Neither Blood Nor Seed

"Coepit, Domine Walterus qui transiit vada, et tribulatio ultra Cambria." He made a fist, and then with a sickly crunching noise Felix jerked the stake from the vampire's heart. Sir Walter gave a horrid, wheezing shriek as the wood came clear, but by then Felix had already sprung up on top of the coffin-lid, where he knelt and began driving in the nails. The shriek continued, raising the hair on the back of Cassie's neck, but something in the firmness of Zondervan's fist and the solid thump of Felix' hammer robbed the unearthly howl of its power over her.

She shuddered nevertheless. Norris' hand seemed to be the only thing tethering her to reality in the demented world she'd found herself in ever since she'd entered this church the first time, hand-in-hand with Davey, her vagina gushing. It seemed like years ago.

A final crash came from down in the hole, and then Felix leapt nimbly up out of the grave with a look of satisfaction on his marble-carved face. "Done," he nodded. Behind him, Zondervan said a few more words, then spread his fingers and made a complicated sign in the air. "He is now bound by chain and grave, and all that remains is that he be sealed by blood and seed." He dusted his hands off, as though he'd just finished in his garden. He peered at Cassie and Norris and took up the silver knife. "Would you like to be bled now, Cassandra? Or shall we wait until after the priest is finished?"

She cleared her throat. "Fuck that shit." Her brain began buzzing, a keening deep inside herself, the wrongness speaking loudly to her.

Felix shrugged. "We will have the blood one way or another, but it would be a shame to damage a woman of such spirit. Still. Perhaps we should wait until afterward." He looked coldly at Norris. "So. I suppose we should leave you in Mia's capable hands, priest."

"Gladly," Mia cooed, her lips quirking upward into a saucy grin. Norris started as her hand snaked boldly to the front of his pants, gripping him.

Cassie made up her mind. "Yes, and fuck that shit as well," she declared, and even as she said it the wrongness went away. Her brain snapped back into itself, her fingers tightening on the priest's. "I'll take care of him." She felt Norris' incredulous eyes on her, then Mia's more vengeful ones. "He's not suited for the likes of her," she pressed.

"The likes of whom?" Mia asked, her voice low and dangerous.

"He's a priest." Cassie endured Felix' calculating gaze. "She's a... well, she's like you. It's not right that a priest be doing those kinds of things with your sort."

"No?" A faint flicker of amusement crossed Felix' face. "You're concerned for his soul, perhaps?"

"A bit." Cassie swallowed hard, then finally met Norris' stare. She smiled up at him. "Because his soul matters." His face broke into a warm smile then, and her heart sang. Maybe, if there was something she could do to fix this horrible thing she'd started, having innocent fun with Davey, she'd manage it. "I'll get it done."

A silence gathered before Doctor Zondervan nodded. "Before the moon reaches its zenith," he muttered. "Come, Mia. We'll leave them to it." Felix, his mouth already set in a curiously devious smile, was already leaving the little church as Zondervan offered his arm to the succubus.

"I could have given you untold pleasure," she whispered into Norris' ear, releasing his arm, "and I still might." She stepped aside, body slithering almost like a snake, and nodded at them. "Try your best, whore," she smiled to Cassie, "before I come back in to finish the job."

"Bugger off," Cassie snapped at her, jerking a thumb toward the door. Footsteps sounded lightly through the mud as the three of them glided from the chapel, Cassie's hand warm around Norris. "So," she went on, more quietly now, "that's them, dealt with."

He cleared his throat. "You don't have to do this, Cassie. I can... well. Manage. You know, for myself."

She chuckled. "Aw, but where's the fun in that?" She swung around to the front of him and took his other hand. "I really don't mind, not a bit. And I think you fancy me a little." She grinned. "Shall I tell you a secret?"

He stirred, her smile infectious. "I'm an excellent listener." It came out as a low murmur, a conspiratorial one.

"The other morning? When I hopped out of bed showing off all my bits?" She winked in the fading candlelight. "I was hoping you'd look."

He tamped down a sudden lurch in his heart, but he could do nothing about the corresponding lurch in his pants. "I... well. If we're telling secrets?" He knew he was blushing, but the candles would surely hide it. "I looked."

She giggled. "And?"

"And." He took a deep breath, finally drowning in her big eyes, the way he'd feared he might when he'd first seen her. "Well."

"Well," she nodded, the word a spiced whisper, and then she was stepping toward him with her face tipped up toward his. And as he felt the sweet wash of her breath against his face, the heat of her face meeting the heat of his, her eyes dropping shut, he was suddenly right back there: the apartment. Medical school.

He leaned down and captured her lips with his, his arms feeling once more the willing warmth of a woman's arms sweeping around his neck, her body pressing eagerly to his as he moaned into her mouth. And then suddenly her tongue was in his mouth, he had a handful of her bum, and he was no longer even thinking about the vampire rattling his chains in the open grave just beside them.

