The Fertile Vampire

by Ranney, Karen

  His fingertip traced my lips.

  “Do you know how I crave the taste of food? How I long to sip a glass of wine, to taste pasta on my tongue, to eat meat?”

  I wished he’d move away. I sent him a thought he should do so, now, but all he did was chuckle.

  I opened my eyes, saw a doorway behind him and one to the left.

  “Why not drink me dry?” I said. I’ve never been wise when my back was to the wall. I had a tendency to be sarcastic at the wrong time.

  “It doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid,” he said, his hand smoothing the sheet atop me. Instead of being turned on, his touch through the sheet made me feel clammy. “You’re the product of a witch and a vampire. You would only make me sick, which is what happened to poor Doug. But he was a good soldier; he came back time and again before he was able to turn you.”

  I was suddenly nauseous and I wasn’t sure if it was what he was saying or the effects of whatever he’d given me. Whatever it had been, it had certainly banished any of my inhibitions.

  “So, Doug was another one of your little minions?” I said. “Did he turn me on your orders?”

  “Of course. I’ve watched you since you were born. Your father bragged of your birth.”

  I was going to be sick. With any luck, I would throw up all over Maddock.

  “He knew about me?” I shouldn’t have asked the question and wished it back the minute it was voiced.

  “Indeed he did. He knew your birth would add to his power. No one else had ever been born with witch and vampire blood. You could be a Dirugu.”

  I wanted to ask about him. Tell me who he was, beyond being a vampire. Tell me he had some humanity about him, that he loved sunsets and liked something normal like football. Tell me he thought me more than a clump of DNA who might add to his power base.

  Who was he?

  Never ask a question unless you know the answer. Who’d told me that? Tom, a friend in pre-law. We’d dated, realized we weren’t as romantically attached as just friends.

  He was one of those people who’d disappeared once I’d become Marcie Montgomery, Vampire or Something.

  “You killed him, didn’t you?”

  “Does it matter, Marcie?”

  I wasn’t prepared for the surge of rage. I sat up and pushed him away from me.

  “Yes, damn it, it does. Everything matters, you son of a bitch. What do you want from me?” I scooted closer to the headboard, drawing up my knees and wrapping my arms around them.

  “Your womb.”

  I was stunned.

  “You want a child?”

  He nodded. Maddock was even more handsome now. His cheeks were bronzed with color, his eyes sparkling.

  “Why? You’re feeling a sudden yearning to be a father? You’re immortal, so you don’t need progeny.”

  “By feeding from our child, I would be healed.”

  I stared at him, wide-eyed. “You would kill an innocent child just to be able to eat?”

  “Not just to be able to eat, Marcie. You have powers you have not yet discerned.”

  He hadn’t mentioned my ability to walk in the sun. Maybe he didn’t know.

  Reaching out, he placed his hand on my arm. I shivered and moved away.

  “The child would not be harmed.”

  I didn’t believe him.

  Folding my arms, I leaned back against the pillow and wished I could teleport myself back home.

  “Can a Dirugu fly?”

  His eyes widened. “Fly? There is no end to your powers, I suspect. We shall have to wait and see what transpires. There’s not much written about the Dirugu.”

  I knew that from my own search.

  My smile felt like a rictus. My neck was welded to my stiff shoulders and my legs felt like steel pipes. I was finding it difficult to breathe. Counter to everything I’d read or seen, vampires do need to breathe a little. If they don’t, their lungs fill up with fluid and they get pneumonia. Pneumonia meant their blood was infected, ergo, death. Again.

  I would have run if I could have. I would have left Maddock’s home and found someplace, any other place to be. I would have braved the creatures of the darkness, including werewolves.

  “I’m an insurance adjuster,” I said.

  Maddock had a truly spectacular smile, one crinkling the corners of his eyes and revealed his even teeth.

  “You are also an aberration.”

  The same word Nonnie had used to describe me.

