The Prince of Cups (Villainess Book 2)

by Melos,Alana

  In a matter of minutes, we were outside. He told me his name but I didn’t pay attention to it. What’s-his-name wanted to go back to his apartment, but I threw him up against the metal wall and kissed him hard. The alley next to the broken down old warehouse was good enough for me at the moment. He seemed shocked at my boldness, but soon enough he got into it. Even now, society had this idea women had to be demure and coy, that it was slutty and horrible to want sex and to fuck whenever and wherever she wanted. That’s such bullshit. There was no way I was going to let anything stand in the way of getting what I want, when I wanted it, and how I wanted it.

  As we kissed, my desire surged. He turned us both so that my back was against the wall, his hands running up the thin shirt I wore. I shivered with the chill of the night and lust both as his hands cupped my breasts. I ripped his shirt, and he started to protest until I silenced him with another kiss. My hands ran over his smooth skin. My nails raked his flesh as I drew him closer. I stayed in myself, wanting the physicality of it only, keeping it separate from my mind so that I could just enjoy the pure carnal sensations.

  That was why I was completely surprised when blood sprayed over my face and neck as a tall blond man opened my date’s throat from behind. His hands gripped me tightly, then fell from me as he reached for his sundered neck. Blood spilled between his fingers as he laid on the ground and bled out. I looked to the man behind him. Handsome and cold, he wore a black Nazi uniform not unlike the one I’d be wearing tomorrow, though the insignia on his chest and cap was different. When I turned my thoughts outward to assess the new threat, shock raced through me. I knew the mind in the tall Nazi body.

  Nosferatu.

  Chapter Seven

  The Axis version of Nosferatu kicked the dying man to the side, the force of the blow sending him sliding along the pavement a ways before he banged into a trash bin and came to a stop. The Nazi stepped in to bridge the distance between us. I looked his body over as I sorted through his emotions, trying to read him. He was handsome, but severe. His strong jaw was set in what appeared to be a permanent frown. His eyes were shaded by the hat, but I knew they’d be the same dull red. He had high cheekbones and a strong nose which dominated his face, almost overlarge for it. His mind was not quite the same as the Nosferatu I knew. Layers of age hung on it, but he felt more restrained than I’d felt previously. With Michael, the body he possessed in my world, they were wild and free, doing whatever they wanted, delighting in the terror they inspired. Here, it he felt more ordered, and even dignified. Purposeful.

  Yet the same streak of cruelty stayed the same, and the boredom. Curiosity ran through his mind, a bright orange streak breaking up the bone white monotony of his existence. He knew he’d never met me before, but wondered how his mark was on me. My hand raised to my neck to feel the scar my Nosferatu had left. His eyes followed the movement.

  “Yes,” he said, and I didn’t hear that lisping he did normally. Of course, it was in German… which was his native tongue. I’d always thought the lisp was something the vampire couldn’t help, but now I realized he did it merely because the creepy whisper freaked people out.

  “Nosferatu,” I breathed, the blood trickling down my face into my shirt. I made no move to wipe it off, and stared at him boldly. I wondered if the movie inspired him to take the name or if the movie was inspired by him instead of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as I’d always heard.

  “You are marked as mine, but I have never met you,” he said, the German rolling off his tongue easily.

  “I’m from another dimension,” I said, seeing no reason to lie to him. “I know the Nosferatu from there.”

  He smiled briefly, his eyes becoming alight with pleasure. “Yes,” he said. “Yes.” He didn’t say anything else, but I could see that streak of orange become wider, wondering why his counterpart had bitten me. I pushed a little deeper into his thoughts creeping along on little cat feet so he hopefully wouldn’t detect me, and I could hear the faint voice of his host asking to take control, wanting to interrogate me, insisting I was a spy. Nosferatu ignored him. He looked me over as one might an animal, weighing and judging me… but not sensing my telepathic intrusion. He wasn’t on watch for it like my Nosferatu would be. I reasoned it was because he didn’t know I was a telepath, and so didn’t take precaution. With the greatest of care I searched through his mind as he searched my face, tip toeing through his memories. I saw a different side of World War II, and I knew how the Nazis had come into ascendance, becoming the strongest of the three world powers: the occult.

