The Key (Sanguinem Emere)

by Taxer, Carmen

  Too tired for that thought to hurt me now.

  Delilah lifts me up and pulls the dress from me, shifting it off of me bit by bit, exposing me to her eyes.

  I pull that from her hands too in another wave of that dizzying confusion and wrap the little key in its folds, letting it slide from my fingers to the floor, certain she hasn’t noted the movement as her insistent hands have started hovering over my nakedness like flirting butterflies and her eyes have closed themselves half-way, for all the world like the cat she is. I feel it too, even as I try to stifle my affection for her. Try to fuel my displeasure with anger that she would take advantage of my weakened state. If that’s even what she’s doing.

  But I have a feeling it is, though my body is too drunkenly wrecked to respond.

  My voice is marked with indecision now, and fear, and uncertainty, as I reiterate my earlier question, the one she ignored with a flirtatious smile, “Delilah, what are you doing?”

  She sighs against me, pressing her length alongside mine as she melds into me and her lips hesitate at me ear.

  “He hasn’t touched me in weeks. But you’ve been with him. I just want to know if his smell is still on you.”

  Delilah pushes her hand between my thighs even as I make to clench them. But the fight has left me, drained from me, been drawn from me and washed out of me as my legs fall open at her command and my hips rise to meet hers. I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I know, too well, that she’s just lonely and that she misses him and that I am her oracle right in this moment. The woman that touched the man she loved. The woman that would love nothing better than to be with him and can’t.

  I should not let her do this to herself. I should not do this to her.

  Her tongue finds my nipple and my mind and conscience are crushed under the weight of my body’s memory of orgasm. So recent, and painfully and physically exhausting, but so magnificent. Her fingers follow its receding trail as they slip into me. It’s only briefly painful, as my body betrays me almost instantly, warming me, slicking me.

  It does not surprise me when, over her shoulder, I see his face, as my hips writhe against Delilah. My lips smile as I chuckle at the hilarity of it all. Here we are, both of us, engaging in something we may regret in only a few moments. All for one man.

  Even if that man is a god amongst other men.

  So ridiculous that now I see his face when I’m in the throes of passion with someone else.

  And then the ice of his fingers strokes my thigh and I begin to understand. He’s really here. With us.

  Us.

  Delilah looks up into his face and hers turns to the purity of awe. Devotion in the face of divinity.

  It’s beautiful.

  He crawls onto the bed and places himself between my legs, his arms around Delilah who moans quietly into him as he kisses her and caresses her breast. His eyes find mine and the spell breaks.

  Humiliation. Revulsion. Nothing can describe it, identify its heinous core. I am not this.

  Despite all evidence to the contrary.

  I lift myself away from them, pulling my body as far from the passion as I can manage without looking like I’m freaking out.

  Even if I am.

  Dimitri lays Delilah down on the bed and moves away from the situation as well, his hand trailing deliberately down her heaving form as he takes his time to leave her wanting more. A smile coalesces on his face as she cries out to the air around her.

  He monitors me as I slink off the bed, his eyes catch mine and I stop dead in my tracks for the door.

  It’s obvious, if somewhat crude. He won’t let me leave. But it seems he will accept my refusal to participate.

  Besides, perhaps this is something I must give myself to.

  I keep my eyes on them. These two perfect lovers. These two exquisite creatures joining in ways he and I did only a few hours earlier. Before he left me alone in the dark and cold. I bear witness to their passion and the hurt builds in me again.

  But who is being the crueller here? Him or I?

  I could shut my eyes, I could converse with myself and erase it all from my memory. Or, at least, try. But I’m searing it in my mind and watching him watch me as he ravishes my luscious, sad friend. The girl who, only moments ago, wanted to do the same with me.

  I watch it through to the end. And my heart bleeds. My heart aches.

  When they are done, when Delilah has gently lain herself in his arms and fallen to sacred sleep, her expression belying the sweetness of her dreams, I shut my eyes and let the heat of my tears comfort me.

