Lesbian Vampire: That Which Haunts You

I'm finally here!! I want to express my deep gratitude to everyone who gave this little story a chance. It means so much that some folks out there dig it. I'm still feel very much a beginner in the writing journey but I'm better than I was and one day I'll be even better still. Thank you everyone for your feedback. I'm considering self-publishing after a few more rounds of revision of the story as a whole, under the title "That Which Haunts You." Thank you again to beta readers Berry, Ash, James, who has always been so forgiving of my tendency toward split infinitives.

It wasn't a tumble but a precise leap, his legs hugged tightly into his chest. As if he dove, cannonball-style, into a pool but out the window. Rhea looked at Lucy, who shook her head. "Prick," muttered the vampire.

Rhea scurried over and stuck her head out. Patrick was gone. A befuddled bystander stood by frozen; he was a tall man with a well-muscled body, in a shiny purple dress shirt and fitted trousers. He looked up as if to see if something else might fall from the sky. Rhea resisted the urge to duck back inside.

"Did you see that?" said the bystander, his voice pitched high. The lighting on the side of the building was scarce and Rhea couldn't see his face, only his brown skin and long black hair.

"Something flashed by the window. I thought someone fell," Rhea called back.

"Someone did!" the bystander called back. "Then they just...disappeared. Into a mist. Right before he hit the ground." The bystander's voice trailed off. He shifted in place, fearful, as if he could not believe what he himself saw.

"Huh," said Rhea. "You said a mist?" She gave Lucy a pleading look. Lucy shrugged her shoulders.

"I, uh. I gotta go," the bystander managed. He shoved his hands in his pockets and paced away without another word.

"Patrick jumps out of a lot of windows," observed Rhea as she ducked back inside.

Lucy stared at the shattered glass from the window on the floor. "He does," she answered. "A new habit, I'm afraid." Lucy then looked at Rhea and smiled. "Should you eat something? There's nuts in the cupboard and we can get you some food on the way."

Without waiting for a response, Lucy began work on hanging a sheet over the smashed window, which was tall and narrow to match the high ceilings, much higher than Lucy could reach. Rhea shuffled over to the cupboard Lucy had pointed to. She fished out a bag of cashews and tossed a few in mouth.

Rhea turned back and saw Lucy crawling up the wall with smooth, rapid movements. Like a spider, Rhea's mind offered as she watched the vampire, now parallel to the highest point of the broken window. Her knees were splayed outwards beneath her, one angled higher than the other. She held a length of duct tape in one hand and taped a corner of the sheet to the wall.

Rhea's breath shallowed as she watched Lucy. She had seen this up close only once before. On a hunch Greta sent her to study a few months with a solitary witch, unaffiliated with any coven, who was well-connected among vampires. It was here Rhea discovered her rare talent: she could control the death magick within the vampire body and thus the body itself. The ability was rare and manifested blindly among necromancers. The teacher's vampires were wary of her from that moment on and soon refused to work with her altogether.

"They fear you," her teacher explained. Both witches and vampires draw their power from death's magick. But witches wield the power themselves, while they live at death's mercy." To be fair the burgeoning power wasn't entirely within her control in those early days and, for reasons neither she nor her teacher ever figured out, Rhea kept snapping their femur bones.

Rhea wondered if Lucy's first few years after death were spent in an awkward grapple with her new powers. She couldn't imagine it now; she watched as the vampire crept across the wall with the same ease as crawling along the floor. Lucy's bicep flexed as she propelled a body freed of the limits of gravity around the frames that hung on the wall and eased herself back to the ground. She looked at Rhea through shadowed eyes over her shoulder. Her mouth twisted into a narrow smile. And then, whether by vampire magick or Rhea's wearily-warped mind, Lucy was across the room. Rhea let her body melt against the strength of Lucy's form. Lucy's arm pressed into her and it felt like arching her back over a guardrail and baring her heart towards the sky. Lucy kissed her.

Rhea brought a hand to Lucy's face. "We shouldn't," she whispered. The concealment magick on the door would be overpowered by the noise. Lucy held fast. "Then you shouldn't have looked at me like that." Lucy pressed her forehead into Rhea's; her breath was labored. Rhea gripped Lucy's hair as the reasons not to grew faint. Then her stomach growled and, hearing it, Lucy pulled away. "We should feed you, darling," she said.

