by P. Mattern
How long the strange foreplay lasted she was unable to determine, but finally the creatures crawled away and he came to her, eyes glowing with fierce desire, tearing his veil off to expose a visage that was half human and half tiger. His teeth were huge and sharp, and he lowered his head to rake his fangs lightly between her breasts and down the entire length of her body to the pubis. His eyes glowed, and he seemed to her to be more animal than man as they consummated the act.
The things he mindspoke to her were exciting, obscene. He spoke of a time in the future when He and all the hybrids would emerge into the outside world to conquer those who had forced them underground in the first place. He created visions of destruction culminating in a restoration of power, and , above all, showed her that HER place would be by his side, as coruler of the New Kingdom.
It was heady stuff. Much better than the best case scenario future she’d imagined for herself as an ordinary American teenager.
And she could hardly wait.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Mitzi awakened the first morning as Cass’s wife with a blissful smile on her face, stretching and humming to herself. Cass was not in bed with her but she could smell the aroma of coffee winding its way to her new bedroom. It was odd to her that she had taken to living underground so easily, and she was amazed that it didn’t bother her that much to be banned from inhabiting her own house. None of that seemed important, she reflected, focusing on a square patch of sunlight on the elaborately stone tiled floor of the bedroom.
SUNLIGHT? Mitzi jumped from her cushioned and comfortable perch in the middle of the Scarlet O’Hara/Gone with the Wind bed to examine the patch of sunlight and seek its source. It looked real enough, yet she knew that she was underground.
Looking upward she noticed what appeared to be a wide window suffused with the glow of early morning sun and realized that it was just a clever replication of a window to the outside. The light shining down had the same delicate myriad of white and golden light as natural sunshine, and standing underneath it she could even feel its warmth. Like a child she held her hands out and filled them with it, and let the artificial sunshine pour like a mantle over her protruding belly.
It was amazing. And it made her realize that , if she had to , she could be happy living underground with such clever technology to fill in the natural wonders one would ordinarily miss.
Cass entered the room carrying a tray,
“My dearest love.” He said, placing the tray on the end of the immense bed, ”I hope I didn’t awaken you. I wanted to get some breakfast to nosh on before you awakened. And how is the mother to be this fine sunny morning?”
Mitzi pointed at the patch of sunlight streaming to the floor.
“This is amazing Cass. Is it really sunny today? I didn’t even realize that it was artificially projected at first.”
“Actually it’s a bit cloudy today outside of our little manse. We can adjust the light square to different weather if you want-it can be controlled to look like its raining gently outside, storming fiercely or project the light of a delicate sunrise or autumn sunset. Anything that pleases you my love.
“But today being our very first day of married life I thought you’d want to wake up with brilliant sunshine…symbolic of all the sunshine you will bring into my life forever and anon.”
The couple embraced silently for a few minutes, standing in the light together, with the light and warmth pouring down on them like a benediction.
“Let’s make sure that you eat,” Cass said, leading her back to bed. ”And make sure to drink that entire glass of type A negative first so that I know you’re keeping up with your gestational nutritional requirements. And then a short tryst since just sitting next to you invariably makes me horny, and then I want to finish the grand tour. Dr.Lee is taking over my classes today and tomorrow so we can spend some time getting settled in. I already checked on Buttercup –she’s feeling well enough to offer refreshment-or so she says-but I told her we’d have to put in a call to Dr. Caligare to make sure it’s not too soon. But I brought some breakfast to her room first and she was eating like a longshoreman…so she may be practically recuperated.”
“That is such a relief.” Mitzi commented looking entirely pleased, sipping a crystal goblet of blood and crunching on a strip of bacon.”You are such a good m-m-male energy, Cass.”
Cass smiled indulgently, ”I wouldn’t take offense if you called me a ‘man” ,you know, Vivi-I am YOUR man, even if I am a vampire.”
Mitzi flushed.
“I’m new enough not to be completely sure of the etiquette involved. I’m glad you understand that whatever you are now or become I want to be with you, my handsome love.”
