Blood for the Vampiress Ch. 04

A dark silhouette blotted the autumn moon. She stood as still as a gargoyle on the roof of a house on a hill, the one that loomed over Bloodless, Arizona like a slumbering god, ancient and beautiful, a woman in long black robes.

Mina's eyes scanned the grainy black landscape of the night, but she saw neither the fingernail sliver of new moon nor the twinkling multitude of stars nor the drifting shadows flittering and twittering through the sky like leathery birds. She peered deep into a vision of memory and was chilled by what she saw.

Bodies.

Blood-drained and lifeless, their faces drawn up in silent screams, their dead hands claws that scraped the air. They littered every memory like land mines. Mina remembered why she came out into the desert: to escape the bodies, to escape the curse, to escape HIS legacy. To starve herself.

Mina sighed. It had not worked out that way. Mina was known as Master to some, the Bride to others, and to all she was a manifestation of the purest evil on Earth, a curse that was a thirst that knew nothing but to drink and drink and drink, doomed to never be satiated, doomed to turn Mina into a raving lunatic mass murderer.

Her tongue slipped over her lips, licked the tip of one sharpened fang.

She had come to this place to die. She had found a cave and chained herself to a wall. She knew that eventually, without the nourishment from feeding, her body would decay and the curse would be lifted. Death was the only way. Death was her penance.

Then someone found gold. People came and built this town, this town that now lay dead around her, and they had found Mina in the mine, the same mine where she now kept the unwanted ones, the lost.

They had found her, and Mina had fed. At the point when children disappeared nightly, and blood stained the streets, the people fled from her and her curse. But having stuffed herself, Mina lived a long time after that, a long time to forget who she was and what she had done. Time erased her pain. Time turned her again into a monster.

She remembered the night he came for her: dark flowing cowl and glowing red eyes, the Prince of Darkness. They had thought him dead, killed during a daring rescue by a band of brave men including her husband. They had been wrong. Mina remembered her husband's surprise and his bloodcurdling scream upon seeing the Dark Prince, undead and well, and the sound of Jonathan's blood spraying against the wall.

And Mina remembered how her sweet Prince had taken her over her husband's dead body.

Hot tepid breath on her neck, his cold groping hands, his penetrating freezing member, his teeth sinking into the soft flesh of her neck, puncturing her jugular and stealing the life that pulsed within, but what Mina remembered most was the shuddering, mind-numbing orgasms that left her helpless in his corpse-like arms.

A chill shivered up her spine, a mix of repulsion and lust.

Mina felt her stomach rumble. The thirst tickled her throat. Why had she hoped to die? She had been weak then. How did she not realize that blood was power? Death could not be her penance for she WAS death. She must not only accept her fate but relish it, welcome it with open arms and receive the gift the Prince of Darkness had seen fit to bestow upon her.

A coyote brayed in the night, and Mina smiled.

***

"So what the fuck just happened?" Bridget Briswell said, her hands clutching her shoulder length, straw colored hair.

They gathered around the smoking remnants of the vampire, now only a flickering pile of ash as if it was a waning campfire, and Bridget waited for someone to break out in "Kumbayah." Instead, Doctor Malcolm St. Graves, vampire hunter, dusted off his tweed jacket and flashed a small smile, his face unnaturally calm after the near disaster. Bridget thought about how the old man had dangled like a worm on a hook from the creature's hands, and she shivered.

"I daresay they knew we were coming, ladies," he said. The old man walked over to the archive's single reading table where his briefcase had been placed before hell opened its doors and unleashed the creature that had attacked them. St. Graves flipped the case open and pulled out a couple of small metal flashlights.

"No shit, Sherlock. We're lucky to be alive. Did you see the size of that thing? It could have killed us all!" Bridget replied in spastic breathless gasps. Her heart still pounded in her chest, and she felt the world sway under her feet.

St. Graves shook his head and said, "It would not have killed us, my dear. It would have turned us."

"Turned us?"

"You know bite us, make us one of them?" Alexandria Knight said, her dark face stoic and hard. "A common strategy to keep outside forces from being suspicious while increasing their own numbers."

Knight took an offered flashlight from St. Graves and said, "What do you make of what it said about this Bride?"

She flicked on the flashlight, stabbing St. Graves chest with a circle of light. A silver crucifix gleamed around his neck. The white-haired vampire hunter frowned at the question and stroked his goatee.