  I saw Nosferatu--or rather, Nazferatu, as I had to keep them separate in my mind somehow--being approached in an ancient castle where he’d lived quietly, a village there to sustain him. The officers had promised him power and all the blood he could ever want, and he’d accepted. The images whirled from the black clad officers to Nazferatu all in black, the Nazi emblem on his shoulder. He chose people from that village, people loyal to him, and turned them into vampires. In this way, he made a legion of undead loyal to him and him alone. The vampiric soldiers struck terror in the Allies’ hearts, attacking at night unseen from the shadows they lived in. If one was cut down--and believe me when I say it’s not an easy task--the Nazis had other recruits, willing and eager to become the vampiric spirit’s host. They drove the Allies back into the sea at Normandy, and encroached on English shores. They brought the fight back under control of the Axis powers.

  Yet it wasn’t only vampires who had fought. Nazferatu kept himself away from the fighting and traveled instead, going through the front lines into Russia to treat with the ancient witch Baba Yaga. In return for her help in finding and recruiting other creatures of the night, Mother Russia was left alone. Evidently, the Führer didn’t approve of that, but Nazferatu did as he pleased, knowing that should the vampiric legion turn on the Nazis, they would buckle in a matter of months. To this day, Russia stood free of any other Axis influence. It was a great joke to Nazferatu that it turned into another dictatorship, just like Germany. The “land of the free” was anything but, yet people still aspired to escape there, to live out their lives with a different kind of misery.

  With the crone’s aid, he built a force unparalleled in history. It wasn't just Germany either, but the other Axis leaders listened to the vampire’s words, and built their own mystical forces with Nazferatu as their commander. In the Far East, Japanese mystics raised the spirits of their ancestors to fight alongside them. In Italy, they had found werewolves, so-called ancestors of the ancient Romulus and Remus who had been raised by wolves. They were the first, but they hadn't been the last. The first strikes of his Occulten Miliz had been against those in the know, people who could face and defeat the monsters. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn had been slaughtered, which was the reason for the push into England. Aleister Crowley, the famed crazy, hedonistic rebel of a mage, had been hunted down in America, where he’d sought refuge. They found him torn to pieces on some hill in the countryside, dozens of fallen vampires and werewolves around him. After that, the magi had fallen in line. Those who didn’t were driven deep into hiding. Those who joined used their knowledge for Axis' gain. I saw visions through Nazferatu’s eyes of creatures made from a mad marriage of science and sorcery. Horrible soldiers were made from metal and men, the dead come back to life in bizarre configurations. He’d laughed, delighting in the carnage the zombie soldiers made with gruesome weapons designed to not just kill, but shred the enemy to pieces. Their reason for existence was to kill in terrible and grisly ways. Though those beasts weren't in use any longer, they had turned the tide of the war, and eventually the Allies had to surrender. There was no nuclear bomb. No Hiroshima or Nagasaki. No Nuremberg. Instead, capitulation and the world carved up into three sections, one for each major power of the Axis.

  What I didn’t know and what Regulus had decided not to tell me, was that the Reich was the real enemy here. The other two powers--the Shogun of Japan and the Caesar of the new Roman Empire--were more or less conte
nt in their world. Thanks to the advancement of technology, their people lived comfortable lives. Japan took over Australia and most of Asia, excluding the part of Russia which still was in the witch’s hands, and promptly closed its borders. The new Roman empire stretched from Italy south into the Middle East and Africa. After Mussolini had died, the new Caesar had relaxed, realizing he would not be able to rule without the love of his people, and set about to making a new Roman empire, where everyone was a brother. They brought Africa into the current century with technology and education, without throwing away their culture. While Nazferatu didn't know that much about the Dark Continent, he knew the Roman Empire also continued to explore other dimensions... but to learn instead of conquer, and bring back more knowledge so they might better themselves.

