Dark Thirst

by Angela Allen

  When he held out the pizza, I was almost dizzy from the aroma—from him, not the food. He smelled salty. I stared at the tiny pulse on his wrist and it looked delicious. Before I knew it, I’d pulled him by the arm and dragged him inside.

  He struggled a little, but calmed down quick when I let my dress fall to the floor and kissed him, working my tongue in and out of his mouth like it was a little dick.

  I grasped his hard bulge. “I need it bad. It won’t take much of your time,” I said, my voice soft and silky. His adolescent cock was rock hard. I couldn’t wait to taste it.

  He wanted to fuck me right away. The silly human tossed me on the couch and dived in without stopping to pull on a condom. He came in two strokes.

  Then he ate out my pussy. He tried, but it was nothing like the orgasms I used to have easily. Maybe the smell of his blood and the beat of his heart distracted me. Anyway, it was the seed he shot into me that I craved, and the sweet human lusts and energies.

  I sucked and licked dick, my tongue working the crown and traveling each vein as it refilled with blood. I was so hungry, and it looked so good, I just couldn’t wait.

  I nipped one of the swollen veins and the blood flowed. He made such a racket. My strength was such I could hold him down with one hand.

  I lapped up the blood running down his cock and bit off one of his balls and chewed. He writhed and gurgled, and I reached up to hold him still by the neck. He tasted better than chocolate. My appetite whetted, I opened the artery at his groin with an arc of my teeth. The blood gushed out and I drank it, hot and steaming, in great gulps.

  His life was in the blood, filled with vitality and strength. I was high as fuck. This was like the best meal I ever ate, along with the best drug you can take.

  Too soon it was gone. I needed more. All I had was meat on my couch and I was all sticky. I frowned at the body. What did Sofia do with the leftovers? I looked around the strange twilight atmosphere of my home and I suddenly got it. She didn’t do a damn thing with them. She probably had them stacked up in the astral level of a back bedroom or something. I just hoped the smell didn’t leak.

  When I studied the magical arts, I learned about the astral realm. It overlaid and mirrored the human world in many ways, but at a lower vibration. Humans visited it in dreams at times. It was home to many rather unsavory creatures, vampires included.

  I heaved a sigh, and squinted my eyes so I could see the other place clearly and dragged the pizza fucker’s meat to the astral level. I felt a commotion as what I gathered to be carrion eaters fell upon it.

  I took a shower, trimmed my pussy hairs and pondered what I could possibly wear. I settled on some sweatpants with a belt and an oversized T-shirt and knew my first stop had to be a twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart.

  I bought some size-four jeans and pretty tops that never came in my previous size. It was one in the morning and the salesgirl minding the fitting room looked tasty. I had her come in and help me fasten a top. Then I asked her to lick my nipples. She did, her eyes glazed. I sucked hers too, and sucked her dry in more ways than one. I stashed her body in the astral plane right there in Wal-Mart.

  On the way home, I bought a triple chocolate ice cream cone and it tasted like dark grease. A part of me that remembered Häagen-Dazs wanted to fucking cry.

  But to console myself, I went to a club and let this fine young white man take me home, the type of man that wouldn’t have looked at me once when I was fat.

  He had some strokes, pumping me good and hard. I still couldn’t come. But the taste of human sexual excitement was yummy; it was as if I fed off that too. His gizm hitting the inside of my pussy held the thrill of potential life and blood. I buried my teeth in the side of his neck, just like I’d seen Sofia do. I don’t think he noticed until it was way too late.

  Over the next few days I desperately tried to find Jelly. She hadn’t called or come around in weeks and that wasn’t like her. No matter how hard we fell out, we always made up.

  I needed Jelly. Not only because she was sure to have lots of blood in her oversized body but once I transformed her into a vampire too, maybe things would be more how they used to be.

  Don’t get me wrong, it’s great being fine and all, but there is some stuff that I wouldn’t mind—like fresh, crisp breezes, the sun on my skin, the crunch and sweetness of an apple, flower colors, the shared passion of a tender kiss, the scent of mown grass and feeling the cool blades under my toes and laughing at a joke with Jelly. In my new world, things like this no longer exist.

