by Sam Stone
I return to my feed, forcing my eyes away from my delicious darling wiping blood from her lips with the back of her hand. She flops back.
‘Take her, Gabi,’ she gasps. ‘You need to feed ...’
I look back down at Sara. One of her hands is pressed between her legs, she rubs herself enthusiastically, but her eyes are dazed and she seems unaware of the reality of her circumstances. I lower my head once more and lick at the small coagulated wound, opening it again with the tip of my fangs. Sara gives her blood with a rush of thoughts and emotions, images of her lost virginity to Anton; an unsatisfactory fumbling in her parents’ living room as they slept upstairs. Sara’s first climax gushes through my blood as I pull away. Fortunately she will associate the feeling of sex with Anton. Neither of them will recall meeting Lilly and me this evening.
As I place Anton in the driver’s seat of his car a strange sensation rolls over my limbs. It is like apathy. Weariness to the extreme. I stumble back against the door, disorientated.
Maybe we were wrong - maybe they did have some form of disease. We know that syphilis and AIDS could be detrimental to our health ... but what of other new illnesses? Things we have never heard of?
I look at Lilly; she is straightening Sara, fastening her seat belt, and seems unaffected. I feel weaker; my legs won’t hold me up and I slip down to the ground, trying to force my mouth to move to cry out to my lover. It is as though an invisible force has rolled over my body, a black cloud, which drains the strength from my limbs.
‘Gabi! Oh my God!’
I am leaning on Lilly as she guides me to the car.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know.’ But I intend to find out.
I look up into the ink-dark sky as a shadow, blacker than black, cloaked even from us, flies high above. Lilly crumples against the car clutching her abdomen. I reach for her. The fresh blood I consumed rises up into my throat like sour bile. We feel sick.
Fever burns through my veins as though the blood inside them is trying to burn away my insides.
‘We’ve been poisoned,’ Lilly gasps.
‘No,’ I say, breathing hard. I pull myself up against the car, craning my neck to watch the shadow recede into the night, miles from us, but the affect no less remarkable. ‘Look!’
Lilly’s eyes follow my gaze as she turns her head with sluggish effort. We stare until the black demon that zapped our strength can no longer be seen ...
And only then does the strength begin to return to my limbs and my stomach miraculously stops spinning. I help Lilly into the car, but can see her recovery is just as dramatic as mine.
‘I felt so weak ... like the life was sucked out of me,’ she says, and I feel the panic in her voice, echoing mine, in the small hollow of the car.
‘I think ... we just brushed shoulders with ...’
‘What ...?’
‘Something more powerful than ourselves ...’
And now I know; it’s even more important that I find Lucrezia.
Epilogue
We walk into the L’Impero Del Gusto restaurant with the intention of seduction. Lilly’s hand is curved in mine and we are looking for a certain type of victim to satisfy our needs. Preferably young. Preferably attractive. Definitely innocent.
‘You don’t expect much ...’ Lilly laughs, reading my thoughts as they rise like helium in the air.
We are guided to a table, small, intimate and exactly in the corner of the room that allows us the full view of all occupants, by a short female waitress with dark glossy hair. She smiles at us knowingly before dropping the menus down in front of us and we sit in the booth; curling up immediately close to each other as if we cannot bear to be apart.
Lilly orders wine fluently in Italian. She loves Pinot Grigio and even though alcohol never inebriates us, the taste of certain types is delicious to our heightened senses.
‘I used to come here with my parents. It’s particularly attractive to couples and families,’ Lilly says as the waitress leaves us to get our wine.
‘Torino was a regular family haunt then?’
‘Yes. Mother said that relatives of hers lived here once. She gathered loads of information here for her family tree ...’
‘I remember the genealogical interests your mother had,’ I say vaguely. ‘Was there anything in particular she found here?’
Lilly looks at me oddly. I wonder if she has realised my attempt to appear casual is less than genuine.
‘Not that I remember ... Maybe some letters and stuff that my great aunt had.’
I remember one letter - the letter that affected everything. A copy of the note my daughter sent me four hundred years ago lies in an in-tray on Lilly’s mother’s desk. I wipe it from my mind. There is nothing that can be done to retrieve the letter from Juliet Johnson’s keep - nor do I want to.
Lilly is too perceptive these days, often she reads my unguarded thoughts. This disclosure is too furtive to be revealed by carelessness.
