Suzie and the Monsters

by Francis Franklin

  Suzie (Wednesday)

  I’m in a grand chamber, in a four-poster bed laid with sheets of scarlet and gold. My goddess lies beside me, beautiful and enigmatic, a profound aura of feminine power, seductive and dangerous. Never before have I seen her, only ever caught fleeting glimpses. I run my fingers through her long dark hair and breathe in her exotic perfume, hints of rose and jasmine with an undertone of fresh, arterial blood. I’m so happy to be united with the Dark Goddess at last, having sought her for so long. I’m complete, at peace, for the first time in centuries. I kiss her black lips and shiver as deadly fingernails glide down over my so-sensitive skin to possess what has always belonged to her.

  ‘Oh fly, fond maid,’ cries a voice outside, ‘fly that false happiness, that will attend thee in the bower of bliss!’

  Frighted I fly, even from the temple door... and awake in unfamiliar territory, a bedroom strangely bare. Through the window I see dark clouds and rain, a walled garden and distant trees. Steel cuffs round my ankles are connected by chain to wrist cuffs attached to steel rings fixed to the wall. I’m trapped quite securely, even my vampiric strength is insufficient. I lie back on the bed wondering anxiously what has happened and how I have come here.

  ‘I thought I heard movement,’ says a familiar voice.

  ‘Alia!’ I’m almost weeping with relief. I sit up to accept the mug of tea she offers me. ‘Alia... Thank God. Where am I? Why am I chained to the wall?’

  ‘Shh... I’ll answer your questions. You’re safe. Don’t worry. But first, what’s your name?’

  I frown. ‘You know my name.’ She even knew me before, when I was Violet Green.

  ‘Yes, Elizabeth, I do know your name.’ It’s a shock to hear her call me that. The splash of hot tea on my hands pulls me back from the sudden whirl of vertigo.

  ‘What else do you know?’ I’m blinking back tears of dismay. ‘Did Isabelle tell you?’ The sudden feeling of betrayal is like acid in my chest.

  ‘No, no,’ she soothes. ‘You know what Isabelle told me, you were there. I haven’t spoken with her since that day. No, you told me yourself, a few days ago. April first. Your four hundred and ninety third birthday.’

  I sigh, partly relief, partly confusion. ‘So it’s not 2007 any longer?’

  ‘No.’ She seems sad, and now that I’m looking I can see the extra years on her.

  ‘Do you,’ I start, then stop. How do I ask this? But I don’t need to. She shows me the scar on her wrist. ‘Oh, Alia,’ I whisper, and now I really can’t stop the tears from flowing. She takes my hands in hers, and waits calmly for me to regain control.

  ‘So, you really don’t remember being Suzie Kew?’

  I shake my head. Suzie’s just a fiction to me, a future identity, except she must be twenty two now. ‘What is she like?’

  ‘Magnificent, sweetheart. A bit of a fashion junkie, though.’

  I laugh. ‘I can believe it. I like being Sarah, but I’ve been itching for something more extravagant.’ I’m so grateful to have Alia in my life. I cup her cheek with the palm of my hand, and she holds it there for a minute.

  She pulls away and looks at me seriously. ‘There’s someone very important that you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Someone who loves you. Someone you love.’ I’m suddenly frightened, but I am unable to stop Alia shouting, ‘Cleo!’

  She can’t have been far away, for she is here immediately, and a new shock of recognition, terrifying but wonderful, propels me to my feet and back against the wall. That the girl is a vampire I understand at once, and that in itself is fearful and strange. What overwhelms me, however, is that she is Lilith, my Dark Goddess. And, yet, she isn’t.

  ‘Suzie!’ she cries, alarmed by my reaction to her, and rushes towards me, until Alia holds out a hand to stop her.

  My heart is racing. Alia spoke of love. Said that I loved this astonishing, beautiful creature. Certainly it seems that she loves me, for her cheeks are wet with fresh tears, her eyes full of grief. ‘How old are you?’ I ask, fearing the answer.

  ‘Eighteen,’ she replies miserably.

  ‘And who made you?’ I whisper.

  ‘You did,’ she whispers back.

  I slide down the wall and hug my knees to my chest. How is it that I have broken that ancient promise to myself?

