Kato Grange, a not-so-tall barrel of a vamp, enjoyed massaging her breasts and squeezing them as if to flatten them. Trench frequently had to intercede on her behalf and pull the vampire away from her.
A bony vampire named Robert Kirlegast was the most forgiving of the three. He enjoyed her body without hurting her in any way. As so he also was the most humiliating of the three. He’d asked Trench for privacy, and in the twenty minutes granted to him, Kirlegast would undress and rub himself all over 273
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Poe’s naked body. His stale breath against her face would nearly make her vomit.
Other powerful vampires visited her to enjoy her degradation. Trench was apologetic, of course, but did little to stop the traffic to her room. Poe’s mettle was losing its spark.
“Why don’t you get me out of here, Kawana?”
she asked before her friend was sent away to supervise one of Trench’s buildings.
The vampire looked at Poe and massaged her temples. “I’d like to do nothing more, my friend, but if I leave Downtown there’d be no more information to feed the rustlers. The resistance would be in the dark. Without Sainvire the underground is already weakened. It hurts me, but I’m needed to spy, Poe, to save our people.”
Darkness and despair descended like biblical locusts. Poe, humiliated over and over again, had lost her spirit. Without her guns and without her dog, she was nothing. She was locked up in Trench’s room most of the time, and even if she did escape, highly trained vampires in Italian suits guarded the den like seasoned FBI agents.
Her divine talent as a sure-shot was cruelly useless. Trench, perhaps out of guilt, was unusually tender and extremely giving in bed. He never showed his face. The vampire preferred to make love to her in the dark, and by morning he would disappear. One night Poe couldn’t help herself and touched his face, tracing the lines and crags with curiosity. She was surprised that he let her. She didn’t know what possessed her, but she kissed his face.
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“Are you going to apologize?” he asked to which she answered, “Only if you apologize for killing my friends.”
Peter Nesbitt returned on her second month of captivity. As usual Trench ordered Poe to strip and cuffed her wrists on the headboard. The medium-height man with grayish brown hair looked her up and down. Trench’s Obi-Wan was not as frightening as Poe had thought. He looked more like a shoe salesman in his drab blue suit next to the ever refined Quillon Trench.
“This is it, Quillon? This is what you show me,”
Nesbitt said. “Her lying naked cuffed to a bed isn’t exactly punishment.”
“The girl is modest. It kills her every time people gawk at her,” Trench explained. “Why look at her.
She’s red from shame.”
Nesbitt ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s not enough, I’m afraid. This girl cost this city plenty.
She has to pay. Do you know we’ve only caught two RVs since that costly venture in the Central Valley?
Two RVs with useless cattle who didn’t know anybody’s whereabouts. That’s embarrassing to say the least.” Ire written on his face, he looked at Poe.
“So no. This skin and handcuff nonsense is not enough. I will drink from her right now and turn her into cattle.”
His men had braved the sun to fight Sainvire’s people and retake stolen cattle. They risked getting singed by the sun and suffocation from garlic. Those who didn’t die were permanently scarred. He didn’t have to help Trench, but he did so out of loyalty through their long friendship.
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Nesbitt’s teeth elongated. Like a predator he approached the bed where Poe whimpered. Before he could bend down for a bite, Trench hurled him back.
Perhaps too hard. The master vampire from Northern California was thrown to the entertainment center, destroying the 65-inch television with the impact.
“Quillon, you don’t want to cross me for a worthless slut like her. We have history together, boy.”
“Forgive me, Peter,” Trench said regretfully.
“Since my face was defiled, I’ve only wanted to inflict pain on this girl, and that is what I do every night. I mean, look at her. She used to be fierce. Now she’s like cattle.”
“If she is, then why don’t you just make her into a blood cow?”
