Exsanguination Read online

  Vanessa laughed. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you, sweetie.”

  “Vanessa?” Nikki spoke softly.

  “Yes, little one.”

  “Is there any way that this thing can be reversed or cured?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” Vanessa frowned.

  “I don’t want to be a vampire. I want to be like I was before it happened,” she looked sad.

  She leaned forward to look across Phillip at Nikki. “There are stories of it being tried. A lot of failures and I don’t know if there have been successes. In fact, I don’t personally know anyone who has actually attempted it,” her expression was serious, “but I’ve heard stories of experiments.”

  Nikki’s brows knitted. “What kind of experiments?”

  “Some were religious. Attempts by priests to exorcise what they perceived as demons or devils. Those all ended catastrophically with the death of the subject.”

  “Besides religious treatments?”

  “Well,” Vanessa sighed, “if you take the view that vampirism is a disease, you have to realize that it wouldn’t even rise to the level of being an orphan disease. Before the medical community could even begin to consider searching for a cure, it would have to admit the very existence of vampires. Anyone seriously postulating that you and I are vampires would be laughed out of any scientific community.”

  “Maybe I could try a doctor?”

  “You could well wind up in some underground facility being experimented on. Let’s, for a moment, say that the population, in general, comes to the realization that we exist. It’s a quick jump to the fact that our kind sees ordinary people as food and, to most of us, that’s really all most humans are – food. The authorities would bring all their resources to bear in an attempt to exterminate us.”

  Phillip was rubbing his chin, thoughtfully, remembering a movie he’d seen years before. “What about replacing Nikki’s blood? A complete transfusion with human blood?”

  Vanessa shook her head. “That’s been tried.”

  “And?”

  “Convulsions and death. From what I understand, it wasn’t a nice sight.”

  “Damn,” Nikki muttered and Vanessa stood, smiling and holding out her hand to her.

  “You have to remember that what’s happened to you isn’t just like a virus or something of that nature. You’re no longer human. You appear human but that’s about as far as it goes. There’s no way to reverse it – to change one of our species into a human,” she paused. “Come with me,” she nodded and Nikki joined her.

  “Around here,” Vanessa nodded to the open area behind the loveseat.

  Standing in front of Nikki, she took both her hands.

  “This is difficult at first so I need you to close your eyes.”

  Nikki complied.

  “Now, empty your mind, take a deep breath and let it out.”

  Nikki exhaled with a sigh.

  “Very calmly, see yourself floating off the floor.”

  A moment later, Vanessa spoke again in soft tones, sounding reassuring.

  “Yes, that’s it . . . that’s it,” Vanessa withdrew her hands from Nikki’s.

  As he watched the pair over the back of the loveseat, Phillip’s eyes were wide with shock. They were floating about two feet off the floor.

  “Very good, that’s very good,” she turned her head and winked at Phillip.

  “Now, slowly open your eyes.”

  Nikki opened her eyes but didn’t realize what had happened until she glanced away from Vanessa’s face. “God!” she cried in alarm and quickly landed on the floor. Vanessa came down more gracefully.

  “I was flying!” Nikki exclaimed, her voice shaking.

  Vanessa chuckled. “The beginnings of it. Mastery comes with practice. There are other skills you can learn.”

  “Like what?” Nikki was overcome with excitement, thoughts of becoming human again, far from her mind.”

  Phillip felt a pang of envy and Vanessa vanished. Nikki looked all around the room, confused.

  “No one ever looks up. Remember that, little one.”

  Nikki heard Vanessa’s voice from above her. Her head snapped back and she saw the woman on all fours – on the ceiling! She watched in amazement as Vanessa scampered across the ceiling like some large, exotic insect, dodging the chandelier and reaching a wall. Without stopping, she skittered silently halfway down the wall and, again, disappeared.

  “Over here, little one,” she grinned at Nikki from the other side of the room. Her feet, just barely off the floor, she glided toward her and then touched down. “Still want to trade in your fangs?”

  “Oh God, no!”

