Tag: Vampire

A Vampire Pleads for Death

by smithaw50, posted in BLOGGING 101, fantasy

But the humans….

I heard the ancestors’ voices in my head, chorus and echo, reprimanding me for my reluctance.

I looked up at them, but not in prayer. If I’d had a heart, it likely would have quailed, or broken, or skipped, or whatever it is hearts do when they’ve had their full of life’s dealings.

“Yes, I know. But I grow weary of dwelling in drafty halls full of shadows, and the stench of entrails and blood, and broken bodies strewn across the soil.

“The misty nights among the tombs hold no beauty for me anymore, not even by moonlight.

“And yes, the humans are foolish; they either don’t understand why they’re punished for evil, or the relish the pain and death, and seek our retribution.

“I am tired of their tears, their screams of suffering, and the pitiable prayers, and the endless stories of why their lives should be spared in the name of love, or the offers of their wealth, even their flesh in the earthly sense, bartered like the counterfeit coin it is, but they still believe it of value to us.

“No, my people. Release me from this darkness, for I am made of dark stone, indifferent to the killing now. It holds nothing more for me, and I have lived too long in it.”

I found that as my request was spoken, I began to feel lighter, even as my vision blurred and began to darken.

They heard me.

“As I have no part in Heaven’s light, let me embrace the final darkness, and see earth and damnation no more.”

Sit here, child, and wait for the sun.

I sat and waited, feeling the red hunger growing silent within me.

And crying final tears of blood, awaited my oblivion.

Prey for the Hunter

by smithaw50, posted in BLOGGING 101, Uncategorized

Athan:

The city night lay before me, naked, splayed, open and wet, its gray, stinking, rotted skin painted in gold, waiting for me to taste it. Its flashing neon eyes held a practiced naivete with a predatory gleam.

I was all too eager.

The lights beguiled me with their changing colors, hypnotic patterns of strobe light pulsing to electronic rhythms of pumping humanity, feral pheromones permeating the air of hollow festivities that accompanied their mocking gyrations of mating.

It was all they thought of, all they pursued, and their souls were still black with empty longing.

It was a void I would fill to their heart’s content, and then, its demise.

*********************

Her name was Valerie, and I didn’t know whether she was brave or stupid for coming out alone, though some say they’re one and the same.

Sadness seeped off her in a plum colored aura, loneliness so profound I almost felt it.

“Anyone sitting here?”

She looked up from sipping her drink. “No.”

“Do you mind?”

“Yes, I do actually.”

“You don’t want me sitting here?”

“I picked the corner of the bar for a reason. I don’t want to be surrounded or cornered, and annoyed. Okay?” The sad loneliness had cloaked the bitterness.

I smiled, spreading my hands in an ‘as-you-wish’ gesture, and started to walk away.

“Hey,” she said.

I turned.

“Sorry. That was extremely rude of me. Sit here if you want.”

I smiled again, not letting it reach my eyes. “I no longer want.”

I moved to the restaurant section, feeling her eyes track me as I went to get a table, running a gauntlet of young women chatting me up, flirting, openly staring, but I rebuffed them all, biding my time.

*************

The waitress didn’t seem to want to leave me to get my order, and wrote her number on a napkin that was already there. I turned it over after she went to place my order.

I didn’t look at the dance floor or the bar, but the air began to reek of desperate sweat as voices grew louder, the rhythms grew more primal, the lyrics lewder, and the hour late.

“Hey.”

I didn’t look up as she slid into the seat across from me, sliding a drink across the table. I took it between my hands, twirling the glass, studying the liquid inside.

“You’re gonna make me work for it, huh? Okay. Fair enough.” She settled back. “I’m really sorry.”

I looked up, but said nothing. She smiled at my mock-hurt silence. “I thought I was being a bitch…”

I laughed then, and she brightened up, taking advantage of the opening. “You probably think it’s stupid to come to a public place to be alone. It is, but after a while, you get the hang of it.”

“Has it been that long?”

