Blood & Love and Other Vampire Tales

by Rhiannon Frater

  Blood & Love

  and Other Vampire Tales

  By Rhiannon Frater

  Blood & Love and Other Vampire Tales

  By Rhiannon Frater

  Kindle Edition

  Original Copyright 2012 by Rhiannon Frater

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN-13:

  978-1470178376

  ISBN-10:

  1470178370

  Edited by The Mysterious Vampire Iguana

  Interior formatting by Kody Boye

  Cover Artwork by Claudia McKinny of

  http://phatpuppyart.com/

  http://rhiannonfrater.com/

  http://astheworlddies.com/

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situation are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  Blood and Love and Other Vampire Tales

  Award-winning author Rhiannon Frater delves deep into the vampire mythos in her new short story collection featuring the beautiful, but deadly undead. Spanning a hundred years and a diverse cast of characters, Rhiannon explores the themes of loneliness, revenge, blood and love in seven tales. How far will the bloodthirsty vampires go to find love, revenge, and family? Discover the truth in Love & Blood and Other Vampire Tales.

  Dedicated to all fans of vampires

  Special thanks to the fans of my two vampire series for your constant support and inspiration

  Eternal thanks to the creatures of the shadows that served as my muses

  Also by Rhiannon Frater

  As the World Dies Series

  The First Days

  Fighting to Survive

  Siege (Spring 2012 from Tor)

  As The World Dies Untold Tales Series

  Untold Tales, V1.

  Untold Tales, V2.

  Pretty When She… Series

  Pretty When She Dies: A Vampire Novel

  Pretty When She Kills (Spring 2012)

  Vampire Bride Series

  The Tale of the Vampire Bride

  The Vengeance of the Vampire Bride

  The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters

  Short Story Collections

  Blood & Love and Other Vampire Tales

  Cthulhu’s Daughter and Other Horror Tales (2012)

  Part One

  The Ache of Loneliness

  Author’s Note

  When I first started writing about vampires, the only huge name in the genre was Anne Rice. Though her vampires were debonair and romantic, they were also gruesome killers. The highly romanticized vampires that now exist in most genre fiction had yet to enter the stage.

  Yet the themes of loneliness and isolation were often touched upon in the vampire lore that predates Anne Rice. If you were an eternal monster, wouldn’t you maybe desire the companionship of another eternal monster? Even in the midst of your inhuman desire for blood, wouldn’t you feel the human need for companionship?

  The last two short stories touch on this theme.

  The first story, The Whisper, was written specifically for a friend who loved vampires. On a whim, I wrote the story and gave it to her. She loved it. Therefore, I dedicate the first story of this collection to all the people who love the deadly vampires who walk the lonely night.

  The second one, The Two Mothers, was written for an anthology that was later canceled by the publisher. Based on a dream, I honestly didn’t know how it would end until I was writing the story. It ended up a much different piece than I originally envisioned, but I love it nonetheless. The vampire Elise’s acute loneliness is haunting in its great need and she brought me to tears as I wrote.

  Enjoy!

  The Whisper

  I’ve always loved the night…

  The beauty of the endless star-studded sky, the seductive caress of the evening breeze, and the way the city is transformed as the citizens of the night emerge. I have always felt more alive at night. I find the daylight depressing and heavy on my shoulders when I wander out during the hours of the day. But, for as long as I can remember, the night has been my domain.

  The night intoxicates me.

  I am a young woman in my twenties, so I am not the fool. The nightmares of my childhood sometimes haunt me as I walk the neon-lighted path to my favorite nightclub. I know the shadows hide many secrets: a man with a knife, the drug dealer, the junkie, the prostitute…

  Sometimes when I’m more fanciful and my morbid thoughts take over, I wonder if perhaps some strange creature that dwells in an endless night is hiding in the darkness.

  Vampires have always haunted my nightmares. As I grew older and wiser, I banished them to the dark corners of my mind, branding them a childhood fear. But now, as I find myself sinking deeper and deeper into my nighttime existence, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps they walk among us.

  What would they be like? Do they love us mere mortals? Do they hate us? Are we only their sustenance? Or something more?

  My mind is turning morbid, so I plunge into the nightclub and join my family of the night.

  As I ascend the stairs, the only entrance into my dark domain, I smile in greeting with my blood-red lips as several young women descend the stairs dressed in all in black, dripping with lace, velvet and leather. I reach the entrance into the club and grin at a girl leaning over the rail. We greet each other with a kiss, though we have no idea of the other’s name, and I walk around the partition decorated with a mural of “The Scream.” As the music fully envelopes me, I feel almost painfully alive.

  I am comfortable in my velvet dress with the antique lace cuffs, my dark hair twisted back from my face with skull hair clips. As I greet a friend, he touches the leather collar around my neck and jokes about leashing me to him. I tug on his dark hair and laugh as I press on through the crowd. I am happiest here in the darkness of the club, the mist snaking around me as the smoke machine hisses overhead. The strobe lights fight with the gloom over the dance floor as several men dance alone, slowly circling each other with fluid movements, each lost in their own thoughts as the music wraps around them.

