by Wendy Nikel
The woman chirped. “Oh, I love that suit.”
“I got your note,” he said. He didn’t look at me but cast a glare at the Bigfoot-sized male vampires that framed the edges of the room.
“Did you check him for silver?” she asked a fourth monster of a man who followed Zach inside.
“He’s clean. And he wasn’t followed.”
The woman walked right up to him, hand extended, like they were clients meeting to discuss a business deal. “Detective Mede, I’m Clara. I’ve been killing all sorts of people to get close to you, when all I needed was”—she glanced back—“Dario.”
He shook her hand. “I suppose you plan to kill me.”
“I do.” She reached up and touched the edge of his mouth. “My goodness, you are something up close. Like a painting. Come here.” She took his hand and dragged him behind her until they stood side-by-side a couple feet in front of me. She gestured to my state of bondage. “Your love awaits.”
He finally looked at me. I was reminded of ten years ago when I first broke into a young man’s house to find him adept at hiding fear, but this time was different. He was hiding nothing. Zach wasn’t afraid at all.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” I said.
“I love you. Of course I came.”
“Awww.” The beast known as Clara put her hand on his chest and leaned her breasts against him. “So cute.” Her petite, feminine body coiled around the front of Zach as she slowly tugged at his tie. She removed the piece of silk from his throat and threw it on the floor. Her elegant hands unbuttoned the top few buttons on his black dress shirt, and then her fingers wrapped loosely around the front of his throat. “Such a lovely neck. Would you like Dario to watch, or shall I take you someplace private?”
Over her shoulder, Zach’s eyes found mine. It was all happening too fast. It felt like minutes ago we’d been naked in his hotel room. Now, we were in a darkened warehouse, he was about to be destroyed, and there was nothing I could do. Surely, Zach had a plan. He was known for getting out of tight spots; he always had a plan.
Then, oh, the horror to realize that I was his soft spot, just like he was mine. I never thought clearly when he was around. I thought Zach above all that sentimental bullshit, but I was wrong. We’d unintentionally squelched one another’s sensibility, and it had led to this. Two years more, and he could have been with me forever, but he would never make it to thirty-five. Thirty-three was apparently his unlucky number.
Desperation made me ask, “Why don’t you just turn him?”
“And make him more powerful? Stronger? Better at hunting his own? The only way to stop him is to kill him, and then, vampires can rule.” She turned long enough for me to see her smile, complete with wet, glistening fangs. “Guess you should have turned him when you had the chance.”
She pulled the collar of his shirt aside and revealed Zach’s collarbone where his skin smelled like cinnamon. Then, she dug in. Zach didn’t struggle. I think I shouted at him, told him to fight back as I knew he could. Instead, he let it happen. He let her wrap her arms around him and drink, drink, suck, until his knees gave way, and she let his body crumble to the floor.
I tore at the chair. Silver scalded my skin, and eventually, the chair and me ended up on our sides. I had the perfect vantage point to watch her continue to feed. One of Zach’s arms extended out to me. He lifted his fingers in what looked like farewell when our eyes met, and I screamed some more.
His eyes had that same quality they’d had in the alley when he’d been shot, the look that said he was fading, taking the long train trip to nowhere. I couldn’t believe how much blood that little bitch could fit in her system. Her hunger seemed endless, until she took a break to lap at his neck and glare at me with laughter in her light eyes.
No one was more fucking surprised than me when a thick, silver arrow thunked into the side of her neck. She howled like an injured dog and flailed at the unwelcome accessory. How Zach had the strength to hold her tight above him, I’ll never know, but he opened his mouth and caught her vamp blood right on his tongue.
A barrage of arrows came flying from somewhere above us. In the back of my mind, I heard the sound of Clara’s cronies hitting the ground, shaking the earth. I was too focused on Zach to care. He caught a few more drops of her blood, but it wasn’t enough for the change.
My Juliet was dying. And fast.
