A Taste of Crimson

by E. M. Knight

  If there is a small army of them being built out there… then it’s not just The Haven I have to be concerned with, but the entire world.

  I exhale heavily. That is a lot of responsibility to feel piled on my shoulders.

  Yet, I can’t divert my focus. If I lose sight of what’s most important—my coven—then there’s no way I’ll be able to help the world.

  For now, I take solace in the fact that Cierra is focusing only on me—which is still, for all intents and purposes, a terrifying proposition.

  There are so many more things to consider. Raul, Phillip, Alexander, Rebecca, and Cassandra. I have to decide, still, what the best course of action is with regards to each of them, and then there’s Morgan…

  I feel my eyelids growing heavy. A damp languidness washes over me. I yawn. When was the last time I slept?

  My thoughts start to drift as the call of sleep grows ever stronger. I feel my defenses ease up. It’s so simple to just lose myself here, to succumb to the wonderful safety afforded by these woods…

  With a jerk, I sit up. No, no, something is wrong. No, those are not my thoughts. Somebody out there wants me to let down my guard!

  I jump to my feet, fighting off the sudden-onset of sleepiness. Vampires don’t get sleepy, except when the sun is up, and we are fully protected here…

  A growing sense of danger forms in the back of my mind. It’s like a shadow being cast over me. By what, I don’t know—but I am not usually one to be afraid.

  “Hello?” I call out. I do a slow, terse circle, ready to grab hold of the Elements at a moment’s notice. “Who’s there?”

  But no answer comes… and I don’t feel anybody, either.

  Yet the sense of danger remains in the back of my mind.

  “Hello?” I try again, my whole body tense. More of that languidness comes over me. My eyelids want to drift shut. I barely suppress a yawn.

  My instincts are screaming at me of looming danger. I should flee.

  But my feet are rooted to the spot.

  With a start, I realize that somebody is exerting an enormous amount of influence over me. I cannot pinpoint the direction it’s coming from. My fear reaction is simply due to the unknown of submitting to a superior force. It’s not fright I feel because of actual danger.

  That distinction is subtle, but it makes all the difference to me.

  I push the fear away. I don’t need it. Instead, I open myself up to the spirit, the force, whatever it is, trying to subdue me, and let it know I will not fight.

  From out the bushes comes a great white albino dog.

  Its thick, sleek fur is perfectly white. It’s eyes, a brilliant red, stand out above its enormous muzzle. It looks like an enormous wolfhound, with its shoulders level with my face.

  It approaches me, slowly. I am filled with awe. It is able to disguise its presence—but it, somehow, has enough influence to overpower me.

  I stand absolutely still and watch it approach. Any vestige of fear is gone. I am struck by the beauty and majesty of this beast.

  Its eyes are keen and highly intelligent. It knows exactly what it’s doing. It knows its place in this world.

  I realize, suddenly, that the overwhelming feeling of peace I felt came not from the forest surroundings—but from the dog itself.

  It stops about five feet away from me. Despite its enormous bulk, somehow, it leaves no paw prints on the soft dirt.

  We stand at an impasse, the animal looking at me, and me looking back at him. I know it’s a male instinctually. Something about the jaw, the snout, the eyes, the shape of the body tells me that.

  Immediately, a sense of respect comes over me for this incredible animal. I have all sorts of questions: How long as he been here? How was he made? There is no doubt in my mind this is the same dog that Raul spoke of—but why would this dog take the parchments Raul had taken from Morgan’s apartments away from him?

  I wait. That feeling of absolute calm emanates from the beast.

  I feel privileged simply to bear witness to it.

  Suddenly, the shield it’s erected around itself vanishes, and I feel its strength acutely. That it has vampire blood running through its veins, I have no doubt. What amazes me is just how strong he is. Stronger than any vampire here, stronger than Morgan, stronger than even me. He is an order of magnitude stronger than me… and that is astounding.

  “Who are you?” I whisper.

