Darklands: a vampire's tale

by Donna Burgess

“Make up your mind.”

  Susan grabbed a fistful of his leather jacket and yanked him to her. She kissed him hard, pulling his bottom lip between her teeth. Then, she bit down sharply.

  “Ouch! Damn,” Devin hissed, but Susan kissed him again, tasting his blood.

  She was suddenly intensely aroused.

  “Maybe I will let you have me here,” she whispered into his mouth.

  His hot, sweet breath caressed her face, and he cupped her bottom in his hands, lifting her up, and grinding himself against her. “Naughty thing,” he said, smiling.

  It seemed that all of Susan’s senses had come awake since taking that first drink of Devin’s blood. She could hear a cat padding along the street below; she could hear the thrumming of Devin’s blood beneath his skin. The darkness might as well have been daylight, she could see so well and so easily. She wondered exactly how much her sense of touch had improved.

  That, she would find out later. Her eyes bored into Devin’s. She grinned and flicked out her tongue to get that last drop of his blood from the corner of her mouth. Until now, he had acted as though he were in charge, that she was his to do with as he wanted. Tonight, she would turn the tables. She would make him scream her name.

  A small, secret smile touched her mouth as she thought of him beneath her, her tongue working him into a frenzy, his head thrown back as she drove him to orgasm.

  She could almost taste his sweet, salty blood.

  “Now, listen to me,” Devin said, pulling her back into reality. “First things first, sweetheart. You need to know how to hunt.”

  Devin peered over the edge of the building. He pointed at the male walking below. “That one. I know you’ve already picked his brain” he said. “Now, you just follow what I do, and we’ll get to him before he gets to that woman.” He climbed to the top of the wall, crouched and looked downward.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Susan asked, panic unwinding in her gut.

  “Shhh. Trust me.”

  Devin leapt off the top of the building, arms spread-eagled, and dove into the soft cloud of mist rising from the street. Shocked, Susan looked over the edge of the roof.

  “Shit. Shit! What the hell did you just do?” she muttered.

  She could just make out his bulky form as he settled on the pavement. Despite his size, it was a soft, catlike landing, his knees giving slightly before he straightened back up to his full height. The man went on, unaware that he was being watched. Further up the alley, the woman meandered, quietly singing an old blues. The woman’s mind was racing. She had just fixed, having bought the junk from the man who was now stalking her.

  Hesitantly, Susan climbed the low barrier wall. Condensation slicked the surface of the bricks causing her boots to slip. How she hated heights! Her breath caught in her chest a moment, and her leg muscles tensed, then froze.

  She glanced down one final time, her eyes watering from the cold, and then took another deep breath, chilling the silky lining of her lungs and her throat. She exhaled a balloon of steam.

  Closing her eyes, she thrust her legs up and out, pushing away from the rooftop and into nothing.

  She was falling.

  Falling.

  But in an instant, it was over, and she landed as light as a dancer, on the balls of her feet. It was a far easier landing than she had imagined; her knees and hips flexed just enough to allow her joints to absorb the impact of the sixty-foot leap. Her fingertips scraped the pavement, and then she stood up and scanned the fog for Devin.

  The heavy mist dampened the sound of the Deathwalker’s boot heels on the road, and she lost track of him.

  Then, Devin appeared at her side. “Told you to trust me,” he said, but his eyes were trained on the man coming down the alleyway, the thud of his boots dully punctuating his steps. As he emerged from the fog, Susan was immediately taken with his beauty. He was of African descent, broad featured. His light eyes appeared startlingly pale as the streetlamps reflected in them. His dreadlocked hair was like a spider’s nest that fell past his shoulders.

  Taking a predatory stance, Devin moved closer. His eyes narrowed; his fists clenched at his sides. Devin stalked toward the man, but the man made no move to run, despite the fact Devin towered over him. In fact, the dark man didn’t appear frightened at all.

  Instead, he held his head up, his eyes meeting Devin’s. “What the fuck you doin’ out in this alley, golden boy?” he snapped as he reached into his coat. “What you doin’ out here with that girl?”

