by Hall, Ian
Since his hands were already high holding the launcher, I drew my knives, slipped below his waist, and lunged upwards. My Bãtranes sliced through his jacket and skin like needles through butter. When I felt the click of metal inside, I silently gave thanks to Ivan’s boring repetitive training. As I slid the Aşchie home I looked down at poor Tommy. His face had already turned to a skeletal shell, his skin just dust.
I saw men falling on the east side, so I ran to the west, wiping my invisible blades under my arms as I went.
My next two had dropped their rocket launcher and had already drawn automatic pistols.
I slowed to a walk
I recognized Sheldon Newell, his little piggy eyes bulging from his tiny head. The other guy looked new, so I hit him first, a hard deflecting blow that rolled him down the grass in surprise. I turned to Sheldon, and swung at his right hand. My invisible Bãtrane caught him across the back of the hand, and he let his gun fly away.
“What’s wrong Sheldon,” I teased, dancing close, then darting away, “cat got your tongue?”
Using my Bãtranes I stabbed him repeatedly as he staggered away from me, looking in vain for my position. He looked down as one wound after another appeared in his jacket, he winced in pain at each one. Then I slashed his neck on both sides, and he took off, holding onto his neck with both hands as if it was going to fly from his shoulders.
“Don’t move an inch Valérie.” A cold voice said from behind. I turned to face a pistol, pointed directly at me. Jumping to one side, I readied myself for a leap at him, but dang it if the gun didn’t move with me. “I told you not to move.” He said, his hat pulled low, I couldn’t see his eyes. Then a flash of light from the fire gave me a glance at his eyes; the gun was levelled at me, but his eyes were focused on the grass at my feet.
He was watching the depressions of my feet in the grass! Clever boy! I dashed one way, then leaped back, closing on him swiftly. In panic he fired, the first shot missing completely, but the second caught me in the side, hurting like blazes. One strike from the Bãtrane took his hand almost completely off, and he screamed in pain, dropping the gun to the grass.
Leaping high, I drove both blades in from the front, both angled downward, both driven home to the hilt. He roared a death knell onto my face as I twisted both blades, splitting his ribcage. As he slumped against me I considered slipping an Aşchie down my left blade into his heart, but something gave me cause to stop.
“You did good for a new boy,” I said as I pulled my blades from his chest.
Looking up from my struggles, I shimmered back visible to get a good look at the fire, now engulfing the whole building.
“Quite impressive.”
I whirled to see a lone figure, his hands thrush into the pockets of a long dark coat, seemingly not a threat to me. I recognized him instantly as the man who’d held me under the bathwater all those years ago. “You drowned me.” I said as I walked nearer. In the reflections of the yellow flames his eyes still seemed to retain a hint of blue, searching for me, scanning to and fro.
“I didn’t kill you,” his voice held a similar European air to Ivan’s, yet different. Even with mother’s skills inside me, I couldn’t place him from one country. “We killed the rest.”
“Yet now you’re Amos’s gun for hire, working against Georgie.” I now stood just six feet from him, and he hadn’t moved a muscle in readiness.
He shook his head. “I’m not with these fellows.” He waved his hand wide. “I’m just an observer.”
And, just as I’d set my feet against the ground to leap, he vanished.
I spun, expecting an attack from any quarter, but still slowly turning on the lawn, the attack never came.
Moments later, I set off to find Finch.
“Four vampires dead!” I reported, unable to hide my exhilaration. “Well, I’ve got one that can answer questions later, the other three are dust.” There seemed no point in detailing Sheldon’s cowardly retreat.
“I’ve got two with broken necks that’ll be able to talk tomorrow.”
As we stood watching the house become engulfed. To my surprise I realized I felt a little horny. What I wouldn’t have given to go out on the town, find some unsuspecting human and just take all my pent up energy out on him.
“All those dresses,” Finch grinned in my periphery.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” I said, finding her comment quite amusing. “We’ll buy more.”
