Huntress of the Fallen

+++++ Huntress of the Fallen +++++

The following tale is my entry in the 2020 Halloween Story Contest. It acts as both a sequel and the final act of a trilogy that began with the 2016 Halloween Contest First-Place Winner "Sisters of the Fallen" and continued in the 2019 Halloween Contest First-Place Winner "Redeemers of the Fallen". I hold no expectation of repeating as a three-time champion (though winning the trifecta would certainly be an incredible achievement!). Instead I mostly wanted to ensure Bianca and Mirela's story was concluded prior to my imminent retirement (or perhaps just a sabbatical) as an author of erotic fiction. While this story can theoretically be enjoyed as a stand-alone, it is the culmination of a series so I can only recommend that you read "Sisters" and "Fallen" first before diving into this one. I will try to fill in character history and past plot details wherever applicable but I also wish to avoid bogging down the story with clumsy exposition. If you enjoyed reading this story, please make sure to send me feedback, leave a comment, and most importantly vote the full five-star rating for the Halloween Contest.

DISCLAIMER: This story contains material that some readers might consider too dark or disturbing. The following tale contains elements of the horror, action/adventure, and romance genres while also featuring several erotic sequences. The horror elements include vampirism, references to the occult, gore, extreme violence, genital mutilation, and associated sexual imagery. The sexual elements include heterosexual and homosexual couplings (F/M, F/F), oral sex, anal sex, vaginal sex, group sex, fisting, exchange of bodily fluids (blood and urine), both male and female ejaculations, nonconsensual/reluctant sex, and more. This story also features a consensual and loving incestuous relationship between two sisters. If you are offended by any of these aforementioned topics, I recommend you skip this one and find another tale more to your liking instead.

Author's Note: Though English, Italian, and Romanian are spoken interchangeably by characters in this story I've written their dialogue all in English except in circumstances where uttering a foreign language is deemed integral to the plot or when I felt like adding an international flavor to otherwise regular dialogue. Also, I began writing this story long before COVID-19 was a thing. Though the narrative takes place during the year 2020 I ultimately decided against including the pandemic as a plot point or even mentioning it at all. I read and write these stories to escape reality and I think we could all use a break from real-world tragedies.

Now I am pleased to (finally) present... Huntress of the Fallen!

+++++ Prologue: Night Hunters +++++

"Will you come on already!" Francesca whispered in a shrill hiss of exasperation at her younger brother. "Hurry! Faster!"

Gabriele tottered after his older half-sister as quickly as his short legs could carry him but still he barely kept up with her frantic pace through the darkened city park. The sandy-blonde boy followed uneasily behind raven-haired Francesca, his rebellious teenage sister who wore a heavy application of dark makeup and lipstick and also boasted several facial piercings in her ears, eyebrows, nose, and lips. The eighteen year-old possessed a bold and unorthodox fashion sense with her most noticeable feature being a set of skintight lycra leggings that revealed nearly everything below her waist without baring a single inch of skin. Her leather jacket and bondage-influenced straps hinted at darker desires while her overreliance on the color black made no secret of her outfit's gothic origins.

The cool, damp whisper of breeze that blew steadily on this cloudy and moonless night chilled the young boy down to his bones. An earlier torrent of rainfall rolled across the island city before dissipating into fine mist, leaving the streets of stone and the mossy grounds drenched in a film of dripping moisture. Instead of refreshing the stinking city air, the shower of cold droplets released a revolting stench of decay after they churned the unseen blood and filth rising up from the depths beneath the canals. The few walkers Gabriele noticed out and about this evening were covering their noses to defend their delicate sensibilities from the oppressive odors.

Murky beacons of light shined through the mist from pink glass lanterns set atop centuries-old lampposts. Swirled in vines and lichen-crusted with age, these posts were spaced like sentinels every fifty feet along the sides of the park trails. Their auras kept the public area reasonably well-lit at this late hour but Gabriele couldn't help jumping at every dark, menacing shadow he detected looming out of the corner of his vision. Gabriele wasn't certain whether it was the mid-October chill or the eeriness of this pitch-black evening that made him shiver uncontrollably beneath his light raincoat.