  Vanessa laughed softly, moved instantaneously to Phillip’s side and whispered in his ear. He sighed and nodded. “I guess it doesn’t much matter.”

  She beckoned to Nikki. “Now for something you’ll really love if you can set your parochial views aside.”

  She frowned in confusion.

  Vanessa stroked Phillip’s cheek, looking from him to Nikki.

  “Snack, little one. Be gentle and just sip for a few minutes – no more.”

  Nikki looked at him, concern on her face as her breathing accelerated. She was hungry. “Are you sure it’s all right?”

  He shrugged and gave her a wan smile. “What the hell, it’s a crazy night.”

  A moment later he had reclined on the loveseat and Nikki approached. There was the momentary pain and then his body and mind flooded with pleasure. Nikki moaned at the first taste of him and he whimpered in ecstasy.

  After a few minutes, Vanessa gently rested her hand on Nikki’s shoulder and, with a slight whine of protest, the smaller woman pulled back smoothly. She looked at Vanessa, her eyes dreamy with pleasure.

  Vanessa smiled back at her. “And that my sweet, is how a virgin tastes.”

  “Utterly unbelievable. What an experience!” she whispered.

  Phillip slowly sat up, reluctantly recovering from the sensations.

  “You know, if it didn’t feel so wonderful, I might feel used,” he shook his head slowly.

  Vanessa laughed lightly. “I would hazard a guess that your sister sees you in a completely different light now.”

  Nikki frowned. “I know I should feel ashamed in some way but I find I don’t.”

  “You’re not human anymore. The changes aren’t exclusively physical. You see things differently after you’re turned. You need to change the concepts in which you think. What you did with Phillip, regardless of how it felt, was not sexual. It’s pleasure on a completely different plane.”

  Nikki giggled. “I think we should buy you iron supplements, Phillip.”

  Some hours later, Phillip lay on his side with his arm and leg draped over Vanessa. He felt a slight stirring at his back and an arm went around him. He tensed.

  Vanessa whispered. “Again, it’s not sexual, Phillip. It’s a creature thing. She relishes the warmth. It’s an animal comfort.”

  Nikki made a soft sighing sound and snuggled in more closely.

  IX

  At about eight in the morning, Vanessa slid silently out of bed and dressed. Peeking out the window, she smiled. What’s better than an English winter with overcast skies and snow flurries? Walking to the desk, she jotted a note, placed it on the foot of the bed and looked at Phillip and Nikki. The first thing that came to mind was an image of two little puppies. She liked the pleasurable surprises that life sometimes brought her. There were stretches of time where she’d been completely solitary and then there were periods like this one.

  She returned about four hours later in a Range Rover and went upstairs.

  “I can’t believe the two of you! Still in bed!”

  Phillip jumped out of bed and, upon realizing his sister had been spooned up behind him. He quickly covered his crotch.

  “Oh, stop it!” Nikki laughed. “I’m not the slightest bit interested in your junk! Just your blood!” she made her eyes wide.

  Loo
king annoyed, he quickly pulled on a pair of pants. “Have you wondered at all what things are going to be like in six months with the possibility of mom and dad visiting us?”

  “Funny?” his sister grinned at him.

  “So you traded in the Porsche?” he frowned.

  “For a Range Rover and an Escalade,” Vanessa nodded. “I think we should eat and then I’ll give you a driving lesson.”

  “I know how to drive, Vanessa.”

  “Really? Which way do you go when you hit a roundabout?”

  He thought for a moment. “To the left.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “Very good!” she clapped her hands together. “Get dressed and we’ll catch a conventional lunch downstairs.”

  “Conventional?” Nikki frowned and then looked at Phillip’s neck with a sly smile. She licked her lips.

  “Stop that!” Phillip barked.

  She made a sour face.

  After lunch, they got into the Range Rover and left the garage. Both women wore dark sunglasses. Vanessa corrected Phillip a few times and explained some of the unfamiliar road signs to him. She leaned over to speak with Nikki in the back seat.

  “Nikki, have you any money?”

  “I have my credit card,” she nodded.

  “That’ll work,” she smiled.

