It wasn’t true that Vampires couldn’t reproduce, that they were only dead and putrid meat. But it was nearly impossible to keep them in captivity. The first one to be captured stayed with them for four years enough to have him reproduce. Then they had to suppress him, before he annihilated the entire circus.
With this one it was different. He was born in captivity and was used to all the chains. They looked after him, feed him and taken away all independency. That’s how they thought at the beginning. But then he grew, and the problems became bigger and he became stronger. Now he had nearly eighteen years and the Magnificent tried to make him reproduce. Desperate to dominate it for longer needing to continue his decently.
That was the tale of the Circus, that’s how it prospered. Mating between each other, to create always new attractions. Santini was the man who decided the couples, and nobody could refuse.
The Vampire didn’t have a name, nobody gave him one. Never found anyone to give him feelings, not even as a newly born. He was dangerous, his always been dangerous. No woman wanted to breast feed it for fear of ripping off the nipple. His always been chained, always, since a baby, and his show was the bloodiest of them all. When a goat or calf was put in his cage, he would jump dangling it with his claws, breaking the neck and drinking the blood. There was always someone in the public who always felt sick, passed out or threw up. A lot of people argued but they always came back, because something was fascinating about that horror.
The Vampire had already killed five humans, and they knew it was only the beginning. Every year that passed he was stronger and more dangerous. Kriss was the third one to die in the attempt of mating with him, but the Vampire also killed one of the guards that got too close to the cage, and even a spectator who got attracted by his beauty, without knowing how dangerous it was.
The Vampire didn’t talk, nobody taught him. He didn’t communicate in any way. They were there to give him orders, using sharp lances, but the pain was only momentary as the damage they did to his body would heal up instantly. Physically he was beautiful, but nobody was interested in him: he was a beast, a man of the caves, closer to a zombie than a vampire, affected by a constant thirst which always took him to show his teeth of predator.
Santini allowed him to feed only on stage, and even there with moderation. It was in his best interest that he was starving, ready to pounce on anyone who approached him. What were vampires and what he knew didn’t interest him. Being dead and coming back to life or cursed creatures coming from a land far away, for him it was irrelevant. They were a spectacle, that’s what’s important. In his Circus, there was always going to be a vampire, as there’s always been a Spider-Woman.
Penelope couldn’t remember her mother. Medusa was the only one always next to her but she was too young to be her mother but she was more than just a friend. She was, for her, her mentor, her guide.
Medusa spoke about him the Vampire. “I thought I could make it”, she confessed. “But nothing went has planned. I chained him to the ground. He was naked, he couldn’t move. There was four other men that kept him still. I had to do everything. Only…”
She didn’t look up and turned.
“I didn’t even get naked. I wouldn’t have been able to in front of so many strangers. Santini was also there watching, but he stayed outside of the cage. I only managed to take my pants off and then… I went on hi, I could look at him, he scared me. He smelt my blood, he was excited, very excited. He tried to bite anyone, to free himself. I knew that, if he managed he would have ripped off my throat, I wouldn’t have been able to escape. He was silence, you know? He didn’t growl or made any sound. And those eyes… those eyes! God, how much hate!”
She was shaking, while talking, and this was worrying because Medusa was always a strong woman, to the point of going against the Magnificent. “I made him exited, I tried. It wasn’t difficult. Then…I had to put him inside me. I tried to forget who was watching me, to forget him too. A few minutes and I would have finished, that’s all I could think.”
“It didn’t work”, muttered Penelope, and it wasn’t a question.
“He got free, like it happened with Kriss. During… the act he became stronger, because he was so excited. He escaped from the hands of the man who pinned him down and he got up. I couldn’t do anything! I was frozen, horrified! I found him in front of me, mouth wide open and eyes as red as blood. Hercules managed to grab him in time, stopping him with all his straight, and it wasn’t a small amount, but the Vampire turned, it was so quick, and he bit his arm. He took a piece of meat. Wolf jumped him on the back, putting an arm round his neck, but the Vampire threw him to the ground. I went crazy, I creamed just to be able to escape, but I couldn’t move. He was inside of me, and I couldn’t release, the blood got him even more excited.”
The tentacles on her head started to shake while she was remembering those moments.
“The jumped on him, Hercules, the wolf and others with the lances. Piercing him all over, all the way through the ground. And he fought, continued fighting! While everyone pushed him, he kept waving his claws around to hit them! They shouted and creamed at me to move, to escape, but I couldn’t! I was a prisoner, I couldn’t get up! And that bastard, Santini, shouted saying that I had to continue, to go all the way! They couldn’t keep him, even with the lances through him he was stronger, and then Hercules came. He saved my life. even if he was hurt ran to me, he grabbed me. It was so painful! And when he took me out of that cage that bastard of Santini was furious, he even slapped me!”
Then Medusas voice went down, it became more of a whisper. “Don’t do it Penelope. Escape.”
It was successful in the past, some of them managed to escape, renouncing the life of the Circus. What happened to those poor people? Nobody knew. The world didn’t want them, they didn’t accept them, they feared them or disliked them. There wasn’t anything else outside of the Circus, that was their home.