  Too many questions! I close my eyes and try to find the calm place in the temple of my heart, but there’s too much energy there, the goddesses disturbed by my turmoil. Lilith, once again elusive, chuckles out of sight, the memory of the pleasure of her touch undimmed.

  I turn to the woman who has always been my guide. ‘I love beauty every where,’ says Aphra with a chuckle, ‘and that Cleo has the greatest share.’

  I open my eyes and examine Cleo for a minute. There’s something wild and dangerous about her, more Artemis than Lilith, and she’s so young! Still... ‘I’m sorry,’ I say at last, ‘but I don’t remember anything about you.’ I can see the tension screaming in her muscles. ‘But,’ I add quickly, ‘my heart tells me that we belong together.’ God that sounds corny.

  Cleo throws herself past Alia with a cry and grabs me in a crushing embrace, convulsing with sobs, and gradually I relax and accept the truth of this perceived love, because the longer I hold her, the less I want to let go.

  What Am I? (Thursday)

  I have lost five years of my life, but gained something incomparable. I feel like Sleeping Beauty, awakened by a kiss to a life of Happily Ever After. That is, of course, absurd. The gift of true love does not take away the essential cruelty of life, but it means the whole world to have someone to share the adventure with. Even the few friends I’ve dared to keep for longer than a handful of years, such as Alia and Isabelle, have grown away from me and eventually been lost in history.

  But in Cleo, I have been given something infinitely precious, a love that, nurtured carefully, will last an eternity. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve that.

  The ringing of the front door bell pulls me out of bed, away from my own sleeping beauty. Alia went home last night, so it’s only me listening to this persistent summons. I slip into jeans and a T-shirt and open the door sleepily.

  It’s a man, in his late fifties, I would guess, tough, but not threatening. ‘Good morning, Miss Kew,’ he says cheerfully. It’s just a veneer of informality, however. He has wary, analytical eyes that study me carefully. He’s a policeman. And he expects me to know him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘but can I see some ID, please?’ He looks at me strangely, but fishes it out without complaining. Interesting. SOCA, not police. And I recognise the name from The Tale of Suzie Kew, told to me last night by Alia and Cleo. ‘Why don’t you come in, SIO Wallace. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he says, and follows me through to the kitchen. While I prepare the teapot and cups, and the boiling kettle roars beside me, my eyes drift to the spot over by the shed where I’m told the bodies are buried, but there’s nothing I can see to give away that dirty secret.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to phone me?’ I ask him when it’s quiet again.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he agrees, with a slight shrug. ‘You look at me like we’ve never met before.’

  ‘I have amnesia. The last thing I remember before yesterday is five years ago.’ I think about that for a moment. ‘Madeleine McCann. Did they ever find that poor girl?’

  ‘No.’

  I close my eyes and let bitter fury wash through me. After a minute, he comes over and finishes making the tea himself, passing me a cup.

  ‘How old are you, Miss Kew? Suzie. Whatever your name is.’

  ‘Just call me Suzie. I don’t remember her, but she sounds nice. And I’m old. I was already old when I helped John Fielding forge the Metropolitan Police.’

  He just stares at me, and I let him. Worse comes to worst I’ll kill him, but I’d rather not. I sip my tea and meditate. ‘What are you?’ he asks eventually.

  I’m a monster, I wan
t to say, but it’s not really an answer I can live with. ‘I don’t know,’ I whisper.

  ‘She’s a goddess,’ says Cleo from the doorway. It fills me with warmth to see her. She’s taken the time to put on a long, colourful T-shirt, but is otherwise naked, and her hair is tangled and wild. ‘Good morning, Officer Wallace,’ she says, and walks over to kiss me urgently. I wonder if he’s able to see just how predatory she is.

  She releases my lips and circles round to hold me from behind. ‘I hope you’re not harassing my girlfriend,’ she warns him over my shoulder. ‘Suzie’s not very well at the moment.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ I say. ‘What can we do for you, SIO Wallace? Ian.’

  ‘Nothing, really,’ he replies, tearing fascinated eyes away from my protector. ‘I just popped in for a cuppa, and to check you were both okay.’

