The Font

by Tracy St. John

  As he mounted the stacked concrete blocks serving as steps, Heriolf considered tearing the trailer apart to demonstrate to his underlings that his vigor remained. He thought better of it. Such a blatant display of strength would only underscore his growing concerns over Naya’s potency leaving his body. Better to pretend nothing was wrong, that his powers weren’t waning.

  Instead, he simply swept aside the curtain hanging over the doorway. It ripped despite his restraint, falling to the floor. The smell within the trailer rushed out at him as if it had been waiting to escape. That sweet scent of carrion, spilled blood, and meat left to rot made his mouth water. The unseasonably warm weather had given the old man’s corpse a chance to ripen.

  Heriolf stepped inside, his concerns that he couldn’t enter without invitation gone with the old man’s life. He faced the swamp dweller slumped in his stained and broken-down chair. Or would have faced him, had the part-elf anything left of a face to stare at. The sawed-off shotgun leaning against the swamp rat’s stained crotch told the story. The weak glow of the lamp turned the splatters of blood on the chair and the wall behind it chocolate brown.

  Heriolf sneered at the corpse. “Coward. You knew I’d come for you.”

  He inhaled deeply. Beyond the reek of blood, rot, urine, and shit was the real story. He caught Naya’s sweet scent as well as that of two male vampires. He growled deep in his throat.

  The old man must have told them everything. Naya would now be aware Heriolf had killed her parents. It was the one thing that would turn her against him and have her throw her lot in with his enemies.

  But why were they allowing Naya to live? It was obvious to Heriolf. The vampire who’d taken her was planning to take his place as ruler of coastal Georgia.

  Heriolf leaned over the dead human-elf hybrid and licked a bit of the sticky blood off his ruined face. The taste was still agreeable despite its coolness, and he lapped what he could gather, spitting out fragments of bone as he soothed himself like a child with a lollipop. Unfortunately, the small bit of elf blood that had flowed in the old man’s veins was too diluted by the human part, and there was no power to be had from this meal.

  Lyndon’s cry from outside diverted him from his snack. “My lord! My lord! We’ve caught a spy!”

  Heriolf wheeled around and came through the door with so much speed that he struck the frame on the way out and it splintered. He ignored it as he hurtled down the steps to his waiting retinue.

  Two of his guards held a vampire of African descent. He strained against the gloved hands holding his shoulders and his face was rigid with pain against the thin silver chains pinning his arms to his waist. Heriolf could smell the silver burning into the vampire’s flesh.

  A third guard standing behind the captured vampire kicked the back of one of the prisoner’s knees, forcing him down. “Kneel before your lord!”

  “Not my lord,” the vampire growled despite the ribbon of fear Heriolf felt trickle from his mind. He bared his fangs at them all. A kick to the stomach made him offer a semblance of a bow.

  Lyndon and the other two guards executed proper bows before Heriolf. “We caught this one was skulking around, spying on us.”

  Heriolf stepped forward and grabbed a handful of the vampire’s dreadlocks in his fist. He yanked the spy’s head back, forcing him to look him in the eyes. “Your name.”

  The vampire pressed his lips together in grim refusal, but his mind spoke loud and clear.

  Heriolf snorted. “So Malachi, where is my Naya?”

  Between clenched teeth, Malachi ground out, “I don’t know.”

  It was true, Heriolf heard from the vampire’s mind. The worthless refuse had no idea where Naya had been taken. He rifled through the thoughts of the prisoner as easily as one might flip through pages of a book. “But you’re trying to find her? To kill her? Why is she not dead already?”

  Fury and terror ran through the vampire in equal measures. “Because Elisha is weak. He refuses to kill innocents, even though it endangers us.” He stopped muttering to scream in Heriolf’s face. “No more Heriolfs! No more madmen who will expose us to the world!”

  Heriolf snorted and dragged the vampire to his feet by the thick ropes of hair. “The names of all the conspirators. Tell them to me.”

  Malachi pressed his lips together again, but he was of a weak mind, one that spewed information with such volume that Heriolf’s ebbing power was hardly noticed.

