Blood Rock

by Francis, Anthony

  He stared at me, eyes blue points of light in a face made warm and proud by the flame. He lit a second candle. His coat came off. A third candle came alight. He peeled off his shirt. The fourth candle lit, and he stood at the end of the bed, whipped off his belt, his pants, and stood there, bronzed in the flickering light.

  I closed my eyes, and he fell upon me.

  He was so tender, and so strong. His hands swept over my skin as smooth as silk, tracing the lines of my tattoos, my skin, my hips—then they seized my hands and pinned them like bands of steel. His tongue touched my lips, my breasts, my sex, until I cried out. Then he moved forward and took me, with the strength of a linebacker, a horse, a mountain.

  It had been years since I had a man, almost a decade. Don’t think for a moment that I could be ‘turned straight’ by a man: men and women are just different, and I like them both for what they are. But after so many years the differences were exciting, the tender softness and intimate knowledge replaced by an almost unstoppable force, a freight train of passion.

  “Oh, Dakota,” he said, breath hot against my ear. “I love you.”

  —

  Then his teeth sank into my neck.

  Unavoidable Consequences

  Light exploded behind my eyes, a sharp pain followed by immense pleasure. Hot warmth flooded out of me and back into me, tingling out to every inch of my body. With his every thrust a new surge of blood came out of my neck and down his throat. He began to lick the wound, and I melted. Moments ago my arms were wrapped tight around him, legs folded up around his back; but now I just dissolved away, eyes closed in bliss.

  Calaphase ground against me, tongue pressed to my neck like a remora, a live wire electric circuit conducting through my body. Then he rolled off abruptly, leaving me gasping and sore, legs falling back to the bed, one hand caressing my breasts, the other my throat.

  “Wow,” I whispered, eyes closed, in a daze. “That was wooonderful.”

  Calaphase muttered something, breathed in my ear, caressed me, shook me. Interesting. A normal man would be asleep right now, and I’d be rolled over, watching his naked body, brain buzzing with ideas as I imagined all the tattoos I could ink on his canvas. But now I was just in bliss, as his hands brushed over me, his breath wafted against my neck, as his distant, urgent voice echoed through my brain. After that, I would have done anything he wanted.

  Freezing water blasted against my face and breasts.

  I screamed, flinching back, jerking away from the water. My feet slid out from underneath me—I was standing?—and Calaphase’s immensely strong arms caught me and lifted me back up into the icy blast. “Dakota? Dakota! Can you hear me? Snap out of it!”

  He slapped my face, and my eyes briefly opened to an opulent bathroom in glass and grey marble, with the bright lights of heating lamps searing my vision. I squeezed my eyes tight, arms wrapping around him for support, reaching out blindly to find the spigot.

  “What—” I gasped, hand twisting the knob as far as it would go. “What the—”

  “Fight it, Dakota!” Calaphase said, shaking me. “Snap out of it!”

  I gasped under the still-icy stream and glared down at him—and saw that Calaphase was absolutely terrified. “What the fuck, Cally?” I said. “I mean, what were you thinking—”

  The water abruptly started to get super hot, and I dialed the big knob back, flinching again as the now-steaming water nearly burnt me. Calaphase didn’t seem to notice, he just held me up, held me in the stream, as I cussed and twisted the water from hot to cold to hot to cold until finally I hit on a lukewarm setting mild enough I could focus on what was happening.

  Calaphase stepped back. “Are you all right?” I didn’t answer, and he grabbed me and shook me. “Dakota, answer me. Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

  All right? Buzzkill! My bliss, my fireworks, my dizzy soreness were all gone … and as they faded to memory … I noticed my neck was tingling. I clapped my hand to my neck, and a wave of pins and needles flooded down my shoulder. “What the hell happened?”

  “My aura overwhelmed you,” Calaphase said. “You were completely under—”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I was out of it because you fucked my brains out.”

  “An hour ago,” Calaphase said. “You don’t remember anything after that, do you?”

  My mouth fell open. The pins and needles were growing worse. “No,” I said.

