Daughters of Darkness

Content Warning: Blood, murder, and worse

I didn't know, the first time I sank my teeth into Syntyche's dark neck, that she was pregnant. In fairness, neither did she. Between the stress of an abusive marriage and a history of erratic periods, the few early signs of pregnancy had been easy for her to dismiss, but the taste of a woman in her second trimester is unmistakable. "Oh no," I said once my thirst for her blood diminished. "You should have told me."

"Told you what?"

In retrospect, I should have smelled it the moment I knelt between her parted thighs and breathed in the heady aroma of her lust for me, but I had been too long without feeding and I was too wrapped in anticipation of the life-rich nectar pulsing in her veins.

"This," I said, placing my palm upon her belly. Now that I was looking for it, I could see the suggestive contours that betrayed the burgeoning life within. "How far along are you?" I asked. "Four months? Five?"

Syntyche sat up abruptly, the shock echoing in her eyes her ignorance of her state. "I'm pregnant?" Her jaw tightened with displeasure, even as her hands pressed wonderingly against her belly. "It's not possible."

Of course it was possible. Her words were a last denial. That pregnancy alarmed her more than sharing a bed with a bloodthirsty vampire was unexpected and oddly endearing. Now that the bloodlust had passed, I yearned to make love to her again, and properly this time. I wanted to kiss and suck on her full, soft lips, her mouth so much more inviting than any skinny white girl's. Her breasts too demanded my touch, the memory of her large nipples between my teeth, the smell of acacia on her dark skin.

What pleasure it would be to sink my fangs into her chest. I knew each and every vein that threaded the human breast, and there are few sights more erotic than a trickle of blood curving about an aroused, swollen nipple.

But I am not one who enjoys the bitter tastes of fear and despair.

"I'll never escape him now," she said.

I shook my head. "He is the least of your worries. I'm sorry."

Syntyche frowned at me. "What do you mean?" she demanded.

"Your blood is tainted now. Your child's blood is tainted now - by my bite. Had I even suspected you were with child, I would have left you well alone, but now one of you must die for the other to live."

"No," she hissed, shoving me away from her. "Do not talk to me of death. I was a fool to let you charm me. You are a monster. Begone!"

I did not argue. I pulled my long, yellow dress on over my head, enjoying the way it rippled down my slender figure. Despite her momentary hatred of me, Syntyche's gaze followed the fabric's cascade about my curves, and lingered afterwards on my prominent nipples. "I will return in two weeks," I said, and let myself out into the night.

The hillside above the town was bright with the lights from the gold mine where Syntyche's husband worked. He would be home at dawn, which was several hours away still. Hours that I could have spent in Syntyche's arms. Days of careful seduction wasted by a cruel trick of fate. I had fed, at least, but the consequences of that feeding sat heavily in my heart.

Two weeks, I had said. It would be better - cleaner - just to kill her. Kill them both. That was the usual way of things. But that would truly make a monster of me, to kill a woman within an hour of confessing my love. The smell of her lingered still on my skin and I could not enjoy its innocence if I murdered her. Her blood still sang in my veins, a half-forgotten memory of sweeter times that were never mine.

It was her song that first called me to her. We both came alive in the evenings, she being free of the husband she detested, I free of the malevolent sun. With her husband gone to the mine, she would sing sadly of happiness, and I would awake to a darkening sky. So close to the equator, the fall of darkness was swift and soon absolute, broken only by pockets of man-made brilliance.

Night and shade are my allies. My pale skin can be startling even by starlight, and in the heart of Africa it marks me as other. Better to stay away from fires and electric lighting. Better to pass swiftly through the deepest shadows. Better to be unseen, save by a lover's eyes.

I was just passing through the region, stopping here and there, restless and curious. To stay in one place for long would inevitably arouse interest. One bloodless corpse is a mystery; two are a threat. Not that I kill often, but it does happen. If I am threatened, or if the thirst gets the better of me. Probably I would have to kill Syntyche, when all I had wanted was a few nights of passion.

Syntyche was a beautiful woman, and privileged because of it. Because she was beautiful, she had married well, and because she had married well, she was not forced to work at the mine, like so many women and children, sorting through debris in the hope of earning a dollar for some insignificant speck of gold. Privileged, yes, but cursed with an abusive husband who found more passion in the arms of weary whores than ever he did at home.

