When they weren’t having sex, André liked to talk. He told her that many of his ‘victims’ were sailors. “Bordeaux’s an international port, the third largest in France. Every day new ships dock here. A lot of these men are looking for quick sex, with men. I’m not interested in the sex—I just want their blood. We meet, go behind a building, and I take what I need. Most are so eager I don’t even have to hypnotize them.
Males understand exchange. Females always want more.”
Carol got a bitter sense of satisfaction knowing that at least he couldn’t infect her with HIV. We’ve both probably already got it, she thought bitterly. And he’s passing it along to somebody new every night, just like Rob. He’s immoral for not mentioning it or using protection, she thought, but then realized that she was too. She didn’t have the nerve to bring it up now. Unless he asked her a direct question she was forced to answer, she only listened.
“I’ve disciplined myself to take just enough, I’m satisfied...,” he told her, “and they live. With iron supplements from the ship’s doctor, they’re fine. Besides, they leave the city in a few days. Quick, clean, easy. After all, there are four of us here, we have to be careful. Four killings a night, that would be almost 1,500 murders a year in Bordeaux, more than Paris and London combined.”
“But you’ve killed people, haven’t you?” Carol asked one evening when she was feeling especially brave.
He looked annoyed. “I hate the pleaders. They drive me crazy, begging for sex, begging for me to hurt them or not to hurt them, begging to hurt me, groveling for their lives, as though their life is some precious commodity. You mortals hold yourselves in high esteem. But to my kind there’s the same gap as you feel between you and an insect. You think nothing of crushing one under your shoe. I don’t feel anything about crushing you.”
“But your kind... you have sex with us... mortals.”
“It’s on the same level as you fucking a horse, or a gorilla.”
“Then why do it?”
He laughed. “I’m a pervert.”
Carol usually listened quietly. Often she wanted to ask questions but was too afraid of him to open her mouth. His slant on life was truly bizarre and, despite the madness of such an inhuman perspective, he fascinated the theatrical part of her. Once she had studied a bag woman for a week, learning her mannerisms, the way she spoke, hoping to bring the reality to a part she’d played. She analyzed André in much the same way. At times she felt as though she’d met a being from another planet with an entirely different set of values, forcing her to observe humanity through his eyes, from an alien viewpoint.
There were so many long hours in the day with nothing to do that, irrational as she knew it was, Carol kept catching herself comparing André to Rob. Inevitably this forced her to examine herself more deeply than she cared to.
Both men were handsome, educated, confident, financially well-off, and controlling. Both were attracted to men, for completely different reasons, if she could believe André, which she was not inclined to do. And both had an oral fixation. Each was callous in his own way. Rob’s emotional coolness totally shut her out and betrayed her deeply. André was volatile and cold. Both emotions forced her back and away. But the most shocking commonality was that for Carol each symbolized death, hers, and the inalterability of events.
There was nothing to distract her from such morbid thoughts and she found herself more and more depressed as the days wore on, wondering why her whole life felt wasted. The emptiness had lingered since childhood, a yearning for something she couldn’t pinpoint and suspected didn’t exist.
On the fourteenth night he arrived just after sunset.
“Put this on,” he told her, handing over a white caftan much like the blue one she had seen Chloe wearing.
He led her downstairs and into a large living room furnished with warm woods and heavily brocaded Queen Anne furniture.
There were five others in the room. The redhead named Gerlinde and the man called Karl sat on a long couch before a large round coffee table supporting an immense black soapstone sculpture of a mermaid riding a dolphin. A tall exquisitely beautiful woman with brilliant white gold hair wearing a pale green sleeveless dress that matched her eyes stood beside a slender, harsh-looking man with midnight hair, slightly taller than she. A good-looking dark-haired boy maybe nineteen sat between Karl and Gerlinde. The group was pouring over an old book the size and shape of an atlas. All of them looked up when she and André came in.
“Sit there!” He pointed to a chair by the fireplace.
