The feeling of ill ease rises in me again. Vampires dislike such obvious lairs. Hell, these aren’t the Middle Ages. They don’t have to hang out in ruined monasteries and family mausoleums anymore—not that there are any to be found in the US, anyhow. No, contemporary bloodsuckers prefer to dwell within warehouse lofts or abandoned industrial complexes, even condos. I tracked one dead boy to ground in an inner-city hospital that had been shut down during the Reagan administration and left to rot. I suspect I’ll have to start investigating the various military bases scheduled for shutdown for signs of infestation within a year or two.
As I watch the little group troop inside the church, there is only one thing I know for certain: if I want to know what’s going down here, I better get inside. I circle around the building, keeping to the darkest shadows, my senses alert for signs of the usual sentinels that guard a vampire’s lair, such as ogres and renfields. Normally vampires prefer to keep their bases covered. Ogres for physical protection, renfields—warped psychics—to protect them against psionic attacks from rival bloodsuckers.
I reach out with my mind as I climb up the side of the church, trying to pick up the garbled snarl of ogre-thought or the telltale dead space of shielded minds that accompany renfields, but all my sonar picks up is the excited heat of the foursome I trailed from the Red Raven and a slightly more complex signal from deeper inside the church. Curiouser and curiouser.
The spire doesn’t house a bell, just a rusting Korean War–era public address system dangling from frayed wires. As it is, there is barely enough room for a man to stand, much less ring, but at least the trapdoor isn’t locked. It opens with a tight squeal of disused hinges, but nothing stirs in the shadows at the foot of the ladder below. Within seconds I find myself with the best seat in the house, crouched in the rafters spanning the nave.
The interior of the church looks appropriately atmospheric. What pews remain are in disarray, the hymnals tumbled from their racks and spilled across the floor. Saints, apostles and prophets stare down from the windows, gesturing with upraised shepherd’s crooks or hands bent into the sign of benediction. I lift my own mirrored gaze to the mullion window located above and behind the pulpit. It depicts a snowy lamb kneeling on a field of green and framed against a cloudless sky, in which a shining disc is suspended. The large brass cross just below the sheep-window has been inverted, in keeping with the desecration motif.
The only light is provided by a pair of heavy cathedral-style candelabra, each bristling with over a hundred dripping red and black candles, flanking either side of the pulpit. The Goth kids from the Red Raven gather at the chancel rail, their faces turned toward the pulpit situated above the black-velvet-draped altar.
“Where is he?” whispers Shawna, her voice surprisingly loud in the empty church.
“Don’t worry,” Tanith assures her. “He’ll be here.”
As if on cue, there is the smell of ozone and a gout of purplish smoke arises from behind the pulpit. Shawna gives a little squeal of surprise despite herself and takes an involuntary step backward, only to find her way blocked by the others.
A deep, highly cultured masculine voice booms forth. “Good evening, my children. I bid you welcome to my abode, and that you enter gladly and of your own free will.”
The smoke clears, revealing a tall man dressed in tight-fitting black satin pants, a black silk poet’s shirt, black leather English riding boots, and a long black opera cape with a red silk lining. His hair is long and dark, pulled back into a loose ponytail by a red satin ribbon. His skin is as white as milk in a saucer, his eyes reflecting red in the dim candlelight. Lord Rhymer has finally elected to make his appearance.
Serge smiles nervously at his demon lord and steps forward, gesturing to Shawna as Tanith and Sable watch expectantly. “W-we did as you asked, master. We brought you the girl.”
Lord Rhymer smiles slightly, his eyes narrowing at the sight of her.
“Ah, yesss. The new girl.”
Shawna stands there gaping up at the vampire lord as if he were Jim Morrison, Robert Smith, and Danzig rolled into one. She starts, gasping more in surprise than fright, as Rhymer addresses her directly.
“Your name is Shawna, is it not?”
“Y-yes.” Her voice is so tiny it makes her sound like a little girl. But there is nothing childlike in the lust dancing in her eyes.
Lord Rhymer holds out a pale hand to the trembling young woman. His fingernails are long and pointed and lacquered black. He smiles reassuringly, his voice calm and strong, designed to sway those of weaker nature.
