Bloodrose

by Cassidy Raindance

  Copyright © 2013 by Cassidy Raindance

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  First Edition, 2013

  Dedication

  To those readers that have taken the extra time and keystrokes to review my work online.

  I read every word and appreciate every thought.

  For both positive and critical, I thank you.

  This is dedicated to you.

  A special thank you to sponsor, VECNY.

  Every Woman deserves a Halo.

  Luxury fragrance Halo by VECNY.

  Table of Contents

  Bloodrose Character Shorts:

  1. A Perfect Monster

  2. Bloodrose Killer

  3. Twitter Addict

  4. Grandmamma

  5. Cloning Bloodroses

  Chapter 1

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  Chapter 2

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  Chapter 3

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  Chapter 4

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  Chapter 5

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  Chapter 6

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  Chapter 7

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  Chapter 8

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  Chapter 9

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  Chapter 10

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  Chapter 11

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  Chapter 12

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  Chapter 13

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  Chapter 14

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  Chapter 15

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  Chapter 16

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  Chapter 17

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  Chapter 18

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  Chapter 19

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  Chapter 20

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  Chapter 21

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  Chapter 22

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  Chapter 23

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  Chapter 24

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  Chapter 25

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  Chapter 26

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  Chapter 27

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  Chapter 28

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  Chapter 29

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  Chapter 30

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  Chapter 31

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  Chapter 32

  *

  Bloodrose Shorts – Bloodrose Vol. 1

  A Perfect Monster

  Leather, high heels, and a kick in the general direction I walked. My look would have been perfect if I had my riding crop. I loved that riding crop. Leather all the way, baby. I couldn’t tell you if I felt more anger or more frustration. I wasn't sure but I would find out. If I did nothing else tonight, I would find out what kind of stuff I was made of.

  I ignored the slide of the gravel under my knee-high boots and kept my footing as the heels threatened to betray me. I wasn't about to let my night be spoiled by pebbles, gravity, common sense or reality. Reality had checked out tonight. Tonight I wanted either fun or a fight and either way I would find it.

  Jasper hadn't always kept me under lock and key. But the moment I had given him the slip I knew I had to make sure it would be worth it. I stopped under a street light and breathed in the evening air. It's easy to ignore the stench of garbage rotting in the gutters of a big city so long as you focused all your attention on where the action is. And I felt the action staring right at me.

  Just on the other corner, under a similar street lamp, a man in a black suit and black hat took out a cigarette and lit it, one hand covering the flame from the licks of the evening breeze. He winked at me from that downward tipped hat and licked a flame to life from a distance. He wasn't going to be the last of my sins tonight but he was a fantastic start.

  The red lights from the intersection flooded the black asphalt with a glow that had my feet pounding the pavement as if on a runway. When I got to this dark stranger, this shadow-loving-like-minded creature, I knew that I would enjoy devouring him. He pinched the cigarette butt with his two fingers, removing it from his soft lips, and offered it to me with a glint in his eye.

  I pursed my lips around the wetted filter and let the smoke fill my mouth. I took it all in until nothing was left but the enjoyment of the slow release that followed. We locked eyes and I could feel his eyes ravage my soul. His features were strong and after a moment his strong hands stroked my cheek. I let a hand rest on his chest as I leaned toward him. I looked up into his beautiful eyes and I slipped my hand into the waist of his pants.

  What I found waiting for me was the largest surprise any could expect. My hands reached the whole of him and I knew that I was in trouble. My hands trembled and I could feel my throat tighten around the air as it passed. I couldn't say how long it took me to realize that this would be one of the most adventurous nights of my life. But by the time I realized it would be my last, his fangs were sunk into the soft flesh of my neck and there I stood, on a street corner, with a perfect stranger. A perfect monster.

  My last memory of this perfect monster was how he whispered in my ear as I felt the life drain from me. As each sip of air passed out of my lips, wishing I had the sense enough to scream when I had the chance, I watched as he twirled a small locket of my hair around his finger and smelled it. He whispered something.

  He leaned me against the lamp in the dark of night and the light changed. He walked across the street and into the shadows that had made him appear so appealing. I clung to that lamp, looking up into that bright light. And mine flickered out as I slid, grasping, at that pole in the dead of night.

  Bloodrose Killer

  #Bloodrose for my beloved

  I pushed the notification to Cassandra’s phone and got a rush when I watched the retweet count skyrocket up. I had turned her GPS back on so I needed to get out of the park fast. I snapped a photo of Cassandra sitting prettily on the bench and pushed it to her feed. #anotherlovelybloodrose was the hash tag.

