Mrs. Dracula: Vampire Anthology

by Logan Keys

  Across the street, the interior lights in the storefront burned bright against the gloom of rainfall. Through the wall-sized window-pane, white uniforms moved in unison. A dance—the kind I have always admired, repetition striving for perfection.

  Like a hundred thousand diamonds, a sprinkling of mist covered every lock of my dark brown hair.

  Adding a layer to my sorrow, the weather did not chill me. It had been centuries since temperature affected me at all. There is no cold where there is no life. Unless I drink, there is not one drop of hot blood left in my body.

  On the other hand, the storefront was filled with the heat imprints of dancing humans. Even from across the street, their breath was clearly visible in the fog of condensation.

  My mouth watered as I waited for the students to leave.

  Venom filled my fangs.

  One by one, they exited their lessons. Heading down the empty streets, I turned to the darkness in the center of every city, right on the corner’s edge. I became the shadows.

  With a fang, I bit my lip. A drop of cold blood swelled to the surface. Lipgloss. Using a fingertip, I spread that bit of my love around my mouth, coating my lips with a second chance at life for the few chosen.

  Over the building, across the rooftops, quicker than thought, I flew. Above their heads, I glided, a wisp of breeze within the winds of night. The smallest children didn’t interest me. I ignored any under the age of about sixteen. And they were the only ones who ever looked up.

  Dropping down from the rooftops, I kept my touch light. Less of a bite than a scratch on one exposed neck after another. And only the black-belts felt my kiss on their lips as I brushed past, lighter than the mist that fell all around.

  Somewhere, angels cried. I didn’t.

  I collected warriors for the battle that was coming. I needed them. Fighters, born and trained to the life, their skill would save them in the short run I demanded. Shields against the silver daggers and holy water, they had to be capable to survive.

  I didn’t follow where the chosen went as they left the area. I didn’t need to—the call of my blood in their veins would bring them to me within the day.

  Holding my position in the darkness of the alleyways, I waited as the dojo emptied, taking the dedicated as they filed out. No mercy for the cattle. No thought of lost, precarious, mortal futures. My blood gave them all the gifts they would ever need.

  Last out, the teacher of the fighting school opened the doors. Turning his keys, he locked the building.

  This one… I could not turn by whispers and scratch.

  Shivering into my human form, I checked my hair and adjusted my cape and dress. A glamour over the material changed the fashion of the fabric.

  With a confident step, I walked toward the school doors as the man pocketed his keyring. He looked up at me. The bluest eyes. For a moment, I forgot my purpose.

  He looked just like…

  But it couldn’t be.

  My heart had been dead for more than three decades. Vlad was long gone, turned to stone by the full light of the San Antonio sun. His remains stood guard over my own chambers. A vial of his blood around my neck—that was all I had left of my lover. Just for a moment, my fingers touched the glass jewel again. I kept him with me always.

  “We’re closed for the night, miss,” the man said apologetically. “Were you looking for someone?”

  “Oh.” I opened my eyes wide, letting innocence shine out of my gaze. “I was hoping to sign up for a few hours of lessons this week. A bad case of nerves, I’m afraid. Do you have the time to help me?”

  My hand touched his.

  Electricity bloomed where our skin connected. A spark. For a moment, I lost track of my clever thoughts and stood there, transfixed.

  He smiled.

  Shaking off the confusion that filled my clear and ordered mind, I reached up one hand to touch his face. Instead, he took my smaller hand in his own. Fringed with heavy black lashes, his blue eyes kept pulling me away from my purpose.

  “We are closed for the night, lass,” he spoke those words with a touch of regret. “But you could come back tomorrow. I will find room to help you find the confidence you’ve lost.”

  I hadn’t asked for that. Somehow, he could see right through me.

  He held my hand in his own, gentle but much more aware than any human I had met in years. “Tomorrow?” I repeated.

  “For classes, yes,” he didn’t look away as he let go of my hand.

