Limerence II (19 page)

It sparks and glows, so much more different to that of everyone else that was once alive in here. I take one of the bar towels from the bar and wipe my face clean of the blood that drips from me, and then drop it back to the countertop. My body feels sticky, my damp hair clinging to my neck, yet it does not irritate me. Instead it drives me on, continuing to make my body feel alive with longing. I look down at myself, seeing my body red, and the hunger flares again.

My eyes land on the bottle of beer on the floor that had set this night into action, the pool of beer around the bottle mixing with that of the vast amounts of blood that I spilled. I frown at it and take a heavy breath. I quite liked the taste of beer until tonight. In fact, there were many things that I liked the taste of, and now it would seem that I cannot taste them again. I turn on my stool and look across the room, watching my reflection in the mirror that sits between the shelves of the bar.

I blink slowly, frowning and not quite understanding what I am seeing. But no matter how many times I blink, the image is the same. I move my hand to my hair until I touch the thick strip of white hair, rolling it between my fingers. I frown harder at it, annoyed and fearful of what is happening to me. Why are things never predictable when you want them to be? My attention is drawn away from my own image by the sound of soft cries coming from the man under the pool table.

“Oh, stop your crying,” I yell to him.

But instead of stopping, he cries harder knowing now that I see him, that I will be coming for him. His cries come in deep hiccup sobs that make my fangs burn and itch, wanting to put a stop to this irritating man. I pick up a glass that sits on the bar and throw it against the mirror, delighting in the sound of the mirror and bottles of liquor on the shelf shattering. The sweet sound of tinkling as the glass scatters to the floor is almost soothing.

Instead of removing my own image, it is now distorted further, and I turn away from the shattered vision and watch the man crawling out from under the table and towards the door. I roll my eyes and move swiftly across the room so that I am standing in front of him. He gasps as I appear in front of him, and quickly shuffles backwards until he is on his knees swinging wildly at me with his cue stick.

I shake my head and tut, snatching the stick from him. My hunger is coming back, and I find myself panting, the smell of his blood exciting my senses once more. Perhaps I could have just a small drop of it to sate me. I have never tasted the blood of a human meant to be a Bastion. I can’t help but become more and more curious if it will taste the same or if it will taste different. After all, their auras are very different, and they grow and change into something far more magical than that of a normal Pawn vampire—so surely it would stand to reason that they would taste that much more exquisite.

“Please, I…I have a wife and child.” He clasps his hands together and begs me, tears rolling down his cheeks quicker as he sees that his pleas are landing on ignorant ears. “I don’t want to die.”

I crouch down to his level, leaning on my knees and coming face to face with him. “And you won’t. You will live,” I say pointedly.

The tiniest sliver of hope alights in him, and then he looks down and sees that he is kneeling in a pool of red. It has seeped into his clothing right up to his thighs. His hands, only a moment ago an image of a prayer, are now resting in the blood surrounding him. He sees all of this, fully takes in my bloodied image, and begins to hyperventilate. His breaths coming in short and raspy. I can’t help but chuckle darkly at him, so pathetic and weak. He clutches at his throat, clawing nails down it as he struggles to breathe, and I continue to stare, watching in fascination as he has what I assume from the out-of-sync galloping in his chest is a heart attack.

“You’re so fragile,” I murmur as I run a hand across his face.

He slinks to the floor, one hand still clutching at his throat and the other clutching at his chest. I smile and place a hand over his chest, feeling the vibrations from his raging heartbeat thundering inside.

“How is it that you rule this world?” I shake my head with a frown, my hunger and curiosity growing as his aura breeds in colour, his emotions becoming more panicked. I close my eyes as my stomach burns, and I know that I can’t control myself much longer. I need to feed from him—just taste his blood a fraction—or leave. Because his body is calling to me, calling to something deep inside me that is now awake and begging for release.

The more I stare at him, the more pain he seems to be in, and the more I hate him for it. The more I am offended by his fragile human existence. He could be so much more than this, but does he deserve to be? Should he get to see the other side of the mirror, the world in which only the most powerful live? His eyes go red as they fill with blood, his face becoming swollen as I snarl down at him and he writhes around in agony. And then the realisation hits me that I’m doing this to him—at least partly.

The heart attack is his own doing.

But I am killing him, burning him up from the inside out, I think with glee. In the distance I hear the wail of sirens and know that my time is nearly up: I need to leave soon, or there will be another slaughter.

I feel myself changing, my body growing more powerful as I give in and lower my mouth to his neck, tentatively biting down and tasting just a drop of him.

Just a sample, I promise myself. Because he doesn’t even deserve to have someone like me drink from him, letting him live on inside me forever. He deserves to be eradicated from this earth.