  They found a parking garage and made it out to the street on foot.

  “Damn! The daylight makes my skin sting!”

  “Be glad it’s not direct sun. You’d be howling up a storm. In any case, the shop we’re going to is just down the street.”

  Nikki found herself increasingly uncomfortable as they walked. Finally, they reached the storefront. Above the doors was the sign: ‘Everything Goth’.

  “Wow!” Nikki exclaimed. “Let’s go!”

  “Not much of a demure Catholic girl anymore, eh?” Vanessa whispered to Phillip.

  As they entered, Vanessa turned to Nikki. “This looks nice over here.”

  Nikki held up her hands. “I’ve got this. I know exactly what I’m after here,” she motioned to a clerk who, as Nikki spoke quietly, displayed a widening smile.

  “We actually get a good deal of call for that outfit. You want the whole thing?”

  “Oh God, yes,” Nikki replied in a husky, growling voice. The woman started walking away and she called out to her. “The coat too! Oh! Gloves and boots?”

  “What size shoe?”

  “Seven!”

  “Five,” Vanessa announced loudly, having made the conversion from American to European.

  That got her a smile and a nod.

  She turned to Phillip and Vanessa, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet with glee and lightly clapping her hands together.

  After a bit, the clerk waved to her and she went to the changing room. Fifteen minutes passed and they heard the clerk.

  “Damn! You could take a bite out of me, girl!”

  Vanessa’s eyes went wide with alarm and Phillip held up his hand.

  Nikki walked out of the changing room looking as if she’d just stepped off the set of Underworld.

  As Vanessa’s jaw dropped, Phillip muttered. “Good God in heaven! I should have known,” he looked at Vanessa. “Do you ever see movies?”

  Vanessa shook her head. “I find real life to be quite exciting enough and I have my library.”

  “What do you think?” Nikki spun around, swirling the full-length leather coat through the air.

  Vanessa shook her head. “You look amazing!” she leaned forward. “I thought you were going to feed when I heard the clerk.”

  Nikki grinned at the clerk. “Ring me up. I’ll wear it all.”

  The girl at the register looked confused.

  “She’ll pay for the whole thing and wear it out,” Vanessa helped.

  “Ah! Of course. American?”

  “Yes,” Nikki answered, “how did you know?”

  “Aside from your accent? When you say ring me up it means to call you on the phone,” the cashier smiled. “Nice fangs by the way. They look quite real.”

  “Thank you!” Nikki cocked her head and grinned playfully. “You could ring me up if you wanted to,” she said, flirtatiously.

  She paid her bill, and scratched her phone number on the back of one of the store’s business cards, handing it to the clerk who smiled at her as she left the store.

  “Oh, God, I feel so much better with my skin completely covered. My face still stings a bit but everything else is just fine,” she turned to Vanessa as she walked. “You’ve seen this outfit before, haven’t you? You must have!”

  She shook her head.

  “That’s right, you haven’t got a TV! Can we make another stop? I want to buy one, and, oh, I want to get some black hair dye!”

  Vanessa sighed.

  That evening, they hit a club that was some distance from their usual. As they entered, Vanessa scanned the room and then smiled. She walked, at a determined pace, to the bar, coming up behind a man.

  “Hello, Antoine,” she purred.

  As he recognized her voice, he tried to bolt. Her hand shot out and took him by the throat.

  “Countess,” he squeaked out.

  “Don’t worry, Antoine, I’m not going to kill you but there’s someone who wants a moment of your time,” with her free hand, she beckoned to Nikki who was making quite the stir in her new outfit.

  “Well, look who it is. The man with no self-control.”

  He looked surprised to see her and more than a little apprehensive.

  “Nikki?”

  “Mmm . . . I want to thank you, Antoine, despite the fact that you killed me. It seems you did me a favour,” she hesitated, “with Vanessa’s help. She turned me.”

  “I can tell. I’m very sorry. You were . . . so delicious, I couldn’t stop.”

  She smiled slightly. “I forgive you.”