  Turning away, the man’s neck was exposed. In an instant, he would be mine. A thousand men had been turned when they dropped their guard—careless, clueless.

  I could have.

  But I didn’t.

  As an undead warrior in a battle that had gone on since the fall of Constantinople, there was no second choice. No hesitation in taking from the human cattle what I wanted, what I needed. Turning this man was my right. And that should have been all I thought regarding his frail, mortal life.

  Right then and there, I should have taken his blood and sweat. Of all those in the dojo, he would be the most valuable warrior in my rising army. And he would know how to lead them.

  But…

  There was something in his eyes, a gentleness, a confidence that demanded I ask him. Taking a life was nothing to me. Whether for a meal to slake my own bloodlust or as a companion to roam the dark of night, I didn’t ask humans what they wanted. I didn’t care.

  Except, for this man, I did.

  I needed a leader for the newborns who would rise tonight.

  An oblivious human couple passed us while we stood there. I could have drunk their blood and left their empty bodies in the side alley in less than a minute. I could have done many things.

  Something about this man stopped me.

  “Your door opens at noon tomorrow. What should I do until then?” I asked outloud. Did I just say that?

  “Grab a bite to eat at the deli around the corner,” he suggested with a raised eyebrow.

  “Only if you allow me to buy you a drink,” I replied, fumbling around like a silly chit of a girl. A fine Mistress of the Dark I am…

  “Tristan St. Denis,” he announced like a courtesan of old, “at your service for the price of a blintz and a cup of tea.”

  It was ridiculous. And in the middle of my vengeance-filled plans, it was illogical, even cruel to dawdle. Kill him. Change him. Convert him. My bloodlust demanded action, as loudly as my need to save Peggy. But my fangs did not come. I did not strike.

  Not even as he let go of my hand and slipped his arm around my waist.

  “Celestine DeBerg,” I lied, just to give him a name. A bit of something to hold on to in the darkest of places I needed him to go.

  There was no time for this.

  But Tristan happened, all the same.

  He held the door as we walked into the diner. Choosing a corner booth covered in fake leather, he waited for me to sit first. In a modern world, uncommon manners charmed my hesitation.

  Tristan drank his tea plain, no sugar, no honey. Just bracing heat that spiralled off his breath and filled my finely-tuned senses.

  The scent of Earl Grey took me back two long, anguish-filled days. To the attack that awoke me from my deepest sleep…

  Two days ago, I awoke to rage.

  Vampire hunters took her—my girl. That will not stand.

  Arrogant and shortsighted, the humans would never see me coming.

  I would never stoop so low, not in a million life times, except… Except for what they did to my Peggy. For one little girl, for her—one tiny thing that they broke without a second thought. Big brown eyes, rosy cheeks, pink lips were all part of what made her irresistible.

  That’s why I marked her. MINE.

  Every lost one in the western states knew that scent—the little girl was under my protection, one perfect child saved from this life of fangs and blood. Drinking death was easy. Saving life? Well, that took restraint. None of the other vampires had that. Hence, she was mar
ked, forbidden. No excuses. Too young, too arrogant, too newly-made, too stupid, take your pick… to them, Peggy was a prized child, a dessert every vampire longed to devour. But I forbade it.

  And that had always been enough.

  Under the umbrella of my mark, high up in the Hollywood hills, Peggy Buchanan had grown into a young woman with the voice of an angel. Every night she sang while I brushed her hair. She whispered my name in her sleep. I had never been a mother and Peggy, she was my everything, my child, my home.

  Until the stupid humans took her from me.

  “Lost you somewhere, I think,” Tristan observed as he set down his empty teacup.

  The water in the kettle had long since lost its heat. Across the little table, Tristan looked at me, straight through my memories and the anger that wrapped around my cold, dead heart.

  “Where’d you go?” his expression indicated mirth, but the concern in his eyes was what called me back to the here and now.

