by Unknown
Buer stood suddenly. “Ladies, please. This is supposed to be a pleasant dinner among friends. Does anyone want more? If not, I’ll clear this away and bring out the dessert. Ronobe? Sammael? No. Anyone else?”
Jeanine still glared at Camiel who smiled and ate the rest of her heart. Camiel wiped her lips, which remained a deep lustrous red that Buer desperately wanted to kiss, working his way to her ample cleavage with love bites. He could still taste her cool, porcelain flesh after all these years.
He cleared his throat and unlatched the center trough, pulling the leftover meat into the cold storage pantry. There was enough for tomorrow’s lunch. He drained the blood into containers, which he stored in the refrigerator. Then he brought the plump dessert bull from the pen. Mesmerizing it, he laid it in another trough and brought it to the table. Camiel had cleared the plates and filled two decanters of bloodwine.
Buer went back and tapped the vein of the calf for the rest of the white wine, and then brought out the cow filled with port. She meekly followed him and he tethered her in the living room near the gas fireplace, her amber skin shining in the fake firelight. She sat on the cushion and he left one of the others to mesmerize her while he went back for port glasses. “Help yourselves,” he called into the icy silence still pervading the room.
He sighed and took a shot of scotch off of the other calf in the pen. Closing his eyes, he let the fiery drink singe him. Camiel always caused cold wars. But it was that coolness that had drawn him. How he wanted her.
Back in the living room, Ronobe and Sammael clasped each other’s hands, sitting tensely on the edge of the sapphire blue couch, too wound up to taste desert.
Arkon bit into one of the fingers, while Camiel fed on the opposite arm. Jeanine just sat back nursing her pure wine. Buer tasted from the bull’s ankle and then poured port from the cow for everyone. She lay on her side as if asleep. He had to remember to feed the cattle the iron rich paste before he went to bed. But later.
“Okay,” Buer said. “What is it?”
Sammael glanced at Ronobe and nodded. Ronobe bit her lip, uncharacteristically hesitant. “Well, we know you might find this a shock, but we’ve been talking about this for years now.” She paused as everyone sat looking puzzled. “We’ve decided to have a baby.”
“What!” Jeanine blurted, looking even paler. “But—”
“Yes.” Lean Sammael smiled. “We’ll die.”
Camiel shook her head, her brow creasing. “But why? Don’t you enjoy life?”
Sammael smoothed back his nearly white hair. His unwrinkled face was as ageless as always. “When you have lived as long as I have, it … pales after a while. I have wanted a child for the last century.”
Ronobe smiled. “I wasn’t ready then. But we’ve activated our cycles now. It’s exciting. The future has suddenly taken on a more intense hue.”
Arkon just shook his head. “But your child won’t get a chance to—”
“To what?” Sammael asked. “Our child will get a chance to continue the line or live forever, whatever it chooses.”
Ronobe replied, “You forget. We all forget. Our parents did the same and were around for as much as a century after our births. And the sex is somehow … stronger.”
Buer shrugged, looking at Camiel. Would she ever want a child? Ronobe and Sammael each had to trigger their reproductive tracts, which would kick in the aging genes: Nature’s control over the vampirii. Only an idiot started the process without a willing mate. Buer swallowed his bloodport and poured another, thick and purple.
Camiel glanced over and licked the rim of her glass. “Well, I wasn’t going to announce this now but I can’t let you two have all the fun.” She pulled out an intricately carved silver moon on a chain. “I’m engaged.”
Buer didn’t hear the rest. The walls and chairs sucked away the sound. Everyone in the room seemed to recede. Mouths moved, motions slowed. What now? Camiel had been his beacon. She must care deeply if she was willing to marry whoever it was. Few vampirii bothered anymore. He would have bothered. Should have.
Numb, Buer saw Jeanine to the door, followed shortly by Arkon. He grabbed Camiel’s arm as she swirled toward the door. “Are you sure about this?” At her look he elaborated. “I mean, I was hoping perhaps we could try again.”
Camiel’s laugh was more a short bark. She ran her fingers over her jaw. “It was fun, Buer, but you’re too tame. You always follow the rules.” Then she was gone. Out of his life.