“Come to me, Shawna. Come to me, so that I might kiss you.”
A touch of apprehension crosses the girl’s face. She hesitates, glancing at the others, who close in about her even tighter than before.
“I … I don’t know.”
Rhymer narrows his blood-red eyes, intensifying his stare. His voice grows sterner, revealing its cold edge. “Come to me, Shawna.”
All the tension in her seems to drain away and Shawna’s eyes grow even more vacant than before, if possible. She moves forward, slowly mounting the stairs to the pulpit. Rhymer holds his arms out to greet her.
“That’s it, my dear. Come to me as you have dreamed, so many times before …” Rhymer steps forward to meet her, the cape outstretched between his arms like the wings of a giant bat. His smile widens and his mouth opens, exposing pearly white fangs dripping saliva. His voice has been made husky by lust.
“Come to me, my bride …”
Shawna grimaces in pain and pleasure as Rhymer’s fangs penetrate her throat. Even from my shadowy perch above it all I can smell the sharp tang of blood, and feel a dark stirring at the base of my brain, which I quickly push aside. I don’t need that kind of trouble—not now. Still, I find it hard to look away from the tableau below me.
Rhymer holds Shawna tight against him. She whimpers as if on the verge of orgasm. The blood rolling down her throat and dripping into the pale swell of her cleavage is as sticky and dark as spilled molasses.
Rhymer draws back, smiling smugly as he wipes the blood off his chin. “It is done. You are now bound to me by blood and the strength of my immortal will.”
Shawna’s lids flutter and she seems to have a little trouble focusing her eyes. She touches her bloodied neck and stares at her red-stained finger for a long moment. “Wow …” She steps back, a dazed, post-orgasmic look on her face. She staggers slightly as she moves to rejoin the others, one hand still clamped over her bruised and bleeding throat. Tanith and Sable eagerly step forward to help their new sister, their hands quickly disappearing up her skirt as they steady her, cooing encouragement in soothing voices.
“Welcome to the family, Shawna,” Sable whispers, kissing first her cheek, then tonguing her ear lobe.
“You’re one of us, now and forever,” Tanith purrs, giving Shawna a probing kiss while scooping her breasts free of her blouse. Sable presses even closer, licking at the blood smearing Shawna’s neck. Serge stands off to one side, nervously chewing a thumbnail and occasionally brushing his forelock out of his face. Every few seconds his eyes flicker from the girls to Lord Rhymer, who stands in the pulpit, smiling and nodding his approval. After a few more moments of groping and gasping, the three women begin undressing one another in earnest, their moans soon mixed with nervous giggles. Black leather and lace drop away, revealing black fishnet stockings and garter belts and crotchless underwear. At the sight of Shawna’s pubic thatch—mousy brown, as opposed to her fluorescent red locks—Serge’s eyes widen and his nostrils flare. He looks to Rhymer, who nods and gestures languidly with one taloned hand that the boy has his permission to join the orgy.
Serge fumbles with his ornate silver belt buckle, which hits the wooden floor with a solid clunk! I lift an eyebrow in surprise. While Serge is thin to the point of emaciation, I must admit the boy’s hung like a stallion. Sable mutters something into Serge’s ear that makes him laugh just before he plants his lips against her own blood-smeared mout
h. Tanith, her eyes heavy-lidded and her lips pulled into a lascivious grin, reaches around from behind to stroke him to full erection.
Serge breaks free of his embrace with Sable and turns to lift Shawna in his arms, carrying her to the black-draped altar, the other girls quickly joining in. There is much biting and raking of exposed flesh with fingernails. Soon they are a mass of writhing naked flesh, giggling and moaning and grunting, the slap of flesh against flesh filling the silent church. And overseeing it all from his place of power is Lord Rhymer, his crimson eyes twinkling in the candlelight as he watches his followers cavorting below him. To his credit, Serge proves himself tireless, energetically rutting with all three girls in various combinations for hours on end.
It isn’t until the stained-glass windows of the church begin to lighten with the coming dawn that it finally comes to an end. The moment Rhymer notices the light coming through one of the windows the smile disappears from his face.