  “I’m sorry,” I started and then stopped for a moment. “Afraid I’m rather poor company, just now. And that’s my fault…” Bluntness was the best defense. Clear the air, set the table of reality, and really see what this strange man does.

  Mortals care only about their own tiny lives. He would be no different.

  I looked out the window as the rain sheeted down in gobs, washing the filth from the dirty city streets. “Trouble follows me,” I shook my head at the bitter truth. “It always has.”

  “Something certainly does,” he responded, “That was obvious tonight, when I first met you. Who else shows up at a dojo in the dark? Only someone without any other choice. A person who cannot wait for help but must find it any way she-,” he looked at me, “You can.”

  His honesty pierced my heart. For once in my life, truth appeared to be a bridge and not a weapon.

  “I need you,” I started to explain.

  “What? What does a mysterious, charming woman like you need?” Tristan’s blue eyes focused on me and for a moment it actually seemed possible—vengeance and love, all wrapped together in the bitter meal that had been set at my table these last four days.

  “They took my child,” I blurted out the truth. “ Right out of my home, right out of my arms, they stole my girl.”

  The shock on his face was nothing compared to my own two days ago. He was a stranger to her light. “She has to be found,” I muttered as guilt set in. “I failed. I have to make it right. I must protect her.”

  No one loved her. No one else knew what she was… Her survival was up to me and my vanquished army. There were no loyal vampires left to rescue her. Ashes fought no battles. No matter how powerful I am, I won’t succeed in freeing her alone. Not before the hunters realize what she is… Not before Peggy dies.

  Tristan’s sympathy was limited.

  I had made a mistake. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t know me,” I backpedalled. My pale skin flushed with a heat under my cheekbones I hadn’t felt in years. Embarrassment. “My troubles are not yours.”

  He didn’t know Peggy. Anyone who did would have fought the Demons of hell to save that girl. Even this demon, even me. “I woke late on Friday morning. I discovered that some men had broken into my house and kidnapped my daughter.”

  Tristan’s anger rose like the hunger of a lion, flushing his cheeks, narrowing his beautiful eyes. I could see the adrenaline coursing through his veins. I could smell his outrage. Even over the scent of Earl Grey tea.

  I didn’t have much time to stop the hunters from killing my child.

  To have any chance at all, I needed him. Tristan and his dojo would be part of my attack. He was the last one to fall. The leader always was in war.

  I just had to turn him. I needed my army. But looking in his eyes, once again, I could not feel my fangs extend. I could not force my venom to the surface. For once in my undead second life, I could not bite a mere mortal.

  Panic must have covered my face.

  Tristan grabbed my hand from where it rested on the table, clenched in a fist. One by one, he uncurled my fingers. Then he took my hand in his own.

  “I will help,” he swore to me, “We will see your Peggy safe. I promise.”

  My dead heart burned with an unfamiliar blaze of heat. Emotions belong to the living. And I am not alive. Not ever again. So what is this I feel?

  More than gratitude. More than hope. Can I truly trust a mortal to help me?

  Across this city, up in the hills of Hollywood, human hunters held my heart. And they would not set her free, not until they were sure she was no threat to them and their kind.

  Over hundreds of years, my enemies, the bastard hunters of Mars Alator, had learned caution. Peggy’s survival depended on them not looking too close. Thus this was all the time I had to save her: a few days at most.

  They thought she was human. As long as that glamour held, my daughter would live. Vampires were tricky creatures. Our enemies adapted.

  None were as tricky as me… If I raised three hundred regular vampires tonight, I could take her back, no question. But those browncoated idiots would mow over clumsy newborns.

  Not the students of the dojo. Warriors once, fighters always. Trained in martial arts, they would not fall easily. And I would be right behind them, striking down my enemies.

  All for her.

  And somehow… tomorrow I will have to explain to Tristan what happened to his best students.

  —2—

  A Price Paid

  He slept there, a child to my years. A man of skill who was a means to an end, he had no place in my life. A weapon—nothing more.

  I kept saying that to my heart, as if denying Tristan meant that my pathway was clear. That all of this would work. That in the end, he would forgive me.