A team of ninja-like humans, all in black, took over the room with crossbows and blood-soaked knives. Must have been more vampires outside, dead now.
It was time for me to man up and stop screaming, so I kicked at my chair and told one of Zach’s guys to free me, fast, or their kingpin would go the way of the Dodo bird. One guy cut my bonds while the other lobbed Clara’s head clean off. Zach’s face was painted in her blood, but he wasn’t moving.
“We need a medic!” someone shouted.
“You need me.” I pushed humans out of the way, and I think they would have killed me if Zach’s hand hadn’t reached up and held onto mine. Even with his eyes closed, he knew I was there.
I used my teeth to tear at my wrist and held the gaping wound over Zach’s parted lips.
Tell me I’m not too late.
For about thirty seconds, we held our collective breaths until Zach choked. He rolled onto his side and curled into the smallest ball a two hundred pound man can make. I knew the change was strange. I knew Zach would feel his own death and then be born into a world much brighter, louder, and filled with human blood.
I held him to me. I cuddled Detective Zach Mede until his dark eyes opened—except his eyes weren’t dark anymore. Details can change in the midst of a turning, and those angry eyes I’d grown so accustomed to were now the color of a morning sky: bright blue and rimmed in the middle with gold.
“Shit,” he said. Zach was never a man for many words.
“All my scars are gone,” he said from the hotel bathroom.
“It happens when you go through the change. A fresh slate.” I lay in the hotel bed—which we’d dismantled. The sheets looked like they’d been eaten by a werewolf, and the mattress was covered in holes. Frankly, I was surprised our voracious lovemaking hadn’t busted a Zach-sized hole through the wall.
He stepped back into the room with one hand where his bullet wound had been. “I liked my scars.”
“I didn’t,” I said.
So earlier, let’s just say his team had been surprised to know that not only was their boss a fag but that he was avidly in love with a famous vampire rights advocate.
Shock number two was probably the fact that their vampire-hunting boss was now a vampire. Zach’s eloquence impressed me as he delivered an impromptu speech about acceptance and integration and all that shit, while promising his transformation would not affect his work performance—in fact, like dead Clara said, he would be a better hunter of those who must be hunted.
As for me, I’d already called my media rep to set up a press conference. Yeah, we were going big: peace, love, and crap.
But the world could wait.
“Come here.”
He walked over to me and landed on the bed on his stomach. It was strange to see him without my teeth marks. I ran my hand down the center of his spine, and he looked up at me.
“Those eyes are going to take some getting used to,” I said.
“You’re telling me. I feel like it’s Halloween.”
“I feel like it’s fucking Christmas.” I lay down beside him and pulled his immense, immortal body to me.
He shoved fingers against my chest. “I don’t cuddle.”
“You do now.” I kissed his forehead.
He only fought and grumbled for a couple seconds before I felt his nose against my neck. Then, his arms wrapped around me. “I’m sorry I scared the shit out of you tonight.”
“I was ready to die if you were.”
He was silent, motionless in my arms. Then, “I’m thirty-three forever.”
I stretched my legs between his.
“God, you’re my old man. I’m only twenty-eight.”
He chuckled against my throat.
“Fuck,” I said. “It’s going to be a lot more work controlling you in bed.”
To prove my point, he forced me onto my back with my hands above my head and his knee right in my crotch. I pressed myself against his upper thigh and didn’t even try to take command. If I thought he was strong before…
He licked my throat, and I stared up into those unfamiliar, alien eyes—but he was still my Zach. He was still that brave kid from ten years ago who got beat up and railed by a three-hundred-year-old vampire. He was still a hunter. Most importantly, he was mine. Mine, mine, mine. Forever.
Originally published in Cwtch Press’s Blood in the Rain I
About Sara Dobie Bauer
Sara Dobie Bauer is a writer, model, and mental health advocate with a creative writing degree from Ohio University. Her short story, "Don't Ball the Boss," was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, inspired by her shameless crush on Benedict Cumberbatch. She lives with her hottie husband and two precious pups in Northeast Ohio, although she'd really like to live in a Tim Burton film. She is a member of RWA and author of the paranormal rom-com Bite Somebody, among other ridiculously entertaining things. Learn more at http://SaraDobieBauer.com.
