by P. Mattern
Somehow keeping her own counsel made it all the more satisfying. It was a shame that Ian had seemingly disappeared, she reflected. She would have given him a rare second turn on her sexual merry-go-round.
Blue stood in the upstairs hallway of the cottage looking at himself in the hallway mirror. It was a huge thing - about 8 feet tall by three feet wide, and because it was too tall for the upstairs ceiling it had to be turned on its side where it took up a substantial amount of wall space.
Blue thought that it looked like it was an artifact that originally had been part of the furnishings of a castle. He had noticed that Fress’s eclectic mix of furnishings included the very modern, along with Victorian antiques and additional pieces, like the mirror, that seemed to belong to the most ancient of times. There was a small chair in the foyer of the cottage that shone like pure gold and was intricately inlaid with lapis lazuli and other gemstones. The lamp that was suspended over the granite kitchen island was a huge frosted glass globe that seemed like a miniature moon. Everything he’d seen and everything about his new life at the cottage seemed to take his breath away.
And as he stood looking at himself in the hall mirror he was also impressed, this time with himself. In his new finery that Fress had purchased for him he felt like a new vampire - His hair was trimmed, he was wearing a casual shirt with a flattering fit, and khaki cargo shorts. He slipped on the Rayban sunglasses that Fress had also insisted upon and struck a pose.
“Yo we be COOL!” he said to his reflection” Stylin’ and profilin’! Gettin’ our Pimp on! “
And as an added affirmation,
“WHO”S IN THE HOUSE? Why, BLUE IN THE HIZZY Y’ALL! REPRESENTIN!”
Hearing a muffled giggle behind him he turned around to see a young woman with fushia hair and huge golden eyes staring at him with her hand over her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she said ,”Fress just sent me upstairs to get some linens! My name is Noraleen - everyone just calls me Nora.”
As he felt himself flushing and wondering exactly how long the girl had been standing there he awkwardly stuck his hand out toward her.
“Pleased to meet you, my name is Blue. I’m new I guess.”
The girl laughed – it was a kind, easy, friendly laugh.
“You SURE ARE -“blue” I mean!!! Even for a vampire you are pale! Goodness!”
Blue flushed a little, giving his skin a lilac cast around the edges. He looked down into the girl’s golden eyes and suddenly they both burst out laughing, which told him she had seen him posing in front of the mirror. And her laughter, he noticed, wasn’t a bit derisive. Instead it seemed that she was laughing WITH him.
“That’s okay,” she said when they’d both caught their breath. ”I do that too, practice in front of the mirror. When I came to town two weeks ago Fress took me under her wing also - brought me clothes, took me to Dr. Caligare to make sure, found me a place to stay with a friend of hers. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.”
Blue had picked up on a sentence fragment in the young lady’s commentary.
“Nora you said Dr. Caligare checked to make sure… checked to make sure of what?”
“That I was a vampire,” Nora answered without hesitation. ”I was attacked… I guess they call that V-raped. I was on my way home from partying, living downtown with a group of’ drop out’ friends of mine. I was REALLY messed up, mixing booze and pills. I’d broken up with my boyfriend back in the club when he started making out with one of my best friends. I don’t know why girls get mad at girls all the time for that stuff - I mean they act like the guy was brainless or got taken advantage of which is utter bull shit!
Anyway,” she continued, looking up at Blue who appeared to be totally engrossed in her little tale.
“I stormed out of there and then realized that I was so high that I was disoriented-all the streets looked alike and I had wandered far enough away from the club so that I hesitated to turn around and try to go back. I kept walking, hoping that something would look familiar.
I was cutting through an alleyway and I saw someone in a hoody coming toward me, looked like a tall guy. I may have been high but I SWEAR to you that his eyes glowed silver, shiny, like his irises were metallic - like dimes or something. I was trying to hurry past him but he grabbed the back of my jean jacket and yanked me around.
