Death Embraces

by J. C. Diem

  In the last moments before Luc had deprived my body of my head, I’d finally figured out what my true destiny was. The prophet had written in his journal that I would decimate ‘the damned’. At first I’d thought that meant I’d kill all vampires but now I had a different theory. Some of the older vamps I’d had the displeasure of meeting had evolved to the point where their shadows were sentient. Our father’s blood was manifesting itself after tens of thousands of years. Watching the twisted, malformed shadows acting all on their own, I’d instinctively known there was something horribly wrong with the vampires they belonged to.

  Now, I knew just how evil they truly were. I knew the shadows could communicate after seeing them interacting with each other. What I didn’t know was if they had a coordinated plan for world domination or if their awakening was random. Instinct told me there was nothing random about it. Someone or something had to be in charge. Maybe if I killed him, her or it, I could stop the offspring from taking over.

  Luc had said something to me shortly before he’d lopped my head off that had stuck in my mind. He’d told me that I wasn’t just destined to take down the damned, he’d told me that I was going to save what was left of our kin. If I did nothing, they would all be turned into slaves. Christ, no pressure! To say I didn’t feel up to this task would be an understatement.

  Standing in the rain for several minutes, I let it wash me semi-clean. I was soaked and shivering but at least the dirt had been washed out of my hair, not to mention my butt crack. I remembered I’d stashed a spare set of clothing from the deceased guard in the bushes somewhere. They would be completely sodden by now but walking around naked would be noticed and remembered.

  Searching the area, I located the clothes again. I scrubbed as much of the vampire ooze out of them as I could before pulling on the jeans, button up shirt and overcoat. I had to roll the pants and sleeves up several inches since I was five feet four inches and the dead vamp had been about six inches taller than me. The boots were far too large so I didn’t bother with them. My bare feet made squelching noises as I skulked through the graveyard. If any other sentries guarded the vast, ancient cemetery, they remained unseen and un-sensed.

  Rounding a tree that was bent and twisted with age and looked like it could have used a grave of its own, I spied a black plastic rubbish bin. It would be just the right size to cover a certain hole in the ground that I’d prefer remained unfound.

  Backtracking to the hole with the bin in hand, I pushed dirt back into the tunnel then plonked the bin over the opening. As I’d hoped, it was just large enough to cover the tell-tale signs of my escape. Vampires could be nasty and lowdown but I doubted they resorted to bin diving very often. Since they couldn’t eat any of the scraps that were rotting inside, there would be no need for them to search through the refuse. Our sense of smell was acute and we tended to avoid odours this bad.

  It was time to leave this place and I couldn’t wait to be gone. If I never saw another cemetery again, I’d be happy. I took a few steps then heard a familiar whistling sound. Here we go again, I groaned inwardly. The noise cut off right about the time that a stake lodged in my chest. Peering through the heavy downpour, I spied a vampire guard about twenty feet away. He was backing away from me in panic. His pale face was filled with an almost religious terror as he recognized me. “B-b-but you can’t be alive,” he moaned as he stumbled backwards. “You’re dead!”

  “We’re all dead, numb nuts,” I replied and pulled the stake free. The sentry turned and fled, shrieking at the top of his lungs. Startled shouts from nearby humans rang out at the volume and intensity of the scream.

  I went after the fleeing guard like a greyhound after a mechanical rabbit. Whatever dark magic Alexander had imbued me with when he’d dripped his blood onto my heart had changed me in ways I hadn’t anticipated. My feet covered the distance in seconds. Then I launched myself into the air and landed on the guard’s back. His face ploughed into the ground, leaving a skid mark three feet long. The stake that was still sticky with my blood punched through his back and found his heart. Soon, all that remained of the lackey was a muddy blotch on the ground and his empty clothing.

  Much smaller than the guard I’d dispatched earlier, his shoes were only a couple of sizes too big for me. I pulled them on and hurried towards the outer rim of the cemetery. It was the opposite direction from the humans who were still shouting to each other, asking if anyone else had heard the scream. Several produced torches and bright light stabbed through the dark, probing the darkness. Already safely out of range, I hurried onwards.