  “Damnit,” Calaphase said. He didn’t look like a vampire anymore. He was just a man, a man conflicted with fear and shame. “I’ve been trying to rouse you and—I’m sorry. I never meant to—I’m sorry. Can you stand on your own?”

  “Always,” I said, reaching out and grabbing the soap dish just in case.

  “Good,” he said, stepping out of the shower. “Sober up, I’ll be back.”

  He stormed back towards the bedroom. I started to follow, then jerked back from the coldness outside. I closed the shower and turned up the heat as much as I could stand, letting the water drum against my head. What had just happened?

  I remembered taking him home, coming on to him, having sex … and after that, a blur. A pleasant, blissy blur. Almost a buzz, like I’d been drunk. But I hadn’t been drinking; I never drink and drive. And my hand came back to my shoulder, feeling the tingle around the bite.

  What had come over me? I’d never expected to take Calaphase home, much less for things to move this far this quickly. Not that I regretted … well, perhaps I regretted the bite but … the way it made me feel … oh, hell, I had no idea what I was feeling.

  The water grew too hot, so I killed it and grabbed both towels from the rack with one long arm. In the sudden dripping chill I began to worry. We hadn’t used protection. What if I’d been ovulating? What were the signs? I pressed my breasts to see if they were sensitive, but I was too buzzed and tingly and shivery to tell any real difference.

  Hell, the way I’d been acting, maybe I was ovulating. Could a vampire get me pregnant? Despite having dated one briefly after Savannah turned, I couldn’t remember what was real and what was myth—pregnancy had never come up, dating a woman. Quickly I finished drying off. When I was wrapped, body and head, I followed Calaphase back to the bedroom.

  Calaphase sat on the edge of the huge four poster bed, naked to the waist, in suit pants but barefoot, talking heatedly into a cell phone. His eyes shifted over to me, then looked away as he said. “Yes, she’s coming out of it now. Thank you. I’ve never tried to break a link … ”

  I stood there and watched, feeling my neck. The tingling was subsiding, but I could feel two small puncture wounds, swollen and irritated, like deep zits. He bit me. Oh my God, he bit me—exactly what I feared would come of hanging out with vampires. I was dizzy, almost drunk—no, that wasn’t it; I felt hung over. I looked at the clock: it was eleven forty-five.

  “No, no, I don’t feel a connection,” he said. He furrowed his brow at me, making his eyes glow, but it didn’t feel hypnotic, and I quickly got a headache and had to look away. But beneath it all, I felt the pull: a subtle, seductive draw, murmuring out from him on the waves of his aura. “Some residual, but I don’t think the link had time to set. She’s safe.”

  I swallowed. Now I knew why Calaphase was so resistant, what he meant when he said he didn’t need another thrall or groupie. It would be hard to resist his influence without his help. Fear gripped me: how could I date this man if he could sway me any time he wanted to?

  But Calaphase wasn’t done rocking my world. “Well, that’s a fair question, my Lady Saffron,” he said—and I would have given good money to see the look on my own face when he spoke her name. I reached for him, but he held up his hand—and I felt the odd tingle come back. “The lady in question is Dakota Frost.”

  “Calaphase!” I said, reaching for the phone. “What in God’s name are you doing—”

  But there was an exclamation on the line, and he got up swiftly and turned away. “Yes, that’s her. Yes, yes, she’s all right, the cold
shower worked.” He paused for a moment, and then nodded. “Of course—that is the real reason I’m calling. I didn’t just bite her. We had sex.”

  I sat down on the floor next to the edge of the bed and looked up at him, pacing the room like a caged animal. I couldn’t believe he was doing this. I couldn’t see why he was doing this. I couldn’t imagine how he thought this might help.

  There was a screech, and Calaphase winced. “I’m sorry,” he said. I scowled at him. He was apologizing for sleeping with me! But he ignored me and continued, “I didn’t mean to. I tried to avoid it, it’s just she was very—” he struggled for a word “—bold.”

