by K D Grace
“A vampire would have no more use for you than you do for him,” I replied. “And it was he who sent me here, remember?”
“Of course.” The Guardian didn’t question my logic further, for which I was grateful.
“We shall begin now, my darling girl,” came the voice next to my ear. “You have only to let me take you, and when I am finished, when I have emptied you completely and hold your life force within me, then I shall give it back to you, only changed.”
“Is this not the vampire from High View, scribe—the one who grovels before Magda Gardener?”
I felt a vibration against my neck that might have been a growl, might have been a purr. “It is, yes.”
“And you find him attractive?”
“It’s a dream,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
“Careful, my darling girl, you’ll hurt my feelings.”
“I suppose he’s comely enough,” The Guardian observed. “A pity his flesh is not living. I might enjoy inhabiting such a fine, strong body.”
“Good heavens, He is irritating, isn’t He?” Alonso's voice was soft against my ear and with a start, I realized the Guardian couldn’t hear what Alonso said to me.
“He’s dreaming, Susan. You, however, are not. You must tell me now if you do not wish me to continue, for once I have tasted you, especially in your lust and your vulnerability, there will be no turning back, and I do not wish for you to despise me for what I have done.”
With an effort that seemed colossal, I slid my arm around his neck, amazed at how soft and dark his hair was. As I pulled him to me, he stayed my efforts, but only for a moment. He kissed my cheek then held my gaze, only for a second longer, and his eyes were darker than midnight. Then he lowered his mouth to my nape, to the vein pulsing like a driving drum beat. His lips were deliciously warm, and it came as a surprise when he ran the flat of his tongue along the length of the vein, pressing, lapping like a cat tasting milk, then pressing again with the tip as though he were probing for just the right spot.
The intake of his breath was like the sigh of a summer breeze. He kissed me once, on the spot where my pulse beat the strongest, and then again.
My hand in his hair tightened to a fist. I caught my breath and held it, waiting in his embrace. It was a sharp pain, precise and doubled—just two pinpoints of pain, like a surgeon’s twin incision against the side of my throat. I had barely time to notice it before blinding pain took my breath away. The world flashed white hot around me and I panicked and began to struggle, but he held me tightly.
As the skin gave beneath his bite, as I felt my blood flooding to his lips, I heard his voice inside my head. “That is the worst of it done, my darling girl. Now you need only relax and let me take you.”
“Ouch!” came the other voice in my head, reminding me I wasn’t alone with Alonso and surprising me how badly I suddenly wanted to be. “That was not pleasant. Susan, are dreams usually so physical?”
“Talia, can you not silence him?” Alonso spoke inside my head again and, for the first time, I noticed the succubus sat at my feet, gently stroking my ankle.
She said nothing, but the Guardian gave a soft moan of contentment, or rather I did, but I knew it was His. And for the first time since He had deceived His way into my life, I was relieved that He was silent, that He couldn't touch me, even though I felt the fullness of Him pressing gently against the inside of my chest. I needed Him to sleep and to leave me alone for a little while longer. It was with that thought I realized I was clinging to Alonso’s strong, well muscled frame and I wanted him like I had never wanted before. Christ! I wanted him to devour me, to take me completely into himself. I had never imagined it would be like this. Somehow I’d thought it would be more macabre, more solemn.
I would have writhed if I could have. I would have pulled him closer, but I was lost, drowning in the swift flowing river of my blood that he drew into his mouth in deep, thirsty gulps. That I couldn’t move, that my body was completely held in thrall to the flow of my own blood into his mouth mattered less than the fact that he fed from me, an act so powerful, so incredibly intimate, that I felt shy, awkward.
“It is all right that you feel this way, my darling Susan, for so we all feel at our making.” He spoke as though he’d read my thoughts, though in truth what I experienced was far too primal to actually be thoughts. “There is no act more intimate, no connection deeper than the taking and giving of blood. What I take now is meant to give me life, to give me your life, but only so I may give you back my own. In this act, we shall both find pleasure, and you will be more than my familiar. You will be the child of my own heart’s blood.”