  The Reich was the one third of this dimension which waged war... and they had won more battles than they had lost. By far. It wasn't just for the betterment of man, but the thrill of conquest, of spreading their message, and impregnating new minds with their ideals. I got all of this in a few seconds of rifling through Nazferatu's mind.

  In the same few seconds, he had decided to kill me.

  “No, wait,” I said, putting my hands on his chest. I opened my mind to him, and linked with him in full, showing him memories of mine, of Nosferatu and I working jobs, killing together. This made the vampire in him pause, while the Nazi snarled, insisting I be brought in for questioning, that I was a spy.

  I don't care about Axis, I sent to him. I'm here to do a favor which won't hurt the Reich at all, and then I'll be gone again.

  She's an enemy! The Nazi—Erick his name was—screamed in Nazferatu's head. He beat against the mental prison Nazferatu had put him in, frothing at the mouth. His fanaticism knew no bounds. The host’s mind had made Nazferatu’s mind more ordered, but in doing so, he had made a schism inside the vampire’s head. A more chaotic host, like Michael, made it easier for the two of them to work in harmony, though there was always a little posturing about who was really in charge. In making Nazferatu more clear and focused, Erick had ended up giving the vampire his body completely for the vampire had the stronger of the two wills.

  I showed Nazferatu the memories I had of Michael, and he turned the images over carefully betwixt his mental hands, weighing them. I am more free now, he thought. I control the body. I am in full possession. He didn’t show me, but I could sense the weight behind those words, and I wondered what Michael’s and Nosferatu’s relationship really was. I would have to look more closely next time.

  But you work for the Reich, I said countering his argument, so you’re not truly free.

  He cocked his head to the side, and gnashed his teeth as he thought about it. Thoughts about the Reich and the blood they’d given him over the years flowed through his mind. Countless deaths of enemies at his hands, and his children’s hands, more than I could imagine… and I had a big and bloody imagination. He was sated, and satisfied. He had no need to change the agreement.

  If you want blood, I told him, I’ll give it to you.

  It had occurred to me while I went through his thoughts and memories that while Nos and I had worked together many times, we had never hunted together for pleasure. I was not about to let him bite me again, but to hunt someone else? To kill with him, and take the time to feel their deaths in full? To let the ancient vampire feel as I did during the kill? These thoughts I poured into his head, and he pressed against me. I could feel his coldness through the thick cloth of the uniform, and his erection as well. Like me, he was a sadist, and while pleasure loops and orgasming forever might be delightful, it would never touch the pure ecstasy I felt while killing. It was mine; I made my victims and their deaths mine, forever.

  “Yes, let us hunt,” he said, whispering the words against my cheek. “Then maybe I’ll turn you. The other me… he must have marked you for a reason.” He gripped my chin, claws digging into my skin, on the verge of breaking it. “You would be an excellent vampire.”

  I reached behind my back and pulled the knife I had on me. While I wouldn’t go out with a gun--they were far too easy to find and not so easy to explain away--there was no way I wouldn’t go outside without some kind of weapon on me. I put the blade against his throat, the threat obvious. As I expected, he didn’t care. He pressed into the knife, and as it cut his skin, a bead of blood formed, then ran down the metal. I turned my head slightly so that I didn’t break our gaze, and licked the blood off of the blade. It stirred something in me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes from him.

  It got the desired effect. The vampire smiled, his handsome mouth turning in a cruel twist, but he let go of my face. His clawed hands reached around my waist and pulled me closer to him. Echoes of my Nosferatu came back to me, and while the actions were the same as he rubbed his hardness on me through his clothing, the manner of it was different. This was slower, a lover’s caress as opposed to the needful, almost frantic humping from my Nos during our basement rendezvous. He still didn’t see me as an equal, but the want in his mind I read easily. He didn’t bother to hide it, even knowing I was looking at his thoughts. He simply didn’t care. There was nothing I could do to him which would hurt him for long.

  “Let’s find some prey then,” I whispered, my voice husky.

  He lifted us both, his destination already in mind. You choose, he told me. He’d killed so many and for so long, he had no preferred victim type. Truth be told, I didn’t either. I was an equal opportunity killer. Except….

