Never were such stares more entertaining than those received by the group of frat boys huddled on the steps outside the Delta Chi house. It was a white building and oddly shaped. It had two curved marble staircases leading to separate entrances. One leading to a white door, the other to a red door. The three boys were on the steps just outside the red door, and all their eyes turned my way as I stepped out of the hearse.
They were undressing me with their eyes. I could feel it. But I was used to that. It was all a part of my allure.
“Nice car,” one of the boys remarked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “You’re really taking the whole goth thing to a new level.”
I approached the boy with a smirk on my face. “You have no idea. Want to go for a ride?”
“I think she wants your wiener, Mike,” one of the other boys remarked. I rolled my eyes. Mike punched the one who’d said it in the shoulder. The third boy was laughing.
“I’m looking for Brian,” I said.
The boys exchanged glances. “Brian who?” Mike asked. “There are like four different Brians in our fraternity.”
“Freshman Brian,” I said. “He’s a psych major.”
Mike smirked and opened the door. “Hey pledge! You have a visitor.”
A few seconds later, Brian showed up… wearing a French maid’s costume.
“What the fuck?” I asked.
“Pledgeship,” Brian remarked.
The three other boys—presumably full-fledged members, were cracking up.
“Do you remember me, Brian?” I asked.
Brian looked at me curiously. “You’re that chick from New Orleans, right? I’m sorry, I was drunk as fuck. Don’t remember much about that night.”
I nodded. “I didn’t suspect you did. Still, I wanted to see you again. See if we might finish what we started?”
Brian laughed—he still sounded like Butthead. It was a nervous laugh. “I have to finish this…”
“Nice fishnets, by the way,” I said, smirking. “You’re my kind of girl.”
Mike covered his mouth as he busted a gut, clearly laughing at Brian’s expense. One of the other boys was actually rolling in the grass cracking up.
“Thanks…” Brian said, blushing from my half-hearted compliment.
“What do you have to do, anyway?”
“I’m cleaning the shitters. With a toothbrush.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you really this desperate for friends?”
“Not really…”
“They why go through all this shit?”
Brian shrugged. “Delta Chis get all the chicks. It’s worth it in the end.”
I rolled my eyes. “You really think any girl worth having cares what boy club you belong to?”
“College girls are shallow like that.”
I bit my lip. I doubted he was right, but I didn’t know many college girls. It wasn’t ever my scene. I could have taken night classes through the years, I could have earned dozens of degrees if I wanted to. I just wasn’t worth it. It involved sitting in a room full of humans for hours on end. I had good control over my cravings, but putting me in a classroom at a human university would be like telling a sugar addict to go sit in an ice cream parlor without eating anything. It would have been torturous. So I never really tried the college scene beyond the sort of thing I was doing now—it was a fairly convenient hunting grounds, considering that a good portion of the student body was inebriated every night.
“Maybe they are,” I said, though I suspected his analysis of what girls really want was off the mark. Most young boys don’t have a clue. “But what I want from you is more than skin-deep.”
“I’m not looking for a relationship…”
“I’m not, either,” I said. “But I could use a meal. How do you feel about dinner… see where things go from there?”
Obviously I wasn’t asking him for a dinner date. I was inviting him to be my dinner. But he didn’t know that.
“You still want to see me… after seeing me… like this?”
“Girl,” I said, “you look delicious.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“Why don’t you drop that zero and get with the hero?” Mike asked, stepping a bit too deep into my personal bubble.
I kneed him in the groin and shoved him in the chest with one hand, causing him to fall hard to the ground.
“Damn!” one of the boys said. “She just handed you your ass, Mike!”
I smirked even as Mike writhed in pain on the ground, clutching his manly bits. I looked back at Brian and batted my lashes. “So how about it, Brian?”
“I’m afraid to say no!”
“You should be,” I said, clutching him by the neck lace of his maid’s costume and pulling him close. “But you don’t know how freaky I can really be.”
Brian laughed nervously. “Just let me go change first…”
“Hell no,” I said, adding a wink. “I like you just the way you are.”
Brian was powerless to resist me—I knew that much. I was toying with him like a kid with a magnifying glass toys with a parade of ants.
“Get in the car,” I said.
Brian nodded and opened the door. “Hey, the hearse is creepy enough… but why do you have a coffin in the back?”
“Ever screw in a coffin?” I asked.
“You really are freaky, aren’t you?”
I grinned. “Just get in the car.”
Brian obediently sat in the car, tucking his maid’s skirt under his legs, and clicked his seat belt. “We aren’t going anywhere where people will see me like this, are we?”
I smirked. “Maybe. Maybe not. What is it to you?”
“I just don’t want anyone to see…”
“You’ll do whatever I tell you to, won’t you Brian?”
“I, umm… Yes. I mean, of course I will, but…”
“That’s ‘yes, goddess.’ Say it.”
“Yes, goddess.”
“Now hike up your skirt a bit. We have a little bit of a drive.”
“Yes, goddess.”