  Susan tensed and wished she still carried her service pistol at her side.

  Devin cut his gaze to her, then winked and closed in on the man.

  “What do you plan to do to that girl up there, Rasta man?” he asked, nodding his head toward the woman who still moved on, happily oblivious. He laughed, then reached out and batted the man’s dreadlocks playfully with his open hand.

  The dark-skinned man drew back angrily, and a silver blade flashed to life in his fist. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’.” But concern creased his brow like a kid caught with his fingers in the cookie jar. His throat worked visibly as Devin paced slowly across his path.

  Devin leaned closer, seeming to breathe in the scent of the man’s fear. “Don’t you know that night is when the monsters come out?”

  Susan couldn’t take her eyes from what was unfolding. The younger man’s scent changed; she now smelled the acrid odor of fear mixed with the adrenaline that seeped from his pores. His quickening heartbeat throbbed inside her ears. He was ready for a fight. “I’ve dealt with the likes of you before, big man. I’m not afraid.” Then he spit, “Fucking vampire.”

  His voice, even more raspy and rough than Devin’s, amused her. She liked his lilting faux-islander accent.

  Slowly, Devin circled the man, enraging him more, enticing him to make the first move. “What are you dressed up for, Rasta Man? A costume party, maybe?” He smiled and wet his lips. “Rasta Man. This isn’t Kingston.”

  “Screw you!” Rasta Man could barely contain his anger now, and just as Devin anticipated, he made his move. What Devin did not anticipate was that Rasta Man would go after Susan, instead.

  The switchblade glistened like a slash of light, and before Susan could move, he brought the razor across her breasts, slitting her leather jacket clean through to her sweater and then into her flesh.

  “Damn!” She staggered backward, looking down in surprise and horror. Hot blood bubbled up like a red fountain, and she fell backward onto her ass.

  “Maybe I’ll just take your bitch, then, big man!”

  Rasta Man’s shadow fell over her, and she couldn’t clearly see his face. He swung the blade in a wide arch once again, and Susan kicked upward, her boot connecting with his kneecap.

  The icy breeze touched her gaping wound like a corpse’s kiss, and she wondered dimly if vampires could bleed to death.

  Rasta Man stumbled, but he didn’t have a chance to make another move. Devin snatched him back by his long dreadlocks and swung him around, the man’s boots leaving the pavement. Effortlessly, Devin threw him into the side of the old hotel. His body struck the bricks with a sickening thud. The knife clanked into the shadows and vanished as the man collapsed into a gasping pile at Devin’s feet.

  Devin raised one grungy Chucky-T sneaker and pressed it against the man’s throat, pinning him to the ground. “You’re going to die for that.”

  “No, Devin!” Susan sprang to her feet and grabbed a handful his coat. She pulled at him, but she couldn’t budge him.

  After a long moment, he looked down at her and drew back from the injured man. “You all right, babe?”

  Susan stood, clasping one hand over the gash. “Yeah. No biggie.” Still, her voice trembled, and she hated the sound of it, how weak it made her seem. At the very least, she wanted to appear to have herself under control. She forced a small, weak smile as she trailed her fingers over the cut. She glanced down at the wound again. The entire front of her black sweater was soaked with blo
od. It splotched the front of her jeans like spilled paint.

  The gash was a wide, wicked grin just above her left breast, perhaps six inches in length, snaking to just beneath her armpit. The chilly air helped the blood cool. Already it was congealing, so she wouldn’t bleed to death, after all. That aside, nearly having her boob taken off did not make her happy.

  Devin took her sticky hand and wove his fingers between hers. “Don’t worry. You’re not like you were before.” When he traced his thumb along the wound, even he winced a little.

  He marched back over to the Rasta Man, his head down, his breath steaming from his lips. “You see what you did to this young lady?” he growled. “You should apologize.” He added in a bad attempt at a Jamaican accent. “Doncha tink?”

  He reached down, took the dreadlocks in his fist again and yanked Rasta Man to his feet. The frightened man grunted some reply, and Devin popped him in the nose with the back of his hand.

  “I-I’m sorry,” the man muttered. Blood streamed from his busted nose, dripping down across his lips.

