by Sky Winters
“And Vincent, glad to see you managed to make it, as long as that took.”
“My apologies, Signore Nero- it took longer to track down the girl than anticipated.”
“Ah, no matter, she’s here and that’s what’s important.”
He turned towards Aron, looking him over with a look of bemusement.
“And this young man…Polish, I take it?”
“Yes, Signore; His name is Aron Lis. He was instrumental in helping me secure the girl.”
“Ah, very well,” Mr. Nero said, extending his hand to Aron’s, “a pleasure; though a little underdressed for the occasion.”
“Likewise, Signore,” said Aron, shaking the elder’s hand.
“And this must be the guest of honor,” he said, looking over Simone, a lascivious smile on his face.
“Well!” he said, clapping his hands together. “Shall we? We had quite the evening planned, even without the lovely young lady. I think you will all be very pleased with, ah, the new direction of things that our little organization will be going. And tonight is the very first night.”
Mr. Nero turned and began walking down the hall, a strange sprightliness to his steps. At the end, he turned and swept his arm in an “after you” gesture. The four walked to the end of the hall, all with the same nervous steps. And when they turned the corner, they realized just what they had walked into.
The enormous, high-ceilinged room was filled with members of the Italian vampire society, all in their typical finery, and all facing the group as they walked in. Massive windows lined the walls around the room, the glittering orange city twinkling around them. And as the four stepped into the room, they were flanked by two enormous, heavily-muscled guards in the typical black-and-white suits.
“Vincent; so good to see you,” said Mr. Moretti, who stood in the middle of the group, a drink in his hand.
“What’s going on?” asked Vincent, his voice tinged with anger.
“My boy, you didn’t really think that we didn’t know that something was amiss? Your little friend Chaz was sent to get you, and when he didn’t report back, we knew that you had made the decision that we had hoped you wouldn’t. A shame; we had high hopes for you in our new society. Oh, well.”
And with that, he made a flippant gesture with his hand, signaling to the guards to grab the group by their upper arms and drag them to a corner of the massive room, the crowd of vampires moving out of the way and watching with eager eyes as they were brought past, as though the group was being brought to the guillotine.
A row of chains affixed to an altar was at the center of the room, and each member of the group was bound on a dais. The crowd murmured with excitement as the four were tied in place, their arms and legs bound in heavy chains.
“As you can guess, there’s a purpose to this little gathering. What began with the ritual last night will be made known this evening, and the Italian society will take its rightful place as the rulers of the vampires of this city.”
Mr. Moretti walked in a slow circle around the room, the eyes of the crowd following him with eager anticipation of his next words.
“I, personally, thought you and the little bella flew the coop, as they say. But that you walked right into our party, well, how fortuitous!”
“You all will make wonderful blood sacrifices for this, our final ceremony. But first, let us bring in the rest of our guests,” he said, gesturing towards an enormous set of double-doors.
Two guards at each side of the doors pulled open, revealing a massive dining room lit in low light and filled with a dozen or so people, all bound and standing in a single file that coiled around the room.
Mr. Moretti clapped once, and the group was led into the main room.
Simone scanned the line with frantic eyes; she recognized all of them.
“Those are the people from my gallery!” she said to Vincent in a voice loud enough to carry over the group of vampires, who talked in excited voices with one another, commentating on the precession of new guests.
Simone recognized all of the guests, and last in the line was Kelly, a pair of puncture holes on her neck and a faraway look in her eyes. The guests were lined up in a single row against the window walls, the endless, flickering stretch of the city a backdrop to their suffering.
“Now, as we all know, a blood sacrifice is a required…statement, if you will before we can begin our glorious conquest of this city. But what do we say about bringing over a few of these young, delicious-looking individuals to our side?”
The crowd began talking again, their voices even more excited. Mr. Nero walked from the crowd and began looking over the bound gallery employees.
“Who do we think, friends? Who is worthy enough to join us?”
The crowd spoke in voices that overlapped, each of the several dozen men in attendance pointing towards their favorite of the captives.
“How about this young man?” said Mr. Nero, taking in his hand the chin of a young man with blonde hair, smooshing the lower half of his face together in the way a grandmother would do to a grandchild.
The crowd’s reaction was mixed.
“I agree,” he said, his face ambivalent as he undid the man’s bindings. “This one can be an appetizer!”
With that, he tossed the man into the crowd, who set upon him with bared fangs. Simone watched in horror as the vampires plunged their fangs into him, draining his blood, his face twisted in pain and fright.
The man was soon lost in the bodies of the crowd and was taken out of Simone’s vision.
Simone looked at the remaining prisoners, who all seemed to have listless, blank expressions, and seemingly unaware, or uncaring, of their current situation.
“Now,” said Mr. Nero, approaching Kelly, “this one is a tough call. What does everyone think?”
The gathered vampires murmured in more positive tones, and Mr. Nero and Mr. Moretti nodded to one another.
“Now that sounds a little more unanimous to me,” said Mr. Nero, before sinking his teeth into Kelly’s neck, her face wincing in pain. This went on for several moments, Kelly’s face draining of color with each gulp.
