by C. M. Sipes
Lilith had already managed to dispose of three wolves, completely tearing them apart in a matter of seconds. She turned around just as a body slammed into her and sent her flying at the wall. She regained her footing, crossing the short distance between herself and the wolf before roughly slicing into its chest with her hand. Blood coated her forearm as she ripped her hand back, its heart in her palm. Lilith squeezed, crushing the organ and watching as the wolf fell to the ground.
A nearby werewolf roared in triumph before turning its dripping maw back to its meal. Its jaws opened, closing on the man beneath it and ripping his flesh from his body. Vittoria ran at it, grabbing the devourer and throwing it as hard as she could at a nearby wall, creating a hole where its body hit. Lilith took over, rushing to the beast and disposing of it while Vittoria ran outside to take care of the wolves that littered the back patio.
She quickly counted five, all eagerly feasting on the bodies before them. Screams filled the air as their bodies were ripped into, some of them attempting to crawl away as their lower halves were being eaten.
Lilith appeared by her side for a moment before they split up and moved on the werewolves. The ancient ripped the throat out of the nearest one before spinning, ducking the swipe of a massive paw, and shoving her hand up through another’s jaw. Her hand clenched as she forcefully pulled herself from its body, ripping its upper jaw down through its bottom.
Vittoria quickly disposed of her two wolves as well, her eyes looking at Lilith who was dripping with blood. Her blood-red eyes glowed in the night as they bore into Vittoria’s. They nodded to each other before rushing at the final wolf and slamming into its massive body. The force of their impact broke the bones before it even hit the wall, leaving it dead as it slumped to the ground.
“That’s all of them,” Vittoria said before wiping her face, attempting to remove some of the blood that resided there.
“Don’t bother, you’re covered in it,” Lilith commented as she witnessed the action.
“How many are left alive?” Vittoria asked as she scanned the outside seating area.
“Probably less than a handful,” Lilith replied as she turned and headed back inside.
Only three people remained alive in the bar, each of them standing, covered in blood, and looking around in disbelief.
“What the fuck was that?!” Ashley demanded, her breathing heavy as her terrified eyes fell on Lilith and Vittoria.
The ancient looked at her companion and nodded to Ashley before moving to one of the other survivors and pulling them to the side.
“Shh,” Vittoria said as she approached the woman, her hands reaching out and grabbing Ashley’s arms to keep her still. “Look at me.”
Fear swam in Ashley’s eyes for a moment before a glaze coated them.
“You will go into the bathroom, clean the blood off every inch of your body, go back to your home, and forget that this ever happened. You will come to work the next day with the excuse that you were not feeling well the night before and left early,” Vittoria said soothingly.
Ashley nodded slowly as Vittoria released her arms. She turned on her heel and carefully walked to the bathroom, avoiding the pools of blood along the way.
“Has she been compelled?” Lilith asked as the two other survivors headed to the bathrooms as well.
“Yeah, it’s taken care of,” Vittoria replied as she looked around the bar. “What are we supposed to do with all this?”
“We can either clean up the werewolf bodies and leave the rest, or we can clean everything. Either way, the wolves must be disposed of,” Lilith said with a sigh.
“And dispose of them where?” Vittoria asked as she moved to the bar and poured herself a shot of whisky.
“We could burn them, or we could call Aerona and have her bring some of her wolves.”
“They’ll shift back soon,” Vittoria added. “That one is already starting.” She nodded to one of the bodies whose fur began to disappear. The bones cracked and snapped as they moved back into place.
“Too bad they don’t change back with clothes on,” Lilith commented as she watched the transformation.
Vittoria pulled out her cellphone and dialed Aerona’s number, only having to wait a few seconds before her friend answered.
“Vittoria?” Aerona asked, her voice conveying concern.
“I need you to come to the bar called the Saloon, and bring a couple wolves with you,” Vittoria said before downing her shot and pouring herself another. She glanced up, watching as Ashley and the two other patrons, now completely free of blood, exited the bar in a daze.
“What’s happened?”
“There’s been an attack. There are about…twelve dead devourers here.”
“How many survivors?” Aerona asked, her voice steel.
“Only three. Lilith and I already compelled them.”
“We will be there shortly.”
***
Vittoria and Lilith appeared on the steps of the coven house with dawn on the horizon. Vittoria led the way, heading up the stairs toward the library where she knew Marcella would be sitting, having always enjoyed a glass of blood and a good book before she departed for bed.
They opened the doors to the library and stepped inside. Vittoria could have laughed at the expression on Marcella’s face when she saw the state of herself and Lilith, covered in blood.
“In the name of the gods, what happened to you two?” Marcella asked as she sat her glass down, her hazel eyes scanning the two women before her.
“Devourers,” Lilith replied tiredly. “Do you happen to have some towels to place on the chairs?”
Marcella nodded before clapping her hands, a servant appearing a moment later. “Bring us some towels and some blood. Put it in a glass for one of them and make the other in a travel coffee mug.”
Lilith muttered a thank you before raising her hand and frowning. “I smell like wolf.”
“You both completely reek of it,” Marcella corrected as she took a swig of her blood.
