They passed through the kitchen and to the small rear foyer that led outside to the immense back yard with its walled gardens and maze-like walkways. It was only then as Raina opened the door and the warmth of daylight splashed over them that Olivia suddenly began to resist. She flung out her arms and clung to the edges of the doorway, suddenly finding her voice and letting out a breathless whimpering kind of sound. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut and she turned her face away from the brightness of the midday’s sun as Raina attempted to pull her through the doorway.
“This isn’t going to work,” Samantha said dryly. Raina turned to look at her, still surprised by how calm she was being about this.
As though right on cue, Marco appeared behind her and, without a word, forcefully grabbed hold of Olivia’s wrists and pried her hands away from the door. He held her hands away from the doorframe and he squeezed through the doorway beside Samantha as Raina led them outside.
Olivia’s whimpering grew into soft, wordless cries that became more and more vocal as they stepped out from under the shade of the rear porch and cabana. The rays of sunlight were warm upon Raina’s exposed skin in spite of the otherwise cool temperature of the early mid-November day, but it was nothing at all unbearable for her or her two bloodspawn. Olivia, however, seemed to come completely unglued at the seams, and she let out her first full-on scream as the harsh daylight was cast upon her face. Oblivious to the knife within her now, the reality of her impending death had finally hit home. Olivia surrendered every last bit of her regal dignity as she wailed loudly in pain and despair with everything she had.
Sunlight upon a Commoner’s exposed skin was not immediately fatal. In fact, killing a vampire like this could take quite awhile. By Duvessa’s prior handwritten accounts, it would take at least an hour to bake a typical Commoner in the sun, depending on how much sunlight the weather and time of day allowed. It seemed fair enough to Raina, though. Olivia had earned this, not only for what she had put Sophie through and for having contributed to her murder, but also for the many other lives she had either taken directly or indirectly over the years during her alliance with Duvessa. Compared to all of the pain, misery, suffering, and death for which she was responsible, Olivia’s punishment was quite mild.
The path leading straight away from the rear entrance forked in three different directions – east, south, and west – and Raina stopped them at this intersection, setting down her end of the chair and walking around to face her condemned would-be friend. Working together in silent cooperation, Samantha took one of Olivia’s wrists and Marco held fast to her other, twisting her hands behind the back of the chair to hold her in place as she struggled to get up. The effort to rise from the chair to which she was more or less nailed through her middle only served to open her wound more deeply, causing blood to gush from her chest at a slightly increased rate.
Raina had to squint against the brightness of the daylight, but she was able to clearly see the progressive damage being inflicted upon the ghoulish vamp that she had once foolishly considered a good friend. It was like watching a time-lapse video of someone developing a severe case of sunburn. Her skin at first turned a more healthy-looking and human color, rather than the stark paleness she’d exhibited as a vampire. That healthy blush soon worsened, though, into a serious reddening that became deeper and more severe over the next minute or so. Eventually, the skin began to blister, first in small spots and then worsening into large, ugly blisters that seemed to merge together, as though she was being blasted with an invisible wash of scalding steam.
With her arms folded under her breasts and her weight shifted slightly to one foot, Raina simply stood and stared while Marco and Samantha continued to hold Olivia. It was hard to say whether she would die first from exsanguination or from exposure. Raina didn’t care much, either way. She was happy to see Olivia suffer, delighted to see her die. She felt no shame in taking pleasure in this.
Dimly, Raina realized that this was wrong even by her own standards, that this was evil and sick and sadistic. Her conscience screamed at her to stop this, to give Olivia a reprieve and commute her sentence. She had the power to do so, after all. As Grand Duchess, Raina could decide to spare Olivia if she saw fit, because, after all, her word was law. She determined who among the guilty should live and who should die for their crimes. And while the things Olivia had done were terrible and malicious deeds, dying this slowly and this awfully was not right. Raina knew that it was hypocritical to condemn cruelty and torture while indulging in it, herself. But again, as Grand Duchess, it was also her luxury to indulge as she wished, and this was a justifiable indulgence. She had killed before, and she had killed with reluctance, but she had never killed with pleasure … not like this. This was different. This was good … too good. As much as she hated it, she also loved it.