  I hesitate at the bar for a quick mineral water, the bartender admiring my silver bat earrings as he slides my regular drink across to me. The night is young, as he has yet to be overwhelmed by the beautiful dark-clothed Goths that haunt this club.

  Tonight I feel so very odd. I feel so very alive and yet there is a thread of dread pulsing through me, a shiver of anticipation. I escape onto the dance floor, dancing alone, my drink clasped in one hand. I close my eyes and move slowly until the music possesses me. Soon my hands, my arms, my legs began to move seductively as I am captured by the music. Fleeing into the music to escape my own dark thoughts, I dance, my feet moving over the scuffed floor as my hands weave their own dark magic around my body.

  Slowly, very slowly, I become aware of those watching me. Leaning against the rails around the dance floor, my fellow Goths watch my fevered dance. Perhaps they are wondering, like I am, why I am dancing tonight with such fervor. Why must I keep confirming to myself that I am alive? A strange darkness is seeping into my very core, a lethargy. I have always lived with the darkness of my own soul, so why should this frighten me? I close my eyes and no longer see my admirers, and yet, I still feel the intense gaze of someone watching me, a gaze so penetrating it makes my fingertips grow numb.

  Shaken, I escape off the dance floor, which divides this long, narrow nightclub virtually in half. I glance over at the tables and chairs inhabited by dark figures, smoke swirling around them. The gloom, the music, the forms of my fellow Goths—all seem surreal. I move down the narrow path that cuts between t
he dance floor and the DJ booth. I glance at a green-haired boy as I pass him, his cigarette dangling from his pouty lips as he once more alters the music. My fingers slide over the cold wall, as I step around a cluster of college girls.

  The smoke machine hisses overhead and once more the gloom billows upward. Then as I move forward, I see him step out of the smoke. Tall, clad all in black, he is an imposing sight as my eyes settle on his chest when I approach him. Everything around me seems to slowly transform about me as my eyes move upward toward his face. I can hear my own heart beating in my ears as my gaze skims over the long blond hair that falls down to his waist. My eyes meet his as I began to step to the side to avoid colliding with him. A deep, penetrating cold sweeps over me as I brush against his arm. Startled, I gaze up into his face as he looks down at me and I see the flash of his very white hand as he raises it. His fingertips almost graze my cheek as he whispers to me. In that moment, I am transfixed by his ethereal beauty and my own desires to run. His voice cuts through the music, the background chatter, my own thundering heart beat…

  My mind screams one word in that moment.

  Vampire!

  Abruptly, I find myself walking away from him, my mind a clutter of confused thoughts. I don’t glance back as I make my way through the crowd near the bar and duck around the partition to lean against the railing. I gaze down at those coming and going, an endless stream of black-garbed beauty. As I stand there, I realize I cannot remember the stranger’s face, or his words. I am still shaken, feeling as if I have just danced with death. I cannot calm my beating heart as I stand under the only bright lights in the club. Someone begins to speak to me, someone I know…but I cannot remember his name. We talk as I watch the ceaseless parade up and down those stairs. I clutch the railing as I realize I am looking for him.

  Finally, whatever fear possessed me subsides enough for me to want to rationalize what happened to me. I know he has not passed me to travel down those stairs leading out into the night, so I know he is still in the club. With a deep breath, I move back toward the dance floor. It is a long narrow space and I know that he cannot slip past me. My eyes quickly adjust to the gloom as I begin to methodically seek for the tall man with the long blond hair. I do not grow calmer as I search, only more frantic, more frightened. When I reach the back of the club, I look back over the thinning crowd, suppressing the desire to scream.

  He has disappeared!!

  I’m suddenly pushing my way across the dance floor, past the crowd at the bar, and nearly stumble in my haste to get down the stairs and out of the club. I run into the night, dragging deep breaths of cool fresh air into my lungs. I whirl around, my gaze sweeping over the street, then up into the sky.

  I feel his eyes on me.

  I run to my car and my quivering fingers fumble with the keys. I finally enclose myself into the safety of my car and drive home in a frenzied state. Not until I have locked myself in my apartment do I finally feel safe.

  To calm myself, I take a long hot bath and try to explain away the whole event. I struggle to remember his face and his words, but they are elusive, hidden from me by my own mind.

  After lighting candles about my room, I finally sink into my bed, curling up inside of my long, white nightgown. My dark hair spills across the pillow as I stare at the candle flickering at my bedside. Slowly, like a predator, sleep creeps over my mind, and I fall into the nonsense world of dreams.

  I am at peace in my dreams until out of the darkness a form appears. His face is vivid as he leans toward me, his dark gray eyes peering into mind, the soft seductive lips parting as he whispers, “I will come for you, my love.”

  I awaken with a frightened start. The candle flickers beside of me on the nightstand. I sigh with relief, then his fingers trail over my flushed cheek. I gasp just before he kisses me and his hair falls all around me blotting out the candlelight.

  Darkness encompasses me….

  …I have always loved the night….