  “Elisha. Sebastian. Mariel. These are the most important ones, I see.” There were more names, and Heriolf noted them all. “Very well. I think your use to me is done.”

  With that he ripped open Malachi’s shirt, baring a thin chest. Heriolf clawed it open to reveal the still heart within. It no longer beat, but removing the organ still brought a vampire to his final death.

  Heriolf did just that with bite after bite, chewing and swallowing before the screaming, helpless vampire with great pleasure while his guards and Lyndon laughed. Vomiting up the solid meat later would be worth it to see such agony.

  Heriolf made the horrid death last as long as he could. It was a delightful half hour before Malachi’s screams finally ended. His body began the withering that would render it to dust within a few minutes. The guards dropped the crumbling debris to the ground and waited for Heriolf’s next order.

  The man had offered useful knowledge, and Heriolf was now convinced this Elisha was indeed planning to take his place as ruler. That meant Naya would be kept alive and Heriolf could reclaim her. Even better, the conspirators were now fighting amongst themselves, rendering them broken and easy to defeat.

  That Naya’s kidnapper might be so sentimental with kindness as Malachi had claimed, that he was sparing Naya because she was too innocent to kill, made no sense to Heriolf. Only power mattered, and any vampire knew that. Kill or be killed. Show mercy to only those who could further your own desires. It was that simple.

  “Let’s go,” he told his underlings. Heriolf took to the air, scenting his font and following her.

  * * * *

  Elisha carried Naya through the night, putting distance between themselves and the clearing in the woods. He landed here and there to confuse pursuers, heading north for half an hour, east for twenty minutes, north again for five minutes, then turning south for awhile. At last he went in a northwest direction, flying as fast as he could.

  They came to a stop at last, near the overgrown remains of a farm. The large house that had stood proudly in the middle of its twenty-two acres was a crumbling ruin with a pine tree now sprouting through a huge hole in the roof. The once blindingly white paint had peeled away, leaving age-silvered wooden boards.

  The barn, its roof carried off in a storm, was even worse off. The back half of it had collapsed, and what was left leaned perilously to one side, looking as if only a soft breath would finally knock it completely down. The fence that had once corralled cattle in the pasture was long gone, only a post here and there showing it had ever stood at all.

  And in the distance, a wrought iron fence encircled the small enclosure where four headstones glimmered like waiting ghosts in the light of the finally risen moon. The homestead was horribly depressing. Elisha rarely came here anymore, this place that had seen such great joy and crushing sorrows.

  Naya peered around. Elisha wondered how much her non-vampire eyesight picked up. At last she asked, “Where are we?”

  “This was once my home. When I was a living man.”

  He saw how her curiosity sharpened at his words, and she stared at their surroundings harder than ever. She stepped carefully through the knee-deep grass to get a better look at the house. Elisha followed close behind, on the lookout for tripping hazards.

  He had so much to protect her from, and not just the perils of his once-home. There was danger everywhere, especially from Heriolf and Elisha’s own co-conspirators. Could he really shield Naya from all the threats that surrounded her?

  Naya stopped, her gaze finally lighting on the tiny graveya
rd that lay beyond the house and barn. Elisha steeled himself for her question, which came a moment later. “Is that your family?”

  “My wife and children. I lost them all to consumption. Tuberculosis,” he corrected himself.

  It had been centuries since the last of his children had succumbed, and yet the old grief filled his belly, grinding at him with dull blades. Within a space of six months he had lost them all, watching helplessly as they died one by one. And he? Elisha had never fallen ill. They had left him to mourn them, to castigate himself with survivor’s guilt, to drink himself stupid until his vampire maker had found him lying drunk and semi-conscious in the loft of the now almost demolished barn.

  Naya’s gentle caress on his cheek startled him. “I’m sorry Elisha. Does it ever get better? The grief?”

  She was crying, silent tears pouring down her face, and he was reminded she’d learned the truth of her parents’ deaths only the night before. He pulled her close, held her slight frame tight to his body. “It doesn’t get better. Just more … manageable.”

