Edouard furtively glanced at Henri watching him. It was obvious Henri had noted his peculiar reaction.
With a frown Henri said, “As yet, I have not informed the police of her arrival, even though they are interested in questioning her. I fear if the police, with their brutish methods, were to question the young woman in her present mental state, it would cause irreparable harm.”
Edouard mulled over this while sipping his cognac. He couldn’t get the image of that beautiful woman out of his mind.
“You disagree?” Henri asked with raised eyebrows.
Edouard snapped out of it. “No ... no, I concur with your reasoning, Henri, but to purposefully mislead the police ... well, it goes against the grain.”
Henri shrugged. “You don’t know them as I do, Edouard. They are nothing but bullies and thugs, believe me.” Henri sighed before continuing. “I might as well come clean and give you the distressing news I received this morning. Ellise and Sebastian Moreau were brutally murdered and it would appear this woman in our care must have been a witness.”
Edouard spilled some brandy when his hand jolted. His heart beat so hard and fast it hurt. The certainty of his dream woman being here and that fiend probably searching for her terrified him. Sweat erupted on his brow – a cold sweat of sheer panic.
Edouard shook his head with dismay. “I am so sorry about your friends, Henri. What a terrible waste.” He had to be with her.
Henri nodded a thank you. “If direct questioning is of no use, I would like you to put her under hypnosis.”
Edouard sat up on the couch like a terrier sniffing its prey. “With a view to regression, perhaps?”
Watching Henri place his glass on the ornamental side-table for a refill, Edouard knocked back his remaining cognac and hoped for no further replenishments.
Henri topped up his own glass and continued, “Yes of course, my dear fellow. But she will be your patient, I’ll agree to any course of treatment you decide upon ... within reason.”
Edouard put a hand over his empty glass and breathed a sigh of relief when Henri accepted the refusal. Edouard’s brow furrowed for a moment, deep in thought. An image of her plucking the rose from his hand flashed across his mind.
Henri looked thoughtful for a moment. “I remember my first few days here. I was not much older than you are now.” Henri paused to allow his grief to pass.
Edouard’s thoughts raced out of control. He had to see his dream woman and be with her – for eternity. What did that mean?
Henri raised his glass in a somber manner, “Here’s to Ellise and Sebastian ... may they be happy in a field of sunflowers, bathed by the warmth of their love.” He wiped tears from his eyes.
Edouard was about to get up, eager to tend to his dream woman, when he saw the distress on Henri’s face and decided to distract him. “What about this aversion therapy, Henri? It sounds most intriguing.”
Henri smiled with evident pride. “Ah yes, aversion therapy. It’s something I have been perfecting. I have had some good results so far.” Henri topped up their glasses with more cognac. “I hypnotize a patient into believing their addiction is poison.” Henri waited for Edouard to comment.
Edouard dutifully chipped in, “Surely the patient would only comply if they truly wanted to kick the addiction?”
Henri shrugged and nodded. “Perhaps but the results have been better than I expected.” Henri looked excitedly at Edouard. “I am writing a paper on the results. Oh, please forgive me, you must be famished.” Henri pulled a cord hanging next to a book shelf.
Edouard looked impressed and that was his last coherent thought. He jolted hearing Eternal scream his name as if her lips were to his ear – “Edouard my true love!” It was a desperate plea for help.
Chapter 25
Naked handmaidens hung from rafters by their ankles, squirming while their blood drained from slashed necks into a gulley. The demented creature feasting upon them was Erzsebet Bathory, the Blood Countess. Her long hair was matted with gore. She insisted upon Eternal’s vintage, for these pathetic bags of blood dripping their life’s essence were of no use to her. Eternal refused the Countess’ command for more blood.
The tempest that followed was a sight to behold. The Countess screamed a storm, smashing all mirrors reflecting her ravaged skin. She attacked Eternal with sharp talon-like fingernails but was not quick enough to draw blood.
Resigned to her fate, the Countess disrobed and stepped into a marble bath of warm blood fed from the gulley in the hope this would revive her aging flesh.