“Enough!” he thunders, causing the others to halt in midlick. “The sun will soon be upon me! It is time for you to leave, my children!”
The Goths pull themselves off and out of each other without a word of complaint and begin to struggle back into their clothes. Once they’re dressed they waste no time hurrying off, taking pains not to look one another in the eye. It is all I can do to suppress a groan of relief as the last of the blood cultists lurches out of the building. I thought those losers were never going to leave!
I check my own watch against the shadows sliding across the floor below me. Now would be a good time to pay a social call on their so-called “master.” I hope he’s in the mood for a little chat before beddy-bye.
Lord Rhymer yawns as he makes his way down the basement stairs. What with the candelabra he’s holding and the flowing a cloak, I’m reminded of Lugosi’s Dracula. But then, Bela Lugosi is dead.
The basement runs the length of the building above it, with a poured concrete floor. Stacks of old hymnals, folding chairs and moldering choir robes have been pushed into the corners. A rosewood casket with a maroon velvet lining rests atop a pair of sawhorses in the middle of the room. An old-fashioned steamer stands on end nearby.
I watch the vampire lord set the candelabra down and, still yawning, unhook his cape and carefully drape it atop the trunk. If he senses my presence, here in the shadows, he gives no evidence of it in his manner. Smiling crookedly, I deliberately scrape my boot heel against the concrete floor. My smile becomes a grin when he spins around, eyes bugging in fear.
“What—? Who’s there?”
He blinks, genuinely surprised to see me standing to one side of the open casket balanced atop the sawhorse. I’d already caught the telltale smell of it when I first entered the basement, but a quick glance into the casket confirms what I already knew: it’s lined with earth. I reach inside and lift a handful of dirt, allowing it to spill between my splayed fingers. I look up and meet Rhymer’s scarlet gaze.
“Okay, buddy, what the hell are you trying to pull here?”
Rhymer squares his shoulders and pulls himself up to his full height, hissing and exposing his fangs, hooking his fingers into talons. His red eyes glint in the dim light like those of a cornered animal.
I am not impressed.
“Can the Christopher Lee act, asshole! I’m not some Goth chick tripping her brains out! You’re not fooling me for one moment!” I kick the sawhorses out from under the casket, sending it tumbling to the floor, spilling its layer of soil. Rhymer gasps, his eyes darting from the ruined coffin to me and back and again. “Only humans think vampires need to sleep on a layer of their home soil!”
Rhymer tries to regain the momentum by pointing a trembling finger at me, doing his best to sound menacing. “You have defiled the resting place of Rhymer, Lord of the Undead! And for that, woman, you will pay with your life!”
“Oh yeah?” I sneer. “Buddy, I knew Dracula—and, believe me, you ain’t him!”
I move on him so fast it’s like blinking. One moment I’m halfway across the room, the next I’m standing over him, his blood dripping from my knuckles. Rhymer’s lying on the basement floor, dazed and wiping at his gushing mouth and nose. A set of dentures, complete with fangs, lies on the floor beside him. I nudge the upper plate with the toe of my boot, shaking my head in disgust.
“Just what I thought: fake fangs! And the eyes are contact lenses, right? I bet the nails are theatrical quality press-ons, too …”
Rhymer tries to scuttle away from me like a crab, but he’s much too slow. I grab him by the ruff of his poet’s shirt, pulling him to his feet with one quick motion that causes him to yelp in alarm.
“What the fuck are you playing at here? Are you running some kind of scam on these Goth kids?”
Rhymer opens his mouth, and although his lips are moving here’s no sound coming out. At first I think he’s so scared he’s not able to speak—then I realize he’s a serious stutterer when he’s not a vampire.
“I’m n-not a con m-man, if that’s what y-you’re thinking. I’m n-not doing it for m-money!”
“If it’s not for money, then why?” Not that I haven’t known his motivation from the moment I first laid eyes on him. But I want to hear it from his own lips before I make my decision.
“All m-my life I’ve been an outsider. N-no one ever p-paid any attention to m-me. N-not even m-my own p-parents. N-no one ever took me seriously. I was a j-joke and everyone k-knew. The only p-place where I could escape from being m-me was the m-movies. I really admired the v-vampires in the m-movies. They were d-different, too. But n-no one m-made fun of them or ignored them. They were p-powerful and p-people re afraid of them. They c-could m-make w-women do whatever they w-wanted.