“Die. Die,” Raina said, softly at first and then again with more volume and menace. “Die, you fucking bitch!”
Raina clenched her right fist and slugged Olivia with it. The impact ruptured a few large blisters, coating Raina’s hand with an almost clear, yellowish, sickening wetness. She looked at the knuckles at her own hand for a moment with disgust, then felt angry that Olivia had defiled her with such a vile substance, and so she punched her again, straight-on this time. Olivia’s nose gushed with gore as Raina broke it with that blow, and the Commoner’s cries of agony became choked as she began to gag and cough upon her own blood through her sobs and moans. Raina was vaguely aware of a tightness at the corners of her mouth, and it took her awhile to realize that she was actually smiling at the experience of Olivia’s suffering.
Lady Olivia’s screams were breathless and ragged, and she thrashed about wildly as the skin upon her face and bare arms and hands continued to be ruined by ultraviolet light. The wound to her chest did not appear to be bleeding as much now, and Raina could see that it was already beginning to gel over. Such was the consequence of using edged weapons that were not coated with silver. She was vaguely aware of someone actually speaking, a voice almost totally drowned out by the sound of Olivia’s shrieks.
“Raina!” Samantha finally yelled, snapping her attention away. Now, finally, Raina could see that this was beginning to effect her. Sam was not enjoying this nearly as much as Raina. “This could take a long time.”
“Good,” Raina replied with a satisfied nod. “I hope it takes all day.”
With a bit of hesitation, Samantha admitted with a pained look, “I don’t think I can be a part of this for much longer.”
“You won’t burn. We have a stronger immunity to sunlight,” Raina reassured her.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“We should end this now,” Marco recommended.
“Now? You mean, right now? So soon?” Raina demanded with a frown. “I’m only just getting started.”
“This isn’t what the Elders agreed upon,” Samantha insisted.
Raina narrowed her eyes to slits as she felt herself glaring at Sam, feeling anger that seemed not only disproportionate but surprising and inappropriate. “This is exactly what the bitch deserves.”
“The Elders sentenced her to death, your grace,” Sam boldly dared to remind her. “They did not sentence her to be tortured.”
She stood in silence for a few moments and stared at her, feeling her anger dissolve as a sense of ethical reasoning gradually began to seep back into her soul from whatever dark corner of her heart she had stuffed it away before.
“This is wrong,” Marco agreed. “This is something Duvessa would do.”
Raina closed her eyes and looked away for a moment, letting out a heavy sigh. That was all she’d needed to hear. They were right. She was letting not only her emotions but her inherited lust for sadism overtake her own sense of morals and her official policies. She was being a hypocrite. Olivia deserved to die, yes, and it was fair to say that she had not earned an easy death. But Raina had to admit, this was just too much … even for her. Indeed, this was something that Duvessa wou
ld have done, although this would have surely only been a prelude to things even worse to come, as Duvessa would have delighted in making Olivia’s death an epic exhibition of suffering.
Raina once again was reminded of the fact that she was Duvessa’s child by blood and by influence. At least she was far enough removed from that slain devil to have both a conscience and the ability to choose whether or not she would become the same brand of monster that Duvessa had been. Clearly, Raina saw that she had an evil side … but she was not evil through and through. She knew well enough that this was not who or what she wanted to be and, at least for now, she still had the ability to choose not to be this kind of fiend. Perhaps it would only grow worse with time. Perhaps she would only become more and more like Duvessa over the years, doomed by her Fallamhain genetics to gradually develop into a criminally insane sociopath. But she would never commit herself to such a role voluntarily. Raina refused to consciously become that which she despised. And, with that in mind, she realized that she needed to end this.
“All right,” Raina conceded with a nod. She lifted her gaze to Marco, and then to Samantha. “Hold her arms apart. Hold her tight.”