I might have pitied him for his ill luck in marrying a woman whose sensual beauty was so cruelly seductive, but whose heart yearned only for other women. Yes, I might have pitied him for marrying a lesbian, had his fists not been so quick to mar her beauty. As if somehow he could beat her into loving him instead of loathing him. And failing that, he would at least make her the mother of his children.

He was a man who deserved to die, and one that I would happily kill. One that I probably would have killed eventually, except Syntyche was pregnant and that changed everything.

But I knew none of that, the night I followed her song. The night I climbed to her balcony and stood by the open door, watching her, listening to her, falling more in love with each note, with each subtle gasp of pain. "Why are you breaking my heart?" I asked when she saw me and fell silent.

There was fear in her eyes at the sight of me, a pale-skinned stranger spying on her, but I made no move towards her. The ancient stricture held me, of course. Perhaps she understood this from the first, that I was a vampire held at bay by an insurmountable force. That she was safe so long as she was inside, and I was not.

Fear, yes, but curiosity too, for was I not the exotic and forbidden that she yearned for? Did I not in truth represent an escape from the reality that imprisoned her? She approached until the warmth of her breath could be felt against my lips, until every fascinating detail of her dark irises could be perceived, until the air between us reverberated with the pulse of her human life.

A thin gap that it was impossible for me to close. "What are you?" she asked.

"The woman who will teach you joy," I replied, unable even to kiss the soft lips that invited so.

"I know what you are," she hissed. "You are an evil spirit. Begone at once!"

"I will go," I said with a sigh. "But you will summon me again tomorrow, and the day after, and nothing short of a kiss will satisfy either one of us."

"Begone!" she cried, loud enough for all her neighbours to hear, and I leapt away into the night before I could be seen - but Syntyche stood watch on that balcony for an hour, a dark silhouette, and it wasn't fear that kept her there.

*

A made vampire is forever the age she was when turned, and in the dead of sleep she reverts to that physical form. Some control, however, is possible, and it is said that the very oldest vampires can indeed assume the form of a wolf or a giant bat. Whether it could ever extend to incorporeal forms, such as a mist, I very much doubt. The change is more than glamour, but takes strength of will to achieve and maintain.

I can make my skin dark and my hair black, and can pass as a local for a while. I can change my features enough to pass unrecognised, or indeed to be mistaken for some specific other. The effort of such transformations is wearying, but often necessary. A white girl travelling by herself between villages cannot escape notice. A young, black man with a notable bulge in his shorts and muscles instead of breasts, however, has nothing to fear.

Nothing to fear save the coming of dawn and the need for somewhere secure to sleep. I do not awaken easily, not while the sun is in the sky. Too many times I have been woken by its violence, some unthinking interloper believing light and fresh air would revive me.

I suppose there are benefits to being a man, but there is little pleasure in it. I am a woman who loves women who love women, and though a man's part is occasionally useful in that, the rest of a man is not. One does not need to be a man to fuck like one.

*

I returned as promised. A mere two weeks had passed. In northern Europe, two weeks is enough to turn Spring into glorious Summer. It is enough to turn the flames of Autumn into barren Winter. In the heart of Africa, there is little to mark the passage of time. The heat is relentless, the humidity too, the days and nights are unchanging in length, and the extremes of poverty are constant. But the colours are vibrant and the soul is rich.

Syntyche's belly had expanded in clear advertisement of her condition, but in her eyes there was nothing of the joy of impending motherhood. "Do you believe me yet?" I asked.

She had seen me at once, the moment I stepped through the balcony window, an entrance I much preferred to the door. I sensed relief in her at the sight of me, none of the anger with which she had banished me. I sensed fresh bruises too, the way her arms flinched away from my caresses. "I hate him," she whispered. "I cannot even leave the house now. He fears I will find some way to rid myself of it."

Such a sourness in her voice. It. The thing inside her.

I knelt before her, parting the blue silk of her dressing gown and pressing my lips to her rounding belly. "You must," I said, "if you wish to live. No human mother has ever survived the birth of a vampire child. Already it is consuming more of you than it should." I pressed my nose between her thighs, breathing in the raw aroma of her cunt. The smell of her pregnancy was faint, but distinctive. "A boy," I said.

