Voracious Vixens, 13 Novels of Sexy Horror and Hot Paranormal Romance

by Travis Luedke

  In a moment of desperation, Sebastian managed to kick Lucien away and rushed over to the fireplace. He snatched a cutlass from the wall and whirled.

  “Oh, how simply delightful ... we have a Douglas Fairbanks in our midst.” Lucien cackled while Sebastian tried to plunge the cutlass into his chest.

  Sebastian lunged again, easily parried by Lucien. In a flurry of sparks Lucien gave a cruel look of boredom and yawned. Steel kissed steel. Lucien skipped a merry dance, toying with his prey. “You’re no match for The Count, old man.” After a few moments of gallant swordplay, Lucien buried his sword into Sebastian’s chest and flipped him on his back across the table, knocking a bottle of Lafitte to the floor with a loud crash.

  Jacques entered the dining room with the revolver held out in readiness. He grinned when he saw Lucien in control of the situation.

  “Aaaaaaagh!” Lucien yelled into Sebastian’s face, drowning out Ellise’s screams. He sensed Sebastian’s final moments – his legs felt useless – the cold rapidly freezing his groin. Lucien sighed with gratification.

  Sebastian spat in Lucien’s face.

  Lucien grinned wickedly, wiping away the spittle and with a wicked wink he forced the blade through Sebastian’s back and into the table.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Sebastian.” Lucien chuckled and blew him a kiss. “You dance with the Devil ... you sleep with the Devil.”

  A hoarse, wet cough escaped Sebastian’s lip. “You fucking madman. Go to hell.”

  “You first!” Lucien whirled to see Ellise whimpering under the smothering hold of Claudette.

  Tears rolled down Ellise’s cheeks. She reached out with a trembling hand. “Please let me kiss Sebastian one more time.”

  Lucien laughed. “You brought this on yourself, Ellise.”

  The Count reminded Lucien how often Ellise had flaunted her superiority in his face – now look at her begging for mercy.

  He twisted the sword in Sebastian’s stomach. “I need her blood!” Lucien shouted, “Where is she!”

  Lucien watched with uncontrollable excitement Claudette opening up Ellise’s vintage. Lucien’s bloodlust erupted like a volcano. He pounced on Ellise, pushing Jacques aside and uncorked her wrist with his fangs. His blood fire was soothed by her sweetness. He gorged on the gloriously rich nectar that only comes from refined living. To Lucien, she tasted positively delicious, fresh and slightly fruity, like an impertinently young Bordeaux.

  Claudette grinned at Sebastian with fangs dripping gore. She rushed to the limp bottle of blood and giggled when Sebastian looked away in horror.

  The Count thanked Lucien for this opportunity to end Sebastian’s life. The Count showed him how the chaos of war would have altered if Sebastian had lived. General Sebastian Moreau would have convinced Minister of War, Andre Maginot not to build his line of concrete bunker defenses bordering Germany.

  Under much ridicule from his peers, Sebastian insisted on constructing heavy tanks which would have repelled the German invasion. Peace would be the result.

  Now The Count showed Lucien the inevitable path of destruction he so needed. He saw an intense tank battle – thousands of tanks burned as far as the eye could see. Bodies roasted black, hung from turrets. Dogs scavenged corpses. A demented despot screamed while his army retreated. The images faded. Lucien sighed with the knowledge he had once again maintained history as The Count so ordered.

  Lucien frowned. Her music entered his mind.

  Barely audible snivels of terror came from under the dining table, whimpers made almost undetectable by the noise of Ellise’s death.

  Lucien jolted as if struck by lightning. He bent down and lifted the tablecloth. Ah at last, his Delicate Rose.

  “There you are!” The hunt was on! He ripped the sword from Sebastian’s stomach and gave chase.

  Chapter 18

  A demonic scream of obsidian torment turned Lucien’s pale mask of hatred into a grotesque caricature of death. He glared from the passenger window of his car while it thrashed through the diminishing darkness like a Gothic hearse. Where could his Delicate Rose be? She could not have gone far on bare feet.

  The wipers angrily swished the torrential rain from the opaque windscreen like a rampant metronome ticking to nature’s eternal music.

  Lucien clenched both fists so tight his nails cut into his flesh. The pain was exquisite. “I’m not leaving without her.” He kicked the dashboard. The needles of various gauges flickered.

