AfterAge (12 page)

Louise shook her head and started to ask about Jo's strange statement, but Jo cut her off. "Come with me. I'll fix you and Beau something quick, then we'll rest. Sunlight is too precious to sleep through.

"Besides, dawn comes earlier for me."

Louise rose unsteadily and followed Jo into the recesses at the back of the church. What had she just said?

Dawn comes earlier?

REVELATION 9:8

And they had hair as the hair of women,

and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

REVELATION 17:6

And I saw the woman drunken

with the blood of the saints,

and with the blood of the martyrs.

~ * ~

"You disgusting maggot, you're not even fit for food!"

Rita ached to split the man from throat to crotch, but Siebold had retreated four or five doors away to what he believed was a safe distance. The snail would live to see another of his precious sunrises; she couldn't risk Anyelet's anger by killing him. Anyelet, who watched impassively from the stairwell, was the only reason Siebold still breathed.

"Look at this woman!" Rita gestured furiously at the pale, shivering form. "Not only did you beat her senseless, you made her available for a feeding the same night!" She gave a feline snarl. "Her second night here, and she's already half dead!" Rita stepped inside the room and tossed another blanket over the terrified figure on the floor, noting that the woman was too weak to even pull away. She stormed back into the hallway toward Siebold, who squawked and lumbered farther away.

"
Rita
."

Anyelet's honeyed voice stopped her. Little could be seen of the Mistress beyond her glittering eyes, like burning stars in an ebony sky.

"He's a fool," Rita said sullenly. "We don't need him—there are other ways to deal with the humans during the day."

Anyelet didn't answer; instead, she turned her displeased gaze on the cowering Siebold. "Howard," she said, "you are useful to us. Yes?" Anyelet smiled and Rita could see the redhead's wet fangs gleam. How she would love to see Anyelet tear out that slug's throat—better, she would gladly do the job herself. "But you are becoming careless in the ways you take payment—"

"But you said I could do anything!" Siebold exclaimed. Spittle flew from his lips and Rita's mouth twisted in revulsion. "Anything at all!"

"No one said you could
kill
, you idiot!" Rita snapped.

"I didn't—" Howard began with exaggerated patience.

Anger overruled reason and Rita crossed Siebold's "safe" distance before the pig could blink; one hand, fingers filled with incredible strength, wrapped around his throat ahead of his would-be scream. Her talon-like nails sank into his neck and she pushed her face close, mouth stretched in an evil smile; beneath the smell of his body—a combination of filth, old sweat, and beef broth—the scent of blood pulsed fast and strong, fired by the jets of adrenaline pounding through his bloodstream.

"But you
wanted
to, didn't you?” she demanded through a terrible grin. Siebold's hands fluttered ineffectively around her back as her nails sank deeper. "Didn't you?”

"
That's enough
."

Rita stiffened at Anyelet’s voice, then grudgingly eased her fingernails from their crescent-shaped depressions in the fatty folds of Siebold's flesh. Before she released him, she rubbed her face affectionately against Howard's cheek, her earrings swinging like sharp holiday ornaments. "You lucked out," she murmured. "
This time
." In the second it took her to step back, he gasped as Rita's other hand found his crotch and gave him a swift, cruel squeeze. His bulging eyes followed her as she glided away and held up the hand that had encircled his neck; the tips of the first and middle fingers glistened with his blood. Rita flicked her tongue over the nails as he watched, then grimaced and spat the red-tinted wetness at his feet. It was a pleasure to see the flush of anger on his florid, oily face—almost better than his fear. Then again, she decided, anyone could frighten a cowardly animal. Better to slaughter it.

Anyelet moved out of the doorway. "You may go, Howard."

"But I thought . . ." He glanced longingly at the quivering female prisoner, his voice a thin whine. "I wanted—"

"Not tonight." Anyelet turned her back on Siebold's sulking figure and addressed Rita. "The woman must be fed tonight, by force if necessary."