  He’d lost so much. So had she. They clung together, him stroking her long, soft hair and she rubbing her hands up and down his back. At some point during their shared misery, their lips met. Their breath mingled. And more than anything, he wanted her warmth, the feeling of someone else touching him, the fantasy that he was again loved and belonged to another.

  The grass he laid her down on smelled sweet, though not as sweet as her flesh. He pushed her skirt up and found she was already sticky-wet with honey. For once it wasn’t the flavor of her blood that tempted him; he wanted to taste her other juices now.

  * * * *

  When Elisha’s mouth closed on her womanhood, Naya jerked with a cry. Feeling his lips and tongue upon her there was a revelation. Soft and wet and warm. Kissing gently one moment, sucking hard the next, flicking eagerly now, lapping with slow sensuality to make her softest parts ignite, nipping to send shivery darts of intensity throughout her belly.

  Naya groaned and wriggled uncontrollably beneath the erotic assault. Elisha wrapped his arms around her upper thighs, pinning them to his shoulders and holding her still so she couldn’t escape the sweet torment he assaulted her with.

  He fed on her sex, and she trembled to hear him swallow hard, consuming her juices. His tongue pressed in and out of her, its silken roughness a delightful invasion. Naya buried her hands in his soft hair, grabbing hold to press him closer one moment, pulling him back the next when sensation threatened to overwhelm her. Elisha’s chuckle filled her ears.

  “I’m enjoying introducing you to such pleasures, Naya.”

  “You’re cruel,” she gasped. “Terribly, terribly cruel.”

  “No, my sweetling. I haven’t yet begun to be cruel.”

  With that, his mouth closed over her clitoris. He sucked it deep into his mouth, and his teeth gently trapped its shaft. Elisha’s tongue whipped over and over the engorged nub, and Naya thought her guts might flip inside out from the thunderbolt of agonized bliss that seized her.

  “Elisha!” she strangle-screamed, her back bowing off the thick cushion of grass. She was suddenly on the verge of cataclysm, her body straining for completion. Elisha released her.

  “Oh,” Naya wailed, equal measures of disappointment and relief filling her as the excruciating pleasure receded. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Because you need a man who will make love to you properly,” he growled. He sounded almost feral as he spoke. “You deserve someone who will see to your needs and fulfill your desires, one who cares as much for your pleasure as his own, if not more.”

  Elisha bent once more to her aching sex, visiting more delicious torture on her clit with lips, tongue, and teeth, making her insides seize right to the verge of losing all restraint. Just as her control frayed, threatening to spill wondrous orgasm through her body, he stopped again.

  “Elisha, please,” she sobbed, not sure what it was that she begged him for.

  “A little more, Naya,” he said. She was sure she could hear the teasing smile in his voice. “I like making you crazed with desire. I like hearing you beg.”

  The dark orb of his head moved down once more, and Naya shrieked with mingled despair and anticipation. “Elisha, don’t, please, you’re killing me—”

  His mouth was on her clit again, brutalizing her with passionate spikes of desire. Her bottom jerked up and down, beating against the ground helplessly as Elisha made her take the luscious abuse. She cursed him.

  “Oh Naya, Naya, Naya,” he laughed, leaving her poised on the edge of climax once more, refusing to let her descend into sweet dissolution. “It is fun making you accept such wondrous agony. I think I could do this all night.”

  “Please Elisha,” she wailed. “Don’t be mean.”

  “I think you can beg me a little better than that.”

  Again he mouthed her until she could feel the sharp teeth of completion biting into her. Again he stopped just as she began to crest.

  Naya screamed long and loud, making dogs in the distance bark in alarm. She squirmed against Elisha’s implacable strength, desperate to gain contact, for that one last touch that would send her over into the abyss of delight. He held her easily, denying her that final bit to release the swollen tension that billowed her womb.

  “What do you want of me?” she cried. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Lie still and accept my command over you. Beg me with pretty words, but resign yourself to my whims. Surrender completely to me, no matter how you wish otherwise.”

  Naya sobbed. How could he expect her to simply submit to this torment, this terrible pleasuring as if it was his right? She writhed, trying to impose her need on him, but she could not make him take her to fulfillment.