  In a few, short hours, the students would return to the dojo. Conscripted soldiers in a war they had never imagined, they would gather. And I would be there waiting, with Tristan by my side.

  Those decisions would have to wait for their own particular disaster. Much depended on what Tristan thought, on what he would do when he found out the truth. Things I could not control.

  Right now, there was too much to do.

  While he slept on rumpled sheets, I slipped away from Tristan’s apartment, out the bathroom window. Across the city I winged, looking for anything that might help boost our chances. My chances.

  I stopped at the veterans halls in the back behind the gates, where the homeless gathered, forgotten by their government after years of service. I didn’t care about the sour taste of alcohol that coursed through their veins. I didn’t care about the blood or the disease that clouded their minds, or the old fear they wrestled with in their dreams.

  I am the antidote to all your troubles. As you are to mine. I call to warriors. You need a queen. Rise!

  One at a time, I cleansed them of their mortality. Like a lover, I gave the discarded warriors the kiss of death, the gift of the undying. “You’ll be strong again, for me,” I commanded.

  I could already see the difference in those I took from this mortal coil. Their faces turned ashen, but not from illness—from strength. Venom worked quickly, transforming weak flesh to undead stone within eight hours.

  When the newborn vampires rose, they would be consumed by hunger and fury. Instinctively loyal, the creatures would fight to reach my side, searching for their maker throughout the entire city. Nothing could stop them from gathering to me within the next eight hours.

  No mortal could stand against them except my enemies, the Hunters.

  True, I wasn’t overly cautious about who I chose. Just big, strong, scarred men and women who even in their sleep carried themselves with the dreams of their lost companions. The ghosts that plagued them hovered over their hearts, vague forms of once-soldiers who’d fallen in catastrophic battle.

  I hovered above them as they dreamt their frightful nightmares. I gifted them with the treasure of the ages, my kiss of the undead.

  Quicker than a bee sting, I scratch
ed their necks and grazed their mouths with my own soft lips coated in venom and blood.

  Alert to danger, I always kept an eye on the darkest shadows. The hunters could find me. If they stopped me now, the kiss of death would dissolve into my victims, more like a deep cough than the gift I intended.

  If I die, all those people will remain human. IF. But then so would Peggy. And of all of my army, she was the only one who could not be replaced—neither in her pure heart or in the startling tale of her origin.

  I am the last who can find her. Willingly, I took up the guard.

  For her, I risked everything that cloaked my world in safety. Too many innocents gone missing in quick succession. The hunters would notice. But what do I care at this point? They already have everything that matters.

  Clever as I am, still there is no way to hide the harvesting. But since all I really wanted was to fight the very Hunters who would detect my pattern, I took every mortal to my side who had a good chance of surviving.

  I spent those lives for Peggy.

  One hundred and twenty two Souls were gathered in two hours.

  Methodically, I scoured the gutters and found them all: between soup kitchens and the veterans halls, the neighborhood housing allotted to the poor, and the drug dens where burnt-out soldiers sought the only comfort that they could find in this fragile mortal world—the bliss of drugs.

  In return, I gave them something else, I changed their addiction. Fresh blood was the one thing that ruled them now. Blood, hunger, and my imperious will.

  To each of them, I whispered softly in their ears. I did not wonder whether shattered Souls could latch onto dreams, “Come to Me,” I asked each one, “Meet me, Reborn. Rise to your new life. I will show you the way at sunset. Look for the sign.”

  In each of their ears, I whispered one address. The exact same, iconic one: 3000 Canyon Lake Drive, Griffith Park. As I floated past, some of them even repeated it out loud, talking in their dreams. My command rose as a murmur of a hundred Lost Souls.

  Whatever it takes…

  Having done what I could to assemble a patchwork kind of army, I stepped back into the cloak of night. Wrapping the Shadows around my heart and body, I released the glamours that held me human and launched upwards on the wings of a bat.