“What would be the fun in that? Cattle don’t get scared,” explained Trench in a hardier voice. “Let’s enjoy her, but let’s do it my way.” From his pocket he took out two silver spoons and a small surgical knife. He leaned over Poe and slashed shallow cuts into her thigh. He saw her flinch without eking out a sound. With one of the spoons he scooped up blood until the spoon was filled. He steadily handed it to Nesbitt who didn’t hesitate to submit the warm blood to his mouth.
By the time they finished Poe had over a dozen slashes in her skin.
That night Poe lay in his arms, her thoughts a jumble. “Let me go, Trench,” she said, her husky voice pleading. “I promise not to come back and kill you. Just let me and my dog go.”
Trench didn’t say anything. He touched the Band-Aids plastered all over her body.
“I’m dying inside,” she said quietly, painfully.
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Peter Nesbitt widely broadcasted the capture of the new appetizer in town, and Trench had no choice but to share Poe’s blood with every vengeful master vampire whose cattle had been stolen. The girl lay on her back, nude and staring at the Picasso painting to her side while they feasted on her with their spoons.
The painting was a portrait of Suzanne Bloch whom Poe thought looked rather like a man with a swoosh of hair. She didn’t look too happy, either. Mom would’ve loved the painting. Her nakedness and the foul way vampires spoke about her while feeding on her bothered her still, but she found solace in the thoughts of the happier moments in her life.
“I want to fuck her, Trench. She looks better than that drawing you posted up all over the state. Can I get an appointment?” asked a vampire with salt and pepper hair who called himself Lord Byron.
Trench chuckled. “Sorry Byron. She sleeps only with me.”
When the curious and the sated left, he would apologize to her while freeing her from her bonds. “If I don’t let them do this to you, my standing in this city and your life will be threatened.”
“Let them kill me then,” she said tiredly. Trench would insist that she eat fried liver for iron, but she refused, just like she tried to refuse his sexual advances at night.
“You know I can’t do that,” he said while smoothing her disheveled hair. “I’ve grown too fond of you.” He smiled. “I wondered what on earth Sainvire saw in you. Now I know.” He kissed her 277
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forehead and walked her to the bathroom. He filled the bath with water and poured scented oils and soap, never leaving her until a janitor came to help Poe with her bath.
Trench would insist that she take a bath after serving as an appetizer. Ever since she tried to drown herself in the outsized tub, Trench never left her alone. Trench assigned the one-eyed black woman named Frieda to bathe Poe. A deep depression had taken hold of Poe. She lay catatonic while Trench tenderly made love to her at night. The old Poe, so fierce and so sure of her abilities, was gone. She was now a humiliated crumb vampires stepped on.
She remembered telling Maclemar when he held her captive that she wouldn’t fall for her kidnapper.
However, with Trench as her only protector, she was beginning to feel for him, especially when he finally revealed his face to her. His chiseled, handsome face was marred by crags and garlic acid lines. When he told her he loved her, she almost believed that she loved him, too. Poe had to remind herself every minute that he was her tormentor. Her pimp.
“Oh, darling. It will get better,” said Frieda as she lightly sponged Poe’s cut skin. “I pray for you every night so y
ou can be bad ass again and rescue all of us from this place.”
“Thank you, Frieda. I’m praying for that time, too.” She started weeping. She hated that she cried over every little thing.
“You and Sainvire are all the janitors talk about.
We’re holding out on the hope that you’ll take us to a better place.” Poe sniffed out of powerlessness. The woman took her hand and patted it. “Maybe Trench 278
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will let you go. We all know he’s angry that he has to parade you around like that.”
Poe reached for the tissue Frieda handed her.
“Trench likes his games too much. I wouldn’t count on him.”
To take her mind off of hellish thoughts, Poe asked Frieda about her life. “Well,” the woman with the scarred eye began, “I’ve been cleaning up for Trench for five years now. I used to work for one of his farms, looking after leeches that did nothing but sniff glue, grow marijuana, and waste bullets on stray dogs. One of them singed my eye with heated metal out of boredom. When Trench heard he bit the leech and made him into cattle and took me to work for him.”