  In a flash, he’s gone. He moved so fast that not even my eyes caught the movement.

  In his absence, that warm feeling of peace vanishes. So does the feeling of languidness.

  As fast as I can, I rush in the direction it first came from. But flare my senses as I will, I cannot find the animal. The ground shows absolutely no sign of being disturbed. Neither does any of the vegetation. I slow to a trot and stop. The air is still, and the night is silent. Nothing disturbs the peace.

  So, this animal has been here the whole time, I think. How old must it be to have so much strength?

  I look up at the stars to orient my location, then turn the proper way, and start back for the apartments where the Forsaken Sisters are waiting for me with Morgan.

  I am going to keep this encounter to myself for now. Something tells me that when the time is right, he will seek me out again.

  As long I know the animal is not a threat, I don’t mind at all putting him out of my mind.

  Chapter Ten

  Smithson

  New York

  I lean back against the wall, arms crossed, looking at the seated woman with scrutiny.

  Beyond her, April and Paolo are consulting in whispered tones. I could easily eavesdrop, but I prefer to give them privacy.

  After all, it’s not every day a human of this caliber falls into my lap.

  I am frustrated that April is taking so long to decide. Feed or not, and be done with it, I say!

  I finger the little turtle torrial in my pocket. At least I’ve gotten the one thing I need to face the Slender Man without worry. I’m well-aware of the ticking clock, of how soon we have to get back to James with the obsidian. Even though the next full moon is over a week away, I do not like the time we’ve lost going on this chase with my impersonator.

  But so be it. If, in the end, it means James and I can enact our revenge on Cierra… to punish her for what she’s done… I am fine with it.

  April steps forward. “I’ve decided,” she says.

  “Finally.” I smile and push off the wall. I approach the bound-and-gagged woman and spin her chair around so that she faces April. “What will it be?”

  “I need to feed,” April says. “This is the perfect victim.”

  The woman starts to struggle against the bonds. April approaches her. I see the first signs of bloodlust in her eyes.

  “Very wise,” I tell her, and turn my back to stroll away.

  Chapter Eleven

  April

  New York

  My eyes zone in on the woman as I stop in front of her. I feel her fear pulsate like a palpable thing. I bend down, grip the armrests of the chair, and put myself eye-to-eye with her.

  “Looks like your saviors didn’t come,” I say, a bit cruelly. I run a finger along her exposed neck. Her fear grows. There is now stark terror on her face.

  At least she’s finally realized I am owed a certain degree of respect.

  I bring my nose right to the curve of her neck. Her body trembles. I take a deep breath, breathing in her very human scent, the blood and sweat and fear creating an intoxicating mix.

  I let my fangs come out. I peel my upper lip back and let the two long, sharp teeth graze along the skin of her neck.

  I haven’t fed in too long, and I intend to savor every moment of the kill.

  The woman in the red dress has gone perfectly still. I know this is the extreme of the fear response. I don’t know how I know it—I just feel it in my bones.

  I bring my lips to her ear. “I am going to enjoy this, very, very much,” I whisper.


  A pathetic whimpering sound escapes her lips.

  I bring my mouth back down to the perfect spot. I am salivating, so ready am I for her blood. Just as I’m about to sink my fangs in, I realize something feels just a little bit… off.

  I jerk away from the woman. A feeding is supposed to be a private, very intimate thing. That is always how Wanda made it out to be in the Fang Chasers.

  “Paolo,” I say, looking back at him. “Smithson. I’d like some privacy, please.”

  Smithson’s lip twitches up in a knowing smirk. “Certainly,” he replies, and motions for Paolo to follow him out the door.

  Paolo hesitates at the exit, lingering just an extra second to look at me. I have no idea what he’s thinking, but I feel the protectiveness in his gaze.

  Irritation creeps into me from being looked at that way. Whereas I see Paolo as a man, he watches me as a little sister.

  It’s infuriating.

  Before I can snap at him, Smithson pulls him away, and the metal door bangs shut.

