Darklands: a vampire's tale

by Donna Burgess

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said.

  “I can’t believe you’re still here,” she answered. “I told you to go home.”

  He snatched up one of the tattered quilts from his makeshift bed on the sofa and spread it out on the dusty carpet in front of the fireplace. The fire had caught nicely, and the room was already becoming warmer. “Here, sit. I know how cold-natured you are.”

  “Not so much, anymore,” she told him, even as she shivered beneath her coat, unsure if it was from anxiety or the chilly house. She had not been out alone since her meeting with Kasper. She folded her legs under her and sat down. Michael pulled off his coat, tossed it to the sofa and plopped down next to her.

  “Your friend John paid me a visit. That’s how I found out you were missing. I thought the old bugger was going to kill me.” Michael chuckled nervously. “You’ve made quite an impression on him, apparently.”

  Are you sleeping with him, too?

  Susan extracted the thought from the back of Michael’s mind and bristled, but said nothing. With men, it always came down to petty jealousy. Even when the issues were enormous, it all ended up as some sort of prehistoric competition.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Sorry? Why are you sorry? I thought you had been killed.” He looked at her, the glow of the fire making him appear warm but a little haunted. “I couldn’t leave here until I knew. Then, I heard some talk—that you had managed to get away.”

  “Never underestimate the power of a woman,” Susan joked. She didn’t know what else to say, and things were already becoming too heavy. She had come to say goodbye, nothing more. She needed to see Michael and end things before he ended up as some Deathwalker’s next meal. He was not cut from the same cloth as those who survived in Charlestowne. He was too soft. He was going to end up damaged, if he survived. He would never be the same man after the things he had witnessed since coming there.

  Michael already looked different, and it wasn’t just the fact that he needed a trim and a shave. Susan could count the few times she had seen Michael looking less than perfect; most of the time, he appeared ready for rounds at the hospital. Now he was unkempt, wild-eyed. He had lost weight, and his cheekbones and the hollows of his eyes cast deep shadows.

  More than once, Susan picked up on the name Sandra floating around the vortex of his brain. Blood. There was a despair that had something to do with not only the strange woman, but her, as well. It was as if Michael had drawn some kind of connection between the two of them. She wanted to ask, but thought better of it. Susan didn’t like imposing into Michael’s head. She felt like a voyeur, but there were too many strange things going on in there not to stay for a while and take a look. Kasper and a dark road between on the edge of the city. Michael wondering about Kasper even now—was he a vampire?

  What had Kasper done to her? Had he raped her?

  “To answer your questions, Michael, yes, Kasper is a vampire. I believe he let you live because he picked up on the chance that you might somehow lead him to Devin, through me.” Finally, she added, “And yes.”

  Michael stared straight ahead into the fire, his jaw clenched tightly. He fetched a couple of beers from a sack on the floor near them, twisted away the tops and handed Susan one.

  “Can you still drink beer?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she told him, although she didn’t have the taste for it she once had. She didn’t want to appear completely foreign to him.

  They didn’t speak for a time, and Susan continued to prowl around in his thoughts, which became increasingly darker and agitated, although outwardly, he remained calm. After a while, he reached out, took her hand in his, and kissed her fingers.

  “No, you cannot go and try to kill Kasper.”

  “Stay out of my head, will you?”

  Susan laughed and pecked his cheek with a kiss. “But it’s so entertaining.”

  “I’m glad you haven’t always been able to read minds.” Michael smiled, but his eyes were wet. “You would have slapped me on our first date.”

  “I don’t know. I might have found it flattering. Besides, I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what you were thinking.”

  “I’m that obvious?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Then, I suppose you know what I am thinking now,” Michael challenged.

  Susan placed her fingertips to her temples and feigned deep concentration. Are you coming home? Do you even love me anymore? Are you going to drink my blood?Do you even have any control over it? Where’s McCree? Susan finally forced herself to block him out, as if placing her hands up to stifle a speaking mouth. She sighed, pulled him to her and kissed him hard.

