Sips of Blood

by Mary Ann Mitchell

  His father needed him. The old man had stared up into his son's eyes after being nicked by the blade. Stared, attempting to communicate something, and all Wil could do was flee from the house. Unlock their eye contact and flee. He hadn't even seen to the nick on his father's face.

  Wil pulled away from the trunk of the tree, sparking feathery sensations across his healing flesh. With some amount of pain he stood. His bare feet began striding through the grass, heading back to the house. Had his father fallen asleep? Perhaps he should allow his old man to grow a full bushy beard, become a Rip Van Winkle.

  As he came around from the back of the house, he noticed Marie's car. His pace quickened. He picked the lightweight white cotton shirt off the porch's railing and put it on while exhaling a sigh. He buttoned merely two buttons so that his father, if he could understand, would not see the healing burns.

  Opening the door, Wil staggered under the spell of blood. His mouth watered, his skin came alive with pain and pleasure. The scent filled the room, but was not of the room.

  "Oh, my God!" His legs stumbled toward his father's bedroom, reaching his hands out to push open the closed door.

  Marie looked up at Wil from his father's bed, her mouth smeared with blood, her fingers streaked with the browning stain, her teeth shining under the tinting. Giddy as if drunk on champagne, Marie giggled and beckoned to Wil.

  His father lay still, the blue eyes staring up at the ceiling, the mouth agape.

  "What the hell have you done?"

  Wil rushed to the bed, roughly took hold of Marie's shoulders, and pushed her to the floor.

  He checked his father for a pulse. None. Hardly any blood leaked from the wound; she had almost drained his father dry. His stomach roiled at his own instincts. He wanted to taste his father. Taste the blood. Taste the salty sick flesh.

  "Damn you," he yelled, turning away from his father to look for Marie.

  She had managed to lift herself off the floor and was rounding the bed to leave, he had no doubt.

  "Bitch!"

  He rushed her, swinging out his right fist to catch her right jaw in a powerful sweep.

  Marie fell to the floor. Her head lay lopsided on her neck. Her attempts to move her head only showed how little control she had. Wil realized he must have broken her neck. He watched her arms and legs flounder, heard her whisper his name, saw the pleading in her eyes as he backed away from her and returned to his father.

  Chapter 57

  Sade stiffened in pain. His innards were being ripped apart. His skin lay open, exposed to the mangling hands that twisted his intestines.

  He dropped the man from whom he had been drinking to look down at his chest and abdomen. They were still whole. He saw only the matte black of his suit.

  "Liliana," he whispered. "Liliana," he called. "Liliana!" he shouted. "Liliana!" he shouted again and his mouth twisted into a scream and he ran toward the old section of the cemetery.

  He sensed her odor, her life.

  "Ma petite chérie!"

  "Mon enfant!"

  Her life shimmered in the air, wavering in and out of existence.

  A block of trees before him waved with the movement of beings scurrying, lapping, and teasing his sight.

  "Mon enfant," he mumbled, falling to his knees at the edge of the cluster of trees. His sight had momentarily been blinded. Dead meat, rotted meat scented the air. Animal sounds screeched in his ears.

  "Liliana," he whispered, smelling the air for her life.

  Too weak to stand, he crawled forward, feeling the spongy, soggy moss beneath his hands. Twigs bruised his skin and leaves became glued to his hands.

  "S'il te plaît, Liliana."

  He did not feel the life of the little girl who had grown into a beautiful woman. The one who had driven his sleepless nights, the one of whom he had dreamt while locked in the Bastille.

  Vague forms hustled out of his way, but he ignored them.

  "Liliana, mon enfant."

  The forms began to disappear, except for a solitary shade who sat in a tree, writhing among the branches and leaves. Clawing and sucking at flesh, it did not seem to notice Sade.

  "Donnez-moi ma fille!"

  The shade trembled, allowing the meat to slide from its skeletal hands.

  The lower part of an arm fell to the ground, brushing the side of Sade's left cheek. The chill of blood wet his cheek. A single drop rolled down his quivering flesh. Dead weight falling on leaves. Dead weight indenting the earthen layer before him.

