A Cup of Blood

by Troy A Hill

  "Your accent is different, milady," he said.

  “I came from the continent,” I replied, and gave him my cover story. "I was recently widowed and travel now, to stay out of the way of my late husband’s heirs. They are from his earlier marriage."

  “Have you travelled our lands long?” he asked.

  “About half a year,” I said. “I found a merchant willing to take me, and guards to accompany me. Fortunately, a nice monk joined me on my journey. And several priests, right before the brigands attacked.”

  “Men of the church allowed you to be chased away by brigands?” he asked, his voice incredulous in the night air. “They didn’t pursue and see you to safety?”

  “I don't know why they left,” I said. “One brigand chased me deep into the woods. He slipped and knocked himself silly. I ran back to the clearing, but the merchants and priests were gone by then.”

  My new guide shook his head and cleared his throat as we travelled into the night.

  “Still, to let a woman be driven off,” he said, his voice stern. “A man of the church should stand to protect the innocent, especially from the heathens in these lands.”

  After that, we travelled in silence.

  As we rode, I took a breath out of habit. Then another and set myself to continue. I needed to appear human. My lungs took air, and my heart beat only when I commanded them. I needed neither to work. I was dead after all.

  After about a league, I smelled the smoke of a cooking fire. We rounded a bend in the path. The forest thinned and gave way to a farmstead. The stables off to the side of the main yard had a high roof. A rickety wooden fence kept sheep and a few goats contained near the barn. A door was open to allow the animals to wander between the structure and their pen.

  The main house was only a single storey. Light leaked from around the shutters and spilled into the courtyard. A smell of food wafted about the light breeze, mixed in with the wood from the home's small fire on their hearth.

  Syram pulled the cord to a brass bell set on the wall next to the wooden door. After a few seconds, booted feet clomped from within the house. Wood rasped against wood and a small hole in the door slid open. A grizzled old face, one eye rather, peeked out at us.

  “Travellers seeking a meal and a place to sleep,” my guide said to the old face that appeared.

  “You can pay?” the man inside asked, his voice rough and hard. Syram pulled a pouch from his belt and bounced it to make the coin inside jingle. A rasp sounded as the farmer slide the bar from its braces behind the door.

  “You’ll have to sleep in the loft in the barn,” the farmer said, and eyed me as I slid out of the saddle. “Both of you.”

  A hint of a grin broke across Syram’s face. I had seen that look in too many men before. The hunger for our bodies locked together. He wanted to feed his passion. He didn’t know it, but I wanted the same from him. Just in a different way.

  “That won’t be a problem at all,” he said, his voice firm. He reached up to help me dismount. “Will it, Maria?”

  I looked back at him and smiled. I could sense my thirst, my desire for blood. My demon, that thirst for blood that lived in me, was ready for another meal.

  “Not a problem at all, milord,” I said.

  …

  “Up there be softer than with the goats,” the farmer said. He shifted his gaze to me, then back to my guide. “If you want another meal, we break fast at sunrise. Same price as tonight.”

  The old farmer stepped away and took his lamp with him. Once the farmer shut the door to the barn, Syram motioned me toward the ladder first. The moon had risen, and dim grey light entered through the open windows over the animal pens.

  I climbed the ladder and found a comfortable spot in the hay. The dried grass crinkled as I shifted my body in the cramped space. There was no railing at the edge. I stayed close to the wall. Syram squeeze in next to me. The small loft could handle two of us. A third person would have made it cramped, and the one near the edge would have risked a nasty tumble into the wooden pens below.

  I thought back to the words of my master. My master, the one who brought me into the undead life, had one firm rule for his children. We were not to harm anyone unnecessarily. That meant equal trade whenever possible.

  I watched my guide drop his pack near the open side of the loft. His leather belt and the knife in its sheath joined them. Syram lay in the hay next to me. My hands pulled him closer. He took full advantage of my unspoken offer. His hands explored my curves through my clothing.