  I flinch when his fingers brush them from my cheeks and look up into the sun – or so his face seems to me. Regardless of what I’ve just witnessed.

  My head shakes as I whisper to him, “How can you treat us like this?”

  He frowns, “I gave her what she wanted.”

  “And what about me?” My voice crackles with anger even as I cringe at how juvenile I must sound.

  “You were the one who walked away, My Lamb. How can I love you if you won’t give yourself to me?”

  He closes the door quietly as he leaves and I hear his final words just before it snaps shut, “I would have given anything to share that with you, Eva. But I will never force you. You are my favourite.”

  FRIDAY 22 November 2008… 03:01

  Sleep is elusive once more. I drifted off briefly, but my shame brought me back. I don’t even know if I can call it shame anymore. It’s become a part of me, more akin to acceptance of what I am, not shame. I am his. And being his means that there are concessions to be made.

  The wildness in Delilah’s eyes frightened me, but I recognised her pain as surely as I have come to understand my own in just the last few hours.

  Anything to be near Dimitri. We would give anything, sacrifice ourselves on his altar.

  It frightens me. But again I must ask myself, what are my choices? Levi was right. We would rather be miserable in each other’s company with barely a hope of being near him than lose any chance of such comfort again. And if we must take comfort in each other, then that, in and of itself, is a blessing. I’m certain neither of us would have expected his company.

  Delilah slipped away during the brief few moments that I slept. The sun has still not come up; I’m afraid that it’ll be night – this night – forever. Stupid, I know, but the coldness of everything touches me and whittles away at the strong woman I used to know. Before Bram and Cecily, and Dimitri. And all of this anarchy.

  My reverie is broken as the door to the chamber creaks and I lift my head expecting to see Delilah. But another familiar face pokes its head in, though the hallway is dark and I can only make her out by the slanted cut of her beautiful black hair.

  Cecily.

  “Hey,” I whisper, not sure why I do so, seeing as how the house is massive and the chances of anyone else being woken up are few and far between.

  She stands in the doorway, small and uncertain, it seems to me, but that may simply be that older sister vibe infiltrating my opinion of her again.

  “Well, come in,” I force myself not to whisper this time, tired of being tentative and meek. It’s not me. It never has been.

  She squeezes inside, ignoring the squeak of the door and closes it gently behind her. I lift the blankets beside me so she can slide in.

  Good thing too. She’s freezing cold, like she’s been inspecting the inside of an ice box the entire night. She cuddles up close to me, under my arm and I pull her in tightly. Something’s wrong. She’s too clingy, even for her. Her shoulders are heaving slightly – she’s crying.

  And she hasn’t said a word.

  I try to push her back from me to see her face, to raise her chin, but she resists like an orphan puppy. “Plum, what is it? What’s wrong? Is it Dimitri?”

  At the name she moans a keening sound that sinks into me, through me, freezing my blood in my veins. Her face reaches up to nuzzle at me like she can’t get close enough. Like she’s trying to break through my skin,
to crawl inside me.

  I try to pull away from her instead, to get her at a distance so I can see her face, read the lines in her expression. So I can understand what it is that has so devastated my baby sister. But the reaction is the same. She won’t let go and her grip is vice-like.

  She’s always been the weakling, but she hangs onto me as if her life depends on it. And that awful keening, like a wounded animal, of hers continues. One long, unbroken sound like a bell in perpetual ringing.

  Panic sets into me and I realise I may just be making matters worse for her. I settle myself, let my body relax into itself, into the bed. Into my sister’s arms, who continues to keen loudly, but quietens down her fighting.

  I stroke her hair, frustration forming like a tiny ball in my head. I forget, in my selfishness, that as terrible as I feel, things must be that much worse for my companions. They’ve been here for longer, they’ve had to endure more of this shift in self, of this… Understanding. Difficult to wrap my head around it. And again the thought pesters me. That we should leave.

  I shake it away like a dirty word.