His blood is astonishing, tasting like nothing I’ve ever had before, and I can’t find the strength to pull away from him once I start. His blood calls to me, begging me to drink him, to finish him off and not waste this precious magical drink, because his life before this moment was pointless, and there shall be no life after this. He shall not be a Bastion, I will not allow it to become.

I swallow, taking each innocent mouthful for what it is, promising to stop after the next.

His body dries up, becoming haggard and prune-like as I suck out not only his blood but what feels like his very soul. Every nerve inside me convulses and prickles as I change once more, and I realise that I am much like Eve. For I have now sampled the forbidden fruit and I know now that nothing will ever taste the same again.

It would seem,
I think as I stand,
that I have crossed over into far more dangerous lands
. I crave something more than just blood now, more than just power, and addiction has been set alight, a fuse lit and ready to explode.

Nothing can compare to Bastion blood.

My vampires
lie about the floor in pieces, and I am at least happy that they are not screaming anymore, not pleading with me to stop and asking me what they did wrong.

I stumble to the ugly pink sofa, collapsing on to it with a shuddery breath. I can feel Mia inside of me, clawing at my insides, frantic and saddened by the monster that I am becoming. I can’t blame her; even I am disappointed in myself. I don’t understand why I am changing so rapidly into this—thing! I have worked so hard, and I am going to lose it all because I cannot control myself. Yet there must be a way to; there must be a reason why I cannot control myself. I stare once more, sickened by the loss of so many Bastions. So many of my children. The time it took to acquire them, to grow and shape them into what I wanted, to earn their trust and loyalty, and it was all for nothing, because now they are gone.

I feel blood-drunk, paralytic even; my thoughts are jumbled, my body disobeying even the simplest of commands. I just need ten minutes to collect my thoughts and my wits and I am sure that I will be okay. I sit with my head in my hands. My body feels electrified, my stomach still burning in a dark hunger that never seems sated. My fangs ache and my body is sticky. I need to calm myself before more of my Bastions come home. I need to bathe and clean myself of this blood before they see me. I need to dispose of the bodies that are left; some have been destroyed already, the true death of a vampire never a simple one.

Every death is different than the next, as I learnt tonight.

I need to remove all signs of what occurred here tonight, because any mark and my remaining Bastions will doubt me, doubt my goal and my leadership, and leave me. I cannot afford to lose anymore. I shake my head but it does nothing to clear my foggy brain. I want to close my eyes, to sleep this off, but when my eyelids flutter shut all I see is blood flowing. A river of it spraying from every human and Bastion throat I drank from tonight. I see myself dancing in their blood and I feel hungry again, as if I am feeding an insatiable parasite.

“Maya?”

Evan’s voice sings darkly to the monster in me and I look up, my fangs trembling to bite down on his throat. He frowns, his eyebrows pulling in and his mouth tightening to a straight line.

“What have you done?” His words are quiet, yet they seem too loud. Everything seems too loud, noises polluting my mind, banging like drums in my head. I whimper and close my eyes for escape, but see the river of blood again and swiftly open them back up.

What is happening to me?

I hear him swallow. Even from across the room, I hear him swallow, and then the air moves and he is by my side, his eyes glaring into mine as he kneels before me. A sob works its way up, even as my hand trails to his shoulder, my nails digging in to his muscled flesh, wanting to pull him close and drink from him. He hisses and pries my fingers free, clutching both of my hands tightly in his like a cocoon.

“Please,” I beg quietly. “Just a little more?” I ask, holding out a hand to him.

Of course I have sampled vampire blood before. When I turned them from human to Bastion I had to drink just a little of them, but that was very different. They were human then. They tasted better than normal humans, and I held it together of course, only savouring a small amount of them. However, after drinking the man dry—the one that should have become a Bastion—something has forever changed within me.

I watch Evan closely. I bet he would taste divine, better than any of these new Bastions. His blood is old and filled with so much more power than these babies. If I could just have a little of it—of him—I’m sure I would feel better. My body feels sore and aching, trembling and hot, and though my craving hums for him, something is holding me back.

He pulls me to him, helping me to stand, and together we walk to the white-tiled bathroom, me on shaky legs and him strong and full of confidence. He sits me on a small stool, puts in the plug on the claw-footed bath, and turns on the faucets, slowly filling it with warm water.

Evan’s fingers graze the water, mixing the hot with the cold. My eyes glaze over as I stare, watching the gentle movements of his fingertips working the water until he is satisfied, and then he turns off the faucets and looks back at me. He takes another deep breath and stands in front of me, pulling me to stand also as he begins to undress me. His deft hands work on the small pearl buttons at the back of my top, finally prying the bloodied top up and over my head.