  “We stick out like three black wolves in a flock of sheep,” Jacques said, giving Lucien a warning glance not to kick the car. He stroked the dashboard as if it were a cat.

  “Don’t state the fucking obvious.” Lucien had to think fast.

  “I want to go home, Lucien. I want to freshen up.” Claudette pouted.

  “No! We must find her,” Lucien growled, pointing down a narrow high-banked lane.

  Jacques drove down the lane towards the rising sun and the village of Douvrey as indicated by Lucien.

  Tears filled Lucien’s eyes and tormented his soul. He curled up tightly like a little boy, thinking of his beloved mistress. He already missed her so much that not all the blood in the world could satisfy his craving for her. He was addicted to her blood. She was his laudanum and he needed a fix or he would surely die. With rising panic he thought of the full moon the next night and that meant just one thing to him – the eternal hour was at hand – the hour of her birth the following morning.

  Rays of sunlight cascaded through foliage to stab the windscreen with deadly accuracy. Lucien opened the glove compartment and snatched a jar of white foundation. He smeared his face, neck, ears and hands, before passing the jar to Claudette. He put his feet up on the dashboard and donned sunglasses.

  A powerful emotion sent ribbons of ice down his spine and caused Lucien to sit bolt upright. He heard the familiar raucous flapping of ravens’ wings. He looked left to see a five-bar gate and a barn in the distance.

  “Stop! Back up, Jacques!” Her power was unmistakable and emanated from the barn. Was she hiding there?

  Jacques slammed on the brakes and reversed to the gate.

  Lucien opened the passenger door. He screamed in pain and snatched his black fedora from the floor well, ramming it onto his head. After fumbling his dark glasses across his face he pushed the gate open and waved Jacques into the field with a rough stone path leading to the barn. Lucien closed the gate and hopped back in.

  “The barn!” He was so close now. Her power was much stronger here.

  Jacques nodded with satisfaction and drove slowly along the rutted path. He stopped in front of the double barn doors hanging askew from rusted hinges.

  Lucien and Jacques exited the car and man-handled the barn doors.

  Lucien rushed into the barn. He searched every corner and rummaged through the hay to find nothing.

  Jacques drove into the barn while Lucien pulled the doors shut. He switched off the engine and hopped out.

  Claudette slithered from the rear seat with a cigarette still smoldering in its holder. She looked around at the disgusting state of her temporary home. A shaft of sunlight sliced across her face. She hopped away from the offending beam with a screech.

  Lucien rushed up to her and snatched the cigarette from the holder. He stamped it to death, giving Claudette a warning look. He indicated the stack of hay to Jacques. Both Sucklings made room in the hay for the car to fit.

  Jacques drove the car into the gap and hopped out. Both vampires heaped the straw all over the rear of the car until it was suitably camouflaged.

  Lucien stared at the remaining hay and smirked. He sniffed the air with recognition. This was where it all started ... who would have thought? He opened the front passenger door and sat down. So it was her birthing memory confusing him.

  More beams of sunlight squeezed through countless cracks and holes. “If you think I’m staying here then you’re completely mad.” Claudette opened the rear passenger door and sat folding her arms in defi
ance.

  Jacques covered as much of the rear doors as he could with hay and slumped into the driver’s seat.

  Lucien turned to Claudette. “Never call me mad! Never!” He screamed his anger in Claudette’s oblivious face. Then the inevitable happened, The Count filled him with images.

  The Count showed him lurid scenes of a vampire couple mating like rutting dogs. The female vampire’s belly soon displayed the fruits of their union. An angry mob wielding pitchforks and shotguns discovered the lovers. The male vampire was hacked to pieces. The female fled into the dark woods seeking refuge in this very barn. She hid beneath a mound of straw where a young Busson and his father discovered her about to give birth. She begged for help and they succumbed to her pleas as if spellbound. Busson ran off to return with Doctor Colbert and Father Papineau. Busson fell to his knees and hugged his father’s body, his throat torn out.

  A violent storm, not of God’s making, turned the early morning sky black. The strange darkness enveloped Douvrey while the priest performed an exorcism on the female vampire. Doctor Colbert helped Delicate Rose spew forth from her mother’s womb onto a bed of straw. The date was the 6th June, 1906 and the time was precisely six in the morning. The mother vampire found her peace, having been allowed to bleed to death on Busson’s orders. The darkness that had cloaked the village evaporated with the morning sun.

