His jaw widened as if to bite her through the air. His head rolled back on his shoulders. He stifled a rough howl. Slowly, he regained himself. He turned to her with stalking grace. A slow, languid smile curled about his lips. Blood trailed down her crimson stained lip, over her chin. The last bit of music faded, and he let it go.
Hathor’s discarded shoe was clutched in her hand. Her eyes stayed firmly on his face as she leaned over to slide the slipper back on her foot. Next, she picked up the antique hair clips and pushed them into her wild hair. Her mouth throbbed.
Hathor lifted her fingers to her lips, wincing slightly as she felt the wound he had made on her mouth. If not for the slick redness staining her fingers, she would have doubted they kissed at all. Servaes’ face was too calm. She couldn’t read it. She studied the blood in confusion, turning her head to the ceiling dome. Clutching her hand into a fist, she lowered it to the side.
"I think I should go in. I’m tired and starting to imagine things." She gave him a weak smile, unassuming as she looked at him. Licking the last bit of blood on her mouth, she saw his intense eyes dart down to watch. Her chest heaved at the desire she saw in him. No man had ever looked at her with such intensity, such longing, such hunger. It terrified her.
She knew he was a man used to having his whims fulfilled. He was a man used to a certain type of woman -- confident and sure in their blatant sexuality. He had sex on stage with those women -- confident and sure enough in himself to do so. She was no fool. She knew she couldn’t handle a man like that. And she was definitely too scared to try.
"I’m sorry if I led you to believe that there would be more happening between us tonight. But, I don’t do this. I think that…." Hathor’s words disappeared into a self-damning mumble. She cursed herself for her insecurity, wishing she could be the type of woman who could ask for what she wanted. Quickly, she spun on her heels to get away.
"Wait," he said, coming up behind her. His hand fell on her shoulder. He felt her tremble. His body stiffened, his face turning instantly to the sky. They weren’t alone. There was a presence just beyond the trees passing them. He waited for it to go by before turning his attention to the back of Hathor’s head. In a low murmur, letting the heat of his breath hit her skin, he said, "You promised me nothing. I expect nothing. Join me again tomorrow. Together we will relive all the centuries. I wish only to be in your company."
"I can’t. What I mean to say is I shouldn’t." Hathor pulled away from him. His eyes followed her rapid pulse beneath the sapphire necklace. The necklace was old, made in his human time for a lady of King Louis the Great’s court at the Palace of Versailles. Servaes had known the king and thought it amusing that history now remembered him as the Sun King. With a deep breath, Hathor turned to him. "I don’t know that I should see you again. I so thank you for tonight. It was one of the most … adventurous of my life. But --"
"Then come back to me tomorrow," he broke in softly, his gaze pleading and soft. He started to move towards her. Another presence passed, closer this time to the gardens. Servaes stiffened, knowing he should go before any sensed him. His body craved the feel of her with a longing suppressed for hundreds of years. She held up her hand to stop him. Standing still and straight, he rushed, "I will send you another gown. Tell me when you would like to be tomorrow. Any place, any time. Just meet me."
"That is very kind, but I can take no more gifts. In fact I am sure this gown needs to get back to your prop room at the club. Should I have it cleaned and delivered? Or would you prefer that I didn’t let anyone know I have it. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble if it was not supposed to be used." Hathor couldn’t even manage a smile for him. Her heart raced. Her legs urged her to run from him, away from his magnetic eyes and tempting body. The dark night seemed to close in on them. A sense of danger besieged her.
"I am not in the habit of taking back my gifts, mademoiselle," he stated coolly with a bit of chagrin in his expression. Had women always been this frustrating when you couldn’t read and control them? He couldn’t remember.
"Oh," she gasped. "Then at least let me give you this necklace. Even for a knock-off it looks very convincing."
His dark scowl stopped her from moving. He forgot the others searching beyond the lawn. Frowning he hissed, his accent hard and low, "Again you insult me."
