The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  Lucien approached with his sword, smiling, coaxing her to join him.

  She backed away in fear. Her eyes widened as he slashed his forearm with the blade and offered his blood to her.

  “Come on ... this is what you’ve been waiting for.”

  The effect of his blood was immediate. Even Lucien jumped with shock, staring at her fangs sinking into his arm, sucking on the wound with wild abandon. He became aroused with sweet agony.

  She sighed and moaned, drinking her first human blood.

  His erection became as hard as a marble headstone. The ache for release sent shudders through his body. Lucien’s eyes rolled up in their sockets with the unstoppable surge of ecstasy. He tingled with an explosive orgasm that almost stopped his heart.

  What joy! Her dark vampire lullaby he had grown to love as a teenager returned full volume. The fluttering of ravens’ wings upon a celestial harp sounded so sweet, so mesmerizing, he felt at home once more. He had finally allowed her to fulfill her birthright and it was wonderful – better than sex.

  The Count screamed at Lucien, “She’s draining you!”

  Lucien obeyed his inner demon and snapped out of her hypnotic allure, snatching his arm away. He stared at the blood seeping from the slash and was amazed to see her haggard looks quickly fade, replaced by a wondrous, fine porcelain skin. Her brown eyes turned black as night and gleamed with bloodlust. Her lustrous hair shone with a delightful radiance.

  Delicate Rose laughed, swirling around the room with pure joy. She stuttered as if in pain, running a finger along her enormous fangs.

  “Oh Lucien, you cannot imagine how it feels ... I am free.”

  The mistress stopped and stared with obvious hunger at the tall Negro and the delicious brunette at his side. She gleamed her fangs and licked them with obvious intent. “That one never told you what the militia did to him ... would you like to know, Lucien?” She snarled.

  Lucien knew both his companions heard her vampiric lullaby fill their minds with its hypnotic allure.

  “They’re begging for it, Lucien. I must have them ... right now!”

  “So be it!” Lucien grabbed Jacques’ arm and was about to slash it with his sword when he was pushed aside.

  “They stapled his foreskin to a chair and beat him.” She smiled wide, a grin filled with animalistic teeth, and sank her fangs into Jacques’ arm.

  Jacques flinched in pain, the shock of her words evident on his face. “The bitch can read my mind.”

  “Join the club.” Lucien chuckled.

  Claudette looked nervously to Jacques then to Lucien who urged her on. She offered her arm to the mistress. Her pain was exquisitely etched on her face.

  Lucien stood proudly watching his Delicate Rose grow stronger on Claudette’s sweet offering. He hoped the taste of Delicate Rose’s blood would be like a heavy red wine, heady and strong.

  “Wait for it,” The Count demanded.

  Her dark music filled his head with confusion and madness. He had to concentrate to rid his mind of visions of wild parties of writhing nakedness, an orgy of squirming bodies, sex and blood. Lucien wondered if drinking from three different vintages was wise, but it was too late to worry. He clearly saw the blood lust taking her over.

  “Enough!” The Count ordered.

  Lucien pushed his mistress away from the two uncorked bottles. He grinned with dark pleasure when she begged him for more with her luminous eyes as hard as black diamonds.

  “How wonderful you look, my Petite Rose. You’re beauty has returned in all its glory.” Lucien smiled.

  The Count spoke, “Think of her bitch friend Ellise painting her portrait. It will distract her.”

  Lucien obeyed. He smiled at her look of confusion. “You look good enough to eat.” He nodded to his friends. “Hold her!” He snatched her arm and slashed it, laughing cruelly as her flesh parted.

  Lucien’s Petite Rose screamed at the sight of her precious blood oozing from the gaping wound. “Not my blood! No Lucien. No!” She trembled in terror. She tried to pull away from Jacques and Claudette.

  Lucien gripped her arm firmly and drank. He looked into her eyes as black as coal. “Oh my ... this is so smooth, my Sweet Rose.” He drank her eternal essence for some considerable time before allowing Jacques and Claudette to do the same.

  Lucien placed the sharp edge of the blade to Sweet Rose’s throat while Jacques and Claudette drank her precious essence. The Count told Lucien not to let his friends drink so much, that way he would be the superior one.

