He wandered back to the trapdoor. To his surprise, it was wide open. Remembering Gasper’s words, he emerged clutching a knife, feeling foolish.
His father was at his usual perch near the window, moonshine liquor in hand. He turned at Heinrich’s entrance. “Read them all?” he asked.
In truth, Heinrich hadn’t touched the books. Instead he’d been dipping into the Blood, masturbating to the overpowering sensations taking over his body.
I won’t become a Guardian, he thought. I certainly won’t do a Cutting.
Gasper’s eyes lingered sadly on him, as if he was reading Heinrich’s thoughts. “Then you will die, son. You will die.”
“The Russians?”
“Turned back, for now. But not for long.”
So Gasper and Heinrich Gerhard went about their lives for another week as if nothing had changed. The booming cannons steadily approached; the loud grinding and deep squeaking of tanks seemed to be just over the horizon.
But they were left alone.
The skies darkened with smoke. A strange odor filled the air, the smell of gunpowder and death. Their few remaining neighbors drifted away, fleeing westward toward Germany, hoping to find protection there.
“Won’t do them any good,” Gasper scoffed. “The Russians won’t stop until Der Fuhrer is dead.”
Heinrich was amazed at the change in his father. He was no longer hiding his youthful looks and vigor—there was no one to hide it from. He was talkative, and rattled on about his own childhood, his training, and the stunning changes he had witnessed in the world. Mostly, he talked about the Succubae, trying to emphasize to Heinrich the crucial importance of their task.
If not for the miraculous healing he’d witnessed, Heinrich would have believed, along with everyone else, that Gasper Gerhard was insane.
Still, he soaked it in. After a few days, he was drawn back to the caverns, finding that, once away from the main corridor, it was a bewildering maze, with numerous tunnels and chambers.
“Keep track of your turns or you’ll become lost,” Gasper warned him. “The labyrinth was designed to confuse.”
After a few days, Heinrich started reading the books, if only to see if he could find a loophole, an escape, something no one had yet thought of. He started with his grandfather’s journal and worked his way back. The later journals were pretty thin, the overall tone despairing.
Reading between the lines, Heinrich sensed that the journals didn’t reveal the whole truth. Somewhere along the line, the Guardians had become corrupted. Instead of safeguarding the precious Blood of the Succubus, they began selling it for its healing powers—a betrayal of everything they were sworn to protect.
When God’s punishment came, it was swift, fierce, and complete. Only the Gerhard family survived, the most devoted of acolytes. Only they kept the faith.
But their faith was shortsighted. They never recruited new members into the Guardians. They kept watch over the Blood for generation after generation, until both the Blood and the family were reduced, until it was just fathers and sons, a dangerously thin thread.
To what purpose? Heinrich wondered. Selling potions with just a drop of the Blood in them could have made them rich, but the Gerhard family was faithful to a fault.
The thread ends with me, Heinrich thought. I’m getting out of here the first chance I get, and I’m taking the Blood of the Succubus with me. I’ll use it, I’ll sell it, whatever I must do.
He hid these plans from his father, of course, who seemed pleased at his son’s studious manner.
The full moon approached. The German army finally crumbled, and the Russians surged west.
“It is time,” Gasper said one morning as the house shook from the nearness of the explosions. A plane had flown low over their cottage earlier that morning, as if checking for signs of life.
Dread filled Heinrich. He gasped for breath, his throat raw from an imagined shortage of air. The terrible memory of the unnatural smoothness between his father’s legs lingered in his mind.
I can’t do it, Heinrich thought desperately. I won’t do it.
He rose to his feet, ready to march out the door, to join the fighting—he didn’t care for which side. If he died, he’d be free.
“Sit down,” his father commanded.
Heinrich’s legs gave out, and he collapsed back into the chair. It was hopeless. He could not escape his fate. The darkness below the cellar drew him even as it repelled him, and he knew he was cursed.
“This is wrong,” Heinrich said. “I don’t understand why I must do this.”
“I too doubted the necessity.” Gasper said. “But then I met them.”
This was new. According to the books, none of the Guardians had seen the Succubae since the collapse of the cavern—at least, none who had survived. But the rumors that came back to them left no doubt.
The Succubae were loose upon the world.
Now Heinrich’s father pulled a battered leathered-bound volume out of his coat and handed it over. Heinrich remembered that Gasper had taken his own journal with him.
“Read it when I’m gone,” Gasper said. “I was more diligent in my homework than my own father, or his father, or any of our ancestors a half millennia back. I hope it will do you some good.”
“You’ve seen a Succubus?” Heinrich asked.
Gerhard stared out the window and took a long drink. He set the cup down, coughing. It was little more than pure alcohol.
“Tell me, Father,” Heinrich insisted.
Gasper turned to him, looking like the old man he’d pretended to be for so long. “If it will help you to believe…”
He took another long drink, and then refilled the cup with liquor before he started.
“When I was your age,” Gasper began, “my father and I began hearing of a monster stalking Prague, a creature who seduced and drained the life from men. I vowed to investigate…” He paused and looked Heinrich in the face. “This was my first Cutting. Father would not let me go unless I went through with it, and God help me, I so wanted to get away that I let him. I don’t know what I thought—that I’d escape somehow? But of course, I had to return, for after the Cutting I was no longer a man. I needed the Blood.”