“André’s instant breakfast,” Gerlinde quipped. There were a couple of snickers.
André went over to the group of what Carol was certain were more of this ‘family’. They all had that same strange skin, a not-quite-real radiance. He spoke in French for a few minutes to the harsh-looking man and then left the room. The man then sat down with the others and they apparently resumed commenting on the book which Carol could now see contained ancient diagrams of the solar system.
She turned away and stared at the fire, wondering what this was all about. She knew André was going out to ‘feed’, as he liked to joke. He told her that he did her a favor by drinking the blood he needed before he came to her, otherwise he would not be able to restrain himself. She realized it was not out of concern for her but expediency.
Only one night to go, she told herself, then I’ll be free of him. Even though he had not been physically brutal since the night he whipped her, still, he obviously enjoyed dominating her. Just the way he spoke to her sounded like a master ordering a slave. She still feared him and knew she couldn’t trust him. She was terrified that, after all she’d gone through, he might break the agreement and either keep her prisoner or worse. None of the others would help her and there would be little she could do to help herself.
It had taken her a while to realize that what Chloe said was true, at least about his being fascinated. Every evening he became more comfortable, familiar. After their first sexual encounter he relaxed and seemed to unfold. It was more than his fantastic stories about his existence. Sometimes when he looked at her she caught a glimmer of an emotion in his eyes that bordered on delight. In another place, at some other time, if circumstances had been different, she might have tried to help him, maybe even fallen in love with him, despite the fact that he was obsessed with blood, with being a predator, and possibly even a killer. But, the beating had crushed any romantic notions. She was afraid of what he was feeling. Their situation made them unequal and she distrusted what he might do because of his infatuation. Chloe was right about another thing too. Carol did not understand him. But she didn’t want to. She just wanted to get out of here alive.
“You’re Carol.”
She looked up to see the elegant platinum blonde beside her chair. “Yes.”
“I’m Jeanette de Villiers. That’s Julien, my husband. And Claude, our son.”
Carol was unprepared for such a formal introduction from one of these weirdos and blurted out, “You have a son? Is he one of this ‘family’ too?”
Jeanette laughed and sat down across from her. “Yes. And a daughter. Not by birth.”
Carol wondered what in hell that meant. They were adopted? And then the idea struck that maybe this bizarre cult abducted children.
The blond looked Carol over slowly, from head to toe and back again. All of them eye me as if they’re ravenous and I’m a piece of meat, Carol thought. She shifted in her chair, more towards the fireplace.
“Chloe’s description was perfect. You’re very pretty.
Delicate and strong at the same time. But unhappy.”
“Wouldn’t you be if you were a prisoner?”
Jeanette smiled in a peculiar way. “Believe it or not, I understand. Do you love André?”
“No,” Carol answered without hesitation.
“That’s unfortunate. For both of you.”
Carol looked back at the fireplace. They sat without talking, both women quietly watch
ing the dancing flames come to life as magical primitive figures. Subdued male voices carried around them and Carol felt lulled.
“Go on, take them,” someone said, bringing her back to the present.
Jeanette thrust a large deck of cards towards her across a small walnut table that was now between them. “Shuffle them a few times, cut them into three piles and pick up the stack that appeals to you.”
Carol did not know what this was all about but she reached for the cards anyway. As she covered her mouth and yawned, she glanced around. Gerlinde had gone, as had the boy, Claude. Karl and the stern-looking man, Julien, sat talking quietly. The book was no longer in sight. She wondered for how long she’d drifted off.
She recognized the cards as the Tarot. Once she and a friend had gone to a psychic and had their fortunes read. Carol had been told to expect a wealthy oilman to marry her and take her to Texas to live. And that she would mother seven children.
Never had a prediction been more inaccurate.
She browsed through the deck. The pastel images of medieval scenes portrayed on each over-sized card jumped out at her. Without thinking much about it, she did as Jeanette had instructed. When she decided on the pile on the right, she handed them back.