  Once it was over, the mistress fell to Lucien’s feet, whimpering pathetically. She pawed at his legs, fumbling at his bulging groin as her disheveled looks rapidly returned.

  “Please, Lucien, let me out, let me feed,” she begged. “I want to look beautiful all the time ... not like this. I want to dance. I want to see my friends.”

  “I want to see my friends,” Lucien said in a childish, teasing manner. He laughed, indicating to his companions to leave. A brief shrug of compassion forced Lucien to squeeze a few drops of blood from his arm. With a wicked chuckle, he pushed the love of his life to the wooden floor and sneered as she lapped up the tiny pools of sustenance.

  She licked blood from her lips. “You’ll always be a Suckling, Lucien ... always depending on my blood ... a pathetic addict. I’ll never give you my Eternal blood. Never!”

  “I’ll take what I need.” Lucien locked the door and smirked when her feeble fists hammered it to be let out.

  “If you take my blood, you’ll lose me forever, Lucien. You will never be an Eternal, for my blood was not meant for you.” She thrashed at the door, hissing with spite. “I never loved you.”

  Jacques and Claudette looked concerned in the hallway.

  “What’s a Suckling?” Jacques asked as Lucien pocketed the key.

  “That’s what she thinks she’s condemned us all too ... forever suckling on her blood when she sees fit.”

  “What happens if she should die?” Claudette said with a worried look.

  “What the fuck do you think? We all die.” Lucien grimaced, soon to be replaced by a wicked smile. “Don’t fret, my beautiful Claudette. I won’t let it come to that. Better prepare for the making.” Lucien grinned and listened to The Count.

  “Your blood will boil with her poison. The pain will make a real vampire of you. Be prepared!”

  Lucien smirked. “It’s going to hurt, so I have heard.”

  “The making?” Claudette frowned. She turned to Jacques who shrugged so what.

  Chapter 13

  3rd June

  DURING DAWN’S RAPTUROUS arrival, Lucien, Jacques and Claudette suffered through the making. The alchemy of vampiric conversion was an angelic lullaby of sweet torment. The blood fire, so intense, all three thought they would surely die.

  Lucien trembled with the poison boiling through his veins. Sweat erupted all over him. He burned with a liquid fire as the making contaminated his blood, heart, arteries and flesh. A freezing cloak wrapped his body in an icy embrace. He shuddered with every fiber. In a flash of scorching agony, hell’s flames tossed him into a furnace. The ancient music filled his head to bursting. It drove Lucien mad.

  Naked, he leapt from his coffin and raced around his bedroom, crashing into furniture and walls alike. His wildly pumping heart started to slow. He stopped the raging and listened breathlessly.

  He stared in wonder at the almost healed cut on his arm. His head cocked to one side as he could hear every single bird, the moans from Jacques and Claudette as they went through the making and the distress from his woman. The dark lullaby had diminished to mere background music. Tolerable!

