On the contrary, when the vampyre hissed at me, and it did hiss directly at me seemingly ignoring William for the moment, it revealed a different aspect. It's penetrating eyes seemed to become black pits that were sunken in its head. It was like they were trying to drag my essence, my soul whether or not you believe in such down into them. They seemed to suck at the core of my being as strong and irresistible as real black holes. Looking into those obsidian orbs I was stripped naked for him and I could not muster the strength of will required to cover up or turn away.
It would have been easy to miss everything else when faced with those eyes but the rest of his face was transformed in that moment as well. As he gave the hiss he let his jaw drop so that his mouth was a gaping maw. Long curved fangs flicked down from the roof of his mouth and up from underneath his tongue to rival the oral cutlery any mortal predator could display. A forked serpentine tongue extended from deeper inside it's maw. It flicked around tasting the air. It seemed so flexible and mobile as to be prehensile. The same mechanism that caused his eye sockets to drop deeper within the creature's skull pulled back on it's nose. Skin and cartilage was stretched, broken and reformed to distort the nose into a flattened, upturned snout.
This transformation had no adverse effect on the attraction I still felt towards it. If anything it seemed to heighten my yearning for it. No, I can't explain it.
The vampire was clad all in black with a black cloak that danced in a slight breeze. I couldn't describe his clothing any more than that. I saw it only as a periphery because it was impossible for me to turn my gaze anywhere but on it's face, on it's eyes. Those eyes . . .
My whole world was rapidly narrowing down to become nothing but those two black spots. Akin to a really bad case of tunnel vision I was close to forgetting that anything else, including myself, existed but those eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I was snapped out of my predicament when the vampyre released me from his gaze. He turned his head away and I felt the moment of release as a physical thing.
I sucked in a gasp of air as if I had only just learned how to breathe. I almost felt it as a cymbal crash in a quiet room where I was just dozing off. My head cleared just as quickly. I blinked my eyes and was just starting to wonder what had been happening to me when a more pressing thought jumped to the top of the pile: Why had it released me?
The answer, I saw, was that just as all of my attention had been concentrated on him all of his focus had been bent on me. He had ignored William to his detriment.
The vampyre was crying out in pain. A horrific sound that both encouraged me and made me fearful. The cry cut off when the vampyre grunted and pulled the crossbow bolt out of it's left shoulder. It's blood popped and steamed on the barbed silver head. The vampyre glared at it and then let it drop away.
William was struggling to fit another bolt into his mini-crossbow. He had just got it into the groove and was trying to get the wire back to fire it. His hands were shaking so badly that I thought it quite an achievement that he had managed to get the bolt in place in the first place. If his hands had been shaking that badly when he shot at the creature it was nothing short of a miracle that he had hit it at all, if only gaining a non-fatal hit to the shoulder.
William looked up from his efforts at reloading his weapon. The vampyre, still floating out beyond the rail, had moved across so that it was less than a meter away from him. I was sure that William's face would have turned even more pale if there was any way that it could but it had already been fully drained of blood. He dropped the crossbow, had a fumbling attempt at catching it. The weapon clattered on the balcony floor and the bolt came loose and rolled away.
I knew that I had to act if William was going to have any chance at all of getting out of this encounter with his life. My right hand had reached up to clutch the silver ring that dangled against my chest. I tucked the ring and chain down the front of my T-shirt and moved my hand to the inside pocket of my jacket. My hand closed around the wooden stake in the inside pocket. Despite the fact that my hand was now holding a weapon that could actually defend me, I felt less safe, less secure than I had when it had been clutching Selene's ring.
I knew that I had to act but now that it was time for me to do so I found that I could not. This time it wasn't because of some mysterious vampyric power that held me inactive. This time it was a purely physical inability to move. Or maybe not purely physical. When it came down to it, I found that I lacked the courage I needed to attack this creature. I was an angel and I was too afraid to attack this force of evil. What did that say about me?
William was also too afraid to move, too afraid even to go for his own stake. The vampyre looked him up and down and gave a feral grin. It brought it's hands up and instead of fingers it had cruel talons. With a lightning strike too fast for my eyes to follow it struck out with those hands at William. It hit with the blunt heels of it's hands instead of using the talons as weapons. William took the impact simultaneously on the front of his chest, one hand on either side of his sternum. The power of the blow took him off his feet and sent him flying back into the room through both panes of the sliding patio door. Glass shattered and tumbled around him. I flinched back away from the glass but none of the shards came anywhere near to hitting me.
William slid back amidst the fragments of glass. He managed a pained moan and a slight shifting in place but no more than that. But for me that was enough. It was enough to show that William wasn't dead. That my cowardly inability to act hadn't cost him his life.
At least not yet.
With William dealt with for the time being the vampyre could afford to turn it's attention back on me. It floated up higher and then started to come back down so that it was standing next to me on the balcony where William had been stood. Casually it turned around to regard me again. To fix me with it's eyes and trap me in his stare.