Jeanette turned the top five cards over. The first went into the center, the next to the right of center, then below, to the left and above.
“Incredible!” Jeanette remarked. “Are you sure you don’t love André?”
“Positive.”
“Then who are you in love with?”
“No one.”
Jeanette picked up the middle card and handed it to her. At the bottom it read, The Lovers. The picture was of a man and woman looking blissfully in love, sunshine and a rainbow; heaven smiled on. Without comment, Carol handed it back and Jeanette returned it to its original position.
“Your past is here.” She pointed to the five of Cups, which showed a man in a long black cape. Sorrowfully he looked at three cups that had fallen over, spilling the contents. Behind him were two upright cups. “He’s so caught up in what he’s lost that he can’t see what he still has, and that’s the saddest part.”
Carol stared at the card, thinking that it certainly was how she had been feeling for the last year. Loss and nothing but loss. But if she had anything left she was not aware of what it was.
“This is what’s influencing you now. The Magician, a powerful dark-haired man who practices the art of transformation.
He can be either a creator or a destroyer, and much of the time a trickster but most often he’s an alchemist, turning excrement into gold, hate into love or love into hate. This card is what might happen—The Devil.” The card seemed to be the opposite of The Lovers. Here a man and woman were enchained between a horned monster. “It means bondage, loss of freedom, enslavement, deception.”
Carol shuddered. Maybe it was an omen; André would not free her as he had promised. He’d keep her here forever, using her for sex and to fill his demonic need to dominate, drinking her blood, brutalizing her whenever he felt like it, threatening to kill her if she resisted him or even just because he felt like threatening her.
“This last one,” Jeanette was saying, “is the probable outcome of your situation.” Then she was silent.
“Well, we’ve gone this far, what is it?”
Jeanette still said nothing.
The door opened and Chloe came into the room. Immediately she joined them. She lay a hand on Jeanette’s shoulder and Jeanette, without looking up, placed hers on top. Chloe smiled at Carol who tried to smile back but she was disconcerted.
She looked back down at the card that Jeanette wasn’t talking about. It was called The Empress and showed a powerful-looking woman on a throne holding a heart-shaped shield. Within the shield was a circle with a cross connected to the bottom.
“Interesting reading,” Chloe said.
“Yes,” Jeanette answered. “What do you make of the fifth position. The card is clear, but not the context. Here, sit.”
She got up and let Chloe take her chair.
Chloe too meditated on the card.
A long time seemed to pass. Everyone in the room was silent. The only sounds were the crackling of burning wood and the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock.
Time seemed to slow for Carol. Everything fell into sharp focus.
The man named Julien stood and placed two new logs onto the fire. When he finished he stayed squatting before it, studying the flames. The room smelled sweet with the scent of cedar.
Eventually the man named Julien stood and walked over to his wife. He never once looked at Carol, almost as if she wasn’t there. Carol was fascinated by these two. She observed every move they made. The others in the room, Chloe, and Karl who was looking out the window, became silent and still. The scene was like a snapshot, a slice of time, an essence captured.
Carol watched as Julien moved up very close behind Jeanette. He placed his hands on her shoulders. Slowly he slid them down her bare arms. Carol could almost taste the sensations—each pore recognized, every muscle acknowledged. He moved past her elbows, over her forearms and wrists, until his hands overlapped hers. Jeanette’s eyelids fluttered and her green eyes looked dreamy.
Their fingers interlocked. Slowly he crossed her arms over her body, his arms moving hers, until he enveloped her, holding her tightly. She closed her eyes. Her head fell back, supported by his shoulder. He nuzzled her hair, kissed her temple, brow, her eyelid and cheek. Slowly he wandered down the side of her face to her jaw and then lower until at last his full lips reached her neck. He locked onto her throat in a passionate kiss and her lips gently parted as she melted back into him. A faint moan of ecstasy escaped her, floating along the sweet-scented air. The sound reminded Carol of an eerie cry she’d once heard brushing the tree tops of a rain forest at daybreak. Primitive. Other-worldly.