  "I want you inside of me," I whispered. "I want to feel your warmth flow through me." His hands became bolder and squeezed my arse as he pulled me in tighter for a kiss. After we broke apart slightly, I added in another whisper, "All I can offer in return is a night of pleasant memories."

  “Yes,” was his only reply before he moved in to kiss me again. He pulled his tunic aside to untie the cloth about his loins.

  I was as honest as I could be with him, and we agreed to an exchange of warmth for pleasure. At the end of the exchange, he'd drift off to sleep, and, in the morning after I was long gone, he'd have pleasant memories of the night. I would leave him there alive and well. The fluid he'd lose wouldn't harm him at all. Men had bled more from wounds on the battlefield and still fought on to win. But, his warm, red, blood would fill my veins, and inflame the mystical energy that powered me.

  His eyes drifted to mine. That was all I needed. Once our gazes met, I poured my mind into his. His lust gave me the opening I needed. I used my undead power to link our minds. He froze, just as he was about to thrust into me. I took his control from him just like I had with the bandit in the woods a month before.

  I slid my fangs out and nipped his neck. His blood filled my mouth. I used some of its energy to construct a memory for him, of our bodies intertwined in pleasure.

  The joy I sensed in his arousal fed me as much as from his blood. The connection of our minds created a loop. My pleasure from feeding gave him sexual joy. His excitement fed me the sensual energy my nature craved.

  With a willing and aware partner, this loop could be intense. Each of us would feed the other pleasure. Our own would intensify, which fed into the pleasure of the other. The highs we could achieve with those lovers was almost infinite.

  Tonight, with Syram, he'd get just a little of my energy back, and I'd create a false memory in his mind of sexual pleasure. I'd much rather have been in the arms of my last lover, or any of those before now. With a partner aware of my nature, either male or female, feeding from them during a sexual exchange was beyond exhilarating. Tonight, though, was about feeding. I wanted only Syram's blood, not the rest of his body.

  We stayed locked together like this for several minutes. I promised him pleasure, and I sought to uphold my end of our bargain. Even though his hard flesh was near me, I wasn’t interested enough to let him have me that way.

  He was on his knees over me. I lay on the pile of hay against the wall. My mouth locked to his neck. I let his blood fill my mouth for another swallow. There was a leather cord under his tunic. I spun it as I fed. Whatever it was, it was his, so he'd keep it. I wanted to amuse myself.

  Then his small pendant came into view. That pendant. The most accursed sight I have ever seen. It filled me with dread. The sign of the Blessed Witch Hunter. Two iron nails, twisted into the shape of a cross, ringed with a wreath of silver brambles.

  By Thunor’s Short Hairs! It wasn't a strong enough curse for my emotions. I added a few more in Latin for good measure.

  That icy chill grabbed my flesh. The prickling, frigid sensation of dread undulated up and down my spine. Some called it a feeling as though your worst enemy had just walked over your future grave. Thunor and his short hairs, if he existed, must be screwing with me.

  Syram’s medallion meant they were here. The Witch Hunters.

  I had not fled far enough to escape them.

  3

  An Unexpected Death

  Curse them to all the he
lls! I hated the Witch Hunters. Their only purpose was to destroy all they considered unholy. That included me because I was dead and fed on other’s blood. Deodamnatus!

  I must have been almost starving to have not smelled the silver on the medallion.

  Verpa Dei! I thought of several other curses in several languages, including a few I hadn't used for a century or more. But God's Penis was the one I preferred. If there was an all-powerful deity he was screwing with me. Fortunately, I learned long ago to only think my curses when I fed. My mouth stayed locked on Syram’s neck.

  How long had the guild been here, in this land of Saxon Pagans?

  I’d seen the guild, all too often, stamp out the ways of the old gods, and bring their own corrupted version of the Roman Church into new lands. The guilders used the threat of torture and death to purge the people of what they considered “unholy.” They had a special place in their hatred just for us, no matter how good and pious we were.

  My mouth filled with more of this guilder’s blood. I remembered to swallow, even while I continued to ponder this new dilemma. What should I do with him? I wouldn’t violate my master’s rule. Syram and I agreed to an exchange, warmth for pleasure. I’d keep my word.