Her smile sobered a bit. “Longer.”

“I’m sorry. No hard feelings.” I took a sip of the drink so she’d stay, then put it down. “Long story?”

Her eyes glimmered, and she nodded as I gave her the napkin. “It’s clean.”

She took it, saw the number written on it, and tried to give it back. “You have a number on here.”

“Don’t need it anymore.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

She wiped her eyes as the waitress came back with my drink, and narrowed her eyes at Valerie’s sudden presence, saw the napkin in her hands, then shot me a look as well.

I shrugged, looked over at Valerie. “Order whatever you want. Long tales require large meals.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

She ordered, and the waitress flounced off in a huff; Valerie made an ‘ah’ face, realizing whose number it was, wriggling her eyebrows at me.

I was beginning to like her.

“Fast worker,” she teased.

“Sometimes it just falls into my lap.”

She laughed. “Not touching that.”

I let the innuendo pass; didn’t want to overdo it.

“So, tell me,” I said.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why not? You came all this way, and you’re getting a free meal; you owe a guy.”

She smiled and shook her head. “All right. Remember, I tried to spare you.”

**************

Valerie:

He didn’t think I knew what he was, but he had no idea I knew from the first.

The scent of him wafted over to me long before he reached me; it was stale, not exactly foul, but old, like newspapers left too long in a moist basement.

Smooth, well-dressed, and actually handsome, had he been human I might have played a different card, and things might have gone much differently.

I was lonely, and tired of hunting these things. They always managed to get to ground somehow, and I was off again. Too many flights to count, too many hotels to remember. More than once, I wanted to throw it all down and walk away, but something wouldn’t let me.

Damned if I could name what it was.

I made my sob story about my career, brought the loneliness into the picture, purging my world-weariness into his seemingly waiting ears, when the whole time he’s staring surreptitiously at my throat.

My dinner was filling, but not too much so. I wasn’t prepared to take all night. He was overconfident in his ability to read me, but I’d been at this much longer, and gave him nothing that would arouse his suspicion, just his curiosity.

He bought it all, wiping my eyes, making his voice low and comforting, but I found that I did have to avoid his gaze. There was a power in it that registered, which was rare on hunters like me. I said some silent curses, hoping I wouldn’t have to be careful, and now I would.

He might have noticed I didn’t look long at him, or thought it was just me being ashamed of my inglorious past, a decades-long walk of shame and failure, one after the next.

Having poured out the last of my highs and lows, he cupped my cheek, a slight chill to his hand, and straightened up in his seat, finishing his drink.

“You’re a marvel, Valerie.”

I blushed dutifully. “You’re just saying that.”

“I am, but you are. I wish I could’ve been there for you.”

I flipped the hair, composing myself, leaning across the table as I risked a stare. “Why would you want to share my miserable existence?”

“To cut it short.”

A little thrill of panic went through me. “Which one: my misery or my existence?”

He shrugged. “Feeling adventurous?”

“You’re serious?” I was still in character.

“Yes.”

I shrugged, finished my own drink.

He paid, and we left.

****************

Athan:

This time I won the perpetual game of hide-and-seek. There were moments through the years it had been closer than I’d like. This one was old, and strong, and I felt the thrum of power whenever he looked at me.

My wards held, but barely, and he never guessed my true motive, but there was no denying my need, and certainly no denying his; we stripped each other like whittling knives, rough and uncaring, rolling along the wall as the clothes came off, then the floor. He picked me up and dumped me like a grain sack, twirling his fingers in slow circles, his tongue teasing me with all his experience as I held him pulsing in my hand.

It was more like a fight than sex.

Each of us unleashed on the other with our bodies, leaving bruises, scratches, bite marks, as we made each other scream and grunt like the rutting beasts we became.

In the end, he bit deep as I stabbed him, and the rush was so powerful it almost knocked me out.

When he felt the silver blade go in, he bit harder, releasing into me.

We held on for dear life, seeing who would die first; I thought he would crush me between his powerful hands. To say he was taking everything from me into himself wouldn’t be wrong. I’d never felt so helpless, and so possessed. So fulfilled.