  Remember when I said vampires live on the borders of the astral world? Many things I remember as a human are outside of my perception, the same way spirits, auras and certain energies are outside of yours. But weak human preoccupations should be for weak humans, shouldn’t they? I’m strong and beautiful, and I can eat all I want.

  Okay, I admit that I miss Jelly. I’m eagerly looking forward to killing her. What I’m worried about is that Sofia seems to have disappeared too. Her apartment is always dark, the curtains drawn. I’ll destroy Sofia if she gets to Jelly before me.

  Jelly is mine. And I’ll be nice enough not to let her rot alone.

  Culmination

  I couldn’t find Jelly anywhere. I was pissed when I saw that Jelly had moved from her house. She’d quit her job too. No notice, it was like she fell off the face of the earth.

  I used every resource I had in my search, but the spirits were noncooperative, the demons recalcitrant. They fall over themselves to be at the beck and call of humans, but if one of their own needs something? Tough shit. We minorities never can stick together.

  I was in a great mood when I unlocked my door that night with this fine black buck sniffing my ass. I knew he’d be one delicious bite. And who do you guess was standing in my living room, all big and bad in living color? You got it. Jelly. And the girl looked damn good. She’d taken off a lot of weight. Don’t get me wrong, she was still mighty hefty. Jelly had to take off way more than that to approach normal proportions, but she did look healthy and fit in a Queen Latifah type of way.

  “Tell him to go,” she said, gesturing at the man.

  He started to protest and I did too, because, shit, I was hungry.

  “Then I’m outta here,” Jelly said.

  She moved toward the door. The bitch was serious. “Okay, he’ll go. Get out of here, all right,” I said to him without once taking my eyes off Jelly. She’d be far more satisfying than that brother, anyway. I sort of liked her new take-charge attitude. I opened the door and shut it behind him.

  “Jelly, where you been?” I asked. I didn’t wait for her answer, because she didn’t seem suitably shocked at my transformation. “What do you think of the new me?” I did a pirouette.

  She sniffed. “Not much. And call me Angelica from now on.”

  “Angelica, huh? It’s a whole new you too. I see you got off some of that blubber. You’re looking good. I hope you think I am too.” I begged for her approval. I knew she couldn’t have been talking about my appearance when she curled her lip.

  “You no longer have a soul,” she said softly. “Why, Keesh? You were better than this. But you always wanted to do it the easy way. I’m so sorry.” A tear ran down her cheek.

  What the fuck was the matter with her? Had she lost her mind? “What do you mean, my two-hundred-plus ass was better than this?” I demanded, running my hands over my shapely form. I turned the full blast of my preternatural sexual magnetism on her. “Want to see all of it?” I purred, and pulled down my top, exposing my breasts.

  She sniffed again, louder, and pulled a tissue from her pocket, blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

  Here I was, sexy and fine as hell and the bitch was crying like I’d died. Well, I had, but still. Shit, let me put her out of her misery. I bared my teeth and advanced on her.

  “Don’t move another inch or you’ll regret it!” Jelly, ’scuse me, Angelica, cried out. I was so surprised at her threat, I stopped in my tracks.

  “I�
��m sorry, Keeshia, but you damned yourself, and now I have to destroy you,” she said solemnly.

  I had to laugh. “How do you propose to do that? Sit on me and crush me to death with your fat ass?”

  She pulled something from a holster behind her back and held it in front of her—like some sort of weapon.

  “What the fuck is that?” I inquired.

  She didn’t bother to answer; instead, with one hand she opened a leather bag at her feet. She didn’t take her eyes off me while she pulled out this black thing and threw it at my feet. I bent down to study it. It was Sofia’s head. As far as doing us in, decapitation usually does it.

  “Daaaaaaang,” I said. This was disconcerting. Sofia was a powerful vampire, far older than I.

  “Die, fiend!” Jelly yelled and brandished this bigass sword like she was some sort of motherfucking samurai or something.

