Beautiful Death by Christina Moore

not. Leave for all I care, but I am going.”
    Tristan felt like he lost ground with Ash. He had gone to bed last night thinking they had an understanding. Now he wasn’t so sure. Was he really worried about something or was he having second thoughts about saving Tristan? About helping him? Tristan thought he should try to be a little nicer to the dude.
    “Fine,” Tristan answered with a long, resigned sigh.
    Impatient, Ash made a rude noise. Tristan had to keep a dirty glance to himself as he struggled into the too small helmet and climbed on the too small motorcycle seat behind Ash—the too small dude. Almost immediately, his stomach started to bother him. He knew it wasn’t nerves, he wasn’t afraid of the bike... he just couldn’t say what it was. “God,” he shouted over the noise, “this helmet must feel how David Spade’s coat did when Chris Farley put it on.” 
    “I suggest holding on,” was Ash’s only response. Before Tristan could answer with a snarky, and probably childish quip, Ash jarred forward and down the drive way, fishtailing in the gravel like a squid. Tristan yelped, happy the helmet muffled the noise and grabbed Ash’s shoulder with one hand, the other on the seat edge behind him. He was sure they were going to wreck before they even got to wherever it was Ash was taking them.
    They were only ten minutes into the ride when it became painfully clear that Tristan needed a better grip. Not only was Ash’s katana sheath tapping out a constant Morse code into his shin, but his hold was not nearly what he would have liked against the nutball driving. He’d almost fallen off the seat twice. As they approached a stoplight, which Ash didn’t even blink at, Tristan quickly moved his right hand from Ash’s shoulder to wrap around his waist. Ash stiffened under the sudden change of grip and Tristan made a small surprised noise. There was something hidden inside Ash’s kimono—he suspected it was a gun. But what really surprised him was how little Ash’s waist was under all of the cloth. Almost immediately, his overactive mind went straight to the woman with the big rack that he’d dreamt about.
    Thinking about hot women while pressed up against the backside of another man—awesome.
    After another ten minutes of accelerated red-light running the pair reached their destination. Or what Tristan hoped was their destination. He wanted off the crazy Ash ride. The dude was driving like a he was filming for a Wachowski Brothers film. That and without a jacket Tristan had started to shiver. Okay, okay, so being pressed up against the guy bothered him too.
    As soon as Ash stopped and got the kickstand down, Tristan was off the back, locked in epic battle with the helmet. Ash dismounted with the grace of a professional dancer and switched the machine off, leaving the key behind. In the middle of nowhere, who was there to take it? Tristan concentrated hard on not looking Ash in the eye as the other man moved towards the house. He was still feeling weirded out about holding him around the waist. Oh yeah and then thinking about a beautiful, seductive woman that looked like him while pressed up against his lean, curvy back tightly.
    “God,” Tristan groaned under his breath as he balanced the helmet on the motorcycle’s gas tank.
    Ash was almost to the front door already. Not that they needed to use a door to get in. Fire had taken a big chunk out of the side of the house. Inside were the skeletal remains of a living room set. The rest of the house was overrun with weeds and discarded garbage from the kids who used it to get stoned. No one had lived there for years.
    So why were they there?
    Tristan jogged to catch up to Ash’s hurried pace. “Dude, what’s the rush?”
    “It knows we are here.”
    “Uh, what?” He felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck at Ash’s ominous tone. “What do you mean it ?”
    “Vampire,” Ash answered, as if it were a dirty word, a curse, something so bad