"Per favore, Fran," Gabriele begged for the upteenth time. "We need to go back before Mama and Papa find us out."

"Stop being such a sissy," Francesca snapped back.

The teenaged girl stopped at the split of a fork in the city park's stone path and rested her hands upon her slim hips until she regained her bearings. Gabriele tugged at Francesca's dark leather jacket and whimpered with worry.

"This is all your fault, you brat," Francesca growled at her brother. "How dare Papa and Natalia stick me in a room with a juvenile half my age! What did they think would happen?"

Gabriele knew his sister was lost. Francesca relied on her phone for everything. She was so hopeless she couldn't even find their hotel by memory. They took a wrong turn earlier when traversing a park trail that Francesca claimed was a shortcut and soon the siblings became helplessly turned around. When Francesca retrieved her phone from her jacket pocket to help them navigate, Gabriele tried snatching it away from her in an attempt to dissuade her from this foolish course. During their ensuing struggle, the phone flew through the air before shattering irreparably upon the cobblestones.

Francesca's scream of indignation could have been heard in every corner of the city. Gabriele implored his sister to find a policeman or other responsible adult to assist them in returning to their hotel but Francesca refused any supplication for aid. If her father and stepmother discovered she had snuck out of the hotel in search of wine and drugs with her nine year-old kid brother in tow they would likely end her.

The Milanese family tagged along with Francesca's father so they could vacation in tandem with his yearly business trip to Venice. Francesca despised her dull-witted stepmother and only begrudgingly tolerated the presence of her younger half-brother. Any time she was forced to spend with her family was absolute torture. But on the last few occasions Francesca visited the City of Canals she snuck out of her room late at night to rendezvous with older friends she knew in the city. Together the young deviants drank wine, smoked grass, snorted blow, and sometimes engaged in even naughtier kinds of activities.

Francesca's dogged insistence on going out this evening was inspired in part by her fervent hope that a certain pair of fraternal twins might make an appearance tonight. The last time she was here in Venice the sexy brother and sister shared a bottle of absinthe with Francesca before tag-teaming her in a furious make-out session. Then they each took a turn going down on her while the other kissed her and played with her breasts. When it was her turn to please, Francesca loved going back and forth between a deliciously creamy cunny and a very large and suckable cock until they both finished in her mouth. Too bad Gabriele had ruined all the fun she had planned tonight.

Fed up with Francesca's disrespectful attitude and rebellious antics, her parents stuck her in a room with Gabriele for the duration of their travels. They believed quite naively that a sense of responsibility for her younger brother might curtail Francesca's self-absorbed and self-destructive tendencies but they were woefully mistaken. Francesca would not be deterred in her quest for drugs, drink and depravity even when Gabriele caught her sneaking out of their room after midnight and followed her outside the hotel where he insisted on joining her. She forced her brother to accompany her on a brisk twenty-minute walk through the Giardini Papadopoli and then across the Ponte Papadopoli bridge where they would meet Francesca's friends at the agreed-upon meeting place. Gabriele's unfortunate presence would spoil most of Francesca's fun but she could still at least score some cannabis and cocaine to take back to the hotel with her.

Both siblings stopped short when the stone path they strode upon ended in untrimmed tufts of grass marking a sudden dead-end. Looming before them was a still black forest of leafless trees that clawed in every direction with their skeletal branches. Nothing stirred amongst the trees except for the hoot of a tawny owl as it gracefully swooped down to dig its sharpened talons into an unlucky prey cowering against the forest floor. This was a less illuminated area of the park and the encroaching darkness combined with a late-evening mist of fog lent an unsettling atmosphere that disquieted even the older Francesca.

When a large shape moved in the darkness Gabriele reached out instinctively for Francesca's hand which he squeezed tightly enough to hurt. The shadow emerged from out of the dark trees and resolved into the shape of a man walking towards them with purposeful steps. Gabriele and Francesca slowly backed away from the stranger then gasped in unified terror when they noticed another unknown figure approaching them from behind. Bathed in weakening lamplight, this figure assumed the form of a pale man wearing a long dark cloak. A third man broke over the grassy hill to the left, leaving the brother and sister surrounded on three sides.

