Daylight - Book 1 (No Death for the Wicked) (12 page)

Mixed with a stomach full of
desire and hunger I nip at his throat. More saliva occupies my mouth as I place my lips on his flesh and nip again. His throat rumbles with his complacency, he wants this, maybe more than I do. My fangs glide over the fragile skin and his steadfast hand grips a hold telling me he wants
more
. I hover over the area for a moment. “Do it…
do it
,” he growls squeezing his fingers harder through my hair. He sounds just like Graham, he feels just like Graham. I have fantasized too many times to count on how I could take Graham,
just like this
. The power of my being surfaces and I spread my lips apart. The blood affirms that I take what I need, and the thick wet vital fluid fuels my spiraling mindset. He reclines his head back while his hands outline the shape of my body, rubbing my shoulders he hooks his finger through the strap on my dress, loosening it. Still clamped to his throat I slip off the thin strap and grip his shirt.

I’m convinced he’s Graham
and I deepen my bite, he hikes my dress up along my thigh. Every place his hand touches leaves a trail of heat. The warmth feels so incredibly right. He’s hard, the full length of him presses against my stomach and I’m ready to dive right on past any foreplay and strip off my clothes for him. I’m running on instincts, with my mind being wrapped up in the offering of blood and how it’s making me feel. The drug I was given has dimmed some senses and heightened others. Where I’m going and how I get there doesn’t matter. While drinking in everything I can, something happens, the taste lessens.

I readjust my fangs, searching for that
tender spot but I can’t get my hold. Blood saturates his skin making it slippery and hard to handle. I flop his head to the other side and dig deeper with my fangs but I keep missing, I don’t understand.
Where’s that fucking vein?
His weight bears down on me and he’s heavier than I remember. I shove him back against the elevator wall. His head slumps to one side exposing a gaping hole that looks like he was mauled by a wild dog. Malcolm’s lifeless body slides down to crumple at my feet in a grotesque hunched over pose. “M-
Malcolm
?” I stutter, my voice sounds just as unattached as I feel. Kneeling I reach out to him and I see my trembling hands covered in blood. I catch the refection in the mirror and see something I’ve tried to avoid at all costs. Becoming her, becoming
mother dearest
. I’m caked with blood and it’s smeared all over my face, down my half exposed breasts and in my hair.

“Malcolm…”
I shake him as my panicky tone rises.
Think Mattie, think what the fuck are you going to do now?
I can’t think. I can’t even move. All I can do is stare at the not-so-warm body of Malcolm lying next to me. No blood pools around him because I fucking drank it all. What have I fucking done? I’ve never lost control. Never!

The elevator dings as it reaches my floor, I turn absently
toward the door as it swooshes open. My eyes lock on the horror-struck face of a freaked out woman. Her bulging, wide eyes are about to pop out of their sockets, and then I hear her high-pitched scream…

Chapter Eleven

Bleeding Out

Arduous hours turn into days, but the heavily curtained days begin to blend in with the hollow nights. The dark plush reddish-brown décor of the hotel suite only adds to my depression. My screams of pain have all been muted by the copper cushions, which now lay shredded along the burgundy velvet carpet. They used me, tossed me out like I was garbage. No, like a whore, left me here in this luxurious useless room to starve. Not for sex, money, or food, but for blood. Fallen from the over-sized bed, I crawl on my hands and knees over to the darkened corner like a pathetic child denounced of my right to live. My tongue feverishly flicks the tip of my fangs as I clutch the pit of my stomach. Another violent convulsion rips right through me. I buckle down and try to fight it, curled in a ball, panting for a breath of relief. Each exhausted gasp burns like kerosene and liquid fire igniting a blaze of hell down my throat.