The servant appeared a moment later and quickly covered the chairs with towels. As Vittoria and Lilith moved to take their seats, he handed them their glasses of blood—the travel mug being for Lilith, of course.
Lilith sat down, a sigh escaping her lips as she chugged the blood from the cup, finishing the entire thing in a few moments. “I was starving.”
“I meant to ask you about that,” Vittoria began. “You suffer from bloodlust yet you don’t need to feed nearly as much as you used to. Why?”
“If you live as long as I, the effects are sure to lessen,” Lilith replied, her blood-red eyes looking at Vittoria a moment before turning to look at Marcella. “We have a serious problem.”
“You mean aside from you being covered in the stench of wolf blood,” Marcella replied dryly.
Lilith snorted. “Yes, quite a large one too.”
“Lilith and I were at this bar called the Saloon when twelve devourers, in wolf form, stormed the bar. Only three people survived. Lilith and I killed the wolves and compelled the survivors.”
Marcella’s eyes widened as she scooted to the edge of her seat. “What did you do with the bodies?”
“We called Aerona. She and a few wolves showed up and took the bodies away from the place. There was so much blood that Vittoria and I couldn’t possibly clean it all. So, we cleaned up the paw prints and got rid of anything that had claw marks in them,” Lilith explained.
“We were lucky that the Saloon is owned by an older gentlemen who clearly has a distaste for technology. There were no security cameras to pick up what happened,” Vittoria added.
“Our only other issue is that we do not know which way the wolves came from. Their scents led in separate directions, suggesting that they merely met at a certain point before the bar. The aromas were too mixed to track.” Lilith clapped her hands, summoning the servant and handing him the mug. “Fill it again.” He disappeared a moment later.
Vittoria looked at her companion, wa
tching the slight rippling of her skin and the way her body tensed slightly, as if contracting in pain. “You’re fighting the bloodlust.”
Lilith’s blood-red eyes looked at Vittoria tiredly.
“The bloodlust may have lessened slightly because of your lifespan and slumbering, but you still feel it. You’re going through withdrawal.”
Lilith nodded slightly, sighing in relief when the servant appeared with her refill. She took it and gulped it down in a few moments.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Vittoria asked, her eyes worriedly looking over the elder vampire.
“I did not want you to be concerned.” Lilith handed the mug back to the servant.
“Fill it and another one,” Marcella commanded.
“It is easier to control when I am not covered in blood—even if it is wolf blood, I can still smell its sweetness.”
Vittoria eyed her wearily before nodding.
The servant appeared shortly after with two large travel mugs of blood and handed them to Lilith. The ancient accepted them before looking directly into his eyes. “You never saw me here tonight, you have no idea who I am, and you will have no memory of this transpiring.”
The servant stared hazily at the brunette, a glazed expression on his face.
“Go,” Lilith commanded, watching as the servant exited the room. She raised the first mug to her lips and chugged, finishing it a moment later. “Back to the original discussion. We disposed of the dead humans that you could visibly see the claw and bite marks on their bodies, and left the others. Fortunately, most of them were mutilated enough that the authorities will have a hard time ascertaining what happened to them.”
“This has escalated quickly. Hopefully, there will be some new information at the council meeting about our infiltration,” Vittoria said before taking a sip of her drink. “They just attacked the place. Rarely do such massacres happen in this day and age.”
“Vittoria is right. These types of massacres were more common prior to the twentieth century, not today. We need to press harder on obtaining information that can be useful to us. We need to know if it is Enki who is behind this for certain, or someone else. Either way, we need to escalate our own advances,” Marcella said. She looked at Lilith, who was carefully sipping at her blood.
“I need to increase my own efforts as well,” Lilith said, her eyes gazing into the mug.
“While we still have no idea what your own efforts are, Lilith, we need you to stay out of sight. Continue with your low profile,” Marcella instructed.
“Do you think the Saloon was a strategic ousting, or by chance?” Vittoria asked suddenly.
“I do not know why they chose to target the Saloon, but it was most likely by chance. They always run the risk of there being vampires somewhere, they were just highly unlucky that we were the vampires they had the misfortune to run into.” Lilith looked at Marcella, awaiting her opinion.
“Let us see what we learn at the council meeting. If we still have some suspicions, we can always send you two out together again and see what happens,” Marcella said.
“So you would risk sacrificing a few dozen mortals,” Vittoria said, her eyebrows rising.
“Ah Marcella, how Roman of you. It is quite refreshing to be around another who finds others expendable,” Lilith commented.
Marcella looked at Vittoria, ignoring Lilith’s comment. “Why do you have an issue with sacrificing mortals suddenly?”
“It is much harder to hide the bodies and dispose of evidence today than it was how many years ago. There are still hunters,” Vittoria argued. “I have no doubt that what happened at the Saloon tonight will draw a few of them out. The last thing I want is to be fighting a war on two fronts.”
“She does have a point,” Lilith sighed as she looked at Marcella.
“Hunters will be drawn out when word of dozens of people mysteriously go missing,” Vittoria explained. “Times are different than they used to be. We can’t just go killing mortals left and right without consequences.”