Gasper fell silent for a moment, staring into the fire. “I hated my father for that, but I soon understood, after Prague, why it must be done. It doesn’t just preserve our lives, Heinrich, it is our duty.”
“You went to Prague…” Heinrich prompted.
Gasper drained the last of the liquor and coughed. When he started speaking again, his voice had the softness of a distant memory.
“It was a long journey, for I was constantly forced to turn aside at the approach of armed men. The closer I got to Prague, the worse it got, until I thought I had witnessed the worst man could do. Fields of bodies, torn and bloated. I came across the remains of a family, spread out in front of their home, and I could not believe what I saw…to this day I am haunted by it. As I approached Prague, my despair only deepened. It was the war, of course, but it was something else as well, a moral depravity that went beyond even that savagery.
“Sexual debauchery was everywhere, but I was immune to its call. All around me, I saw men and women having sex: in alleys, in taverns, on the filthy streets, clothed or unclothed, mindless of everything around them. But the monster’s invitation could not tempt me.
“In Wenceslas Square, I found such a tangle of men, I could make no sense of it. They were dying, I thought, or in pain, writhing on top of each other. I knew of sex—like you, I was allowed to experience a climax so I might understand the Succubae’s lure and how others are ensnared. But I was naïve, not understanding the many ways that the sexual act is accomplished.
“At the center of the pile was one woman, and all the men struggled to touch her, to penetrate her, pushing each other aside violently. It was madness, but no one questioned it. The women of the city acted as if it wasn’t happening. Though the dead lay all around, men still approached her
. She gladly embraced each one, but when she finished, they moved no longer. They were shrunken husks, their bones showing, their faces little more than skulls.
“I stepped back into the shadows, watching men approach, drawn to her like moths to flame, oblivious to the danger. The Succubus looked up once, directly at me, and I sensed her curiosity. She looked like a normal woman, handsomer than most, but not someone I would have found mysterious if I’d passed her in the street. I could appreciate her with my mind, but because of the Cutting, my body didn’t respond.
“She ignored me, dismissing my presence as if I were a neutered dog or cat. What I am telling you is, if I had not been emasculated before my encounter, I’d be dead now.”
The house shook again, as if a bomb had landed but feet away. It took a couple more seconds for the sound to reach them. The front was still miles away, but growing closer with every passing moment.
“Are you ready?” Gasper asked.
“No,” Heinrich said, and could think of nothing to add. He was not going to do it.
“I will help you the first time,” his father said softly.
I might as well be dead, Heinrich thought. I don’t want to live as a eunuch. When you are gone, I will live as a man.
And still, as if compelled by some power he couldn’t resist, he followed his father to the cellar.
They reached the Cutting room.
“I will show you how I do it,” his father said. “One last time.”
Gasper stood and drank from a jar, and his genitals grew out. One moment they were gone, and the next they were there, his cock standing tall. “I usually take some…time….before I complete the new Cutting,” Gasper said. “But we are out of time.”
He took a knife from the table and ran it along his thumb. “You must be certain the knife is sharp. Do not think too long on it.”
He sliced across his groin, a smooth motion, and the meat fell to the floor. Blood spurted from the wound. He placed one hand over the bloody gash. He swayed, his face white. “You must not faint, or you will die,” he said dispassionately.
He drank a small amount from the jar. The wound healed, but his genitals were gone.
“Your turn,” Gasper said. “Take off your clothes.”
Heinrich couldn’t refuse, not without letting his father know about his rebellious plans. What does it matter if my father knows? I can refuse…I can leave…
He took off his clothes slowly, as if someone else was undressing, someone else who was about to do the unthinkable.
I will do it this one time, but never again.
A rumbling sound penetrated the caves, which meant it had to be nearly above them. “Hurry!” his father insisted.
The Blood will restore me, Heinrich chanted. The Blood will restore me. The Blood will restore me.
“Hurry!” Gasper shouted again, grabbing him roughly around the waist, putting the knife in his hand.
I will be bold. I will cut deeply with one motion.
He pressed down and lost heart. The pain shot through his body and up his spine, and he shrieked. His hand became slick with blood. He dropped the blade and clutched himself. His legs buckled and his sight dimmed.
“God in heaven!” he heard his father say.
Gasper snatched the knife from the floor. Heinrich felt the blade against the open wound, and before he could object, he felt a blow, as if a hammer had slammed against his groin. His entire body stiffened, and he felt himself falling onto the table. He heard distant screaming and realized it was him.
He awoke with his father crouched over him. There was Blood on his fingers, and Heinrich could feel it tingling in his mouth. The pain was gone. Physically, he felt the same, but nothing was the same. He shook violently as the idea of being this…thing, not a man, not even a eunuch, but something else.
He reached down there tentatively. His heart shredded. There was nothing, just smooth skin. The horror of it was too much. He felt suddenly numb, with no feeling at all, only a strange, detached curiosity.
“You’ll do better next time,” his father said. Heinrich looked up at him as if at a stranger. He felt nothing: no anger, no shame.