VIOLET R. JONES
In a Quiet Village
The candles had been put out for the night, but the pale man was all the more easily seen in the darkness. Eighteen-year-old Cassandra tried to keep her breathing quiet and steady so that her same-age companion, Lorna, sleeping next to her, would not wake up and find that they were not alone. It was not easy with the way the pale man slid his cold hands over the warm, soft slope of her belly. He pushed Cassandra's nightdress up over her breasts and suckled one of them. His teeth lightly grazed her nipple, and Cassandra shivered.
Cassandra’s mother paced back and forth in the hall. Worry reverberated in her every shuffling step. Cassandra bit her lip, trying to keep silent a whimper of pleasure, as the pale man’s long fingers slipped inside her. Any sound could draw her mother, and the door was bolted on the outside—as if a simple lock could keep out the devil whom pious Mother thought hunted Cassandra.
Mother was wrong. Cassandra pressed her hand against her mouth, mostly failing to muffle a groan. She rolled her hips. The devil was not hunting Cassandra. She had invited him in.
The crack beneath the door slowly shifted from dark to light. Mother was coming closer with her oil lamp again. Had Cassandra made too much noise? She wondered if the pale man saw the slowly spreading light, and if he saw, if he cared at all. There would be a moment's warning as mother unbolted the door. Would he stop? Would he break guiltily away from her and slip into the shadows that he came from? Somehow, she did not think so. The pale man who came into her room by night did not care about customs or canon law or locks or serving girls sent to keep watch. Why would he care about mother at the door watching while he rode Cassandra?
Although she was already flush with arousal, shame at the thought of discovery burned hotter beneath Cassandra's skin. And, yet… and, yet if mother saw, at least then she might understand that Cassandra was not this pale devil's victim. She chose this. She chose him. This sin was Cassandra's preferred Paradise.
His fingers slid out of her, and something harder and thicker pressed inside. Cassandra bit down on the hand still pressed against her mouth. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes. After so many nights, she should have grown used to the feeling of him filling her. She had not.
There was no darkness in the crack beneath the door now. The light from the oil lamp entirely filled the space. Cassandra was past noticing.
She did not so much forget Lorna in the bed beside her as she stopped caring. Cassandra wrapped her legs tightly around the pale man’s hips, pulling him deeper inside her. She thought she heard his growl of pleasure. His first thrust rocked her back against the bed. She sobbed with ecstasy against her bitten hand. Her head turned to the side as she writhed under the pale man, and Cassandra found herself staring into Lorna's hazel eyes. The serving girl's breathing was strangely ragged. She trembled. It took Cassandra a moment to realize that the girl was touching herself. The servant had gone from watchful eye to eager voyeur, and Cassandra liked it.
The bolt on the door started to slide.
“The door,” Cassandra hissed.
Lorna scrambled from the bed. Light sliced through the darkened room as the door opened a sliver. Lorna fell bodily against it, forcing it closed with a crack of protest. From voyeur to willing accomplice. On the other side of the door, Mother protested too. She banged her fist against the door rapidly, crying out curses against Lorna and the devil, and threatening to send for the village priest.
The pale man thrust inside Cassandra harder. Faster. Straw scattered on the ground from the mattress. Cassandra realized he was fucking her in time with the quick but helpless pounding of mother's fist against the door. Cassandra gave up any pretense of being quiet.
“Yes! Oh, God!” The blasphemy burned Cassandra's lips, and she loved it. “Yes!”
Cassandra heard a thud against the door. It was not Mother. It was Lorna’s head striking the wood. One of the girl's hands held the door tightly closed. The other was between her legs, lifting the hem of her thin nightdress. Lorna's hand moved in tiny thrusts.