  Vanessa released her grip and the tension seemed to drain out of him. He wasn’t afraid of Nikki but the Countess was a completely different story. He looked Nikki up and down. “You seem a good deal less innocent. It’s a good look for you.”

  “Thank you, Antoine,” she smiled.

  “If you need to feed, you’ll find no shortage of volunteers.”

  “I’m going to teach her to gauge quantity,” Vanessa said flatly.

  “I can do that!” Antoine replied. “Please, let me make up a little for my mistake, Countess.”

  Vanessa sighed. “Go ahead, but teach her restraint.”

  As they wove through the bar, Nikki continually got looks that said ‘take me’.

  “Would you like a man or a woman, Nikki?”

  She frowned thoughtfully. “A woman, I think,” she crooked her finger at a slim, brown-haired girl about ten feet away who then approached timidly. Nikki could hear her heart racing with excitement. She sniffed her as she got close. A virgin she wasn’t but she was cute, Nikki thought.

  “Have you ever done this before?” Nikki ran her finger gently down the girl’s cheek.

  She nodded and held out her arm displaying scarring from cuts.

  Nikki moved her hand to push back the girl’s hair from one side of her throat and then the other.

  “You mean . . .?”

  Nikki nodded. “I’m the real deal, sweet one.”

  Beth had heard stories that such things happened on rare occasions but she thought that’s all they were - stories.

  “Listen to her heartbeat as you feed and I will as well. I can tell when you’ve gone far enough by the slight slowing of her heart,” Antoine whispered and inclined his head to the rear of the club. “Rooms are back there.”

  Beth was trembling. “I’m afraid.”

  “You are going to experience pleasure beyond your dreams,” Nikki responded with a reassuring smile and put her arm around the girl’s waist.

  Moments later, Beth’s single scream was drowned out by the sound of the Gothic industrial music of the club. Then she moaned loudly, her back bending backwards, arching high in the air.r />
  Resisting the urge to hurry, Nikki sucked gently at the wound, making small contented sounds as she did so. After several minutes, Antoine tapped Nikki on the back and she pulled away, noting Beth’s heart rate as she did so. The girl fairly melted on the sofa. Nikki looked at her. She was incredibly cute and delicate. It was, at that moment, that Nikki realized the dangers of potential attachments. She wanted to take this little slip of a girl home, cradle her in her arms and care for her.

  “Beth, look at me.”

  Her eyes flickered open.

  “You’ll remember the pleasure but not my face,” she turned and walked away, Antoine following. They approached Vanessa.

  “How did she do?”

  “She did very well. Picked a little cute one and I could tell she wanted to make her a keeper but she controlled her urge.”

  Vanessa’s eyebrows went up. “Really?”

  “Oh, Vanessa, she was so delicate and sweet,” Nikki said sadly.

  “I’m sure she was and you’ll find the impulse to pick up the occasional stray often difficult to resist.”

  Nikki frowned. “You did it with my brother!”

  “That was different, Nikki.”

  “Different how?” the girl planted her hands on her hips.

  “Well,” for a moment, Vanessa actually seemed slightly flustered, “for one thing, he was American,” she announced defiantly.

  “So it’s ok to pick up American strays?” Nikki suppressed a grin.

  “No, of course not,” she got a faraway look in her eyes. “He reminded me of someone is all.”

  Antoine held up a finger. “And he is a virgin. Do not forget that,” he leaned into Vanessa. “How good is he, Countess?”

  Vanessa immediately resumed her confident demeanour. She grinned. “Why don’t you ask his sister?”

  “Vanessa!” Nikki protested, eyes wide and Antoine spun toward Nikki.

  “He is good?”

  Nikki compressed her lips as she glared at Vanessa.

  “He is the best of the best,” Vanessa proclaimed. “He is like the finest of wines.”

  Nikki held her tongue.

  Antoine laughed. “I will have an early night. My boy is waiting for me at home and I don’t want to disappoint him.”

  “You have a live in?” Nikki asked.

  “He has been with me for two years now. He’s a good boy. I sometimes snack on others but always go home to him.”