My heartbeat was loud in my ears even as it softened, fading with every pulse, even as my passion heightened, seeping with his every thrust.

I ground out what would be the last of my pleasure, and felt the cold creep up my limbs, his seedless semen coating my barrenness, as I released on him, a primal scream wrenched from my bleeding lips as I bucked against him, my vision exploding with countless stars.

**************

Being Old World, I had no one to walk the day for, no reason to indulge in experimental talismans and new treatments; they left me agitated, still affecting the bloodstream, all the more because the blood wasn’t mine.

The silver dagger was cold in my chest, twisting where my heart used to beat; unsuspecting, I’d wrapped her hair around my left fist, keeping my mouth busy on hers before the end, her sounds mingling with my own to create something ancient as the act itself, and new as springtime. She’d slipped the blade underneath, and into me.

Her blood tasted of the Spanish Ports I remembered from long ago.

Her nails were like firebrands down my back, scarring as they clutched me.

I was helpless to defend myself as I sucked harder at her throat, neck muscles taut as she gurgled, blood bubbling on her full and tender lips between gasps.

She arched against me, even as I bore her down, our bodies insatiably lusting for their last sensations; we wound up suspended off the bed as we wrangled, fighting for control even now, wanting it to end, and wanting it to go on forever.

All these years later, I’d let my guard down on a night I felt indestructible, and this vampire hunter, lovely, lonely, and formidably vulnerable, put an end to my immortality. I wouldn’t enter eternal glory, but if this was what it felt like, even for a moment, it was enough.

ALL THINGS MADE NEW (2)