They glanced at one another briefly with what Raina sensed to be uncertainty, but they soon complied, struggling against Olivia’s fading but still superhuman strength. Raina grabbed the knife in Olivia’s chest, wrapped her fingers firmly around it, and gave it a slight jerk back. The blade pulled free of the chair, but remained embedded within Olivia’s chest. She abruptly stopped screaming and instead hushed herself back to a pained whimper as Raina held her in place by keeping the knife within her.
“No!” Olivia begged, the first words she’d spoken since Raina had first stabbed her. “No, God, no!”
“You betrayed me, Lady Olivia. You betrayed my trust, you betrayed your own House, and you betrayed Sophie,” Raina told her in a clear, calm, but stern voice. “She looked up to you like a mother … and you had her killed.”
“I’m sorry! Oh, God, I’m sorry!” Olivia blubbered through her own blood and tears. “Please … please, God, please don’t! Don’t…”
“You’re a Lady of the House of Fallamhain,” Raina scolded her with a sneer. “At least have the good grace to die with some fucking dignity.”
“God, please, don’t…”
Raina gave the knife a vicious crank, twisting the enormous blade within Olivia’s chest to maximize the damage done and causing her to let out a long, blood-curdling, wordless, gagging shriek of agony. Raina then yanked the Espada XL out of Olivia, feeling it slide out with great ease now, and immediately plunging it back into her. The full length of the knife buried itself exactly where she aimed it, skewering Olivia’s heart as the blade once again passed fully through her body and out the back of the chair. The thrust caused Olivia’s scream to abruptly end. Olivia’s eyes popped open wide and Raina found herself staring at her victim at point-blank range. Her eyes, once beautiful and alluring, were now grotesquely bloodshot and scary. Her lower jaw and her lips moved as though she were trying to say something, but no more words escaped her. Blood practically gushed from the fresh wound in her chest, completely soaking what little material of her blouse was not already drenched in gore, and Raina could clearly smell its sharp, coppery scent amidst the fresh, cool autumn outdoor air.
Raina stood there and waited, her hand still clutching the grip of the knife tightly as she and Olivia locked stares. Raina could see the life draining out of her eyes just as gradually as it spilled from her torso, fast enough to be obvious but still slowly enough to seem as though it could take forever. Olivia was still moving her lips, and it was obvious now that she was trying to say something. Raina could barely hear her words as she finally managed to force them out in a whisper.
“Make it stop. Make it stop,” she pleaded quietly.
Combined with the burns of her ultraviolet light exposure and the length of steel through her heart that was quickly putting her into cardiac arrest, Olivia was in a state of supreme suffering. She had earned it. But Raina could not justify extending that state of suffering any longer. She had to end this now. She had done enough evil for one day.
Raina let go of her knife, grabbed the lapels of Olivia’s shirt firmly, and pulled sharply down and apart, practically shredding the material and baring much of her throat and chest. Raina looked to Marco as she took a handful of Olivia’s bound-up blonde hair and pulled her head aside to expose the base of her neck.
“Help me finish her,” she told him. She then looked to Samantha. “Take as much as you want. Bleed the bitch dry.”
Marco nodded readily and slid up Olivia’s sleeve to bare the undamaged, pale, silky flesh of her arm. He crouched slightly, raised her arm up to his lips as he bared his teeth, and he sank his fangs completely into the crook of Olivia’s left elbow. Blood welled from the wounds immediately, slipping past his lips and down her arm, and he quickly sealed his mouth around it and began to drink. Raina glanced over to Samantha, gave her a nod with a sternly insistent look, and watched as Sam took her first full measure of blood. Raina finally turned to look at Olivia directly. Her eyes had already closed as she welcomed the end of her pain, and Raina then closed her own eyes before leaning in for that fatal kiss.