  There was no screech on the other end of the line this time. There was only a long pause. Then I heard a quiet voice, almost a murmur, and Calaphase looked down at me in surprise. “Do … do you really think so?” he asked, eyes fixed on me. “I see.”

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “I called for two reasons,” Calaphase said into the phone. “To apologize, and to ensure that there will be no repercussions—you know what we’ve been negotiating. I wanted you to know sooner, rather than—I see. I see. That’s magnanimous of—I see. Thank you, my Lad—”

  He took the phone away from his ear and stared at it, then sat down on the bed.

  “Well,” he said, hanging up the phone and scowling. “That’s done, and done.”

  I struggled to remember what had happened. I remembered his wonderful voice telling me what to do. I recalled him leading me somewhere, light drumming against my eyelids, a flash of the bathroom, a flash of wonder. What had he planned for me now? A warm bath, a slow massage? I had actually giggled in the shower, when I swayed to one side and cold tile had touched my breast. Then he’d turned the water on.

  But before that, nothing. Nothing before the blast of icy water but scattered images and a feeling of great contentment and affection for Calaphase, stretching back … until he had bit me.

  “Oh, God,” I said, feeling my neck gingerly. “Calaphase. You hypnotized me—”

  “Not precisely,” Calaphase said, still scowling. “Certainly not intentionally—but, yes I did.” He sighed. “Forming a link is like a reflex. It’s hard to stop once started.”

  “You bit me,” I said fearfully, the implications finally starting to hit home. “You bit me! Do I need to use holy water—”

  “There’s a garlic derivative,” Calaphase said. “The Lady Saffron is checking for me—”

  “Fuck her! She didn’t need to know about this!” I said. “Why did you call her?”

  “Dakota, I had to,” Calaphase said firmly. “You were completely under. The sex and the bite were establishing a link—in lay terms, you were becoming my human servant. You were minutes away from imprinting completely on me and I couldn’t stop it.”

  I started shivering. His voice now sounded different, yet strangely familiar—deeper, reverberating, echoing through my head, calling up intoxicating memories from my stupor. Even the wound on my neck tingling in time with his words. He was right. He’d had me under his thrall, my aura merging with his, and he couldn’t stop it. And I hadn’t wanted him to.

  “This the real reason they used to kill vampires on sight. Not because we drink blood—but because we can enslave minds,” he said. “I never wanted to do that to you—but I had no one to turn to. My master is dead, Revenance is gone, Demophage is gone—but one of the best vampirologists in the world was one phone call away. Who else could have helped me?”

  “No, no, you’re right,” I said, still rubbing my neck. “You did the right thing.”

  “Thank you, Dakota,” he said, sitting down heavily on an ottoman on the side of the room. The hiss of an air conditioner starting up sounded in the distance, and Calaphase glanced up briefly before looking back at me. “Believe me, I am sorry. I had no intention—”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “Unless you’re the world’s master at reverse psychology.”

  “Most of my—” and Calaphase frowned “—my prey are shrinking violets, desperate for me to take the initiative. I didn’t expect you to be so, ah, forward.”

  I laughed, but the laugh quickly died. As disturbing as all this was, there was another question I had, based on a curious little choice of words Calaphase had used when talking to Saffron. I struggled for a moment, figuring out how to ask it, and then just gave up.

  “What are you negotiating for me, Calaphase?” I asked simply.

  Calaphase looked away. “For the Lady Saffron to take you back under her protection.”

  “Fuck her,” I said. “She threw my collar away, just like she did our relationship.”

  “You need her,” Calaphase said, cocking his head, then focusing on me. “Dakota, the Oakdale Clan—we’re punks. We’re a bunch of punks with a security service that’s little more than a protection racket. The Lady Saffron is the de facto mistress of the city.”

  “You are not a punk,” I said. “And I thought Lord Delancaster was in charge of the city.”

  “Only in his mind,” Calaphase said. “And on TV. No-one cares about him, holed away in his mansion. He has no more significance than the Queen of England. Saffron’s the one who attends the Atlanta City Council meetings, meets with the Mayor, brokers deals. Delancaster gave her power, and she’s used it. I do not want to be on her bad side. Neither should you.”