  Papineau raised his sword of redemption to expunge this vile abomination but could not when his gaze met those black eyes. He lowered the blade in utter defeat. Busson took the child and handed her to Colbert.

  Chapter 19

  5th June

  Eternal dreamed of an icy hell inhabited by slithering demons. Darkness did not prevent the horrors crawling over her skin trying to feed, drain her very soul. Pleasures were very few in Oblivion and one of them was demon slaying. She was born to kill and demons were her natural prey. One particular demon residing inside an orderly needed immediate attention. Still in her dream state she probed its evil.

  The demon called Bonbon strolled down the sunlit corridor humming a pleasant tune. He carried a metal tray laden with cheese, sliced tomatoes, bread and a metal cup of water. He nodded to a pleasant, matronly nurse.

  Eternal immediately sensed the demon’s desire to sodomize the woman. To her surprise the nurse grimaced at Bonbon while opening a door with a key attached by a chain to her uniform. She noted the time in her notebook – eight thirty and shuddered with disgust. Eternal had a kindred spirit in this nurse.

  Bonbon smiled to the nurse and entered Eternal’s room.

  Still asleep, Eternal probed the orderly’s mind while it frowned at the darkened room. The festering maggot placed the tray on the cot, hissing in annoyance. With a lascivious grin, it tore the blanket from the window and leered down at its new piece of fresh meat. What a delectable chunk of rump steak. Good enough to devour! It risked a furtive touch of her hair, still damp from the shower. It quivered in anticipation of this fresh morsel giving her sweet meat to feed its perverse appetites.

  Eternal dreamt of burning in hell fire with cruel flames blackening her pale skin. She scurried deep into the underworld inhabited by ice and demons and succumbed to her weaker half.

  Delicate Rose screamed herself awake. Upon opening her eyes the disgusting sight of Bonbon’s scarred face leered at her with a suggestive pout to his bloated lips. She scurried to the end of the cot closest to the door and away from the light, knocking the tray to the tiled floor.

  Bonbon smirked in a disgusting way while he picked up the food, tray and metal cup. He spoke with a deep, rasping voice, massaging his bulging groin. “Eat! You must eat!”

  Delicate Rose shook her head no at the unpalatable offering. The orderly’s calloused hand gripped her head and used the other hand to shove a slice of stale bread into her face. The bread was mashed into her nose and mouth, forcing her to gag. She could not pull away. She could not breathe.

  Bonbon laughed using the palm of his hand to rub the bread across her squirming face. “You must eat what Bonbon gives you.” Bonbon winked and gripped the obvious erection in his cotton slacks. He blew her a kiss with drooling lips licked by the tip of his tongue stained yellow.

  “Perhaps you eat this later, pale one,” Bonbon promised, leaving the room with a chuckle.

  While Delicate Rose wiped the bread from her tearful face, something deep in the recesses of her tortured mind nagged at her. She wanted sustenance of a different kind, a kind that gripped her darkest nightmares and turned them into such sweet dreams. But she couldn’t remember the color of her need.

  She knew it was important, that time was running out but time for what? Her dry tongue licked cracked lips offering no relief. Fear had parched her mouth and yet looking down at the water pooled on the floor did not entice her thirst to be quenched. Something told her she needed another source of fluid, something sweet and vibrant – something eternal.

  That strange word Eternal whispered to her with its sweet rendering, comforting her fragile mind.

  “I am Eternal. I am Eternal. I am Eternal,” she said in a flat monotone voice.

  Delicate Rose mumbled these words over and over, staring at the pools of water on the floor. She frowned, having no idea what the words she had just spoken actually meant but they calmed her frantic mind. She jolted in shock when the sun found her naked feet. Instinctively, she tucked them under her and squinted in pain at the searing cascade filling the room.

  The shock brought fine threads of Eternal to the surface. Not so much to take over but enough to soothe and comfort. She spoke with such hypnotic tenderness in Delicate Rose’s mind. “Sleep! You must sleep.”

  Delicate Rose felt exhaustion tugging at her with its relentless need. With eyes closed, she replaced the blanket across the window before curling up in the fetal position.