Rita nodded. Her eyes flicked distastefully to Siebold, scuttling away like some kind of giant, mutant cockroach. "What about him?"

Anyelet grimaced at Siebold and the heavy man finally retreated up the stairs. "He's becoming a problem," she allowed finally.

"I could eliminate him," Rita offered eagerly. "Soon. First we must find another breeder."

Rita trailed Anyelet as she moved leisurely down the hallway. "That could be difficult."

"Perhaps." Anyelet stopped at a doorway and turned its magnet to black. The man inside looked drawn but still healthy, though Rita thought he was nothing special, pale brown hair over paler-still skin, crystalline gray eyes above smudged blue circles of weariness. She'd certainly seen handsomer men. Still, Rita ground her teeth as Anyelet chose this same man yet again. Why?

"But perhaps not."

Rita watched with jealous fascination as Anyelet entered the room soundlessly and offered her hand to the naked figure crouched on the floor. The sense of struggle between her and the man was almost palpable as Anyelet willed him to rise and step into her opened arms. When he finally did, Rita could see that the man had a full erection and his breathing was coming short and fast through parted lips.

"Please," he whispered hoarsely. "Don't."

The words were still hanging on his lips as Anyelet's cold, silken hands slid down his body and he shuddered and let her pull him close. His eyes rolled up when her lips trailed the line of his jaw and brushed his neck. Mouth not quite touching his skin, Anyelet raised her eyes to Rita. "And do you know why?" she asked. She nuzzled the mars neck softly.

"Because . . ." Rita hesitated. "Man will always think of himself first." She looked on resentfully as the prisoner's thin arms slid around Anyelet's waist.

Anyelet smiled, then sank her teeth deep into the offering of white flesh. Her victim’s hands spasmed with pleasure and reached to pull the Mistress closer as Rita averted her gaze and slipped away from the dark lovers.

~ * ~

Stephen Rhodes wanted to moan aloud, to pray, to call out to God for release. There were a lot of things that he wanted, as a matter of fact. High on the list was sleep, without the dreams of Anyelet that tormented him every night. But he didn't dare call out. There had been a time, months ago, when he had tried to pray in this place. The beautiful black vampire called Rita—he had learned all their names—had shown him the stupidity of vocalizing his faith by hurling him repeatedly across the small room that was now his home.

But he still believed, oh yes. And God would surely damn him for eternity.

A lifetime ago Stephen had been a second-year Jesuit student at Loyola University. He planned to be a priest, to lead God's flock—or that much of the populace as he could get his holy little hands on—straight to salvation. Then, the seminary had been luxurious compared to his expectations: he had always pictured himself living in a dim cell with a hard, narrow bed and thin blanket, rising at four A.M. to join his brothers in prayer as he lived out his days in stark, unfailing service to God. How ironic that he spent his days and nights in just such a room now, without even the comfort of the imagined cot. And in his monkish fantasies, he had always been fully clothed.

He shivered and fumbled around the floor, trying to find the blanket. His mind provided a new fantasy: instead of the dirty blanket, his searching fingers found a knife, unknowingly dropped by that horrible man who guarded them during the day and regularly raped the women and some of the men. The knife was sharp and long and gleaming in the meager light thrown from the candles in the hallway. It was righteous and clean, and Stephen knew it would cut deep. But though Stephen was a weak son, he was a faithful one and suicide was unthinkable. Instead, he smiled at Anyelet as she glided into his room, then quoted a line of Scripture, his voice, clear and strong, spilling into her ears before she could stop its burning impact.

"
If thine hand offends thee, cut it off
.”

And he castrated himself.

Instead of the dream he longed for, Stephen's feeble hand closed around a corner of the blanket; he struggled to roll his freezing body into a cocoon within the material, his chain dragging against his raw ankle. How much blood had she taken tonight? And the time before, and before that? He cursed himself for trying to estimate how long he had been here, knowing he was only gauging the nights before she came again. His neck was an unhealing wound, and when that became too thick with scabs, Anyelet found other places to put her lips, sometimes in the bend of his elbow, once high on his inner thigh as she sought the femoral artery.