For some reason I couldn’t look at his face. I was more than just afraid - I kept thinking that if I looked up at his face, even once, then I would die.
I was so scared I turned my head and started vomiting, trying to miss my Chuck Taylor unisex sneakers that were almost new. I thought I heard him laughing as I was barfing.
It never occurred to me to scream. Not once.
My head cleared after I finished, and he gathered me closely against him. I still couldn’t look at him .But I heard him say in a deep voice, ”Close your eyes.”
I thought that he was going to rape me, right there in the alley. And I think that he did… oh, what’s the word… ’fondle’ me a little, like he was checking to make sure that I was female. Then he pushed my forehead back until my neck was exposed.
And then he bit me. Hard. I felt like two sharp knives were slicing me open. I bled like a stuck pig… blood was just flowing down my neck all the way past the bottom of my halter top to my navel!
I was weak when he left me… just sitting with my back against the bricks of a building, waiting to die, and then I saw a beautiful face, and heard a kind voice. And then I felt myself lifted off the cement and into the air.
I thought she was an angel. I looked above me and saw stars. I thought she was taking me home to God.
“But it was Fress!” she finished, jumping a little in her enthusiasm, ”And here I am!”
There was silence for a moment, and then Blue exhaled in one noisy prolonged breath.
“WOW!” he said, his eyes opening wide, ”That was an amazing, amazing story. So you’re a –“
“Vampire too.” She finished for him, not the least bit reticent about saying it aloud at all. She confirmed it with nonchalance and just a hint of pride, like a human girl announcing that she was, indeed, head cheerleader.
“I was attacked too.” Blue confessed, encouraged by Nora’s own story and feeling comfortable enough to open up and tell something of himself. ”I was hunting in the woods. A rogue vampire attacked my parents and then found me… I guess he was already kind of full, and since I’m too big to drink in one gulp, I survived!”
Nora looked at him for a nanosecond before she started laughing again, and Blue joined in.
“Blue you are FUNNY!“ She commented, flipping her fushia locks behind her shoulders, then reaching in her back pocket to grab a scrunchy to twist her hair up with.
“Tell you what,” she continued.”Fress lets me come here a few times a week to do yoga in the upstairs study. Sometimes she does it with me, so there’s an extra mat or two there… would you like to join me? I know quite a few positions and there are some yoga instructional DVD’s up there also!”
Blue gulped and then decided to go for it. Nora was quirky and endearing and he was growing quickly fond of her.
“Sure!” He answered brightly, and was surprised when she slipped her hand in his and pulled him down the hall excitedly, giggling, as if she enjoyed his company… and as if he didn’t weigh anything at all.
It was the third morning after Daniel had walked in on his mother Dendra and the Murdant creature. As Dendra entered the sunny yellow kitchen Daniel was frowning into a bowl of frosted flakes. Dendra poured herself a cup of coffee with sugar, no cream and sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the table from where Daniel was sitting. As usual, since her Turning, she looked not a day over 30 and gorgeous in a way that few females are, especially early in the morning.
“Good morning!” she said brightly, knowing he was in a mood but unable to resist prodding a response from him. It had been two days since they’d spoken and she had had the impression that he’d b
een avoiding her.
In truth he had. Sitting across from her glowering down into his cereal bowl he had so much to say that he couldn’t actually trust himself to speak. Knowing that she was waiting for a response of some kind, he mumbled, ”Good morning yourself.”
Dendra looked at Daniel. He had always been a beautiful young man, but with his paler vampire skin and deeply grey eyes he was now strikingly beautiful. He had taken after her, with his dark coloring his features even and his eyes almond shaped. She was proud of him, and strangely possessive of him.
They had always been close, particularly after the divorce, when it seemed that all they had was each other. And Daniel, even as a child, had appreciated his mother’s strength and devotion to him. But the images that had filled his mind unbidden the past few days were images of his mother that no child, even though grown up, should have among their vivid memories.
Since Daniel had given her an opening, Dendra decided to plunge right in in an attempt to clear the air.