  Sade looked down to see the lower portion of a slender feminine arm. The jagged flesh had been ripped at the elbow, the arm white, sticky waves of faded blood marring the freshness of the skin.

  "Mon enfant."

  Seconds spoiled the air about him, informing him slowly of her destruction.

  "Liliana."

  His stomach roiled.

  "Ma petite chérie."

  He threw himself back on his haunches and reached his hands out to touch the remains before him. Icy as his flesh, but an empty cold that does not preserve the flesh, instead allows the flesh to decay.

  His niece, his child, his woman, his lover. Gone. A life taken by loveless husks intent on feeding their own appetites.

  A shiver of leaves and twigs behind him. Sade turned in fury with Liliana's appendage raised high above his head as if to signal the casus belli. In a single leap he was on his feet and standing before Cecelia. Her eyes wide, she took the opportunity of his frozen tableau to take a step backward.

  "Louis?"

  His eyes focused on his newly born lover. Her clothes, rent and blood-stained, flapped in a breeze. Her mouth was smudged with shed life. He watched her lips form his name. How many times? He could not hear, for the rush inside his head sent waves of pain resounding through his thoughts.

  His fingers intertwined with his niece's, her fingers becoming unyielding while he felt his own flesh turned into a lover's touch.

  Sade turned his back on Cecelia and faced the wood. Falling to his knees, he wished he could pray to Liliana and beg her forgiveness, beg her to return once more to him.

  Sade lowered her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. He turn the hand over and saw the ring he had given her. A marriage only briefly consummated. He slid the ring off her finger and laid the arm on a bed of leaves. Raising the ring skyward, he saw the quarter moon peaking between the limbs of the trees.

  With whom could he share his love?

  "Are you going to bay at the moon now?" Cecelia's question shattered the quietness of his thoughts.

  Sade returned the ring to his own finger and stood, knowing that there was no longer any reason to tolerate La Maîtresse.

  "And the villain leaves peacefully! And divine lightning strikes him not!"

  Justine

  by the

  Marquis de Sade

  Chapter 58

  "Who was she?"

  Sade felt Cecelia's eyes staring at him.

  "It was Liliana's arm, wasn't it?"

  He knew this child reveled in her rival's death, but he could not fault her for the jealously. Now Cecelia and he belonged to each other. There existed no third party to dampen his passion for his newest... He could not allow the word love to be spoken, even in his thoughts. His newest what? Passion. Yes. His newest passion.

  "She's dead, isn't she?"

  Sade drove faster, heading for La Maîtresse's house. Headlights flashed on passing objects. Occasionally he noticed a broken fence, a ramshackle barn, a signpost that simply blurred by.

  "Are we going back to your house?"

  The Jaguar held the road, taking turns with ease, turns that he had memorized late at night in fits of passion when he decided to bring a victim to the dungeon. Innuendo had encouraged the drive, small talk had filled the air in the car, small talk and nervous hand movements covering the victim's anticipation.

  "You said we would leave for Europe right away."

  Right after his visit to his mother-in-law.

&nb
sp; A house came into view on the left side of the road. Sade glanced casually, taking in the tired porch, the old Cadillac parked to the side of the house, and Marie's car at the foot of the driveway.

  Sade stomped the brakes, and the car spun several times. He heard a high-pitched scream sound from the passenger seat. He regained control of the car and parked it immediately behind his mother-in-law's car.

  "Why are we stopping here, for Christ’s sake?"

  "Stay in the car, Cecelia. Wait for me. Don't leave the car. You don't want to be seen." Sade looked over at the girl and immediately swept her off the seat and onto the floor. "Stay out of sight."

  If she protested, he didn't hear. Instead his mind reached out to the house, seeking the existence he meant to destroy. He slammed the car door behind him. Inside the house a weakened Marie waited in fear. He sensed the sickening odor of decaying flesh, wounded, fighting, scrambling about wanting escape, but trapped.