Now that it was me directly and immediately under threat I was able to act. Before I could be caught in his mental snare again I made my move. Pulling the stake out from my jacket I brought my arm up. I positioned the stake up next to my own heart with the point turned outwards. The vampyre had an eager smile on it's face as it made the leisurely turn but I looked away just before it finished. I kept my eyes turned downwards as I struck out, pushing the stake outwards and upwards to try and pierce his heart.
My hand was caught in a steel grip with the point of the stake still some distance from the vampyre's chest. My arm was twisted so that the stake was reversed and the point now pressed into my own chest. This wasn't going as well as I had hoped.
I brought my other hand up to try and move the weapon away but it had no effect. The vampyre brought his own spare hand up and held it in front of my face. I continued struggling to turn the weapon back on my intended target and hoped that, if I couldn't wrest control of the weapon back, the end would be swift. I didn't really fear what waited for me beyond this.
But the vampyre apparently had something else in mind other than killing me right away. It touched it's talons to my hair and ran them down following the course of the white-blonde hair where it spilled over my shoulders. It brought the hand back up and used a single talon under my chin to tilt my head back so that I was once more looking into those eyes.
"Don't move." It was the first time he had spoken anything intelligible. His voice was a guttural snarl but it carried with it a force of command.
This time it was different. My mind remained my own but I could not go against the vampyre's order. I could not move.
The vampyre smiled again. "Good." The vampyre let go of the stake but I could not move to turn it away from her heart. And believe me I tried. It reminded me of being trapped impotently in Selene's mind. I could only hope things ended better for me. At the moment that seemed unlikely.
The vampyre moved to my side but I remained under his spell. He extended his tongue so that it was at least the length of one of it's arms. The vampyre moved around so that it was standing directly behind
me. It placed a hand on each of my shoulders. It's tongue, long enough to have become an extra limb, ran up the back of one of my thighs. I could feel it's loathsome touch through the tight denim of my jeans but I was unable to pull away from it. The tongue found my buttocks and rubbed around first one and then the other. It pressed against the gap between them as though to burrow in through the material of my clothes.
The pressure eased and I felt relief, relief that quickly transformed into a fresh wave of revulsion. The tongue had moved up and tugged the back of my T-shirt out from my jeans. One hand was removed from my shoulder and used to pull at the back of my jeans creating enough space for the tongue to slither inside.
I felt it sliding down my flesh from the bottom of my back. I wanted nothing more than to escape that touch, to turn around and stab my stake into this bastard creature's black heart, but I could not go against his command.
Just as the tongue found it's way down to it's target it was pulled away. There was a slurp and a snap as the tongue was pulled back inside it's owners mouth. "I want to see your face when I do this," the vampyre said stepping around so that it was in front of me.
Staring into my eyes it extended that tongue again. Without looking it reached down with a hand to pull open my jeans at the front. I couldn't fight against what this creature was about to do. I couldn't even cry.
The twin prongs of the tongue played over my cheeks. They ran over my lips down over my chin and onto my neck. The vampire was clearly becoming further aroused by the terror in my eyes. In it's own black orbs there was a spark of red flame. The tip of the tongue tucked inside the collar of my T-shirt and moved down over my right breast. It coiled around the ample lump of flesh and squeezed. I was struggling to do something to stop this. I felt like I might go insane if I had to stand here and let this happen to me. The tongue released that breast and moved across to play with the other. My first sexual experience was turning out to be more than a little unpleasant.
At the midway point the vampyre called out in pain and stepped back from me. It's tongue retracted with a crack like a whip.
"Bitch! What is that?" The vampyre sounded angry now.
It ripped open the front of my T-shirt. Both of my ample breasts were exposed but the vampire was no longer interested in them. It's eyes were fixed on what had hurt it, the silver ring that I had sort of inherited from Selene and now wore around my neck.
The vampyre stared for a long moment at the ring and then brought it's eyes back up to look me in the face. As it lifted it's head it's features shifted back to resemble those of a normal man.
He said: "Well, well. What do we have here?" This time when it spoke it's voice was also no different to that of a normal man's.
Freed from it's spell when it reverted back to human form I was at last able to act. I tried to push the vampire away before I realised that I still held the stake. I swept it around to try and stab this thing who had been going to . . .
The vampyre knocked the stake casually from my hand and pushed me back. I tripped over my own feet and went down on my backside. The vampyre stepped up and loomed over me.
"Faith!" William half shouted, half gasped my name as he struggled to bring himself upright to help me in spite of his own injuries.
The vampyre spared him little more than half a glance. That was all it took to ascertain that William was still too injured to be able to come to my aid. The vampyre grinned at him and then stared lecherously at me. I was still trying to push myself back away from this thing. That look on the vampyre's face made it even more grotesque in my eyes than it had looked when it had presented itself as a monster. It clearly meant to continue where it had left off.