  I hear them place the locks that will seal me and the woman in.

  I turn my attention to her again. She is, of course, exceedingly beautiful.

  The vampire inside me delights at the idea of stealing the life of someone so striking.

  “This is a little bit too easy,” I say, offering her a smile. I walk behind the chair and cut the straps holding her wrists with my claws. She jerks her hands forward, rubbing at the red friction marks.

  I do the same to her ankles, then come up to untie the gag in her mouth. I take it off slowly, satiating in the fear response of the woman.

  She blinks rapidly as she tries to bargain with me. “Whatever you want, I can get it for you,” she blusters. “Money. Drugs. Power. Influence. I can make you queen of the city, you’re so young, you have your whole life ahead of you, and I can make it glorious, I can make you into anything you want to be, I can make you a star, I can make you famous, I—”

  “Shh,” I whisper, placing a finger on her lips. She shies back. Finally, at least, she is giving the response a human should in the presence of a vampire. “I don’t want any of those things, my darling.” I hardly recognize the seductive voice coming from my lips. It must be an extension of the vampire inside taking over. “All I want, all I need…” my finger dips down to her chin, then runs down along the front of her neck, and stops on a spot just above her clavicle, “… is right here beside me.” I shift my gaze to her eyes.

  “Boo,” I say.

  The woman jumps, toppling over her chair. I back away and laugh. “What are you going to do?” I wonder. “Where are you going to go?” I gesture around us, at the four steel walls of the soundproof room. “You can’t get out.”

  She’s breathing hard now, nearly hyperventilating. Her legs move her back, back, back, until she runs out of space. She presses herself against the wall and wraps her arms protectively around herself, unable to break our locked gaze.

  I grace her with a smile and start to move forward. I step over the upside-down chair. The bloodlust is starting to get the better of me. Each cell of my body is screaming at me to feed.

  But I fight the temptation, putting it off just a little longer.

  All the great pleasures in life, after all, are so much sweeter when preceded by the right amount of restraint.

  “Wh-what are you?” the woman mumbles. Her face has gone completely white, entirely drained of blood. “You’re not human!”

  “Ah,” I say, closing the final distance between me and my prey. “Finally, you realize what’s been staring you in the eyes the whole time.”

  I come onto her, gently caress her bare arms. Then I curl my upper lip back to reveal my two wonderful fangs.

  “I,” I tell her, “am a vampire. And you… are my prey.”

  And without further ado, I rip my head forward and sink my fangs into her flesh.

  Hot, florid blood floods my mouth. The taste is exquisite. The woman struggles, she fights, but holding her in place is as easy as if she were a child. I do it without any conscious effort, instead, fully focusing on the sublime blood pouring into my mouth.

  I have never tasted blood so sweet, nor so fresh. It is thick and textured, an absolute perfect source of nutrition for my body. The vampire inside howls for more, it wants it faster, but I take the simple pleasure of letting it pool in my mouth, of letting it stay on my tongue for a very long time before I take my first swallow.

  And when I do… a sense of ecstasy greater than any I’ve ever known sweeps over me. I am lost in its throes as it comes to every cell of my body. I shudder in pleasure, drinking more, maintaining a constant stream so that I can enjoy it as long as possible.

  On the high of the feeding, I soar.

  It’s almost a spiritual experience, and something wholly new. My mind seems to disconnect from my body, lost in pleasure, and I lose sense of myself, lose sense of my surroundings, lose sense of time, as I drink and drink and drink.

  Images start to speed through my mind.

  At first, they are nothing more than beautiful streaks of color. Blues, greens, reds—all the colors of the spectrum. I’ve never seen anything more wonderful before. It feels like a kaleidoscope of life, the rich tapestry of this woman’s existence.

  But then the streaks start to slow. They turn into complete pictures. I see this woman as a little girl, sitting at her daddy’s table in a glorious mansion full of lacquered wood and gilded gold. I see the procession of women entering the house on her father’s arm. I feel her contempt for them, feel the hatred she felt that these whores received more of her daddy’s attention than she did.