  Sade laughed, allowing his presence to be announced in the vibrations of the air that separated him from Marie.

  "I'm closing in," he whispered, knowing that night breathed his words inside her head.

  * * *

  "Stay still. What the hell's wrong that you can't be still until I can check your condition?" Wil approached Marie and she struck out, ravishing the air with her nails, missing Wil completely. "Damn, I'm not trying to hurt you anymore."

  Marie rasped. Trying to speak? He could not tell for sure. Dragging her body in short spurts, Marie headed away from the entrance to the bedroom and closer to the farthest window.

  "Marie, I want you dead, but not by my own hand."

  The words seemed to strike terror in Marie's eyes. Without moving her head, her eyes searched the room. While attempting to stand, Marie crashed her head against the wooden leg of the bed.

  Like an animal, he thought. Like an animal hit by a car on a lonely road. No understanding in the eyes, only fear.

  The front door opened and closed. He always forgot to lock the door; this had often caused arguments between him and his father.

  "Shit," he cursed. How could he explain what had happened in this room? Would anyone believe him? "Shit!"

  * * *

  Sade kicked aside a fallen book. The room to his right filled his heart with glee. She was there. Waiting. Unable to escape him.

  He touched the knob of the door and hesitated. Slowly he rubbed the faceted glass. His chill already permeated the room, he knew. While holding the knob, he lightly tapped an index finger against the wood panel of the door. Hardly audible by most, but meant to echo inside Marie's head.

  Suddenly the door was pulled open and Marie's favorite slave stood in the doorway.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  Sade reached out and touched Wil's healing chest.

  "She is sharing her blood with you." He tsked.

  Wil went to push his hand away, but Sade grabbed Wil's hand and squeezed, squeezed until Wil on his knees begged him to stop. Sade pulled back his own hand and kicked Wil to the side.

  A dead man lay on the bed: Marie's last meal. Beyond the body he sensed La Maîtresse on the floor. Quiet now, she lay in a crooked ball, her neck out of kilter, her mind racing, her time decreasing in seconds, moments.

  "Liliana has been destroyed."

  "What?" Wil's mouth hung open.

  Marie made no sound.

  "At the cemetery mon enfant was torn apart by raging, demented husks called vampires."

  "Vampires? What the hell are you talking about?" asked Wil.

  But Marie was still.

  "Une belle enfant, une belle femme lost to me forever."

  "She's dead?"

  "Elle a eu une existence misérable between an uncle too enchanted to free a lovely jeune femme and a grandmother wrapped in her own hedonism. We were wrong, Marie. We should have let her go long ago." Sade walked around the bed to confront his mother-in-law. "Vouz allez cruellement souffrir."

  "What in hell are you talking about?" asked Wil, on his feet, looking lost.

  Sade looked at Wil. "Monsieur, you are one of us, or perhaps almost one of us." Sade looked over at Marie. "You always liked the slow, excruciating way. Now you will not be able to complete your creation. A creation you swore you never would consider making. I know you can't help but lie. I was to be freed from the Bastille, only I didn't know that I would immediately be taken to an insane asylum. But I grew in strength there, Marie. A strength you cannot imagine in a puny body like yours.

  "Monsieur, I noticed you have a fireplace. Does it work?"

  "Hell, on a hot day like this, what does it matter?"

  "Does it work, monsieur?" Sade stared directly into Wil's eyes.

  "Yes."

  "Fire wood is outside?"

  "Yes. Needs to be chopped, but it's there for winter."

  "C'est l'hiver, ma petite amie."

  Sade turned away from Marie and strode out of the room. He hesitated at the threshold and looked over his shoulder to see Wil moving closer to Marie.

  "Monsieur, you must show me where the ax and firewood are."

  "I'm not helping, you bastard."

  Sade sighed. "Monsieur, do you know why you are healing so quickly?"

  "I know why I have these scars."

  "No, no, monsieur, that is not the point. It was a test to see how quickly you could recuperate. You see, she is turning you into one of us."

  "God help me, I'll never be like either of you."