They left the apartment. The vampire hissed through her teeth as she locked the door, the enchanted tape the only barrier between her store of irreplaceable books and thousands of dollars of couture. "Still not worth getting maimed by sunlight," Lucy said. They went again to Lucy's car and Rhea directed her to a 24-hour taco shop. Rhea ordered a burrito and scanned the old fridge behind the cashier. She pointed to a glass bottle filled with a bubbly soft pink soda.

"Guava," offered the cashier.

He was a young man, about nineteen, with a sparse black mustache. His brow furrowed in concentration as he tapped Rhea's order on the tablet screen and answered questions through a headset for a customer waiting in the drive-thru. He handed Rhea her receipt and pivoted to a window where a car pulled up. Soon there was a tray in Rhea's hands that carried a stuffed styrofoam carton and the soda. Rhea sat across from Lucy who waited at a table. The vampire was quiet. Rhea only managed about a quarter of the burrito before nerves bottlenecked her appetite.

"She snuck up behind me." Lucy finally said. The vampire shook her head as if she still didn't quite believe it. "I didn't see her, I didn't hear or smell anything. I opened the door for the double and turned away."

"So Lara must be good at concealment magick," answered Rhea. "Even before she started murdering people. And after, the power she took allowed her create concealment spells that deceived even Greta." It explained how Rhea had no suspicions she was hexed with the sac for months. There must have been scores of unnamed victims that came before Janice, all fodder for Lara as she perfected the spell. Anonymous murders within a sprawling metropolis. To which the coven paid no mind, because the victims weren't witches.

But it was Janice's life that made Lara what she was now and gave her magick that defied an order Rhea had thought natural. The hole in the door. And Sweetwater's silence. The cyclone.

"One moment I was walking back to you and then I was on the floor," said Lucy. "I thought--" Lucy shook her head. "But then it was just gone. I was free. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could go."

"It just... evaporated?" asked Rhea. Lucy nodded.

Rhea nodded. "That's probably when I slashed her throat." Rhea could feel excitement growing as the pieces together. "It must have weakened her. The wound couldn't heal and sustain the hex at the same time," said Rhea.

"Spells shouldn't end like that?" asked Lucy.

"Not for a witch who's practiced," answered Rhea. "Remember at the full moon ceremony, when I hit Patrick with a bunch of spells at once?" Lucy smiled at the memory as she listened, "Some of the spells couldn't be undone, they had to wear off. As a witch becomes more adept their spellwork becomes stronger and self-sustaining. Nothing makes a spell permanent but some can last as long as they are maintained. Lara's spells can't sustain themselves." She wondered what that meant for the fiery cyclone. When its image surfaced, Rhea did not feel fear. In fact, she was beginning to suspect they wouldsucceed.

And what then? There was a harsh light overhead that illuminated the patio. It made the faint blue of Lucy's eyes look like dark water. Rhea felt an ache that started deep within her that now pushed against her edges. She knew the risks of getting involved with a vampire but had leapt anyway. Now, hard questions were becoming hard to ignore.

"She's strong," nodded Rhea, "but I think together we're stronger." Rhea latched the burrito box closed.

"If we can find her, we can draw her out," said Lucy, her voice laced with possibility. "And if we can weaken her enough, that will end the spell?"

"Or give us enough time to figure out how to break it." Rhea looked at her phone. "We should go, I need some sleep and we won't find her before sunrise."

They loaded themselves back into Lucy's car and headed to Patrick's place. His apartment was suspiciously similar to Lucy's, though less tidy and contained fewer books. There was soft, recessed amber light and overstuffed leather furniture. One chair was covered in jackets and wrinkled t-shirts, another overloaded with some unopened packages and a wicker basket stuffed with miscellaneous knick-knacks, a baseball hat, and a tray of watercolor paints. Shipping envelopes and opened boxes clustered in a pile on the floor.

"Did you decorate for him?" asked Rhea as she walked towards the kitchen to stash her food in the fridge. It was empty and had the peculiar stink of new appliances, somewhere between rotting fish and plastic. He must not have many human visitors, thought Rhea, but then remembered his key to Janice's apartment. Maybe he just didn't stay here often.

Lucy stretched upward. "Patrick needs a lot of caretaking. He has no idea who he is though he's had a century and a half to figure it out."

"It must be hard to be far away," said Rhea. She meant it as a casual comment, but a heaviness weighed the air.

"It can be. I try to pop in a few times a year and check on him." said Lucy. Her voice sounded tired, but the sort of fatigue that went beyond tonight. It came from caring for someone long after they stopped caring for themselves. Rhea crossed the room and pressed a kiss to Lucy's lips. The vampire's arms slid round her waist. The kiss was tender and languid. They swayed as one, only the stark sounds of the kiss that cut through the quiet of the space.