“About the other night,” she began, ”I –“
Before she could continue Daniel slammed his spoon down on the table, wiped his mouth and rose to leave.
Dendra arose quickly also, causing her coffee to splash into the saucer underneath.
“Daniel STOP IT!” She cried, frustrated at his behavior. ”What’s gotten into you? I didn’t ask you to invade my privacy! That was YOUR doing. I’m sorry you … saw what you saw, but I’m entitled to live the way I choose. I don’t question YOUR choices…”
Finally he was looking into her eyes and she instantly regretted provoking the conversation. He looked furious, his grey eyes nearly black and his eyebrows knit together in a thunderous frown.
“Mother we are BOTH vampires, creatures of the night… and some call us The Damned - but I have NEVER consorted with the kind of dark entities that you are summoning here, into our HOME. Do you have any idea how dangerous what you’re doing is? I’d rather have a CRACK WHORE as a mother!”
Dendra was shocked at the venom in his diatribe - but also offended at his judgmental tone.
“How DARE you judge me Daniel Cook!!!!! I didn’t do anything but raise you for years and years and now that I finally have a life of my OWN you presume to judge me! Well, I’m not having it!”
Daniel wasn’t backing down.
“MOTHER! Dendra! Look at me carefully because not only am I your caring loyal son but an energy who is your SENIOR in the Vampire phylum… yes, I will do anything including pulling rank to get you to listen to me! WHAT YOU’VE BEEN INTO LATELY IS NOT COOL!!!! Even as a twice-bitten I know that if you pull the darkest ones into this dimension enough times they can start to come and go as they please!”
A note of desperation had crept into his voice. He reached across the table to grab his mother’s arm.
“PLEASE MOTHER! You don’t want any part of that stuff .PROMISE ME!” He finished.
Dendra jerked her arm out of his grasp using all of her vampire strength. As she faced him he was shocked to note that her fangs had started to descend. He had never actually seen his mother in full vampire mode. She looked vicious, dangerous, and bloodthirsty.
It was shocking. More of a shock than having seen her naked recently.
Her voice was tremulous, deeper than usual and seemed to reverberate around the kitchen.
“Do not PRESUME to tell me what I can and can’t do, Daniel Cook! I have spent YEARS doing what was best for YOU - it’s high time I do what’s best for me!!!
And you can’t stop me now - I am a TWICE-BITTEN as of last night. BY MY CHOICE! “
As if for emphasis, if not also to prove her point, she tore open the front of her dressing gown. Her breasts were full, creamy and perfect, and above the left areole on one side were the distinctive marks of a recent fanging.
Not able to bear what he was seeing, Daniel turned his head to the side, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Who was it mother?” He asked in a strained voice. “Anyone we know? EVERYONE we know?
Or do you even know yourself? It must be difficult to keep track!” He added, unable to help himself.
As if on cue a tall, handsome, muscular vampire with brown hair arranged in studied disarray entered the kitchen, standing just behind Dendra. With a shock Daniel recognized him as the drummer in Orry’s band.
“Hello Daniel.” The vampire said, smiling pleasantly. ”I don’t know if you remember me. I play in Orry’s band. Drums. Jake Bouvier.”
The young vamp held out his hand but Daniel, gorge rising in his throat, refused to take it. Quickly he gathered up his backpack from the floor underneath his chair, and without meeting his mother’s eyes, said hurriedly, “I have to get going. Mother I’ll be moving out so Jake can have my room. I’ll come back for my things some other time.”
As he slipped his arms into the straps of his backpack he lifted his gaze to Dendra one last time. There was anger in his eyes, and beneath that, hurt.
“You win mother.” Daniel said bitterly as he strode purposefully toward the front door, his head held high, turning just before he left to add one parting comment.
“You always do.”