The faces of the three strangers held a pale and sickly pallor though their lips were a healthy blood-red. Their short hair had been slicked straight back until their hair made pointed spikes. All three of them wore garish, dated clothing more suited to a nineteenth-century Victorian household than the modern era. The hungry, ravenous fashion in which they were staring at Francesca and her brother frightened the teenager more than anything about this dangerous situation.

"Good evening, little mousies," the stranger from the forest hissed in a heavy, rasping voice that used a strange accent. "Kitties want to play tonight?"

Gabriele squealed in fright and Francesca took position in front of him, blocking him from the approaching men while she subtly pushed him backward in the only direction that promised freedom. When the three dark shapes converged upon them in a concerted movement Francesca shoved her brother away.

"Run, Gabriele!" Francesca cried. "As fast as you can!"

Gabriele expected to be stunned deaf and dumb with fright but surging adrenaline automated the function of his legs. He turned to run as fast as his feet could fly, his sister racing mere steps behind him.

"Aw, don't run!" one of the men loudly complained.

"No, a hunt is better!" another disagreed. "Gets their blood and ours both pumping! Hee hee, what fun!"

Gabriele dared a look backward and saw with mounting dread that the scary men chasing them were fast, too fast by far. Seconds later, Francesca screamed as she was taken from behind. Two of their pursuants dragged her to the ground while the remaining third gave chase to the escaping boy.

Gabriele felt his jacket tear then shouted with fright as predator's talons snatched him from behind. The dark stranger lifted Gabriele up by his collar then turned the boy to face him. The malice that showed in the maniac's evil grin and his mad, feverish gaze so terrified Gabriele that the boy went numb. Gabriele saw over the man's shoulder that the other two were holding Francesca pinned to the ground. She started to scream but a hand clamping over her mouth stifled her cries. The grasping fingers gripped the teenager's skull so hard her face hurt.

Francesca's beloved leather jacket was ripped asunder so her attackers could pinch, poke, prod, and pet her vulnerable torso. She struggled helplessly against the surprising strength of the arms pinning her to the dirt but her frantic squirming only made her assaulters more excited. One of them straddled Francesca until his weight pressed down upon her. Francesca's eyes widened in alarm when she felt a familiar stiffness growing against her abdomen.

The man sitting atop Francesca pulled at the roots of her dark hair until Francesca's neck turned enough to the side to expose her jugular vein to his unfettered access. He leaned forward far enough to slowly flick his long, serpentine tongue up and down her face and neck. Francesca's right eye rolled around as it peered over the hand covering her mouth. She stared impotently and with mounting horror as the inhuman creature's thick drool smeared her skin from her cheek down to her throat.

"Observe how greedily they ravage your sister and feed upon her," the fiend murmured to Gabriele in Italian as he drew close enough to blast the child with his cold, foul-smelling breath. "She is a spry young thing, isn't she? Mmm, so delicious-looking. Perhaps once we've finished with her here we'll steal her away to our lair where we can play with her longer. Those bastards better leave a piece of her for me. You're such a tiny morsel I fear you won't be nearly enough to satisfy my hunger."

Gabriele's small body shook with terror as the stranger's already bloodshot eyes slowly morphed into a deeper red that completely transformed his pupils from taupe into a dark crimson hue. The corners of the creature's mouth curled into a grin wider than should be humanly possible as he presented two rows of fine-pointed teeth and four extra-long, razor-sharp fangs meant for rending and tearing human flesh.

Gabriele was too stunned and scared to resist or call for help. He could barely even breathe through the terror paralyzing him. Gabriele whimpered with fear as he soiled himself, soaking his pants and underwear with heated urine as the vampire opened wide his drooling maw and prepared to close his jagged teeth around the child's neck.

The parasite's imminent feeding was suddenly disrupted by a wet splattering noise and a loud grunt of shock and pain emanating from the vampire's gaped mouth. The child and his assailant both looked down in surprise at the rapidly spreading blossom of blood surrounding a point of gleaming silver that burrowed out from the center of the vampire's chest. The edges of that metal point slowly slid sideways as the blade easily carved its way through the creature's torso. Gabriele would be forever haunted by the knowledge of what metal slicing through human flesh and bone sounded like.