Syntyche pushed me away. "I don't want it. I don't care what it is. Boy, girl, human, demon, I don't care. Can't you help me? Take me away from here? Away from him!"

Still on my knees, I looked up at her. The dressing gown was still parted, held open by the thrust of her breasts. Like a goddess she towered over me, rage in her dark eyes, her pulse strong. She smelled divine. In one swift move I was on my feet and pushing her backwards, backwards into her bedroom, down onto her bed. Holding her by an ankle to keep her legs wide apart, I tore away her pink, lace panties and spread her labia.

Syntyche recovered well, her shock at this rough treatment giving way to laughter. She continued to laugh quietly as I bent and kissed her thigh, tracing the path of the great saphenous vein with my lips as my thumb caressed her exposed clit. "If I make you like me," I murmured, "you will belong to me more surely than you ever belonged to him."

"Will I be young forever?"

"Yes, and pregnant forever too, if you are still with child when I return."

Alarmed, she tried to sit up, but I held her ankle too firmly, and too high. "You are leaving me again?"

"Third bite's the charm," I said with a sly grin, and let her see my fangs before plunging them into the vein. It takes three bites to turn an adult human into a vampire, and this was the second. She cried out as hot blood flooded my mouth, but her instinctive attempt to pull free of me lacked determination. Her pussy was wet beneath my fingers as my thumb continued its playful tease. Her blood was rich, but a little sour too from the vampire growing within her.

I took only a few mouthfuls, The puncture wounds sealed themselves as my fangs withdrew, two teardrops of blood running idly down her thigh towards her gorgeous cunt. I removed my dress, and with an effort of will I shaped my throbbing clit into a slender cock. I kissed my way up her belly and between her breasts until our mouths pressed together in passionate need, our breasts pressed together, my cock pressed against her belly...

"Will I be able to do that?" she asked, her hand guiding my cock into the tight warmth of her cunt.

"Would you like that?"

"God, yes."

I thrust in hard and laughed at her joyful expression. A flesh and blood cock was infinitely preferable to unfeeling silicone. The grip of her vagina on my transformed clit made every move into an intimate caress. "It's not all blood and kisses," I said, bending to kiss her with bloodstained lips. "You will be a killer, and you will be hunted. The sun itself will be your enemy."

"But I will be free," she said.

"You will be mine," I corrected, and eased out of her. "Two weeks," I said. "Be sure of your choice. You may have forever to regret it."

*

There are two types of vampire in this world, and the one waiting for me outside was the other kind. Born vampires are faster and stronger, and the only reason I saw him at all is because he wanted me to. He was taller than me, of course, and handsome and muscular. Were he human, he would still have had the aspect of a warrior, proud and ruthless.

Every instinct screamed at me to run - but I knew better. I made the traditional sign of respect for a superior, and approached with my head tilted up, my neck bared submissively. Born vampires grow as human, their vampiric nature asserting itself in adulthood after a childhood characterised by sociopathic cruelty. He Who Made Me had been one such, a charming monster who found amusement in taking an innocent young lesbian and twisting her heart to make her love him against her will.

I had no wish to endure that again, but there was no running from this new evil. Instead I offered him my neck and waited, suppressing even the thought of rebellion. I calmed my racing blood, despite the euphoria of my recent feeding.

What would be, would be.

"You are not welcome here," he said, closing the gap between us.

"I will go at once."

His fingertips caressed my exposed neck. "Leave the child to me."

Calm. Be absolutely calm. "As you wish."

His breath was cool against my skin. His lips soft. Any unlikely observer would assume us to be lovers in a passionate embrace, not predator poised to devour prey. "I should kill you for your error."

Infinite patience. Utterly vulnerable. "Please -"

I flinched as he bit into me, a profound violation that kindled a familiar rage. It took all my strength of will to suppress the instinct to strike.

The vampire has one moment of weakness. It is the moment the fangs withdraw from the vein. The moment the blood flows no longer, but its call can still be heard. It is a moment in which loss and yearning are in perfect balance. A moment that can spell death for the victim if the vampire loses control.

A moment that can spell death for the vampire, if the victim chooses that precise instant to attack. A silver stiletto, for example, inserted neatly between ribs, angled to penetrate an undead heart.