  Devin yanked the ropy hair again, pulling Rasta Man’s head back and exposing his beautiful, brown throat. “You don’t sound sorry.”

  Susan wanted detachment from this. It was survival, after all. This bastard had cut her. He had defended himself, and he had lost. It was as simple as that. Susan inhaled the scent of his blood again, gamey with terror and putrid with the fear of death. It was strange how easy it was to distinguish his blood from her own.

  “Come on and do what you must do,” Devin whispered to Susan. He pushed the trembling man back down onto the pavement.

  Susan’s mouth ran with desire as she dropped to her knees beside Devin. She closed her eyes and leaned over the man. He no longer protested, and when she pressed her mouth to his sweaty neck, the pulse throbbed strong against her lips.

  The softening, blood-damp kiss of his breath touched the side of her face as she licked his salty skin. With a deep breath, she bit down, hard. Her teeth tore through the skin, and slowly, she shook her head, unsure of how exactly to proceed. Blood arced into the air, onto her hands and across her waiting mouth. She sealed her lips over the pulsing wound, a lover’s kiss, determined not to lose another drop. She drank until she was no longer aware of the gaping cut across her own breast, or of the ache of her knees on the pavement, or even of Devin’s comforting presence.

  When she was satisfied, she fell backward and lay there, staring up at the starless sky between the hulking old hotels. Devin leaned over her, his own lips smeared with the man’s blood. Grinning, he pushed her sticky hair from her brow and cheeks and kissed her deeply.

  When he moved back, Susan looked at him, at his beautiful, bloody face. “What have I become, Devin?”

  “You have become what everyone wants to be. You are eternal.” He got to his feet and then took her hand and pulled her up. “Together, we will watch the end of the world.”

  “Are we monsters, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we’re just survivors.”

  chapter twenty-five

  “What on earth happened?” John rushed to them as they came through the door. He wrapped his arms around Susan’s shoulders and shot Devin a reproachful look. “You allowed her to get hurt?”

  “It’s nothing, John,” Susan reassured him. Although she had known him less than forty-eight hours, she had already come to enjoy the old man’s protective manner. Wincing, she removed her jacket, and Devin was there to help her. The pain in her breast had reduced to a dull ache. The knife had ripped through the muscle and tissue, but now, it felt like nothing more than a serious exercise injury.

  Susan had no idea how quickly she would heal, but either way, she sure as hell did not like being cut open. It was as frightening now as it was before her change.

  John led her upstairs to the big washroom adjacent to Devin’s bedroom, and a moment later, Devin joined them, carrying a military first aid kit that had seen better days.

  John found a cellophane packet, tore off the end and removed a pair of rubber surgical gloves. He pulled them on with a snap and then bent to get a closer look. He probed the gash gently, but a sharp bolt of pain shot through Susan’s chest and arm, and she drew back, hissing softly. “Shit.”

  “So, you’re a doctor?” asked Susan.

  “You may call me a doctor.” John winked. He squinted deeply and tried unsuccessfully to thread some nylon through a rather ominous-looking needle he had removed from a suture packet.

  “That’s not very reassuring,” Susan said, glancing at Devin. “Can’t he see that?”

  “Pay no attention to him,” Devin answered.

  She glanced down at the yawning gash again, her stomach flip-flopping.

  “I have a Ph.D. in Psychology. So technically, you can call me a doctor.”

  Devin peered over John’s shoulder into the bag of medical goodies. “How old is this shit?” He pulled out something that resembled a pair of scissors, but with dull, clamping ends, and held it up, opening and closing the jaws with thin, metallic snaps. John snatched it away and stashed it back in the bag, then tried to thread the needle again. Finally successful, he smiled. “That was the difficult part. Now…” He laid the newly prepared needle on a swatch of sterile cloth he had unfolded on the back of the toilet.

  “I don’t see how you’re qualified to sew me up,” Susan protested. She pulled the torn edges of her sweater closed.

  “Just relax,” Devin said. “He hasn’t killed me yet.”