Interrogation
Theresa Scholes, February 1959, Miami, Florida
The coast south of Miami contained all sorts of coves and private places. We had three prisoners and not a lot of time to get information out of them.
With the house burning behind us, we quickly got them into one of their own cars, my two in the trunk, and Valérie’s pretty boy onto the back seat. Getting out of the way before the fire department arrived seemed a prudent course.
We drove a few miles down the coast to a site Ivan had used for training a few times, quiet, deserted, secluded from both sea and land.
Once we’d parked, turning out all their pockets seemed a good place to start. These men had obviously never entertained the possibility of capture, we found New York driving licenses, membership cards to Philadelphia clubs. All the evidence marked them as Amos’s men.
The most unsettling aspect, however, was the fact that neither Valérie nor I knew any one of the faces.
“So he’s recruiting?” I asked, pillaging the third body on the back seat of the car. “This one’s a very pretty boy, Valérie.”
“Amos may have got help from another vampire group; this full-scale World War Two attack is not Amos’s style. I’ve never heard of Amos having rocket launchers for goodness sake.” Valérie looked up from the miscellanea in her hands to look at her guy properly. Her expression changed from curious to lust. “Yes, this one is rather fetching. I may have some fun with him before I finally allow him to die.”
It wasn’t that I hadn’t entertained the thought of sex, but Valérie seemed to be so cold about it all, so detached. I thought of my own conquests. “How long before these guys wake up?” We’d three men to tease and Valérie had me warming to the idea.
“A couple of hours or so, not much more.” She replied, struggling to read a card in the darkness.
“Perhaps we should split up?” I offered, and I watched Valérie’s smile intensify. “You know, give each other a bit of privacy?”
“Yes, that would be fine with me.” She moved to the open back door. “Pretty boy on the back seat is mine. I call rank on that one.” She grabbed him by the feet and pulled him most of the way out of the car.
“You do like the young ones, don’t you?”
She undid his fly buttons, and slid her hand inside, seemingly oblivious to my presence. “Amos brought me up on young men. It’s what I do.”
Shaking my head at her brazen attitude, I went round to the trunk. It seemed I had little choice to make. One looked handsome, the other had lost most of his face as I’d smashed him against the wall.
“Have you decided?” Valérie asked, joining me.
“Not much of a contest,” I replied, “but I’m not complaining, I mean, he’s kinda easy on the eyes.”
Valerie pulled a Bãtrane from her belt and stuck the other one, sliding an Aşchie into his heart. “No point in wasting time then.” She said. She’d walked away before he’d even begun to decay.
I pulled the other one completely out of the trunk. I soon got rid of his jacket and shoes. After a second thought, I also took off his tie and trousers, which I shredded into lengths of fabric. In shirt and underpants, I hoisted his inert body over my shoulder.
“See you in a couple of hours?” I offered.
Valérie looked up from her intended meal. “Yes, that should suffice. Meet back here. The first one back gets to drive to Georgie.”
I walked off in a southerly direction for maybe fifteen minutes, my eyes picking out a natural path in the darkness when I fel
t my man move, twisting slightly in my grip.
I found a tree, its trunk maybe six inches in diameter, growing at a nice angle, and laid my man onto it.
As he groggily returned to the land of the living, I tied him securely, feet together at the base, arms tied behind his back, round the tree. As he began to realize his predicament, I looped two more strips of trouser round his neck and waist. He wasn’t going anywhere.
I sat back to admire my handiwork as the dim light of early morning began to grow all around us. He watched me untie my Căluşari roll from my waist, taking a thin oilstone to my Bãtrane blades, sharpening them with long smooth strokes.
“You mean to kill me.” My captive flexed his body against the bindings a few times then stopped, realizing the fruitlessness.
“Oh, there are many ways you can continue to live.” I said, still concentrating on my sharpening stone.
He watched me attentively. “You’re sharpening the blades for me.” He seemed to be able to shrug, even tied in such a fashion. His accent sounded New England, maybe Boston way. “You already pig-stuck me once.”