He stepped away, Kelly leaning against the wall, only able to stand due to the bindings that attached her to the gallery workers to her left and right.
“What do you say, everyone?” said Mr. Nero, blood dripping from his red lips.
The crowd responded with a cheer.
“Very well!” he said, before plunging his fangs into his wrist. Blood began to pour from his wound, he brought his wrist in a swift motion to Kelly, who latched onto his wrist with her mouth and began drinking as though possessed. After a few moments of this, her corpse-like color was replaced with the even white of the rest of the vampires, and she slumped over, a satisfied look on her face.
“Now,” said Mr. Nero, turning his attention back towards Simone and the rest of her group, “what to do about our interlopers?”
Cries of “kill them,” “burn them,” and “sacrifice!” erupted from the crowd.
The four looked at one another with worried faces. But Simone looked at Vincent, she saw that his expression was different from the others, more focused, more intense. He seemed to be saying something with his eyes, telling her to concentrate, to focus…on him. Simone didn’t know how she could sense this, but she could.
She closed her eyes and focused on Vincent, the idea of him, trying to let his mind flow into hers.
“Tonight cast off the rules of this laughable society,” said Mr. Nero, standing by Mr. Moretti, “tonight, we Italians begin our war on these cowards who see it fit to drink when the humans say we can, and live how they think we should.”
Simone, said a voice that she recognized as Vincent’s, drifting into her mind like a faraway echo, the window. Open the window; break it, push them out.
Simone’s eyes shot to one of the massive windows that looked out over the expanse of the city. The mass of the crowd all stood in front of them. She closed her eyes, the l
atch of the window in her mind, and imagined open it up, pulling the window open, and the tumbling of bodies out of it.
“No more will our people cower under the rules of the humans who seek to oppress and exploit us; from this night on, we feed when we want, kill when we want, and enslave when we want!” called out Mr. Nero, his voice rising to a crescendo amidst the cheering of the crowd.
Her eyes closed, Simone continued focusing, the latch becoming clearer and clearer in her mind until she felt she could reach out and touch it. And when the image became as clear as she could imagine it, she reached out to the imagine with a hand that she also imagined, grabbed the latch, and crushed it. The window in her mind budged an inch or two, and with a focusing of her powers, she pushed the window open with a mighty shove.
And when her eyes opened, she saw that one of the enormous windows in the room was opened, just as she imagined it to be.
The crowd turned towards the window, which was now opened, with nothing standing between the gathered vampires and a thousand-foot fall. Their voices shifted into a panic as the swirl of snow from outside blew through the vast expanse of the apartment.
Now, Simone!
She focused once again, imagining a massive hand sweeping through the crowd. And as she did this, the vampires in attendance began to tumble into one another, falling over other in a wild tumble of limbs. The ones closest to the window tumbled out of the black, snow-filled square of the open window, and fell into the night sky.
The elders looked with panic-stricken faces at the chaos sweeping through the crowd.
“It’s the girl!” shouted Mr. Moretti, pointing towards Simone with his stump-tipped arm.
Again!
She closed her eyes once more, imagining this time two hands, pushing through the crowd. Opening her eyes, she witnessed a dozen or so more vampires fly out of the window, disappearing over the edge of the window. The gallery employees remained in place, their restraints preventing them from getting caught in the push.
The rest of the crowd was in a full panic, and Aron took advantage of the chaos to break through his bindings. Once free, he rushed to the others, undoing their bindings.
The elders watched as this happened, taking care to avoid the crowd that now rushed away from the open window and through the open space of the ceremony room. Their expressions were scorched with anger, their eyes seemingly aflame as they focus their attention on Simone and the rest.
“Stop them!” Mr. Moretti shouted, his face twisted in rage.
Vincent rushed towards the elder vampire, and with a swift motion, plunged his hand into his chest, and twisted it clockwise.
“You damned fool!” he cried out, looking at the hand now wrist-deep in his chest. “We would’ve been the gods of this city, and you one of them!”
Vincent twisted his hand once more, causing cracks to break out across the elder vampire’s white flesh. He screamed in agony for a brief moment before his voice was cut off by the disintegration of his body into black ash.
The whirling spiral of snow continued to rush through the room, the roar of the wind deafening. Many of the vampires continued their desperate scramble out, with some fighting with Anthony and Aron. Simone, taking hold of the leading end of the length of chain, led her co-workers out of the room and to safety.
“Vincent!”
Vincent turned and saw the figure of Mr. Nero in the frame of the open window, his face scorched with anger and his hands in tight fists.
Turning, his hair whipping in the violent winds, Vincent looked into the face of his former elder. Then, with a blurred dash, he rushed towards him, and the two began grappling, each trying to overpower the other. They exchanged flurries of blows, and the struggle tipped from one vampire’s favor to the other. And with a surprising burst of strength, Mr. Nero struck Vincent in the back of his right leg, bringing him to his knees. He took Vincent’s face by the chin, looking down at the young vampire’s face with a look of boiling hatred.
“All for nothing, my boy!” he shouted over the blizzard winds.