He downed a couple more glasses of port and then shooed Ronobe and Sammael out, saying he’d clean up, congratulating them one more time, trying to smile before he locked the door.
He turned back and surveyed the room. The limpid sun was rising, its weak light barely penetrating the darkened glass of the apartment. In the light of the flickering flames, Buer flopped onto the couch. The bull still slumbered on the desert table, and the cow was sprawled to the right of the fireplace. He drank the rest of his bloodport. What would he do now? Follow more rules?
Buer stumbled to and fro from the kitchen, clearing glasses and dishes. He entered the pen several times and poured several large shots of bloodscotch until the calf showed signs of convulsing if he drained any more. He put the bull back in the pen and left some food for the animals.
Stumbling back to the living room, he pulled the curtains closed, took off his shirt and lay on the couch, every once in a while lifting his head enough to swallow more bloodscotch. When the glass was empty, he let it tumble to the wood floor as he rolled off the couch. He crawled over to the cow and bit into a limp wrist.
His mind fogged. He flipped over and found his head on a thigh. Kneading it, he bit into soft inner flesh, his fingers working upward. A quiet gasp reached him. Encouraged him.
Sucking some heady port blood, he closed his eyes and lapped, moving up to the juncture. With a moan, small hands grasped at his hair.
Camiel, always so lovely, so cool. He’d show her he could break rules!
But now she was heated. Her legs spread. He slithered up, his pants being pushed off. Nuzzling her neck, he bit lightly and slid slowly into her. She responded, moaning, wrapping her hands in his hair, her legs about his back, pulling him further in.
Buer groaned. “Camiel.” His hands cupped her breasts and he moved rhythmically. As the pleasure built, his head filled with pressure as if his whole being was need and heat. Unexpected, fire flared almost painfully. A thrill of fear that he would burst into flames pushed him over, coming as she convulsed and bucked around him.
Buer groaned and threw an arm across his eyes, snaking his dry tongue over gummy lips. He stumbled off to the bathroom, scratching at his balls. Just as he began to piss he stopped, looking down at his sticky pubic hairs. A spear of ice lanced through him. Shaking, he finished, then turned and stumbled back to the living room.
Lying where he’d left her was the hominid cow, staring up at him. She raised her pelvis to him. Buer ran back to the bathroom, spewing gory chunks of meat and blood into the toilet. Even after his stomach was empty, he heaved and gagged.
Shuddering, he rinsed his mouth. Pink pearls of sweat beaded his brow, rare for any Fallen. Lead filled his stomach as he clutched the edge of the sink.
What had he done? No. Maybe he had dreamed it. A nightmare. But staring at his come-sticky genitals he knew the terrible truth. The one taboo. Never to have sex with an animal, especially a hominid; punishable by death. He climbed into the shower and scrubbed himself clean until his skin shone pink.
He dressed, then reluctantly went to the living room, untethered the cow and put her back in the pen with the others.
Dusk set sullen and cloudy. It was early but he had to get away. Hunger knotted his stomach; he ignored it and hurried from his apartment.
Buer walked the streets, pacing up one and down another, disregarding direction or emerging shoppers. He rubbed his chin and hands, muttering, sorting out what had happened. His mind skittered away from the abhorrent until he convinced himself o
f the alcohol’s influence, the shock of Camiel’s engagement. He couldn’t bare the thought of going back to his apartment and the thought of meeting friends later for drinks made him squirm. Would they be able to tell what he’d done? Would the hominid smell still be on him? He sniffed at his hands, imagining he could smell port and the musky odor of female primate.
Eventually he wandered into an unfamiliar bar at an hour frequented by perpetual drunks. He glanced around at the lowest blue collar types one step above the gutter. He sat at the bar and asked for a Glenfiddich but had to downgrade when they had nothing of that caliber.
The bartender drained a shot from the wrist of a young bull and put it on the counter. For a moment Buer stared at the row of cows and bulls, labels around each neck indicating the type of drink. Then he closed his eyes and shot it back, asking for another.