She kissed with abandon, a woman of great enthusiasm; when they finally parted, wild-eyed in the light of the guttering candle, he could see her face glistening with his saliva. "You kiss so good," she sighed, and then she was cupping his face in her trembling hand and they were devouring each other once more, tongues dancing, teeth clashing. She was chuckling again as she pulled away. "When's the last time you did this sort of thing?"

He thought about it, increasingly aware of the toe-stub feeling of his penis hardening against the front of his trousers. He badly needed to adjust himself. They kissed again, less feverishly now as they grew used to the feel of their mouths. "Years." Janine.

"Uh-huh." He caught a wicked gleam in her eye as she felt his cock against her body, reaching swiftly down to cup him. He gasped. "And the other thing?" Her lips were moist against his ear now. "When's the last time you had a woman, padre?"

He groaned, her hand busy along the front of his trousers. The girl certainly was not shy. "Same answer." He marveled at the smell of her, the feel of her, her vibrancy captivating him as she'd known it would. His erection shamed him, but she seemed to be enjoying it.

"Yeah." She bit a lower lip still shining with his spit. "So then it's high time we got this out, yeah?" She'd taken on a different sort of voice, with something of the steel she had in there, plus a dash of the vulnerability he'd heard at the Constabulary, but overwhelming all that was a brashness, a confidence, a firm awareness of her sexual power. He was seeing at once why men like poor Davey wanted her, and not even the memory of what had happened to that man was enough to knock down his hard-on.

He said nothing, the breath catching in his throat, but the old signs he'd seen in Janine so long ago were here, too, now that he was looking for them in Cassie's pretty, determined face. She worked his fly as she swept her feet absently across the floor under her shoes, clearing pebbles away so that her knees wouldn't get cut.

He was looking down at her in disbelief as she sank to the damp stone floor. She wasn't quite ready for how cold the flagstones were, but that was the last thing on her mind as she disassembled his pants. He felt hard in there, so hard, his penis a flagpole as her hands crept past it, finding the buttons. It excited her that she was getting him so hard, even apart from the nagging thought thrilling the back of her mind: sure, the last cock she'd handled in the drowned church hadn't ended well, but this! This one belonged to an actual minister, in that same church, with the voice of a vengeful vampire still fresh in her ears, and so she growled as her fingers at last got him free.

It sprang out like a flick-knife, fat and long, a cock to be proud of whether it was hanging off you or wedged inside you. She cackled, seizing it in her eager hand, and up above her Norris gasped as she stroked it. "What's your name again, padre?"

His eyes, when they found hers, were dinner plates. "James," he managed. She nodded, her other hand finding its way in between his thighs. She liked it when balls swung low between her fingers, bouncing off her nails as she stroked him.

"Well, James," she purred staring up at him, "just you stand there and enjoy yourself." He watched in fascination as her grin met his knob and then opened, parting, her tongue warm and lively underneath his shaft.

"Oh my god," he whispered, not sure whether it was a curse or a prayer, but he could tell that Cassie was past caring about that. So was he, for that matter, his fingertips resting on her hair. He burst out in another ragged moan when her cheeks hollowed, lips tight around him an inch below his crown while her tongue teased the tendon at the bottom of his head. Norris did not even realize he was arching his hips somewhat, pushing forward.

Craving her.

He sank deeper, Cassie's throat working to swallow him as her fingers tightened on his balls. She already knew he was not going to last. He'd gone years since his last woman, he'd said, and usually she was a fast worker even with experienced men. Under the circumstances, she reflected as her tongue lashed around his flesh, that was all very well: there was no reason to delay just now. She had a mission.

Besides, she reckoned she could get Mia to drop them at the vicarage after this, so she could take her time when she got him up again.

As if reading her mind, he tightened his fingers in her hair and rumbled a low warning. "I can't..."

"Then don't," she urged, backing off him for a moment, then lifting his heavy shaft high so that she could stab her tongue at that tempting tendon she'd been exploring. Men loved that, she knew, so she was not surprised when Norris' eyes flickered shut in bliss. "You can do it, love," she whispered up at him, "straight into my mouth. Go on."

She laid her other hand idly along his hairy thigh, feeling the taut muscles there, hearing him hold his breath in a great, humid inhalation, and then she sealed her lips tight around his shaft just below his crown and sucked hard. "God," he sobbed from above her, and then she felt a searing pain on her scalp as his fingers flexed just an instant before he groaned long and low.

His semen was a hot, thick broth, squirting hard into her mouth in a series of juicy pumps, a neverending fountain that pulsed again and again and again. For an instant, as she knelt before him and took his nut, Cassie worried that he might just produce too many ropes for her to take into her mouth, but no sooner had the thought crossed her mind than he thrust once more, weakly, his head popping past her lips to deliver one last spurt onto her tongue. She held him there, staring up at him through her lashes, letting his spunk curdle on her tongue for a moment while she sampled how much he'd offered her.

It was a solid, weighty mouthful, and she gave a humming moan of delight and a long, saucy wink.