  She presses up against my nudity once more, moulding herself to me and visibly calming; I can feel it in the way her muscles relax onto my frame. She continues to cry softly, her shoulders still shaking and her face incessantly pressed to my neck.

  Her skin is so very cold and… And there’s no warm breath coming from her lips pressed to my neck. No breath. With all her crying, she should be stopping to breathe.

  She’s not.

  One long stream of moaning without breath.

  And then I feel a sharp sting where her lips touch me.

  In pain and shock I tug away from her and fall from the edge of the bed, ungracefully dragging the blankets with me as I scramble to look less undignified, dragging myself up and groping for my neck. I stare at my sister in confusion as she sits up on the bed, her legs curled underneath her and to the side, her hair hiding her face from view in the dim moonlight grasping at us from the slit in the curtains.

  “Cecily, what the hell?”

  My sister doesn’t verbally respond or make any moves to suggest she heard a word of what I said or cares to listen. In the same strangely determined manner she has been exhibiting, Cecily uncurls her legs and lifts herself on her knees, bowing down to her hands as well as she prowls towards me slowly, the keening nothing more now than a quiet plea in the back of her throat, something like a purr.

  She inches closer to the edge of the bed and I take a step back, uncertain. I don’t think I want to be here anymore.

  But frozen in confusion, I watch as the moonlight bathes over her face in a revealing slit which betrays her mouth, pulled open to reveal her teeth, too sharp and long and pointed, curving over her lower lip which quivers into a cruel smile. The smile does not reach her eyes, one of which is now also revealed as a sickening red, glinting up at me with intent… Intent to continue her path towards my helpless body. The eye is rimmed in shadow as if she hasn’t slept in days, hasn’t eaten in weeks, hasn’t seen sunlight in months.

  The one hand supporting her forward-lunged weight on the bed in dark, in the moonlight, is smeared with something that kicks me into action.

  I leap for the door to the bedroom, not even aware of my movement until I feel the cool metal of the handle under my palm.

  And then my mind reacts.

  I scream as my hair is yanked backwards with a force I had not anticipated. Adrenaline pushes me to fortitude as I whip my head out of her grasp, ignoring the agonising sting on my scalp, certain I’ve lost some of my mane to this monstrous thing that looks like my little sister.

  Panic bears down on my mind as I mechanically, quickly, pull the handle inward, scrabbling, and slip through the gap offered to me, slamming the door behind me and start to run.

  My head autopilots. My body is tired, worn. My heart labours uncontrollably as I thunder down the passageway, only spurred on by the sound of the door crashing behind me and the patter of feet gaining in the race.

  With no idea where I might find sanctuary in the dark house I simply press on, begging my exhausted feet not to fail me in the night, praying that I will not find the upturned edge of a rug or the corner of a table.

  There is no time for thought, no opportunity for understanding or imagination and my mind screams out the only name I can remember.

  Dimitri.

  My legs carry me past the staircase down the opposite passage, the furnishings blurring past me as I hear growling right behind me, energising my tired movements, dragging me towards what I hope will be the secure arms of my love.

  Something whips through my hair as I run and I squeal in the darkness, racing for the double doors that loom before me, only visible as the last few feet become clear to me, but my panic does not subside. My hammering heart collides inside me as the doors swing inward and the sound of feet behind me peters out, slowing and the stopping. And finally starting again, but the rhythmic beating diminishes as the feet offer up their defeat in a retreat which sings to me like a celestial choir of angels.

  A figure stands in the door, its shadow cast over me from the gentle light inside.

  I run directly into Dimitri’s arms, letting him stroke my hair soothingly, not saying a word, just pulling me into the sanctity of the room and closing the door behind him.

  I’m babbling, I realise, not even sure what I’m saying, but the words are falling from my lips as the panic settles. My body numbs. Things are quiet now. But I can’t look away from the door. Warmth trickles from my eyes, my body unreactive to the orders my mind is giving it.

  Show no fear.

  It does not respond as I would have hoped.