by smithaw50, posted in Uncategorized

Chapter 2: Someone Like You

My basement room was sparse, and cool. He bought me leather bound journals with ornate, lovely covers so I could write out my memories and feelings when he was unavailable to speak with me.
We were friends, after a fashion, and spent long hours sipping wine as he showed me something of the world, and I grew to love the sound of classical music on rainy days, and was glad to clean and organize things to release the boredom of waiting for his experiments with my blood to bear fruit.
One winter night, he brought in a fresh victim: a boy, close to my age, and slight of build like me. He looked more angry than frightened, and I recognized the urchin in him. The ‘good’ doctor was nothing if not selective.
“Zurie, this is Nelo.”
He gripped Nelo by the upper arm, and though the boy’s head was down, I could see a palm print on his cheek.
“Nelo, this is Zurie. Say hello.” He pulled the boy’s hair until his head came up, and Nelo gurgled something from a split lip.
“Nelo tried to rob me, Zurie. I did to him what I did to you at first, and like you, he’s just eaten at my table. Unlike you, he tried to steal again. I thought it best you speak to him; his defiance made me lose decorum, and I thought maybe you’d like some company.”
Nelo couldn’t take his eyes off me. His aura was dark; he seemed more shadow than boy, and though he was frightened, I fascinated him. He almost forgot the doctor was holding him until he was shoved toward me.
I reached out to balance him as he almost tumbled to the floor, and he came up looking right into my eyes, our faces close enough to kiss.
“Hello, Nelo.”
He composed himself as I helped him gain his balance before he stepped back.
“Hello, Zurie.”
It seemed stupid to shake hands.
I looked at the doctor. “Did you bring him here for me to…?”
“Yes, of course.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial of new blood he’d reworked.
There’d been many failed trials before, and I’d stopped getting my hopes up. The doctor was incompetent, a pretender to the field, with delusions of grandeur and ‘One day’s’ that never came. Now, his home was shelter from the storms of life and nature, but I was growing discontent with crumbs.
The others I’d known, neither friends nor family, never looked for me. It was just as well; I wouldn’t have gone back.
“Brought me here to do what?” Nelo asked, looking back and forth between me and the doctor. “To what?”
I smiled, letting my fangs grow. He recoiled and backed away as I drank the vial. Nelo ran into the girth of the doctor, who now had a knife. He turned him toward me and put the blade to Nelo’s throat, pressing, but not breaking the skin.
“Stand still,” he said in the boy’s ear.
The knife helped with that. I bit my wrist and came toward Nelo.
His eyes roamed me, and with my heightened senses I could hear his heart, and smell the fear which became visible as he wet himself.
“Give me your hand, Nelo.”
He held it out, against his will. I cut it, and rubbed the wound across my wrist.
The doctor was watching, eyes wide, breathing shallow, hoping against hope.
Nelo’s hand began to steam, and he cried out. Tilting the blade, the doctor silently warned him again to stay still. He began to whimper and beg, wanting to be let go, swearing he’d tell no one.
I smiled at him again: “But Nelo, this is something you’ll want everyone to know.”
His body twitched, spasmed, and the doctor and I lowered him the floor, watching. Screaming and wretched, Nelo rolled over onto his stomach, blood in his mouth, and went still.
The doctor looked on, worry bordering on despair.
“Give it time,” I said.
He looked at me, nodded, not yet realizing his predicament if this was successful.
Steam rose from Nelo’s body, but moments later he still didn’t move.
“It didn’t—“ the doctor started to say.
Nelo coughed up more blood, moaned, and rested his cheek in the puddle, too weak yet to stand.
From the expression on the doctor’s face, I think he surprised himself.
I was beyond pleased, and my happiness would now extend and manifest itself into the world outside this room, and onto my former tormentors.
I looked at the doctor, now beaming at me with a full-on smile. “I did it, Zurie. I did it.”
“Congratulations, doctor. You did very well.”
Nelo was trying to get up, and once again I helped him.
“What happened to me? What did you do to me?”
“He,” I pointed to the doctor, “made you like me.”
“Like you?”
“Yes.”
His eyes roamed over me once more, taking their time; I smiled and let him see my fangs.
“Welcome to our family.” The smell of his blood was pungent; I wanted to kiss him, but I walked toward the door. “You have to feed now, Nelo.” He made you like me. Like me, he beat you. Like me, he fed you. And soon, you will be like me.
He was still confused, looking at himself, at the doctor, at me. “I… I don’t know how.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, locking us in as I smiled at the doctor, who now realized his predicament.
“I’ll show you.”

M is for Mortal

by smithaw50, posted in Uncategorized

I knocked, like I always do, respecting her privacy, but there was no answer.
“Baby? Kora? Are you there?” I went to check the bathroom, but heard no water, so I went back to the door and turned the knob.
He was there, holding her in his arms as she whimpered, answering with a soft snarling purr muffled by the tender flesh of my daughter’s neck. I don’t remember what happened next, but I do know that I smashed his head until it was pulped, and held my daughter as the blood pumped out of her.
She was a pallid bust of herself by the time it was over.
You’ve taken your revenge, Kharis. Now I will take mine.
****************
In the morning, I waited until the fire collapsed the house, and carried my daughter’s body to the old church cemetery. There were no tools to bury her, so I put her in a large toolbox, and locked it.
“I’ll come back for you, angel.”
The scent of her blood was on me, the scent of the lemon shampoo in her hair lingered with it, a coppery sweetness that jumbled my feelings, but not enough to wash them both away.
They would scent my child’s blood, and come after me.  I would smell her lemon shampoo, and remember who she’d been, and what she meant to me.
*******************
I found the lair just before the sun went down, and waited in the darkness, sword in hand.
I heard the slide of heavy stone and the creak of ancient hinges as various coffins and doors were opened.
Kharis’ widow approached. “You killed him.”
The sword was already in my hand, and made her stop. “I did. He claimed my daughter.”
“That is not our way.”
“I know, but now, blood cries out for blood.”
“I’m not giving you mine, priest.” She smiled in amusement when she said it; I’d fallen, not bothering to get back up.
“Someone has to.”
Her soft laughter reverberated. “I like your confidence.”
The others were behind her, eyes shining, skin translucent and white-veined in the thickening shadows; that would fill in as they fed, but they wouldn’t be feeding tonight, if I had my way.
She turned her back on me, and walked out while the others came toward me, baring fangs and laughing.