There was a sudden thrashing behind my breastbone. Though I knew it wasn't physical, it was no less real.
“Susan, you have deceived me. I shall punish you very severely for this duplicity. Do you really think a dead creature can keep me from what is mine?”
The Guardian’s voice was not raised, but in it was an edge of disquiet I’d not heard before. “For your impertinence, vampire, I shall take your succubus and use her long and hard, even if she does reek of your death.”
“You can try.” The voice that responded was different, and in my groggy, giddy state, a blurred apparition of Magda Gardener pushed aside the makeshift curtain that separated the mattress from the rest of the area. Even with her glasses still in place, her hair seemed to writhe and dance around her face, as though it lived and breathed anger and fury. “I won’t hesitate to turn the scribe and the vampire if that’s what it takes, and well you know this.”
I felt as though my whole body jerked and struggled around the still point at which Alonso’s mouth pressed against my vein, but in truth I had not physically moved. I was incapable of movement, completely enthralled by the ebb and flow of my blood and the kiss and bite of the vampire at my throat.
“That won’t be necessary, Magda,” Talia said, still caressing my ankle and my calf. “We’ve got this.”
“You shall all suffer for this deception!” The words came from Talia’s throat, but the Guardian spoke them from inside my body.
“Oh, I doubt it,” the succubus managed in the next breath, her grip secure on my leg.
Then He spoke inside my head, only to me, and I knew that no one else could hear Him. “Susan, my darling little scribe, you can still set me free, just as you’ve done before. I can give you so much more than this vampire can. I can give you the mind of God. Release me, and I promise you there will be no punishment, no recriminations, but I shall embrace you as my own. What I have promised, I shall perform. I shall give you the mind of God.”
“But you’re not God. I know this now. As I released you, so I now return you to your captivity. Only this time, I hold the key in a place where you can never reach it.” It was a thought, nothing more, but He heard me, and so did Alonso.
“Then I shall enthrall another to stake you and set me free,” the Guardian said.
“I’m already dead,” I replied. “If I become ash, I take you with me. All doors are closed to you. And now, you have your wish, a home in the flesh.”
“Susan, no. Susan, please don’t do this. There is so much I have to offer you, so much to tell you, to show you. Please don’t do this.” I heard His voice from a long way off, and for a moment I feared he was escaping, but the weight pressing on my chest became more desperate as the voice drifted farther and farther away. I must have moaned out loud. Perhaps I even thrashed.
But then Alonso’s calming voice filled my whole body. “There is nothing to worry about, my darling girl. All is exactly as it should be. His efforts of desperation will end soon, for you are nearing your death, and then we will remake you. I promise you the Guardian cannot leave. As for you there is now no turning back, so is it for Him.”
“Not long now,” Talia said.
Suddenly my vision was filled with Michael, who stepped around Magda and pushed his way forward. My heart was filled with Michael no matter where the Guardian resided in
side me, and I think I tried to smile. But even that was such an effort.
He settled on the mattress next to me and took my limp hand in his, pressing a kiss to my palm, then closing my fingers around it.
“Not long now,” Talia said again.
This time, with my last effort, with my last coherent thought, I shouted in my mind, the only part of me that still worked, “I love you, Michael. Tell him I love him... Tell him... Please tell him...”
His fingers jerked against mine. A single tear slid down his cheek. He bent and kissed me tenderly on the mouth. It was the last thing I felt as I drew the breath of the living for the final time.
Chapter Thirty-two
Awareness returned slowly with an irritating drip, drip, drip of something between my parted lips. Even more irritating was the acid burn at the back of my throat as whatever it was trickled down. Whatever it was, I felt I should have known, but I couldn’t for the life of me recall.
Drip, drip, drip! I coughed and choked, flailing to shove the hand away from my face that stroked my jaw, but my efforts were useless. I was weak as a kitten, and I had no context for my situation, a fact that frightened me, and I flailed harder.