“W-when my p-parents died a c-couple of years ago, they left m-me a lot of m-money. So m-much I’d n-never have to work again. An hour after their funeral I w-went to a dentist and had I m-my upper teeth removed and the dentures m-made.
“I always w-wanted to be a v-vampire—and now I had the c-chance to live m-my d-dreams. So I b-bought this old church and s-started hanging out at the Red Raven, looking for the right type of g-girls.
“T-Tanith was the first. Then came S-sable. The rest w-was easy. They w-wanted m-me to b-be real so b-badly, I didn’t even have to p-pretend that m-much. B-but then things started to g-get out of hand. They w-wanted m-me t-to—you know—p-ut my thing in them. B-but m-my thing c-can’t get hard. N-ot with other p-people. I told them it w-was because I w-was dead. So we f-found S-serge. I-I like to w-watch.”
Rhymer fixes one of his rapidly blackening eyes on me. His fear is beginning to give way to curiosity. “B-but w-what difference is any of this to y-you? Are y-you a family m-member? One of S-serge’s ex g-girlfriends?”
I can’t help but laugh as I let go of him, careful to place myself between Rhymer and the exit. He staggers backward and quickly, if inelegantly, puts distance between us. He flinches at the sound of my laughter as if it were a physical blow.
“I knew there was something fishy going on when I spotted the belt buckle on the Goth studmuffin. No self-respecting dead boy in his right mind would let that chunk of silver within a half-mile of his person! And all that hocus-pocus with the smoke and the Black Sabbat folderol! All of it a rank amateur’s impression of what vampires and vampirism is all about, cobbled together from Hammer films and Anton Levy paperbacks! You really are a pathetic little twisted piece of crap, Rhymer—or whatever the hell your real name is! You surround yourself with the icons of darkness and play at damnation; but you don’t recognize the real thing even when it steps forward and bloodies your fuckin’ nose!”
Rhymer stands there for a long moment, then his eyes suddenly widen and he gasps aloud, like a man who has walked into a room and seen someone he has believed long dead. Clearly overcome, he drops to his feet before me, his bloodstained lips quivering uncontrollably.
“You’re real!”
“Get up,” I growl, flashing a glimpse of fang.
Instead of
inspiring fear in Rhymer, all this does is cause him to cry out even louder than before. He is now actually groveling, pawing at my boots as he blubbers.
“At last! I k-knew if I w-waited long enough, one of y-you w-would finally come!”
“I said get up, you little toad-eater!” I kick him away, but it does no good. Rhymer crawls back on his belly, as fast as a lizard on a hot rock. I was afraid something like this would happen.
“I’ll do anything you w-want—give you anything you n-need!” He grabs the cuffs of my jeans, tugging insistently. “B-bite me! Drink my b-blood! Pleeease! M-make me like you!”
As I look down at this wretched human who has lived a life so stunted, his one driving passion is to become a walking dead man, I feel my memory slide back across the years, to the night a foolish young girl, made giddy by the excitement that comes with the pursuit of forbidden pleasures and made stupid by the romance of danger, allowed herself to be lured away from the safety of the herd. I remember how she found herself alone with a blood-eyed monster that hid behind the face of a handsome, booth-talking stranger. I remember how her nude, blood-smeared body was hurled from the speeding car and tossed in the gutter and left for dead. I remember how she was far from dead. I remember how she was me.
I can feel myself trembling like I’ve got a high fever. My disgust has become anger, and I’ve never been very good at controlling my anger. And part of me—a dark, dangerous part—has no desire ever to learn.
I try hard to keep a grip on myself, but it’s not easy. In the past when I’ve been overwhelmed by my anger I’ve tried to make sure I only vent it at those I consider worthy of such murderous rage. Such as vampires. Real ones, that is. Like myself. But sometimes … well, sometimes I lose it. Like now.
“You want to be like me?”
I kick the groveling little turd so hard that ribs splinter as he flies across the basement floor and collides with the wall. He cries out, but it doesn’t exactly sound like pain.
The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women Page 14