Cory and Absolam were sitting under an apple tree, with Buttercup sitting at a short distance away, taking turns reading from Ab’s copy of Sam Saddlebags, trying to take parts so that their reading aloud sounded like a play. One twin was having a wonderful time. He’d wanted the other twin to take all the female parts and read them in a high falsetto voice, but initially his twin had refused, so the twin had reached over and touched his brother on the shoulder with the hand that Adrastos had written the magick rune on, and said the magick word to make him do his bidding.
The twin using the magick had been surprised and delighted when his brother immediately began doing as he had requested, taking all the female character parts and doing a bang up - and hilarious - job of it.
It was hot, just hot enough so that the twins, gazing over at the tumbling stream flowing through the property, decided that they wanted to jump into it in order to cool off. Mitzi often allowed the twins to wade into the stream, splashing each other and drying off quickly afterwards. But one of the twins was in the mood to do it differently today.
He wanted to swim naked.
He walked confidently over to where Buttercup sat reading a book at the picnic table, and noted with some amusement that it was one of those romance novels with a torrid cover picturing a knight errant ravishing a beautiful young woman with long golden hair, her voluptuous breasts popping out of her bodice.
“Buttercup,” he said, giving her his most imploring wide-eyed little boy look, ”Can we please play in the water now?”
Buttercup smiled at him fondly.
“Of course you may, just don’t splash each other too hard - and no dunking! That’s what your mother said!”
He looked down for a moment and then looked back up into the wetnurse’s eyes.
“Today brother and I want to swim naked… without our clothes. Is that okay?”
As soon as the Magick wielding twin saw a start of surprise in Buttercup’s innocent eyes he touched her knee with his hand and whispered the word that Adrastos had taught him.
“Impleo” he said quietly. ”Please.”
Slowly Buttercup, looking somewhat confused, nodded.
“Well I suppose that would be fine, just this once mind you! “ She answered, still looking disoriented.
He wasted no time in running back to his brother.
“Brother!” He shouted, “Buttercup says we can swim naked today! Hurry up!”
Whooping, the twins hurried to the bank of the stream, quickly stripping off their clothing onto a flat, sun warmed rock, and giving rebel yells before splashing out into the water.
The twins were about 6 and a half months now, the equivalent of nearly 7 years old in human years. Both were strong and tall for their age, and Cory’s hair had gotten lighter and lighter to the point of being nearly a match for Absolams.
>
Watching them cavort in the stream, Buttercup mused that, excepting for their periodically naughty behavior, they could have been wingless angelic beings, and they were so beautiful. She sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction.
Buttercup rarely questioned or reflected upon her situation in life at any point. But today she was aware that she was happier than she’d ever been. She loved Mitzi-and Cass had nearly returned to himself and was keeping Mitzi very happy. When Mitzi was happy Buttercup felt as though everything was right with the world. On top of that, the twins were an added blessing that she couldn’t have imagined or hoped for, and she loved both of them dearly, considering caring for and looking out for them a sacred trust that she was glad to devote herself to. And she had a secret.
She, Buttercup, was the only being that could tell them apart by sire - her heightened olfactory sense, especially after having lived at Faquier Hall, gifted her with the ability to tell which twin was the sire of Castor Noble, and smelled of the ocean (as did his father), and which was the sire of Lord Earl Adrastos and smelled (but only to her) of wintergreen and myrr.
And as far as she could tell, both twins were good and loving offspring. A bit mischievous to be sure, a bit cocky and precocious for their age - but, in her opinion, good boys both.
Buttercup smiled as she watched the twins cavort. Her heart’s wish was that they be loved equally and grow up in the loving home that all children deserve.
As far as which of the gentlemen vampires had sired which twin, she was determined-for always - to keep her own counsel on that particular matter.
It was the fourth day of his incarceration and Ian was starting to feel ill at ease. Some instinct told him that there was something wrong with the blood his captors so carefully meted out at intervals. Life in the goldfish bowl didn’t suit him. He was horrifically bored, bored enough to ask for a cigarette, which his captors kept offering him periodically along with gum, candy, and pornographic magazines.
