Eternal Bondage

by Vita Anne Hoffman

  But I did fight. I couldn't help myself! I had to! I shoved at him and smashed my fists into his forearms when he reached down towards me. He chuckled at the blows, sweeping them aside as he grasped me firmly and began to haul me out. My kicking legs scraped and banged against the dashboard, then against the wicked rim of the broken glass windscreen. One shin went a little numb. Then, with one bodily jerk, he drew me up and out until I stood enfolded by him upon the front end of the car. Possessively, he pinioned me to him, like an obscene hood ornament.

  "DogBoy, Trey, finish off Sir Vlad Galahad. Then you can rejoin the rest of us.” He then spoke to the squat beefy vampire standing at the front of the car. “Back off, Beluga, so that we can get down."

  But the grotesque vampire scowled. “Hand her over, Thomas. Share her.” From the surrounding wind-tossed rain-spattered darkness, evil voices chorused him.

  Thomas’ arms closed a fraction tighter around my shivering body. He didn't want to hand me over. His inky black glittering gaze swept over my face. He squeezed my middle, trying to hearten me. And, underneath the dwindling roll of thunder, he leaned in closer and spoke, whispered, to me. “I have no choice,” he quietly uttered, “neither do you. Simply play along. Maybe we'll both keep our skins."

  "Here, Beluga, catch her if you can.” That was all the warning Thomas could offer before he flung me off of the car. Beluga, aptly nicknamed after a species of whale, in fact made little effort to catch me. I basically bounced against his protruding stomach, thankfully falling onto rain soaked ground rather than concrete. I caught the brunt of the impact with my shoulder. Beluga yanked me up by the roots of my short, mussy blonde hair. My left arm and shoulder were numb but unbroken, at least so I hoped. I could wiggle my fingers, if I tried very, very hard.

  "Gently, gently.” The leader, Thomas, crooned. He leapt to the ground without so much as a grunt when he landed. “She's alive, and Rasputin wants her to stay that way. She's a dainty niblet. So have a care."

  Beluga questioned these disappointing orders. “Don't be a spoilsport, Thomas. Let us have some fun with her."

  "In due course.” Thomas drawled out the words, sweeping a gaze across his deformed compatriots. With an upraised hand, he motioned the final pair of vampires to close ranks. “And within reason. She needs to stay in one piece, else your master will be displeased."

  Now that I was parted from him, Thomas’ mesmerism lessened. Swiping away the drizzle in my eyes, I could finally see him, all of him, not just those captivating India ink eyes. Once, when he had been alive, Thomas would have been extremely handsome. His hair, some dark glossy shade, was permanently slicked back from his high forehead, while a single lock swung pendulum-like across his pale brow, shadowing those large, long lashed eyes that stared at me with a calculating, fascinated glint. His face, once upon a time, had been arresting. Oh, yea, he was most definitely still a lady-killer. Only the handsome features had become hollowed, had become harshened by his depraved existence. His physical beauty dimly remained. Meet Thomas, poster boy for the heroine chic. Such handsomeness, even when faint, when muted by decadence, set him apart from the rest. Made him an outcast. But could I trust him, as the tug of his psyche professed?

  Beluga used his handhold on my hair to direct me towards the Tattoo Emporium. The grass was slippery, and he liked the many times when I stumbled. He would jerk me upright by the same bruising handhold against my scalp. Eventually, he thought to include his buddies in the game. He shoved me to the ground at the feet of a stooped over creature, who, regardless of his gnarled hands, very capably dragged me in a muddy trail across the lawn of the Tattoo Emporium. I lost a shoe along the way, a brown leather wedge, very comfortably broken in—I was going to miss that shoe. But, just then, I did have more important matters to deal with, such as keeping my skin and my sanity intact.

  Why, during the course of this brutal attack, did I not scream? Because it would have been a pointless waste of breath. Josh, most likely, had already been dispatched, whether staked or beheaded or disposed of in some fashion far more slow and gruesome. Then, too, if I screamed for help, some unsuspecting person might make the mistake of coming out onto the street and into the grasp of monsters. Or, if, in the more likely scenario, the cops were called, they, too, would arrive, unsuspecting and ill-prepared, onto the scene—the inevitable outcome? More dead bodies, like poor Officer Donovan. No, I was on my own. Terrified. Petrified. But resolved. No one else was going to be on my conscience.