"I'd rather not make any hasty assumptions. Instead, let us quickly dig up any useful information we can on Bloodless and take our leave of this place," St. Graves said and shot them a solemn expression.

"The fiend may have had reinforcements coming."

***

Ol' Karl looked crusty and sun-baked across the table from Morgan and Melvin, Karl's eyes squinty with wrinkles, his skin blotched with sun spots. Threads of beer leaked from the corners of his mouth as he chugged, the mug pressed hard against his thin, cracked lips. He finished it off and thumped the empty mug onto the table. A few drops of foam specked Melvin's shirt.

"Whadda ya wanta know? Karl said, wiping a dirty sleeve across his mouth. His grating voice crackled and slurred. His yellowy weasel eyes narrowed.

"Joseph Gray," Morgan answered, and she leaned over the table. Her own eyes turned a steely blue. "You talked to him about a town not far from here. Bloodless."

"I 'member that fella, I do. Talked him up 'bout some gold. Ya interested in gold, yerself?" Karl's eyes twinkled. He was a man who liked to tell tales. He wore a dusty flannel shirt, jeans, and a faded blue baseball cap on his tiny head. Melvin had seen plenty of his type in the city where they were better known as con men.

"What did you tell him?" Morgan said. Her voice implied that she did not want any bullshit.

Melvin hid his smile behind an upraised hand. He felt constantly impressed by his wife, not just her powers as a witch but her understanding of people and how to manipulate them. On top of that, she was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever known, sweeping black hair, thick pouting lips, slightly-slanted glittering blue eyes surrounded by luscious long dark lashes, her curvy but athletic body, her naturally sexual demeanor.

Karl's cackling chuckle broke off Melvin's thoughts.

"Don't play aroun' do ya?" the old man said with a crooked grin. "Well, I tell 'im 'bout the house onna hill overlookin' Bloodless. The mayor's house, ya know, stuffed with gold an' abandoned once the townsfolk ran off, their tails unna' they legs. The mayor hisself, well, he up an' disappeared."

"Can you take us to this house?" Morgan said. Karl's mouth drooped into a deep frown.

"Nah, sure cain't. Won't ever see me in Bloodess, no maam."

It was Melvin's turn to talk, and he said, "We can make it worth your while." He plopped a wad of bills onto the table next to Karl's empty mug. A flimsy rubber band held them together, and the pudgy smiling face of Benjamin Franklin adorned them all. Karl exchanged a wary glance with the former founding father.

"I'll show ya," Ol' Karl finally said.

***

"That went fairly easy," Melvin said outside the saloon. A light wind whispered down the dark and desolate main street of Left, Arizona and ruffled his messy brown hair. Except for the few vehicles parked in front of the saloon, the town looked dead. Melvin thought again of the forlorn men on the stools, zombies drinking their lives to extinction, and he shook off the chill that threatened to slip over his heart. He must still be drunk.

"A little too easy," Morgan said as she popped open the door of their red Jeep and climbed inside. Melvin slipped behind the driver's seat and cranked the ignition, the key in his hand and dangling from its slot.

"I think he knows more than he's telling," Morgan continued, leaning her head on her hand, her elbow propped against the car door. A thoughtful look glazed her eyes.

"Shall we meet up with the others, tell them what we know?"

The thoughtful look evaporated as Morgan turned to look at him and answered, "We have some time. Want to fool around?"

Melvin didn't know why she had to ask. When it came to Morgan, he always wanted to fool around. Had she not looked in a mirror lately? She was amazing. He pulled the Jeep behind a rundown building in a dark, abandoned alley. Seconds later, her lips met his, and Melvin's hands were in her hair, stroking her, loving her.

They stumbled into the rear of the vehicle, knees and elbows banging against the car seats, refusing to pause in their kissing and their groping like two teenagers on a first date. Melvin unbuttoned her shirt, peeled it off, and kissed the smooth skin of her neck, moving down, tickling at the protruding bone of her clavicle.

Morgan ripped off his glasses and flipped them towards the front of the Jeep. Melvin would have protested if his lust hadn't overcome all rational thought as he unclasped her bra, and her fleshy mounds of bare breast heaved in front of him. She closed her eyes and petted the back of Melvin's head and neck as his mouth moved over her breasts. His tongue darted out and flicked her hardened nubs of nipple. Morgan sighed and shuddered, tingles of pleasure coursing through her. She felt him slipping off the rest of her clothes, his mouth moving lower and lower, kissing her stomach. His hands kneaded her naked thighs.

