“Do you believe in vampires?” the Detective asked with the air of one asking for directions to the bus stop. He sipped his scotch, holding his gaze on the beautiful woman across from him, watching her every reaction.
Inga let out a hearty chuckle, which soon faded to a nervous giggle and away into the silence of the bar. “Wait, are you serious?” she asked, looking strangely at the detective.
“Deadly serious.”
Inga wondered for an instant if the detective was punning on purpose. “I, uh…” she hesitated, and in her mind’s eye she was transported to the moment of the mystery woman’s biting kiss. “N-no, I mean not in the literal sense, I guess?” She looked quickly at Detective Turan, attempting to gauge whether her answer would satisfy him or not. He sipped his scotch again and appeared thoughtful. For once his eyes were steady as he gazed at her across the table. There was something in his expression that made Inga uneasy.
“I believe in them,” he finally said, setting down his glass and pressing his fingertips together. “You stay in this game long enough, and you see things,” he added.
Inga swallowed. The detective’s words had made her hair stand on end. “But, I mean, you’re talking about people who think they’re vampires, right?” she asked, almost hopefully.
“No,” the detective replied, reaching into his coat and pulling out a thick envelope. He laid in on the table for a moment, before opening it and pulling out a few bundles of paper—copies of old newspaper articles and original clippings by the looks of it. On the surface of the table he carefully laid out five obituaries. “Do you recognize any of these women?”
Inga bent forward and inspected the images. She understood now, this was a line up and she was meant to finger the perpetrator. She pointed at one. “This looks just like the Jane Doe from the morgue.”
Detective Turan nodded and sat back in his chair, looking discretely thoughtful. “You see, this isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with this particular Jane Doe.” As if in response to the questioning gaze that Inga now fixed on him, he elaborated, “If you notice, the death date on the one you pointed out was 1938.”
“1938, but how is that…But it’s obviously her, or…?” Inga was startled. She hadn’t expected this at all, particularly from someone as seemingly grounded as her mentor detective.
“Exactly,” said the detective. “It’s her, or a relative that looks almost exactly like her, correct?”
Inga nodded numbly, lost for words as she looked from the table to the detective. She took a gulp of scotch in an attempt to lull her pounding heart into a relative calm. Strangely, this new and horrible information didn’t deter her interest. She found the concept of a supernatural being almost more enticing somehow, and yet…how could it be?
“So you mean that you think that our Jane Doe is killing people?”
Detective Turan nodded. “It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”
“But no one’s seen her—I mean there’s nothing on the cameras?” she reasoned, wondering if she sounded a little too desperate to disprove his theory.
“Well if you go by traditional lore, she wouldn’t show up on cameras—mirrors and all that. As for the rest…Rumor has it seduction and vampirism go hand and hand. It would surprise me if someone had seen her, and just…conveniently omitted the information.”
Inga felt a chill run down her spine, and a cold sweat came over her. Was he calling her out? Did he someone know what she had done? Panic swelled inside of her chest for an instant, and then subsided with another sip of scotch. “It’s possible, I guess?” she ventured, savoring the warmth of the drink. “It just seems so…”
“…far-fetched. Yes, I’m aware,” Detective Turan responded, sounding someone impatient now. He had finished his drink. “Well anyway, I’m sorry to have dragged you out for all this…I just thought, as Professor Janson’s star pupil and all, you might be interested in the stranger side of the law.” He chuckled, a rough laugh that sounded more like a growl.
“No, no, I should be thanking you,” Inga replied, forcing a tone of gratitude into her voice so that she would not betray the fact that her legs were shaking.
“I’ll walk you home,” the detective replied. He rose to his feet and led the way from the bar. Inga scrambled to follow him, pulling on her coat as they stepped out into the night air. The fog had thickened with the deepening of night. It was colder now.
They walked quickly and silently together through the winding streets to the door of Inga’s apartment. She paused for a moment facing the door, fumbling for her key before turning to say ‘goodnight’ to the detective. Without warning, he pushed her hard against the door, bruising her shoulders as he leant forward and kissed her forcefully on the mouth. One hand held her wrists, and another gripped her hip impossibly tightly. She felt fear wash over her. Shock rendered her completely frozen—she couldn’t struggle. She wasn’t attracted to the detective. She didn’t want him—he was old enough to be her father, and smelt of smoke and booze. And yet, as he kissed her, bit her lip, tore off her scarf and ravaged her neck, she felt her body respond. For the second time in her life, fear, pain, and pleasure crashed together and created a feeling of frenzied ecstasy within her. He forced her around, gripping her hair, pushing his hips against her ass, making sure she could feel how hard he was as he deftly undid the buttons of her jeans and slipped a cold hand inside. Inga let out a moan in spite of herself as the sensation sent her senses buzzing. And then as soon as he had started, he stopped.
“I suspected that you might be this kind of girl,” he murmured in her ear as he withdrew. She turned, looking at him with a strange combination of lust and disgust. “You’re one in a million,” he said, watching her attempts at regaining her composure with mild amusement. “A lot of people get off on pain. But fear…” he trailed off, smiling a wicked smile, “You’ll want to watch out for yourself…From what I hear, that’s just the kind of mate a vampire likes to make.” And he was gone, walking up the street, his gruff laughter echoing in the silence that remained.