The waitress returns and pours our wine, with a knowing expression in her eyes. She thinks we are newlyweds. I clink my glass gently against Lilly’s. We sip gazing into each other’s eyes until the smiling girl walks away. Then we turn like the feral predators we are to survey the real food in the restaurant.
‘Is there anyone of interest here?’ I ask Lilly as she looks pointedly over my shoulder.
‘Possibly. Young couple just entered.’
I reach for Lilly pulling her into my arms, and twist her body into mine as I turn my head to look at the new arrivals.
‘Mmmmm. Yes.’
Lilly nuzzles my neck, nodding her head subtly. ‘Very nice,’ she says.
‘I was thinking exactly the same.’ I kiss her throat; drawn in as always by the smell of her, and lose any concept of time immediately as I tune into her blood flow. Lilly nudges me, shaking me back to the present.
‘Look.’
And again fate seems to deal us a kind hand. I turn to look and they are perfect for our needs. A young male and female strong enough to survive a small feed with no ill effects. I send my penetrating gaze at the girl. She is small and dark with blue eyes that turn to me with a jolt as she feels the pull of my strength. Her boyfriend’s hand slips from hers as she walks towards us, a confused expression colouring her olive cheeks. The boyfriend, a tall sleek Italian youth, turns. He is immediately captivated by Lilly. He too is pulled in, though he resists briefly, he cannot hold back as the full impact of her smile turns his world upside down.
They stand before our table and we make room for them between us.
‘Grazie,’ says the girl; Sara she’s called and he is Anton.
Anton sits beside Lilly and Sara beside me. Neither of us touches them, though it is immediately clear that Anton is besotted by my lover and I feel a twinge of jealousy that makes me want to rip his throat out. Lilly casts me a warning look. The air is palpable with our climbing hormones. Anton bends his head and whispers to Lilly as I gaze deliberately into the confused eyes of Sara.
‘I’m eighteen,’ Sara tells me. ‘Anton is nineteen.’
Lilly’s nostrils flare slightly. She is sucking in their odour.
‘Tell me Sara,’ I whisper, ‘have you ever been with Anton?’
Sara’s giggle echoes through the restaurant drawing attention to our small gathering in a way I had not anticipated. Her eyes flash to Anton, but he is oblivious, so mesmerized by my darling Lilly he can barely breathe. Lilly nods as my eyes meet hers. Yes, Anton and Sara know each other intimately. But are they safe? I bow my head, sniffing deeply at Sara’s throat until I hear her blood looming beneath her skin like a river buried deep in the mountains. Her aroma is inconspicuous. Sara is clean. Lilly nods again. So then is Anton. We have chosen wisely. We are natural predators, always sensing and checking our
meat.
‘What would you like to eat?’ I ask everyone. ‘Perhaps our new friends may later conduct us on a tour of the local nightclubs?’
Sara giggles at my antique Italian phrasing and I realise that my language needs to be loosened as much in my own tongue as in English. Even my beloved homeland has been laid waste to the modern world. Our travels have revealed, predictably, that Italy is far from the regal country I left behind four hundred years ago. How ridiculous of me to imagine that it would all remain the same, when I had seen the world change over the years. True, I had watched the rise and fall of Mussolini from afar. I had seen Germany rip the soul from several countries and I had remained unmoved, untouched by the wars of mortal man as they killed each other for reasons I couldn’t fathom. However the changes at hand, the transformation of a once seemingly perfect world, steeped in beautiful, musical history; was the most devastating carnage to me because it was the murder and brutalisation of an age that had been frozen in my memory. A time I had thought of as perfect, despite its flaws. A time when I had thought I had been happy. More importantly, it was the world where I had been mortal.
‘Have anything from the menu ... I’m paying.’
Sara and Anton look uncertainly at the menu. They had been planning on pizza tonight. The cheaper option, for Anton was merely a student.
‘Meat,’ Lilly murmurs into Anton’s ear. ‘Rare ...’
We order steaks, bloody. They will need their strength and we watch them eat while picking lightly at our own meals. We are not interested in solids tonight. Anton eats ravenously, his eyes devouring Lilly but I force my eyes away once more as behind their backs Lilly takes my hand and squeezes it. Her passion flows down my arm and I feel my fangs aching in my gums. I look into her face. She smiles, her lips bulging, her hunger feeds my urge to misbehave. Even so, I cannot steal her away from her nourishment. I must endure it. Despite how I feel. But, oh! Must I feel this terrible jealousy eternally?
