Hunters Ch. 02

Author's note:

I had been intending to get this written much faster. Call it life hitting me about the head with a rubber dildo.

This follows immediately from episode one, the imaginatively titled "Hunters, Ch 01", and will make no sense at all unless you read that first.

The sex in this one is less, and it is more about story and background. Call it delayed gratification.

####

When I awoke, it was in our room at the hotel, and I was alone.

I felt so dehydrated that I crawled to the bathroom, the room swaying crazily about me, and gulped water from the taps until I was full.

That took all the energy I had, and I lay on the bathroom floor, shivering violently, until I could crawl back into bed and, with shaking fingers, punch for room service.

I ordered tea, coffee, orange juice, toast and spinach omelettes for two, and could barely summon the energy to be civil to the girl who bought them before falling to as though I hadn't eaten for a week.

I ate, and drank, everything before I felt even remotely full, and then showered frantically, trying to avoid the two small, thin cuts in my groin and under my right nipple, then dressed, then sat on the bed and tried unsuccessfully to think as shock set in and I started to shiver again.

I don't know how long I sat there before I dragged myself to my feet and into the tiny kitchenette, where I had enough equipment and supplies to make a large plunger of quite good and very strong coffee and then lean against the counter drinking it and finally feeling the horror settle and become genuine and tangible.

What the fuck had happened? A vampire cult? I threw myself into the bathroom, pulled up my T-shirt and stared at my chest. The cut was a clean line, not two puncture wounds of any type. Yet I had certainly lost a lot of blood, and, although it made me sick to my stomach to think it, Rachel was not here.

When Christopher said "She'll do," did that mean that they had drained and killed her? Or where they still holding her captive? That thought finally drove me to action.

I finished dressing, choosing my walking boots, and grabbed my shoulder bag containing everything, including a multi-tool but not including my laptop, which comprised my full-day, away from home kit. I even slung a thin jumper through the strap.

Then, on the way out, I passed the doorman and went around the corner before asking a newspaper vendor for directions to the nearest police station.

#

"Have you tried calling her mobile?"

"She never takes it to clubs."

"Are you sure that she hasn't returned to the hotel?"

"She hasn't let me know."

The constable nodded. "Could you wait here, please, sir? I won't be long."

I waited. It was that, or run away, and there really wasn't much point to that.

We had gone through who I was, who she was, distinguishing features, what she was wearing, and finally how I knew that she was missing and why I was already worried. I was steeling myself for the thinly disguised allegations of spousal abuse and where, hypothetically speaking, I would have left a body if I, hypothetically speaking, had decided to murder someone.

It didn't take long for the interview room door to open, but it wasn't the constable returning. It was a weathered, hulkingly tall plain-clothes man with a sour look on his face that was, I strongly suspected, permanent.

He sat without introductions or other ceremony.

"Mr Lawson," he said with a voice as weary and as sour as his appearance. "did they drink from you as well?"

I stared at him, speechless.

He sighed, obviously not patient enough to let me work through things in my own time.

"Mr Lawson," he continued, no change in his tone or expression. "take off your shirt."

Wordlessly, I lifted it far enough to show the scar underneath my nipple.

"Right, that takes care of verifying your innocence, and I can even understand why you lied to us, but it really doesn't help. Mind starting again?"

"If you know that much, why aren't you asking me for a blood sample?"

"Because they don't use drugs," he said phlegmatically. "As near as we can tell, it's a form of hypnotic process. Now, would you mind starting again?"

I didn't leave anything out, this time, and when I had finished, the man in plain clothes said "Do you know the traditional penalties for lying to the police, Mr Lawson?"

"Probably bigger than the penalties for keeping something like this from the public," I replied, trying to keep a handle on my temper.

The detective (presumably) leaned forwards across the table, his face getting slightly darker.

"Mr Lawson," he said evenly, "very few people have made complaints, and even fewer have chosen to continue after the hangover has worn off. You, Mr Lawson, are the first to report someone missing."

"Maybe they don't normally take couples home," I snapped. "How many people have never turned up without being reported?"