I turned my face away from it as the vampyre leaned forwards and over me. Myr eyes found William's. He was clearly in pain. His breathe came in ragged, shallow pants and he winced with every inhalation and movement. But still he was trying to get himself up into a position to help me. In the midst of such horror I felt indescribable gratitude that he would put himself through so much for me whether he managed to help or not.
He must have read the gratitude in my eyes even as he realised that he would not be able to stop what was about to happen. I saw his conflicting responses, his despair at being so ineffectual coupled with a determination not to let me down by giving up. He gave a shallow nod but didn't let up on his efforts to move. His eyes flicked past me to even deeper in the flat and I caught a glimmer of hope reflected on the surface of his eyes.
I tried to crane my neck backwards to see what he had seen. That was a mistake. The vampyre noted my movement and responded by twisting his own head around to look in the same direction. With that split-seconds extra warning he was able to avoid the arrow that should have punched it's way through the top of his skull and split his spine. He pushed himself up off me with his legs and arms. The arrow sailed over me where the vampyre had only just been.
The vampyre had jumped, or it could have levitated the extra distance I reminded myself, and twisted in the air and it clung to the ceiling with it's black cloak dandling free. It was transformed again into it's monstrous form. It's tongue lashed the air in front of it and it glared at it's assailant.
Halberd stood unflinching and calmly put another bolt in his crossbow. And then it was assailants. Halberd stepped to the side of the doorway and a second figure holding a large modern crossbow stepped up and fired. The vampyre dropped back down to avoid the second projectile.
The vampyre was faster than both of them. It fled back the way it had come in. Passing through the frames of the shattered patio doors without disturbing any of the glass that barely remained in the frames or that was scattered all around. It disappeared upwards. Halberd ran out onto the balcony after it and leaned out to scan the wall of the block with the point of the weapon. The other man released the tension on his string but did not remove the arrow so that he would still be ready to fire should another threat present itself.
More figures came into the room, some went out to the balcony, others went to check on William and yet more came to me. They were speaking to me. Helping me to my feet and helping me to pull my jacket closed to conserve my modesty. I couldn't understand what they were saying. I couldn't focus on any of their faces. I was shaking uncontrollably. I pulled away from the people surrounding me, rushed over to the corner of the room. I bent double as my stomach clenched and twisted forcing an explosion of vomit up through my throat and out of my mouth to splash the bare wall and floor.
"It has eluded me."
The humans kept their distance this time and left us angels to it.
"You took your time."
"I had to arm myself before I could be of any assistance." There was no apology in his tone.
I had an urge to grab him around the throat, to yell at him. If I had been properly armed myself, with a gun and not a stupid bloody twig, I could have looked after myself and not needed a freaking rescue.
"Just take me home."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I held Selene's ring between my forefinger and thumb. I had been sitting here, on the edge of my bed, since Halberd and his buddies from the Church of Light had dropped me off.
The liaison had offered a basic apology.
"I should have given you more information on what you were dealing with. That way you might have been better able to handle the situation yourself."
I was still too shook up to argue with Halberd. He seemed to get that this wasn't the time to broach the subject of the elders' offer to train me as a liaison.
Halberd was just preparing to leave when I said; "Those vampyres, they are the original source of the vampiric infection that afflicts humans but they are not a part of this world."
"They are no more a part of this world than you or I. They are from a dark realm where evil runs rife. It is the job of the liaisons to ensure such threats are kept at bay."
"Why don't we take the fight to them?"
Halberd furrowed his brow. "We are helpin
g the humans-"
I shook my head. "No, they are fighting and dying, but we are just sitting back and leaving them to it. This is exactly why I felt I had to leave and come and live here. You think you are helping but you are just putting the pieces in play and sitting back to watch."
I didn't really have the energy to pace, but I wanted to. "Instead of keeping our distance we should be organising and taking the fight to them."
"That is not our way."
I dropped onto the bed, deflated. "It should be."
"You need to rest before you make any rash decisions. I will return to the Elders and return when they feel you have had sufficient time to make a properly informed decision."
And with that he had left and I had been sitting here since. At first I had tried to watch some television to take my mind off what had happened. But the screen kept fading out and being replaced by the vampyre's horrible visage. When I clutched at Selene's ring the image faded away.
It was when it had had made contact with the ring that the vampyre had backed off. Lesser vampires were vulnerable to silver weapons similar to any number of the watered down demonic types who had infiltrated the mortal realm down through the ages. Could it be that this was a trait that these greater vampyres shared?
No, there had been something else in it's eyes when it saw the object that had pained it. It had only had a brief look at the ring, and I hadn't exactly been myself enough to notice it at the time, but thinking back I was sure of it. It had recognised the ring. That was why it had been put off enough to be driven away.
I studied the ring as though it could speak and give me the answers I needed. There was an ultra-fine pattern carved into the silver band. It was only visible when the light hit it just so, and then only barely. Running my fingertip around the band I couldn't feel anything but the smoothness of the precious metal. Had Selene performed some rite on the ring? I wasn't aware of her having particular magical affinity, but I don't expect she ever told me everything.
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