  "True, since she will not have the opportunity of completing her vicieux work. I'm not sure what you will become, monsieur, and I don't really care. But you will find yourself with a strange thirst, and you will need to feed just as she has on this poor old man."

  "My father."

  "Ah! La vengeance est douce, monsieur." Sade saw the blank look in Wil's eyes. "Revenge, monsieur. Do you not seek to avenge the death of your father?"

  "I don't want any more killing."

  "Monsieur, that is the philosophy that caused my poor Liliana's demise. If you wish to survive, you will learn to enjoy the stalking, the smell of fear, and the golden feel of prey pressed between your palms."

  Wil shook his head.

  "I hope you will at least not try to stop me."

  Wil backed away from Marie and walked over to kneel by the side of his father's bed.

  * * *

  Holding his father's hand, Wil silently asked his father for forgiveness. If he had never come home, his old man would still be living his grouchy hermit life, grumbling at neighbors, refusing Wil's calls. Caring for his mother's grave. Now Wil would have to care for both parents. He knew that his mother had been buried deep enough so that his father could eventually join her. It would only be a matter of opening the grave, inserting Keith's coffin, and adding Dad's date of death to the tombstone.

  The house belonged to Wil now. His father had never prepared a will, unable to leave his possessions to an ungrateful son and unable to disinherit his wife's only child.

  His throat felt parched. The skin on his chest itched. He looked down at himself. Initially the top layer had swollen into something that looked like the crust of a freshly baked pie. That layer had fallen off in a solid piece, and he had stomped on it until all the scum had gone down the shower drain. Layers had continued to rapidly peel away, until now there were only splotches left of the old burn.

  Gurgling sounds interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up at his father's mouth. Lips still agape, the old man had not uttered any sound. The gurgling persisted, and he remembered Marie. He turned to his right side and saw how she hissed and heaved trying to speak, reaching out to touch his dirty faded jeans, dragging herself across the rough wood floor. A splinter of wood protruded from her right palm, big enough so that he could see it plainly catch on the woven cotton blanket that got in her way.

  "Kill me." Her words had come out distorted, but she was not requesting to be killed, he knew, for she repeated the sentence more slowly, attempting to enunciate wh
ere her voice box failed.

  "Don't... let... him... kill... me."

  "Why should I stop him, my mistress?" The words were spoken coldly and sarcastically.

  Her hand waved at his chest, and again she reached, but couldn't touch him.

  "You'--re... life," she wheezed.

  "I don't think he wants to kill me, my mistress." Mistress came out with tawdry disgust.

  "Bl--ood." She made a leap and fell against his body.

  "Get away from me," he said, pushing her back, watching her head fall uselessly against the leg of the bed.

  Wil stood to look at his father's body. Finding a penknife on the nightstand, he used the point to jab his fathers arm.

  "Damn you! You sucked my father dry," he yelled.

  "Oui, monsieur, Marie is a sangsue. What you would call a vampire. Now help me start a fire. You must have newspaper or something I could use."

  "Lighter fluid." Wil stared darkly at Sade.

  Sade smiled. "Good to retain a sense of humor, monsieur. You will be needing it. Meanwhile, you torture my poor Marie with this lingering wait. Even she would prefer it over, oui, Marie? Ah, no! I am afraid Marie has a grip on her existence that she refuses to unlock.

  "Paper, monsieur, lighter fluid, anything, I must be gone by morning quand nous serons dans la merde. A translation for you, monsieur, when the shit hits the fan."

  Wil did not assist Sade; instead, he checked the wounds upon his chest. He healed much faster than normal. His strength had increased to the point where he no longer could gauge the power behind his moves.

  A vampire, he thought. A humorless chuckle caught his breath when he thought of his friends in Greenwich Village who had pretended at vampirism. How they would envy him.

  He smelled smoke and rushed to the living room, where he found Sade adjusting the fireplace damper.

  "Monsieur, a good cleaning certainly is in order here. My... former housekeeper can recommend a reliable chimney sweep. She always saw to that.