I chuckled to myself as Brian did as he was told, showing off a hairy flash of leg. He looked ridiculous, though in an oddly attractive way. But more than anything, I found it all amusing. I wasn’t sure how much of the power I had over him was due to my vampirism or how much of it was due to his own natural, submissive tendencies. Most men, I’ve found, will cower in the presence of an assertive, confident, beautiful woman. My vampiric allure only enhanced my irresistibility. Still, all this was to simply test how deeply I had him ensnared by my allure. I needed to know if there were any limits, at what point he might try to resist me. I had a lot of testing still to do if I was really going to stable him at Casa do Diabo. But so far, he was a promising candidate.
Chapter Five
“That’s the frat boy?” Ramon asked as I walked in with Brian following behind, his eyes glued to my boots. If there was one thing I was proficient at, it was training human males. It had been my experience, over the last century-plus, that most men are eager to please their owners. Yes, I realize I’m talking the way someone might speak about training dogs. Training men—even vampire men like Ramon, who were a bit more stubborn—is a lot like that. Give them treats. Punish them when they disobey. Scratch them in the right places. They’ll do almost anything you say.
“Is that your boyfriend?” Brian asked.
“What’s it to you?” I asked.
“Nothing, I just didn’t expect…”
“You thought I was going to be your girlfriend?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“I kind of hoped…”
“Follow me,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I have something to show you.”
I led Brian into an interior room—one without any windows. While Casa do Diabo has more windows that one might think for a place that houses a couple vampires, even those that did were covered by thick blackout curtains. We probably should have just bricked over the openings. Only problem was that neither Ramon or I had
any experience with brick masonry, and trying to hire a mason who only works at night was practically impossible. I’m sure I could have pulled it off with enough money—but I generally avoided anything that might raise eyebrows or leave a paper trail that any possible hunters, or hell forbid, the Order of the Morning Dawn, could use to trace to our place. Alice knew about our place. So far as I knew, though, if anyone else in the Order knew where we lived, they hadn’t dared attempt an attack.
“This is your new home,” I said.
“But what about my classes?” Brian asked.
I shrugged. “Drop out.”
“But I…”
“You heard me,” I said. “Quit. You’re here to satisfy me now.”
“To satisfy you?” Brian asked. “How do I satisfy you?”
I exposed my fangs. Brian shrieked. I lunged at him and bit into his neck. Something burned… I leapt back, screaming in agony. My mouth was filled with something like tar.
Ramon burst into the room as I began foaming at the mouth. My knees gave out beneath me. “Ma chérie!” Ramon said as he caught me. “Run,” he said, turning to Brian. His voice echoed in my head as if he were speaking at the end of a long tunnel. “Go home and forget any of this happened.”
“Hailey,” I mumbled as my body convulsed. I looked up at Ramon, who held me in his arms, my vision splitting him into two.
“Stay with me, Mercy,” Ramon said. “We’re going to see Annabelle and Hailey…”
Ramon set me gently in the back of my hearse—something I hoped didn’t portend things to come. I wasn’t ready to die… I couldn’t die…
Edwin cackled in my head. It was as if whatever demonic substance I’d taken in was like a drug to him. More… give me more of the delicious blood!
It was like every bump we hit on the road was amplified, the vibration sending shock waves of pain through my body. As a vampire, I hadn’t experienced much more than mild pains in years. This was mortal pain, the kind of pain I hadn’t known since I was human, confined to the sanatorium with consumption, gagging on my own blood. Even when Moll cut out my heart and liver, it didn’t hurt like this. It felt like something was ripping me apart from the inside.
Brian must’ve been possessed, even if only briefly, at some point between the last time I’d fed on him and now. Maybe that explained why he’d been dressed as a maid. Who knows. It was probably just the hazing. Still, there had only been a couple days between my two encounters with Brian. If he’d been possessed in that short amount of time, it meant that this demonic plague was spreading more quickly than I’d been willing to believe.
The next thing I knew, I was on my feet and leaping out of the hearse.
“Wahooo!” Edwin shouted—but he wasn’t in my head. He was using my voice.
Internally I was still writing in pain. It was like I was in hell… I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything but watch in horror as Edwin set my hands to the head of a young, professional woman and ripped it from her body. As he thrust my fist into a man’s gut and pulled out his heart, putting it to my lips. My fist swung around, narrowly missing Ramon, who’d stopped to grab me.
“Mercy!” Ramon shouted. “Stop this!”
“I’m not Mercy!” Edwin gurgled as he choked down a chunk of human heart.
Ramon took two steps back, horror on his face, and then left in a blur.
Ramon! I cried out, but no words were released.
“He can’t hear you, sis. I’m in control now. Isn’t it great?”
Stop it, Edwin! You can’t act this way!
I heard more screaming all around as we stood smack in the middle of the French Quarter in a pool of blood. A bullet struck my back—it hurt only slightly and passed straight through. Edwin turned—an officer stood there, his pistol drawn.
“On the ground, now!” the officer shouted.
Edwin took two steps forward.