Eternal’s fangs gleamed with an irresistible need for vengeance. She had no further use for this defiler of all things good and demure. Using her hypnotic allure, Eternal partook of the Countess’ royal vintage, replenishing her own depleted stock.
Once Eternal had taken what was rightfully hers, the Countess became insane with her addiction. She begged Eternal for more blood. Eternal took small pleasure in watching the Countess dry up like an old hag in a turret prison.
Those terrible screams forced Eternal out of her slumber, only to be confused by her alien surroundings. The room of circular rough stone dissolved to an anemic hospital room. She was perplexed by daylight filtering through the blanket. The redness of sunburn on her arms and feet stung her to distraction. How long had she slept she wondered. It must be the following morning. A stomach-churning panic rose from her belly and rushed out of her throat. She gagged on her fear and convulsed with doubt and uncertainty.
With a mind-ripping scream, Eternal summoned all her otherworldly powers for Edouard to come to her aid – “Edouard, my true love, you must save me.”
Eternal was frantic. She sprang from the cot and paced the tiny room. Had the eternal hour passed? Was it so close she had mere moments to prepare? She marched back and forth, stopping less than an inch from wall and door.
“I am Eternal. I am Eternal. I ... am ... Eternal.”
Eternal’s legs buckled. Sickening hunger gnawed at her. She doubled up in pain, the rage trying to free itself, but there was no supply of blood to sustain her. Collapsing across the bed, she curled up tight as a rose bud and just as fragile.
She swiftly succumbed to exhaustion, drifting off into another nightmare, another life.
Cleopatra lay draped across a bed of rose petals, lulled by the gentle rocking of her barge. Her muse, Eternal, refused to give her blood and clung to her true love, Drusus, personal surgeon to Marcus Antonius. Cleopatra screamed, “May the Gods curse you Drusus, you have poisoned her mind against me. I must have her blood!”
Marcus Antonius rushed into the bed chamber with sword in hand, his eyes glowing red with hatred. After a brief scuffle, Drusus lay on the floor, his green eyes dulled with death.
Eternal backed away from the evil one.
Marcus Antonius slashed out with his sword and drew blood from Eternal’s arm. As the blood flowed he and Cleopatra drank their fill.
Eternal laughed at their folly. “I can see your navy defeated at Actium for I am no longer your muse. That which you need the most I now refuse. By all that is the Eternal Moon my poison will drive you to suicide.”
Before Marc Antony could react, she leapt overboard and was presumed drowned.
Eternal awoke from the nightmare, bathed in sweat with that word Eternal filling her mind. She glanced around her room and whimpered with fear.
Images of villagers chasing her, armed with pitchforks and flaming torches crashed through her mind. She could not outrun them so she turned on them. At her feet lay countless bodies with throats torn out. Eternal’s fangs continued the slaughter, cutting off their screams. Her mouth, filled with sharp teeth, drooled sweet gore. Could she be this cruel?
A dark figure loomed over her. She could smell its sickly sweet, lemony breath and the wetness on her face where its tongue had licked. The thought caused her to convulse. A shudder of revulsion sent a trembling shock wave through her, feeling a groping hand probing between her legs. Her hospital gown had been drawn up to her hips. In
abject terror and disgust, she scurried to the corner of her bed where the wall abutted the window.
The room became a circular turret chamber of damp stone. She recognized the stench of the demon. Its rotting flesh with putrid dripping pustules and drooling saliva all told her she was in the presence of pure evil.
The rampant panting nauseated her. She was trapped and defenseless. There was only one thing she could do. Fight back! She raked her long nails down the demon’s arm and screamed for all she was worth into its ugliness.
Eternal shivered uncontrollably sensing the vile demon’s arm withdrawing from between her legs. The scent of blood! The rage came upon her. She lunged at the gore dripping in thin streaks down the demon’s arm. She bit down on rancid, scaly flesh.
Screams of agony delighted her but not the punch to her face, which threw her against a wall. Stunned, she glared at the demon’s hasty retreat, the jangling of keys sealing her fate.