Raina filled her mouth with the soft, warm flesh of Olivia’s throat and then hesitated. It was harder to do this when she had time to think about it. It wasn’t easy to take someone’s life when she was so fully aware of her own actions. Killing someone in the heat of combat, taking them down amidst a swordfight or in an act of self-defense … that was automatic. Killing someone that was restrained and already in agony and begging for mercy … that was murder. Yes, it was murder, and Raina willfully committed it. She needed only to remember Sophie’s bloody corpse lying in a closet, dead because of Olivia’s treachery, before Raina found the will and the motivation to sink her teeth into that Commoner’s neck completely.
She bit down with such force and fury that she felt not only her fangs but her other teeth cutting and tearing into the tender flesh and muscle. Murder, yes, it was murder … and it was delicious. The hot jet of Olivia’s death filled her mouth immediately, and Raina drank it down with gusto. Olivia tensed up, then relaxed, and then faded rapidly. The fear Raina sensed within herself, Olivia’s terror, quickly diminished into obscurity, obliterated by the warm inner fire of ecstatic, orgasmic vampiric indulgence. With every swallow, things low and deep clenched tight and wet, and Raina swiftly lost all sense of time, place, and care as she convulsed with delight, moaning around the wound upon which she fed. Quite literally, Raina came as Lady Olivia went – a vampiric orgasm, the physiological reward for giving into the temptations of bloodlust.
Raina was a monster. This was what monsters did. And she loved it now. She hated herself for this, hated what she was, but she loved what she was doing. How sad but true it was that some of the worst sins far too often seemed to taste so much sweeter than the most holy of good deeds. It was no wonder Duvessa had given into her horrible tendencies. Nobody could live like this for over two centuries without succumbing to the powerful temptations of something like this, not without going insane. The choice was clear: Raina could go mad with overindulgence, or she could go mad with renunciation.
Someday, at some point, she would have to definitively choose to head down one path or the other. That would require a lot of deep, soul-searching thought. And right now, thinking on any level simply wasn’t possible when she had a mouthful of hot, luscious blood. She couldn’t be bothered. And so it would have to wait for another time … a few hours, a few days … or for however long she possibly could put off having to actually make that inevitable decision.
* * * *
Epilogue
(The following is an excerpt from the December issue of Bitten Magazine. It is a rare article, one of the very few on-on-one interviews that Grand Duchess Raina Fallamhain has ever granted to a printed publication.)
TRANSFUSION:
An Exclusive
Interview with Grand Duchess Raina Fallamhain
BITTEN MAGAZINE: Thank you so very much, your grace, for giving us this opportunity to speak with you. I understand you lead a very busy and hectic schedule, especially as of late, and I can’t begin to say how much we appreciate you taking the time to talk with us.
GRAND DUCHESS RAINA FALLAMHAIN: Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
BITTEN: It’s been an incredible year for you, your grace, and for all of us that have been following your story since you first came into the world’s spotlight in March. I understand that your reign as Grand Duchess began on quite a tragic note, but that you enjoyed nearly six months of relative peace before things became very intense for you again in October. In your own words, what can you tell us about the events that took place before and after Halloween of this year?
RAINA: Well … that’s an awful lot of ground to cover. Could you narrow it down just a bit? I don’t think Bitten Magazine wants to put out a four-hundred-page edition this month. (laughs)
BITTEN: Specifically, what about your first trip back to America? You were accompanied by the Council Elder, Duchess Serenity, the United States West Coast representative for the IVC, along with her consorts, and two of your own servants. There have been reports that you and Duchess Serenity had a falling out of some kind outside of a hotel in downtown Phoenix. A video of the incident has been circulating on the Internet that appears to show you threatening Duchess Serenity with your sword as she is kneeling before you. What can you tell us about that?
RAINA: I’d honestly prefer not to go into too much detail on that. What happened between Serenity and I was a personal, private matter, and we would both like to keep it that way.
I will say, however, that we have a very clear understanding of one another now, and we have since put that incident behind us. We’re not intimately involved with one another, but we are on friendly terms, and the House of Fallamhain does consider the House of Tranquility to be one of its closest allies. We have a common interest in seeing that the official policies and laws of the IVC are updated to more ethical, fair, and less vague standards, and I deeply appreciate her assistance in that effort.
The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations Page 61