His hands move to my pants, his fingers confidently unbuttoning them and then sliding them down my thighs. I lean on him, still whimpering as he helps pull them one at a time off the ends of my feet. He says nothing while he does this, never letting his hands roam freely, or allowing his eyes to scan anywhere but on the item of clothing he is working on.

I stand before him shaking, wearing nothing but my bra and panties and a thick coating of blood, and he still says nothing. He looks me over and swallows again, and with the smallest shake of his head he leans in close to me and wraps his strong, olive arms around my shoulders.

I lean into him, feeling vulnerable and lonely, wanting to clutch him to me and make the pain in me stop, making the burning and the flames that thrive inside of me be doused. But I can’t. I can’t show any weakness. I can’t allow him to see that I am anything less than strong, even through my trembling. I feel his fingers working on my bra strap and realise that he is not hugging me at all, not offering me comfort, but continuing to undress me. My bra drops to the floor, and then he lowers to one knee and shimmies my panties down my bloodied thighs until they pool at my feet.

Evan stands back up, not staring at my naked body, not looking deep into my eyes, just looking at me, his face framed by his thick dark hair, which hangs around his shoulders in disarray. His once warm brown eyes seem cold and dead. He takes my hand and gently pulls me closer to the bath, then helps me carefully step into it, my body still feeling fragile, and my mind even more so.

The water does magical things to my overly sensitive nerves as I sit in it. It laps across my breasts and moves between my legs and I stop whimpering and release a small sigh, my body still full of energy, still shuddering with pent-up power. Evan gently pushes me backwards until I am lying down, and I watch him take a sponge from the side of the bath and dip it into the water before he begins to bathe me.

His hands move over my curves with expertise and familiarity. They travel over my breasts, wiping them free of the sticky, dried-on blood, and then they work over my bloated stomach, going lower still until his hand dips between my thighs and washes my most intimate parts. I croon in comfort and pleasure and then his hand is gone and he is moving down my legs, cleaning me free of my horrors.

His eyes never leave the sponge that he cleans me with, never roving over my nakedness, never taking advantage of his position and my current weakness. And I should be glad about that, but a part of me wants him to take advantage, to show a weakness instead of his strength, to treat me as if I am a woman—the woman that he adores—and not just this monster that I am turning into. But he doesn’t, because I am not Mia, I am Maya, and with that comes loneliness.

When he believes me clean enough, he pulls the plug free from the bath and holds out a hand to me. I take it and he helps me to stand on my weak legs before wrapping a large towel around my starkness.

He reaches over and pulls me up and into his arms, holding me tight against his chest. I curl myself against him and watch the red water swirling away down the plughole, and then my eyes fix back on Evan. He carries me out of the bathroom and into my bedroom, to my bed. I bury my face in his chest, feeling comfort in his masculine scent, my arms clutching at him tighter. He shifts me in his arms, and I feel a pang of loss as he releases me to my bed instead of keeping me close to him. I curl up on my side, my towel wrapped around me, and watch with sadness as he pulls a seat to the side of the bed and sits in it. He clasps his hands under his chin, deep in thought, the frown still prominent on his handsome face.

My eyes grow tired; something I have not experienced in quite some time, tiredness, yet I relish it. I need the reprieve to gather myself, my composure, and my thoughts, but I don’t want Evan to stop looking at me like he is doing. My vision blurs and I blink to clear it, realising that silent tears are falling from me. I don’t wipe them away, wanting him to see my sadness, wanting him to take pity on me and perhaps climb on to the bed and hold me in his arms. But it’s no good, I think as I fade away in to a deep sleep, Evan’s face still staring down at me with a look of concern and something more—something I’m unsure of.

I want to smile at him, to show him that I’m not all bad, that perhaps I can be a good girl after all—for him, but I know that my fangs are still out, and I’m still craving his blood, so I don’t. I daren’t. Instead I let myself float away, unsure of what I will be when I wake up…

“Fight her,” A voice whispers in the dark…

I struggle through the cobwebs, fighting against the clouds that are wrapped around me like thick cotton candy, slowly strangling me, suffocating my resolve, pulling me free from the blackness. I listen to the words, the soft voice that swims in my head, trying to grasp on to the voice, to its location, to its meaning.

“Please fight her.” The voice is pleading and sad. Desperate, almost.

I try to swim to it, to find the voice that calls me forth, my arms and legs thrashing against the emptiness, fighting against whatever is holding me in this place, but for every inch forwards I move, I take two back. Hands claw up inside me, like vomit spewing forth they wrench free from my mouth and then pull me, dragging nails down my insides, and I’m heaved back down into the blackness inside.

I cannot fight this.

I cannot fight her.