Blood pressure flatlined on the monitor. Vital signs dumped as the vampire fed. The stream was thick and steady.
Pilate was filling up with the super-juice, his skin flushing, muscles swelling, toes curling. The heady scent filled his sinuses. Oxygen pulled directly from blood in the vampire’s stomach and jejunum. A unique form of osmosis, the swallowed blood was absorbed straight into his bloodstream. Then it rode the crimson byways to Pilate’s heart.
Once there, the oxygen went up Pilate’s aorta, then down through arteries to feed organs and tissues.
Such good blood; it was premium. It was some of the best he ever had. There was so much oxygen in it. Drinking this deep cherry blood made Pilate feel he swallowed sunshine. It was the moment before ejaculating. Tasting it was waking up to Christmas morning, or the first day of vacation. A head full of coke and a pocket full of more.
It’s liquid power and Pilate was lit.
Then the vampire heard a noise.
B ack in Herod’s Throne Room, Ovid and underlings followed the dictate of Tacitus. They cleaned all the coagulated filth while Herod was absent.
Salome walked around the room, thinking. She
wondered. As she saw it, she had only two choices:
smoke Plata, endure the pain and degradation of being her uncle’s plaything.
Or I can plan, she told herself.
Salome’s eyes roamed slowly, carefully around.
They rested on Herod’s elaborate throne. She studied it for a long while until an idea took hold of her.
It was the throne that did it. It looked comfy to her.
It seemed possible because she’d be the last one
they’d suspect.
Here in The Harbor, women were always underestimated by the misogynistic ass-clowns that ran
everything. They wouldn’t believe you capable of
retaliation until they saw blood spurting out of them
with their own eyes. Yeah, it was possible. The bastard, she thought. He has so got it coming.
Salome glanced, saw Tacitus turned away. He
was directing Herod’s grunts whom continued with
cleaning chores. She slipped out.
Salome headed to the anteroom with double iron
doors and spinning locks.
Tacitus saw her leave the Throne Room. Staring at Herod’s plaything as her gorgeous curvy ass sashayed out the room made his nuts tighten. He wanted her badly. Tacitus clenched his fists until fingernails cut and made his palms bleed. He wanted to scoop up Herod’s mistress and run like hell.
But for right now, he wondered where she was going.
T he ICU nurse gasped. He saw the man slurping up blood from the arterial line port. Pilate raised his head; saw the nurse staring back at him. Pilate tore past with a whoosh of cold breeze, a splattering of bright red blood.
The nurse blinked. The man with the yellow eyes and two long braids vanished. Just like that. It was so fucking weird, thought the nurse: a solid gone vapor, an ignored thought, gone.
A trail of blood splats dot-dot-dashed a long thin line across the stark white floor. Then it squirted up scrub pants to the nurse’s t-shirt. He felt dizzy, wanted to sit down.
“I know I saw,” he told himself. He stared at the blood and knew he saw.
The nurse stayed like that, staring blankly at the tiny spots of blood. Mumbling, he held on to the life preserver of his sanity with a death-grip.
A few moments later, the nurse snapped out of it. The patient slid into cardiac arrest. The symptoms suggested a root cause of sudden, acute hypovolemia: massive blood loss.
No one could determine where the missing blood went. The Code Team suspected internal bleeding. The surgeons opened him up, and an exploratory laparotomy showed not a drop puddling the abdomen.
The nurse wasn’t surprised. He knew where the blood went. The man with yellow eyes and long braids has it. And the nurse said not a word to anyone.
No fucking way.
P
ilate headed toward his stash of emergency money. He was activating his contingency plan. Motherfuckers should always have a Plan B. He had $100,000 in one hundred dollar bills wrapped in shrink-tite plastic. This stash kept in a watertight, padlocked box in Mary Magdalene’s childhood home in Clarkston. Pilate bought the little house years before and gave it to Mary. He kept a key nobody knew about.
The Pharisees made a deal with Pilate. He expected them to keep their word as a solemn business contract, but once again, a nigga never knows, not in The Harbor. Pilate wasn’t about to be without a quick exit. He could come back for Herod at a later time if things went south.
