Thirst

by Tapley, Travis

  The man lay in the floor helpless, feeling like a paraplegic who had fallen out of his chair, but unable to use even his arms to pull himself to safety. He was paralyzed all over, nothing worked except his eyes and his ears and he had a feeling he wished they didn’t right now. The young girl was pushed onto the bed on her back, nothing on but her bra and panties. She was too pretty, too young for this life, but the needle marks that covered her arms told the story why. Her long curly brunette hair, dark green eyes read like a novel of the classic runaway. Kicked out of her home by demanding parents because she had had sex with her boyfriend and came home late. Nowhere to go, she had found her way to New Orleans, and the Queen of sin was about to give her a taste, and definition of death’s lust.

  Lilith hovered over the young girl, her arms holding her up at stomach level as she wanted to spend a little playtime with this drug infested morsel. She reached down between the girls legs and rubbed her panties asking her, “Do you know what it is like to die as you have a mind blowing orgasm? Well, tonight is your lucky night. As scared as she was, the girl felt the pleasure building between her legs, her hips starting to arch with each rub of this demons hand. She felt the breath of this creature on her neck, so hot, felt the licks of her tongue. The feeling in her hips unlike any she had ever experienced, a pleasurable fear filled her throat as she wanted to scream out in excitement, or was it? The bite on the neck leaving her speechless as she reached the point of no return, she never felt the life draining from her, the light in her eyes fading as her blood was sucked dry. Her body, her arched hips, fell back onto the bed, lifeless. Lilith felt the heart stop in her teeth and the last drops of nectar enter her veins. She felt the power enter her body, renewing her strength from a day of no rest. It was now the despicable mans turn.

  Just as the girl had felt fear and pleasure, he had felt the same from watching, but the sick feeling was in his stomach and he wondered how he had an erection. It was almost as if this thing, this creature that was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen had powers beyond any human belief. Lilith picked him up off of the floor, and tossed him beside the dead girl and onto his back. “You want to experience that to? You want to cum and go at the same time?” There was no answer, the only thing he knew was a fear like he had never had, and it was showing in his eyes. She hovered over him just as she had his hooker, and reached down with her hand, moving his underwear exposed his manhood. “I bet you would like for me to touch, kiss it, lick it, hmmmmm...would you like for me to suck it?” This couldn’t be real, it wasn’t true, vampires didn’t exist. They were works of fiction from sick twisted writer’s that needed help. But the puncture wounds on the neck of what was supposed to be his night of fun told him otherwise. She was still thirsty, but would wait to drink again in the next room she entered. She had a little message to leave in this one. “I don’t think you deserve an orgasm, you are a disgusting male mortal, the lowest of the low. I think I shall use you to leave a little note for your boys in blue to find.” While still rendering him speechless, she ripped off his hard penis and as his genitals spewed his blood, she used it as a perverted pen to leave her writing on the wall, “This is the beginning”

  She entered the room next door in the same fashion as the last. The couple was going at it, hot and heavy. At least the man was. The woman was on her back, eyes closed as the man thrust away wildly at her. All she wanted was for him to do his deed so she could get dressed and back on the street for another trick. If only she had known, her tricks were over and she was about to become a treat. Lilith grabbed their heads and smashed them together with such force she felt the bones of the skulls collapsing. Blood spurting everywhere and covering her hands, face and body. She licked her fingers of the crimson candy and wiped as much as she could from her face and clothes. Being careful to taste every drop, what a shame it would be to waste any she thought. Her deed accomplished for the night, she had doubled last nights total and now the fear would set in.

  Seneca returned from his feeding, and Summer sat quietly on the couch. She had hardly spoken at all through the day, and it appeared the night would hold much of the same. Would any of this be different if had been handled another way? He had always felt that life, no matter who or what lived it was in some ways planned out for you. How else could one explain his Mother and the feelings she had had, and the fate that fell before her? Was it mere coincidence that she would feel as she did and do what she had done had her life not already been planned? He didn’t really like to think this way, but things done, and choices made were always met with certain consequences, and it was impossible to know how things would have turned out if done differently. So, why did one choose the path they did? If the other way had been a better choice, then shouldn’t that have been the way it worked? In some ways it seemed true and in others not so much. All one had to do was look at the mortals, they were prone to making the wrong choices even when they knew they were wrong.

  He could ask himself a million questions on this topic and it would all turn out the same, it was something in which he would never have an answer for. For a being so powerful, so knowledgeable, it sure felt like he was an idiot sometimes in the questions of the universe. Was his life that much different than the mortals after all? They believed in a God that was not really what their book said it was. It was a God, and it did create them, but it was never his intention for all of the evil to walk the earth. All of this could be pointed at one creature and her followers, Lilith and the Council. Had she not been so foolish in heaven, and been content with living a live as a being that had nothing to fear and no worries, would any of this be happening? Which took him back to his original thought. Had the creator really known all along what was going to happen? Did he create Lilith as a game, a toy, something to challenge him? How can you be the very beginning of everything and not get bored? Maybe she was created out of his boredom to make everything a giant chess board, and plenty of thought had to be placed into every move.