I don't know why I even try to fight it
?  It's the ramification of being a vampire. I'm locked, dead-bolted from any remission, or any hope I'll fucking survive this bleak situation. My flesh bares grey dried-up veins. My thin nails split and tear as I claw at the fabric of the woven carpet. My blurry vision intensifies and glazes over with red, the last of my tears drop and splatter to the floor.  The crimson tears streak slowly along my cold pale cheeks. My bone-weary muscles contract one more time, leaving me writhing and moaning in agony. The ear ringing silence consorts with the eternal darkness, feeding off the emptiness that surrounds me. A subtle scent captures my evaporating attention as a dull thump lands less than a foot away. The decadent smell buffets all around me, my eyes close and I inhale the sweet hungering aroma.
I'm fucking hallucinating now
, I can just imagine it, a body. A fresh cut, a wound spliced open wide and glorious blood seeping out. My mouth, as arid and dry as it is, makes every effort to fill with moisture, but I'm too weak to do much more than that.

A swift arm slides under my limp shoulders
lifting me up as two blood covered fingers insert inside my partially open mouth. I instinctively clamp down, hard, and suck the savory, divine taste, running my tongue erratically along the fingers.
Was this some kind of fucked up test, a way to find out how long I can last without blood? Their way to make me suffer in the worst way possible over killing Malcolm?
My short pondering comes to a halt when I'm raised and moved even closer to the powerful scent. My body is propped and my head tilted at an angle and my lips brush against tender, supple skin. “Drink, Mattie.”

My fragile mind draws up a blank at whose commanding voice accompanies the lightless room, and at the moment, I don't really care. Wider my lips part as my fangs extend and I pierce the soft tissue, withdrawing the firs
t sips of life. A week of deprivation, I can't control myself. Faster I swallow, faster I drink, sucking the life out of this being and giving me anew. Strength courses a steady flow and I'm able to obtain my hold, grasping my hands tightly around a pallid neck. The whiff of blood dances through my nose as I sink in further, shivering with revitalization. Hunched over the body, I sever the nerves, snap through the cartilage and practically drain the vessel before me. Bracing myself, I carefully look up. My blood-shot eyes miraculously fall on Graham, the darkness almost hides him from my view, but it's clearly him. His sharp cobalt blue eyes could stop one dead, but instead his stare penetrates my unbeatable heart with something I can't even begin to explain.

My fangs retract and I gli
de my tongue over my red swollen lips. I arch back, flexing my tense fingers from the severe hold I maintain. The pangs in my stomach still have me cringe and I crease my brows at him, indecision cradles me like a lost fledgling.
Do I run, do I stay?
My brain hangs in the fog of confusion. I dart a glimpse toward the unlocked hotel door and then back to him. He sits perfectly poised and self-collected in the plushy refashioned high-back chair, decked in a black cashmere hooded jacket. He inclines and rests his elbows on his knees as his luster imbued eyes narrow. Impulsively, I touch my lips with my blood-coated fingertips. The scent compels me as I breathe deliciously in the distinctive beloved smell, before I lower down to the wispy pulsing vein.

I question him,
“Why...Graham? Why would you do this...?” My eyes lower and take in the woman's ashen, debilitated body briefly and then quickly bolts back to him.

He
raises upward, his riveting sight never wavering as he answers, “Because I
want
to keep you alive, Mattie.”  And he strides silently out of the aphotic room. He takes a life of another to save my own, he freed me from my inescapable prison, and gives hope to the hopeless.
Ironic,
Reaper.

Graham

The animalistic sounds that came from Mattie ripping into the flesh and her half-crazed appearance as she fed, has me well prepared to do what I must do. That image imprints in me, it burns into me as I make my way down the hallway and to the vampire responsible for this. I’ve looked for her, scoured the city for her. If I was a day later she would have died by bleeding out. She’s all that I have. All that I will ever need and anyone that instigates other wise will dance with death. A vampire does a double take as I glide myself to the door. “Who the fuck are you?” I’m silent with my words as our eyes connect. My scythe severs his head from his body just as swiftly as the blade resonates through the air. I disincarnate as I walk through the door, changing my form to a man in a suit. I stride over to the chess table. I tuck the white knight between my fingers and move it out of the way, to a safe position, not exposing it to any threats. 