  I placed the phone in Cassandra’s cold hand and readjusted her head as it had started to lean to one side. Her hands were placed in her lap like a doll. She had picked a great dress to wear, floral pattern, a very appropriate length. Not to speak ill of the dead, she probably should have worn a coat to go out in. Of all the Bloodroses I had plucked during my walks in the night I hadn't known a single one to brave a winter evening without a coat at all. She was a special one.

  I cut the smallest tendril of her sweet hair and smelled it. I took in the scent and savored it as any would a fine steak. She was well aged, young but not too immature, she had a great variety of spice and flavor, was full bodied and while I wouldn't say she was the leanest, I would venture to call her rich more than anything.

  I left Cassandra on that bench and walked, hesitant to leave her, toward the busier street area outside of the park. It was late. I didn't want to be caught unaware, like my dear Cassandra. Pity she hadn't been escorted. That would have thrown me off, for certain.

  I reached the cafe across the street and popped in. I had double checked my hands on the walk for signs of blood and had wiped my face more than once. I headed straight for the bathroom to make sure I was cleaned up. The game had become fun beyond what I had ever imagined. I checked my twitter account for a response. It took a whole twelve long minutes for my beloved, specifically 'myBeloved', to respond.

  "What a fine spirit to drain in this abysmal winter season," replied my Beloved.

  Mind you, she really is my beloved. We have played this game since the turn of the century and only recently allowed ourselves the luxury of doing so
in the public domain, using the trivial but entertaining Twitter to communicate semi-anonymously.

  "Flavor sample per your request will be in the mail overnight," I responded.

  As with all Bloodrose evenings, our twitter followers swooned or swore. This was the life. We were the most popular serial killers that had never been caught. And we had a direct line to one another.

  "Looking forward to it," replied my Beloved.

  "Looking forward to what your hunt brings you as well," I responded.

  A partial photo of a college student in a library with red curly hair was sent. If ever there was a time when what my Beloved or I posted went viral, it was always the sneak peek photos. There were mixed emotions. Some hated us, some loved us, but all were in awe of us.

  The next photo that was posted was of close up fang marks in skin with blood all over the place.

  "Stop playing with your food," I teased.

  "Fat blood," replied myBeloved, "junk food and liquor, nothing ruins the flavor quicker!"

  We both posted a few closing remarks in humor and let the feeding frenzy of social media consume the circus we were the ringmasters of.

  myBeloved had bested me only twice. Here it was the winter season and late in it at that, the pickings were getting slim. The majority of the choices were resorting to fast food for lack of motivation to eat healthy and little desire to cook anything in an actual kitchen. This meant more choices out on the street but fewer healthy options and even fewer if you were on a restrictive diet.

  Charlie, in Maine, for example could only feed on those under 35. One of the strangest conditions, if Charlie fed on someone over 35 he would break out in terrible coughing fits. Perhaps it was his realization about his own age and immortality.

  I sipped my coffee at the little cafe and crunched on the occasional biscotti at the small bar as I waited for that all too familiar and enjoyable sound. It was music to my ears as I heard the ambulances and police cruisers around the corners. They continued their mad dash toward the park where I had left sweet Cassandra.

  "I wonder what has happened." said the barista.

  "Whatever it is, I bet we'll hear about it in about twenty minutes on Facebook," I responded.

  "Isn't that the truth," said the barista, going back to cleaning off the counters.

  I paid the barista and stopped at the sidewalk as I looked out and listened for the ambulance wails.

  "Eerie, Isn't it?" I whispered to myself.

  "Excuse me?" said a woman sitting at the bistro table nearest me.

  "Oh, sorry," I said, flashing a smile, "I’m just musing to myself aloud,"

  The woman looked back at me with a blank stare. She looked more like a deer than a human. Reminding humans of their mortality, a murder so close to where they eat and laugh, brings out the true nature of them. She would be nothing more than a completely unaware deer in the headlights, and I the hunter.

  I strolled out of the cafe, heading down toward the alleys around the park. I always enjoyed the view after the fact. I didn’t want to loiter, just trot along my path a little ways. It was on my way home so it was all good, clean, safe fun.

  I reached into my pocket to fish out the small tendril of hair and came up short changed. I fished deeper into my pocket and then checked the other pocket as well. I thought back to where I might have dropped it and realized I must have dropped it while taking money out of my pocket to pay the barista. I decided to head back to the cafe to retrieve my trophy.

  It was in that moment when I turned around and found the woman at the café behind me, texting someone. I kept walking without another look at her. I thought a moment. I couldn’t figure out if she had followed me. Maybe she just had really bad luck, ending up in dark alleys with dangerous creatures and all. I ducked into a shadow and let her walk right past me. When she looked up and realized she had lost sight of me I knew she had been following me.