A scruffy, black-bearded fellow sat beside him, sewer tang wafting off him. He eyed Buer who ignored him, sipping his second bloodscotch.
The guy’s gravelly voice rolled over Buer. “Looks like someone died the big death.”
Buer just drank.
The guy leaned over, giving a quick glance at the bartender. “Hey, you interested in some Flare? Good stuff. Big rush. High lasts six hours, makes the world look like daylight.”
Buer glanced over at him, shaking his head. “What … what would you do if you’d committed the unthinkable?”
The man’s pale skin was pocked and his cheeks dimpled oddly when he laughed. “Like what?” At Buer’s look, the guy stood and backed away. “If you’re a meat mater?”
Buer swallowed. “No. No, no, not that. I mean … cheating on your partner. Drinking too much.” He broke into a sweat again, wiping it quickly away.
The guy laughed nervously. “Man, besides that, nothin’s unthinkable. All been done before.”
Buer heard nothing else and eventually the guy wandered off. After a couple more shots he left, but somehow the bloodscotch had not blurred his mind. The clarity of thoughts jabbed him. His stomach clenched at the idea of eating and yet he had remembered the warmth of the cow as she had enveloped him. A heat Camiel had never had. A fire that burned and soothed him. But then he’d been drunk. A terrible mistake. A nightmare. He would make sure the cow was used up by the next time he saw his friends. No one would know.
By the time he returned to his condo, it was almost daylight again, bloody tinges in a lightening sky. Buer hesitated outside the pen door. He pressed the button to delay the skylight’s opening so he wouldn’t be burned, and grabbed vegetables and beef from the fridge. When he entered he heard whimpering and looked down. Cursing, he knelt by the calf he’d left hooked to the IV for too long. Her red hair twisted in wet tendrils and she shivered. Pulling the IV gently from her bruised arm, he picked her up and unlocked the gate to the larger hold.
Staring at the two females and two males, he calmed them as he set the calf in. They would nurse her back to health; if nothing else, hominids always cared for their calves. Then he put their food and the iron mixture inside.
He looked back and met each gaze, releasing them. The port cow was last and Buer flinched from her gaze. When he released her, she started to come toward the bars, hand raised. Buer backpedaled. He slammed the door shut and hit the skylight button.
His eyes squeezed tight; his heart seemed to twist. She was meat. It was revolting to do such a thing to a creature. Buer lurched to the cupboard, pulling out a bottle of pure scotch and sloshing it into a glass. He took two large gulps that burned their way to his belly but he could not dull the edges. Everything remained crystal clear. Rubbing his face, he staggered to the bedroom and dropped onto the bed.
The alarm had been buzzing for long minutes before Buer awoke, realizing he might be late for work. He had time to gulp down two glasses of cold blood before he left.
He immersed himself in his job, staying late each evening for several nights in a row, reluctantly returning home to feed the cattle and sleep.
Three days passed and he found himself drawn to watching the hominids as they slept and ate. The one female and the two males rutted often. The other, with long curls of amber gold hair sat alone, but once was forced to mate with one of the males. She screamed and clawed until Buer intervened, mesmerizing them all before pulling her out.
She tilted her head, looking up at him, a tiny smile playing her lips. He stared into her eyes as they glazed over, then leaned down and kissed the unresisting lips. Once Buer had laid her in the trough on the table, he went back and poured a glass of pure wine. Then he opened a vein on the cow’s wrist and dripped the blood into the wine, watching the drops swirl and spread.
Taking two swift gulps, Buer stood with the sharp curved blade and leaned over her throat. She was truly beautiful, for hominid or vampirii. The knife clattered to the table as he admired the gentle curves of her body, the full breasts. Before he knew it he had reached out to stroke a breast. Buer gasped, pulling back, watching the rise and fall of the cow’s chest.
This was taboo! There were rules, laws. The Book of the Fallen was explicit. Do not raise up the lesser creatures. Yet, the heat had been wonderful, soothing. Buer hadn’t even realized he was stroking the warm flesh again. It was more than the yearning for the beautiful vessel. It was more. Far more.