  ‘We’re fine, as you see,’ Cleo says, with an edge of hostility.

  ‘Cleo, my love, why don’t you go have a shower?’

  She is suddenly tense, digging sharp nails into my chest. ‘Don’t send me away,’ she hisses in my ear.

  ‘Fine, honey, but please try to be nice to him.’

  ‘Fine,’ she mutters, and pours herself some tea.

  I lead us through to the dining room to sit round the table there. ‘So. Ian. If you want to ask me anything about the past five years then you’re out of luck. And I hope SOCA has better things to do than obsess about me.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he says. ‘I think it’s safe to say that Suzie Kew is not on our radar.’ He takes a newspaper from his briefcase and leafs through to page eleven. There’s a picture of a building ablaze, and the title above it reads, ‘Fiery End For Human Traffickers’. The report is sketchy about details: ‘... seventeen women in their late teens, early twenties, mostly from Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria,...’ It seems that none of the girls died in the fire, and none of the men survived it. The death count isn’t given. There is no suggestion of our involvement or any rumour of vampires. In fact, most of the article is about the early career and trial of Vicki Robins rather than activities at The Scold’s Bridle.

  ‘What isn’t said there,’ Ian comments, ‘is that the men were all dead before the fire was started. We have been able to identify the men, by the way, and none of them is Valon. Which is a shame, because he’s the one the girls are really afraid of.’

  ‘Valon is dead,’ I tell him, in no mood to play games, but also having no intention to tell him the bloodless corpse is buried only twenty metres away. ‘Or so I’ve heard.’

  ‘That’s reassuring,’ he says. ‘You know, I would never advocate vigilante justice, but there are a lot of other people like Valon, people the world won’t miss.’

  Would the world miss me? Or Alia, or Cleo? It was strange listening to them last night, laughing about murder, mayhem and other such merriment, skirting their justification. Alia, fearsome creature, still high from having lethal weaponry in her vengeful hands, hands still stained with gunshot residue. I have always tried to protect her from that. She may have chosen the targets, but the blood was always on my hands. I can only hope that this adventure has satisfied her needs, but I fear it has given her a taste for more.

  Behind their high spirits, disconcertingly, a shadow of concern for me. Suzie the victim. I don’t like that. I refuse to be a victim, and it distresses me to be treated like one. I don’t want to be someone who needs to be rescued, even if I do yearn to melt into the warmth and security of Cleo’s loving embrace.

  I look at the picture in the newspaper. I can’t tell if it’s a triumph or a tragedy. To the extent I feel anything about it, it feels like both. Men who deserved to die, women who should be free, all very well, but am I the only one who appreciates the true cost?

  I sigh wearily. ‘I don’t deny that the world is better off without monsters like Valon, and if I were given the choice between killing Valon and a random other person then I wouldn’t hesitate. But would that make it right to kill them? Does it make it any less of a crime?’

  ‘No,’ he says softly.

  ‘No,’ I echo. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I would love to kill all the monsters.’ Just the thought of it makes my blood race. ‘But that’s exactly the problem. Don’t you understand how soul-destroying it is to kill someone you hate? Because fundamentally you like it, and the more you do it, the more you embrace rage and hatred, the further it takes you from humanity, until all that’s left of you is another monster.

  ‘And who would love me then?’

  Suzie and the Monsters

  - a fairytale of blood, sex and inhumanity...

  Copyright 2012 Francis James Franklin

  Author's website: http://www.alinameridon.com/

  Cover photographs:

  Image ID: 35105968 Copyright Luba V Nel / Shutterstock.com

  Image ID: 6551191 Copyright RazoomGame / Shutterstock.com

  Image ID: 76196278 Copyright pio3 / Shutterstock.com

  * * * WARNING: Adult Themes and Explicit Sexual Content

  This is a work of fiction. With the exception of known historical figures, all characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Modern day London: I do not live in London, and have spent very little time there. The cafés and bars are real, and a few other places too, but the Waterfront, Riverside Drive, the coast road and the clubs (including Comatoes and Sauce) are all fictional. Tower 42 is real, of course, but Alex Graham's firm is entirely fictional. Dodgeson's is also fictional, as is The Scold's Bridle.