  The hiss sounded again, closer. Now I could tell it was not an air conditioner. It was more like a snake; it was even followed by a sinister rattling. “Did you hear that?”

  Calaphase sat up straighter. “Yes. What is that? I’ve heard it for the last few minutes.”

  The rattle sounded again, followed by another sharp hiss, and I recognized it. “Oh my God,” I said. “It’s a spray can.”

  I leapt out of bed, out of the room, and snagged my leather jeans, slipping them on like I’d been born in them. I hit the light for the hall and ran forward, grabbing my sportsbra, painfully wrenching it on, scooping up my top, and running towards my coat. At the end of the hall I looked back and saw Calaphase appear at the bedroom doorway.

  “Calaphase!” I shouted, slipping on my top and vest so fast they seemed to flap around me. “The fuckers burned down the whole werehouse! We gotta go!”

  Calaphase scooped up some clothing and sprinted down the hall towards me, long legs closing the distance seemingly instantly. Something tumbled over in the carport, and I flinched. Calaphase slipped on his shirt, then he held out his hand for me to stay back.

  “Fuck that,” I whispered. “They’re experts in anti-vampire magic. We do this together.”

  Calaphase nodded, holding up his hand for silence. Then, slowly, we crept up the stairs side by side, rising until we could see the kitchen door.

  Something stood between the door and my car.

  At first I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Then the figure resolved to a huge, floppy hat, almost an upside-down pyramid of felt—the same dumpy Seussical hat I’d seen on the grinning spectator to Revenance’s death. Beneath it was a wide, olive face, shrouded in darkness—except for two glowing white eyes and a broad, evil grin that split the face open ear to ear with a jagged zipper of pebbly white teeth. A giant zipper tab hung from one ear, completing the effect.

  “What the hell is that?” Calaphase said.

  It was the tagger from Oakland Cemetery, but—”He’s not human,” I said.

  “No matter,” Calaphase said, slipping his jacket back on. “I’m a vampire—”

  “He’s not human, and he’s not moving,” I said, desperate to communicate something, but not sure what it was. “And he has to know you’re a vampire.”

  “I don’t care,” he snarled, crouching, preparing to spring. “I’ll tear his throat—”

  “He knows you’re a vampire,” I said, “and he’s sprayed the door.”

  At that Calaphase finally froze, seeing the slight lines of paint sprayed on the glass—lines that looked like spray paint, but slowly shifted and moved, sinu
ous, hungry.

  “Oh, fuck,” Calaphase said, and Zippermouth reached up and pulled the zipper tab across its face, the metal tabs I had thought were teeth splitting wide open in zigzag, hissing grin, a long snakelike tongue sliding out of his mouth. “Oh, fuck me! What is that?”

  “Tell me you didn’t brick up the back door,” I whispered.

  Calaphase began backing down the stairs, and I mirrored him. We turned to face each other, only for a second, then ran. Calaphase flew past the red flickering light flooding out of the bedroom and cut to the left, hurling himself at the outer door and splintering it off its hinges before I could even begin to say ‘wait, let’s see what we’re getting into’.

  No need to wait, though. Fast on his heels, I found out immediately.

  Technicolor tentacles of graffiti wire whipped out around us, catching us like a net and jerking us aside like horizontal bungees. We screamed, both of us, the big bad vampire and his skindancer squeeze, as thorns erupted and dug into our flesh as we swung through the air.

  For the briefest moment, I saw the whole side of Calaphase’s house, a long low rectangle of red brick and white trim covered with a massive, elaborate graffiti tag, a tortured whirlpool of vines and chains and tentacles swirling towards a point just left of center.

  —

  Then the tentacles pulled us into the maelstrom—and we fell inside the tag.

  Column of Hate

  Our screams swept away on the whirlwind. Blinding waves of color assaulted my eyes. Burning torrents of magic twisted me up like a towel. An orange and black horizon flipped around us. Then a vast octopus of graffiti exploded outwards and swallowed us up.