I didn't need my journalist's instincts to tell that I had touched a nerve. He looked as though he wanted to get me interred, somewhere remote and final.

"Don't worry about other people," he snarled, "You're not out of the woods yourself, yet."

Ah, thinly veiled allegations of spousal abuse. Finally.

I took a deep breath. "You have already said... I'm sorry, you haven't told me what your name or rank was."

"No," he said, "I didn't."

Ah. Right. So it was to be like that. Did I tell him, at this point, that I automatically record all conversations I have with authority? No. Probably not my best move right now.

I decided to just wait him out, instead.

It turned out that he was better at intimidation than at patience.

"Mr Lawson, I have been doing this game a lot longer than you," he said bluntly. "I would strongly advise you to cooperate."

"Then ask me a question that doesn't insult my intelligence," I replied, my patience growing thin, "or give me something. Who, or what, are they?"

The look he gave me this time was more calculating, and he evidently decided to give me some credit, because the next thing he said was actually information.

"If we knew that, we would have a better handle on what to do about them. They might as well be fucking vampires. To answer your previous questions, nobody has gone missing in circumstances we can link to the same group, and no, we have never had any complaints from couples."

He suddenly leaned forwards across the table, his height bringing his head disconcertingly close to mine. "I am telling you this," he said evenly, "Because you are the first person to lodge a complaint while not obviously hung over, and because you are the first couple we are aware of."

As he said "hung over", I had a sudden flash to Mirka saying "He has drunk less of me," and shivered, the flash of recall as sinister as it was vivid and unexpected.

The plain-clothes man, still leaning across the table, had no trouble seeing my shiver, and broke off in mid flow, only that sudden, out of synch cessation of movement betraying the switching of his thought processes.

"What have you just remembered?" he asked, sounding for the first time like a colleague, rather than an adversary.

I didn't answer for a moment, taking a slow, deep breath as those moments of the night that I couldn't remember before unspooled in my head. Most of it was the interesting stuff, the details between Mirka first sliding down my body, mouth open against my skin and headed for my painfully hard cock, and the pain under my nipple bringing me back to semi consciousness.

I took a second deep breath as he waited unreadably.

"More details," I said slowly, before telling him the intimate bits, some of which actually made his expression change.

"We've taken blood samples from all previous victims," he said slowly, "Without finding anything. But it could be either a drug we can't detect, or something with a very short half-life in the body, or ..."

"Maybe it's just a catalyst," I suggested helpfully, "and it's still a mostly hypnotic process. I'm pretty sure the rules have changed, but I've always had an extremely low susceptibility to hypnotism."

Trying to help may not have been the best move. His brow darkened, almost imperceptibly. "I should add, Mr Lawson," he said evenly, "That we must ask for your complete discretion as regards everything we discuss here today. Without it, it is extremely unlikely that we will be able to help you at all."

I stared straight back at him. "I can assure you," I said sincerely, "I have no intention of discussing this with anyone."

I didn't stay much longer - there wasn't really much more that could be said. When I left detective Blake - he had finally admitted his name - I took a bus in the right general direction, went several stops until the cafés started looking good, got off, found somewhere that looked more than usually alternative-friendly, ordered lunch and extremely strong coffee, fired up the Skype client on my mobile, and put a call through to an old university colleague of mine who was working for the better local newspaper.

"Al!" he said as soon as he picked up. "What can I do for you?"

"Might have something for you," I opened. "What do you know about people being abducted from nightclubs and then dropping the charges?"

"Al," he asked, "Are you talking about the vampire thrill cult?"

"WHAT?" I practically shouted down the phone.

He chuckled. "Thought you were. What do you know about it?"

"You first," I demanded.

"That fucking story," he began, "is this city's longest-running non-event. Every month, just about, someone approaches the police, or one or another of the media outlets, complaining about having been drugged at a nightclub, abducted, made to participate in group sex, bizarre rituals, bleeding - the details vary, but generally always include blood-letting - and then, just as the story is getting together, they withdraw every allegation, every word, get very embarrassed, and disappear from view. Most frustrating fucking recurring story I've ever encountered."