There was knocking on the door just after Cass and Mitzi finished their breakfast, and Merilee entered with a twinkle in her eye with Charley in tow. Charley was pushing Buttercup in a strange looking wheeled chair.
“I found this in B’s room,” he explained. “I hope it’s okay to use it. And we helped ourselves to the breakfast we found-we found our way to the kitchen by using our noses and tracking the coffee aroma. I didn’t notice last night that there was a fully equipped stainless steel dream of a kitchen right off the mudroom-the door to it looked like a hobbit door!” Charley laughed.
Merilee giggled also. ”This place is amazing. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s kind of a drive from school I’d give up my apartment and beg you to let me move in. “
She looked at Cass, ”You’re going to show us the rest of it ,yes? Charley and I both have classes in a couple hours. And we have to swing by the apartment first.”
“Wow I forgot about that.” Cass said, frowning. ”But I had my car driven out here ahead of time-feel free to take it, bring it back later after you pick Charley’s up. Keys are in it. Lux took the limo last night to get back to Pierre’s and has probably returned it by now. Mitzi and I were going to nest today, Butters needs to rest also. Okay, good. Now that we have travel arrangement sorted out I want to show you all the rest of the pad.”
Letting Cass take the lead, the others followed him down the long hallway with its adjacent bedrooms to the door at the end of the hall.
“Door number THREE.” Merilee intoned in a stage whisper. Beyond the door was another hallway, a wider one this time. The walls were of smooth, sand colored stone culminating in an arched hallway, and the floor of the hallway appeared to be sand. At least it was the right color, but it was completely level even though it looked just like sand, and the sconced hallway lighting was reflected in the tiny sparkling grains that comprised the flooring.
“Wow,” Mitzi and Merilee both said together.
“Is this safe to step on?” Mitzi queried. She had grown up in the South, with its characteristic swamps and marshes, and there was something about the flat expanse of sand that reminded her of quicksand.
Cass answered by stepping out onto it. His weight caused it to vibrate only barely perceptibly, although he sank into it by scant fractions of an inch with every step.
“This is a POURED floor,” he explained.”It’s made out of an innovative material ‘Balluca’ and also called’congealed sand’-sort of like quicksand, only stabilized with a resin. It gives only slightly ,which provides cushioning while still providing support. And because it moves, it is self cleaning-all dirt and debris, anything weighing less than a gram, eventually makes its way to the bottom…and into the earth.
Charley stepped away from the wheeled chair and danced down the hall, looking at his own feet as he did so.
“It’s like walking on air!” he exclaimed.”Come try it Mer! It’s unlike anything you’ve ever walked on !!!”
Never one to miss a new experience, Merilee cavorted down the hall in her Converse hightops, skipping circles around Charley like a schoolgirl.
Charley watched her with appreciative eyes. With her wild blonde curls that stood out in a wild corona from her head, long thick lashes and dimples, dressed in a white eyelet top and wh
ite jeans ,she reminded him of a fairy or wood sprite. In this curious and nearly magical place, hers seemed to be a magical and mysterious beauty. On impulse he scooped her up in his arms for a kiss.
Cass was pushing Buttercup down the hallway, enjoying Mitzi’s wide eyed wonderment. It was a great joy, he reflected, to show her HIS world-it was certainly not mundane, and it became new again for him also when he was able to enjoy her excited response to it.
Charley had finally ceased cavorting.
“What about pets?” he asked,”Do they succumb to the flooring, never to be heard from again? ”Are there lots of smallish skeletons buried underneath our feet?”
Cass chuckled.
“Well if they weigh a few pounds they don’t.” he replied. “But you might never see your pet newt again if it made a run for it down this particular hallway. To sink ,permanently, it would have to be something minute, with very little distributive weight.”
Charley pulled a fuzzy tic tac from the pocket of his hoody, and purposely dropped it from his fingers.