  She looked for a moment and I stepped right behind her. The deer had followed the monster but for what reason? What did she know? What had I done that had thrown her onto my scent?

  Her doe eyes looked up at me with all the fear they could ever hold. That is when it became clear she knew exactly who I was.

  “How many lives does this curious cat have?” I asked, bending to sink my teeth into her neck and silence any hope of screams.

  “Enough," said the woman, rage rising in her fearful eyes. Before I had reached her throat she had brought her hand up and what I anticipated to be a blow to my gorgeous face turned out to be a bright and blinding light.

  Her blood was sweet like plums in the summer and smooth, too. She gasped and clutched at her phone, her eyes growing dim. It was a familiar light I had seen fade many times. I could tell she was close to her maker when her grip relaxed and her fingers let the phone fall to the dirty street. It bounced from corner to corner, end to end, and I saw another flash as the phone hit a side button and then came to rest.

  I heard a chirp from the phone and let go of my hold on the woman. She was close enough to death that it didn’t matter one way or another if I drank the last few drops. I let her body crumple to the floor and picked up her phone.

  The display lit up and I saw the two words that made me truly afraid.

  “Tweet Posted” said the text on the phone. I swiped at the lock and realized it was a true lock with a code. I scanned what information I could gain from her locked screen and saw the GPS enabled icon lighting up.

  I couldn’t tell what was posted, if she had gotten an actual picture or not, but as close as the police already were I had a matter of seconds before someone realized how close this girl was to Cassandra’s body. I headed back toward the café to find my souvenir and call it a night.

  Imagine my surprise when I arrived to find the cafe surrounded by police cars and could see the barista talking to a detective. No wonder the detectives were taking so long getting to poor, sweet, Cassandra. They were on to my trail and as fresh as it was, I had never felt so in danger in my life. Here I had left another girl in an alley and didn’t even know her name.

  I tried to run but a hand caught my arm. I turned, planning to pin this person against the nearest wall but failed. I felt strong hands grasp my forearms and shove me instead with great force into the same wall I had intended for them.

  "Is that any way to treat your beloved?" she asked, winking at me.

  I threw my arms around my Beloved in a great big hug and thanked my lucky stars.

  "Hey, let’s get out of here. I’m cutting it a bit close this time around," I said.

  My Beloved took a look at the situation at the cafe and gave me a disappointed look.

  "The point is to keep the game not to be caught, tortured and killed," she said.

  "I know," I said, "I got a little more careless than usual,"

  My beloved gave me an embrace and patted me on the shoulder as she pulled away.

  "It's time to see Grandmamma," she said.

  I groaned.

  "I know," she said, "No one likes it any more than me but it's only ever hundred years and I'm sure you're in need of a good lecture,"

  She waved her hand at the mess of cops looking up and down the street for signs of me.

  "It's a perfect time for me to get out of town at the moment," I said.

  "Indeed," said my Beloved, "and we'll pick up after, say, ten years?" she said.

  "Ten years," I said.

  Twitter Addict

  Have you ever seen the bulk of your life flash before your eyes? Have you ever seen it happen to someone else? I stood there and watched as this man bent over this girl and posed her lifeless body on the park bench. He grabbed the phone still clutched in her dead hands and snapped a picture of her with her own phone.

  I hid behind that giant tree and watched on in horror. In the middle of the park, in the middle of my moonlight stroll, I had watched a monster surface and snuff out the life of a girl and I did nothing to stop him.

  Now I watched his fi
ngers find their way around her phone buttons mindlessly. He must be sending the photo somewhere. He had killed her and then sent a photo of her lifeless body, poised as a casual visitor just sitting on the park bench a moment, to some unknown recipient.

  I watched as the man looked around and then just walked away from the girl. It sounded like sirens were beginning to approach. The wail of the sirens got loud fast. I began walking behind the man, following at the greatest distance I could follow without an overwhelming sense of impending death.

  He looked as average as anyone else. Taller than average, but still average as far as average went. Why choose to walk behind him, following him into the night? No one knew I was out here in the night, no one knew I followed a murderer into the middle of the park.

  My adrenaline over what I had seen, his form bent around hers in the night, started to wane. What I had thought of as an average encounter with a couple on a date was in fact a murder. I hadn't suspected anything as I walked through the trees, out of the path, and caught sight of his movement around her out of the corner of my eye.

  I didn't think anything of it until I had heard her muffled cry of pain. It wasn't loud. It was a cry of death more than a cry for help. When I looked toward the noise I had only seen enough to recognize her body going limp in his arms and as his face came away from her shoulder I could see the dark smear.