My stomach tied itself into a little knot as I listened to him. What the hell was happening in this city?

"So," he continued meaningfully, "what have you got?"

"Have there been disappearances linked to any of this?"

"Not that I've ever head of," he replied, "What have you got?"

"Not sure," I hedged. "Someone may be trying to spin the outsider a little yarn - some variation on urban legends. I promise that I'll bring you in on it."

He laughed, sarcastically. "I'll be waiting!"

#

I headed back to the hotel, walking half on autopilot, my legs choosing a pace that saw me weaving in and out of other foot traffic as my brain tried to process everything I needed to take in.

When I reached the hotel again, I was still too distracted to really pay attention to the staff, who I had been cultivating for good treatment and possible gossip, or I may have picked up a small clue instead of nearly getting a heart attack when I opened my room door, walked through to the bedroom and saw Rachel sitting on the bed, waiting for me.

I did not react normally, whatever "normally" should have been.

I stared at her, instead. Used to analysing my own reactions, I was shocked to find that I had too many to count, and could only stare wordlessly as my brain clogged and restarted the thought processes to try and regain clarity.

She smiled at me, wanly.

"You have noticed," she said, quietly. "They didn't believe me, but I was sure you would. You always did have the self-awareness."

I had noticed something, but I still had no idea what it was.

Then she stood up, and I finally saw. She was achingly, compellingly, beautiful.

To me, she always had been, but not like this.

She had always been great at dancing, but had always moved with efficiency and self-assurance. Now, as she stood up, she moved like a dancer who had energy and poise to spare.

"What happened?" I finally found my voice.

"I joined them."

She was standing as if on the brink of movement, a sense of balance and, somehow, stillness, that I found profoundly disconcerting and profoundly troubling.

"Joined them?" in the absence of knowledge, of understanding, I threw her statement back at her as a question.

"I couldn't turn them down when they offered," she continued, evasively.

"Rachel, who offered you what?"

She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for this moment.

"I'm a vampire, now," she said in a very small voice.

I just stared at her, not sure whether she was joking, or whether I was hallucinating.

She sighed, sounding both achingly sensuous and helplessly sad.

She started to walk towards me, and I had a sudden, shocking flashback to Mirka. Without knowing that I was even moving, I came up hard against the door behind me.

Rachel looked as though she was on the verge of crying.

"You know that I have changed, and you know that it can't be natural," she said emptily. "I don't know how to explain it to you!"

That was too much for me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her as she sobbed into my shoulder. It took me several minutes to realise that my shoulder wasn't getting any wetter.

She noticed my reaction to that, and pushed herself away from me, wiping her eyes with a quick, automatic and unnecessary gesture that seemed like the most honest movement she had made since I had walked in.

"We don't cry," she said bluntly and a little angrily, "or a lot else."

That finally decided it for me. I took her hand, and led her back to the bed.

"Tell me," I said. "Everything. We've got all the time you need."

She laughed, suddenly and a little hysterically. "I'm sorry," she gasped. "I do have all the time I need, now. More time than I ever imagined."

This further evidence of her difference made my stomach clench, but I willed myself to keep a straight face, and to listen to her.

"Mirka and Christopher," she began, slowly, "Are vampires who hunt in nightclubs. They pick up a threesome partner, or one will pick up a partner alone, and they will take them back home and feed off them. Last night was their first foursome in many years, so they invited their friends to join in.

"They only ever take a litre at a time, between them, sometimes not even that, so nobody ever dies. Sometimes someone gets frightened if they can't remember what happened last night, or the cuts frighten them, but how can you seriously maintain a complaint if there's no obvious harm, and no drugs present?"

I almost mentioned my visit to the police, but stopped myself, wanting her to finish before I upset her train of thought.

"Last night," she continued, "Mirka misjudged you, and you woke up too early. So you remembered, didn't you? You noticed when they had me completely under control, because you weren't."

My mouth was dry, and I couldn't stop myself from interjecting.