  An uncontrollable urge to kill shook his body. He looked all around and settled on the four-poster bed. With his bare hands he smashed the bed frame to pieces. The Suckling Vampire was gratified at his strength, easily twice that of an ordinary man. He wondered how his friends were handling the making, and didn’t give a fuck. Curious, he ran a fingertip across his teeth. />
  “Fuck!” Lucien screamed. He raced up to the leather bound volume next to his sword and wanted to rip it page from page. Count Lucien now realized that being a vampire was not anything like Bram Stoker wrote about, and this made him as mad as hell. His heart still thumped in his chest, his skin was warm to the touch and where were his fucking fangs? He was mad enough to kill and never stop. His patience was at its lowest ebb. He paced back and forth, insane visions of bloodletting ripped through his mind like a scythe through wheat.

  ~~~~

  Later that morning, a miserable Lucien, wearing boxer shorts, shaved his stubbly face in his private bathroom. He grimaced at his reflection, opening his mouth to see ordinary teeth. His immediate anger caused his hand to waver. He nicked the skin at his neck. A tiny drop of blood seeped from the small wound. Lucien’s heart went into overdrive at the sight of losing his precious blood. And the blood flowed like a river in flood.

  At first he panicked, dropping the razor and trying to stem the flow with trembling fingers. The Count spoke to his dark soul, telling him to be calm. He summoned all his focus to slow his wildly beating heart. The blood flow eased to a bothersome dribble.

  He slurped the blood from his fingers and that was when the pain of the making hit him full on. Shooting pains tore from his gums to the top of his skull. His mouth felt as though it had shrunk. He opened wide and watched his canines grow larger and longer. He screamed in agony at his grotesque reflection. Gleaming his large fangs, he shuddered at the thought of drinking all her blood at the Eternal Hour. Once the pain subsided, a scream of pure joy shattered the deathly silence.

  A becalmed Lucien stepped back into his bedroom. What a mess. He didn’t care anymore for such thoughts seemed impure. With a flourish he opened the black velvet drapes and cringed at the hideous light searing his retinas. He turned away, frantically closing the curtains to hide from the wicked sun.

  His face felt hot and sore – a severe sunburn. He dashed back into the bathroom and stared at his red face and bloodshot eyes. His reflection looked so ridiculous, he burst out laughing. Is this how he would spend the rest of his life? He hoped not! A wide yawn revealed ordinary teeth. Only then did it dawn on him that he hadn’t slept in almost eighteen hours. The need to rest overcame his body. He staggered into his coffin, exhausted, and immediately fell into the glorious oblivion of a deep sleep.

  Chapter 14

  LUCIEN AWOKE FROM his slumber a refreshed Suckling vampire. It was late in the afternoon of the third of June – the day of his perfect creation. He felt so virile and powerful. His raging erection needed immediate attention.

  Lucien entered Claudette’s bedroom to satiate his animal lust upon her. He saw the smirk on Claudette’s face and chuckled at her finger begging him to her. Lucien ripped his shorts to shreds and dived on the bed. He immediately tried to mount Claudette, but she giggled, playfully pushing him away.

  Claudette shook her head no and slowly removed her see-through negligee. She slipped two fingers between her legs and groaned. Her excited tongue licked her fingers of her essence. With total abandon, she attacked his lips with her open mouth and with such ferocity, both fell off the bed. She let the kiss go, sucking his tongue and turned around. She used her fingers to spread her labia wide and gently settled on Lucien’s face.

  Lucien marveled at the intricate fleshy petals, his eager tongue swirling around in a figure of eight pattern. He massaged her buttocks and slipped a finger into her anus. His erection was engulfed in Claudette’s gorgeous mouth. He hoped she wouldn’t bite his cock in her excitement. What the fuck, he thrust his hips into her face. In a moment he released his seed as she quivered with multiple orgasms so powerful that he felt a tingling all over his skin.

  Claudette was not done. She swiveled around and impaled herself on Lucien’s still erect cock. She rode him hard and fast, bucking her hips and twisting to face the other way.

  For Lucien, each touch of her fingers as they fondled his balls caused a quiver of delight of such exquisite tenderness, as if he experienced sex for the first time.

  Claudette shuddered and moaned with her finish. She lay on the floor next to him. “What was that thing you did with your tongue ... it was so divine, darling?”

  “I call it The Venus Butterfly. I had a dream that showed me what to do.” He laughed. “Glad you enjoyed it.”

  “Venus Butterfly? I guess I am Venus, but butterfly?” She nudged him to tell her more.

  Lucien sprang to his feet, sated, tired of her attentions. He left her there on the floor.

  All three Sucklings experienced life as if for the first time. Lucien, Jacques and Claudette sat at the oak dining table in the kitchen with total indifference at three plates filled with bacon, eggs, fried bread and fried tomatoes. They sniffed their food warily.

  Lucien dipped a finger into an egg yolk and smelled his finger. He grimaced with disgust. With a shrug, he licked his finger, spitting out what tasted like vomit.

  “What are we going to eat, Lucien ... I’m famished?” Claudette asked in a petulant manner.

  Jacques undid his fly. “Get those lips around this!”

  “Pig!” Claudette pouted and looked away from Jacques’ massive penis. Claudette picked up a twisted strip of bacon and nibbled it like a bird. “That’s fucking terrible.” She tossed her plate onto the floor. “Well?”

  Lucien sighed with irritation. He walked to the food cooler and opened it. A moment of rummaging produced a handful of raw steak.

  Claudette’s eyes bulged at the sight of cold blood dripping from the meat.

  Lucien tossed the huge piece of beef onto the table. All three gleamed their fangs and pounced on the meat, ripping it to pieces. Lucien slapped the shredded steak to his mouth and sucked it dry. He was hungrier than ever now. The steak blood reminded him of his days as a teenager. The image of a teenage boy hacking at a raw leg of beef and sucking on the dead blood filled him with a terrible need. He heard the dull thud of Claudette’s heart. Her distended jugular was most appealing and gleamed his fangs at her.

  Claudette paused with a bloody face. “What the fuck are you looking at?”

  Lucien sensed her unease. He growled with menace, whirling around at the skittering of a rat. He knew it was a rat for its smell created a perfect image of the vermin in his mind. He also sensed the childish rage in Claudette and Jacques. Perhaps he should have let them drink more from the source? The Count mentally slapped Lucien for such feeble thoughts.

  “You are the leader, as it should be.”

  Claudette squealed in pain. She looked at her red arm as a shaft of sunlight slashed across the table. She jumped away and scurried to a shadow, her arm protecting her eyes from the hideous glare. Her bloodshot eyes glared at Lucien.

  Jacques laughed as the shaft left him unscathed. He casually pulled the blinds down on both windows, giving Claudette a superior look.

  “What have you done to us, Lucien? I love the sun ... its warmth caressing my skin after a swim. Will I never feel that again?” Claudette looked at Lucien with tearful eyes.

  “The moon is our mistress now. There’s nothing stopping you from a moonlight dip, is there?” Lucien was also troubled by this revelation, especially now that he sensed Claudette’s pain as well.

  Claudette stormed out of the kitchen.

  “Women ... what are we to do, eh?” Jacques laughed out loud.

  Lucien opened the food cooler and rummaged. He removed more steaks and tossed one to Jacques. Lucien opened a bottle of red wine and drank from the neck. He passed the bottle to his Suckling companion, thinking how to blend with society, when Claudette returned wearing dark glasses and a floppy summer hat.

  Claudette opened the rear door and stepped out into hell’s furnace. She skipped back into the kitchen, closing the door with a giggle.

  “See ... it works!” She tossed a pot of white foundation to Lucien, showing her arms, face, neck and fingers covered in chalk-white cream.

  Lucien smiled wickedly a
t Claudette. It irritated him to no end that this female had outsmarted him. The Count was most displeased as he vented his rage inside the pit of hell that was Lucien’s mind.