If Pilate had to run with naught but the shirt on his back, it’s nice to know the shirt is stuffed with hundreds. So much for the good news; the bad news was Clarkston itself.
The neighborhoods of Clarkston were some of the oldest in The Harbor. Situated in a half-square mile, all single lane roads. It was a closed square. There’s only one way into the square, the same way out. Outsiders were not welcomed. Those who strayed and found themselves inside regretted it with their dying breath.
Clarkston had its own gang affiliation and were the real deal. Nobody fucked with those niggas: not even Herod’s cops. If folks had to be dealt with, the police waited to catch them outside the square. Even then, retaliation could be expected, dependent on the relative worth of the individual.
Pilate’s shorties slung dope on the periphery of Clarkston, but definitely not inside the square. Pilate, himself, was barely tolerated inside out of respect for his clout and status. The fact that Juan also grew up inside the square helped pave the way for tolerating Pilate’s presence.
So, with Mary and Juan from Clarkston, it seemed the perfect place to hide his last ditch emergency cash. Except now he needs it, Mary is unavailable and Juan is dead. Pilate’s shorties are gone. Herod and Pilate have only a shaky truce imposed by the Pharisees. There is no more protection under Herod’s name.
Also Clarkston’s where the little Christ was raised. The whole area knew Pilate and Immanuel stood on opposite sides of the Plata fence.
Pilate had no help with him and none forthcoming. He’s going to go in naked, with no back-up. Where there are gangsters with automatic weapons and Christians with shotguns.
Pilate checked the 9mm he kept in the glove box. He had two fully loaded spare clips. He hoped to fuck it was enough.
H erod in his bedchamber pinned against the wall, a full foot off the ground. His testicles crushed in a vice of a grip. The other hand held Herod by his throat. Herod’s fear made him breathe. Icy cold exhalations plume about the face of the Diabolous.
The devil’s dark eyes sparkled as he spoke. His voice low, ominous and did not invite questioning.
“I want bones broken,” he told Herod, “blood spilled. I want humiliation, pain and fear. I want to hear begging and pleas for mercy.”
Herod was passing out: pain ripening beyond his capacity to endure. Only fear kept him from doing so.
“A crown of thorns, the side pierced,” he continued, spittle from the devil’s mouth sizzling Herod’s face. Hissing blisters instantly formed. “I want to see stripes, the back laid open.” The Diabolous close to Herod’s face, only a sliver separating them. “Hear ye my command,” he said: “She must be defiled.”
He released Herod. The Mayor crumpled to the floor, a shaking epileptic.
“Forgo the truce. Do with the vampire what ye will,” the devil told him. He turned to make his leave. “Pilate I cannot touch,” he paused, “this time.”
Blisters erupted on Herod’s face everywhere the spittle did touch. The blisters grew, rapidly filling with diseased crawly things.
Ice formed. It hung from the ceiling in thick blocks. Foot shaped dents, inches deep in concrete, followed the devil as he walked toward the wall.
“Hear ye well, Herod,” the devil said as he vanished into the bricks: “I want her violated, this little Christ.”
Herod loo
ked up and beheld an eight foot tall shield of bulky ice on the wall of his bedchamber. In his mind he heard the devil’s voice one last time.
“Pay heed,” warned the Mighty One, “I shall notice if you fail.”
The vampire stared at the wall, ice already melting.
The devil laughed.
T he mother observed her beloved Brood finish the last few bits of the two corpses left for them. She loved to watch them do what they do. They were sluggishly slap-slopping back into the dark. Where they slept until fed again.
The Brood consisted of four: three females, one male. They all fed and hibernated together. They were legless. They moved by dragging themselves along. Stout appendages sprout from the shoulders, tentacles really. No fingers at the tips, more like the functional phalange of a tree-swinging monkey’s tail. These appendages were thick and strong. The tentacles could not open a can of soda, for example, but could tear a human leg off at the hip joint like a stalk of celery.