He took her off the table and laid her on the floor as she slowly emerged from the mesmerism. “Aurora. Like the dawn.” And Buer was as naked as the cow when he crawled over her, letting his cool flesh heat against her skin, his erection growing.
As he entered her, he felt the steady fast beat of her heart, his thrusts matching it. The cow gasped, moving beneath him.
Conflagration, of all-consuming heat that threatens to boil brain and eyes, evaporate flesh to papery ash. The contrast of fire with the moistness that whetted him brought Buer over the edge, gasping as his heart thumped two bass beats.
He pulled away from the cow’s grasping fingers. The realization that his resolve had melted away sent him hurtling away to be lost in the warren of streets and bars.
Eventually he had to return home, only to find that he had left the cow loose.
“Aurora.” He stood in the doorway watching her glistening flesh as she ran her hands over his art works, paintings, the couch, feeling textures. She turned and smiled shyly, then moved toward him. He held her at arms’ length, looking through her, knowing now that when the Fallen had left God’s light for darkness that the fall had not been complete. Buer was still falling.
She had lit a fire within him and this path would lead to dissolution. He knew now what the Fallen feared, what the Book forbade.
He took Aurora again, right there on the couch. She gave willingly and as he violently rammed into her, he tore her neck, drinking deep.
Her hands fought weakly against him and her death throes made him come hard.
He cried then. But survival mattered. Fires had been lit that could not be quenched. He stared at the gore of the ravaged cow as he changed clothes. He had broken the unbreakable rule, changed the stakes.
Buer unlatched the pen door, gathered his coat and left, walking into the dawn.
Mamma’s Boy
By Sandra Wickham
“Get back,” she said, one hand on her swollen belly, the other holding the dinner knife in front of her.
He smiled, the same smile he had used to win her heart many years ago. The same smile she knew now to be an illusion.
“Ruthie,” he said, hands outstretched in a gesture of peace, “you really are amazing. That is why I picked you.”
Sweat soaked her forehead and ran under her arms as labour pains shot through her like lightning bolts. She stumbled slightly and fought to take deep, slow breaths. She raised the knife higher as he continued to approach. She had to stop this child from being born.
“I said stay back, Christopher.” Christopher was not its real name, only part of the human façade she had fallen for. She had been fooled all through their courtship at university, a three ye
ar marriage and the first eight months of her pregnancy. Then she woke up a prisoner here and he had revealed his true form.
He smiled again as she doubled over from another contraction.
“There is no point in fighting it, Ruthie. My son will be born with or without your co-operation.”
As soon as she could straighten up, she grabbed the knife with both hands and turned the tip of the blade towards her belly. It might only be a table knife but she hoped with enough force she could kill herself, the baby or both. Christopher laughed again but stopped moving forward.
“It would take more than that to kill my son. He would survive, but you probably would not. We cannot have you dying yet. After all,” his smile widened, “my son will need to feed when he arrives.”
Ruth cursed him, but lowered the knife. Part of her wanted to have this child. She had spent nine months in anticipation of his arrival, reading, singing and talking to him. She backed up and sat down on the bed. Christopher was at her side and wrenched the knife from her hands before the bed could finish sinking under her weight. Another contraction hit, worse than the others.
“Let me help you,” he said as he lifted her legs up onto the bed and eased her back against the pillows.
“This isn’t exactly how I pictured it,” she said as she caught her breath again.
He smiled and for a moment Ruth thought they could have been any ordinary couple expecting their first child. The thought didn’t last; the repulsive image of what he truly was brought bile to her mouth.
“I will get the mid-wife,” he said as he wiped her forehead with a cloth. “It will all be over soon.”
Left alone, she tried to catch her breath and clear her thoughts. Out of habit she rubbed her stomach and sang softly to her unborn child. There was no denying it, this baby was going to come and she could not stop it. She looked around the room for anything she could use as a weapon. But could she really kill her own child? If it came out flailing, with sharp teeth and claws, it might not be too difficult. Still, half of it, her half, would be human. She would rather kill Christopher. No part of him was human. But by the time the door opened and the mid-wife entered, Ruth hadn’t found anything she could use as a weapon.