  A high, wrought iron fence surrounded the graveyard. The tips were pointy and, unfortunately for me, spear shaped. I could probably have jumped right over it but opted not to. There were a few people, still disturbed by the fleeing guard’s scream, gathered around my side of the graveyard. A trio of frightened humans huddled together beneath their umbrellas.

  “I’m telling you,” a guy was whispering loudly to the two women, “whatever made that noise wasn’t human.”

  “What, you think it was a ghoul?” asked one of the women sarcastically. Fear was mixed with her scorn and made her voice tremble.

  “There’s no such thing as ghouls,” the third woman said. “I bet it was a vampire!” Young, barely out of her teens, she seemed highly excited by the idea. The other two gave her an incredulous look and I stifled an amused snigger. I passed within five feet of them on the far side of the fence and they didn’t even see me.

  “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what it was,” the first woman said with profound sarcasm. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that, it’s so logical.” She shook her head and the young woman’s shoulders slumped.

  “They could be real,” the kid muttered.

  “Whatever it was, I don’t want any part of it,” the man declared and trotted away. Smart move, I thought after his rapidly retreating back.

  Following the fence line, I found a gate then waited for a break in pedestrian traffic before snapping the padlock that was keeping me prisoner. A dark alley beckoned to me from across the street. I ducked into it thankfully and threw the bundle of clothing from the second sentry I’d killed into a dumpster.

  I was still hopeful that my escape would remain unnoticed. With the only witnesses to my resurrection dead, there was still a chance I wouldn’t be found out. Not unless someone unearthed the holes now dotted around the cemetery.

  When the guards didn’t check in with the Court, someone would be sure to investigate. If I was lucky, their disappearance would remain a mystery. Their clothes were gone and the rain would wash their remains away. I smirked at the idea that the Comtesse wouldn’t know I was still unalive and whole again until I snuck up and stabbed her through the heart. As if it’s going to be that easy. I wished it would be. It would be nice for something about my unlife to be easy for once.

  Sticking to the dark back streets, I jogged away from the place that was sure to haunt my dreams for some time to come. Twenty minutes later, I was in a residential part of whatever town I was in. Most of the buildings were narrow red brick apartment blocks that all looked the same.

  Rounding a corner, I almost ran into a lone man huddled beneath a green and white striped awning of a deli. A car sat at the curb. Its hood was still steaming in the rain so I assumed he’d arrived only moments ago. Unaware of my presence and my unholy hunger, half soaked and shivering, he searched through his pockets. Finding his house keys at last, he stepped back into the rain and darted up the stairs of a two story duplex next door to the deli.

  Near starvation made my stomach try to cramp. Being undead, none of my former bodily functions worked now. I couldn’t cry, go to the toilet, vomit or sweat. About the only function that still worked was my ability to drink. A meal had been kind enough to present itself and I wasn’t about to turn it down. I’d expended a lot of energy over the past few days of digging and hauling myself to freedom and needed to replenish my strength.

  Catching the door be
fore it could shut all the way, I eased inside after my meal. Turning to see why the door hadn’t banged shut, the guy started back when he saw me standing right in front of him. I met his frightened eyes and he was instantly spellbound.

  “Do you live alone?” I asked him as I stepped inside and closed the door. I flicked off the hall light he’d switched on, plunging us into semi-darkness. A streetlight outside gave enough illumination for my victim’s needs.

  “No,” he replied in a drugged tone. “My girlfriend will be home in an hour.” His eyes remained on my face, wide and hypnotized. My stomach tried to cramp again. The need to feed was becoming unbearable.

  It was raining hard but there was still a chance we might be seen through the glass. I didn’t want to dine on my meal where we could be spotted. “Go upstairs and change,” I ordered him even though I wanted to drag him to the ground and bury my teeth in his neck. I might be an unnatural creature of the night but that didn’t mean I had to mistreat my meals. He would be much more comfortable when he woke from my spell if he was wearing clean, dry clothes.