"I won’t sleep with you," she blurted unexpectedly. Her eyes rounded in shock at her own words, but she swallowed to elaborate. "I know you must be used to wooing women to your bed with these theatrics, but I’m not one of those women laying naked for you in your club. I don’t want to be some actor’s conquest. So please, stop trying."
"You’re not, chéri," he began.
"Stop," she pleaded in mounting frustration. She really wanted to know him, but the act was getting tiresome. She wasn’t accustomed to being lied to. Rubbing her forehead with shaking fingers, she begged, "Just stop it. You are not a Marquis from the seventeenth century! You are not a vampire! And, no matter how well you kiss or how many times you bite open my lip, I will not believe that you are. You need help if you truly think you are some child of the night. But I think you understand perfectly what you are. Your eyes are too cold and calculated not to know. And you are very good at seduction. But, please, don’t -- not with me. I don’t wish to be seduced. So go find an English simpleton and try your charms on her! I am going to bed, and I’m getting out of this gorgeous gown and out of this binding corset and then … then I’ll have it cleaned and put back in the box. Just send someone around to get it in a few days. Truly, my feelings won’t be hurt if you wish to take it back. I won’t think any less of you. In fact I insist on returning it."
Her chest heaved in exasperation. He watched, motionless. The creamy thrust of her breasts would have drawn his eyes if her gaze didn’t flash with so much heat. He stood stunned, amazed at her rejection. No matter how hard he tried to wrap his thoughts around her mind, he couldn’t. Not even to control her enough to keep her from screaming at him. A thought struck him, not for the first time, that she would be in danger from his kind -- even more so if he continued to draw attention to her by visiting.
"And I don’t mean to be rude, because I do like you. I just don’t have the time or energy for these games. When and only when you come to your senses, you can come to me -- during the daytime -- and visit me like a normal man. Maybe we could be friends. We do seem to have a lot in common, and I do have a great time with you. After you tell me the truth, we can relive as many centuries as you wish. But I would have the truth first. Until then, just stop messing with me!"
Hathor panted wildly. Instantly she was sorry for her words. A deep pain passed over his face. Servaes glanced urgently over his shoulder, before slowly making his way across the conservatory floor. He moved through the smell of her blood as it mixed with the night breeze, scented with leaves. Lifting his top hat, he slipped it over his long locks. Then, without daring another glance, he left her.
She watched him walk until he was out of sight. He said nothing. With a sigh of guilt, she rushed forward to stop him and apologize for her harshness. Her body still twinged with desire. Her mind swam in uncertainty. Her blood salted her lip.
Hathor hastened into the dark night that lightened with a hint of approaching dawn. Servaes was gone. Helpless, she threw her hands in the air. Through her daze she didn’t want to go inside quite yet. She stumbled back to the stone bench of the conservatory. Sinking onto it, she looked weakly around, and she began to cry.
* * * *
Servaes traveled swiftly through the shadows, his body impassioned as he flew back to his lair beneath the city streets. Her words burned him with their ardor. He could have proven himself to her -- shown such terrifying horrors that she would have no choice but to believe he was what he claimed to be. Instead, he ran.
Servaes saw the truth in her declaration, knew it in the taste of her blood. She was not for him. She was for a man who could come to her in daylight bearing roses and sweet candies. She
deserved someone who could walk with her in the sunlight, take her on afternoon picnics.
The realization didn’t calm his hunger or desire for her. There was no way he could be what she needed. Once you were reborn into his world, there was no going back. Many tried and several had even died in the search to end immortality -- to become human again. No, he knew it was useless. There was no way for him to become like her, and there was no magical secret that would grant him the day.
The only way for them to be together was if he made her like him. But he wouldn’t take her without her consent. Even if she did agree to join him, he wasn’t sure if he would allow her to. For, to possess her as he desperately wanted, to claim her forever as his own, he would have to condemn her to his dark existence. He would have to make her one of the accursed undead. And in doing that, he might lose her anyway.