Morgan moaned as his head dipped between her legs, and his mouth found her heat. Her body tensed as Melvin's finger slipped inside of her, penetrating her hot inner core. She loved the enthusiasm Melvin demonstrated as a lover and especially his eagerness to please her. She had waited a long time (centuries!) to find him, her one true lover.

She writhed, a warm giggle rising up and out of her throat. Intense pleasure flooded through her body. She thought of the first time they met, the magic love juice, when they'd made love after Melvin said he'd chosen her. Her mind swirled with happy, joyous images and feelings as Melvin brought her closer and closer to release.

His tongue caressed her clit, and his fingers gained speed. He lapped at the sweet moisture gathering there, consuming her lust and adding it to his own.

Morgan's body clenched, and she felt her climax rise up from the pit of her stomach and fill her to the brim, exploding out of her mouth with a shivery gasping cry. Her eyes popped open; an electric energy snapped at her nerve endings. She clutched the side of her husband's head and let the orgasm crash through her, wave after wave pummeling her into submission.

Then she was catching her breath as the tingling in her fingers and toes began to fade.

Melvin smiled at her and rose to insert his protruding erection inside of her. Morgan gripped his buttocks and hastily pulled him into her, their connection evoking a breathless gasp from both. The Jeep bounced around them.

Melvin kept his eyes open as he thrust in and out of her, soaking in the sight of her beauty, turned on by her enjoyment of their act of sex. Her taut stomach clapped against his, her thighs smacking his, her tongue flicking against his. Her nails dug into his ass, and her eyes flamed.

"Harder," she begged. "Harder."

Melvin gave it all he had, his teeth biting into his bottom lip. He sunk his hands into her flowing hair, felt her legs wrap around him, forcefully keeping him deep.

He had waited so long to do this to her. The last time had been... just three days earlier? It seemed like an eternity, considering the surprise appearance of Bridget, their trip to see Elizabeth Smoke, and the drive to Iowa and the subsequent flight to Arizona. So much had happened over the last 76 hours that they had no real chance to enjoy their marriage the old-fashioned way. Melvin forgave his wife for the mess she had caused in his pants the previous night. He inhaled her scent, inhaled her body. She filled his senses. She filled him.

"Cum in me, babe, cum," she told Melvin. Her eyes caught him with their intensity.

With a shuddery cry, Melvin did, heat bursting up from him and into his wife. They caught their breath, gasping and softly kissing each other. Melvin stroked Morgan's long black hair.

His lips brushed hers as he said, "I've been meaning to repay you for earlier."

"Earlier?" Morgan's mind felt clearer than usual at the moment, but she didn't know what Melvin was talking about. She sent feelers into his mind but ran into a brick wall, something Melvin had picked up watching some old science fiction movie about evil children who could read people's thoughts. The main character would imagine a mental brick wall in his head to keep the evil children out of it. Melvin had quickly mortared his own mind-wall shortly thereafter.

"Nothing, nothing," Melvin said, a little too quickly as far as Morgan was concerned. "I don't know what I'm talking about. That whiskey must've confused me."

Morgan frowned.

"In any case, maybe we should get going. Wouldn't want you to get confused and stick that thing in the wrong place," Morgan said dryly and pushed Melvin away. The expression on his face about broke her heart, his big puppy dog eyes and pouting lips, but Morgan could not have him keeping things from her. She could tell Melvin was doing just that.

Melvin, meanwhile, tried to figure out who could have blown him in the men's room. He had placed his cock through a hole in the wall into the mouth of someone he had been one hundred percent sure was his wife, but she seemed to not recall the incident at all. This was a problem. Did Morgan have a doppelganger running around?

Surely, the whiskey was somehow to blame.

Then Morgan cut off his thoughts by thrusting his boxer shorts into his chest.

"Let's get going," she said. Melvin could tell by the tone of her voice that she was not a happy witch.

***

"I think I've found something," Bridget said, the flashlight in her hand gleaming through the papery skin of a browning newspaper article. So far, she had found little new information in the rusty filing cabinets of Left's archives, but something about this article sent a strange chill down her spine.