  Beluga and Gnarly, my name for the misshapen vampire who had cost me my favorite shoe, began to bat me between the two of them. After one vicious push, I sprawled, hard, rolling onto my hands and knees. Thomas finally intervened. He hunkered down near my face and murmured. His mouth barely moved. “Remember, this is for their benefit. I don't want to hurt you.” Then he swept upright with the grace of a ballet dancer.

  "Enough tomfoolery. I want in out of this rain.” He grabbed hold of my numb left arm, and he dragged me towards the wide red-stained porch. Despite his low-voiced assurances and his apparent separateness from the others, I didn't necessarily trust him. I dug in my heels. I knew in my heart that should I enter that horrific place I would never come out ... the same. Thomas, his intelligent features speculative and curious over my combativeness rather than compliance, merely laughed. I stumbled on the steps, twisting my already battered arm, trying to rip free of his cold grip. All I succeeded in doing was further dislocating that shoulder. Our footsteps thudded on the wooden porch, Thomas', mine, and a crew of Rasputin's underlings.

  Thomas threw wide the huge metal front door. “Welcome home, cupcake. You arrived a little early. But not to worry, the Master is expected to arrive shortly. Until then, we shall offer every hospitality.” He turned fully toward me to perform a shallow, mocking bow. At once, he became transfixed. Overhead, the bare bulb which starkly lit the porch revealed me as a battered, helpless mortal. Rain plastered my clothes against me. Muddy stains smeared the entire length of me. But what held all of the vampires, not just Thomas, spellbound were the fine cuts, gotten when Thomas had shattered the car window, that ran down my arms like a fine tracery of lace. There was a deeper gash on my shin that dripped warmly onto my bare foot and pooled onto the planks of the porch. Now that I was out of the rain the cuts bled freely, not diluted. Here I stood, a bloody mess, in the midst of a vampire clan. Oh, happy day!

  Gnarly reacted first with the greed of a half-starved runt. He threw himself down at my feet and began to lap the blood up from off of the porch. He whimpered his pleasure. Thomas kicked him roughly out of the way, for which I was glad because I knew that Gnarly would next have glued his mouth to the wound at my leg.

  "Enter within, tartlet.” And Thomas, masking all concern for me, if, indeed, I simply wasn't imaging it, propelled me through the portal of the Tattoo Emporium. I crossed the threshold so forcefully that I slammed to a halt in a crumpled heap. I lay there panting, raking the rain plastered hair from my face, trying to stay sane. My one thought at that most grave moment: Madam Waken, I herewith resign from the Bete Noir Escort Service!

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  Chapter Nine

  With Surety And Skill And Vengeance

  I quickly scanned the room into which I had been shoved. The ceiling, covered with pretty stuccoed plaster, was at least twelve feet high. The windows, which from the outside showed closed Venetian blinds, were actually boarded up, the boards then nailed over with burlap. The only furnishings in the room were some dozen raw pine boxes. They stood on end around the walls of the large room, its dimensions feeling unaccountably smaller when all five of the vampires had filed in behind me.

  I could not resist a smart mouth comment. “Nothing but the best, I see, for Rasputin's family."

  "Learn some respect.” Beluga kicked me square in the chest. I flew backward, smacking into one of the rough hewn coffins.

  I gasped, trying to locate my lungs. They seemed to be lodged against my spine.

 
"I warned you that Rasputin wants her alive.” Thomas surprisingly retaliated against Beluga. He smashed him with a fist up against the side of the head. Beluga skulked away, casting hate-filled glances at Thomas, shuffling into a darkened corner. There was no love lost there. Thomas, by force of personality, was at the top of this particular food chain, precariously so. By the look of things, he could just as easily be the next item on the menu. His strange kind of savoir-faire, an odd appeal that was much more than skin deep, set him apart from the rest. Or maybe it was that he wasn't physically repulsive, like Gnarly, or DogBoy, or Beluga. I never claimed I wasn't shallow.

  Thomas flexed his punching hand, studying me through the thick lock of hair that draped his pale brow. “That makes twice tonight I have battered myself over you, sweetmeat. My fingers will be a bloody pulp before long, if I keep this up.” A wicked little gleam entered his India ink eyes, more mischievous than malevolent. “Kiss it and make it better."

  "Keep away from me."

  "Or else?"

  "Or else, you'll be sorry.” How's that for intimidating?

  He laughed. “I'm sure I would be."