The Brood were hairless, leeched of melatonin, fish-belly pale. They were also blind and deaf, but with a sense of smell strong enough to shake them from hibernating when food was presented.
They could go for weeks, even months, without nourishment. Or they could eat an entire cattle-car at one sitting. Teeth grew in multiple rows as a shark’s. The Brood ate any and all set before them.
Momma loved her babies. They were good kids.
She watched them drag themselves into the solid darkness. The main door to the ante-room opened. She clicked off the view-port light as Salome entered.
“I need to talk to you,” Salome said. She shut the door. The mother of the Brood simply stared. “It’s about your son, Herod,” she explained.
The old woman smiled, trudged over to the plain door. She pushed it open and bid Salome enter. She stepped into the old woman’s personal quarters.
“You live here?” asked Salome.
“Oh, yes,” the mother enthusiastically replied, “The children can’t take care of themselves, you know.”
“Of course, how foolish of me,” Salome admitted. She leaped: “May I talk to you about Herod? I have some questions.”
“Sure,” she said, closing the door, “fine by me.”
She pointed to the dinette and sat. They both had folded hands on the small table. They smiled pleasantly at each other.
“So,” the old woman asked, “why you wanna talk about that asshole for?”
“Excuse me?” Salome said.
“I hate that kid,” she explained. “Sometimes I wish the prick would just choke and die.”
“Well,” Salome told her, “this just might be your lucky day.”
410, anno Domini She remained alongside the famous Roman historian’s house, next to the Salarian Gate. The house of Sallust was empty and darkened as the rest of sleeping Rome.
She peered around the corner, watched slaves gather at the gate. The slaves were a gift, a gesture of goodwill from the army laying siege to Rome.
Alaric gave the Roman Senate a gift of three hundred beardless slaves. He was impressed by their loyalty to the beleaguered Emperor in the West. Loyalty deeply admired by Alaric as displayed by the Senate during the long siege. Alaric’s armies made camp outside the walls, but did not advance. He ordered attacks to cease.
How could Alaric besiege those showing such fine bravery and conviction, his emissary stated.
The fearsome general, over the last few days, continued his overtures to leave the city unmolested and in peace. Rome was desperate to believe.
The slaves, who should be at home with their masters, began to consolidate. The Gate sentries suspected not a thing.
Fools, she thought, all of them.
She glanced down. The slave lay motionless between her bare feet. She slid a toe into his ear. She shoved it in deep, jiggled it about. The slave lay still. She kicked hard enough to break a rib or two and yet he lay still. The slave was dead.
She cursed silently. It was such a waste. The teenage boy was a gift of Alaric, one of the three hundred the Senate was so grateful for. The boy spilled his guts in exchange for a quick fuck. She had to kill him when wet garbled cries erupted from the slave as she fed on him.
She had her mouth clamped tightly the boy’s bleeding groin. She neglected to enrapture him.
The vampire had barely enough blood in her mouth to swish and taste before she was forced to kill him. She shut up his cries by squeezing his throat shut.
He died, the blood turned foul and vulgar. It was worse than a rabid, dying dog.
The vampire planned to never be that destitute again.
Up until this night, that desperate and unpleasant thought was far from her. She hadn’t pondered the ugliness of her past in a long while. Now it rushed forefront as she sucked bloody teeth clean, counting the slaves’ growing numbers.
The slaves were waiting for darkest hour, she knew. The dead boy at her feet told her so. He didn’t know she was more than a concubine of the Roman Senate. She also spied for the Emperor in the East.
Theodosius was the Roman Emperor in the East and the vampire girl’s master.
She was starved out of her mind. She attacked Roman soldiers returning from campaign. They had cart after cart piled high with spoils and plunder wrested from some barbarian land.
The vampire was barely a teen and had not fed in days of wandering. She could smell them from miles away. She found them as a migratory bird locates its winter home, by instinct and a drive to live another day.
She hid by the rode-way, saw them. She saw hundreds of bleeders marching through the dust. Theirs was blood that was hot and rich. She slobbered at the thought of all that blood. There were drams and drams of it, enough to save her life a thousand times over.