Penelope never thought about leaving, she couldn’t have been able to. If she didn’t feel accepted there, outside it would have been worse.
But that’s not the reason why she intended to obey Santini.
The Vampire was a beautiful Vampire. Nobody realised but her. Every night she would spy him for hours. It’s been happening for years, since they were babies.
When nobody was around, when he was closed in his cage, when he wasn’t dominated by the hunger, then he would relax, he would sit down on the floor, the small movement the chains allowed him to do, and he would look at the night skies. The times she would have wanted to sit next to him, know his dreams, his desires.
He sleeps during the day, in the darkness of a tent, closed in a strange box, like a coffin. During the day, he wasn’t a threat to anyone. Just at the dawn of sun they chain him up again, before he woke up, and they would take him to the cage for the show. More than once Penelope challenged the sun, which she hated too, to find him. Always with caution, without anyone seeing her.
There was a strange sign on the box, which she didn’t know the meaning of. Something scratched the wood, but not a knife. They looked like claw marks. She asks herself what it could mean and who would have made it. Not her Vampire, he wouldn’t have been able to do such a thing. Maybe his father, the one who proceeded him.
She would open his box and stayed there watching him, caressing his naked beautiful body, there was no way that he could keep clothes on. A beast that in those moments seamed so fragile, so harmless.
He was dead. During the day he was dead, his heart wasn’t beating and blood wasn’t flowing through his veins. It was impossible to excite him, or mate. But she would sleep in the box next to him, she would hold him and hug him often. More than ones she nearly reached her lips with his, but then she would feel nervous and run. She wasn’t disgusted about him, but of herself, poor pathetic monster.
But now it was different, now they were chosen, now they had to do it. Now she had to unite with the man of her dreams. Her, the miserable creature.
“My baby girl!” said Medusa in tears, when the moment come, and she hugged her.
Napoleons tropes where getting closer, and soon they would need to move if they didn’t want to be part of the war. The Austrians where already killing around Castiglione, awaiting the French army. Santini already programmed the departure of the Circus the following day. There was no other than that occasion.
They filled him up with blood, during the show and after. They allowed him to such dry a sheep and two calves, in the hopes that it will make him less aggressive.
Hercules was worried. Wolf, on the other hand, was in shape. That night was full moon, and his fur got longer, covering him whole. His nostrils twitched, smelling the smell of the Vampire.
Next to them there was Pietro, the rock man, and Lazzaro, he could come back from death. At one time, he used to be the star of the show, until Santini found the Vampire. Every night he would kill himself on stage, with different methods, to then reborn again. No matter what, he wasn’t immortal, he knew well that one day it would happen, he wouldn’t be able to come back.
Medusa couldn’t go with them, she saluted her outside of the caravan door. Penelope was the virgin to sacrifice to the monster, they all saw her like that.
Everyone but not her. Penelope was different. They couldn’t understand, but for her this was the night of her wedding, she would unite with the man she loved. She’s been waiting for that moment. She chose her favourite outfit, of course black, and put a vail to hide her horrible bulge. She didn’t want him to disgust her.
She went on her own, a fragile creature and ethereal, towards her destination.
Santini lifted her vail and kissed her on the forehead. “You make me proud, my girl!” he said, as if for him it wasn’t just mating two animals.
The ritual started.
There wasn’t anyone, except them two. They all went to their caravans and closed themselves there, they have suffered enough after so many times.
They moved aside so she could enter.
This time they prepared it. The Vampire was locked to the earth and the chains attached to deep sticks in the ground. He couldn’t move a muscle. No matter what, Hercules and the Wolf were behind him to stop his head. Pietro and Lazzaro put him down to the floor next to their feet.
Nobody dared to look at her, they were too sad for her. In their eyes, Penelope was only a child, and nobody agreed with the obsession of Santini. The mating he ordered was obscene.
Penelope didn’t see a beast, but the boy, the beautiful body which she always dreamt of. A body able to regenerate, to stay forever perfect, for eternity. Would he get old? No, maybe he was already in full maturity and remained like this forever. At least until Santini decides that he is too dangerous to keep using him, he would get rid of him.
But was it really like this? What did they know about him? Maybe he was the first Vampire that was conceived in the human history. Maybe he was different, maybe his life could have been different.
She kneeled next to him and stretched the hand, as if it was the first time she touched him. Now his skin didn’t feel jelly, she could feel his muscles, completely different. She caressed his chest.
Nobody pushed them to hurry, they were all too embarrassed. Penelope slide on top of him, while her hands continued to caress him. She never looked at his face, because she knew she would only see hate. Continued touching his body that for ones she felt completely hers.
What would happen if she managed? She would create a baby with him, and this wasn’t a bad thing. And then? They would have killed him, she was sure about this, and they would have taken her baby away from her to be treated like an animal. Penelope knew this, she wasn’t stupid.
“How was my mother?” she asked to Hercules.
So many times, she asked this question, and so little amount of answers.
He looked at her in shock, but also, embarrassed. “Do you think this is the time? Hurry up, we can’t hold him for much longer!”
He was quite old and maybe he would have met him, so Penelope asked him: “Who was my father?”