  Author's Comments

  I am often frustrated by the difficulty of finding a vampire story worth reading. Back in the eighties almost all vampire stories were inventive and entertaining, but these days it seems like 99% of vampire stories are (a) human girl meets nice vampire boy, (b) Bridget Jones with fangs, (c) gangs of rampaging vampires, and/or (d) ancient vampire men discovering their long lost true love has been reincarnated.

  While this book may in places be classified as vampire erotica, and certainly has lots of vampiric and erotic elements, it's really something else...

  The Other Countess Elizabeth

  Elizabeth Grey (b. 25th March 1505), Baroness of L'Isle in her own right, was daughter of John Grey, Viscount L'Isle, and Muriel (or Marcella) Howard. Her father died shortly after she was born (9th September 1505) and her mother married Sir Thomas Knyvet. In August 1512, Sir Thomas Knyvet died, and her mother died in childbirth in December the same year, and Elizabeth was made a ward of Sir Charles Brandon. In 1513, Elizabeth (aged eight) and Sir Charles Brandon were betrothed, and Sir Charles became Viscount L'Isle by Royal Patent.

  Elizabeth refused to go through with the engagement, however, and her wardship was transferred to Katherine Plantagenet, Countess of Devon. In 1515, Sir Charles Brandon married Mary Tudor; and in June, the same year, Elizabeth was betrothed to Henry Courtenay (1496-1538), 2nd Earl of Devon (created Marquess of Exeter on 18 June 1525) and the son of Katherine Plantagenet (Catherine of York), and thereafter she was called the Countess of Devon.

  The subsequent fate of Elizabeth is unclear. One possibility is that she died in 1516 (aged eleven), the marriage unconsummated. Another possibility is that she died in 1519 (aged fourteen), in which case it is likely that the marriage was consummated after she reached the age of twelve. What is certain, however, is that no children are recorded, and, on 25 October 1519, Henry Courtenay married Gerturde Blount.

  Elizabeth and Anne Boleyn (1501-36) were cousins — their mothers were sisters. Lady Jane Grey was not a close relative, but it is worth noting that both Lady Jane Grey and Henry Courtenay descended from Elizabeth Woodville, one of whose husbands was King Edward IV, and also that Lady Jane's maternal grandfather was Sir Charles Brandon.

  Apology

  I would like to apologise to the shade of Sarah Fielding, one of England's finest and most influential novelists. I'm sure she would have had the strength of character to resist Suzie's manipula
tions.

  Resources

  Wikipedia (of course)

  Vampires, the Dark Goddess, and Erzsébet Báthory

  Kimberly L. Craft, 'Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory,' 2009.

  Voltaire, 'Vampires,' The Works of Voltaire, Vol. VII, Philosophical Dictionary Part 5, (1764), http://oll.libertyfund.org/

  Aaron Leitch, 'Lilith: From Demoness to Dark Goddess' (2000) http://kheph777.tripod.com/lilith.html

  Kimberly Hirsch, 'Embodying Aphrodite — Using goddess archetypes to heal western woman’s split between heart, power and sexuality' http://www.barbarabrennan.com/studentsalumni/sample_yr4_projects/KimberlyHirsch.pdf

  Elizabeth Grey

  A Who's Who of Tudor Women, http://www.kateemersonhistoricals.com/

  The Peerage, http://thepeerage.com/

  John Burke, 'A General and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and baronetage of the British Empire' (1832)

  Other Historical

  Amy M. Froide, 'Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England,' 2005, Oxford University Press.

  Rictor Norton, Gay History & Literature, http://rictornorton.co.uk/

  Candace Ward's edition of 'The Governess' by Sarah Fielding.

  Wiki: Jack the Ripper, http://wiki.casebook.org/

  A. E. & W. W. Wroth, 'The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century'.

  R Leslie-Melville, 'The life and work of Sir John Fielding'.

  Sir Walter Besant, 'London in the Eighteenth Century'.

  Human Trafficking

  The POPPY Project: http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/POPPY_Project/POPPY_Project.php

  Diane Taylor, 'Met police sex trafficking investigations criticised,' 19 March 2012, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/19/met-police-sex-trafficking-investigations-criticised