The Crimson King Ch. 02

Indeed, Thorne heard her. The depth of her whispered passion found him and he fought the urge to return to her balcony, to beg her to open the glass and let him in. But he hadn't let her open the glass because he wanted something more. He didn't want her to be another victim. She stirred feelings so deep inside him that he had streaked home, heading straight for his room and hiding under the covers. Still, her words had found him and the connection left him breathless.

"You can hear me, can't you?" He tried to ignore the sweet strains of her voice but his heart wouldn't let him. Somehow, she had found out how to use the connection that he had created and a flood of warmth raised goosebumps on his skin, making him hiss with need."Oh, yes! I can feel you!"

"Please stop." He pleaded, throwing the covers aside and letting the cool night air caress his rock-hard cock."I can't take it."

"It's your fault." Her voice tickled in the corners of his mind."You started this." She laughed and the brightness of her soul seared him with its beauty."Now I'm going to finish it."

"Sammi, don't … "

His entire body shuddered in concert with hers."Too late." Their connection was so strong that he could see her and he groaned, his hand encircling his purpled cock and stroking it gently. She was laying on her bed, the white silk robe carelessly tossed to the side. Her strawberry-blonde hair hung in an autumnal cascade over the edge of the bed, her fair skin pink in the soft light. He gasped."Do you see me?"

Thorne could not respond. The breath refused to leave his lungs as he stroked his thick pole, using the copious pre-cum to lubricate the heated skin. His fingers moved down, circling around to give the heavy balls a squeeze, then slid back up to the head and gave it a hard squeeze."Sammi, please … "

"Youdo see me!"

"I see you. I smell you … "

"You smell me? Do you smell my pussy?"

He groaned, inhaling deeply. He could fly blindly and find her by that scent."Oh, yes."

"And do you want to taste it?"

Again, Thorne groaned. The visual was just too much for him to stand. It had been …how many years? … since he'd had human contact. He'd been a vampire for nigh on seven hundred years and he could never remember actually falling in love, wanting to be with one person. He'd had plenty of relationships before but no one had touched him like this."Yes."

"Oh, please. Tell me your name."

"No."

"Yes. Tell me or never visit me again."

"My name is … Thorne."

"Thorne … "The weight of his name on her tongue floored him once again, making him shiver."Oh, Thorne, my pussy is wet. I want to cum so badly. Mmmm … " She dipped her fingers into her honeypot and held them to her nose, inhaling deeply."Smell that?"

His cock throbbed in his fist as her womanly essences filled his nostrils. She was so ripe, so ready for his assault that he could barely think straight."Sammi, I … "

She slid her fingers around her fat, wet pussy lips, stroking them softly and drawing a lazy circle around her rippling hole. Thorne felt the electrical pulses as they streaked through her body and blasted into him. He groaned loudly, his muscles tightening in response. His aching cock twitched again, the fountain of pre-cum steadily pooling in the wide slit and sliding over his rigid flesh. As her fingers slipped into her well-lubed hole, his fist moved up and down, sending a storm of tingles raining onto his body.

"Oh, yes, Thorne … " Her voice was sultry and breathless, her desire riding her hard as circling fingers plunged deep, temporarily robbing her of her senses and catapulting her closer and closer to her climax. He felt her need as keenly as he felt his own: dark, deep and enduring and his hand moved a bit faster, gripping harder and lengthening the strokes.

"Sammi!" The heat of her ardor sparked his vampiric nature and his canines elongated, fueled by the passion in his blood."Don't!" She didn't heed his warning and he was lost to the sensations of her climax, mingled with his own release. Just as her pussy clamped around her fingers, a thick string of semen spurted from his tortured prick, spraying his chest once, twice, three times.

His eyes were filled with the rubescence of blood and it was several minutes before he returned to present time, to the sun cracking the dark shell of the sky and allowing the golden yolk to flow over the world below. His fangs retracted as his bloodlust cleared and he laid silently, his heart still pounding, the turgid flow of his blood pulsating through his now-flaccid cock.

"Good night, Thorne."

*****

A few hours later, when the morning sun beat a path to Sammi's bedroom and the alarm clock blared U2, the newswoman was pulling into the parking lot of Channel 5, her eyes bright and her latte steaming. Within moments, she'd passed the security checkpoint and was striding into the newsroom, news director Jacob Whiting following her like a dog in heat.