  “Stop saying that!” I held up my hand. “Stop saying that,” I repeated more calmly. “I’m not an aberration.” I’m not a monster. Dear God, if a vampire thought I was weird, how weird was I?

  “You neither steal energy from mankind nor do you require blood. Yet you do not collapse, faint, or die. You eat like any mortal, only more than most mortals. You are warmer than most. You are not in stasis. You are, instead, thriving.”

  I was trying to process what he was saying when he added a comment.

  “There are Kindred who would wish to kill you, Marcie. Or study you, if they knew about you.”

  I had an image of a mortuary table, but instead of being dead, I was alive, watching as I was prodded, poked, and tested.

  My stomach rolled.

  “But no one else knows,” he said. “Your secrets are my secrets.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Yeah, right. Only because you want to use me yourself.”

  I’d offended him. His nose drew up as his lips thinned. Even his neck looked stiffer as he became even more patrician and duke-like.

  He glanced toward the window but that was just a ruse. He probably felt, as I did, dawn coming.

  “I’m not sleeping with you,” I said, sliding from the bed and grabbing the comforter to cover myself. “I’ll sleep on the floor first.”

  He pushed a button on the end table and the shutters closed with a soft whirr followed by a click and snap.

  He smiled again. “You can have this bed. I will sleep somewhere else.”

  With his mistress?

  “The coffin thing, is that a myth, too?”

  “We shall talk about the coffin thing another time, perhaps.”

  “Say hello to Hera for me,” I said. “Tell her I didn’t appreciate her trying to kill me.”

  He had the strangest look on his face as he turned. His features were stiff, his lips thinned, but there was a glint in his eyes I recognized. Maddock was pissed. I wasn’t sure who the object of his anger was: me or Hera.

  “Oh, come now, don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet. She knew about me. You told her, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t speak, but I already knew the answer.

  “Possessive little thing, isn’t she? Does she know you want a child? Someone to use as your own little sippy cup?”

  “You are wrong. She was in New York the night Ophelia was killed.”

  “But she was here the night I was shot at, wasn’t she?” I guessed. “And I’ll bet the big, bad vampiress has a gun.”

  “She’s isn’t one of the Kindred.”

  There went my ability to figure out who was or wasn’t a vampire. Marcie - 0, Maddock - too damn many.

  “Even more plausible, then. She doesn’t know your plans for world domination, does she? All she knows is I’m a rival. I’m not sure you’ll have a warm welcome in her bed, Duce.”

  Even so, right now, I was glad I wasn’t Hera.

  He moved toward the door in one of those lightning fast moves I was coming to associate with him.

  “Will I ever get as fast as you?” I asked.

  “It is perception only,” he said.

  I frowned at him. “You mean you aren’t fast, but you convince me you are.”

  “Exactly,” he said, smiling. “Most of what we do is perception.”

  I thought back to Doug. I’d always thought the sex with him was the best I’d ever experienced, until tonight. Perception again?

  “So, am I your prisoner?”

&nbs
p; “You will be treated like a princess.”

  I wasn’t princess material.

  “I will see you when you wake. Just press the button on the nightstand.”

  When the door closed, I heard the snick of a lock.

  If vampires were the best of humanity, as Maddock maintained, then we were one messed up species.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Hi God, Marcie here

  After sliding out of the bed, I nearly ran into the bathroom. I didn’t care if it was brown marble or had faucets that looked gold. I was desperate for a shower. I had to get clean. Even more importantly, I had to get the smell of sex and Maddock off me.

  The only soap was something brown smelling of sandalwood, reminding me of Maddock. I ditched it for the shampoo, lathered up my body and stood under a rain shower spray of water close to boiling.

  Pink all over, I wrapped myself in one of the thick brown bath sheets and walked into the bedroom again.

  Maddock’s bedroom was wide and deep, with windows on two walls. The bedspread was a multicolor swirly print of brown and beige enlivened with gold thread. The loveseat and chair in the corner were upholstered in beige suede with throw pillows of blue.