  So I did the smart thing. I ran, right through the goddamn picture window. She was on me too. Bitch was fast. I cut through the astral and couldn’t lose her. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I was getting quite attached to my head and all that fly hair. It took a while, but I finally lost her in a crowd.

  I knew I couldn’t go back home. I went to the airport, removed a ticket from a kill and got on the plane.

  I move from city to city now. I’m afraid to stay in any one place for very long, because I know Jelly is searching for me. In the astral, I hear whispers that our kind is being picked out and destroyed.

  Jelly, the goddamn fat black vampire slayer. Buffy’s scrawny, blond ass would probably shit.

  Vamp Noir

  Angela C. Allen

  The air in the narrow, dark alley behind the overcrowded and run-down high-rise apartment buildings is a mix of stale piss, rotting Chinese food and the sweet tang of freshly spilled blood. A rusted fire escape dangles overhead, attached more by accident than design to the pockmarked and graffiti-covered brick wall beside it. Row after row of neatly ascending windows spill patchy blocks of light as dimly lit bodies move in the background, oblivious to the carnage below.

  I don’t recognize the first body lying spread-eagled and facedown on the jagged concrete. But the other one is familiar. His scent is easy to identify: a swirl of expensive cologne and healthy male pheromones now combined with the stench of involuntarily released human waste. He lies flat on his back, his eyes turned toward the mouth of the alley as if he had watched for me with his dying breath.

  “May your God judge you lightly,” I whisper now as I kneel beside him, brushing one gloved hand over his face and closing eyes already filmed over with the white cloud of death.

  Enrique’s lifeless face remains startlingly beautiful. In fact, not a single scratch mars his perfectly proportioned features. The sweep of thick, dark lashes, shapely full lips, neat goatee, smoothly arching eyebrows and flaring nostrils set against olive-toned skin form a symmetrical feast for the senses. He could have been a martyred young saint in repose. The only thing ruining the picture is the five-inch-long knife blade attached to the iridescent mother-of-pearl hilt sticking out of his throat.

  “Mami Chula, you looking hot!” he had drawled teasingly at our last meeting, a quick rendezvous in a forgotten corner of the city. “Mmm, you got on those sexy black leather gloves. Baby, you know that dominatrix look turns me on,” he’d said, smiling at me out of velvety dark eyes.

  Remembering now, I trail one leather-covered finger down his cheek in farewell. “I think even your killer couldn’t bring himself to destroy such beauty.”

  I turn to his nameless companion lying nearby. The body is stiff, the limbs hardened with rigor mortis, but with a careful push I am able to turn him over. His face and neck are a deep purple from the pooling of the blood in his prone position. But the mottling of lividity does not completely hide the signs of a brutal beating. His face is a nightmare of broken bones, lacerations and bruises. His own mother wouldn’t recognize him. His right arm is bent at a physically impossible angle and I see a large wet stain on the front of his coat, low on his belly, which suggests a fatal hemorrhage.

  “He took you by surprise, didn’t he?” I murmur. “You were the lookout. He came from behind, the knife held down low, and before you could turn around, the blade was buried in your gut—you never had a chance.”

  In three months this is my first casualty. I’d been warned that couriers never lasted long; either they gave in to temptation and bolted with the package or simply fell victim to a heartless city that ate its young if they weren’t smart enough to survive. Enrique had been surprisingly reliable for a petty criminal and sometimes drug runner. Every seven days he’d faithfully picked up a sealed package from his boss and dropped it off still sealed to me.

  I called it a job; some people called it extortion. The FBI called it a “Mob tax” paid to organized crime. Being a Mob soldier wasn’t my first choice but I was an outcast among my own kind. I was forced to create a place for myself with those humans who move among the shadows where I dwell, humans who embrace the darkness because it hides their secrets.

  I’ll have to tell the doctor we lost a payment, I think, just before my eyes spot a familiar shape a few feet away. I scoop up the brown-paper-wrapped package and discover the thick tape still intact, the envelope unopened.

  What kind of thief kills two men and then tosses the cash?