“How true that is,” Lilith sighed again. “It is also utterly boring. I do miss the old days. Don’t you, Marcella?” Lilith grinned.
Marcella’s lips turned upward slightly.
“So, are we in agreement then? I really do wish to return home and shower,” Lilith said.
“We are. Go, shower, and get that stench off of you,” Marcella said as she crinkled her nose.
Lilith gave one last look at Vittoria. The blonde nodded her head, signaling for the brunette to head home and that she would return shortly. The ancient left the room, disappearing in a blur a moment after.
“So,” Marcella began with a smug smile, “you and Lilith went out tonight?”
Vittoria rolled her eyes. “Why do you keep questioning me about Lilith like she is a potential girlfriend?”
“Is she not?”
Vittoria opened her mouth but no words came out. She huffed at Marcella’s obvious amusement.
“You like her, Vittoria. While I am not thrilled at the prospect, considering who it is and everything, I think that you would be good for her and she for you.”
“You are only content because she is not a human or a witch.”
Marcella’s grin fell, and she glanced to the floor. “I will not lie. I would not be thrilled if it was a human, but only because if she would not wish to be turned you would have to watch her die before your eyes.”
“And if I loved a witch?” Vittoria asked as she sat up straighter in her chair.
“I…” Marcella frowned. “I would have a hard time with it, but I would do my best to make peace with it and love her like another daughter.”
Vittoria remained silent.
“One of the curses of being a Queen is that we seem to be unlucky in love. Lilith never had known real love—that I saw anyways…Anatu found a human man that died in her arms from one of her own kind. Hili fell in love with a werewolf that later murdered her. Ilithyia never loved anyone. Hunters killed Samia’s lover. Antonius was taken from me in the fire, my daughters were taken by a witch, and I took Isabel from you, and then later lost you even.” Marcella finally looked up at Vittoria. “If you have a chance to make something of this, even if it is not meant to last, you should pursue it if it would make you happy. You are an incredibly strong Queen, Vittoria. The strongest of us, save for Lilith.”
Vittoria eyed Marcella for a few moments, mulling over what her maker said. “I care for her.”
“I know.”
“I do not even know what she has planned for me. She refuses to tell me until she has more information, but what if she just believes that I am expendable like everyone else?” Vittoria asked.
“Would you be willing to take that chance?” Marcella asked.
Vittoria did not speak for a few moments. She looked at Marcella before carefully nodding.
“Then take it.”
Vittoria raced down the stairs of the house before leaping into the air and shifting into her swarm. She flew high, higher than she normally would, taking precautions against being seen by hunters, as she crossed the night sky and headed toward her apartment. Her eyes scanned over the buildings, searching for anything out of the ordinary before landing in the alleyway behind her home. She shifted back to herself and walked out of the back street, her nose twitching as she smelled the air. She could still smell the stench of bloody werewolf from Lilith’s return, as well as the usual scents that permeated the air near her building.
Once she deemed it safe, she let herself inside and headed up the stairs to her apartment. She unlocked the door, pleased that Lilith had gotten into the habit of locking it without any prompting. She heard the shower shut off just as she stepped inside. Vittoria carefully took off her boots, setting them near Lilith’s and mentally reminding herself to clean away the blood tomorrow.
“That was fast. I was sure you were going to be a little longer with Marcella,” Lilith said as she appeared in the hallway. Her hair was dripping slightly, ha
nging down past her towel-covered breasts, free of blood.
“She just wanted a quick word.” Vittoria shrugged. “You smell much better now, by the way.”
“I would certainly hope,” Lilith called as she entered the bedroom, disappearing from Vittoria’s sight.
Vittoria headed back to the bathroom, entering and beginning to strip the bloodied clothes off her body before dropping them on top of Lilith’s. They would definitely have to throw them out.
She stepped into the shower, turning on the hot water and letting the stream hit her face and front of her body. She opened her eyes, glancing down and watching the water turn red as it pooled at her feet before disappearing down the drain.
She showered quickly, thoroughly scrubbing the blood from her body and her hair, relishing in the clean smell that permeated the air and replaced the stench of death that had been clinging to her.
She shut off the water and grabbed her towel from the rack. She dried her body and rubbed her hair, toweling it off before wrapping the cloth around her form and turning to the sink. She brushed her teeth and inspected herself in the mirror, making sure that all the dried blood was free from her body before exiting the room.
When she entered the bedroom, Lilith was already in bed, swiping her finger across the screen of Vittoria’s tablet.
“What are you reading?” Vittoria asked as she turned on the light in her closet and stepped inside.
“BBC World News. This world is incredibly depressing. Glad to see nothing has changed.”
Vittoria chuckled as she quickly changed, pulling on a pair of underwear and a t-shirt before exiting the closet and hanging up her towel to dry.
Vittoria moved across the room, crawling into her side of the bed with a sigh. They had gotten into a habit of sleeping together, finding it more comfortable than sending one of them to the couch. After all, she had a king-size bed, giving them both more than enough room to comfortably sleep.
Lilith sat the tablet on the nightstand and turned to face Vittoria. Their eyes met and Vittoria scanned Lilith’s expression, curious to what the ancient would say but not wanting to press her until she was ready to speak.