St. Graves' shoes tapped against the floor as he made his way over to her. His shape formed out of the grainy shadows. His flashlight threw blinding white light into Bridget's face, and she raised a hand to ward it off. Alexandria Knight treaded cat-like behind the old man.

"What is it?" Knight asked in a low voice. Her deep brown eyes reflected flashlight beams in the dark.

Bridget held up the article. It felt like it might crumble to dust in her hands; apparently, the archivist of Left, Arizona had not care much for conservation of historical documents.

"It's from the Left Ledger, dated 1852. Mentions them finding a woman in a cave north of here where some miners were digging for gold. She was chained to a wall when they found her, and she attacked them like a wild animal. They calmed her down, unchained her, and she told them her name was..."

"Yes?" St. Graves said. His bushy white eyebrows arched over his curious eyes.

"... Mina Harker," Bridget finished.

***

At the motel, they made a makeshift circle, Morgan and Bridget sitting on the bed, Melvin in a chair, St. Graves standing and stroking his goatee, and Knight leaning in the corner, looking bored and solemn. In the center of the circle sat the article Bridget had discovered and a map of Bloodless found by St. Graves.

"It must be a coincidence," Melvin said. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and swallowed. He didn't think he sounded very convincing.

"Too much of a coincidence," Morgan responded. She was still mad at him from earlier, and Melvin couldn't blame her. But if he told her the truth she might only get angrier.

St. Graves cleared his throat and smoothed his jacket with his hands. The gentle old man with a gun hidden in a holster under his shirt, Bridget thought.

"The creature that attacked the three of us mentioned something about a Bride. Now, it would make sense if the Bride he spoke of was Mina Harker, the very same Mina Harker that Dracula kidnapped in the famous novel," St. Graves observed. "Certainly a real Dracula existed, and the book was based on his legend. Therefore, the truth of matter seems to point to a bona fide bride, a bride of the son of the devil no less, residing in Bloodless."

"Holy shit," Bridget said in a whisper. She couldn't believe any of this was happening. She could still be in New York making money and prosecuting criminals, but instead she was in a low budget horror movie starring the Bride of Dracula! Jesus! She felt dizzy.

"Worse," St. Graves continued, "I would not be surprised if the entire town of Bloodless was comprised of the undead. This may be worse than Moscow." He glared at his brooding apprentice. Knight's expression was unreadable.

"But it's a ghost town," Melvin countered.

"Maybe not at night," Morgan said. "We don't want to go walking right in there like the magnificent seven. Even during the day, they may have spies looking for us."

"The hills have eyes," Alexandria Knight said from her corner to no one.

St. Graves tapped the map before them. His finger traced a line leading to Bloodless along a suspicious looking brown line marked with x's. Melvin waited for the inevitable plan to form, his heart thudding in his chest.

"This looks to be a back way into town through a mine shaft. It may be our best bet if we wish to enter Bloodless unannounced," he said. His eyes rose and took the measure of each individual, sharing nods and meaningful looks.

"Let's do it," Melvin said, and the others seemed to agree.

"I'm sure Ol' Karl will be more than happy to guide us there," Morgan said, a sly smile sneaking over her face. The leathery old creep would probably shit his pants.

***

They moved out at sunrise, the sun orange and hot and flaming over the desert like the eye of God. They took both Jeeps, and Karl sat in the back of the first next to Bridget, the old man's beady eyes never leaving the blonde's admirable legs. Bridget disliked him from the start.

"Might need a lil sumthin' extra after a job like this," the old man croaked. Bridget grimaced and faced the window, trying not to think about what the old man might desire for payment.

The desert looked empty and dry, rocks and brownish weeds and bushes struggling up and out of the undernourished sediment. Somewhere out there was Bloodless and Joey. Bridget figured he was probably dead, and a sickening ache tugged at the pit of her stomach. She closed her eyes and tried to turn off her thoughts.

In the second Jeep, alone with the vampire hunter, Alexandria Knight gripped the steering wheel with clenched fists and said, "If we're going up against a Bride, they're more likely to get us killed than help us."

St. Graves turned towards her from the passenger's seat and gave her an understanding look. A white panama hat sat on his head, the brim casting a shadow over the old man's eyes. The Jeep bounced and bustled under them, and St. Graves felt his stomach rolling with every shudder of the road.