Sure enough, after resting for nanoseconds on the congealed floor it began to disappear, sinking into the sand flooring until it could no long be seen. Then he followed that by fishing around in his jean pockets and making a small screw disappear, followed by a marble-which sat on the surface for about three seconds before starting to sink. Watching Charley’s childlike excitement as he played with the flooring , the way he was so raptly occupied with it, reminded Mitzi of Charley’s behavior BEFORE he was Turned-making her wonder if he still retained vestigial remnants of his former retardation.
Charley smiled a satisfied smile.”Sweet.” he commented, nodding happily as the marble disappeared.”What else gets sucked down?”
Cass smiled back at him benignly.
“Dirt,paper clips, housedust….and oh yeah….demons.”
Charley’s, Mitzi’s and Merilee’s heads both jerked up at the same time.
“Demons?” Mitzi repeated explosively.”Like the one –Feck-that showed up at the wedding as an uninvited guest?”
“Precisely.” Cass answered. “You know that even though demons appear to be solid-and FEEL that way when they’re touched by vamps and humans, they really are only semi-corporeal. They have very little tangible matter to their beings, so they tend to pull it over the outside of themselves to create shape and form. This allows them some shape shifting options as well as making it possible for them to slip through the portals unnoticed. They can collapse upon themselves until they are two dimensional rather than three dimensional …
And then turn sideways and seemingly disappear in front of our eyes-like that old joke about skinny humans being so thin that they disappear when they turn sideways.”
Merilee gulped.”Is that why there seem to be more and more of them lately? They’re coming through the portals?”
Cass grimaced.”Yeah. It was probably inevitable that they’d figure out a way in, even though most portals have an alarm system that can propel ‘undesirables’ back to point of origin.
They really have no choice but to come here-they can’t sustain themselves without draining the energy from living beings-humans mostly. They usually go for the proverbial ‘low hanging fruit’ first, and by that I mean those that can’t protect themselves-the mentally handicapped, the elderly, the sick, the comatose ,addicts…they drain their victims remaining energy, and if they don’t kill them they possess them and make them irrecoverably sicker. Unlike humans, vampires, weres and other creatures born or created-they can’t access the earth’s immense supply of electromagnetic energy that surrounds all living creatures. We are fortunate that we literally are swimming in it, and only have to use vamp skills, pray or meditate to harness it’s power.”
Mitzi had a faraway look in her eyes as she asked,”Cass-who protects the innocent…the babies?”
Cass slipped a reassuring arm around her, noticing simultaneously as he looked down that she was unconsciously cradling her baby bump.
“The parents provide protection, and the universal consciousness…some call it God. And the Etherial Consciousness…and of course the angels. Especially the angels. They will war against demonic energies fiercely to protect the innocent. That’s why demons prey primarily on the defenseless-and those that don’t have a normal will or have given it up to drugs or whatnot- to get their energy fix. They are basically cowards.”
“Whoa!” Charley commented, still fishing around in the various pockets of his jeans to find any additional small objects to test the congealed sand floor with ”So this part of the house is a demon trap. I bet THAT’S something to see!”
“Yep.” Cass replied, playing absentmindedly with tendrils of Mitzi’s hair.
“And Charley –if you are quite finished load testing the floor system, I think we can continue the tour of the underground manse.” He said, motioning the others forward with a flourish. He reached around Mitzi and pushed open a set of white double doors to the left-they seemed to be weighted somehow and swung silently inward to reveal a room with the same congealed sand flooring that was full of stainless steel-sinks, gurneys, wheeled tables and shelves lining the walls that contained cardboard boxes stamped in red. The lighting was bright and reminiscent, Mitzi thought, of-
“Is this a medical facility?“ Charley asked from behind her. ”Dude! You have a medical facility in your house?”
Cass nodded.”Sort of a mini hospital actually. It’s got all the basics-monitoring equipment, IVs, frozen donated blood, ultrasound machinery …
“Even a comfortable table with a set of stirrups on each corner.” He finished, looking at Mitzi brightly and smiling mischieviously.”And even a birthing stool. In case anyone decides to give birth,or whatever.”