I looked at the bloodstains on the sides of his shirt, and for some strange reason, felt a little guilty. “That depends if you’re willing to talk to me.” I stood up slowly and advanced on his semi-prostrate form, twirling the dagger between my fingers. “Let’s try shall we? What’s your name?”
“Roy.” He gave it up immediately. “Roy Immitras.”
I nodded; it tallied with the driver’s license I’d found back at the car. “Where are you from, Roy?”
“Brockton, Massachusetts.”
That had been the easy part.
“How do you know Amos Blanche?”
Well, his face fell. He’d almost gotten a bit of confidence, but at the mention of Amos’s name, he’d betrayed recognition.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” his eyes refused to meet mine.
“Oh come on, Roy!” I pushed towards him, sticking the dagger into his shirt, and ripping it from chest to sleeve. I pulled the shreds of cloth away, exposing his chest and belly. “Do you know how many ways a vampire can die?”
He nodded.
“Tell me.”
He now looked distinctly nervous.
“Tell me!”
“Beheaded, wood thru the heart, and burning.”
“Oh, yes, don’t forget the burning. That’s what you tried to do to us tonight.” I laughed. “But there’s a fourth way, not often used. But I know of it.” I circled behind him, waving my shiny blade in front of his eyes. Whilst behind the tree I shimmied, then stood before him, invisible.
I carefully cut his drawers open down each leg. Laying naked against the tree, he glanced around terrified.
“The fourth way,” I whispered in his ear. His head snapped forward, straining in vain to locate the source of my voice. “Is the death of a thousand cuts.”
He shook his head. “No, please.”
“Oh, yes, Roy.” I moved much closer, my free hand touching his limp penis. “I cut you at the intersection of every artery and vein in your body. Not quite a thousand, but three hundred and twenty six according to my college text book. I cut you every twenty minutes or so; even a vampire body can’t repair that much that quickly. In two hours your body fluids will be mostly on the grass. In four, your lungs will breathe their painful last. You’ll suffocate two hours before your heart stops beating. The pain in those two hours will tear your mind apart. After six hours of agony, your organs will begin to close down. One by one they’ll fall from your body, desiccated, useless and gone forever. Somewhere in there, you’d die. Bones on a tree, dust on the ground.”
His poor body shook erratically.
Slowly I became visible, and his fear level rose again.
“Now are you going to tell me how you came to know Amos Blanche?” Without hesitation he nodded. “Good boy.”
Valérie Lidowitz, January 1959, South of Miami, Florida
I dragged my quarry deep into the brush. He looked weak but conscious, stumbling behind me like some homeless drunk. Once we got to a clearing ample enough to lie horizontal, I tripped him up, and watched him fall to the ground. I needed to feed, and I sure needed the urge between my legs dealt with too.
Once I’d got my leg over, my rutting held nothing pretty or romantic. But, I scratched my itch and left my piece of meat both dehydrated and speechless.
My knees wobbled slightly as I shrugged my stretchy black pants back in place; the handsome vampire still groggy atop the leaves, I left him naked from the waist down. Somehow it gave me a sense of ownership that I greatly enjoyed.
“Who are you?” I demanded, reaching for my roll of magic tricks that I’d discarded prior to mounting the stud. I tied them firmly back at my waist.
Belligerently silent, he laid there playing as dead as his now limp dick. The good looks were still there, yet somehow nowhere near as alluring as before, his dark skin, almond eyes and penetrating stare, all a memory. I closed my eyes hard, shaking my head, nearly overwhelmed by the idea that I’d somehow imagined his erotic appeal.
I felt suddenly dirty, as if he’d been the one to throw me down and have his way. I wanted to scrub between my legs and erase the dirty deed. This man, lying exposed beneath the fading stars, had gone from irresistible to untouchable. Suddenly, I noticed craters in his face where before I’d seen the most perfect complexion. He smelled bad; a mix of earthiness and rank body odor. He definitely got the trophy for world’s smallest member. Though, in my heightened state that tiny thing brought me to bear in about sixty seconds flat.