The waitress’ smile is tight as she removes our plates. She, like Anton and Sara, is confused at this sudden friendship but underneath it all there is a dark suspicion. She has noticed the ageless quality of my eyes, I fear. So I follow her as she makes her way to the till.
‘I’d like to pay my bill,’ I say.
I look deeply into her eyes. They blur briefly, and then her professional smile returns; the moments of our arrival and connection with Anton and Sara are completely gone and any memory of our leaving with them will also follow.
They go with us willingly.
In the car park Lilly slides into the back seat of our rental pulling Anton in beside her; within minutes I hear her feeding. I try to distract myself from the sounds of Anton’s groans of pleasure by pulling Sara up against my chest and tipping her small, slightly frightened, face up until she cannot look away from my eyes. Soon her body swoons against mine. Her head throws back exposing her throat and a surge of blood lust gulps agonisingly through my veins as my fangs burst free with unbearable pleasure. I bite carefully, breaking the skin on her collarbone and the vein beneath yields her sweet life force to me. I have her in my arms now, carried like a bride over the threshold, and I slip into the back of the car next to Lilly and Anton, draping Sara’s body over my legs. Lilly is astride Anton, her face buried in his throat, and I stop feeding to watch her as Anton, though fully clothed, rams his hips into my lover. A dark rage almost swamps me. As Lilly finishes her feed, Anton climaxes in his jeans, his body shuddering against her as she licks the final drops from his throat.
I return to my feed, forcing my eyes away from my delicious darling wiping blood from her lips with the back of her hand. She flops back.
‘Take her, Gabi,’ she gasps. ‘You need to feed ...’
I look back down at Sara. One of her hands is pressed between her legs, she rubs herself enthusiastically, but her eyes are dazed and she seems unaware of the reality of her circumstances. I lower my head once more and lick at the small coagulated wound, opening it again with the tip of my fangs. Sara gives her blood with a rush of thoughts and emotions, images of her lost virginity to Anton; an unsatisfactory fumbling in her parents’ living room as they slept upstairs. Sara’s first climax gushes through my blood as I pull away. Fortunately she will associate the feeling of sex with Anton. Neither of them will recall meeting Lilly and me this evening.
As I place Anton in the driver’s seat of his car a strange sensation rolls over my limbs. It is like apathy. Weariness to the extreme. I stumble back against the door, disorientated.
Maybe we were wrong - maybe they did have some form of disease. We know that syphilis and AIDS could be detrimental to our health ... but what of other new illnesses? Things we have never heard of?
I look at Lilly; she is straightening Sara, fastening her seat belt, and seems unaffected. I feel weaker; my legs won’t hold me up and I slip down to the ground, trying to force my mouth to move to cry out to my lover. It is as though an invisible force has rolled over my body, a black cloud, which drains the strength from my limbs.
‘Gabi! Oh my God!’
I am leaning on Lilly as she guides me to the car.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know.’ But I intend to find out.
I look up into the ink-dark sky as a shadow, blacker than black, cloaked even from us, flies high above. Lilly crumples against the car clutching her abdomen. I reach for her. The fresh blood I consumed rises up into my throat like sour bile. We feel sick.
Fever burns through my veins as though the blood inside them is trying to burn away my insides.
‘We’ve been poisoned,’ Lilly gasps.
‘No,’ I say, breathing hard. I pull myself up against the car, craning my neck to watch the shadow recede into the night, miles from us, but the affect no less remarkable. ‘Look!’
Lilly’s eyes follow my gaze as she turns her head with sluggish effort. We stare until the black demon that zapped our strength can no longer be seen ...
And only then does the strength begin to return to my limbs and my stomach miraculously stops spinning. I help Lilly into the car, but can see her recovery is just as dramatic as mine.
‘I felt so weak ... like the life was sucked out of me,’ she says, and I feel the panic in her voice, echoing mine, in the small hollow of the car.
‘I think ... we just brushed shoulders with ...’
‘What ...?’
‘Something more powerful than ourselves ...’
And now I know; it’s even more important that I find Lucrezia.
The story continues in
Futile Flame - Book Two of The Vampire Gene
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