Inga struggled through her apartment door and bolted upstairs to her bed, where she collapsed in the dark, her heart pounding and her body hot with an intoxicating mixture of desire and fear. She could barely believe what had happened. The detective, who seemed to be in complete control, had lost it, or so it seemed. As Inga lay in the dark staring at the ceiling, her body cooled, and she reflected that though the passion of the moment had made her wanting, it was nothing compared to the effect that the mystery woman, or…vampire had had on her. And as she thought, another idea came to mind. What if Detective Turan had been testing her? Seeing if she was the kind of woman who might fall prey to the ministrations of a vicious killer? It was possible. It seemed as though he already knew so much. And yet even as she contemplated the possibilities, Inga simply couldn’t imagine herself coming clean to the detective. Even though he seemed to believe in the fantastical as much as she did now, there was a small feeling in the core of Inga’s chest that made her want to protect the mystery woman. Protect the mystery woman and sacrifice her career. It was crazy.
Without knowing why, Inga rose from her bed and walked to the window. She parted the curtains and looked down to the street. The fog had grown impossibly thick now. The street lights diffused through the thick air, filling her vision with a mysterious golden haze. Inga squinted, and she knew in that moment that she wasn’t alone.
A soft whisper caressed her ear and she started. ‘Inga…’ breathed the voice. There was no one beside her, but she could see now, emerging out of the fog, the figure of the woman for whom she had ached for weeks. ‘Come outside, darling…’ the whisper breathed again.
Inga obeyed, walking as if in a trance, leaving the doors to her apartment open. When she reached the street, the woman was no longer there. A strange sense of loss seized her as she looked around.
‘Here…’ came the voice again. And Inga saw her, standing at the end of the street, her figure blurred by the ni
ghttime mist. ‘Follow me…’
Inga did as she was told, following the shadowy form of her obsession from a distance, barely conscious of where they were going. They walked for about 20 minutes, climbing a small hill and then she stopped. They were on cemetery hill. The city lights below glinted through the mist that enshrouded them. It was colder now. Inga felt the soft touch of the first snow on her cheek.
“What do you want from me?” she called out to the woman.
‘I want you to join me,’ she replied, suddenly very close to Inga. She was smiling a cold, fanged smile, her black eyes unmoving as they held Inga’s gaze. Inga shivered, feeling crimson creep into her cheeks as she looked back into those dark eyes. They were like bottomless pools, perfectly still but for the elegant slither of a snake across the surface. ‘I can show you wonderful things, Inga…’
“But I don’t even know your name,” she managed, her heart pounding in her throat.
‘Helena.’
Inga swallowed. She wanted to resist, but it was if she were in the grip of some kind of insanity. She craved this woman, this creature. She wanted to follow her to the ends of the earth. When Helena reached out a hand and caressed her cheek, she leaned into it, savoring the coolness of her palm. “Helena...” she whispered, “I want to come with you, but how…?” How could she leave behind the dream that she had pursued for so long in favor of this wild unknown?
‘It’s easy,’ the woman replied, stroking her cheek gently, and leaning forward to kiss her neck tenderly.
Inga let out a small moan and gripped Helena’s upper arm. Her mind wanted to resume her normal life as a student and a forensics expert to be, but her body and soul craved something more.
“LET HER GO.” A rough voice rang loudly across the cemetery. Helena loosened her embrace, a satisfied smirk on her lips as she turned.
‘Why Detective Turan, what a pleasure it is,” she cooed, letting out a cold laugh.
Inga turned to look at the detective, still clinging to Helena’s arm. So it had been a trap after all.
‘I always knew you were a voyeur.’
“No, stop! Let her go!” the detective shouted again.
Helena ignored him, pulling Inga close, pushing back her hair and sinking her fangs into the other woman’s sweet neck. She drank deeply, her eyes fixed on the man who stood watching, helpless. Inga moaned and writhed, blind with pleasure and pain. She could feel her life force being pulled away as she slumped against Helena, submitting completely to her thirst.
When Inga awoke, she was lying in the cemetery. Snow was falling all around her, blanketing the ground. She scanned the landscape, adjusting to consciousness. The detective was gone. An incredible sensation flowed through her—an intense sense of power and boundless possibilities. She noticed that she didn’t feel cold anymore. She felt a wonderful warmth. As she awoke to the present, she found Helena lying next to her, looking over her with watchful eyes.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she smiled, and slipped her hand into Inga’s hand, squeezing it as she arose, pulling the other woman behind her. She wrapped her close in her pale arms. “All this…” she gestured to the landscape, now perfect white and sparkling quietly, “This whole world is ours.”
Inga, overwhelmed with excitement, stood on her toes and pressed her lips to Helena’s. They kissed passionately for all the world to see on cemetery hill, as the snow fell all around them.