  The Two Mothers

  1

  All she wants is a child to dull the ache of her loneliness. She’s tired of men. Tired of women. Tired of the nights drifting into one another with the same story playing on the stage of her dreary life.

  She just wants a child.

  Of course, it is impossible for her to conceive and bear her own, but she knows she can take what she wants if she can just find the one that will call her “mama.”

  One day, as the sun is setting just below the gleaming skyscrapers of Manhattan, she sees him from her perch high above the street. A little boy, four years old, with brown hair and big green eyes, trailing behind his weary-looking young mother. Trudging down the streets of New York City, maneuvering through the crowded sidewalks, trying not to slip on the icy walk, the two figures peak her interest as they struggle on.

  The mother is young, her face prematurely-lined with worry. Her brown hair escapes a ratty cap and her clothes are obviously second-hand. The child is dressed a bit better than his mother. Obviously, she has taken great care to give him what she will not buy for herself. Warm snug clothes and boots. The mother is hidden under several sweaters and a windbreaker, layered to provide warmth.

  The vampire drops down into an alley. The little boy notices her as she steps out of the shadows and onto the sidewalk as they pass. The child keeps looking over his shoulder at her, smiling, his mittened hand clasped firmly in his mother’s cold, pale, reddened fingers.

  The vampire smiles back at him and he laughs.

  He laughs despite the stench of death on him and his sallow coloring.

  It touches her.

  She follows them through the exodus of people making their way home after a long day’s work. The winter brings an early, cold nightfall. The vampire enjoys this season. The two she is following lead her to the decrepit apartment building. She discreetly follows them up the sloping, warped stairway. It is easy to do, this place being crowded with people coming and going, children trying to play in the narrow halls. She watches as the mother carefully unlocks the door to her tiny apartment and slips inside.

  The little boy looks over his shoulder once more and lifts his tiny hand to wave at her.

  She waves back. A smile spread on her lips. It is the first time she has truly smiled in a very long time.

  The door closes and she steps back into the darkness of the stairwell.

  She has found the one.

  2

  “What are you up to, Elise?” His voice is terse. He doesn’t trust her.

  She doesn’t blame him.

  Looking up, she shoves her dark hair back from her face. “Nothing.”

  “You’re lying.”

  He is leaning against the window across from the piano. The skyline of New York spreads out behind him in a panorama of earthbound stars. He looks so young. She always thinks of him as being ancient, but at moments like these, with his hair newly shorn and his clothes reflecting the latest fashion trends, he is wonderfully young and fresh.

  She shrugs in response to his accusation. Her fingers fumble with the keys on the piano, not really playing, just musing.

  “You’ve been going out a lot, Elise.”

  “I’m bored. When I’m bored, I wander.”

  His large arms are folded over his broad chest. He looks like a young football player at a local high school somewhere in Virginia. He’s angry. She can feel it. When he cannot control her, he grows angry. It has been so long since she loved him and he knows it.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” he orders.

  “Jacob,” she says in a plaintive voice, “would I do that?”

  He is a blur, then she is up against the wall, his huge body pressed hard against hers.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what goes on in your mind? Don’t think I haven’t seen flashes of your desire. A child, Elise? Really? Are you that bored? If you are, I can relieve you of this immortal coil, you know? I made you. I can destroy you.”

  She flashes back to that moment when
he had pinned her to the ground outside of her family’s dilapidated homestead in West Virginia so long ago. Her threadbare dress had torn when he had seized her and she had been distraught when she heard it rip. The thought of her husband beating her for destroying her only dress had filled her with fear until Jacob had bared his fangs and sank them into her slim throat. That was when everything had changed and she had been lost to the darkness.

  Elise tries not to look into his eyes. She tries not to feel her fear rising up inside of her. He can read her thoughts even more clearly when she is afraid. She has to divert him now or everything will be lost.

  She wraps her long legs around his waist, grips his thick neck with her hands, and kisses him deeply.

  They may hate each other, but they are joined by blood. Within seconds they are lost in a fever of lust. When his teeth sinks into her neck and he fills her sex, she closes her eyes and tries not to weep.

  3

  Elise perches on the fire escape and taps on the window of the little boy’s room. It is the only bedroom in this tiny apartment. It’s not much bigger than the living room where the mother is trying to sleep on the battered sofa. It is obvious the mother has tried hard to decorate the little room in cheerful blue and red with a big tattered poster of Spider-man, rescued from a trash bin outside a theater, hanging on the wall.

  Tapping lightly again, she smiles as the boy stirs and looks through the glass at her. Sitting up, he rubs one hand across his eyes.

  “Hi,” he says. “I like your sunglasses.”

  She laughs and takes them off, revealing her green eyes.

  “I like your room.”

  He cocks his head. “I saw you today.”

  “I saw you, too.”

  “I saw you another time, too.”

  “I know.”

  He slips from the bed and walks over to the window to peer up at her.

  “You’re pretty.”

  “So are you. Can I come in?” Elise pushes back her dark hair from her face and tries to not look threatening.