"Where the hell have you been, Sam? I've been trying to call you for the last two hours."

"I was at home, sleeping, Jake. I would have answered the phone if you'd have called."

"I did call. I called seven times. You never answered."

Sammi shrugged her shoulders, hiding the questions she was asking herself. Normally, she was a light sleeper. Could that dream she had have anything to do with it? "Maybe the battery died." She grinned and took a swallow of her coffee. "How's Mary?"

"Fine. She called earlier to thank you and I told her that you'd call when you got in."

"Good."

"And there's something else." His usually enthusiastic face turned somber. "There was a murder last night."

"A murder?"

"Yeah. Just a few blocks west of where you were. Did you hear anything last night?"

Sammi thought for a long moment. Something was attempting to rise to the surface but bobbed lazily under the waters. "No. We finished up and left."

"Well, a middle-aged man was found dead in an alleyway and his throat was ripped out."

"Jesus!"

"Yeah, and he was bled dry."

"What?" She came to a stop, glaring at him. "You've had too much coffee this morning, Jake."

"I'm not crazy." Jacob continued. "This is the fifth one in the area. They call him the ‘Crimson King'."

"'The Crimson King?'"

"Yeah. The first person he killed was found with a crown on his head, bled dry. "

"Ew!" Sammi arrived at her cubicle and dropped her purse and bag on the floor. "Gross!"

"Well, you'd better get over it. I'm assigning it to you."

"Oh, Jake! Why can't you give it to Grant?"

"Because he's covering the senate races. Besides, after your scoop last night, you're the high man on the totem pole."

"I see." Sammi sighed. "So what do you have on the Crimson King?"

"Nothing much. No one has ever seen him."

"No one? Oh, come on, Jake! This sounds like a bad rerun. This is not ‘Night Stalker', you know."

"I don't know, Sam." Jake plopped himself in one of her visitor chairs. "I've heard a lot of strange stuff about the Crimson King."

"So?"

"No one I've ever spoken to has ever gotten anywhere with an investigation of this creep."

"Any leftovers?"

"Other than the bodies? No. No forensic items."

"What about blood?"

"Nope. If there's anything left, it belongs to the victim."

"What about needle marks?"

"Needle marks? From what?"

"The blood removal."

"Uh … there weren't any."

"What? Then how was the blood removed?"

Jake swallowed, leaning closer to her. "Sammi, the Crimson King is a vampire."

Sammi Glass laughed. And not just an ordinary laugh. One that came deep from her toes, rumbling upward and parting her throat with wanton robustness. "Really, Jake. You must give Anne Rice a rest."

"I'm not joking, Samantha!" Jacob Whiting hissed, showing an emotional side that Sammi had never seen. "Surely you've heard of the legend. The Crimson King's been around long before I got here and he'll be here long after we've left."

"Jake," Sammi leaned back into her chair, sipping her latte. "Vampires are creatures of fantasy. They don't really exist."

The man she'd known as Jacob Whiting changed into a serious professional before her very eyes. "Come with me."

"I can't. I have a lot of research to do … "

"It can wait. Come with me."

Barely assenting, a scant thirty-two minutes later, Sammi found herself at the morgue, greeting Roland Thaw, the assistant Medical Examiner and following Jake and him into the antiseptic bowels of the county's Coronor's Office and Examination Center.

"So, Jake, what can I do for you?"

"I brought Sammi to see the ‘special' patients." Roland's dark eyes narrowed in disbelief. "And to see the newest victim."

Roland's eyes flicked to her, then back to Jake. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Jake nodded. "It's going to be her gig. She ought to know the truth."

"Jake, none of us know the truth."

"True, Rollie, but she needs to know what we mere mortals know."

Roland shrugged and gave her a weak smile. "All right, missy. Welcome to our personal Twilight Zone, 2004."

Sammi tried her best to smile but found it hard to ignore the stiff hackles that had arisen on the back of her neck. "Lead on, MacDuff."

Roland led them into a small supply room and Sammi and Jake were both fitted with smocks, pants, booties and headwear. Jake put his on without comment while Sammi chuckled during her fitting. When they were suited, they entered the elevator, watching as Roland extracted his magnetic card key, slipped it into the provided slot and pressed the Lower Level 5 button. The wide steel box thrummed as it slid down the suspended cables, then the door opened onto the mostly dimly-lit floor.

"Need an electrician?"