Profuse volumes of blood poured from the vampire's open mouth, staining his pointed teeth crimson while thick red rivulets dripped from his lips down past his chin. The fell creature dropped Gabriele to the ground and grabbed at his eviscerated torso in a futile attempt at holding his separated organs inside. The vampire made a choked gurgle then fell backwards onto the grass with a strained death gasp rattling his throat. From out of the darkness behind the slain monster emerged an angelic figure who carried a shining silver sword fouled with splatters of the vampire's undead blood.

Gabriele's savior possessed a distinctly female shape despite having platinum-blonde hair cut even shorter than the boy's. She wore tactical gear with a dark sweater and pants that would blend in with the night, a utility belt that ensured an assortment of knives and tools would always be within reach, and a strange pair of light, sturdy slippers that allowed her to prowl unseen and unheard. The eyes staring out from beneath her yellow bangs were deep pools of black that perceived Gabriele sitting dumbfounded beneath her with amused interest. Despite the depthless voids within her pupils, the woman's eyes held a warmth and tenderness that immediately comforted the traumatized child. The boy already knew he would cherish and remember the sight of those kind eyes for the rest of his days.

The warrior woman turned and sped away with silent footfalls to where Francesca was still being accosted by the slain vampire's accomplices. The creatures were so intent on unwrapping the clothing covering their prey that they had yet to notice their companion's bloody demise. Francesca remained helplessly pinned against the wet grass by the vampire holding her arms fast. Her jacket had been torn enough to reveal the ripe plums of her breasts bulging through her black undershirt. Francesca's chest rose and fell rapidly as she desperately heaved for breath beneath the man sitting atop her.

The vampire straddling Francesca awkwardly tugged her leggings and underwear down her bony hips while also fumbling with his belt-buckle. The starved ghoul planned to satisfy his wild lust for blood and sex simultaneously by positioning his pulsing erection just outside the sweet entrance between the teenager's thighs. When the girl spasmed uncontrollably at experiencing the sharp vampire's kiss digging deep inside her neck, his lips would suckle upon her delicious flesh and blood until she opened for him and willingly accepted the grossest violation she would ever receive.

Francesca's rescuer arrived as an angel without wings, striking a nearly perfect blow upon the demonic figure threatening to defile the poor girl. At the last second however, the fiend noticed the warrior rushing towards him out of the corner of his blood-red eye and lifted an arm to block her attack. The vampire sacrificed his limb but managed to avoid the deadly silver sword as it sliced right through where his neck had been. The vampire leapt to his feet and snarled beastially while blood sprayed from the stump where his lower arm had been amputated.

This is a quick one, the Huntress thought as the creature successful dodged the flurry of her next several attacks. But he won't be quick enough.

For all his enhanced speed and strength, the vampire couldn't withstand the avenging fury of the Huntress forever. She possessed too powerful and imposing a will for one wretched creature to overcome. One miniscule error in movement exposed a vulnerability that was instantly exploited as the point of the silver blade thrust through the creature's throat. The vampire clutched at the torn muscle and bone of his ruined neck after the Huntress withdrew her sword in a gushing mass of flesh and blood. The creature collapsed face-forward onto the grass and abandoned his undead mockery of life.

"Vânătorul!" the remaining ghoul shrieked with terror that far exceeded that of the children he assaulted. "The Slayer stalks the night!"

The lone survivor sprinted in the opposite direction of the Huntress while she made furious pursuit. Her bared sword slung gore behind her every time her blade swung in time to each frenzied step. The desperate creature ran frantically toward an ancient and decrepit stone building that may have once housed some affluent family that lived on the park grounds. The vampire battered open the locked front door with a single pump of his fist then dashed inside and violently threw the entrance closed behind him.

The Huntress pulled up short before following her quarry indoors. The black stone of this foreboding structure was in a state of disrepair bordering on collapse. Judging by the amount of dust and cobwebs clinging to every surface of the house's exterior no one had inhabited this space for decades, if not centuries. The Huntress peered through one of the grimy, spiderwebbed windows and shuddered at the decrepit state of the household therein. If there were such a thing as a haunted house, this unsettling place surely qualified as one.