"Do you need blood?" whispered Rhea, her face close to Lucy's.

"Stop," Lucy said and tried to pull away but Rhea held her.

"Why?" whispered Rhea.

"Both of us are weak. It's dangerous."

"We need to worry about a little over many days," answered Rhea. "If you had some earlier, you're taking more in one day."

Lucy smiled. "I like your logic but I fed from you earlier and you're exhausted. Too much risk, darling." Rhea was fatigued but growing indifferent to it, and revitalized from the food. She still felt a whisper of the sharp pain along her neck, though the skin had healed. She pulled the vampire back into a kiss. Lucy obliged then pulled away, more firmly this time. She led Rhea through a door into a bedroom. Patrick's bedroom, and the oblivion of sleep. The room was dark, so dark that when Rhea closed the door behind her she could not see her hand in front of her face. She heard a soft shuffling and more amber-colored light cut through the shadow. Lucy had managed to rest their bags on a dresser and click on the bedside lamp.

"You said you don't need that much." asked Rhea.

"Where is this recklessness coming from?" asked Lucy and walked to her bag to sort out her nightclothes. Rhea wondered at the word 'reckless.' Perhaps she was, chasing the terrible and transcendent pleasure of the bite. Lucy checked the fit of the window coverings as Rhea finished preparing for bed and slipped between the sheets. Lucy slid over her, her body like warm oil over chapped skin.

"I'm fine," whispered Rhea. "I killed a vampire and slashed a throat. I might be the most powerful witch alive." It could be true here, between them in this dark place. The vampire's face erupted into a bright smile and Rhea mirrored it. She leaned towards Lucy's ear.

"Do it," said Rhea. The vampire slid down Rhea's body. She dragged her lips then her cheek across the witch's belly.

Lucy worked Rhea's pajama shorts, gray cotton overstretched from use, down her body. She rested her head on Rhea's inner thigh and stroked the soft dimpled skin there. Lucy skimmed her hand over Rhea's bare mons; the friction from the stubbled regrowth from her shaved pubic hair created a strange sensation and a shudder ran through her. She watched Lucy's eyes rove her body from that strange angle. Lucy's finger parted the lips of her sex gently and slipped inside her. Rhea ached to feel more but the vampire's movements were tentative. Rhea reached down and touched her own clit. She was wet; her cunt saturated with desire. Lucy was right, thought Rhea. She was reckless, quivering just after begging the vampire to bite her. Something has broken, or broke open, within her. Foolhardiness had ridden desire into her conscious mind and now stuck to the walls. Maybe it was Lucy who did this to her or maybe the sac from Lara's hex stole her good sense. Perhaps this was bloodlust born from the moment she had driven a blade deep into Braga's chest. Rhea's head pressed back into the mattress, Lucy's tentative fingers a delicate promise of satisfaction. Rhea groaned in pleasure and Lucy added another.

The vampire found a slow rhythm until the slick of Rhea's arousal soaked her hand. Rhea urged her on, to send her to the devouring oblivion of a thorough fuck.

Lucy first pressed a soothing kiss onto Rhea's thigh. Then the witch felt Lucy sink her snake-sharp teeth into the flesh there. Rhea's body surrendered, attuned to the familiar pain. She'd read many stories about the sweetness of erotic pain, but this pleasure was sharp like brine. Rhea thought she might ask the vampire to leave the wound to bleed while they fucked and let it scar. The puncture was shallow enough it would heal without the serum.

Lucy sucked at the wound. The Gift delighted in the witch's blood that coated her tongue, bitter copper and salt. Even just the slow seep of blood warmed Lucy's whole body. Her fingertips stoked the flinty patch nestled in the slick folds wet within Rhea.

"There," moaned Rhea, and brought her own fingers to her clit. "And a little harder."

Lucy quickened the pace of her hand as she lapped at the clotting blood, its flow nearly ceased. She fucked Rhea with focused rhythm. The room around them still felt so quiet. It seemed to swallow the sounds of Rhea's cries and slick fluids of her cunt. Rhea felt her legs quiver.

The orgasm swelled like a wave of a storm, its rise as jarring as its fall. Rhea's hips pulsed and she felt her sex spasm as she leveled. "Slowly," she begged. "Pull them out slowly." Lucy obliged and brought her fingers to her lips, chasing the taste of Rhea's blood with the taste of her pleasure. The witch reached out and Lucy slid into her arms. When Rhea kissed the vampire, she tasted faint copper.

