Eternal Bondage

by Vita Anne Hoffman

  I despaired. There would be no rescue from my not-so-shining-knight-in-dented-armor. Constantine was gone. I fought against thoughts of his gorgeous body, now just a sooty, singed shell, but they still haunted me. Constantine's final image, stretched before the smoke and flames of my fire engulfed apartment, refused to leave my frontal lobe. I wrinkled my nose, almost smelling that awful stench of the burned flesh of his once lovely hands. Strangely, Rasputin shifted his massive body, a restless—or anxious—gesture?

  And, then, suddenly, Judge Hyacinth reached the critical point of the wedding, the ‘I do's'. In his clear genial-mannered voice, I heard him ask me those fateful, and, in this case, fatal, words. “Do you, Avna Marie Soulsmith, take this vampire as your lawfully wedded husband?” He expectantly watched and waited for my reply.

  I clenched my mouth shut. I refused to answer, because, once the ceremony concluded and Rasputin kissed his bride, there was the good chance that he, being a progenitor, could turn me into a vampire, then and there, by draining me to the end of life and, with the most precise timing, he could re-infuse me with his own potent undead blood. And, after that, I would truly be his. Eternally.

  The Judge cleared his throat, fidgeted with his collar, and prompted me for an answer. “Miss Soulsmith?” The fact that he bothered to ask me twice indicated that he had an awareness, however faint, that something was amiss. Even though I knew it was useless to make my objections known—Judge Hyacinth would ‘hear’ whatever Rasputin ‘told’ his mind—still I couldn't meekly accept being bound to Rasputin forever, being turned into something vile and evil that would willingly, even eagerly do his bidding, no matter how perverse or horrible. That was a fate I intended to thwart. There was a small chance that if my own will were strong enough I might come through the transformation with some personality, with some identity, with some conscience intact.

  So, when Rasputin's grip on my wrist shifted to my upper arm and he demanded with rancid breath that I answer in the affirmative, I refused. With a few choice words.

  "Like hell I will.” I mustered the ghost of a smile. Maybe if I angered him enough he might simply snap my neck and have done with it? A nice try, but not likely. Whatever powers he thought a Soulsmith carried, he wanted to possess them, hence all the trouble to arrange legal and supernatural bonds upon me.

  He loomed even closer, staring at me, into me, revealing up close his rheumy black eyeholes. Suddenly, by contrast, I remembered Constantine's bright blue mesmerizing gaze, and that memory brought full-force the painful reality of his recent death. By fire. And with that recollection, there came rushing over me an awful accompanying stench of burned cloth, and singed hair, and charred flesh. The vampires, also, seemed to react, as if my memory had been strong enough to permeate the very air. They shuffled, stirring like spooked cattle. Snitch sidled further into the gloom.

  It was too much for me, this channeling of Constantine's demise, bringing it amongst us. I slumped. My knees nearly buckled.

  Nor was Rasputin immune. A crazed spark shown in his runny eye sockets. He shook me harder and harder. He began screaming at the Judge. “Pronounce us united! Pronounce us united!"

  But Rasputin's hold over the man had definitely been broken. Judge Hyacinth, nearly in shock, awoke to himself, seeing the cavernous gloom of the furniture showroom, the true nature of the wedding party, and most of all the horrendous seven foot groom, a nightmarish figure of such immense girth and grotesque visage that Oscar Hyacinth instantly knew what he confronted, a monster, a killer, a vampire. The Judge's nerveless fingers dropped the bible. He staggered backwards several paces, trying to distance himself from his living frightmare. Behind his spectacles, his eyes goggled wide with fear. He had backed almost outside of the circles of the wavering, draught-fanned candles. Hooray! There wasn't going to be a legal by-the-books marriage after all. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to stop Rasputin.

  With a menacing show of out-sized razor-tipped teeth, he roared at me. “You shall be mine. Mine.” To keep me pinned to the spot—as if I could possibly run—Rasputin sank his nasty claws into the bones of my right arm. For a searing, alcohol-poured-into-an-open-wound-type second, I nearly lost consciousness, collapsing even further. Rasputin's pinion-like grip alone held me upright. I struggled to keep my wits, which had scattered every which way—but mostly into the recent past and how I had met and been snared by Constantine, the Great ... and I was inundated by every last smutty detail. Then, overlaying all else, I was awash in grief.