"What happened?" I asked. "How do they put people under, and why did I wake up?"

"We're ... Hypnotic," she said haltingly. "But our bodily fluids are like mind control drugs."

"'He drank less of me'," I repeated. "I went down on her once, and I kissed her, but you ... "

"I drank all of his cum," she continued, "and that would have been enough. But then he came inside me, as well, and I also kissed her while he was doing it. I was helpless not to become their bitch, really."

Her candour, part of our normal morning-after conversation, suddenly made me supremely uncomfortable.

"It doesn't work through the skin?" I asked weakly.

"Not very well," she replied. "So, you woke up early, and you remembered more. I don't remember anything after he came into my mouth in the kitchen - just his incredible taste, and my need for more."

I found myself nodding, in the memory of that driving but unreal lust.

"I woke up this morning," she continued, "and they gave me more. But this time they kept me awake, and when they had finished with me, they told me that they had enjoyed me so much that they wanted to keep me, and offered me the chance to join them.

"I wasn't even myself," she recalled. "I couldn't give proper consent, but they were too selfish to take the risk that I would deny them. So they asked when I was a helpless little cum-slut gasping for more cock.

"And here I am," she concluded, weakly. "I'm one of them, now."

I found myself completely bereft of the right question, or the right thing, or indeed any thing, to say. I just stared at her, mind too full to process what she had been saying, while she had been saying it.

She just continued looking at me, with an air of slightly helpless expectation that finally drove me to start thinking properly.

So, okay. If we were going to play this game, and have her wait on me, I would take my time.

So I looked at her - properly looked, for the first time since I had first fully realised her strangeness.

She wasn't different in face, although she was slightly different in figure - the slight depredations of being 30 reversed, a tightening and reshaping too subtle to escape the notice of anyone who didn't look at her as closely as I did, every day - but there was something alien besides the unnatural new beauty that glowed from every plane and angle of her features.

I'm not an expert, but I was once a psychologist, and I was her lover besides, and once I started looking it didn't take me long.

"You're not being honest with me," I said flatly, feeling a terrible sense of betrayal but keeping myself rigidly sitting next to her on the bed. "Your emotions aren't real."

"I don't have emotions any more," she said, as rigidly as I was sitting.

"I have hunger, and satisfaction, and anger, and jealousy and that is about it. I try to make myself feel, but I just don't have the capability any more. I know that I love you, and I remember what it felt like, but I can't feel it now.

"They tell me that faking emotions will become easier with time, and that I will learn to adapt to their absence, forget what they felt like and stop missing them, and that now I'm a more refined being, a finely tuned predator, but that doesn't stop me feeling like a machine."

Suddenly, the flatness in her eyes was broken by a very real flash of anger that nearly terrified me, no slow build-up of frustration possible to give warning or dampen the explosion when it came.

"I cannot feel!" she shouted, hitting her fists against my chest hard enough to stagger me. "You could fuck me, and I would feel you moving inside me, but I wouldn't feel arousal, I'd just feel flesh! My body responds, but I don't! I want to fuck strangers and kill them because I'm jealous at their petty pleasures! Satisfaction is the only thing I have left, and that means being a predator, it means hunting people for their blood!"

Her memories made her try to find solace from anger in tears or bitter, self-mocking laughter, but neither option was available to her, and she threw herself away from me, pacing like an angry tiger.

I tried to swallow in a throat gone dry, and forced myself to talk, to ask questions, to distract her.

"How much blood do you need?" I asked.

She laughed, harshly, a single bark that was purely from memory.

"Oh, we still eat and drink, and we can even taste, although we don't get pleasure from the tastes themselves. The blood taken from us last night was enough for a week, for all four. It is not needed to fuel or sustain our bodies, but the power that keeps us alive, the vampirism itself, needs more than substance."

She sounded as though she was parroting by rote what she did not fully understand or appreciate, and almost certainly was.

"We are not just vampires because we feed on blood," she continued, "we are alive because of it. We really are undead. Without the vampirism, we are nothing.

"And the vampirism needs to feed off the life of others.