  Chapter 10

  “Panic”

  Two nights in a row, six dead, three male and three female, the women workers of the streets and the males their paid good time. No witnesses, no one had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. The NOPD knew they had their hands full with this deranged sociopath, they were sure by the brutal state of the victims bodies they were dealing with a male and didn’t like the thought of serial killer. But six bodies in two nights pretty much determined that and the message on the wall of the motel room confirmed it. They had never seen a scene like it. What kind of monster can rip off a male penis and use it to write in the victims blood the words, “It is the beginning?” Their manpower was already stretched to the limits and they were asking any of the surrounding parishes for any help on their forces that could be spared. They knew now they had to heavily patrol the Chef Menteur highway. Any police officer on his off days would be welcomed to come help them track down this sick killer or killers. They really had no clue.

  Summer awoke and looked at the clock. Nine fifteen, it had been a long time since she had slept past six thirty. Her mind was in turmoil and every time she thought she had an answer to what she must do, the other side weighed in and she started searching herself again. She couldn’t say soul because apparently, according to Seneca, she didn’t have one. If she died, she might as well fall into a heap of ashes and be sucked in a vacuum cleaner. After all isn’t that all she was was? A clump of nothing. No more or less than dirt to be disposed of as garbage? She had dreamed all night of wars and watching the man she loved or used to be beheaded at the hands of a demon warrior she did not know. She had thought about prayer and turning to what used to be her God for answers, but knew it was fruitless. Did he even hear the simple mortals cry for help?

  She had longed believed anyway that prayer was a tool for the misguided. How could one even say we need to pray for this or that? She always looked at the questions everyone else seems to ignore or not want to discuss. It was too easy to just do what the boo
k said and try to abide by it as best as possible. Wasn’t that everyone’s goal? To see heaven? To meet the maker and stand in awe of his glory? But in prayer what did you accomplish? Now that she knew the truth, did prayer ever really matter? She had often thought that if two people loved the same girl and they both wanted her equally, and if both prayed to God, then who would win her love and why? What deemed one person more deserving of the love than another? Did the prayers ever get to the ears of God? It all seemed so silly to her now, and it was in that moment that she had her answer. She knew what she must do, and wondered how Seneca would react when she told him.

  He had the look of tired and sleepy in his eyes when she came into the kitchen. The morning paper told him more than he wanted to know. The death toll was now up to six, and would only be growing everyday until he came out of hiding and faced her, but he couldn’t, it was not time yet. He felt responsible for those poor mortals losing their lives needlessly, but until the time was right, he had to let them be her meals. If this was to be the final showdown between them, he must make sure everything was exactly as it needed to be. There was no answer as to how to get rid of her, but maybe there was some way to capture her and hold her prisoner until her fate could be decided. There was that word again, fate. He guessed everybody had one and one way or another after all these centuries, it was time to rush his and end the hatred. He thought back to the days of Amaranth. Had it been much different with her in the beginning than with Summer now? Amaranth didn’t have a choice, she was what she was thanks to him. Should Summer not then be grateful to him for at least giving her the choice? She needed to make up her mind before he did what he dreaded and make it up for her. He wanted her to do for herself, wanted her to be his pride and either go down with him, or ride the waves of victory into oblivion.

  Victory, what a meaningless word. Was there ever such a thing as victory? Even in battles won, had there not always been something lost? He understood his duty here, why it had all came down to this. But why had it taken all these years to get here? He could toss the words destiny and fate around all day, and argue the validity of them. And he could come back to the same question time after time. Was there really a point to all of this, and to why it was even necessary to be, to exist. This was not the first time he had thought of these things, they had haunted him for years, decades, centuries.

  She held the old Bible in her hands, opened it up to II Corinthians 5:17. How many times had she read and believed this verse was meant for her, the human race? A new creature, it made sense now. It said any man, but vampires were men. The day his Mother sucked the blood, she had become that new creature. Every time another one of them were made, it was exactly that, a new creature. It was no longer human, it was a creature. And it had been right there in front of her nose all of her life and she never thought the word creature would ever have such an impact on her and what she had once believed as truth, in some ways. That was one of the things that had drawn her to him. He thought like she did. All the hours they had spent together doing nothing but talking about life and death and what happened then. The discussions they had had on those words spoken so long ago by Pilate, “What is truth?” She felt he was her soul mate, he understood her and did not think her weird as most did when she could not accept the answers everyone else did. It was never yes or no, it was why to her. Why did this book have to be written this way, why did Jesus come to the earth to save mankind, and what kind of person, or a God would send their only son down here to die that miserable death? And for what to save the human race, if they so chose to follow him? It all seemed rather morbid to her. It never seemed like the Bible had been about love so much as living with a abusive parent who no matter what you did, always beat you.