Gasping like a stakes winner, James Norris eased himself out of her mouth and her fingers, staggering back to lean against the bright graffiti on the wall behind. He panted, watching her as she rose slowly, his load safely behind her smiling lips. She held his gaze a moment before her mind returned to her duty: she leaned sideways over the open grave, took aim at the weathered wood below, and spat the whole hot milky wad out of her mouth and onto the coffin beneath her, the seed leaving a smear of bright white directly on the center of the wood.

When Cassie turned back toward Norris, he was packing himself away somewhat guiltily. She nodded happily, licked her lips, and grinned. "Sorry, padre. I normally swallow, but needs must."

"My god," Norris said once more, shaking his head slowly. "I'm... I'm..."

Cassie laid her finger on his lips, nodding. "No. Don't. You're all right, love." She stepped deliberately forward to replace her finger with her lips, kissing him once more. "Thank you. Can you do me a favor, padre?"

"Uh, sure?" The magic of her blowjob had already faded, the dank mournfulness of the drowned chapel returning already.

"Run outside and tell Mia I need a pad?"

"Certainly." He did up his fly, fastened his belt, and made for the door over the slippery mud as Cassie looked down at Sir Walther Langham's unquiet grave and pushed her leggings gratefully down to her knees, digging into her underwear. The wet slap of her menstrual pad smacking onto the coffin next to Norris' sperm echoed quickly through the church, and she stared thoughtfully down as the blood and the seed mingled on the wood.

And then she waited for the priest's return, eager to be gone from this sad place.

* * *

The night was aging as the little group climbed slowly up the muddy bank toward the parking lot above, with Superintendent Wynn's flashlight guiding them in. Felix and Zondervan led the way, breaking a trail with no apparent effort; behind strode Mia, looking grim, with Cassie and Norris bringing up the rear, hand-in-hand. "So," he said, as casually as he felt he could; he was quite nervous, "do you know how you'll get home?"

Cassie blew out a long breath, thinking about the scorched Ford Fiesta on the Llethr Du. "I have no bloody clue, padre," she admitted. "It's the sort of thing I can't really think about right now."

Felix stirred before them, then turned slowly to speak to them as they hiked. "You're a woman of spirit and skill." He gave the compliment flatly, as if he was making conversation about the state of the bond market. "Should you have an interest in serving us in America, I think my clan could be persuaded to take you in." His teeth glittered long and sharp in the moonlight. "Something to think about."

"Oh!" Cassie hoped her voice did not show her shock. "Um. Thank you?" Norris, she noticed, held her hand very, very tightly after that.

An odd few nights, to be sure, she thought to herself as the stars drifted by.

* * *

Epilogue

Feet soft on the mud, Perry and Evan arrived with their wheelbarrows a few days later. They stood inside the church in their heavy leather boots and contemplated the day ahead. "Well," Evan said after a few moments, "this is shit."

"Agreed." Perry was a man of few words, but Anthony Wynn had been clear with his instructions... and with his payment. In cash. "We've got to do it, though."

"The hole's already full of mud!" Evan objected. He stuck a spade into the muck, which was as much water as soil. "What are we supposed to set the flagstones over? This?"

Perry shrugged. "We've got to do it," he repeated. "Ant Wynn was very clear."

"He didn't want to use concrete?" Evan was just off his apprenticeship as a mason. He liked using concrete, and hadn't been in the trade long enough to realize how much work it would have been to haul the mixer down here onto the bottom of the Reservoir. Already, the waters lapped perilously close to the chapel's old cemetery wall. There'd been over a foot of rise in just the past week since the Water Authority had authorized the floodgates to open all the way, far up the valley. "All this wet? The mortar won't even set," he complained. "The repair won't hold!"

"Let's just get on with it." Perry turned to the pile of old rubble scattered nearby. Wynn had told his boss just to replace all that old stone inside the hole, and that's what Perry was going to do. He nudged distastefully at a bloated condom nearby, then started in with his shovel.

They'd make it look like the old church floor was fixed up, but it wouldn't matter. Nobody would come to inspect, and in another week the water would be knee-deep in here. A month after, there'd be no church at all anymore. The boats would return, the trout would run through the distant dam. And things would continue just as they always had in Bwgan Vale.

* * *

I got the idea for this story when I read about the church in the Spanish town of San Roman de Sau, completely exposed from the depths of its reservoir in the spring of 2023 after three years of drought.

Humphrey Humphreys was, indeed, the Bishop of Bangor in 1693. He was a noted antiquarian, exactly the type of man who'd be intrigued by vampires on an intellectual level and interested in vanquishing them on a spiritual level. He died as Bishop of Hereford in 1712.

Llantarff is not a real place; indeed, with only two exceptions (the distant River Lledr and the Eryri, a set of hills far to the east), the geography here is entirely fictional, as far as I know. These places are probably somewhere north of Blaenau Ffestiniog, for those who know the area. But I hope it conjured up, at least in some small way, the wonder and mystery of North Wales, a truly beautiful part of the world. Even though it's infested by fucking vampires.

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