***************
I spent the night in their stink, lifting their cold guts in my fingers, trying on their gold, admiring their sprawled out, open-eyed, red-streaked beauty.
There would be no pyre; I would not have them in peace. I half wanted them to rise, so I could kill them again, but the sword had done its work; there would be no pursuit, and no second chance at revenge.
No one left to kill meant no reason to stay.
I only had one left to hunt.
Your turn, Narkissa.

*************
She’d set my daughter free, and the two of them looked at me as I entered.
“Hi, Daddy.”
I wiped the tears and sweat from my eyes, but they returned as if I hadn’t. “My daughter’s dead.”
She smiled. “Good. That will make this easier.”
She looked at Narkissa for approval.
“Go ahead, darling.”
She ran toward me.
My sword came up.
***************
Slumped against the wall, my hands held Kora’s hair like a bundle of flowers; it was almost over.
Narkissa was enjoying herself, sipping slow at my neck and wrists; my veins were on fire from the bites, even as my body shivered from the cold. I heard the crunch of fangs popping, and felt the coursing venom sting.
I don’t know how long she took, but a languor washed over me that sapped my strength.
She was granting me the final mocking mercy of smelling Kora’s lemon shampoo for the last time.
The stink of my corrupted blood pecked at it like crows on the battlefield.
My vision grew dark, and the scent of lemons faded.
Then it was gone.

 

Maker

by smithaw50, posted in Uncategorized

 

   They say nights are quiet, silent even, but that really isn’t so.

    It makes noises of its own.

   Even the seemingly silent glide of the hunting owl whistles keen as wings slice wind, and prey screams before talons crack it open, spilling red life like the contents of a leaky whiskey barrel.

    A late autumn cricket chirped in vain, born too late for mating. It too, will freeze and die in the grass on cooling mornings, no progeny for spring.

    I stared at the wheeling moon and stars, thinking I would stay here. Believing, for a moment, I could.

    “I’ll leave tomorrow.”

    The freezing breeze seized and shattered my breath’s vapor.

    My worn cloak had thinned into little more than a long rag full of holes where the cold poked at my legs like children’s fingers.

    I looked all around the cemetery; everyone I knew was here.

    The slaughter of my neighbors and family was swift and thorough.

    Did they know that I was now among them?

    Could they hear my heart, see my breath, and hear the lonely cricket’s solo above the blowing, rustling leaves clattering against the tilted, faded headstones?

    Did their wandering ghosts find it as beautiful as I did?

    I shuddered in anticipation of the change to come when I heard the voice behind me, as if the very air itself had spoken:

    “Are you ready?”

    The anticipation turned to fright, the fright to something I couldn’t name.

     I half turned, seeing him over my shoulder, smelling the loamy earth on my cloak.

    The stink of him was overwhelming; his beauty, unparalleled by anything I would call such.

    I used the headstone I’d sat against to pull myself up, not trusting my legs, then brushed off what autumn detritus didn’t fall on its own, as if appearance mattered now.    I wanted to run screaming, to call him vile things, to spit in his bloody face after I beheaded him.

  No doubt he knew what I was thinking, but he said nothing.

   I fell into the power of his silent, evil presence, quiet and feral; he was an old snake full of intelligent insanity.

    As he watched me struggle with myself, I sensed his patience start to crumble before the slow rise of his anger.

   His deep voice pierced my ears, a spike coated in honey, lethal and sweet, challenging me to defy him, laced with desire to punish me if I did.

   “Are you sure?”

    In the silence of my trembling, looking into the jade and gold of his gleaming eyes, the tatters of my will fell to the cold, hard ground along with my bedraggled cloak.

  “Yes.”

   It slipped from my shoulders with the cares of this world trapped in its filthy folds, and the cricket’s song abruptly ceased.

   My maker held out his hand.

   I went to him.