With the sound of her own cries, the slapping of the pale man’s flesh against her own, and the needy, shameless moans coming from Lorna, Cassandra did not notice the moment that Mother's pounding stopped. The light rapidly retreating from under the door commanded none of her attention.
Bliss shivered through her. Cassandra gave herself over to the little death again. Christ promised to resurrect the faithful once, but in the pale man’s arms, Cassandra had died and been brought back to life night after night after night…
She felt the prick of his sharp teeth—against her breast this time. This second penetration always signaled they were near the end. She had learned the pattern quickly: ecstasy, then blood, and then he was gone. The only part of it she’d change was the last.
At first, the waking world was not so bad. The first morning, she hugged the memory of the pale man to her tightly and wondered if he was a dream. Dream—or something else—he damned her. She could never confess the things she had done with him, dream or not. Each morning after that, the warmth of the sun seemed less satisfying compared to his cold kisses. Cassandra found herself growing more impatient with the smallness of her cottage, her town, and the role she was expected to play as obedient daughter.
Cassandra found it difficult not to give voice to her displeasure, as if giving into her every desire at night made it impossible to keep quiet during the day. It was Cassandra finding her voice as much as her ever paler skin that made Mother first suspect a devil had found his way into Cassandra's room. Cassandra could only wonder if Mother had guessed that the pale man had not only found his way into Cassandra's room, but her bed—and Cassandra herself. Mother would never think to suspect Cassandra wanted him there.
The wet suction of his mouth brought Cassandra back to the moment. To reassure herself that he had not gone, Cassandra scratched her fingers down the pale man’s back. She felt him spill inside her, and she smiled.
The pale man lifted his head. Cassandra tangled her fist into his hair and pulled him close to kiss her. Her blood in his mouth tasted of copper.
The pounding at the door was louder this time. Harder. Angrier. It made Lorna jump, but she held fast to the door.
He pulled out of her, leaving her feeling hollower than she ever had before. The pale man began to slip away, as he always did. Unhurried. Just… sated. Cassandra reached out quickly to take hold of his hand.
“Wait,” Cassandra said.
He stopped. There was serenity in his stillness that Cassandra might have envied if she understood it. Cassandra found herself anything but calm. Her father's bellowing on the other side of the door refused to form itself
into words, but it gave Cassandra an added sense of urgency. What if next time they thought of something that could actually keep the pale man away? What if he tired of her?
“Please,” Cassandra said hoarsely. “Take me with you?”
What if he didn't want her? They seldom spoke. She burned for him and thought she felt the same fever in his lips and fingertips when he touched her. But what if she were wrong?
“Forever?” the pale man asked. Cassandra saw something guarded come into his expression, as if he feared she might reject him. It gave her hope.
“Yes,” she promised, excited as a child.
She watched as the pale man raked a long fingernail down his throat, making it bleed. Cassandra could understand Lorna's gasp of surprise, but she didn't feel it. There was a parity. When the pale man drank from her, it felt intimate. Important. It seemed right that to join him, Cassandra had to drink from him.
Cassandra pressed her mouth to his bleeding throat. His blood did not taste like blood. It was bitter and made her feel like a charge hummed in the air, like before a gathering storm, except the storm was inside.
The wooden door finally splintered, sending bits of wood and Lorna scattering. As it swung open, a man stood in his nightclothes, holding his club. Cassandra was aware of him, but he seemed unimportant now. She knew he was her father, but whatever weight that used to have was lost somehow. Whatever shame Cassandra might have felt at being discovered was gone too.
He swung at the pale man with his club, but Cassandra caught it easily, shattering it in her hand. The man who had been her father went bloodlessly white with fear, but Cassandra could still smell the blood in him. She didn’t realize that she was moving closer to the old man until the woman who was once Cassandra's mother came between them.
“Get out, you devils!” the old woman shouted. “Both of you!”
Cassandra found she wanted nothing more than to be gone—not even their blood. In only her nightdress and without a goodbye, she turned to go.