  As the thought came to me, I sent it to him, and he laughed, hoarse and harsh. His was a voice unused to laughing. We flew and I clung to the vampire, chilled by the wind which whipped past me. He knew exactly where he wanted to go for what I had in mind, and when he set me on the ledge of a building delicately, he disappeared from sight, melding with the shadows as his Prime counterpart did.

  Watch, he sent, sounding more like my Nosferatu. Watch and follow.

  I looked down to the streets, lit by the bright streetlamps. Few people walked at night, and we ended up waiting a long time before something fit what we were looking for. As his counterpart did when he stalked me, Nazferatu sat in one place and waited, watching, ever vigilant. I kept our contact telepathically, but we didn’t talk. Instead, our anticipation fed off of the other’s. We waited, our excitement growing with every second passing. A few thoughts went through his head as we sat there, one of which was wondering if my telepathy would make the crossover, or if it was ‘stuck in the body’. The idea of being immortal appealed to me, but I didn’t want to switch bodies as a vampire eventually had to do. I liked mine. I wasn’t going to give it up. It cost too much.

  When a mop of blonde hair crossed the street below me, both of us tensed as one. It was a male, and young, more than likely in his early twenties, though it was hard to tell from this distance. Nazferatu moved, and it was only because I was connected to him that I knew where he went. With his permission, I looked through his eyes and found the night much easier to penetrate. It held no secrets for the vampire, nor were any scents unknown. He smelled the freshness of the victim, and I had to clap a hand over my mouth to stop from giggling. What a wonderful trick this would be!

  Instead of simply grabbing him, he followed for a short distance, until the vampire felt certain of his path for the next few blocks. I flew along the rooftops, watching with both sets of eyes, my heart beating faster and faster. Anticipation overloaded me, and I sighed happily. Nazferatu skipped ahead of the man, and flew to the streetlamps. Perching on top of the lamp, he wiggled the bulb loose so that the light blinked on and off before finally switching off for good. He did it with the next one, and the one after that, and so on, until the streetlamps all ahead of the man stood dark, or at best, blinking on and off erratically like some scary movie. As soon as I thought it, I knew that’s what he was doing. He was playing with him, scaring him.

  Fear makes the meat taste better, Nazferatu sent, confirming my theory.

  I nodded to the air. The man was
uncertain now, looking ahead but not thinking too much about it. I took a peek at his thoughts. He tried to rationalize it, but the yellow thread of fear was beginning to pulse faintly within his mind. He shoved it away and continued to walk, knowing the path well.

  Now that the man was in darkness, Nazferatu landed on the street and began to scratch the walls and pavement close by. Small scritches which sounded a lot like chittering rats, their teeth gnashing together as their tiny claws scrabbled on the cement. The young man looked around, but of course didn’t see anyone. His fear pulsed again, growing, but still under control. Nazferatu could smell fear begin to ooze from him, and hear his heart beat just a trifle faster. Then he began whispering, so softly his victim couldn’t even hear the words. Instead, he shivered with the vibrations of the words and the cool wind on his neck.

  The young man looked around him, and again, saw nothing. The lights from the streetlamps which were still working was at least a block away on either side of him, and he resolved himself. He pushed forward, ignoring his baser instincts telling him there was something to be afraid of here. When our victim-to-be wasn’t cooperating and giving into his growing fear, Nazferatu began touching him. The vampire slid a finger over the curve of the man’s ear, and he jumped. Yellow flashed within my sight for a second as he wrestled it back under control. ‘It’s not real,’ he kept telling himself. ‘My mind is playing tricks on me.’

  A clawed finger slid along his throat, at the same time Nazferatu whispered, “Die.” Such a small, simple word, but laden with power and meaning. Needless to say, our victim broke. Fear and anger warred with each other in his mind. The yellow won over the red. As the youth bolted for the streetlamp ahead of him knowing in his heart of hearts that if he made it to the glowing beacon he would be safe, Nazferatu flew and landed in front of him, blocking his sight of the lamp.