  I find Dimitri’s hand as he comes to stand in front of me and hold tightly to it, clinging desperately.

  But this time his presence does not whittle away at my terror, my waxing confusion.

  Don’t I recall some argument between Cecily and Levi? Levi working under Dimitri’s orders?

  Where was Cecily at her own party?

  I pull my hand away as Dimitri’s fingers snake around it, trying to offer me his cold comfort though his eyes do not reflect the protective smile on his lips.

  He frowns.

  “Eva, my Lamb. What is it?” His voice languishes around me, trying to drown me in that perfumed haze of affection. Of devotion. But even as my heart starts to skip uncontrollably and the familiar flush begins its steady crawl up my neck, the memory of Cecily’s face twisted in monstrosity steels me to the inevitable.

  Someone did this to her.

  On the night of the wake she disappeared. And now she’s dead. But she’s moving around. Did she even have a pulse? I should have been able to feel it, I’ve held people in shock in my arms before and their pulses always thunder. Hers was still I think. If I try I remember it that way.

  My little sister is dead.

  But she’s still here?

  Should I be crying?

  A wake for her.

  Dimitri bends to his knees before me, his head inches below mine and his gentle eyes gazing steadily up at me. His eyes, like pools of chocolate in a handsome face that whispers of brash Viking fights in a cultured world. A combination man, bred in privilege, regal, gentlemanly, kneeling before me as though I am the most prominent woman in the world. His lover. Whom he has lavished upon.

  His favourite girl.

  My Dimitri and yet here I am, laying blame on his shoulders for the monstrosity that my sister has become. I sneer as I think back to June. Think back to that awful pain she visited on me that still blackens me. The pain that only Dimitri has since succeeded in diminishing.

  I cringe that my mind could evince such vulgarity towards him.

  He presses his forehead against mine in an entreating gesture, “Tell me what has frightened you.”

  “Cecily,” I look down from his eyes that bore through me as the name is rattled from my throat.

  His responding silence does not ease my uncertain
ty, but he places my escaping mop of, now tangled, hair from my check and brushes it behind my ear, running his thumb over the place on my neck where my sister bit me. “What about her?”

  “I saw her.”

  Dimitri stands and turns his back to me to approach one of the many cabinets which grace the vast expanse of walls throughout the house. Familiar clinking gently knocks at my ears as he opens a crystal container and pours something into two crystal tumblers. Familiarity breeds calm in me as I retrace my thoughts. Without his eyes gazing into mine I can now think clearly and the thoughts opening up like blossoming flowers in my mind are not sweet and tender as I would hope to expect towards the man caring for me in my time of need.

  For the first time, the clarity of the situation rings true.

  She bit me with her teeth. Her teeth. My sister should not have be biting people. But she is. And she bit me. On my neck. A place that, over the last evening has endeared much attention from others. Saskia. And Dimitri. Dimitri who spent most of last night burrowing himself into my neck, amongst other places. Like my thighs.

  My dead sister bit me.

  Arteries.

  Veins. Places where blood flows. Wasn’t there blood on my little sister’s hands?

  The chiming of crystal pulls me out of it as he replaces the bottle lid and hands me a tumbler full of that same sweetly spiced perfume he has given me before. The same that Cecily gave me. Monster Cecily. With her monster fangs.

  I look up at him and he frowns at me.

  “Eva,” His voice is gentle again. Gentle and concerned. Tugging at me, condemning me to guilt. But I fight it off and glower up at him.

  Dimitri sighs and lifts my hand, curling my fingers around the tumbler. “Drink it.”

  I sneer at him and his toxin, his poison… His-

  The word fails me, though I know it. Too dark, like the stains on Cecily’s hand, like the smell in the hallway before Levi caught me disobeying my Master. That word. That smell. This liquid.

  The smell has caught me again. I stare into my glass and the familiar desire hangs off of me. I can’t stop it. Anymore than I can stop the night from falling. I lift it to my lips, fully aware of the condemnation I am laying upon my own shoulders.