  Suddenly, once more, the thought of him evoked the stench of his smoldering scorched hands, which had been burned out of all proportion to the rest of his body, as if they had channeled the flames away. The evocation was strong. So very strong, in fact, that it seemed his remains must be here amongst us. Rasputin's grasp on me went lax. I slid from off his claws like skewered shish kebob. Like a shambling bear on its hind legs, the gruesome progenitor frantically turned in circles when a piece of singed cloth, scenting the air with that distinctive acrid smell of fire and of smoke, was tossed at his feet.

  We all looked in that direction, expecting to see the impossible. But the intruder, I glimpsed with a brutal pang to my heart, wasn't Constantine. It was another, a vanquished enemy who had begged to be spared, who had sworn to serve and protect me before his head had nearly been severed from his body, a reanimate who had resurrected.

  "Thomas.” I breathed out his name, listless and tired. I stood, swaying, nursing my punctured arm against my side. Why, oh, why couldn't it be Constantine? I bit my lip to keep from crying this very question out loud. Hadn't I once taunted the progenitor with the threat of fire? And, in return, hadn't he offered the lie that he had unimaginable recuperative powers? But not, apparently, against fire.

  Thomas’ presence here to my rescue proved, then, that he had been my secret unknown protector, sworn by, entrusted by! Constantine to guard me. Armed with the same small scimitar that had once nearly beheaded himself, Thomas stalked within the fluttering light of the stands of candles. Strange twisted shadows, created by the weak flickers and shudders of the tall candelabra, fell upon his sinewy form. He was a wonder, much changed, still physically beautiful in a frail, slim, glossy-haired way, yet moving with a savage graceful arrogance that even dared confront two progenitors and any number of their unholy spawn. His pale skin, once reminiscent of a heroine addict, now glowed with a pearly hue, contrasting with his glittering India ink eyes. As before, an errant, boyish curl fell across his handsome wide brow.

  He offered a faint, mocking nod to me. “So, the scrumptious little cupcake is in the middle of a wedding.” He gave a tsk-tsk between his white teeth. “Why wasn't I invited? Probably ... because I intended to disrupt the service."

  Donata, pissed beyond belief, snarled at him. “You traitorous prick. I am going to wear your entrails."

  Thomas smiled devilishly. “Quite a fashion statement, but you have to pull them loose first."

  "Dispatch him, Donata,” Rasputin ordered, returning his attention to me, dismissing Thomas as a non-threat. That was his first mistake. Nearly hidden from my view behind Rasputin's great bulk, Thomas advanced on the other vampires with a fury, attacking like a whirlwind, swinging the scimitar in a shimmering arc at the first one he encountered, sending the startled male's head spurting and hurtling into the air. Snitch, the self-preserving cockroach, disappeared before the head hit the floor. Without a pause, Thomas sliced a second open from crotch to clavicle, almost, but not quite, cleaving him in two. The vampire writhed upon the dusty floor, his body gaping wide while his innards spilled out around him. That left the four females. Thomas aimed for Donata like a heat-seeking missile, but first he had to wade through her posse of bimbos.

  By now, however, I had my own troubles. Rasputin, with one enormous step, stood above of me. He hovered like a huge black blimp, blocking out every other sight but his gargantuan, disgusting body. His will, his intense hunger and hatred, beat down upon me, pulverized the last of my hope. I cowere
d down at his feet. He leaned further over me. His sickening miasma, that of an open mass grave, bled onto me. My vision wavered with fear until I blinked it clear to see, and recognize, the bright golden ring, Constantine's stolen signet ring, hanging around Rasputin's neck. The foul progenitor bent towards me, lips pulled back from his extended fangs, the breath-like stench from out of his maw hot and foul upon me. As he descended, I reached out, tangled my fingers in the chain, and ripped it from his short thick neck. The action did not give him pause.

  It should have.