Nobody wanted to tell her. Deep down was it even important, she was only a beast in a place she couldn’t escape from.
“Penelope, stop it!”, shouted Hercules. “If you can’t do it tell us, and we will get out of here immediately! Forget about Santini, if you can’t we will go!”
She was on top of the body of the Vampire, with her long outfit covering the nudity of the young man. She couldn’t get naked but she continued to caress the shivering body.
The fact that they fed him wasn’t enough. The smell of blood pulsing in their veins made him crazy. Showing his teeth, trying to bite them, with anger. His eyes changing to a blood red.
Penelope wanted to caress that body, that neck, she didn’t wish for anything else, and she had to fight to stay away. She dreamed to kiss those lips.
“What they hell is this stupid girl doing!” shouted the Wolf. “Does she want to kill us all?”
“Penelope, stop it!”, added Hercules. “Do what you have to do and that’s it. Stay away. Quickly!”
Would he know that beauty is not everything? That she loved him? That she was the only one who would love him? That words didn’t matter, that some things are universal, eternal?
These were the questions Penelope would ask herself, and another one. Has he ever noticed her? The fact that she spies on him constantly, that she follows him everywhere? The others didn’t understand her, but him? He would have spelt her sent, the smell of her blood? Would he understand?
There wasn’t a way of knowing.
Slowly Penelope removed her vail. Ripping it from one side and letting it slide her face. Poor fragile girl, with long black hair and a neck too big, with eyes so big that made everyone disgusted. Opened her mouth, so he could see the cave she was hiding filled with silk.
“What do you want to do?” shouted Hercules. “It won’t do anything! Your strings can’t trap him, they are too fragile!”
Penelope’s eyes where so huge that got the attention of the Vampire. He got lost inside of them, like a fly fascinated by a spider. For a moment, it wasn’t him the monster, and that moment Penelope took advantage of. She went down quickly and united her lips to the young man.
“Puah!” shouted the Wolf. “You are disgusting! Get away from there before he rips your neck!”
Alive lips, not dead, warm lips, humid, filled with anger and passion. The kiss she always dreamt of, the kiss of life, not death.
Penelope quickly moved and lifted her head. A cast of silk was shot immediately and hit the Wolf with violence. The Man-dog was sent flying to the bars of the cage.
“What are you doing?” shouted Hercules, but it was too late. Penelope moved her head continuing to shoot the silk. It fully hit Hercules throwing him to the ground. She didn’t leave him time to breathe when she covered him in her silk.
Quickly moving covering the cage with cobwebs, tying them both, Hercules and the Wolf, not caring for their screams.
“Are you crazy? What are you doing? She will kill us all!” insisted Hercules, but all his strength couldn’t do anything against her silk. It would have taken years to get to such a precision, her silk was something new, never used in the show. It was the wedding silk, the one for her husband, and she would only give it to him.
“Crazy! Crazy!” shouted Lazzaro behind her, and in two they stripped her from her loved one.
She could feel being lifted but this wouldn’t stop her shooting her silk. The cage was already covered. “Stop her! Stop her!” shouted Pietro, but nobody knew what to do.
For a moment, you can see Santini, a prudent and recoiled man already getting away from the cage.
Beast. She knew she was a beast. A poor spider made to display herself. She was nothing for them, everyone exploited her. What happened to her mother? What would they do if she wasn’t able to perform anymore? Was she replacing her mother when she was born? Who did they make her mother hr mat
e with to create her?
“Block her! Keep her still! We have to make her stop!”
Pietro shouted, but didn’t have the courage to go to the end. There was only one way to stop her, and they knew it. Deep down she wasn’t a fragile little girl, being bitten in the neck was a joke compared, but they didn’t have the courage to do it.
“His freeing himself!” shouted Lazzaro, always keeping her tight. “The Vampire is getting loose!”
Even Hercules and the Wolf shouted, trapped in the cobweb. All the strength of Hercules wasn’t enough to break the silk which she covered him with.
It was true, the Vampire was moving, now that nobody was there to trap him down, but he was still trapped in the chains.
Pietro didn’t realise the error he was doing and was walking towards him to stop him. As soon as he was near the area of attack from Penelope, she covered him in silk, shooting him against the bed of the cage and leaving him there hanging.
Lazzaro was hysteric and still fought. “Why are you doing this to us! What do you want?”
Stupid, they still didn’t know. That was their wedding, and they were a gift to her husband, to stop the hunger that devoured him.
“Crazy! Crazy!” shouted Lazzaro, then pushed her towards the Vampire and tried to run away from the cage.
He didn’t manage to, he didn’t have the courage to kill her, and this was his final mistake.
Against the Vampires body, Penelope turned her head and spit the silk hitting the door. Lazzaro started to scream, trying to escape, but it was too late. New pieces of silk were covering him, tightening up not allowing him to move.
He begged for help from Santini, but the Magnificent already ran away to give the alarm.
They could hear screams, and the torches came on. The big circus family ran to the centre of the square. The Vampire was free, they shouted, they had to do something. But in their mind, they knew the error from eighteen years ago. Nobody came forwards, they all strapped the horses to the caravans, ready to escape.
The Prison Page 66