  But, this Witch Hunter, he’d be one of the few who would realise what had happened to him. The Witch Hunters knew of my kind. His mind shouldn't have been that easy to get hold of. Perhaps he is new to the guild? I didn’t expect a witch hunter’s mind to be as easy to infiltrate as his. What should I do with him?

  If the guild was here, I was in trouble. More trouble than I had wanted.

  Syram’s mind struggled again. Deodamnatus! I was too far into my own head as I considered options. I must have let my grasp of his awareness slip.

  He broke the mental bond and pushed himself off me, his leggings around his knees, his tunic unlaced. His eyes widened.

  “Blood-witch!” his voice croaked in the night as realisation roared into his mind. Syram struggled and tried to retrieve his weapon. It lay off to the side where he had left it in his hurry to lift my skirts. He took one panicked step, still hunched because of the low roof overhead. His clothing loose, he stumbled to his knees but was off balance. He reached out toward the floor to his side in an attempt to steady himself.

  There was no floor there. In the dim light of the moon, filtered in through the gaps between the wood planks of the wall, his hand, then his arm, then his body disappeared past the edge. A loud crash and the sound of splintering wood rose from below.

  Inside the house, the dog barked. Deodamnatus! The farmer would head this way soon. I leaped to the floor below

  My guide’s eyes stared at nothing. The life faded from his gaze and he slumped, unmoving as his last breath hissed out of him. His neck had broken, snapped as his head contacted the wooden wall of an animal pen below us. The silver and iron medallion gleamed in the sliver of moonlight that intruded into the dark by way of a crack between the boards of the wall.

  A quick jerk and the cord parted. My bite wound wasn't healing because of Syram's untimely demise. I grabbed a piece of broken wood from the fractured stall. Goats huddled in the corner, confused. They eyed me with suspicion.

  I used the jagged edge of the wood to open a gash on his neck to cover my bite marks. The door at the house thudded open. Footstep approached. I dropped the now bloody piece of wood near my dead suitor.

  I pulled some preternatural strength from my demon. With a quick leap, I was back in the hayloft, where I slid the witch hunter’s medallion into my bag.

  The barn door creaked open.

  “Is everyone all…” the light from the farmer’s small lamp washed across the dead body. I rustled the straw so the farmer would know I was there.

  “Thank you for coming… he…” I said and forced myself to blush. I could do so only because of the small bit of the witch hunter’s blood inside my veins. “He…” I made a vague motion with my hand, “and stood then disappeared…”

  “I must collect for damages to my stall,” the farmer said, with a shake of his head. “And for the burial. Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last.”

  With a dead Witch Hunter in front of me and the guild's unexpected presence in the land, I wanted to get far away as fast as possible. I didn't want to argue about coppers in the man's purse.

  “Let me get his belongings.” I let my voice quiver.

  The farmer hung his lantern from a hook and pulled Syram's body off of his animal pen. Back to the straw in the loft, I pulled together his pack and weapons. The blade was a long, singled edged knife. A seax.

  There were no significant belongings in his pack beyond a blanket and some hard cheese and bread. Good, nothing to connect him to the Witch Hunters.

  I descended the ladder while I clutched the dead guilder’s belongings to my chest. My shadow on the wall lengthened as the farmer retrieved his lantern and swung it closer. The old man snatched the dead man’s pack and belt from my arms. He found the purse and weighed it in his hand, then untied the strings and glanced in at the coins. With a satisfied grunt, confident I hadn’t swiped a coin or two, his eyes locked on me again, his gaze steely and authoritative.

  “You’ll leave once the sun rises…”

  It wasn't a question. I agreed and tried to appear meek as he headed back to his small farmhouse. His wife stood by a window, the shutter cracked open. I could see her night clothes in the moonlight.

  “Moecha Putida,” she mumbled, Dirty Slut.

  The old man glanced back at me and cleared his throat.

  I shut the door to the barn with a thump and latched it loudly so his old ears would hear. The dog whimpered, and its claws clattered on the stones in the walkway between the house and barn. He left the hound outside for the night to watch me.