I couldn’t reconcile the disparity. Somehow I’d been duped. As my disgust in both him and myself rose, I found myself kicking his side and yelling frantically, “Who the fuck are you? How did you do that to me? What kind of sick bastard….”
I didn’t finish my barrage. Instead I pulled out one knife and flashed it in front of his eyes. Those muddy brown pools widened for only a second, narrowing menacingly in the next breath. There was a twitch at the corner of his mouth, perhaps the beginning of a smile.
“Trying to hypnotize me again, you son of a bitch?” I swiped at the side of his face with my blade, leaving a deep red cut that oozed dark blood onto the woodland floor. To my indignation, his smile only widened. That’s when I noticed the foul teeth, tobacco stained and crowded. To think I’d had my tongue in that mess only moments ago. Before I could take another swing and dig a trench across his throat, I realized the bastard wasn’t smiling up at me. His eyes were fixed on something just beyond my shoulder.
A hand reached around my face, covering my mouth and pulling me upwards into an unbreakable hold.
Amos Blanche’s voice hissed in my ear, “Good to see you again, Valérie.”
I swear I didn’t even think of what to do.
Instinctively I grabbed my small knives, and drove them into his arms. He howled in pain, his cry rattling my ear drums. Yes, I drove them too far, and yes, I stabbed myself in the chest, but it was worth it for him to release his hold.
I turned to face him, our bodies just feet apart.
He sneered through his pain. “You will lie down for me, Valérie.” He hissed at my face, his spittle rasping my skin.
I felt his fetid breath course over me, and I shook my head. “Never again, Amos Blanche!” I sheathed the small knives and drew my Bãtranes, determined to rid the world of Amos forever.
To my surprise, he drew nearer. “You will lie down for me.” his words were delivered sickly sweet, his nose almost touching mine. “You are beholden to me.”
Now I got it.
I grinned, raising my knives high. “Never again, Amos,” I couldn’t help to gloat before I killed him. “I was never beholden to you, never. I feigned the whole thing.” As I watched the dawning of realization on Amos’s face, two goons came from nowhere, grabbing, punching, and pulling my arms away. With a grown of resentment, I took off, beating their hands away. “You’ve not heard the end
of this, Amos!” I roared over my shoulder.
The Goat-Herder Rears His Ugly Head
Theresa Scholes, February 1959, South of Miami, Florida
Roy Immitras, bound to a gently sloping tree, proved to be one of the best lovers I’d encountered for some time. Well, perhaps ‘best’ wasn’t exactly an accurate description. With the correct stimulation, he remained erect for ages, allowing me the full gamut of intercourse I seemed to require that morning.
Once encouraged to talk, he spilled cans of beans by the box load.
“Amos’s been making friends in New York,” he gasped as I coaxed his penis to full length. I shucked my running shorts off and climbed on board.
“Talk to me, Roy.” I said sliding up and down on quite a nice erection. I grabbed him by the chin, forcing him to look in my eyes. “Don’t get distracted by my pussy. It just needs something to hump itself on, and you’ll do, for now. Don’t disappoint me.” I moved delightfully. “Now, you were telling me about Amos’s New York friends.”
He gasped for a moment. “He has them in high places.” He moaned, biting his lip.
“Oh, my Roy, are you trying not to come?”
He nodded.
I humped harder. “Don’t do that for me. Just fire yourself in there. I want you to. Come inside me, Roy.” I breathed the last bit onto his face, and of course, he acquiesced, discharging himself. My body orgasmed around him as I closed in on his carotid artery, sucking just enough of his blood to replenish my strength, not enough to make me stupid.
“How high are those places?” I continued humping his now retracting dick. “Oh, come on Roy!” I leant close, breathing my best vampire instruction. “Concentrate on getting that penis hard again, Roy. Get hard again, and I’ll let you in my ass.”
It didn’t happen in a split second, but he soon got the idea. I continued my humping. “How high, Roy?”