  When we’d first entered, I hadn’t been interested in the decor. I hadn’t been interested in anything other than getting the clothes off Maddock.

  Speaking of clothes, where were mine? Where was my purse and my phone?

  I had a vague - and everything after drinking the wine was a little vague - recollection of shedding my dress somewhere in the elevator. Or maybe it had been in the hallway. My clothing was nowhere in sight.

  First rule of escape - don’t be naked.

  I looked around for a clock and couldn’t find one. Maybe Maddock was like my mother. She wouldn’t wear a watch or have clocks mounted on the walls because she didn’t like to measure the passage of time. Of course, my mother wasn’t five hundred plus years old, either. Was their longevity the reason for her fixation with vampires?

  She never lied about her age; she lied about mine. Most of the people she met thought she had a seven year old daughter. Bet they’d be surprised when thirty-three year old me came strolling in.

  Maybe Demi should become a vampire. Then, like Opie, she wouldn’t have to worry about losing her looks or growing old.

  Of course, I didn’t have to worry about those things, either. All I had to worry about was what I was. I had the feeling as time passed I’d grow into more and more powers. Maybe I’d change into something no one recognized like a horned lizard with human looking eyes. Or maybe I’d grow wings, or become a hairy old wizened, immortal, crone who could levitate.

  Only God, who might not have anything to do with creating a Dirugu, would know.

  I looked around and didn’t see a land line. I opened a few drawers but there was nothing like a hidden recharging station and a convenient extra cell phone.

  No dialing 9-1-1 for me. No, of course not. That would be too easy.

  I pressed one of the buttons on the nightstand labeled TV and the upper half of a cabinet rolled and tucked itself away, revealing a massive television. I pulled out Maddock’s top drawer, found the remote in a velvet lined case, pointed and shot.

  A twenty-four hour news station came on, showing the time in the lower left corner of the screen. Six thirty-two, which meant I didn’t have much time before dawn. The best time to get the hell out of Dodge, so to speak.

  The only asset I had - and I meant only - since I was currently without clothes or purse, was my ability to walk in the sun. Granted, I hadn’t done much testing. There wasn’t much of a choice between staying here and being an incubator for Maddock and blistering to death.

  No child of mine was going to be food for a Master vampire.

  Maddock would have security, of course. Vampires always had security to ensure none of the anti-fang movement got to them as they slept. I suspected, however, they would be watching for anyone trying to get into the house, not necessarily leaving.

  Since vampires weren’t a secret nowadays being on their payroll wasn’t a big deal. On the contrary, working for a vampire commanded extra pay. They demanded silence during the day and additional staff to care for their needs at night. With any luck the daytime personnel didn’t live-in like the nighttime staff probably did, which meant I had about thirty minutes between dawn at seven twelve and when they arrived for work.

  First, however, I had to solve rule number one.

  Maddock’s closet was hidden behind a wall panel and easily the size of the entire downstairs of my townhouse. A built-in chest with drawers on all four sides sat in the middle of the carpeted space. I opened one of the top drawers to discover Maddock liked rings and diamonds of all colors. I shut the drawer, moved to the opposite end of the closet where shirts were arranged by color, then style.

  I grabbed one of the long-sleeved black silk shirts and put it on. The cuffs fell below my fingertips, the tail covering up most of my nether regions. My butt, however, felt the breeze.

  Dismissing his trousers, I walked the perimeter of the closet, looking for something wouldn’t fall off me. Maddock was about ten inches taller than me and a lot heavier.

  I stopped at the rows of sneakers.

  Who knew a vampire would have a collection of Nikes? Above the shoes were what might be called workout gear for anyone else. I doubted, however, a vampire needed to sweat. Maybe Maddock had selected his clothing like he’d probably done his decorating - by simply calling someone, pointing to the closet and saying, “Fill it.”

  The sweatpants had a drawstring, which meant I could keep them up. As far as tripping over the length, I solved that by finding the manicure set in another drawer. I used the small scissors to cut away the bottoms of the pants.