  She drifted into a deep slumber where Eternal caressed her bleeding soul, soaking her with sweet images of a young woman with long dark burgundy hair offering her sweet poison to the tribal queen, Buddug, at her encampment in North Wales. The queen drank with gusto and grew in stature.

  From hence forward, Boudicca, as she became known to her enemies in Rome, needed to paint her face with woad to prevent the sun’s rays from depriving her of her sworn duty. The more she drank the more her terrible desire to eradicate all Romans from her land became an addiction.

  As directed by her Eternal muse, the tribal chieftain allowed her enemy to attack her home in Wales while she led her vast army of Celtic warriors south across the borderland to destroy Roman settlement after settlement. Tens of thousands were massacred in the name of Boudicca’s muse but she grew weaker without her muse’s blood and was defeated.

  Eternal was captured and only the Gods saved her from Oblivion, persuading the vengeful Suetonius to see great value in Eternal. He dragged her back to Rome in chains where she was introduced to Emperor Nero, whose popularity had withered to the point that he ignored all attempts to save his reign. However, Nero soon discovered the delights of the eternal poison flowing through her veins but he was immediately driven insane and ordered all Rome burned to the ground so he might raise her in his glorious image.

  This gave Eternal the opportunity to flee Rome and found solace with the Gallic Tribes.

  The past life-dream soon descended into darkness and chaos for Eternal was torn from her latest object of desire by the Black Count himself. He stood over her in his long black cloak caught by the wind. He changed into a monstrous bat and whisked her away to a terrible place, hemmed in by damp stone where there was no escape. She withered away to skin and bone while he repeatedly whipped her into submission. All she could hope for was her true love’s desire to rescue her. Who was her true love? Where was he? She slipped into a deep slumber clutching her destiny by the thinnest of threads.

  Chapter 20

  Edouard Clavet checked the time – eight-forty-five in the morning of June 5th. Hopefully driving his Renault 6CV towards Douvrey, he sighed knowing he would be lat
e. He was enveloped in a web of excitement – almost feeling like a little boy peering into a sweet jar, imagining his fledgling career blossoming beyond his wildest dreams at the Douvrey Institute, possibly one of the most notable institutes for the insane outside Paris.

  Edouard snapped out of his pleasant daydream and looked at the map spread across his lap. He lost control of the car.

  “Mon Dieu!” the Priest exclaimed, momentarily startled by the close proximity of the car when Edouard pulled alongside. His bike wobbled precariously before he squeezed on the brakes, frantically letting out a leg to prop himself with.

  Edouard gave an apologetic smile through the open driver’s window. He crumpled the map in haste and tossed it onto the passenger seat. “Please forgive me, Father.”

  Edouard leaned out of the car window to see the rather portly priest, possibly in his late fifties with short graying hair, partially concealed by a black hat was fine. To Edouard’s embarrassment the priest had to hitch up his long black cassock, revealing his pasty white lower legs to prevent a fall off what was surely a woman’s bike.

  He guessed the priest probably couldn’t lift his leg over the centre bar of a man’s bike, so he had opted for the feminine version out of necessity.

  A horse approached, prompting Edouard to look at a robust farmer steering a cart.

  “Sorry about that Father, but you see I’m ....” Edouard said, distracted by the farmer.

  The farmer tipped his cap and laughed derisively. “Cassock-monger!”

  The priest waved an angry fist at the farmer. “Damn you, Busson!” He smiled at the driver. “Please accept my apologies. What can I do for you on such a fine day?” The priest looked up to the heavens and frowned. “Although I do believe a storm is on its way ... possibly tonight.”

  Edouard looked up to a clear blue sky with only a few light fluffy wisps of clouds. He looked back at the amiable priest and explained, “I’m afraid I’m hopelessly lost. I’m trying to find the Douvrey Institute.”

  The priest nodded. “Ah the Institute ... well it’s not that far ... you just ....” He pointed down the road. “.... Come to the crossroads, cut straight over and follow the road for ....” The priest thought before continuing, “.... For two kilometers, pass the Busson farmhouse.” He crossed himself and muttered under his breath. “You can’t miss it. Then take the next right for about one kilometer ... the second left and voila, you will see the sign for the Institute.”