Nothing at all.
He watched Gasper lifting the jar of Blood and drinking again. But instead of a small drop, his father kept drinking. His genitals returned again.
He’s not supposed to do that, Heinrich thought.
“What are you doing?” someone asked, and he realized it was his own voice. “I don’t understand.”
“You are the new Guardian, Heinrich,” Gasper said. “I will lead the Russians away from the house. They probably won’t find the trapdoor, but you must be quiet.”
“Why?” Heinrich asked.
“I’m not needed here anymore,” Gasper said. He looked confident, happy. Yet he was walking into battle, to his own death. “I’ve lived a long life. It is time I got away, joined the fight.”
“What can you do?” Heinrich asked. He was slowly returning to the present. His thoughts and his voice were starting to align again. He felt a vague alarm at his father’s words.
“Ah, someday you’ll drink fully of the Blood, and you’ll know. The Russians won’t find a lowly peasant facing them, but a man with more strength and speed than they have seen on any battlefield. Those who survive will tell stories about me.” Gasper reached down and cupped his genitals. “If I am to die, I will die as a man.”
They both dressed. They walked up the long tunnel without speaking. Heinrich was coming back to himself. He was still too stunned to feel afraid or angry, but his thoughts were making sense, at least.
I’ll wait until father leaves, and I’ll drink the Blood.
As they approached the trapdoor, Gasper suddenly held his hand up. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” Heinrich strained to hear something. It did seem as if he’d heard a thud, or the echo of a thud. Something…
“Someone is in the house,” his father said. “Wait here.”
Gasper climbed the steps and passed out of sight. The trapdoor thudded into place.
Heinrich waited for greetings or shouts. Instead, a few moments later, he heard the snick of a lock.
He tricked me! Heinrich thought. He scurried up the steps, but his father’s footsteps receded. He pounded on the door, calling out, but there was no answer. It was no mistake; this had been his father’s plan all along.
“Let me out, damn you!” he shouted. He sensed there was no one there. After shouting a string of curses—something he had never dared do to his father before—he stomped back to the room where the Blood of the Succubus was stored.
He tried reading for a while, but the smoke from the lanterns became unbearable, and he eventually sat in darkness, contemplating his fate. His hands hurt; he wondered if he’d broken them. Blood ran down his arms.
Eventually it occurred to him that he was truly alone.
There is no one to keep me from doing whatever I want to do.
His father had said that someday he’d drink fully of the Blood, as if that was greatly daring.
Without another thought, Heinrich pulled down the jar and took a long drink.
The Blood coursed through his body, correcting the damage he’d done to himself trying to force the door open.
Sexual energy flowed down his spine, and he felt his manhood returning. He reached for his cock, stroking it. The old feelings came back reassuringly. His testicles felt full. He closed his eyes and jerked vigorously, imagining the woman in the Prague Square beckoning him, taking him in her mouth, taking all of him and then licking beneath. He came on the stone floor.
Ten minutes later, he did it again.
He had often seen the stain on his father’s pants, full moon after full moon. He was certain that his father had done same thing, probably every time he went through the ritual. He was a hypocrite, taking his pleasure even if he did his duty in the end.
With his father gone, Heinrich had no intention of ever Cutting himself again.
***
Several days passed. Heinrich checked the door periodically, listening for his father’s footsteps. There was nothing.
How am I supposed to get out of here?
Surely the old man had thought of that? There must be some way to get out that Heinrich was supposed to find after the Russians were gone.
He searched the caverns thoroughly but found no escape, no solution to his imprisonment.
Then, one night, as he tried to sleep on the cold stone floor, he heard excited shouting from above. The cries didn’t sound like fear, or pain. It wasn’t the kind of sound that men fighting made. In fact…
He grabbed one of the knives and ran down the corridor. The trapdoor was flexing, as if someone was jumping up and down on it. He heard a man’s grunting, in pleasure, not pain, then another loud shout as the man came again.
The pounding continued as Heinrich listened, and the cries of pleasure turned to pain.
“Please,” the victim pleaded. “Let me die.”
It’s Father, Heinrich realized. He stepped back, nearly tumbling down the steps. His father was alive, but it was not relief he felt, but a sudden dread, mixed with…
The act of sex began again, directly overhead, and despite the horror of his father being drained, Heinrich could not help but respond. His cock grew as the act became more violent above him, his father crying out in pain or pleasure or both.
With an animalistic cry, the sounds stopped.
Heinrich felt something reaching for him, searching. He almost climaxed just from the thought of it.
But beneath it all was dread, fear that if he succumbed, it would be the end.
He’d thought nothing was worse than the Cutting. He’d thought he’d rather die than ever suffer it again.
Now, without thinking, he dropped his trousers.
“Don’t think too long on it,” his father had said.
Heinrich sliced across his groin, feeling his genitals drop away. His eyesight dimmed to a single point of light surrounded by flashes of pain. He was dizzy.
Stay awake, he told himself. You’ll bleed to death.
He made it down the stairs and a few steps more. He tried to stay upright as sex resumed above him, but fell to the floor and curled up, fainting.
Blood of the Succubus Page 6