  The minute my fingers encircled the gold band it became warm. That warmth suffused me, comforted me. Rasputin was almost down on my level where I squatted on the floor. I got a good look at his putrid yellow skin, his wormy thin strands of brittle hair. Even as his giant hands, one pushing my head to the side to expose my neck, the other locking onto my shoulder, claimed me, I defiantly spat words at him. I looked squarely into his fathomless rheumy eye sockets. He aimed to devour me.

  "Choke on it.” I spoke with all the power within me. I also silently prayed that my one ace in the hole worked.

  He laughed, the sound like nails on a chalkboard, as he sank his filed teeth into my throat in a huge ravenous bite. It hurt. Bad. His fangs worked deeply, almost as if he were trying to eat flesh rather than suck blood. I gripped the ring convulsively, for it was all I had to hold onto while Rasputin, the ugly monstrous beast, his bulbous discolored head at my throat, his worm-like strands of hair fanning my face, drained me dry. Only, Rasputin, with but a single mouthful, suddenly spluttered. Gagging, he jerked away from me, his dark eye holes revealing astonishment and, perhaps, fear. Pink goo frothed at his mouth. His own nasty spittle mixed with my blood and trickled down his chin. With frantic motions, he pawed at his throat, staggering drunkenly, stiff-leggedly away from me.

  "Thank goodness for odorless garlic supplements.” I closed my eyes in a prayerful manner, and recalled the handfuls of pills I had forced myself to take morning, night, and noon over the course of the past few days. It had been a long shot that apparently had paid off. As was my intent, I had rendered my blood toxic.

  When I quickly reopened my eyes, it was to the sight of Thomas, who had dispatched all of the remaining vampires save for Donata and Patrice, and was none the worse for wear. He sported not so much as a single scratch, although his weapon, Constantine's scimitar—and the hand which held it—were covered with scarlet gore.

  Thomas, with the final two members of Rasputin's family yet to battle, had heard my whispered prayer to the pagan god of garlic. He snickered. “Sweetmeat, it wasn't any such thing. Rasputin is literally ‘choking’ on the power of your suggestion. It's quite charming how you keep forgetting that you are a Soulsmith."

  Numbly, I glanced up at Rasputin, whose usually sunken eyes were bulging from out of deep sockets. A vein visibly pulsed at his mottled yellow-skinned temple, and gurgles sounded from out of his horrid, slack mouth. Watching the progenitor pawing at his throat, struggling to swallow down whatever it was that strangled him, I knew that Thomas was right. I HAD, albeit unconsciously, placed a compulsion on Rasputin. I clutched tighter at Constantine's ring. It had focused my every ounce of psychic energy and accomplished something I, alone, never would have been able to do—namely, placing a hypnotic command upon a vampire progenitor.

  For the time being, Rasputin was preoccupied. Donata, however, remained to be dealt with. Thomas, after assisting me to my unsteady feet, set himself to this task.

  "Steer clear of this mess, sweetness.” Thomas jerked his head at the awful detritus, his hacked and dispatched enemies that were smeared around the floor. “I've got some unfinished business.” Then he motioned toward Donata with his bloody scimitar. In the quavering candlelight, his inky black eyes glinted with gem-like facets. “Come, come, my old mistress, let us have at it.” His voice was jovial. He doubted not that he could vanquish her. She doubted not, either. It showed on her twisted features. All that saved her mean skinny ass was Patrice Blanchard.

  The stupid cow placed herself between Thomas and Donata. Thomas obligingly eviscerated the ex-newspaper reporter, first defensively hacking off one of her creamy white arms before slicing three times Zorro-like across her torso and stomach. Then Thomas saluted Donata with his curved sword. He was coming for her next.

  For one psychedelic LSD instant, the female progenitor transmogrified into a fiend. Her entire face and voluptuous form shifted. She expanded into something truly gruesome, truly otherworldly with claws and fangs and scales, red-eyes, nobbled legs, and over-muscled arms. Then the vision puffed out, and Donata fled in her usual cowardly M.O., vanishing with the rushing hiss of wing beats although I never saw her move. One moment she was there. The next she was not.