  That was fine. Dogs and I got along well. Their minds were easy for me to sense and influence with my undead abilities.

  While I waited on the farmer and his wife drift off to sleep again, I entertained myself a search through the dead man's clothing. I looked for anything connected to the guild, but found nothing.

  After an hour or so, the faint snores of the man and his wife drifted on the night air.

  I peered out through the crack between the wooden door and the slatted walls of the barn. The dog rested its head on its paws as it lay on its belly by the entrance to the house. I reached out with my own thoughts. The hound dozed, but not a deep sleep. I used my mind and lulled him deeper into sleep.

  I kept my footfalls quiet, despite my fast pace. I’ve been around too long to take unnecessary chances.

  Deodamnatus! I hated running. Not the physical act, but that I had to leave. The world was getting smaller and smaller as those damned Witch Hunters grew in influence. Even these Pagan lands in the middle of Britannia were not safe for me.

  What did I have left? Where could I go? On this side of the world, the only place left was Hibernia. Another island just to the west. Beyond that, I could only risk going back to Europe. Back to the Witch Hunter's home territory. If I survived, I might make the far East. Or try the desert lands across the Mediterranean.

  Damn those Witch Hunters. I just wanted to be safe.

  4

  A Knife in the Night

  Still groggy from my day’s sleep, I set the small flames to dance in a pile of twigs. This small campfire was the only warmth I had in the middle of this wilderness. Two weeks of running. Fleeing from the memory of Syram, the Witch Hunter.

  I thought back to Syram and his lust in the hayloft. His blood fuelled the magic, my little blood demon, that kept me going, but it wasn't enough. I had only gotten, perhaps, a third of what I needed to quench my thirst. That meant I needed to find another donor much sooner than I should have. First though, I'd warm myself with this little fire. Then I would…

  Hairy arms grabbed me from behind; unexpected, rough, strong.

  His breath smelled of onions and garlic. His head banged against my cheek as we tumbled. I needed to see his eyes. The
n I could grab his mind as I had with Syram. Freeze him, cloud his mind and make my escape.

  Deodamnatus! I was getting old if he could sneak up on me. I didn’t feel a day older than my six centuries.

  Our bodies tumbled. I drew on my preternatural strength, ready to turn this situation to my advantage. I sensed his pulse where his smelly, bearded cheek pressed against mine.

  No, I'm not old, I told myself. Just lazy. I twisted in his grasp to face him and see his eyes when I felt the chill of that cursed metal press against my throat.

  I could even smell the cold blade. When something hurts as bad as silver, you learn to recognise it by sight, touch, taste, and smell. I didn't care for the scent of the long knife he pushed against flesh. That sharp edge, once it cut, I would be in a world of pain. A normal knife slice, I’d barely notice. But a wound caused by silver. Painful. My blood demon would heal almost any wound as fast as they were inflicted. Unless the blade was silver. Injuries from that chill metal took forever to recover. I'd need to drink much better blood than normal to restore my body if he did much damage.

  “Don’t move,” his raspy voice breathed in my ear. “Or I’ll bleed you like you bled Syram back in Greenlocke.”

  Verpa Dei! The Witch Hunters had found Syram’s dead and buried body. Then they found me.

  The silver knife pressed against my throat reminded me I could still be lazy, especially when freshly awake after a day’s slumber.

  “Syram… you remember him, don’t you?” The voice breathed louder in my ear. Onions and garlic were thick on his breath. Mostly onions. I stopped breathing to block the stench. He reeked of onions.

  "We were to meet him a day's ride from where you killed him," Onion Breath wheezed into my ear as he spoke. "We backtracked only to find him killed by a Blood Witch. By you." His free hand pulled my own belt knife out of its sheath and tossed it away from us.

  He rolled us sideways on the ground and pushed me onto my belly. His meaty hand was wrapped around my left wrist. He twisted and pulled my arm behind my back. Onion Breath's silver blade never left my throat. The tip even pierced the skin. That little prick in my skin would take a month or more to heal. Cursed metal.