I screamed as I was smacked away, hard enough to have killed me if I were merely human. I waited in terror for the finishing blow, but as one second became two, then three, then four, I dared to pick myself up and face my enemy.

Blood burbled from his lips as he pawed weakly at the hilt of the assassin's blade, and he glared at me with mesmerising eyes that sought to kill me with the pure force of hatred. Kneeling beside him, I lifted his arm and traced a fingertip along its length. "The basilic vein," I said, "is particularly sweet in vampires."

Penetrating that sweet, vampiric vein, I drank blood mixed with my own and Syntyche's. I drank the blood of that dying vampire, and took thus a measure of his superior strength for myself. And as I drank, the hatred blazing in his eyes dimmed to confusion and finally to the emptiness of death.

So much for immortality.

*

After another two weeks, I returned. I had left her on her bed, feverishly fingering her cunt, no doubt lost in self-pleasure while I danced with death in the shadows outside. I returned to find her on her bed, feverishly ill, her belly full and round. The child within her was growing fast, and taking everything it could, like the hungry little vampire it would become.

There was a woman in Syntyche's home, no doubt to cook for her and care for her and generally ensure an eventual safe delivery. To guard against evil spirits too. Standing on the balcony, I was all too aware of the incense in the air and the talismans on walls. Bunches of freshly picked tulbaghia, with its offensive garlicky scent, placed by each window, each door. Enough, no doubt, to dispel the idle curiosity of a passing vampire, but not sufficient to guard against me.

By the cast of her features, I guessed her to be the mother-in-law, and a fierce adversary to be dispatched rather than allowed to live - but that suited me well. I had need of a sacrifice. My blade was at her throat before she knew I was even there. "Be absolutely still and silent," I said. "Like a mouse. And maybe you will survive this night."

Her eyes were bright with rage and defiance, but I smelled her fear. I pressed the steel point deeper, until blood ran down its polished edge. "Be still," I said. "Be silent."

If she could have nodded, she would have. The defiance melted away into a bitter hatred, but she did not resist as I pushed her into the bedroom and ordered her to sit in the corner facing the wall.

Syntyche struggled to sit, a desperate hope warring with the misery etched into her expression. "I tried," she said. "I tried to rid myself of it, but -"

I interrupted her with a kiss, my hand tugging at her cotton nightdress, an oversized garment with a bright, geometric design, and stale with sweat. "Let's get you out of this," I murmured, my fingertips gliding between her thighs. "Unless you'd rather I leave? The choice is still yours: to die as a human, or live as a vampire."

The woman in the corner trembled and a squeak of terror escaped her lips. "Quiet, little mouse," I hissed.

Syntyche pulled the nightdress off over her head, and slumped back wearily. "I want you," she said simply, and hummed with pleasure as my fingers teased between her labia.

"And I want you," I said. I kissed her rounded belly, and I kissed the soft curves of her breasts, and I sucked on her nipples as if it were possible for me to feed on her like that. She cried out in complaint, but the wetness of her cunt spoke differently. I teased her clit with circular caresses as I kissed her shoulder, and would have kissed her more but the whispering excitement of her blood was too great a temptation.

I went, as they say, straight for the jugular, my fangs penetrating her neck. Her blood burst into my mouth, an orgasmic explosion of life-rich taste and sensation. I moaned with helpless need as I drank that vital flow, ecstatic that for once I could do it without concern, that I could drink my fill without stopping prematurely. My flesh resonated with the pounding of her heart, its pace increasing to compensate for the falling pressure. Her hand curled about mine, her fingers entwining with mine in her gorgeous cunt, penetrating her, fucking her, claiming her as mine in every possible way.

I had never wanted anyone more -

- and then she was gone. As if a switch had been flipped. There was only the body that had once been her, and within it the failing rage of her vampire child.

"Sleep, beloved," I said, "and when midnight comes, awaken and be mine forever."

*

There's something profoundly beautiful about a corpse returning to life. I get why humans fear it, because very few humans get to experience that transcendent moment. They create whole religions founded on the idea that there's a soul that exists beyond death, but the idea that that soul might return... Imagine! All those people buried deep in the ground - what if they were to wake up? What if the soul returned to flesh that was rotting?