“That was a nice gesture,” said Poe with sarcasm.
The meaty woman loofahed Poe’s feet and sighed. “Ever since you all took the cattle, they’ve made janitors like me give blood once a week.”
“I heard they turned a lot of the janitors into cattle,” Poe said. She sat up.
“The hardest hit farms had to, but the rest couldn’t afford to stupor their help. Who’s going to clean the bedpans and feed the cattle?”
Poe had been so preoccupied that she had forgotten about the other poor souls trapped in the nightmare of Downtown. Frieda caught a glint of the old Poe for one second. “Will you help me with the layout of this place, Frieda?” Her embarrassment about being kept in near-nakedness had prevented her from scouting out her prison. Her only other friend, Kawana, had been sent to Parker Center to supervise Trench’s 279
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police force. She’d had no contact with the policewoman for over a month.
“Only if you promise to take me with you,” said Frieda.
“I promise. Find out where my dog is, and I’ll take care of things,” Poe said with vicious anger she hadn’t felt in a long time. She needed that feeling to get riled enough to do something foolish, even without underwear in a miniscule yukata. “I can’t take anymore of this, Frieda. I don’t want to kill myself anymore. I want to kill vampires.”
He chose the red dress he’d wanted her to wear for months. The Dolce & Gabbana sleeveless number was so short her underwear could be seen if she didn’t cross her legs like a lady. The cleavage dipped down to her rib while the rest of the fabric clung to her like a second skin. Her unfettered breasts nearly peaked out when she moved. Trench was more than pleased by his woman’s appearance. He was going to take her back to Drip to show off the old and unhealed scratches on her legs.
“You look beautiful, my dear. Your hair is perfect, parted to the side like that down to your shoulders. And your skill with make-up has improved. You are delectable,” he said. “Do not fret.
We will only stay at the club for a little while. Just enough time to show you off.” He held out his hand for her.
Poe, in red spiky heels, prayed to the Great Ali and Xena to help her. Let this work, please! As she walked toward the vampire, she leaned her left heel a 280
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little to the right and faked a fall, hard enough to induce a bruise on her knee and bang her head against a chair. “Ooouch!” she screamed.
Trench was at her side in a second lifting her up and sitting her down upon the nearest chair. The heel had snapped where she had fiddled with it. The master vampire took her ankle and examined it with minute care as Poe cursed guttermouth at how much his probing hurt.
“What did I teach you about bad language, Julia?” he said. “It’s only a sprain.” He took some linen from a shelf and ripped them in strips. As gently as he could, Trench wrapped a formidable amount of linen around her ankles. “There. All better?”
“Hell no!” Poe shook her head. “Stupid heels.
What’s up with you wanting me to look like a streetwalker, Quillon?” She blinked crocodile tears.
“You said you love me, and yet you do these demeaning, disgusting things to me!”
“My dear, there is always a reason for my madness. I wish it didn’t have to involve you, but I have no choice. You stole most of the city’s cattle.”
“Get out!” Poe said harshly. “Leave me alone.
And if I don’t see my old sneakers here in ten minutes, I’ll make sure to hate you for the rest of my life!”
Trench tugged at his tie and straightened his lapels. He really did feel something for Julia Poe, and for a rotten swine like him that was a miracle. He couldn’t let her go, nor could he allow her to hate him. In fact he was hoping to hear from her own lips that she loved him. “I’m sorry for your ankle, Julia. I will send for more comfortable shoes straight away.”
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He walked toward the door. “I apologize for this, but I do have to go to the club tonight. Another master of the city awaits my arrival. I will make it up to you tonight, my love.”
Poe took off the other heel as soon as the vampire had left. Twenty minutes later she heard the sound of the door unlocking. Sebastian, a halfdead, brought her sneakers. They weren’t her Adidas but something Barbie would have worn – three inches tall and very glittery. “Those aren’t my shoes, Sebastian!”