  Instead, he licked and sucked and nipped the tender flesh once more, again bringing her to the point where she thought she must orgasm, she would come whether he wanted her to or not. But no, Elisha always knew just when to release the engorged nubbin, to leave her wanting and crying with desperation.

  “Obey me, Naya. Make my will yours.”

  How could he torture her so brutally and speak so gently? Naya had never known such luscious agony as what Elisha visited on her, had never experienced a hell that took her the barest inch from paradise.

  Again and again, Elisha’s mouth worked its terrible magic. Naya’s nether parts ached fiercely, and she cried, shrieked, cursed, begged, and bargained for release. Elisha was merciless though, her supplications making no impact on him at all.

  At last Naya gave up, her entire body trembling violently as he sweetly assaulted her yet again. Her arms lay at her sides, her legs slung over Elisha’s shoulders, all limbs weak from the tension that filled her womb. She looked at the star-pocked sky overhead, tears running from her eyes as he rubbed that vicious tongue over her clit, bringing her closer and closer to the end that would never come. He would indeed keep her in this hell forever, hovering on the brink of glorious release, never to realize the joyous liberation of passion realized. She would die like this, glimpsing nirvana without ever setting foot there.

  “Naya.”

  He spoke, his lips and tongue still working on her helpless flesh, the vibration bringing fresh warmth cascading through her lower parts. She moaned.

  “Naya.”

  “What?” she whimpered, her voice wavering in defeat.

  “Have you conceded your body to me?”

  Shuddering sobs. She almost couldn’t speak for the force of them.

  “Is this body mine, Naya?”

  “Yes, Elisha. It is yours.”

  “Even if I choose to not let you come? Even if I force you to endure this the entire night?”

  Naya’s chest heaved with the onslaught of her grief. He would do it. She knew he would. And there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Naya?”

  “It is yours. I am yours.”

  “To do as I wish, whatever it may be?”

  “Yes.
”

  Again, there was the sense of a smile in his voice. “Then I wish you to climax, my Naya. Well done.”

  Then he was sucking hard on her clit, his tongue swirling around and around the tip, two of his fingers pressing into her sheath, working in and out hard and fast. The elation filled her until she thought she must burst apart, and even as it broke over her, the tidal wave finally crashing its full weight upon her, crushing her in its drowning embrace, she thought, he won’t let me, he’ll stop just as it happens, he won’t…

  Then all coherent thought was gone, ripped away in a surge of blinding whiteness that chased the velvet night sky away, along with the half-fallen barn, the crumbling house, the sad little grave markers of Elisha’s long-lost family. Naya knew nothing beyond the deluge of sensation that poured through her body. It filled her senses with dazzling brilliance so vivid that it negated all knowledge of herself.

  She came back to the real world, riding the continued pulses of her body’s delight. Elisha was there, his body joined to hers. The slap-slap of his groin against her sex and his cock sliding in her tight yet yielding channel maintained the thrum of pleasure. Little detonations sparked here and there as the vampire worked towards his own release, and Naya seized against him from time to time with renewed climax. His breath came faster with her every seizure, his groans more numerous with every convulsion that sought to milk his cock of its juices.

  Naya’s legs closed over his buttocks, pulling him closer, deeper, filling herself with him. She traced his nipples and strained upward to capture one in her mouth. She flicked the pert tip with her tongue as he had done to her poor clit and pinched the other between her finger and thumb. His moan was long and drawn out, a bit of payback for what he’d forced her to endure.

  * * * *

  So close. His scrotum was drawing up tight as Elisha whipped himself in and out of Naya’s hearth, feeling how her tight, wet warmth closed all around him. His pulse, so long missing, drummed wildly in his ears as his heart remembered to beat with a wild tattoo.

  Naya had first gifted him with her blood, then the extra powers of her blood, then her body. Then her perfect sexual submission, the greatest gift he felt a woman could grant a man. Now she had given him a semblance of life once more, something he’d never thought he’d experience again. His heart thundered within his chest, his lungs filled with air. Nevermind it was only a temporary condition, that once his climax was reached it would be over once more. For now, Elisha was alive again.