Blood and Lace: Chapter 6

All vampires experienced the day lethargy differently. To Della it had always felt like clouds, an impression of drifting through thick blooms of mist that parted reluctantly around her. She would float, both her senses and her mind coated with this soothing gauze, until the sun sank below the horizon. Then, like all her kind, the lethargy would vanish in a torrent of instant awareness.

Della awoke in shock and surprise.

She was alive. Another night had come, and she was here to meet it. Her body thrummed with hunger. The sensation was nearly overpowering, and she struggled to hold it back.

I should not be alive.

In one liquid motion she sat up. It was so easy that it took a moment to realize the import. The paralysis was gone. Completely. And her mind was sharp and clear. Her body was once again supple, strong—and hungry to its core. She had to feed soon or the bloodlust would boil out of control.

The bed beneath her creaked as she set her feet on the floor. She froze, but no alarm sounded. Della gazed at the plain white walls of this unimpressive bedroom. Wherever she was, it was no mansion.

The lights were off and a blackout curtain hung in front of the lone window, but she took in everything with perfect clarity. The smells were complex and layered. She could scent vestiges of that nightmarish townhouse, and a much stronger remnant of that horrible carpet that should have been her burial shroud. But beneath those were gentler scents. A human’s smell had infused the sheets she’d been lying on. Something pleasant and familiar…

The thought of feeding from the owner of the bed made her fangs appear. She hunched over and grabbed her knees, willing them back. If she lost herself here it could be the death of her—and almost certainly the deaths of multiple humans.

Then she gasped. Her hands were touching bare skin. The dress was gone. She was wearing…a shirt. A large button-up shirt. And nothing else. She gasped again as embarrassment and mortification flooded over her.

She had been undressed while she slept.

Della turned and took a deep smell of the shirt she was wearing. Same scent as the sheets. Her outraged propriety battled with her appetite.

She had been undressed by him.

In an instant she was off the bed, moving towards the closed door. She wasn’t sure if it was hunger or anger that motivated her more, but she was tired of being touched without permission. Someone was going to pay in blood.

The door opened soundlessly and light flooded in from the space beyond. The theme of “modest accommodation” continued as she took in a narrow hallway with a single movie poster depicting children hunched over a pile of gold. Directly in front of her was a doorway into a lit kitchen. She eyed the cheap white linoleum and functional table. Empty.

Della stalked down the hall, her body instinctively falling into a noiseless lope. She passed a bathroom—empty and dark—and stopped. The hall emptied into a living space that ran the length of what was clearly a small apartment. She leaned just enough to peer around the corner. The kitchen was also open to the living room, separated by a countertop. And beyond…yes. A sturdy front door on the room’s far wall. Her escape.

Not just yet.

She returned her attention to the living room. In front of an old wall-mounted television were a table and couch, matched in shabbiness. She stepped forward. A jolt shot through her. A familiar man, previously hidden by the back of the couch, was stretched out along the cushions.

The strange hunter. So it was you...

She lowered into a fighting stance and bared her fangs, suppressing the hiss that wanted to emerge. Had he spotted her? She waited, senses acute and raw. Then she heard him breathe out slowly. She waited to be sure. Another steady breath. He was asleep.

Della almost laughed. How had this fool ever been allowed to become a hunter? He had taken her to his home, left her unbound, and then fallen asleep? These were the actions of a man with a death wish.

He thought to help me.

The stray notion had a disconcerting effect. For an instant her feelings softened—then her anger surged even higher. She wasn’t some helpless human damsel! This naive sheep had stumbled across her and thought, what, that she was some sort of kidnap victim? Her lip curled. She was nothing less than a vanquished warrior! Her fight for the city had incurred a terrible cost, had ended in a bitter defeat, but she would not be treated as…as a victim.

Della suddenly felt a savage joy. Drus’s cruelty had backfired. The trappings of his sadistic mockery had triggered this hunter’s misplaced compassion. Their cruel victory celebration had supplied all the motivation this sentimental man needed: a helpless woman in a wedding dress.