This time Stephen did moan out loud. The memory made him burn with need, though it had only been a few hours since her visit. He wouldn't have thought there was enough blood in him to manage it, but he was growing hard again, desire building as he remembered her lips against his neck, the touch of her frigid fingers sliding down his hips and thighs, reaching under to cup his testicles as she fed—

"No!" He fought to a sitting position. Anemia made him dizzy and he coughed, trying to clear his perpetually congested lungs. He wanted to throw off the blanket and use the chilly air to clear his head, but the ache in his chest warned against such a foolish act. How could he crave that female abomination when the women of his own kind had never attracted him? He had planned to be a
priest
—how could he surrender so easily to the unholy lust that she awoke?
I will be strong
, he told himself.
The next time Anyelet comes I won't respond. She
—

"
Stephen
."

His head jerked up. For a second he thought his earlier fantasy had come true: there she stood, a silhouette in the doorway backlit by the faint glow of candlelight. His fingers spasmed around a knife that wasn't there, then he realized he wasn't dreaming at all.

"No!" he rasped. "Go away! You've already—"

"I didn't come to feed, Stephen." Her voice was velvety as she slithered toward him.

"
Go away!
" he sputtered again. He scrambled away, hating himself for crawling along the floor like a terrified lizard until the chain stopped his flight.

Anyelet knelt in front of his cringing, pale body. He tried to resist looking into the black pools of her eyes and made the mistake of gazing at her lips—so red and moist—instead. He wrenched his eyes away and squeezed them shut. Another stupid mistake.

"
I came to reward you
."

Something cool and silky fluttered against his cheek and the skin of his shoulder where the blanket had fallen aside. He reached to push it away—some kind of gauzy fabric—and found his damp hand encased in one of hers. "You what?" he whispered. He opened his eyes and saw his wrist encircled by her fingers, watched with nearly orgasmic dread as she pulled his hand up and curved it around the cold whiteness of her naked breast. When she released him, he hated himself for his failure to pull away. As Anyelet tugged the blanket from him, Stephen's eyes drank in her unclothed figure, felt his traitorous hands wander lightly across her exposed flesh in defiance of his conscious will.

It was strange, he thought disjointedly, to be feeling this. In the rare moments of his youth that he had wondered what it would be like to touch a girl, he had always imagined her skin would be warm. Perhaps the breasts and thighs of a
real
woman would be, but the creature with which he now joined encased him like a sheath of ice. As he pulled her arctic length closer and caressed her coldest places, it didn't matter that she still fed upon him, though this time she took warmth instead of blood. She had gotten into his mind somehow, and nothing mattered but the desire.

Forgive me, Father
.

He cried the words in his mind, where the she-beast that possessed him couldn't stop them.

Forgive
—

Rapture.

REVELATION 9:5

And to them it was given that

they should not kill them,

but that they should be tormented.

~ * ~

"I'm hungry," Hugh announced.

The others ignored him and went on about their business, carrying on conversations, planning forays for food or whatever; Hugh stayed in the corner and waited for a few more minutes, until his weathered face sagged into confusion. He was hungry—shouldn't someone feed him? Where was Tisbee, and why didn't she have dinner ready? And besides that, where the hell was that boy?

In another second, he spied Vic Massucci and sprinted across the lobby, grabbed Vic's arm and ground his teeth into it, his yellowed fangs ripping through the skin and searching uselessly for a full blood vessel. But Vic's earlier feeding had long been absorbed; the bodybuilder looked at him with a pained expression and shook him off easily, swatting Hugh away like an annoying housefly. "Cut it out!" Vic snapped. He rubbed his arm automatically, though the bite had hardly stung and his flesh was already closing.