  Obeying my command, the guy turned stiffly and led the way up the stairs. Peeking through the rainy glass, I ascertained that no one was watching me then turned the lock. Clean, dry clothes sounded too good to resist. If I was lucky, his girlfriend would be roughly my size.

  Running lightly up the stairs, I followed the sounds of my victim stripping and entered the first door on the left. Like the rest of the apartment, the master bedroom was small and cramped. The décor ran towards boring colours like cream and white. A chest of drawers had been painted the same cream shade as the walls and blended in almost invisibly. I’d hate to have to get up in the middle of the night to pee if I were a human living here. The danger of walking into the dresser was high and so was the potential for injury.

  The top drawer of the dresser was open, revealing a small selection of pants and shirts. My meal finished pulling on a dry pair of jeans, bent to pick up his discarded clothes and took them into the bathroom across the hallway. He was obviously well trained. Most of my old boyfriends would have left their wet clothes on the floor to mildew until I picked them up and washed them.

  Returning, the guy rummaged through the drawers again, choosing a shirt. While he finished dressing, I opened the wardrobe door. A tiny space to the right held male clothing. The rest of the closet was taken up with girl clothes. They had been separated into summer and winter clothing and then arranged by colour. Wow, she has major obsessive compulsive tendencies.

  While the range of clothing was substantial, it turned out I wasn’t lucky and she was nowhere near my size. The girlfriend was at least three inches taller than me and she was far more voluptuous than I could ever hope to be. As an Australian size eight, I was slender and had an almost boyish figure. My sewing skills weren’t up to the task of taking in clothing. Besides, I didn’t have any sewing tools with me.

  Eyeing the freshly clothed man, I noticed that he was pretty skinny and that his hips weren’t much wider than mine. I’d have better luck raiding his wardrobe than his girlfriend’s. The pants would still be too long but at least they wouldn’t fall off me. First things first, it was time to feed. “Sit down on the bed,” I told him and he complied.

  “You’re so gorgeous,” he breathed when I sat beside him. He tried to cup my face with his hands but I stopped him. There was no need to turn this into an intimate encounter. Feeding my blood hunger from a human was fine but if my flesh hunger rose, I’d probably break him in half.

  Besides, he wasn’t my type. I preferred guys with dark hair rather than mousy brown. Coincidentally, this preference had only occurred since I’d met Luc. Previously, I hadn’t been all that fussy. As long as a guy treated me ok and wasn’t a complete slob, I’d be willing to date him. Unfortunately, I worked a lot and didn’t go out much. It was hard to meet guys from the comfort of your couch. Internet dating hadn’t much interested me so I hadn’t had much chance to meet a new guy lately. I’d had to die before I met someone who finally seemed to want me. How screwed up is that?

  “Close your eyes,” I instructed and he instantly complied. It was creepy having my meal staring at me worshipfully. When his lids closed, I leaned in. My incisors reacted to the hunger growling inside me and lengthened. They cut through skin and into his vein easily.

  Sweet, salty blood flowed into my mouth. I hadn’t eaten in days but I was careful not to overfeed and drain the poor guy. Eating for pleasure had never been high on my list of priorities and it still wasn’t. I ate to live, I didn’t live to eat. You’re not even technically alive at all now, I reminded myself.

  “Sleep,” I instructed my victim when I was done. “Wake up in twenty minutes and don’t remember any of this.” The guy’s head promptly sagged to his chest and he began to breathe deeply. Laying him down, I wiped away a runnel of blood from the puncture wounds in his neck with my wet sleeve. As I watched, the tears in his pasty skin began to shrink until they were just small, healing scabs. It was hard to tell they were bite marks at all.

  This was the first time I’d examined one of my meals after feeding. Our vampire magic must be the cause of the rapid healing. The poor ‘volunteers’ in the prophet’s Romanian mountain home had all been covered in bite marks. I guessed they were bitten too often for the magic to work effectively.