  I wasn’t sartorially perfect by any means, but I wasn’t naked.

  Six fifty - I didn’t have much time left.

  I couldn’t take the chance of opening the shutters until after the sun rose. Before that, someone of the vampiric persuasion might hear and still be conscious.

  I had one chance - and only one chance - of getting out of here. Once Maddock learned I could walk in the sun, I would be guarded day and night.

  The problem was I didn’t know where I was in the house. I assumed I was on the second floor, since we’d taken the elevator. I dismissed the possibility of being underground. I’d seen the sky before Duce had closed the shutters. I also tried to tell myself I wasn’t higher, like a third or fourth floor. I wasn’t fond of heights, but I’d be willing to descend the Matterhorn to get out of here.

  Right now I’d work on the assumption I was on the second floor and could find a way from the balcony down to the ground. How? Fly there?

  Could a Dirugu fly?

  Maddock hadn’t known very much about a Dirugu. Nobody else had, either. Well, if I had to be a creature, maybe being a secretive creature was better than everyone knowing everything about me.

  I went into the sitting area. Here was another TV, mounted in a case against the wall. Evidently, the duke was firmly entrenched in the 21st century.

  Hopefully, he didn’t have a state of the art security system, too.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, but I didn’t see anything on the windows. No small electrode to transmit a signal to a main box when the window was opened. No little rectangular box at the end of the track. I was hoping I wouldn’t trigger anything when I opened the shutters.

  I stood in front of the shutters, wrapped my arms around my waist and blew out a breath. I was scared and my heart was racing. I wanted to run. I knew it was the fight or flight response fueled by pure panic.

  Closing my eyes, I said a prayer. Would God understand the next plea? I hope He did.

  If I can fly, show me how. Now, please. Let me be a bird in Your heavens. Let me be a bat flying free from this cave.

  I envisioned a bluejay like the one I saw on the hedge in my tiny garden. He was beautifully colored and mighty proud o
f himself, preening as he hopped from branch to branch. I saw myself soaring in the air, felt my arms stretch and elongate into wings. My skin was thicker and heavier, bearing feathers fluffed and smoothed as the air rushed past.

  My breasts coalesced, bulged, became feather covered. My feet shrank and altered, becoming webbed and dark gray. My face changed, my nose hardening, my eyes sharpening as the earth dropped below me. I rose, seeing the ground rush past. The trees stretched upward to greet me. Other birds cawed and chirped as I soared past.

  I was free.

  I opened my eyes to find myself in Maddock’s bedroom. The sensation of having changed was so strong I stared at my hands and arms. Not wings or feathers. My feet were simply feet. Pressing my hands against my face, I was discovered I didn’t have a beak after all.

  Well, that question was answered. I couldn’t fly.

  Six fifty nine - only sixteen minutes left.

  I doubted if there was a staircase leading from the balcony to the ground. How was I going to get out of here?

  Retreating to the closet, I stared at his collection of suits. How could one man wear so many clothes? I counted three dozen jackets before I gave up. And ties? The man must have had a hundred ties.

  I smiled as I grabbed an armful of them and entered the bedroom again, tossing them on the loveseat. I made two more trips until I had as many as I thought I’d need.

  I began to knot one tie to the end of another. I’d done well in Girl Scouts and could tie any knot. Who knew such a talent would actually come in handy one day?

  My rope of ties stretched a good twenty feet, enough I could shimmy from a second floor perch. Wasn’t silk considered one of the strongest fibers? I thought each floor in a building was ten feet so I should have enough.

  I dumped the rope tie by the window, returning to the nightstand and checking the time. It had taken longer than I’d estimated to knot all the ties together.

  Seven fifteen - I had to open the shutters now.

  My stomach was as knotted as the ties, my pulse beating like I was alive and terrified. My finger hovered over the button.

  Please, let me get out of here.

  I knew I was praying to God. Whether or not He acknowledged it was His business.