  I keep drinking, and the images keep coming.

  I see the woman, as a girl, on her first day of elementary school at a private institution. I feel her confusion, her agitation, at the reticence and fear all the other students display toward her, for reasons she did not understand. I see her crying in her nanny’s arms, asking when her mommy will come home, and being reprimanded not to say such stupid things in her father’s house.

  I see her going through her childhood, I see her becoming more and more bitter and rebellious as a teen. I see the first gun she’s ever held in her hands, and I feel her arms shaking, her heart beating fast, as she looks on at the body of the woman she shot, one of her father’s whores, lying in a bloody pool on the floor of the master bedroom.

  The memories and recollections jump forward a few years. Now she is in her late teens, the alpha female in the most privileged social circle at her boarding school. I feel her absolute indifference as she plants a bag of cocaine in her best friend’s dorm, then gets one of the other girls to call the headmasters there on a false pretense to discover the drugs.

  I see her when she graduates college, top of her class, with even more blood on her hands. She’d made the innocuous insinuation to her circle of male admirers that the first of them to eliminate a rival drug dealer at a nearby school would have a chance to take her to bed. One of the boys was desperate enough to try, and he approached the rival on his way home one night and shot him in the back. Miraculously, the rival survived, but the boy was caught, given life imprisonment, and hung himself in his cell a few weeks after.

  Meanwhile, the woman seduced her rival, made him her lover, and then ruined him completely.

  The images grow and grow, becoming more real, more visceral until I feel like this is my own life I’m re-living.

  I am the woman as her father finally accepts her into the family business. I am the woman as she covertly subverts all of her father’s most loyal men, until they stage a coup and drive him out. I am the woman as her father is brought to her, a sack stuffed over his head. I am the woman as her father’s most trusted bodyguard places an old-fashioned dueling pistol in her hands, stolen from her father’s private collection.

  I am the woman as she pulls the sack off her father’s head, looks him in the eyes, places the pistol to his forehead, and pulls the trigger.

  I recoil at th
at, unwilling to believe anybody could be so heartless. But the vampire inside is excited at the prospect, at the possibility, at the display of pure, adulterated evil this woman represents.

  I’m back in the role of omnipresent observer as the next few years of her life speed by. I see her growing the drug business to heights never dreamed of by her father. I see her bribing all the politicians, all the officials, in the city to turn a blind eye to operations—either with cash, with the promise of power, or with her own body.

  The images start to fade. I’m transported back to myself, crashing into it unceremoniously from my high. I feel such contempt for the woman, but, at the same time, the vampire inside me burns with a desire for more… and with an overwhelming sense of respect.

  The blood starts to run dry. The woman is on the precipice of death. Another few seconds, and she will be gone, forgotten, all that potential lost.

  A feeling of responsibility and agency unlike any I’ve felt before comes over me. I feel responsible for this woman. I told Paolo to bring me a human who embodies evil. He found exactly the right one. But her evil is somehow… calculated, purposeful, even…

  Admirable.

  The vampire inside takes over. I operate on pure instinct as I rip my fangs out of her neck, bite incisions into my wrist, and shove that to her mouth.

  After the first drop falls on her tongue, her body jerks up, life clinging to it like a disease, and she starts to suckle at the wound.

  I let her drink, my blood mixing with what little is left of hers in her body. Then I bite into her neck again, this time on the other side, and inject her with the serum just as James did to me.

  That wakes something up in her. She starts to draw on my wrist with as much strength as she can manage. I let her take my blood, then, as I feel the life coming back to her, draw it back to myself, perfecting the exchange of fluids that will turn her into one of us.

  She sucks on my wrist greedily, like a drowning woman gasping for air. I offer her as much consolation as I can. We stand locked in that embrace, almost as lovers, the vampire within me guiding my actions, her will to live guiding hers.