  I didn’t have a watch and wasn’t sure how much time had passed but the girlfriend must be on her way home by now. Searching through my meal’s scant wardrobe, I pulled out a pair of jeans, t-shirt and jumper. Underwear would have to be foregone for now. A quick but piping hot shower took some of my chill away. I frowned when soaping my breasts, they felt different somehow but I shrugged it off as my imagination.

  Jumping out of the shower, I dressed quickly and wiped steam off the bathroom mirror. My hand stilled halfway through swiping the borrowed brush through my tangled hair when I glanced at my face. Leaning in close, I examined the changes that had happened during my underground stay.

  The most obvious change was my eyes. All the grey had disappeared and my pupils had grown to maximum size. I could now be mistaken for an ancient vampire.

  Along with the eyes, my face had altered subtly. Gone was the slightly prettier version of the old me. In its place was a face that was more perfectly proportioned. All the imperfections; the bump in my nose, a too thin upper lip, shallow chin and puffy bags beneath my eyes were gone. My chin and lip had filled out. Straight and faultless, my nose was exactly the right size for my face.

  My skin was still pale but now it was flawless. I looked like I’d had subtle but expensive plastic surgery by a talented surgeon. My hair was still the same shade of dark brown with blonde highlights. Apparently, it wasn’t important enough to require change.

  My mouth was open in astonishment at the changes. Lifting the jumper and shirt, I saw that my boobs were different. They’d increased from a B cup to a C cup, as if my body had decided for itself what it wanted to look like.

  “Jeez, if Luc could see me now,” I murmured to my reflection. That brought an uncomfortable ache to my chest. The last time I’d seen Lord Lucentio, he’d chopped my head off. It hadn’t been his fault but it had still happened. If he saw me again, he’d probably repeat the act.

  Quickly brushing my hair, I rummaged through the wardrobe until I found a pair of ratty sneakers and an umbrella. Spying my meal’s car keys sitting on the cream dresser, I snatched them up.

  I was about to leave when I saw a watch sitting in a crystal bowl that overflowed with cheap jewellery. She’ll never miss it, I convinced myself and grabbed it. The watch was also cheap but the worn leather band could be adjusted to fit my smaller wrist. The time on the watch matched the readout on the digital clock sitting on a bedside table and didn’t need changing.

  It must be close to an hour since I’d first entered the house and it was time to leave. Just as I let myself outside, the headlights of a car rounded the corner. The umbrella turned out to be broken when I opened it
and nonchalantly strolled down the road. A couple of broken spokes sagged, allowing water to drip down my back. It was better than nothing and helped with the illusion that I belonged in the area. I kept walking until I came to a narrow gap between buildings and ducked inside. Water continued to drip down my back but there wasn’t much I could do about it right now.

  As I’d suspected, the car pulled to a stop behind my meal’s car just outside the duplex that I’d so recently vacated. A full figured woman struggled to disembark from a too small vehicle. She looked a bit like a walrus straining to turn over on a beach.

  Once free, she slammed the car door hard enough to make it rock from side to side. She was statuesque rather than fat. Dark blonde hair was piled up in a messy bun, giving her a few more inches of height. If I’d still been human, I wouldn’t have wanted to get on her bad side. She’d have taken me down with barely any effort. Being a vampire, I could snap her neck like a twig if I so chose.

  I didn’t so choose and simply waited for her to enter the apartment then hurried over to the car she’d parked behind. She gave one last bad tempered glare outside before flicking on the hall light and stomping up the stairs. Thanks to the rain, she didn’t see me. I doubted she could see more than four feet through the downpour.

  “George? George! I don’t smell anything cooking,” she bellowed. “I thought you said you were going to cook fish and chips tonight!”

  I was hoping the rain would muffle the sound of the engine when I turned the key but if she kept up that racket, she wouldn’t even hear the theft at all. Without turning the headlights on, I eased the car onto the road. If the couple didn’t notice the missing vehicle straight away, I might have a few hours head start before the cops started looking for my stolen ride.