Eternal winced in pain, noticing bright sunlight cascading through the barred window. With eyes tight shut, she gripped the bars with all her might and tried to bend them. They wouldn’t budge. She cried in defeat, picked up the blanket and used it to cover the window before finally putting her head to her pillow.
Sleep was immediate but not welcome. A scream of hideous torment ripped her mind apart. She connected with His mind, he was dreaming of her. This she knew beyond all reason for his hate engulfed her with its black cloak of death. He was that close she could sense his evil essence nestled within her birthing place.
Eternal’s mind was branded with confused images spewing forth from Lucien’s boyhood.
Chapter 26
Curled up under his coat on the front seat of his car, Lucien mumbled incoherently while his childhood dreams took control of his deranged mind.
~~~~
During the final moments of the Great War that had stripped Europe of its young men, fifteen-year-old Lucien cycled all the way to Auxerre and entered a bookstore. The smell of molding books was invigorating. His finger skimmed row after row of volumes until a tingling of electricity stopped him dead in his tracks. A cold shiver slithered down his back. Snakes coiled in his stomach. He removed a leather-bound copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula with a trembling hand.
That night Lucien was grateful for his grasp of English. He opened the book and began to read with only the full moon to illuminate the glorious words. It seemed appropriate. It seemed right. Then something wonderful and yet terrifying happened. An icy wind ruffled the pages. The book became so cold Lucien dropped it to the floor.
A black mist formed like smoke from burning rubber, quivering as if alive. Feral eyes glowed within the dark presence. It hovered above a transfixed Lucien. He heard it speak in his mind.
“Let me in, young master Dupont.”
Lucien opened his mouth to scream but was stifled by the specter flying down his throat and choking him off. He coughed, smothered by smoke and smelled that moldy old bookshop but most of all he felt more alive than he knew was possible.
The Count spoke in his mind, “Bide your time, for I will know when the moment arrives. Sleep and I will nourish you.”
Lucien endured terrifying nightmares. Many times he awoke bathed in sweat, and yet, when he looked at his hands they were dripping with thick, dark blood. The vivid dream had spilled out into his waking world.
“Fear no man!” The Count insisted.
Every night he suffered gory dreams where he drank blood by the gallons, hunted a beautiful young woman who constantly antagonized him and fought bloody battles. Eventually these frequent nightmares became second nature to him, a constant. The Count comforted his turmoil with the promise of impending greatness.
When the church bells rang the end of the conflict Lucien knew his freedom would be at an end upon his brutal father’s return from the trenches. For four wonderful years Lucien had endured the labors of winemaking on the family vineyard as never before knowing something special was coming his way. Once The Count had taken a hold of his dark soul, Lucien relished his destiny.
During the rage of the pestilence known as the Spanish Flu, a strange thirteen-year-old girl with milky-white skin and flowing red hair entered Lucien’s home as a servant sent from the Auxerre Orphanage. She was his perfect Petite Rose.
“You must pursue her and win her heart,” The Count said.
Sixteen-year-old Lucien had little choice but to fall in love. He discovered history through her eyes. She would amaze him with her knowledge of the Celts, Pharaohs, Romans, The Normans, Borgia, Elizabeth Tudor, scientific discoveries, inventions and the Arts and yet she had no idea who Napoleon Bonaparte was.
One memorable day, Lucien hid behind the nesting boxes and waited for his true love to collect the eggs and catch her in the act.
The dark music of eternal love filled his mind when Delicate Rose entered the coop. She wore her floppy summer hat, fine white gloves and flour paste smeared on exposed flesh to ward off the harsh rays of the sun that scorched her fragile skin bright pink in seconds. He loved all the more for eccentricities.
She shuddered, gently stroking a chicken, cooing to it with the sweetest of voices as pure as the flutter of angels’ wings. The music screamed like a flock of ravens. With a vicious growl, she plucked a chicken by the neck and bit off its head with her under-developed fangs.
She squeezed all the blood she could down her throat, smacking her lips with satisfaction before turning to stone. A look of confusion shadowed her face. She looked all around in a perplexed manner with blood dripping from her mouth.
The birds erupted in a clucking frenzy.