Strong arms cradled me, cool fingers stroked my throat and someone spoke softly. “Swallow, my darling girl. You must swallow and take my strength.”
Drip, drip, drip!
“She has to drink. You have to make her drink, or she’ll die.” There was another male voice, a voice full of worry. A familiar voice.
“She’s already dead, Michael,” a woman’s voice commented.
“Shut up, Magda,” came the reply, a reply which I barely noticed because my attention was on the fact that I was dead. I was supposed to be, wasn’t I? Wasn’t that the plan? And then something was supposed to happen after that. I just couldn’t think for the irritating, burning, drip, drip, drip making my eyes water and my sinuses sting.
“Drink, my darling girl,” the soft voice was still insisting in my ear. The cool fingers were still stroking my throat. “You must drink from me now, as I have drunk from you, and all shall be well.”
I choked and gagged, then swallowed. The acid burn became warm and sweet and soothing down the back of my throat, bursting with richness and flavor, and suddenly I was starving for whatever it was that filled my mouth. The taste of it, the power of it was transformed to fire and heat and life, and I was freezing and shivering, and I couldn’t get enough of its warmth.
“That’s it, that’s right, my darling; drink. Drink from me. The shivering will pass, and you will soon not notice the cold.”
A large hand cradled my head and guided me toward the source of the liquid fire. My teeth punctured flesh and, for a moment, I thought I would be sick at the very thought. But then the drip, drip, drip became an even, steady flow that flooded my mouth and coursed down my throat into my belly. The world around me burst into sharp focus. Alonso held me against his bare chest and I fed from the vein just above his left nipple. I fed as though I was starving. I fed as though I would never get enough. Child of his heart’s blood, he said I would be, and now I understood why.
“Welcome back.” Magda Gardener smiled down at me.
I didn’t respond. I had forgotten how to do anything but drink from Alonso, throwing my arms around him and pulling him closer to my lips, an act which caused him to sigh and moan softly. I couldn’t tell if it was with pleasure or if I was hurting him and, to be honest, I don’t think it would have mattered one way or another. I had little control over my need to feed at that point. It was far more instinct that drove me than it was any higher brain function and that, in itself, would have terrified me if I’d had the capacity to dwell on it.
Whether I was causing him pain or not, he made no effort to hinder me, and I fed aggressively. For me it was pleasure, but of the most primitive kind. It was the satisfying of hunger, urgent, demanding hunger, hunger that insisted I feed as though I might never feed again; hunger that had as little to do with filling my belly as a thunderstorm has to do with filling the ocean. And yet in spite of my raging need, I was keenly aware of everything around me. It was just that I could concentrate on nothing at the moment but taking more of the spiced wine heat of Alonso’s blood into me. I had never tasted anything so sweet.
“It’s best not to touch her just yet,” Alonso said, when Michael reached out to stroke my cheek. “She is not herself. She is not yet safe.”
“Of course she’s not safe,” Michael snapped. “She’s a fucking vampire.”
“She is not yet a fucking vampire,” Alonso replied evenly. “She is not yet fully made. She must feed, then she must rest and then feed again. Until that has happened and, until we can help her control her urges, she is in danger, as are those around her.”
“How long?” Michael ran a hand through his hair and paced the small space, shoving at the makeshift curtain. “How long before she’s back to herself?”
“I do not know,” Alonso said. “It is different with every person, and I have never sired before.”
“Fucking hell! You mean you’re making this up as you go along? Jesus!”
“Michael, sit down and shut up,” Magda said. “Whether or not Alonso has sired a million or none is irrelevant at this point. Susan made her choice, and Alonso will do what he must. It is also a fact that you must prepare yourself for that while Susan will still be herself at the core of her being, she will be changed in ways that may be… difficult.”
“Christ!” Michael grumbled under his breath. “And the Guardian?” he asked, turning on Alonso, who growled a warning. Or at least I thought it was Alonso, but it was actually me. “Tell me at least that after what you’ve done to her that it worked.”