  Her mind kept going back to her parents. All the times her father had lost his cool with her about the vampire thing. How could a girl raised in a good Christian home have such a love for something so ungodly? They could never understand that it wasn’t anything to do with them, and how they raised her. It was always a bad reflection on them in their minds if she made mention of these things to others and talked about it. It was never about her having a life and mind of her own to use and think with as she saw fit. It was always about not making them look bad or disgracing them. But then again, weren’t so many of that generation exactly as they were? Could never open their minds and think outside of the box, because it wasn’t what God wanted. She had always thought maybe it was what he wanted. Such a shame that she had been right in some ways all these years without even knowing it, and they would never know, they would simply die and return to the earth. But in some ways was that a bad thing? The human race would fight, argue and destroy themselves for what in the end? Nothing.

  When would she tell Seneca the news on her decision? She didn’t even know how long they had before the attack came. She had realized that no matter what, the children came first and her decision had been made around that fact, She didn’t think she wanted to be just another Amaranth. But had she been a fool all this time to think he had lived for two thousand years and never had another mate. She understood him being single when he was a mortal in her mind, but living for as long as he had when she found out the truth was mind blowing. She laughed at the thought, hadn’t everything been mind blowing for a while now?

  He knew he was the only one that could feel it, and if Summer were immortal, she would feel it too right now. It was the chill of Lilith in the air. Even thought it was daylight, he knew her all to well and knew she took great pleasure in these things and would not sleep until she had sent the message she wanted to send to him. He knew he could not face her right now. He wasn’t prepared and the only way to prepare himself was for Summer to tell him what she wanted to do. With or without her, he had to end this. He knew the time had come. Summer held the key to his destiny and hers by what she finally decided upon. He did know that Michael had to go first. And he knew when that happened, the wrath of the council, especially the hatred for him by Mortis would be a devilish thing to behold. To say all hell was about to break lose would be an understatement.

  He would have to make a move soon to get rid of Michael. He would have to risk exposing himself in the night, and hope that Lilith was still on her rampage on the Chef. She would have to be busy making herself known to New Orleans and return to find him dead. He wasn’t sure how she would react, he knew she didn’t really care about anyone but herself, but to take away her pawn might prove to be more than he could withstand. Michael did her bidding and he went before the council on her behalf many times to keep her from being reprimanded. But did they really have the power to do anything to her at all? Had she not been their ruler and the reason they had been tossed out of heaven with her? Maybe that was the key to getting rid of her. As long as Michael was around and cared for her, then Mortis had mercy. Maybe they were stronger than her in number and could take her down. He really had no idea, and it made him dizzy just trying to sort it all out. How did you kill something that had never been alive in the first place? Or was it?

  Lilith insisted that Michael stay awake with her throughout the day. She was glowing in the recent deaths of the humans and was taking great joy in telling him how she had destroyed the last male. Even as a vampire, it was nothing any male of any species desired to hear. Getting ones penis ripped off and then used as a pen was not his idea of a very good story. She ran her long black nails through his hair and said, “Oh, Michael, you do know the time has come?” He knew this and it was not so much a question as a statement that her reign was about to begin. Was this why he put up with it? To know that she would have her own kingdom and he would rule beside her? No longer her King, but some sort of weird servant that had total control over everything but her. Even the council would be his. If she succeeded in her plight, no one would be as powerful as her. She had promised him to destroy the council. She only let them stay around now because of their age and wisdom with the younger ones. They handled the task she did not care to undertake,
and left her free to plan her success. He had surely taken his lashings from Mortis. To think of them all gone and no one but Lilith and himself in total power made his dislike for her a little more bearable.

  It was in these thoughts that his mind struggled. He had been battered by her and the Council for years. Did he want her to win this war and take total control? He did feel she was tired of him, disgusted with him in fact, but he was the oldest man made vampire. He was the supreme not so much mortal creature. There had been many many years between him and the next mortal that crossed over to the side of the undead. It was in those days that Lilith was content to drink her fill, and terrorize the modern man of that time. She had created chaos in the Garden and changed all of man kind. Then all those years haunting men in their sleep, causing more than wet dreams. She was the real meaning of mental illness. There was no limit to how she could affect mankind. He had not been around during the time of the flood, had not been born human, not yet conceived. He knew it had caused her great agony that she could not butcher the mind of the man Noah. But she had not really deep inside wanted too. She was smart enough to know that with the extinction of the humans, she would no longer exist. He knew her secret What no one else knew. And it was so obvious. She wanted the power, to rule the earth and the heavens. To do to the human God what he had done to her.

  The creator wanted to do away with the whole species, but this one man kept it all from ending then. He allowed him to escape in that boat and Lilith knew her plan had succeeded. There was no one left to corrupt and she loved the fact she could start all over again. Create evil out of a whole new generation and centuries of mortals. She had lived with the council during that forty days and nights of constant rain off of the dead around them. Sucking the rotting corpses of man and animal of whatever blood they could squeeze from the blackened flesh. They had escaped the sunlight during the days by diving under the water and finding caves with pockets of air and dryness to hang themselves. When the blood supply was about to run out toward the end, they had resorted to biting themselves, and tasting their own blood. With the power of the night in them, it took very little for them to survive. In fact it had made them stronger, more powerful. They had shared the blood of the heavens among themselves and made them almost impossible to defeat.