Another bullet to the chest. It had no effect. The officer, with horror on his face, shot again.
Edwin continued walking straight for him, took the officer’s neck in my hand, and exposed my fangs.
Then something else struck my back… something like an electric shock. I felt my body turn.
Hailey stood there, flanked by Annabelle and Ramon on either side, her wand extended and channeling some kind of dark-purple energy my direction.
“No!” Edwin shouted, using my voice. Clearly he’d lost control and didn’t like it much.
Hailey gradually guided us toward her. I heard the officer behind me running the opposite direction on his radio. He was probably calling for backup. Whatever they were trying to do, I hoped they were going to do it soon. As I approached Hailey, Annabelle tossed some kind of dust in my face. It smelled like sweet herbs. The odor lingered in my nostrils even as my vision faded to black… as I felt my body, once again, collapse into Ramon’s arms.
Chapter Six
I moved my toes inside my boot… that was the first thing I noticed as I came to. I could move my own toes. But I couldn’t move my arms. They were pressed against my body. Was I in a straitjacket? It felt like it—not like I’d ever been in one before. I was strong, but not strong enough to tear myself out of the jacket. The room reeked of alcohol and bleach. I opened my eyes—it was dark. Still, I could see in the dark. All I could see was a single door and a padded wall.
“Is anyone there?” I asked.
No one responded. I could hear moaning and groaning, even some strange cackles of laughter outside the room that held me. It reminded me of my days in the sanatorium. I was in a place of anguish, of pain, something of a medical facility, perhaps?
A bright light flashed in my eyes, nearly blinding me. I squeezed my eyes tight. “What the hell?” I shouted. “Whoever you are, let me out of here right now!”
Another bright flash.
“Fuck you,” I shouted back. It wasn’t sunlight. But as creatures of the night, our eyes naturally adjust to darkness. Sudden lights, especially bright ones like this, were more than a little jarring.
Then the light started flashing in rapid succession, like a strobe. I clenched my eyes tight as I screamed. “Stop it, now! I swear when I get out of this damned coat…”
The lights stopped.
“Test complete,” a voice said over a loud speaker. “Subject has passed the protocol.”
“Hey,” I shouted into the darkness, “I didn’t sign up for any fucking tests. Let me out of here, immediately. Or you’ll have hell to pay.”
Footsteps approached from the hallway outside the room where I was bound. I heard a click, and the door opened. A light turned on—not as bright as the strobe they’d assaulted me with before, but still jarring given how well my eyes had adjusted to the darkness.
An older black man with a neatly trimmed white beard leaned over me. “What is your name?”
“What do you mean, what’s my name? Who the fuck are you?”
The man grinned. He had a kind-looking smile. “I’m Doctor Cain.”
“Why am I here? Let me out.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Not until we know you’re in control. The problem with your kind is that most sedatives are ineffective on you. So we have no choice but to restrain you until you come down off your episode.”
“My episode?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You assaulted several humans…”
“That wasn’t me.”
“Then who are you?”
“I’m Mercy. You have to understand, I wasn’t in control… I didn’t kill those people.”
“This isn’t a court of law,” Doctor Cain said. “It’s a facility for creatures like you… those who suffer from particular ailments.”
“Fucking Ramon, he had me put in here, didn’t he? He was just talking to me the other day about seeing a shrink.”
Doctor Cain grinned. “The person who committed you here was not named Ramon. Still, presuming Ramon is a friend of yours, why would he think you’d benefit from
psychotherapy?”
“Not me,” I said. “My brother.”
“Your brother?” Doctor Cain asked.
“Yes,” I said. “My brother, Edwin. He’s trapped inside my head.”
“You realize it was he who was speaking to us when you first arrived here.”
“I don’t remember that,” I said. “I just remember being in the street…”
“What did you do in the street?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I couldn’t control my body… Edwin controlled my body.”
Doctor Cain nodded. “Then tell me, what did Edwin do?”
“You know damn well what he did, otherwise I wouldn’t be locked up in this shithole.”
“I might know,” Doctor Cain said. “But I need to hear you say it. What did you do?”
“Edwin decapitated a woman. Took out a man’s heart through his stomach. He was about to behead a police officer before Hailey…”
“Before Hailey did what?”
“Those bitches!” I shouted out loud. “Hailey and Annabelle, they put me in here, didn’t they?”
“It’s not my place to say…”
“You told me it wasn’t Ramon. Now when I ask you about them, you default to a position of confidentiality. That means it de facto was them.”
Dr. Cain shrugged. “So what if it was? Why does it matter who committed you here?”
“I don’t even know where here is… What do you mean it’s a place for creatures like me? What is this institution called?”
“This is the Vilokan Asylum for the Magically and Mentally Deranged.”
“Vilokan? We’re in fucking Vilokan? So this is some Voodoo joint?”
“You could call it that,” Dr. Cain said.
“Well, I’m back to myself now. You can let me out of this place.”
Bloody Mad: A Dark Urban Fantasy Story (The Legacy of a Vampire Witch Book 2) Page 3