“There’s no sign of Him,” Magda said. “But if he was in Susan’s body when Alonso took her, he’s still there.”
“Oh, He’s there all right,” Talia said. “And not very happy about it, either. But I promise you, by the time He realized He wasn’t just dreaming Alonso’s presence, the process was too far along for him to escape.”
“Can he hurt her?” Michael asked. “Can he use her as he did me?”
“He cannot use the dead,” Alonso said.
Michael flinched as though he had been slapped.
But Alonso made no apologies for being blunt. In truth, he had other things on his mind. I knew because I could feel those things in the back of my own mind as though, by feeding from him, I also took from his thoughts. “She will sleep soon, when she is sated. Then we must get her, and myself, back to High View before dawn comes. This is not a safe place for either of us and, while I could manage in the crypt, I do not know what Susan’s needs will be, and I can better anticipate them in my own home, which is designed with our kind in mind.”
It happened so quickly that I almost missed it. The slackening of my mouth, the flickering of my tongue over my lips to make sure I’d not missed a single drop, and then I licked instinctually at the wound over Alonso’s heart to seal it. I fell asleep before I finished. All the while Alonso spoke soft, calming words to me from the edge of the dream world.
That was my last memory until I woke in a huge bed in a deeply shadowed room with no windows. Alonso sat in an overstuffed chair that had been moved close to the bed. I was aware of Magda and Michael in the room, sitting in the shadows, but they didn’t matter. For the moment, only Alonso mattered. I was in a black shirt that I knew was his, and nothing else, but then I had been naked with no actual memory of shedding my clothes when he had come to me at Chapel House. I could smell the high fells scent of him deep in the weave of the fabric, beyond the reach of the surface smell of laundry soap.
That was not, however, the scent that dragged me up from my sleep, but rather the scent of blood. A smell that filled my mouth with saliva and made my stomach clench and cramp in hunger. I was out of the bed and on Alonso’s lap, clawing open his shirt, sending buttons flying so quickly that I barely had a sense of my own movement. Had I, it most certainly would hav
e frightened me.
But when Alonso pushed me away and tried to ease me back in the bed, saying something about not being able to feed me, whatever I was becoming lashed out like a whip with strength and speed I neither knew I had, nor was I able to control. All I knew in that instant was unbearable hunger which I had to satisfy at all costs. The chair went over backward with me landing on top of Alonso, still trying to get to the source of nourishment.
A split second later, I was the one flat on my back on the floor, with Alonso straddling me, pinning my arms above my head and me yelling like a banshee, “Get off me! Get off me! Give it to me!”
I’ve heard that predators are often tunnel-visioned, unable to see anything but the prey in their sight once they begin to move in for the kill. Even as the thought horrified me, the fact that Michael and Magda now flanked Alonso and were yelling at me brought it home loud and clear that a predator was exactly what I had become. Even though I had known that would be the case when I had asked Alonso to take me, I was suddenly, painfully, aware of what that meant, even as none of the logic mattered, even as nothing in the whole world mattered but feeding.
“Listen to me, Susan,” Alonso was all but yelling at me just to get my attention, and I wanted to rip his face off for it. Damn it, all I wanted to do was feed! “I cannot feed you, for both Talia and Reese have needed from me after our efforts at Chapel House. I am depleted, my darling girl. But Michael and Magda will feed you.”
Michael had already shed his shirt and knelt next to me, pulling me to him as Alonso eased up his weight, and I lunged.
“Not from your heart, Michael,” Alonso warned. “From your wrist, even your neck. But not from your heart, it’s too dangerous.”
“From my heart,” came Michael’s breathless reply. “Only from my heart.” He swallowed back a hiss of pain as I tore at the flesh above his left nipple in frustration, unable to access the vein as I had with Alonso.
He braced himself against my vicious tearing, crying out as I bit him again and again in desperation, only managing to bruise and lacerate and, while the surface bled, I could not get to the vein.