He raised his hand in preparation for the killing strike, but as he brought it down with deadly speed, it stopped midway through its arc. Mr. Nero looked at his now frozen hand with an expression that began as bemused but changed nearly instantly to anger.
“What is this?” he shouted, struggling to move his hand.
But Vincent knew. He shot a quick glance to the far end of the room, where Simone stood, a look of concentration on her face. Mr. Nero saw this exchange and looked himself. Seeing Simone, and realizing what was happening, his rage increased.
“You…bitch!” he shouted, bringing up his other fist.
But Vincent was too fast for him, and with a blurred strike of his hand, he punched through Mr. Nero’s chest, grabbed the elder vampire’s heart, and twisted it out of place.
A deep look of pain crossed Mr. Nero’s face as he realized he had been killed. It then flashed into an expression of unfathomable rage, but only for a moment before he burst into a man-shaped cloud of black ash, which was able to hold its form for only a fraction of a second before being carried out of the window by the wind, the traces of the elder vampire dissipating into nothingness over the amber twinkling of the city.
The last few vampires in the room cleared out, and space was now filled with nothing but the low roar of the wind. Simone dashed over the Vincent, throwing her arms around him and pressing the side of her face against his snow-dusted chest.
“We’re safe now,” he said, his hand on her head.
Vincent looked out of the window and over the city as he held Simone, his exhausted breathing steadying as the rush from the fight subsided.
“You guys gonna close that window, or what?” said Aron, re-entering the room, his clothes dusted with black ash.
“Yes, it’s getting a little chilly in here, if I might complain a little,” said Anthony.
The four of them gathered, looking over the once-luxurious room, now overrun with destruction and death.
“The rest of the vampires?” asked Vincent.
“Scattered,” said Anthony, “taking out their leaders and half of their number over the course of twenty minutes put a bit of a damper on their plans.”
Vincent considered those who were here this evening, the members of his own kin who sought to unleash death and bloodshed over the city, scattered into the wind. He thought of their fates, what he would do when they came to him for mercy.
He decided these were questions for another time, as he took Simone’s delicate chin in the crook of his finger and placed his lips on hers, the gentle blowing of the winter winds blending with the distant sounds of sirens that grew closer by the second.
Chapter 14
Simone sighed as Vincent kissed her, his wet lips moving down the soft skin of her neck. She felt her skin tingle at the touch of both his lips and the hand that rested on her bare inner thigh. Vincent's hand was close to her pussy; he took pleasure in the feeling of her warmth on his cool skin.
“Are you ready for me now?” he asked, his voice a low purr.
“Yes,” she said, her voice heavy with arousal, “please, yes.”
Keeping the first hand where it was, he placed the other hand on her opposing thigh. He pushed her legs apart and moved from his place on the bed beside her to above her and between her legs. Vincent looked over the sight of Simone under him, her legs spread, her pussy open and waiting, her breasts draped with tresses of her black hair and rising and falling as she took deep, expectant breaths, and her blue eyes, which conveyed an expression of both hunger and submission.
He moved towards her, the head of his cock touching the lips of her pussy, sending shivers up Simone’s body, and causing her supple skin to tingle.
“Let me do it,” she said.
Vincent nodded, and Simone took his cock by the base, wrapping her delicate fingers around its warm thickness. Angling him to enter her, she guided him until the head of his cock rested against her openi
ng.
“You want me inside you?” asked Vincent, but his tone more “telling” than “asking.”
Simone responded with quick, eager nods, her fingers still around his cock. Vincent, with a slow, measured thrust, entered her. She let out a low sigh as she felt him fill her. He stayed still, his cock fully sheathed in her, for a brief moment, letting her feel the fullness of him inside her, then began to thrust. He was steady at first, moving mostly his head in and out of her in shallow thrusts, feeling her grow wetter by the second.
“Tell me how my cock feels in you, baby,” he said before ducking his head down and kissing her nipples.
“So good,” she said, running her hands through his thick hair as it draped over her chest. “So fucking good.”
The pace of his thrusts picked up, and his shallow stabs gradually became slow, lunging plunges. Simone writhed in pleasure under him, looking up at his face, which was hardened with concentration, and at the ropy tone of the muscles of his shoulders and arms as the tensed and released with each full sinking of his cock into her. She moved her hands along his smooth sides, feeling the sensation of his skin on hers, eventually resting them on the firmness of his ass. She closed her eyes, feeling him move in and out of her at an ever-quickening pace.
Vincent began to grunt as his thrusts turned into poundings, and Simone watched as a thin sheen of sweat began to form on the surface of his flawless skin. He moved his head up and looked into Simone’s eyes with a fixed, narrow-eyed expression through the tresses of his hair. An orgasm began to form in Simone as looked down, watching the abundance of his thick cock move in and out of her at a steady rhythm and listening to the soft slapping his hips against her inner thighs.
She closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of him inside of her, plunging deep, filling her completely with his cock. Orgasm moved from something distant to something nearer as he fucked her, and she was nearly content to let it happen when a strange feeling gripped her.