “Aye un chingo de trafico. Pinche wey! Move!” Jose swerved around a Mercedes that hadn’t pulled to the side fast enough. A dying patient gave Jose a serious case of road rage.

  Adrian could do nothing more than lean all his weight onto his hands flattened on her chest and abdomen. He wished for a third hand for the gunshot at her thigh, but he simply couldn’t risk lifting the pressure from her chest wounds. She stirred. Her head flailed slightly and her eyes opened, wandering the inside of the ambulance to settle on him.

  She grabbed his arms and looked down at herself. The dawning realization of her injuries flitted across her face and her dark brown gaze filled with shock and pain. “Finalmente, la muerte me trae la libertad de él. Por favor no déjeme morir sola.” Her eyes were locked on him with such intensity, he dared not look away.

  His limited grasp of Spanish slowly translated her words. “Shit.” She knew she was dying, and didn’t want to die alone.

  She flat-lined. Her back arched and her body seized. He lunged for the defibrillator. “God dammit! Not again!” Blood seeped sluggishly from the abandoned gauze pads.

  He wiped his sweaty face with his shoulder as he feverishly slapped the pads to her chest Go! His finger hovered over the shock button, arrested by her gasping inhale. Shit! The renewed beeps of the heart monitor filled the confined space.

  “What the fuck?”

  He’d seen too many people go over the edge. It was a rare occurrence for them to come back. He left his finger on the button, ready to zap her, but her labored breathing continued to accompany the beep, beep, beep of the monitor.

  He removed his hand from the machine console, snagged up fresh gauze, slapped it on her chest and held on tight. This girl was coming in hot, a real fighter.

  * * * *

  Adrian’s arms felt limp and heavy as he stared at himself in the hospital bathroom mirror. Dark circles of exhaustion surrounded his dirty-hazel eyes. His dark brown mop of hair was starting to curl at the tips, which meant he was due for another buzzcut. He’d put on a little bit of weight since his discharge from the Army two years ago, but, the physical demands of his job and his gym membership kept him rock solid. The angles of his jawline and cheeks were still tight, no flab, no jowls. Getting a little pale though, he needed more sun. Two years of working the nightshift will do that.

  Rotating his shoulders to get his back to pop, he wished for some ibuprofen. His back ached with every step. After scraping three junkies off the sidewalk, and wrestling a two hundred fifty pound man out the passenger window of a wrecked car, he was ready to call it a night. But first he had to check on the woman from the mafia house, just a little peek. He often felt the need to know whether or not these lost cause patients were able to catch a miracle and survive. Some kind of insane scorecard he kept in the back of his mind, the number of people saved versus those who didn’t see the light of day. He’d seen far too many people come out of his ambulance and roll straight into the morgue.

  The hospital admins scrutinized every death, and they were not a forgiving sort. They paid him to save people, not transport corpses. The last three stiffs he’d brought in were looking pretty sad on his tally.

  “Not this one.” Please.

  The EMT courses taught him to assess the situation, to treat each body like a set of vital statistics, doing whatever it took to stabilize those statistics, keep them alive until they reached the ER. They said paramedics experience the absolute worst of everything in the medical field–the worst injuries, the worst working conditions, the longest, hardest hours. It was a given that most guys burn out after a few years. They told him over and over, “Faulkner, just do your best, try to stay emotionally detached from the situation.”

  If only people knew just how emotionally detached he really was. Be fired for sure, probably sent to another shrink.

  On rare occasion, there were situations where he did get caught up in the moment. This woman had been floating in the periphery of his mind since they handed her stretcher to the doctors at the start of his shift. The memory of her words, that creepy fatalistic sound of her voice, the intensity of her too dark eyes and pale skin, the delicate lines of her collar bone and chin. A woman like that should not die so young, so beautiful, at the height of her life. It felt wrong. What a waste.

  Adrian hesitated at the door to the ICU, a spike of anxiety stabbing in his chest. The thought of her death on his hands bothered him, more so than anyone before her. He had to know her fate before he went home. He wouldn’t be able to sleep off the day without knowing what had happened.

  He spotted one of the nurses at the desk, a lady he’d rather not chat with, but she would certainly know the woman’s condition. “Julie, the woman we brought in earlier, multiple gunshot wounds, how’s she doing?”

  Julie stopped scribbling on a chart and looked up at him. “You really want to know this time?”

  They had argued before, when he’d enquired about another patient, on a night much like this a couple months ago. Julie had rattled off some medical jargon about a boy who had died, and then walked away. He had grabbed her arm and got in her face. He had accused her of things that were better left unsaid in an emergency room. They hadn’t spoken much since.

  Adrian studied Julie’s crystal blue eyes and wished he’d handled that situation differently. With his slick good looks, dark hair and eyes, often mistaken for Latino, he’d had success with plenty of women … but Julie wasn’t most women. He’d hoped to get her out of those scrubs, see what she had to offer. Looked like he’d blown that chance. As always, Adrian pretended to be like everyone else and smiled.

  Julie’s eyebrows softened. She smiled back. She wasn’t a natural blonde, but the color looked good with her swarthy skin and blue eyes.

  He moved in closer and dropped his voice to a near whisper. “How is she?”

  Julie stepped aside and pointed. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

  Instant, glorious relief flooded him and a genuine grin split across his face. The woman had made it this far. He’d done everything right.

  At least he wouldn’t get written up for this one.

  He made so many split-second decisions in the field, and not always the right ones. Those were the memories that stayed with him for far too long. It seemed there were never quite enough of the good things to balance out the rest of the shit in his life.

  Adrian blew out the breath he’d been holding and strode into the room. The bright lights and beeping monitors did not diminish her effect on him. Even with her eyes darkened by purple-black bruises and her once glossy black hair matted down on her forehead, looking l
ike shit, she still fascinated him. He guessed her age at around mid-to-late twenties. He really wanted to see her eyes one more time, but, the woman lay stone still, completely out of it.

  Lucky to be alive.

  He picked up her chart and dug through line after line of all the stuff they had done, all the drugs they pumped into her, the blood and plasma transfusions, the weird-as-hell toxicology report. He couldn’t find what he was looking for – her name. She had no ID cards, hadn’t spoken a word, and no one had shown up to identify her.

  What a sad state of affairs, blasted full of holes in a Mexican drug house, cockroaches and all, without even so much as a name. What the hell was she doing there? A wetback? A prostitute?

  No, she was way too … just no. He could never picture her that way.

  He checked her arms. Apart from the IV’s inserted in each forearm, she had no tracks, no evidence of intravenous drug use. Why would a woman like this be found half-dead in a ghetto ass drug house?

  * * * *

  Chapter 2

  Adrian woke in the afternoon to the sound of giggles filtering through his bedroom wall. Damn lesbians were always playing with each other. He couldn’t count the times he’d heard those two getting it on. The architect of his apartment complex had placed the neighboring bedrooms back to back, separated by only the thin sheetrock wall, and obviously lacking the necessary insulation.

  He had stopped trying to imagine what they were up to months ago. After Candice got back together with April, she made it clear she no longer appreciated Adrian slipping in through her sliding glass door in the middle of the night anymore.