She shivered. She felt encircled, enraptured, her soul penetrated. She had never seen such abandon and it filled her with wonder and awe and a secret longing.
Suddenly the door opened again. This time it was André, breaking the spell. The room came to life with sound and movement. The clock began to chime the midnight hour.
André looked full, refreshed, and as if for the first time. Carol noticed how remarkably handsome he was.
Jeanette and Julien parted and were talking to Karl in French. Gerlinde returned and joined them, gesturing wildly and speaking rapidly in both French and German. Claude came in with a fresh-faced teenage girl. They were having a lively argument in
English about whether the Atlantic, the Pacific or the Indian was a more interesting ocean. Only Chloe was removed from the international hubbub. She continued silently staring at the cards, unmoving.
Carol watched it all, on the one hand fascinated, on the other feeling left out, alien, alone. No one paid the slightest bit of attention to her which she both resented and felt grateful for.
Eventually André left the others. He spoke with Chloe briefly then motioned for Carol to get up. She felt more upset than usual that he was treating her like an inferior, a pet. I’m being silly, she told herself. Nothing has changed. Tomorrow I’ll be free. What do I care what he does?
As they were leaving the room, Jeanette called out, “Wait a minute!” She picked up one of the cards from the table—the one nobody would interpret—and gave it to Carol. “You’d better take this with you.”
Carol followed André up the stairs and into the bedroom. He locked the door, turned and stared at her.
She instructed herself to stay calm. He won’t steal my blood—not tonight anyway.
“Take that off!” he demanded.
As she removed the caftan, he took off his clothes. With a slight nod he motioned for her to come to him. She could read his signals now, what he wanted and how he wanted it.
When they were lying down he entered her immediately, but didn’t begin moving right away. His arms went under her thighs, lifting them until her knees were a
lmost above her head. His hands locked her wrists to the bed, capturing her like a Monarch butterfly pinned to a board. Only when he had her helpless and immobile did he begin moving slowly. She listened to the sounds of his flesh against her wetness, surprised that the sensations caused by the friction excited her.
He stopped and tasted the inside of her mouth, meeting her tongue with his, their kisses warm and moist. Then he moved in and out of her. She felt the heat increasing. He paused again to suck one of her nipples, bringing it up firm with his lips.
She found herself moaning, beginning to desire him. He moved again, then stopped for more kisses. Then more movement, then teasing her other nipple. They went on and on as the night faded, he building her up, holding back, tormenting her, controlling her, fanning the flames inside her.
Carol was losing herself, slipping away. Only the passion remained, tumbling her over and over, a blazing force causing her body to quake uncontrollably with an intense unfamiliar longing.
But each time he almost satisfied her he pulled back, forcing her to new breathless heights.
She forgot that she hated and feared him. She forgot who and what he was, what he had done to her and could still do. All that mattered was that if he would only fulfil her she knew she would give him anything.
“Do you want me?” he whispered, licking her nipple, the roughness of his tongue thrilling her.
“Oh yes!” she whispered back unashamed, her body quivering in agreement.
“Badly?”
“Yes.”
“Beg me!” He took her nipple between his lips.
“I want you.” Her voice was soft, low, panting, her body trembling and on fire. “I want you so much. Please, André, take me now. I’m yours.”
Before she realized it, the pleas were out. In sudden horror her eyes snapped open wide. She saw him above, his face colder than it should have been. But he looked startled, caught in his own game between wanting and despising her, her fate hanging in the balance of his conflict.
For an eternal moment the universe seemed to pause; neither of them moved nor breathed. And then something shifted. He was swayed to one side, but she didn’t know what had moved him. All she really understood was that he became hard, direct, unavoidable as he drove deeply into her, deeper than ever before.
A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult Page 431