"You should sleep," Lucy said. "You're weak. I can taste it."

Rhea was so tired it was hard to hold her head up. Still she groaned in protest. "It doesn't feel done..."

"You gave me your blood," whispered Lucy.

Rhea pressed her forehead into Lucy's. "So?" she grunted.

Lucy held her tighter. "The taste of blood, freely given, even if I could describe it, is something the human spirit cannot know."

The witch wrapped her arms around Lucy. "You could try," she whispered. They lay there, intertwined. Her thigh ached.

"Even a drop is a raw throb of life. It's a sensation that dissolves every part of who I am, who I was. It's magick at its essence- explosions and implosion, infinitely." Rhea turned Lucy's words in her mind, still wrapped around the vampire, whose skin grew warmer by the moment. Rhea yearned for the warmth after Lucy pulled away.

"I have some serum in my bag," said Lucy.

"No," said Rhea. "Leave it." The sole light of the bedside lamp left the rest of the room in shadow and though Rhea could feel Lucy's eyes on her, she could not see them. Instead, Rhea looked down at the puncture mark on her thigh. Blood swelled in half-domes at each tooth mark. Rhea bent her leg so her foot rested on the bed. The shift ruptured the domes and they wept long tears of blood.

"I know he's got a first aid kit somewhere," said Lucy.

"Why does a vampire need a first aid kit?" called Rhea.

Lucy ducked into a closet then emerged holding a white box with a red cross. Her face had a light grimace. "Oh, well, Patrick said the dearly departed Janice had them take a class together. Something about...needles and sex. This was one of the teacher's recommendations." Lucy handed her the box and sat at Rhea's feet. Rhea smirked. "That's...kind of sweet? He talked to you about this?"

"Unfortunately." Lucy's ever-composed face looked stiff with discomfort. Awkward, even.

"Is it still weird talking about your brother fucking some girl, old as you are?" asked Rhea. She lifted her foot and poked the vampire's shoulder with her toe.

"Yes, if I'm honest," answered Lucy with a shudder. She stood and walked to the other side of the bed. Rhea popped open the box and retrieved a half-empty yellow tube that read 'Triple Antibiotic Ointment' to bandage the bite. Lucy hummed in interest.

"Antibiotics! Invented long after I would ever need them," said the vampire as she slid next to Rhea. "It might have spared a few silly endings. Death by splinter and the like." Rhea finished cleaning the bite. She shut the box and as she put it on the bedside table. She slid her body under the covers and her eyes fell again to the red cross on the side of the kit. "Does the cross bother you?" asked Rhea.

"It only bothers the ones who were Catholic," said Lucy as she pulled her close.

"What?" asked Rhea and turned her head.

"Sleep," urged Lucy with amused exasperation. "You're stupid," said Rhea with a laugh. "You like it," countered Lucy.

But Rhea had already slipped under into a dreamless sleep.

Rhea felt ravenous before she opened her eyes. It was still dark in the room. She checked her phone, still plugged into the charger-- just past 9. Lucy lay on her back. Rhea could only see the subtle lines of her profile in the light of the phone, but her eyes were closed.

Rhea dressed quietly and slipped out of the room. She pulled the door shut before heading to the kitchen. There was no microwave so she clicked on the oven and retrieved the leftover burrito from the fridge. She searched the cabinet for coffee grounds and found none. She checked her phone again after she put the burrito in the oven.

There was a text from Kivan:Cops shut down the harbor. Trying to get there as soon as possible. Rhea clenched her jaw in a surge of frustration and struggled to stop herself from punching the cabinet. It was unusual for operations to stop for anything besides weather and today was supposed to be hotter.

It was also unusual to fight off the urge to punch a cabinet. She chalked it up to stress.

What happened? she responded. Three pulsing dots appeared at the bottom of a sequence of texts-- Kivan was typing. They disappeared and when no text response popped up, Rhea paced the kitchen as she waited. Her nerves grew inflamed from irritation. She imagined him neglecting his phone to chatter to a local while she coiled tighter in fear each moment that passed. She paused; she couldn't recall the last time she felt this agitated. She had felt angry, of course, but not like this. She felt like a sparking wire. She shook out her limbs and bent over the sink to splash her face with water. Then his response finally came.

Not sure. Rumors about a bomb threat. The cops won't let anyone leave the port. They're interviewing everyone who was waiting for the ferry.