Daughters of Darkness

What if zombies were real?

But, no. Vampires are not like that. The flesh does not rot. It waits, and when the soul returns, it transforms.

First there is the breath. It is not true that vampires have no beating heart, that they have no need of oxygen; but it is true that stopping a vampire's heart or depriving them of oxygen will return them to that state of suspension between life and death. No, the blood is the life. Take away a vampire's blood, and they will trouble the world no longer. Cremation, not burial, is the way to be sure.

First the breath, then the eyes, those windows into the soul, suddenly and brilliantly alive, aware and intelligent and -

Well, in newborn vampires, the awakening of that dreadful thirst that is eternity's cruel companion.

When midnight came and Syntyche took her first breath as a vampire, when her undead heart hammered its first demand for fresh blood and a second heartbeat sounded like a faint echo of the first, her eyes opened and fixed on me with a terrible need.

I did that thing you see in all the vampire films these days. I bit my own wrist and offered it to her, offering her back the blood I had taken earlier, mixed now with my own. A mother feeding her child. "Drink, my love," I encouraged as her new fangs penetrated my flesh. "The night is no longer young, and we have much to do."

*

For hours the room had been still and silent, save for the occasional whimper of misery from the woman kneeling in the corner. With Syntyche alive again, the whimpering grew in volume to a quiet but helpless screaming.

The process of making a vampire is consuming. Between the taking and the giving and the transformation and the healing, the successful outcome is a very hungry parent and child. Add into that the passing of time and the need to be somewhere safe when the sun rises, and you can understand why it's useful to have a human sacrifice ready.

Perhaps it would have been better to have bound and gagged the woman. She was very noisy. "Hush, little mouse," I said.

Syntyche laughed. The earlier thirst in her eyes had given way to an expression of wonderment. No doubt her heightened new senses were still adjusting to her new reality. She shared a smile of conspiratorial amusement with me, making me yearn to kiss her bloodstained lips, but her focus was entirely on the human. Her mother-in-law.

"Demons!" the woman cried, and she leapt to escape through the bedroom door. But her movements were slow, and her limbs stiff from crouching in the corner, and Syntyche's mouth was at her neck before she made it halfway there. I muffled her screams with my hand as Syntyche fed properly for the first time in her new life. Fresh human blood. A heart's race to extinction.

Murder most exquisite.

Afterwards, flush with blood and seemingly more full of life than ever, Syntyche sprawled on the bed laughing with joy. Such naked beauty. Like a goddess of fertility, her belly swollen with child, her cunt exposed and gloriously wet with arousal. How could I deny its call.

I knelt between her parted thighs, kissing her supersensitive skin, licking up every trace of escaped nectar, brushing her divine clit with my curious nose as I breathed in her intoxicating scent. Her cries of startled pleasure were loud, unwisely so given that any who heard would surely also know that her husband was not at home.

But there was no denying either of us. Syntyche needed to come, and I needed to make her. It distracted me from my real need. For blood.

"Ay-eh!" she cried, sharp-nailed fingers digging painfully into my scalp as she climaxed. Her thighs clamped hard about my head as she convulsed in ecstasy, my tongue continuing its adoration of her clit.

And afterwards we kissed, and kissed for far too long, wasted far too much time that we really didn't have.

Somewhere, a clock chimed one o'clock. Five hours to sunrise. Packing to do. A murder to conceal. "You need a shower," I said, "and then we need to go."

She nodded, and smiled. "Thank you," she whispered.

*

I had never made a vampire before. It had been drummed into my head by He Who Made Me that making vampires attracted attention, and if there's one thing vampires hate, it's attention. We exist in the shadows, and corpses drained of blood and corpses returning to life are like candles in the night, summoning authorities and hunters and researchers and even avid fans to the flame of fascination.

But I made Syntyche, with her supremely kissable lips and her round belly. An already beautiful woman made more beautiful by new strength and confidence. No longer an abused wife, she had become a killer. A predator. Were her husband to walk in suddenly, I had no doubt she would tear him to shreds.

Punishment enough, I felt, that in one night I had deprived him of mother, wife and future child. Of his home too, for how better to dispose of evidence than by fire.

We stood and watched from a safe distance, Syntyche dressed in a red and gold liputa, a bag across her back packed with what little she could not bear to leave behind. The flames lit the night, waking the whole town, it seemed.

And with that glorious distraction, I twisted the wires of the jeep I had stolen, and the engine roared to life. "Four hours to sunrise," I said, "and miles yet to go."

*

I had made a nest, of sorts, in the basement of a long abandoned farmhouse. The mattress had seen better days, but the bed frame was sturdy and the sheets were clean and new. Most importantly, the entrance was well hidden, and not even a chink of sunlight would penetrate.

By candlelight we kissed, and undressed and kissed, and slipped into bed and kissed. "I love you so much," Syntyche whispered between kisses. "I loved you before, but not like this."

"I made you," I whispered back. "As long as we both live, you have no choice but to love me."

She frowned as she thought through the logic of that assertion. "Then do you still love the one who made you?" Alarmed suddenly, she sat up and gripped my arm fiercely. "Who made you?" she demanded. "Who is it you love?"

Smiling, I pulled her close for a kiss, ignoring her hostile resistance. "I love you, Syntyche," I said with complete sincerity, "and only you."

"But who -"

"He Who Made Me," I said coldly, "died with my blade in his heart."

She relaxed slowly as understanding crept in. "I could never kill you," she said, finally easing the grip on my arm.

"I hope not!"

I could feel in my veins the approaching sunrise. Sleep would be upon us soon. I focussed on my clit, forcing it to grow long and thick.

Syntyche's eyes widened and she reached out to caress my growing clit-cock. "Teach me how to do that."

"You'll learn, in time. But for now, get on your hands and knees."

With an eager grin, she obeyed, swivelling round and pressing her gorgeous ass against my erect length. "I never wanted sex before I met you," she said, "but you make me want to be a whore. I killed my mother-in-law just hours ago. I drank her blood - I can still taste her in my mouth - but all I want is your cock inside me. I feel evil and dirty, yet I love it."

"Well, your cunt's certainly wet," I said, chuckling as I fingered her gently. I loved parting her black pubic hair and the dark skin of her labia to expose her pink pussy. The smell of her arousal filled the basement room. I eased my cock slowly into my pregnant lover with a sigh of pleasure that she echoed loudly.

"You want this?" I asked once I was fully in. "Show me you want this."

"I want this," she pleaded, but I kept myself perfectly still, forcing her to do the work. Forcing her to prove to us both her whorish lust for me. "You're cruel," she complained as she worked her hips, fucking herself with my cock tentatively at first but with increasing abandon. Soon she was slamming herself back against me, taking the whole of my transformed clit deep into her cunt with each powerful thrust.

It was beautiful to watch, but outside our sheltered nest the sun was climbing. Syntyche's urgent thrusting diminished until we collapsed together, limbs entwined, my cock still firmly embedded in her cunt. "So sleepy," she murmured.

I kissed her back, and I kissed her neck, and I whispered, "Sweet dreams, my love," and for the first time in my life, I felt that maybe it was indeed possible for love to last an eternity.