  “You’re good,” he whispered. He brought his hands to the front of her shirt and began to unbutton it.

  Susan leaned back onto her elbows and tossed her hair back from her. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with dead things?”

  He stopped, frowning deeply. “Don’t say that, Susan.” He cupped her face in his cold hands and kissed her. “See? You’re warm.” Pushing open her shirt, Michael kissed her neck and then lower. His lips lingered on the place over her heart. “I feel your heart beating. No dead thing has a heartbeat.”

  “You’d be surprised by what dead things can do, Michael.”

  “Show me, then,” he dared.

  Loving the challenge, she aggressively kissed him again, her damp lips crushing against his, her tongue invading his mouth, tasting him. She dipped into his head again, but things had already become hazier, distracted by the prospect of sex, the prospect of taking her back home.

  Maybe things can be the way they were.

  Susan broke the kiss long enough to mutter against his cheek, “It can’t ever be the way it was, Michael. Just live in the moment for once. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he agreed. She knew he couldn’t, though. Michael was a thinker and a planner.

  Frantically, they stripped away their clothes. Michael ran his hands over the sharp angles of her ribs and across her taut belly. Susan lapped at his face, at the salty perspiration on his skin, and found it almost as delightful as the taste of his blood, but not quite. Her hunger swelled so quickly, even she was surprised. She bit his nipples and tugged at the hair there with her teeth.

  She suckled at his throat, bringing his blood to the surface. She tasted him through the soft barrier of his skin. Her teeth scratched his neck, and she pulled back. She could end this tonight. She could finish Michael off and return to Devin’s bed. Nobody would ever know. Her guilt, her fear over Michael’s well-being and the constant questions—all of it could be over in a quick bite and twist of her head. She could hold him against her and feel his dying spasms grow weaker and weaker, his heart tiring, until there was nothing left of him but a sack made of flesh and filled with bone.

  When he entered her, she could hold back no longer. She bit into his throat, and his blood flooded her mouth, like hot oil. It spilled over her lips and onto her chin. Careful not to take too much, she drew away. His mouth fell on hers and he drank his own blood from her lips.

  Too quickly, his movements became rapid as he chased his orgasm. Susan hooked her legs tight around his waist and maneuvered herself on top of him. She wanted to be in control. She locked her mouth over the bleeding gash in Michael’s neck and continued to rock against him.

  Susan sat up and watched Michael’s face as he came. His eyes fluttered closed, and his mouth softened. He arched his back and drove deep into her. This sent her over the edge, and she collapsed on top of him in a breathless heap.

  ***

  “What is it like?” Michael asked suddenly.

  Susan started. “What?” She thought he was dozing.

  “You know. The whole vampire thing. What’s it like?”

  She considered it a moment and then said, “I miss the sunshine.”

  Michael nodded. “Maybe we can find a cure. I have access to any equipment we would need.”

 
Susan sat up and pulled away from him. “Cure? This isn’t a fucking illness, Michael. It’s a gift.” She stood up and began snatching up her clothes. “I knew I should have never bothered with this,” she muttered.

  Michael got up, pulled on his jeans and then tugged his sweater over his head. “Tell me how you can think this is a gift? You cower away from the sun. You murder.”

  “I live forever.” She turned to him and almost smiled despite her anger. He looked like a little boy, wide-eyed, hair in funky little spikes.

  Michael laughed bitterly. “Why would anyone want that?”

  “Cynical much?” she laughed, relishing what she was about to tell him. “With that one little bite, do you know what I did to you?”

  Michael’s eyes widened and he touched his throat, his fingers smearing a thin trail of blood across his neck. Absently, he wiped his hand on the ass of his jeans. “What? What did you do?”

  “Look at me. I have scarcely aged in twenty years, since the time Devin first drank my blood.”

  Michael said nothing.