She stared at her “gallant rescuer,” studying him as cooly as she could while her body cried out for the life flowing in his veins. He had dark circles under his eyes and an aura of general exhaustion in the way his limbs were splayed. Her impressions from last night were further validated. Strong brow, straight nose…even in sleep his features held an attractive symmetry, and the shadow of his stubble—impossible for vampires to grow—pleasantly reinforced his masculine jawline.

He shifted in his sleep as she watched. Something light and plastic hit the floor. Della took another step and leaned over. There was a dull green canister sitting on the carpet next to him, and the sound had been an attached mask falling beside it. How odd. Did these hunters have to breathe oxygen after staying up all night playing at being predators?

The hunter looked different out of his layers of equipment, so vulnerable in naught but a thin tee and faded jeans. Truly a shame. She had been right—he hadn't been destined to live for long. Such was the nature of the world.

Della reached into his mind.

The man fell off the couch, limbs flailing, as his disoriented senses tried to obey her command to rise. She wielded the Compulsion patiently, applying a steady pressure. The hunter came to his hands and knees, and then stood unsteadily, his back to her.

“Wait—” he gasped. She cut of his words with a thought. Instead she directed him toward the entrance area of the apartment, where there was open space. That was where she would take him.

An alien sensation bemused her as the human suddenly stumbled. The Compulsion had slipped from his mind like a rope coming loose. It was the same maddening effect she had witnessed last night—perhaps a side effect of Drus’s paralytic.

Freed from her control, the hunter lunged towards the exit. He slipped on the loose welcome mat and fell, rolling on his back until his shoulders and head were pressed against the hard surface of the front door.

“Please,” the man pleaded, “don’t do—”

The words choked off as Della found his mind again. This time she was less subtle. Her body was wracked with need and she couldn’t risk him breaking loose from the Compulsion again. He went rigid, locked into immobility in the awkward position he had fallen in. She walked towards him, dimly aware of his shirt brushing her thighs as she knelt. She nudged his mind and he rolled his head, exposing his neck.

Della’s fangs extended. Gods…his scent. The bed clothes and shirt had only contained an echo of it. There was a complex undertone that cried out to be tasted. She would take her fill and more, draining him until her own strength was restored. No more weakness. That had been her greatest failing. She leaned forward, letting the dark hunger rise up.

A sound of pure anguish warbled up from the depths of the human’s chest, and she paused. She had heard it before. Last night. Despair. Resignation. Misery. It had been her sound. A sickening flush made her limbs tremble. It tainted the pure need of the hunger and brought forth a dawning horror. The past was replaying itself in an obscene parody. A predator looming over its helpless prey.

Last night the strange hunter had chosen mercy. Della knew he could not get the same consideration. She had to feed. Now. It was her nature. But instead of sinking her fangs into his throat, she thought of his trembling hands on the stake and the sound of the hammer hitting the floor. She thought of his harrowed gaze. As if driven by the thought, her own eyes slid over and locked with his.

Hurt and bewilderment. Betrayal. A single tear rolling down a faint laugh line.

You were always just…too damn weak, you know? Drus’s words. They filled her, finding her innermost self and holding it up to the light. And in that moment Della saw what he saw and was ashamed. The world refused to abide oddities. It would always find ways to confront you with your difference and make you hurt.

She threw her head back and screamed.

It was pure frustration pulled from the foundation of her being, where the essence of her own strangeness dwelled. She slammed her fist into the nearby wall, then reared back and punched it again. Over and over, until the sheetrock shattered beneath her fist. Her nails dug into her other palm, and she used the pain like a light guiding her back to control. She heard her own harsh breath in her ears, and around it the silence that had rushed in after her shout.

She slumped onto the floor, hands lying loose on her lap, and met the terrified gaze of the man who had saved her.

“Get out,” she said, releasing him from the Compulsion.

He sagged like an unstrung marionette, gasping.