She could hear them. Those strong hearts all beat, squeezing out fluid red in abundance. It was more than she could bear. She lost her head and attacked.
Weakened by hunger and travel, the Romans captured her before anyone was pierced by her fangs, the talons harmless. She was forced roughly to the ground beside the Emperor’s conveyance. The door banged open and the Emperor appeared.
The vampire was explained to Theodosius. The Emperor ignored his first instinct to destroy the monster. But instead he looked deeper and noted how comely this drinker of blood.
She lay unconscious, bound and secured. Theodosius called for a prisoner to be brought to him. The boy, almost a man, never made it to full adulthood. The Emperor had his men slice open the boy’s throat. The prisoner held by ratty shift, lost his hot, fresh blood as it spilled the vampire’s face. She enlarged her mouth far beyond explanation and fed on blood spilled.
The prisoner emptied, body tossed aside. Theodosius closely scrutinized the vampire girl. He noticed that when she was flushed with blood, her skin deepened and pinked. Her breathing ceased. Long predator teeth slipped up in gums and her talons retracted, closing into scarred fingertips. Her face smoothed. Her body, the Emperor noted, was seasoning nicely into her fullness of time.
Theodosius was inspired.
He knelt beside her. He spoke softly while undoing her restraints. She gave him her hand. He lifted the girl to her feet. The Emperor led her to his four-walled, roofed transport.
He had her clean herself as best she could, then lounge and rest. Theodosius gave the day’s orders to his generals. When finished, he went to her. She was ready.
The column of Roman soldiers resumed its march. The Emperor fucked the vampire girl for miles. Hymen ruptured. She drenched the Emperor’s plush couch with purplish blood. He shouted for another slave and she healed as she fed again.
The Emperor took the vampire girl in every way. She was strong and took direction well. She was a good girl.
They camped that night beside the water. Theodosius ordered his royal tents erected. The Emperor meant to stay a few days. She joined him. She slept, fed again, and slept some more. She did not try to escape. There was a purposeful lack of guards, but no attempt. She might be the one.
Indeed.
Night fell and Theodosius sent for his best men. The vampire girl sat naked upon the couch and did watch them. She knew what was to happen. The man in charge will keep her as a pet, but first she had tricks to perform.
The Emperor stood beside her, his men stared. He spoke softly to her. She gazed back at the staring men. She slowly spread wide a leg and showed the men her flower. She reached down and peeled back petals to display her pink. It was enticing and fresh.
Theodosius studied his men. They have not enjoyed the softness of woman for a time and were enthralled by her. He whispered again. She fixed her gaze on a soldier that stood apart. He was a truly brave and worthy soldier. He was honorable by any standard. The soldier loved his children, the Emperor knew, and worshipped his beautiful wife.
The vampire girl, not uttering a single word, brought the honorable man before her. He knelt and lapped at her cool thighs, worked lustily up until he did taste of her.
The dagger point she used on his neck brought blood to the surface. The honorable and worthy man could not tell how he came to be before the vampire girl. He only believed he tasted the sweet because his Emperor confirmed it. The soldier remembered nothing.
Theodosius was pleased.
The Emperor sent the honorable and worthy man away to dream of his family. Those remained were treated to favors. She rode them all, without complaint. The daylight burned away the dark and she then slept.
He sent his men away and he watched her slumber. It was akin to the interned. Her sleep appeared eternal. She did not stir, nor did she breathe. She was cold to the touch. Watching the vampire girl sleep was like watching the dead.
She didn’t look a demon in this state. When she wasn’t feeding, when there was no blood upon her, she looked to be simply a girl on the verge of becoming a woman.
She was clever, though, deadly and quick.
The vampire girl could learn things of import. If he got her used to safety and comfort, this urchin could be a courtesan of highest station. She could be taught which anxiously spilled information was drivel and which was gold.
The vampire girl could keep a sharp eye on Rome for him. Learn what plots were being hatched and by whom. Through her judicious use, the Emperor would strengthen and consolidate power. She could kill for him, when needed.
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