  “When you’re eighty, you’ll hardly be any different than you are tonight.”

  She seized his high frequency thought. Oh, this is bullshit.

  “I—” he began.

  “It’s not bullshit, Michael,” she interrupted. “Consider it one of the little perks of fucking a dead woman.”

  He winced both inwardly and outwardly at this, and Susan smiled. “Now, I need to get back before the sun comes up, unless you’d like to sweep up my ashes and carry those back with you.”

  “Susan, please,” he took her arm. “Don’t go back to him.”

  “Devin is what I am. Go home, Michael. Please, before you get killed.” She kissed him, her lips lingering on his a moment longer than she should have allowed. “Your mind is already fucked up. Get out before it gets worse.”

  ***

  **pter fifty-oneeted business tShe had parked the Rover in the carport beneath the house, well-hidden behind the overgrowth of shrubs and weeds, and now she started it and backed out, holding back a flood of tears. She sped away from the shoreline, back toward home and Devin.

  Overhead, the early morning sky became a patchwork of orange and purple. As she turned onto Magazine Street, she saw the lights brightening the windows of the lower offices. John waited for her.

  She parked and sprinted up the side porch and into the foyer, where he indeed hovered by the door.

  “Where the hell were you?”

  “Don’t, John. I’m tired.” She brushed past him and up the stairs with John lumbering at her heels like a suspicious father.

  “Well, I’m tired, too.”

  She turned back to him and laughed. “No one asked you to wait up.”

  “You must realize—“

  I was scared out of my wits.

  Susan stopped a moment, touched by his thoughts. She stepped back down the. Standing on tiptoes, she planted a soft kiss on his cheek. “Thanks.”

  “Just don’t do it again.” He touched her shoulder, this time speaking to her with his mind, rather than his lips. Is it over?

  “It’s over,” she assured him.

  John sighed. “Good. I’m not sure I could hide it from Devin any longer.”

  Soon after she had drifted away to sleep, she felt Devin climb under the covers beside her. He snuggled close against her back and snaked his big arms around her. Relief flooded her mind, and instantly she was fully awake again. Had he seen Kasper, or was he merely biding his time, pretending to search for him?

  “I want us to leave here, Susan,” he whispered.

  “Good.” Susan turned and kissed him. “I’m ready.”

  “I am, too.”

  chapter fifty-one

  Kasper could not believe his good fortune. John Moses strolled along Benjamin Avenue. Devin and that little bitch were nowhere in sight.

  At first, he was not quite sure it was even the same man. The last time he had set eyes on him was sometime around the time he had decided to burn up Moses’ Deathwalking bitch of a wife. He had not changed that much; he had obviously accepted the vampire’s kiss. Just as obviously, he had never had the balls to go all the way. Still, the old man had gotten the best of the passing time rather than the other way around. Distinguished in his long camel coat, he was wide-shouldered and walked very erect. His trimmed beard showed flecks of grey, but the lines that touched the corners of his eyes were faint. He did not appear to be somewhere around one hundred and twenty years old.

  He was as vulnerable as a babe in arms.

  Moses rounded the corner onto Bates Avenue where ancient brick facades lined a narrow two-lane avenue. Most of the shops and businesses had closed long ago. The ones that remained were there because they drew a strange and eclectic clientele, and that was about all that was left in Charlestowne.

  He slipped inside Tillie’s Attic, an antique dealer for regular patrons with a voodoo shop in the rear for those who preferred the darker arts. Kasper knew the place well enough. Old trunks and cabinets and art deco chairs cluttered the front section of the place, but the fragrances of clove and patchouli incense floated through the doors emptying into the back area. A woman could not make a living pushing antiques; it was good to have a sideline in a city like Charlestowne.

  Tillie was an obese woman of sixty, if Kasper guessed conservatively. She was of African-American heritage, but her complexion was as pale as a newt’s belly. She had claimed to have a remedy for blood addiction, which turned out to be bullshit. Kasper should have drained her when he woke up and found he was still thirsty for blood.