Mitzi shook her head in disbelief.
“I hadn’t really thought about it…but I guess as rarely as it happens, it stands to reason vampire births must be home births. So Dr. Caligare will come here? I mean when it’s time?”
Cass nodded, sighing as he looked around him, and then looking down at his new wife fondly.
“This is where all the birthing magic will happen my love.” he said. Dr. Caligare will be staying with us when the birth date becomes imminent. Of course he’ll be commuting to his office, but he wants to be in proximity in case you go into labor in the middle of the night. He’s never delivered twins before. Apparently for vampires, pregnancy is rare, and twinism is even more rare. Actually we’ve become sort of V-net celebrities.Many influential individuals in the V-net Consortium are following your pregnancy with interest.Some V-net scientists and medical experts are wondering if increased fertility in vampires could be part of a compensatory evolutionary trend.”
“The floor.” Merilee said thoughtfully.”It helps keep the room sterile?”
“That it does.” Cass confirmed.
Mitzi began to feel nervous just contemplating giving birth. She would be at ‘home’ essentially-not in a regular hospital, which seemed strange in and of itself. Of course Cass would be with her-and Fress. Somehow it was more comforting to imagine Fress holding her hand during the birth process than Cass….Fress had held her hand through most of the strangeness that had come with her initiation into the V-net, and her presence would be welcome.
“Okay ladies and gent,” Cass said, striding suddenly back to the doorway.”Let us repair to the next room on the private tour, the aviarium “slash” greenhouse…
“Because we grow our own –hydroponically, of course.”
The group of vampires stepped into another brightly lit room with wonder. The brightness came from special plant lights over many sections of growing vegetables. Some were growing on suspended vines, others on trellises, still others on round, concentric tiers stacked like layers of a huge wedding cake and reaching nearly to the ceiling. Everything around them was white-white walls, white flooring of some sort of nonslippery ceramic tiling with ruts cut into the flooring at intervals leading into drainage areas along the sides of the aisles. Th
e air was thicker and verdant with the greenly scented moisture of breathing plant life.
At the end of one aisle a person dressed in white coveralls and wearing a white bandana was holding a shiny elaborate looking device that appeared to be a watering can with several spouts.
“Hey Mick!” Cass called out into the jungle damp of the room, ”Come meet the family!”
As the figure walked more closely toward the group ,Merilee noted with surprise that the face underneath the bandana appeared to be that of a young female, slightly built, tendrils of her dirty blonde hair clinging damply to her forehead in the humid atmosphere.
The hand that she stretched out to the member of the group closest to her was webbed from the second knuckle down, but Mitzi took it into her own warmly.
“So happy to meet you,’Mick’ was it?”
“Short for Michaiella.” The girl replied.”Hello Castor. I hope you don’t mind that I brought Brick in with me today-I wanted him to check on what could possibly be ailing the sweet potatoes. He’s around here somewhere…” Her voice trailed off as she vigorously shook hands with each of the group in turn.
From behind her Cass saw a youth with Raggedy Ann Red hair emerge from one of the back room areas. He was also wearing white coveralls but had captured his full head of curly hair under a black bandana decorated with skull and crossbones. After he, too, had been introduced to the group Cass asked ,”So what’s going on with the sweet potatoes my man?”
The youth smiled and winked at Mitzi. His irises were so dark that they looked black, and his skin was ivory pale, in sharp contrast. He had a smattering of gold colored freckles across his nose, and his lips were full with a slight cupid’s bow contour.
“Nothing that can’t be remedied, Cass. The Ph was off-a bit alkaline, so I corrected with a natural acidic that should enhance the flavor and texture. Simple fix.”
Cass chuckled,”You have a gift for horticulture Brick my man-why don’t you cease freelancing and join Mick in Sunnyside Farm Garden Care? You know that we’d be honored to have you on board!”