“I believe your old clothes have been incinerated,” said the vampire with a frosty attitude.
He looked like Daniel Day Lewis in his prime.
“Those were the only shoes we could find in your size. Besides, they’re Betsey Johnson. You ought to be thankful.”
Poe shook her head. She waved the halfdead inside and hobbled dramatically like she needed help.
“I know you have impeccable taste, Sebastian. More than Joel or the others.” At this, Sebastian stood taller. “I want your advice.” She limped over to her side of the closet and slid open the door for him to see. “Do you know Quillon’s birthday?” she asked.
The daywalker shrugged. “I don’t think he’s ever celebrated it.”
“Well it’s tomorrow, and I want to wear something he’ll be proud of. He said I have no taste.”
Sebastian’s eyebrow rose in agreement. “So basically I need your help. Can you suggest which dress to wear and which shoes go along with it? I mean I’ll make sure to tell him how kind you were to help and all that.”
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Sebastian finally smiled. Kissing up to the boss was something he never tired of. He chose a purple Prada gown with sequins that made Poe inwardly shiver. “It’s between the black and the Marc Jacobs ash gray shoes, I think,” he said. He wanted the ensemble to look perfect.
“Why don’t you get them so I can try one shoe on?” The moment the sun-immune dead bent over to retrieve the shoes, Poe pulled Trench’s silver knife from her sleeves and buried it in the back of Sebastian’s neck. The dead choked from the long blade that penetrated his throat. Poe yanked the blade from side to side until she severed his head. Black blood spilled on Trench’s immaculate wood floors.
Quickly she unwrapped the linen from around her ankle and put on the gaudy sneakers. She turned Sebastian’s corpse over and found a 9mm Sig Sauer inside his suit jacket. Poe nearly cried at the feel of a gun in her hand. She had thirteen bullets, and she couldn’t waste a single one. She headed for the elevator. According to Frieda, Penny was held in the unused pantry next to the kitchen. Her usual guard wasn’t at the door to give her grief. Most of the henchmen were downstairs where she was about to go. It wasn’t always so in the beginning of her captivity when about two dozen well armed guards had waited at every corner. They think I’m broken and no threat to anyone, P
oe sadly thought.
Vamps didn’t bother the kitchen staff as the smell of meat cooking for janitors and cattle was distasteful to vampires. At least that was what Frieda said. It wasn’t hard to slink her way to the pantry.
She heard Penny whine before she saw her. The dog was leashed and tied up, and her coarse hair was 283
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extra-groomed. The dog had gained a few pounds from too much food and lack of exercise. Trench is a clean freak. Even my dog is fair game.
Poe had never leashed Penny, but she was going to have to that night. Top Chefs would have been proud of the deep, gleaming kitchen she passed through. A staff of fifteen was busy cooking up a tsunami to feed the human cattle of the Hall. Trench kept thirty cattle on hand for entertaining purposes.
The multicultural staff in white aprons and chef hats looked at her with shock. She put the gun to her mouth to keep them from making unnecessarily loud noises.
“Are you going to take us with you?” asked an elderly African American woman who stopped stirring her vegetables.
Poe shook her head. “Sorry. Not tonight.”
“Why not tonight?” a Chinese American man asked. He wiped his hands on an immaculate apron.
“Because I can’t. There’s only one of me. Now, where’s Frieda?”
“Frieda’s at one of the farms, maybe one of the theaters on Broadway helping feed cattle,” someone answered. “They’re a little shorthanded there tonight.”
Poe took a nylon shopping bag from a hook on the wall and began filling it with as many small knives as she could find. “You wouldn’t happen to have garlic, would you?” Several shook their heads in the negative. “Didn’t think so. Could you tell Frieda I’m coming back for her and for you guys, too? But right now I gotta mosey.”
They showed her the back door which led to a roundabout way into the street. Poe would learn later 284
Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles Page 24