  Gnarly, hunched over into a ball-like crouch, whined. “I am hungry.” His pin-prick, colorless eyes stabbed at me.

  Thomas glanced around at the gathered crew of vampires. In such close quarters, their deformities, from moss-colored boil-covered skin to stubbed and foreshortened limbs, were fully exposed. As was the swell of their voracity.

  "No one is taking a sip!” Thomas’ order was sharp, stinging, and this time made no mention of being given in Rasputin's name. It also seemed far from effective. Defensively, Thomas placed his back to me and challenged the menacing ring about us. Was he actually shielding me...? Nah. That would be preposterous.

  But suddenly Beluga, shambling his great girth, returned to the fore. He carried a heavy sack. My stomach heaved, because whatever was in the bag was alive and wriggling and trying to tear loose.

  "Stop it, Beluga,” Thomas said.

  "You promised a bit of fun. I just want the Soulsmith to meet Benjamin.” Beluga's bloated face, doughy and mottled, twisted in a mockery of a smile. “He's a harmless pet. He's not gotten any exercise in over a week when I put him in the cellar with Hamilton. Surely, Rasputin won't object.” Beluga loosened the cord that bound the sack shut.

  "What is it?” I whispered to Thomas, the question barely able to pass my numb lips.

  "A river rat. An undead river rat.” His voice was flat and icy. He did not relish having a nasty rodent set loose in the room, either.

  My mind couldn't grasp what he had told me. “Animals can be turned?” The thought was horrifying.

  "It can be done, but, to most vampires, the idea of giving a mindless thing bloodlust and turning it loose on the world is abhorrent. Besides, it requires the same ritual—thrice taking and once sharing blood—to make one of those,” Thomas nodded toward the rat still struggling to get out of the sack, “as it does to make a human inhuman. Most of us are not that perverted."

  "Save for Beluga's ilk, warped to a fault.” I could not tear my gaze from that wriggling sack.

  Beluga, still working at the ties of the bag, replied to the insult. “I take exception to that. I'm not so depraved as to REPEATEDLY bleed a rat.” He gave a sick, leering grimace that showed broken unwholesome fangs and that belied his words. “It's possible to cause a change by drinking only once, very deeply, to the point of death before infusing the thing with your own juice. But it takes practice to get down the precise timing, else you kill your intended changeling. Oh, aye,” Beluga's matted eyes gleamed scarlet as he seemed to relive favored memories of many such experiments, “it takes practice, practice, practice. But it is possible, once you learn this particular progenitors trick."

  Nor did Beluga's cohorts seem to be as repulsed by the transformation of a rat as was Thomas. They crowded in for a better view of the show. Their eyes were avid. Saliva dribbled in a long strand down Gnarly's chin. While they gathered closer about Beluga, his beefy fingers finished their work.

  The disgustingly fat reanimate smacked his blubbery lips with expectation. “This'll be fun. When the rat's finished with the both of them, we'll have leftovers."

  "Beluga, don't!” Thomas shouted, but it was too late.

  Beluga flung the bag away from himself. The top was worked loose enough for Benjamin, the river rat, to emerge. It was hideous, over a foot in length from twitching whiskered nose to stiffened hairless tail. Its rodent eyes were red rimmed and fearless. It reared up on its two hind legs, sniffing the air, baring yellow needled teeth, scenting a bloodied target—me.

  I wished for a weapon, but what did you use on a re-animated rat? The same implements that you used on a regular vampire? My fanny pack, crushed and battered, was still belted to my waist. I grabbed for its contents. The atomizer was broken, the holy water having leaked away, but the cross was still there. I pulled it out.

  Thomas had backed himself closer to me. The small cross sizzled when I waved it, actually skimmed it against his shoulder. “Ouch. Watch that thing!” he growled.

  Benjamin streaked across the floor. The circled vampires hooted, as if watching a cock fight. The rat was fast, a super-charged undead piece of vermin. I could already imagine him at my throat. But Thomas was equally quick. He caught the thing by the tail, and he slung it across the room.

  Stunned, Benjamin crashed against a wall and thudded to the floor where it twitched and squeaked like a thing caught in its death throes. But only for a moment. The rat scrabbled to its clawed feet, hissed, pulled the lips back from its teeth and chattered angrily. There was only one thing it craved in that ghastly room, my blood. It skittered at us again. Only, this time, when Thomas tried to grab it, it jumped up at his face, scratched at him, then dashed towards me. I screamed, using the cross to keep it away. The rat did not recognize nor care about religious icons.