  ~~~~

  Lucien left his home wearing his long coat, black gloves, black Fedora, dark glasses and white make-up on exposed flesh. On the way to his favorite Haute Couture to pick up his friends’ new coats, his blood rage overtook him. He strolled down the Pigalle looking for suitable victims. They were everywhere and all begged for him with their pleading minds.

  His first victim stepped from a dark doorway and winked at him. Lucien immediately sensed her need to die. Her misery became his cross to bear. Flashing images filled his mind. She had led a terrible life of beatings from her father, only to suffer more of the same from her pimp.

  Her addiction to cocaine was her individual stench of death, a scent so powerful Lucien actually felt pity for her. He led her to a grimy hotel. With his hat tipped over his face he paid the clerk handsomely and ascended the spiral stairs to a door with paint peeling down in long strips.

  The moment they entered the room, Lucien gripped her by the throat and sank his fangs into the bulging vein in her slender neck. In his blood fury he had forgotten the atomizer of Forbidden Kiss. He held her close so she could not struggle. The blood tasted bitter as if this bottle had soured. So bitter in fact that Lucien could not drink her vintage. Her disease was unpalatable. He removed his sword and sliced her heart in two. He wiped the blood from his face with a pillow case, cleaned his sword and hurriedly left the room.

  Perhaps it was better to leave the cheap bottles alone, and concentrate on a more subtle mature vintage. He chose an elegantly dressed woman walking her dog. Following them at a discreet distance was of no use, for no matter how far back he remained, the damn dog kept watching him. The closer he moved the more agitated the dog became. The little mutt ruined his feast! But he had to drink!