THE END
Bonus Story 21 of 40
Dragon’s Oath
Brida's father and his people had been at war with their neighbors for as long as she could remember, at least the past twenty years if not longer, and things were not balanced in their favor. Lord Ulric had not seen fit to educate his daughter in the ways of war, but she knew her brothers well, and she had learned more than perhaps Ulric wanted over the course of her childhood. The last few battles had taken a particularly hard toll on their people, and one of Brida's brothers, Edmund, had been grievously injured. She herself had been moved from place to place in Ulric's constant attempts to keep her from the hands of his enemy. Now they had finally returned to their keep, but only because Ulric's troops had been decimated and he had recalled his men and his generals to the center of his domain where they could try and find some new tactic to push back the invaders.
Brida had been tasked with making sure that her brother was well taken care of, which consisted of her mostly tending to him herself and having the servants fetch her what she needed. He seemed calmest when she was the one at his bedside, and she hardly had anything else to be doing. Ulric had gathered all of his commanders in the great hall, including Edmund and Brida's eldest brother Eldric, and they had been in there for the better part of the day. Brida wasn't even sure they had eaten. She had bread and ale brought to try and get Edmund to eat something, but when he refused she ate it herself.
She saw no solution, but perhaps she simply didn't have the same mind for military matters that the men in her family did. Still, to her it looked like the easiest thing to do would to be surrender and give the invaders what they wanted. Things were grim enough to start, and now there were rumors of tall fair-haired barbarians raiding along the shores in the south. It was hardly the time to be squabbling when simple diplomacy could resolve matters. After all, Ulric had the perfect bargaining chip. Brida was young still, and unmarried. There had to be someone her father could marry her off to in order to stop the hostilities before his people and his family were completely wiped off the face of the earth.
Edmund groaned, his face contorted in pain, and squirmed on his bed. Brida shushed him and smoothed his dark hair back from his face. By the time he had been returned home infection had already set into the wound on his leg. The healer had done the best he could to treat it, and the wound was looking far better than it had, but he was in the throes of a fever, constantly in and out of sleep and in so much pain it made Brida's heart ache. She motioned for one of her ladies to bring the bowl of water and wet the rag that lay draped over the side, squeezing out the excess before dabbing sweat off of Edmund's brow. He calmed eventually, settling back into his restless sleep and feverish dreams.
She sat back in her chair and muffled a yawn with the back of her hand. She had been awake almost all night making sure that Edmund's thrashing didn't re-open his wound and the lack of sleep was catching up with her. She hoped that her father's meeting would be over soon so that she could switch places with Eldric and let him watch over their brother for a while. By the way things had been going so far she doubted that would happen any time soon. Sure that Edmund was asleep, at least for the moment, she rose from the chair and stretched her aching back, bracing her hands and letting out a long sigh.
“I'll return,” she said to her maid. “I need to walk the needles from my legs. Watch over him?”
The maid silently took up Brida's chair, her needlework in her lap. Brida slipped quietly from the room, leaving the door open only a crack, and paced down the familiar stone hallways of her home. Her footfalls were soft but still they echoed off the walls. Her journey took her down to the ground floor where her father and brother were convening with their council, the heavy doors to the room pulled shut and two guards standing to attention outside them. They let Brida pass with no challenge, one of them pushing on the door until it opened just enough for her to squeeze through and into a room full of angry, shouting men.
She found her brother quickly. Eldric was standing to the side, his arms crossed over his chest, an annoyed, frustrated look on his face. He spared her a brief glance as she came to stand beside him and sighed.
“You look happy,” Brida said.
Eldric snorted. “They can't stop arguing long enough to make any progress. This one says we do this, that one says we do that. It's infuriating.”
“What are they fighting about now?”
“A suggestion made by Captain Alfred. Half of them think it's ridiculous superstition and the other half think he's a witch for suggesting it.”
Brida looked across the room to where their father sat silent and motionless at the head of the large table, listening to his commanders bicker around him. “Suggesting what?” she asked.
“That we find the wizard, that hermit that lives up in the mountains, and give him whatever he wants for his aid.”
“He must be dead by now,” Brida said.
Eldric shrugged. “I think Father will try anything at this point,” he said. He scuffed the toe of his boot against the floor. “How's Edmund?”
“The fever should break soon, hopefully. After that only time will tell. Will you sit with him soon?”
“When I can,” Eldric replied, “though at this rate I may never get the chance.” He sighed again and shook his head. “I wish Mother were still here. She could silence all of these fools with a single word.”
“So can Father,” Brida said.
“When he chooses,” Eldric replied, “but it seems he's content to let them squabble.”
Brida sighed and looked around at the arguing men. "I don't see what they think some old man in a cave can do, to harm or to help."
"They say he has great power," Eldric replied. "That whole armies bow before his might. It would be exactly what we need, if the tales are true."
"Peasant superstition," Brida said.
"Perhaps," Eldric replied, "but for the past half hour I have heard them speak of nothing else." A scowl overtook Brida's face. She shook her head in disgust.
"Come," she said, "I'm tired and need to rest. Father won't miss you if you look after Edmund for a while."
Eldric was quiet for a moment, leaving only the echoing shouts of the military council to fill the room. Finally he nodded. "Very well. I suppose I can do more good there than I can here. They haven't listened to a word I've said this entire meeting."
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