The opponent
’s king is now exposed placing it in an un-winable situation. "I believe this is checkmate.” Krew tosses his writing pen down onto his desk and rises from his leather sanctuary seat. His white knuckles press hard into the wood, his loathsome eyes narrow as his mouth curls in anger. "Who let you in here?" he asks.

“No one, I come and go as I please,” I confide.
“And I wouldn’t advise you to ask who I am because that would…” I glance around his office offhandedly before I continued, “…put a damper on our business.”

“And what business would I have with you…
Mr?”

“Ah-ah-ah, I just warne
d you to not be inquisitive about my identity. It doesn’t really matter, you will find out soon enough.”

I can smell the malevolence reeking from him and I share
a similar immorality as he, but our likeness comes to a stop when it involves
her
. She’s the one thing I will protect when all his intents are to discount anyone’s needs other than himself. And he is about to discover he’s greatly underestimated the grand scheme of things.

I take a step forward and inhale the ambrosial of scents
. Slowly I exhale and smirk at him. “There’s nothing better than the smell of fear, wouldn’t you agree?”

His body flashes in front of me, his hand cinches around my neck and
he hisses, “I don't know who you think you are but you will regret this day if you do not leave immediately."

“Regret the day?
I seriously doubt that,” I reply evenly.

His long threatening fangs develop
. He levels his eyes with mine and informs me, “I’ve warned you.”

My own hand seizes his neck
, willing him closer, nose to nose just as he did to Mattie. I commune with my words, cold and callused. “I think it’s time you realize it’s the end of the game, Krew.” Just as he attempts to impress his influence on me I clutch his neck tighter. "Your corruption and deception will have you on your knees.”

“I think not,” he
retorts back, lunging with all of his full vampiric strength. He uses his dexterity in an effort to sink his fangs into me. I pull his energy from him, making him go slack in my grasp. I allow him to see my true form. 

He flashes backwards, straightening his suit and tie, regaining his
composure, at least on the outside. He then hisses through his fangs, “I don’t care who you are. You know nothing of my kind!”

“I
have seen evil in its rarest form, and witnessed all levels of egocentric behavior, far worse than yours. The mistake you made was
her
. Your petty empire is of no consequence to me. Your life, as short as it now is, held no value to me until you took her for your exploiting gratification.”

“Ms Kinsley? This is all about that
pathetic, imperious vampire that shows her disregard and disrespect to everything around her?  Take her, she is nothing.”

“I already have.”

“Then what are you doing here?” He takes a step back as I step forward.

“I am here to collect.”

“Collect what?”

“Everything.”
I glance toward the large two ton wall safe as the dial spins and the crank turns without a touch. The door drifts open silently to expose all that Krew holds dear.

“You will not—”

“Oh, but I will take it all, the serum supply, the manuscript, everything.” I know the crux of Krew is the possession of the legendary Voynich manuscript.  It is undeciphered by mankind. No man can read it, but to the Vampire, who it is intended for, it is clear.

The loathing erupts from the
Monarch of Solace as he bares all. Tapered fangs lengthen, as his outstretched claws flay the air, attacking me in all his deranged madness. He slashes away at my attire only for it to rematerialize unaffected. His sullen face creases, snarling, and growling with each impulsive thrash.

“I
t ends now!” I voice as I grab the manic vampire, holding him in the crook of my arm by his neck. His head lashes back and forth as hard as his body does trying with desperation to escape my grasp, to no gain. I reach steadily across his chest with my free hand, grabbing his shoulder. With a tight hold I rip outward sending his body in one direction and his head in another.

The blood from Krew’s body inundates the room with a strong scent of copper. I breathe in deeply the vampire’s energy that release
s. Splatters of blood adorn the office in an abstract display and I tremble slightly from the force I just absorbed. I step over Krew’s decapitated body and make my way to the safe. I extract the manuscript and the many vials Daylight serum, collecting everything I said I would.