Chapter Five
Vampiric eyes swam with the red droplets of their victim’s blood, stirring merrily in passionate declaration of divine radiance. Impaled upon a thick wooden shaft, the dull stick forced up an orifice that couldn’t cry out in pain, the terrified screams of those tortured had been evermore silenced. The mortal victims had finally stopped writhing in anguish. The last quivers of their soft forms unable to continue on, as their bodies found the blessed release of a hard death.
"You pierced an organ," Lamar spat in disgust. The cooling corpses floated in the rancid water of the underground sewer, stuck limply in their horrific poses. He turned his sharp gaze away from a motionless woman’s body to glare at Ginger. The beauty of the vampire’s face was marred only by the evil look of his countenance. Quietly, he added menacingly, "Again."
"Yes," came the voice of an onlooker hidden in the shadows.
"She died too fast," yet another called.
All undead gazes turned thoughtfully to the mortal woman. Their collective vampiric bodies didn’t move in compassion or pity for her, but in frustration that they couldn’t have made her pain last longer. Her lifeless carcass hung like a puppet on her pole. The stick rose out from her throat, keeping her head thrown back as the listless green eyes were forced to the low stone ceiling of the underground sewers. The moldy, dank bricks were the last thing she saw in the dramatic end to her relatively easy God-fearing life. Her honeyed complexion began to match that of her tormentors, contrastingly pale with the red dress she still wore.
"You try it, if you think you can do better," the vampiress growled in return, walking thoughtfully around the last human to die. With a swift kick that caused no effort, she struck the body in the stomach, knocking the pole over. The woman fell into tepid sewer water with a splash. Ginger gave a toss of her pink hair as she landed neatly on her feet. "It is not as easy as it looks to get the stick in just right."
"Fine," Lamar stated. His features were covered with shadows and his lips barely moved as he spoke. Turning his attention into the darkness of the stone chamber, he commanded, "Go grab another, Vincent."
"I grow uninterested in this," Vincent grumbled, but he left to do as he was bid. "Will you two never grow bored of competing?"
Ginger chuckled, the dark laugh doubting she ever would. Lamar leaned over to grab the woman’s slack jaw from the water. Forcing her off the pole with a hard yank, he pulled her into his arms. His nose detected the scent of refuse on her skin, but he didn’t mind it. The vampires didn’t need to breathe and were not bothered by the smell. Looking down into her matted hair as her head hung limp on her neck, he whispered lovingly, "I think we should have pushed you more to the right, my love. Then we could have missed your heart."
Ginger snorted in disgust. Leaning against the wall, she watched as Lamar began waltzing his companion to a soundless tune. His body levitated them into the air as they twirled. The corpse’s head flopped as he dipped her low over his arm.
Just as humans wouldn’t think twice about killing a rat running across the kitchen floor, the vampires of London knew they were above the mortal race they fed so gluttonously on. The world was their vampire’s kitchen, and the mortals who occupied it deserved to be slaughtered for their master’s pleasure.
The young ones derived immense pleasure from their lurid hunting games. They were babes, given the eternal gift of immortality, strength and power, and nearly unlimited access to an ignorant world which denied their existence as myth and romantic legend. And, like babes, they suckled the breast of humanity with an untamed hunger and greedily played with their food as they wished. With no one to stop them and no way to end the long stretch of never-ending boredom that threatened, they endeavored to outdo the march of time by proving they were deserving to be Gods.
Only one fear lingered in the back of their undead minds as they roamed. It was an age old fear that every child must endure -- the silent apprehension of angering a parent. But the vampire parents grew disinterested in them and the nonexistence of a governing hand only succeeded in a growing myth that there was no ultimate parent of them all. It came to be believed that the council they were made to obey since their rebirth was a tribal myth told to keep them in line. For whom should a God have to listen to anyway?