  Sighing, Susan leaned back against the pedestal sink, and Devin squeezed her arm gently. “Of course, that’s only because we can’t die so easily.”

  “It appears that we will need to remove your sweater,” John said. He flexed his long fingers inside the blue gloves.

  “Knew that was coming,” Susan muttered and gingerly raised her arms. But John was ready with a pair of silver scissors; he used them to cut away the top along the side seam.

  Shortly, she was naked to the waist, except for a sheer white bra covered in drying brown blood. She shivered.

  John nodded approvingly. “Well, now.”

  “Down, old man,” Devin growled.

  “This is completely awkward,” Susan complained.

  Devin removed a large towel from the linen basket near the tub, unrolled it and draped it over her shoulders. Then, he scooped up her hair and pulled it back.

  John drenched several thick squares of gauze with antiseptic and cleaned inside and around the cut. “Do you want something for pain?”

  “A glass of wine, maybe,” Susan replied. “Otherwise, just hurry. I’m freezing.”

  “I can tell,” John commented, leering comically at her breasts. “Okay, let’s get started. This will sting a little.”

  It stung a lot. Susan bit her bottom lip as Devin held her hair back with one hand and squeezed her fingers gently with the other. “You’ll be okay,” he whispered.

  She looked up at him and held his gaze a moment. For the first time since leaving home, she realized she just might.

  ***

  Devin was convinced that he had told Susan the truth when she asked if they were monsters. They were survivors, and survivors did what they had to. Still, so many times, he wondered if he were something less than human. What was wrong with his heart? Had his happiness been ripped from him so many times that he had become afraid to feel anything but anger and fear? He questioned all of his actions, even now, calm and, dare he think, happy, watching Susan sleeping beside him.

  Her face was peaceful, as smooth as the girl he had loved and followed along the shadowy streets of this ancient city twenty years before. He stroked her cheek, and she made no move. She was deep in her own dreams; her eyes twitched beneath the silky cover of her eyelids. He traced a finger along the stitched-up gash along her breast. John had done a good job with it. Devin knew the man was attracted to her, but what could he do except ignore it? John had always been his most trusted ally. He would have been long
dead if it were not for John.

  Devin touched Susan once more and wondered what exactly went on in her mind now that she had transformed. He was locked out and missed the ability to slip inside her thoughts. Over the years, she had become very much like he was. Afraid to love. Afraid to care. Buried within both of them lay the desire to be “good.” He wondered if he had completely corrupted her, instead. She had gone after the man earlier as if she were made to do it. Did she view it as survival, or was it more than that? Did she enjoy the thrill of the hunt?

  Downstairs, John played the piano. He was human, but had come to embrace the hours of vampires. Over their many decades together, John had taken steps to refine Devin’s brash demeanor, to make him more cultured. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata number twenty-six, “Les Adieux.” Devin could easily name most of the pieces John played. I can name that tune in two notes. He had heard that phrase on some stupid television show a long time ago, before he decided to throw a vase through the screen. He loved movies, but loathed the triviality of television, the advertisements and the inane loudness of it.

  Devin rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. It would be light soon, but his mind refused to shut down, despite the fatigue that had settled into his limbs. It was raining again, the sound like a million fingers drumming anxiously on the roof and windows. A snap of lightning brightened the edges of the shaded window. He sighed, and memories of Kasper Jacobsen popped into his head, a night inside the little prison when the lightning had brightened the barred windows, and Kasper’s torture had let up long enough for something even more wretched.

  Kasper had dogged him from Scotland’s Tayvallich Bay to the bleak, polar nights of Norway. He had killed people Devin loved and would do it again, as soon as the opportunity arose. He knew Kasper had finally found his way to Charlestowne.

  It had been so long, Devin had actually grown comfortable in the idea he had shaken Kasper from his heels, thinking that perhaps he had been killed. Now, he needed to be on his guard with Susan. He slipped his hand under the waistband of his shorts and fingered the raised scar on his lower belly, that ugly spiraling sun. What a joke, to be burdened with a symbol of something he would never again set eyes on. He considered running like the coward he felt he was, but Kasper would keep coming until one of them was dead.