  He did not know why he had allowed her to live. Perhaps it was reading her brain, which was as cluttered with muddled notions as her little store. He knew she sincerely wanted to help. He had let her be and told her to keep working on it.

  Kasper lingered outside and peered through a dusty window. It was drizzling, and he pulled his hood up over his head and cast his face into shadows. He caressed his gun beneath his coat like an old lover.

  John Moses was not interested in the dark arts, as it turned out. He did not vanish into one of the mysterious backrooms, instead browsing the main part of the shop. Tillie waddled over to him and pecked both of his cheeks.

  They moved to a glass counter that housed all sorts of trinkets, necklaces and bracelets. Kasper had once purchased a pair of emerald earrings for his beloved Lexi at that same counter. She was wearing them when she killed herself.

  Tillie squeezed behind the counter. She laughed robustly, but Kasper did not bother to try and listen in. Trivial chit-chat. She then spread out a square of black cloth, brought out several pieces of jewelry and displayed them against the black. Moses bent over them a moment and then picked up a bracelet.

  Kasper grew tired of watching and turned back toward the street to wait for John Moses.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, Moses emerged from the shop with a small pouch in hand. He shoved it into the pocket of his coat, then flipped up his collar against the cold. He headed north on the sparsely crowded sidewalk. Kasper fell in behind him at a safe distance of about a dozen feet. Even from there, he could probe inside Moses’ thoughts like flipping through pages of a book. Gritting his teeth, he squeezed the gun through the pocket of his coat.

  Susan. Will she like the bracelet? Will it make Devin angry? I don’t really care at this point.

  Kasper smiled tightly. There was some tension among the comrades. He picked up his pace a little and levitated above the pavement an inch or so, careful not to allow the snap of his boots on the sidewalk to alert the old man.

  These thoughts were petty; it seemed a waste of resources. But he would get more. At the moment, he had gotten plenty. Time was short. They were planning to flee. He could not allow that to happen. He might lose track of Devin forever. Vengeance was a good catalyst for living. Their little game made eternity less boring.

  Moses was not thinking of much now, just a flash of Susan. Had she kissed hi
m? The cold. He wanted to hurry and find a bit of warmth and a glass of scotch. He loved the woman, but he loved her in silence. He would not challenge Devin. He was resigned to simply being near her. Kasper marveled at this meek existence.

  Moses shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets and wove through a gathering of five or six scraggly young people loitering outside a dank beer pub and eatery. Kasper snatched a thought of going inside for that coveted drink, but instead Moses continued walking.

  Kasper smirked beneath his hood at the old man with a bad case of puppy love. But if there was any compassion left inside him, he had saved it for the old man. He had, after all, burned his beloved wife alive.

  He closed in to only an arm’s length from the man’s wide back. His heart thudded with anticipation, his breath hanging at his lips in the cold air. Would Moses lead him to Devin? Would killing him on the street for all to see bring Devin from hiding? Would he finally unleash the wrath he had so desired when he had tortured Susan? He had never pegged Devin for the coward he had become.

  Perhaps Moses would lead him to their home. What an incredible secret that had been all these years! He would burn it to the ground.

  The number of bodies thinned, and soon they were alone on the street. Kasper allowed himself to return to the pavement, and his boot heels clacked hard, echoing like a gunshot.

  The old man bristled; it was nearly imperceptible, but there all the same. Dull dread clouded his mind. He walked on. He did not turn around, but he knew. This part of the game was nearly over.

  “Moses?” Kasper called. He stopped, waited.

  Moses’ shoulders, so squared before, slumped as if a weight had been leveled onto his back. “Yes, Kasper?” He turned slowly.

  Seeing Kasper lit something in the old man, and his hatred radiated from him in waves. Lillian, and then Susan. All the pain he had caused them. All the pain he had caused him.