  He bit my hand, catching hold of the flesh between my thumb and index finger. It hurt like hell. I pressed the cross against the ratty pointed snout. The contact fizzed and crackled! Benjamin's hellish jaws unlocked. He dropped to the floor. I wanted but dared not kick at him. He would probably latch onto my foot.

  Droplets of blood from my new wound had spattered onto the floor. The rat, mimicking Gnarly, lapped it up. I deliberately flung my arm in a wide arc, sending more drops outward which Benjamin scampered after, giving me a moment's respite.

  "How much damage can it inflict?” I asked of Thomas.

  "Plenty."

  My heart quailed. To make matters worse, I was suddenly aware of movement on the porch at the same time my teeth faintly buzzed, signaling the nearness of vampires. Both heralded the arrival of the two brethren, DogBoy and Trey, who had been left outside with orders to deal with Josh.

  I also received a strange powerful rush, like a tremendous jolt of electricity throughout my entire being, and I feared that Rasputin had, indeed, come at last. It was definitely the aura of a progenitor which shocked the nerves underneath my skin. My insides glowed like Chernobyl.

  And Benjamin had just finished licking up the last of my blood. He would come for more.

  I braced myself for the dreaded onslaught.

  Hell suddenly broke loose.

  The door explosively, concussively burst wide open, as did the boarded up windows. It was not Rasputin, but Constantine! Marc and Max, followed by some faces I recognized from the Bete Noir Night Club, clambered commando-like through the windows, dispensing death with methodical efficiency as they rounded on Gnarly, who was decapitated in one masterful stroke from a stainless steel garrote, then Beluga, who was staked through the heart with a red-painted spike. The room overflowed with the sights and the sounds and the smells of carnage—shrieks and screams, pounding and rending, blood and guts and gore and limbs—all assaulting my strangely jacked up senses, as the last of Rasputin's spawn were cornered and killed.

  Thomas, for some unknown reason, protectively threw himself in front of me
, covering me, shielding me from the ongoing massacre.

  Constantine, poised in the broken portal, calm in the midst of chaos, saw ... EVERYTHING in the room at once. His men. Rasputin's. Me. And the last threat to me, Benjamin. With supernatural speed, he crossed the length of the room, snatching the river rat in mid-jump as it sprang for me. Constantine clamped the rat's slashing mouth shut. He extended Benjamin to full length, then, before my eyes, he ripped its head off with his teeth.

  Benjamin's lifeless, headless body hit the floor at the same time that I did.

  I was in a near faint, but still conscious. Thomas knelt over me. We both watched as Constantine produced a sword, more correctly a shortened, miniature scimitar from a sheath under his long tailored dinner jacket. He was a marvel to behold, urbane in formal black attire, a crisp ruffled snow white shirt molded to that devilish body, diamond chips on his cuff links, his coal colored hair lying in near curls upon his collar.

  Then Constantine ruined the glamorous image. He wiped a hand across his sensual mouth, removing a scarlet patch from where he had torn Benjamin asunder. His golden signet ring winked, glowing as if newly burnished.

  Constantine's pale blue eyes riveted upon Thomas and allowed the other no escape.

  Thomas was on a level with me. He yet knelt beside me, aiding me to sit up when I had collapsed. He began to plead in a voice tinged with strength rather than fear. He appealed to me, not begged, calmly, reasonably, persuasively. He was offering himself to me! “Mercy on me, sweet lady. I am not of Rasputin. I renounce my mistress. I am strong enough to place my allegiance where I will. Spare me.... I will serve you always and wellll...."

  "No!"

  But it was too late. Constantine, with surety and skill and vengeance, sliced Thomas’ head almost cleanly from his shoulders with the scimitar. Aghast, I pressed as close as I could to the wall and as far as I could from the corpse. There was little blood, almost none, perhaps due to some weird physiology of the vampire species that instantly coagulated such a wound? Then, again, I'd never heard or read of such a feat. I gulped down my nausea and fought not to stare at the loose bits of tissue that slightly connected the head to the neck. Thomas’ face was a shocked mask, shiny ink-black eyes open but unseeing, mouth agape with his final unuttered supplication, hair still perfectly slicked back save for the one wild lock that fell rakishly across his brow.