“Leave.” She didn’t dare look at him. “Now.”

She heard him shift around, reasserting ownership of his limbs. Then a sound of pain as he slumped back against the wall. Gods, how long was he going to take? The scent of his blood was pure torment. She pushed herself along the floor, sliding backward to minimize the temptation that was already rising again. Her strange hunter didn’t have long.

“Hurry,” she hissed.

Instead of pushing to his feet, he ceased moving entirely. His breath was less ragged now. She wanted to see what the fool was doing—or not doing—but she didn’t dare.

“What’s wrong?”

The words were so unexpected she was momentarily speechless. This fool should be on his feet and scrabbling at the lock, not talking to the monster about to eat him. Run, you idiot sheep. Just run!

“Please talk to me.” His voice was strained and afraid, but she could still detect the notes of concern she had heard last night. Either way, she didn’t have the strength to lie.

“I need blood,” she snapped, her eyes locked on the faux wood flooring. “I’m starving. But I’m…trying…to let you go.” Only you’re too stupid and naive and you have no idea how good you smell just go please gods make him go!

“Were you going to kill me?”

She nodded, bringing her arms up as her midsection began to cramp.

“Why didn’t you?”

Della’s laugh was short and harsh. “Because I’m weak, hunter. Just…like you.”

Now he moved. She heard him stand with a small grunt. But her relief collapsed as he stepped closer to her. Fool! Damn fool!

“Do you always kill your vict—your prey?” he asked.

“No.” She gritted her teeth as a spasm triggered by his proximity rocked her body. “Only if I lose control.” Which I am about to do, you dumb human man.

There was another sound of pain as he shifted. When he spoke again it was shockingly close. “Here.” His muscular forearm was suddenly in front of her, underside turned up. She could see the life pulsing through veins just beneath his skin. This close the unique scent of his blood gave her a head rush.

“I may kill you,” she whispered.

“I trust you,” he replied.

“Then you’re a fool,” Della said. And before he could react she grabbed his arm and sank her fangs deep.

The euphoria hit her like a wave, submerging her in the pleasure of feeding. She drank greedily, each swallow sending another pulse of bliss through her starved frame. His blood was delicious. So rich it was nearly intoxicating. She distantly heard him groan, lost in his own rising ecstasy.

It was always like this with her kind, a feedback loop designed to make their prey docile even as it gave up its heart blood. The euphoria would grow between them, picking up speed until it overwhelmed the senses, until the vampire was left in a state of supine bliss and their prey was left lifeless. Some of her kin asserted that killing was the natural order. That it felt too good not to be. That the human might die, but it was death in the throes of pleasure.

Even now, buffeted by the increasing waves of delight, a part of her wanted to keep going, ride this feeling to its highest point, obtained only in the death of the human.

Just do what comes natural, licorice twist.

The memory of Drus’s voice dampened her ecstasy for a critical instant. Just enough for awareness to return and for her to realize that the arm she was clutching had grown cold. The hunter had stopped making any noise at all.

Della marshaled all the will she had left, and turned away from the torrent of rapture. She flung the hunter’s arm away and let herself fall backwards to the floor, gasping in the fading throes of the feeding. She closed her eyes, hyper aware of his blood running down her chin, down her neck, pooling at the base of her throat.

She had killed him.

The blood lust had come over her and she hadn’t resisted it in time. He had trusted her and been a fool. She brought her hand up to her face and wiped away the blood.

She was a predator. A killer. It was written into her very essence. So why the hell did she always feel so guilty in moments like this?

“I’m sorry,” she whispered suddenly. “I tried. I really did.”

“Yeah you did...”

Her eyes snapped open at the thin reedy words. She sat up, turning to look at the hunter. He had fallen on his side. His face was white as a sheet, and his eyes were half-lidded, but he was breathing. Gods, he was still alive! Her chest felt full. Strangely, inexplicably full.

He smiled at her like a drunk. “Wow,” he said. Then he giggled. Then he passed out.