With tentative boldness the London vampires tested their bounds. They started the Vampire Club to stir the desires of their victims to sweeten the taste of the blood. Then they merely disposed of their corpses in an increasingly sloppy manner -- dumping the bodies into the Thames without thought of hiding their bites. Most bodies decomposed quickly in the murky water, and no connection was ever made to them. Nearly all were content with that small rebellion.
But some wanted more, growing mad with power when there was no backlash from the mythical tribal council. They continued with their games -- torturing and killing at will, playing cruelly with their prey.
"Vincent is right," Ginger murmured in dejection. She parted her fangs thoughtfully as Lamar dropped his dance partner into the water from where they levitated in the air. The corpse dropped with a mighty splash. Ginger watched, as she continued, "I grow weary of this. I want more. There is no challenge in humans."
"What of the girl?" Vincent questioned. He entered carrying an unconscious middle-aged man over his shoulder. Clarifying, he stated, "The one from the club."
"I should like to find her," Lamar stated gleefully. "She was strong. I want to break her."
"Servaes blocks her presence," Ginger spat with a bitterness she didn’t bother to conceal. They had looked for the woman with no success. She bent to lift the pole back into position as Vincent handed the man to Lamar for his turn. "He told me he would mark her for himself."
"Wait," Vincent murmured. "Servaes’ hold will slip. Many grow weary of him. If not for his power, they would revolt."
"And when he does slip, we will be there," Lamar said, easily comforting Ginger under the weight of his burden. Ginger smiled sinisterly. She knew both vampires were wrapped around her warped little pinkie.
"The girl will come to us," the vampiress said. "Curiosity will bring her."
"And, when it does, we will be waiting for her," Lamar added. His ominous face lit in the purest of pleasures. Ginger’s smile deepened. Vincent’s chuckle was joined by those watching. "Now hold that pole steady. I’ll bet you a newborn I can make this one last the whole day."
* * * *
The finely irritating rays of sunlight filtered determinedly into Hathor’s bedroom from the balcony window to mark the lateness of morning. She groaned, protesting the daylight. Taking her pillow from under her head with a hard jerk, she crushed the softness to her face. When the thick pad stifled her breath, she huffed furiously and threw it to the floor.
With a resolute sigh, she crawled from the large bed. She didn’t bother to check her mirror as she passed over to her private dressing room. She frowned at the antique dress hanging over the back of her chair, refusing to look at it for more than a moment. Grabbing a hair tie off her vanity, she pulled her stiff, tousled locks back into a haphazard ponytail.
She yawned noisily. Her steps were less lively
than the previous morning, as she trudged her way to the kitchen. Her feet were sore. Her legs were tired and, worst of all, her lower regions throbbed in discontent at having been so thoroughly neglected. As she passed over the stairs, her shoulders slumped with her tired steps.
Georgia was not in the kitchen, as Hathor made her way through the formal dining room. Sighing with relief that there was at least coffee, she poured herself a mug. Then, hearing a gentle singing from the backdoor, Hathor made her way out to the house garden.
She succeeded in forming a small smile of greeting for her aunt as she raised her mug in acknowledgment. Standing, Georgia wiped the back of her gloved hand across her forehead with a sigh. A wide brim hat covered her hair, blocking her face from the hot sun. Her pink T-shirt was tucked in at her waist and she wore an old pair of blue jeans. Lifting a basket of flowers, she said, "These here are some of the last. I thought to put them in a vase so we could enjoy them before winter."
Hathor nodded and drank her coffee. She squinted in the sunlight, sitting on the stone step leading from the house. Stifling a yawn, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The morning was fresh and pleasant. The sun warmed her face.
"Are you going to tell me what happened or must I assume he’s upstairs as we speak?" Georgia teased. She took a seat next to her niece and nudged her in the arm.
"He is not upstairs," Hathor stated. She couldn’t help laughing lightly at her aunt’s disappointed face. "And last night was lovely. He brought a CD player, and we danced for hours --"
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