  The weekly payoff Enrique handed over contained thousands in untraceable bills. It represented a small fortune to the typical crack addict or street-corner prostitute that roamed this hard-luck neighborhood.

  I scan the area carefully before drawing off one black leather glove. My newly freed fingers flex with power, eager to touch, to feel, to know. I mentally gather the reins of control as I reach for the still-bloody handle sticking out from Enrique’s throat.

  I grasp the blade, my chocolate-colored skin contrasting sharply with the pale, iridescent handle as the power flows out of me and I am transported through a twisting curve of time and space back to the past.

  Images spring at me like restless ghosts given a last chance to live again. I see a long, shining dagger slash down in a deadly arc; I hear the wet gush as unyielding metal stabs deep into unprotected muscle and tissue; I watch as Enrique pleads for his life.

  Through Enrique’s eyes I see a bulky figure approach, a stray beam from a lone streetlight glints on pale skin, a bald head, bristly jaw and reflects back from near-colorless, light eyes. In the background is the dead body of the lookout. Enrique is frozen with horror, his eyes darting from his slain friend to the approaching killer.

  “Look, man, if this is about that girl, I didn’t know she was doing anybody else,” he says with a desperate laugh, backing deeper into the dead-end alley. “She was just a little something to pass the time, you know what I mean? I been with my lady for five years. We got kids and all.”

  “This ain’t about some bitch,” the killer says, drawing a gleaming blade from inside his ragged denim jacket with a deftness that speaks of long experience.

  Through the lens of secondhand sight, the rank odor of his skin crashes into me in a multihued rush of colors, the black of unwashed flesh, sour sweat and bad breath forming a nauseous brew.

  Adrenaline spikes through my veins on a hot rush, fueled by the reckless courage that fills Enrique. He suddenly strikes, leaping forward with a small but sharp blade of his own to find his attacker’s thick neck. Instead of reaching its mark, Enrique’s blade rips out the killer’s gold hoop earring, leaving in its place a torn and bloody flap of flesh. The heavier man easily overpowers Enrique. He is pinned to the ground in seconds.

  “Get the fuck off me!” yells Enrique, a thread of fear running through his voice as he begins to buck and twist uselessly under the heavy weight of his attacker. “Take it, take the goddamn money! Just leave me alone!” he pleads.

  “Shut up! I didn’t come for no money!” the man snarls, ripping the package from its hiding place inside Enrique’s jacket and tossing it into the darkness. The quick movement causes a
rivulet of blood from the killer’s earlobe to fall on Enrique’s upturned face like a crimson tear from Hell.

  “Santa Maria, Madre de Dios…” we whisper reverently, the words of the rosary coming to our lips as our strength ebbs and death draws near. We moan weakly as the killer’s knife plunges into our fragile skin, slicing through sinewy muscle and severing vital arteries. Life-giving blood rushes in to fill the now-gaping hole, but our carotid artery has been cut and the damage is beyond repair. Our senses fade and our vision blurs as blood loss robs us of strength.

  “Mira! Mira!” calls a voice with a thick Spanish accent from the sidewalk where two young men in puffy, black down jackets and thick-soled boots stand peering into the darkness.

  Our killer moves away, blood dripping down his neck.

  “Yo, man, you bleeding bad,” Spanish Accent says as he cautiously edges deeper into the malodorous darkness. “You need a doctor or some shit like that. Necesita ayuda!”

  “Stupid fuck! Get away from me,” the killer growls, pulling free and shoving past him to stagger out of the alley, pressing his jacket collar to his ripped earlobe.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” interrupts his until-now-silent companion, catching sight of the two men lying half hidden behind an overflowing trash Dumpster. “Hector, there’s two guys who look dead!”

  “Oh shit, oh shit!” moans Hector.

  “Yo, man, we better get outta here before some cops roll by and say we did it,” suggests his cynical friend. “My boy Pedro is locked up right now doing time for some crazy shit just like this.”

  We dimly hear the two almost Good Samaritans leave the alley, their strong, young voices fading as they hurry away from their grisly find, leaving us alone to face the darkness that waits at the edge of our sight.