She smiled at the frantic birds and shushed them quiet with a finger to her lips. The chickens settled down but were still a little skittish.
Lucien turned to ice when she whirled around with a snarl and stared right at him with her head cocked to one side. A chill wind of death brought a shudder and froze his rampant heart and just like the chickens, Lucien backed away in fright. She crashed through the nesting boxes and gripped him by the throat. He thought this glorious vampire would drain him of his blood but instead she simply smiled showing her bloody teeth.
She sneered in his face like a demonic angel of death then kissed him.
Lucien gagged on the blood that she regurgitated into his mouth. That strange dark music, a raucous flock of ravens, filled his mind. He went weak at the knees feeling her power envelop him. He hugged her to him and nudged his erection against her. In moments he ejaculated. He wanted more.
She obliged with another chicken.
The Count laughed. “You’re nothing but a suckling, a little pig begging for mere drops before the inevitable slaughter.”
He heard the dark music tantalize his brain with thoughts of blood-soaked bodies writhing in sexual abandon. With a will not of his own, he kissed her. Their tongues tasted the saltiness of blood mixed with their passion. The bitter taste reminded Lucien of cheap wine.
The Count spoke, “It’s time to show her what you’re made of. You must beat her into submission ... and when the Eternal Hour has arrived ... take all her blood. But be warned, Master Lucien, do not trust the bitch.”
Lucien was addicted to that dark music filling his mind with wondrous thoughts of blood and lust. He pulled Little Fox to him and kissed her for he had to taste more blood. But what he tasted was very different. He didn’t know what it was – if it had a name at all. But The Count recognized that taste of death, a cloying, darkly sweet taste that numbed the mind for more. Lucien succumbed to her power and relished her essence now entwined with his.
With a force far beyond her frail frame, Little Fox escaped his embrace and ran.
Lucien chased her. He caught her in the kitchen and tried to kiss her bloody mouth.
That was when Lucien’s mother found them. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was in her hand. She screamed dementedly at her son, “This is the Devil’s playground. I forbid you to read such a vile book.” His mother marched up to Lucien and smashe
d the book in his face. She slapped him repeatedly until his lower lip split. The book screamed into his mind. He bent down and picked up The Count’s former home. He kissed the book now smeared with his blood.
Lucien laughed, licking the blood from the book with obvious relish.
His mother gasped with religious shock, crossing herself. “I knew you were the Devil’s spawn. Like father like son.”
The Count was furious with Lucien. “How could you let this happen?”
Lucien’s mother dragged him from the whore and threatened his manhood. He was forced to confess his evil deeds to Father Papineau, and even worse, she dragged him to see Doctor Vernier at the asylum. But Lucien was too clever for the likes of those feeble-minded fools. He outwitted them all with his lies – sweet lies that became the truth the more he believed them.
When his mother decided to get rid of that Whore of Babylon for seducing her son with her evil ways, Lucien snapped under The Count’s influence.
The Count explained, “This is what I want you to do.”
Lucien eagerly listened.
That night, knowing his father was visiting the brothels, Lucien stole into his parents’ bedroom stark naked and smeared with pig’s blood. He held a carving knife.
“Mother, oh Mother!” His bloody footprints stopped at his mother’s bed. He raised his hand and stabbed down. He giggled when she screamed. To shut her up, he slapped a bloody hand over her mouth. “Now listen closely, Mother, we will not tolerate your attitude to my Delicate Rose. She stays! Got that? Nod if you understand.” She barely managed to nod yes. “See how easy that was. If you threaten my Delicate Rose ever again I’ll let The Count eat you from the inside out.” Lucien allowed The Count to show himself with glowing red eyes and black fangs reeking of death. Lucien plucked the knife from his father’s pillow and left.
Lucien’s father became enraged when he was told of Lucien’s behavior and believed not one word. He used it as an excuse to beat Lucien’s poor wreck of a mother in his drunken rages. And so she kept quiet and never mentioned the subject again. Delicate Rose was allowed to stay on the orders of Lucien’s father.
Voracious Vixens, 13 Novels of Sexy Horror and Hot Paranormal Romance Page 28