Roland laughed. "No. We just don't use it as much so we keep the electricity expenditure down here to a minimum. Everything still works, however. We just don't use the switches unless it's necessary." He paused, glancing to Jake but holding Sammi's attention. "We also don't use regular lighting here. That's the reason that there are no windows on this level, other than the fact that it's a lower level."

Sammi thought that this was strange and looked to Jake, who seemed to completely ignore her. "Why the special lighting?"

"You'll see." Roland turned his back on the twosome, used his card key to enter a set of polished stainless steel doors and secured them once Sammi and Jake had passed through. Once inside, Sammi and Jake stood in the center of the square room, waiting patiently as Roland opened a steel locker and adorned himself in the same clothing as they had. The only thing he added was a light blue face mask, tossing one to each of them and gesturing for them to put them on before stepping in front of the black-lighted silver door. "Ready for the freak show, kiddies?"

Jake nodded, then turned to Sammi. "What you see in here is classified as confidential. You cannot tell a soul, not one person, ever in your lifetime what you've seen in here, nor can you detail your viewing in words or pictures. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes." For the first time, Sammi felt scared. She'd never heard that tone in Jake's voice and she hoped that she would never hear it again. "I won't tell anyone."

"Okay. Let's go."

Roland placed his hand onto a biometric plate and patiently waited for the machine to do its duty: reading his fingerprints, comparing them to those on file and searching for his security clearance level. The light under the plate burned blue, signifying that Roland had high clearance and it went dark as the inch-wide steel door slid aside and the three humans slowly entered.

"Welcome to our Area 51." Roland muttered, handing two pairs of talc-lined gloves to them while pulling a pair on himself. Four doors opened off of the open area, all closed and locked with the same biometric plates as the one outside. Roland activated the first one, waited for the door to move aside and stepped into the chilled, purple lighted space. A coffin, square and unremarkable, sat in the center and Roland lifted the lid, holding a handheld black light aloft over the contents. "This is Stefan."

Stefan was nothing but a few bones and a handful of tattered cloth. He had been found in the same alleyway, about a mile up and he had been gutted. His heart had been missing and his poor state of upkeep had been blamed on the detectives. No one had known about the Crimson King back then. Another smaller coffin held bones from eight previous murders, all with the same modus operandi. All had now been linked to the Crimson King.

The second door held five coffins, all containing mummified contents, as did the third door. Each consecutive coffin held human contents that were more complete than the one before, yet each was still missing an item.

Finally, the fourth door. Roland used his card and took a gun out of the glass-and-wood box, a special gun that was equipped with silver bullets. "Stand behind me and if I say, run, do so."

Sammi heard the words but was unable to quell the amusement that bubbled in her throat. This was all so ridiculous. Black-lighted bones and well-kempt bones did not a vampire make, if a vampire could be made. "Ooo, I'm so afraid."

"You will be."

The door slid closed behind them and the interior light bathed them in violet rays as they slowly moved forward. A jail cell loomed ahead, the dingy steel bars dully glinting in the light. They crossed a dark column of tile, moved into another circle of light and stopped in front of the cell doors.

"Wake up, Domenico." At first, no sound answered Roland's call, then there was the sound of newspapers being rubbed together and a deep groan. "Come on, Domenico. I know you weren't sleeping."

The slithering sound grew louder and the accompanying groan played a gruesome counterpoint, driving the mirth from Sammi's body and instead, instilling a deep seated feeling of dread. Bitter bile burned the base of her throat and her hackles raised again, almost painfully.

"No." Thorne's disembodied moan matched her own and she recoiled from the unseen, held stationery by Jake's strong arm. The tendrils of the light caught the approaching man, playing on the hills and valleys of his ruined features. He shuffled over to the door, reluctantly moving into the light, even though he knew that it would not harm him and cast his eyes toward the group.

"Sammi, this is Domenico Roballo."

The scream caught in her throat as she viewed the man. His skin was a nauseous shade of gray where it laid against bone and black where it slipped into shadow. His nose was gone, the cartilage long eaten away and his teeth were bared in an eternal snarl, his lips shriveled into useless borders. It was his eyes that caught her attention. The eyeballs rotated in their sockets, dry as corn husks, the pupils mercilessly trained on her.

Deteriorated lips curled around rotting teeth as long-dead Domenico Roballo did his best to smile. "Pleased to meet you."

Sammi fainted dead away.