  But the excitement was far from over. Rasputin chose that moment to break free of my vampire whammy. I recoiled from him. I didn't trust to another hypnotic command. So, having no other option, I decided to run. For all the good it would do me.

  Thomas, several feet away, shouted at me in an exultant yet fatalistic tone. “Heads up, Sugarpie! The sky is about to fall."

  I followed his gaze upward, and I gleaned his intent. He was going to crash down the entire overhead fixture! He made a leap straight up at the immense middle chandelier suspended so precariously over us. The bolted display framework began to give way.

  "Judge Hyacinth, run!” But the pudgy, robed man was already much closer to safety than I was, his form very nearly swallowed by the darkness of the warehouse beyond the ring of weak candlelight. I hurtled myself out from under the fast falling weight of the dislodged chandeliers which came down with a percussive groan, the shrill scream of twisting metal, and a shower of plaster and paint chips. The debris of all three massive metal frames thankfully, mostly buried Rasputin. One long rod jammed into his chest. But not, or so it looked, through his heart. All I knew or cared about was that he wasn't moving. Neither was Thomas.

  I cautiously circled the twisted wreckage to check on him. Up close, I saw that he had landed awkwardly, partially pinned under the weight of the collapsed metal chandeliers. That leg appeared busted, although no bones protruded. He was stunned, not done in.

  "Thomas?” I said, gently shaking his shoulder.

  "Let me rest in peace, Muffin.” His own voice was soft, weak. A fine layer of dust turned his glossy black hair sickly gray and gave his model's features a death mask pallor.

  "I think we should get out of here.” I glanced toward the mound of splintered metal and broken ceiling, visually delineating the hump of Rasputin's body within that mess.

  "Don't worry about Rasputin, sugar. Close to a thousand pounds of scrap iron were dropped atop him. He's not getting up.... “Those famous last words were accompanied by the booming, clamorous avalanche of metal and plaster being thrown aside as Rasputin, much as his namesake, the original Mad Russian Monk, refused to be killed.

  The foul progenitor, standing amidst ruin and settling dust, pulled the warped piece of chandelier from out of his body with a strange satisfied sigh. On top of everything else, he was a masochist! He got off on the self infliction of pain!

  Thomas’ injury was pretty severe, yet he still struggled, vainly, to rise. I easily pushed him down. I was definitely on my own. Keeping my gaze fixed on Rasputin, I gripped Thomas’ arm. “Don't move. Just lie still."

  "Whatever you say, Mistress Soulsmith.” He wearily closed his eyes. That was when I knew I was in real deep trouble: Thomas didn't have the heart to tease me with a silly, sexist nickname.

  So, once again, I had no alternative but that of running. I took off, sprinting through the empty space of the gloomy warehouse as if all the hounds of hell were chasing me. Actually, it was just one mountain-sized progenitor. And he, though wounded, followed with enough speed to have me sweating bullets.

  I tore across the dusty length of the warehouse, retracing the route which had brought me here, seeing with uncanny vision every obstacle from the scattered nails to the rusty buckets
of varnish, and hearing with that same frightening, inhuman acuity that Rasputin was drawing nearer. Breathing down my neck, as it were, if only vampires in actuality breathed.

  As I ran, I still gripped Constantine's signet ring. It throbbed in my palm, forcing me to draw on that reservoir of power, a progenitor's power, which had earlier aided me. It increased my flagging strength, dulled the horrible throb and ache of my savaged arm, my rent open back. It even amplified a premonition-like rise of the hackles on the back of my neck when Rasputin's fingers nearly grasped me, yet, with a sudden burst of speed, I pulled away, fleeing up the three narrow steps that led into the showroom and onto the street. I raced full tilt across the dim expanse, hurdled across the abandoned rolls of carpeting, and didn't slacken my pace even when jumping through the secret exit cut into the whitewashed window. I hit the pavement with a horrible jolt. If anything broke, I took no notice, I simply shook off the pain and sprang away from the side of the building.

  My pursuer crashed through the glass, landing in the exact same spot just seconds behind me. His immense weight left broken concrete.