To Spite Another God Pt. 03

And she leaped.

Her parabolic arc took her higher than even the tallest of Dracula's towers. For a moment, with her arms spread, with the wind pausing about her, she felt cradled in moonlight...and then she fell, feeling the exhilaration of speed roaring through her, mingling with fear, with the monotonous screaming of her internal monologue: Nonononononono! As she watched the sharpened rocks reaching towards her like rushing hands. She struck them -- and then was through, plunging into cool darkness that was as welcoming as the embrace of a lover. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was closed and she knew, suddenly...she was entombed again in the welcoming Earth of her homeland. Her new homeland. She kicked one leg reflexively, and swam through the dirt. Her head breached into flowing cold water and she barely had time to appreciate the new oddity of feeling pleasant cold before she emerged from the water, shooting up like a cork, sailing forward, then landing upon the far bank of the river. She panted, heavily, her naked body dripping with wetness. She had expected to be caked in dirt -- but instead, her skin looked as if she had been scrubbed clean.

Mina looked at her hands, then slowly, she began to smile. She laughed -- and then a moment later, Lucy's scream reached her, doppler shifting as if she was a locomotion.

"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEAH-" And it was cut short as Lucy's feet struck the sand to Mina's right. There was not even a ripple. Mina grinned, then knelt down -- and just as she predicted, Lucy's head popped free, the sand pushed aside from her own bright blond hair. She shoo her head, panting despite her undead body. "That was...that was...I want...I want to do that again, I. Oh, Mina! Dearest! That was...ahahaha!" She laughed, then reached up, grabbing Mina's hair, tugging her down and kissing her fiercely.

It was not shame that caused Mina to push Lucy back and away, rather than drag her down and entwine her limbs with hers -- for the latter was more of what Mina wished. It was something even deeper, even more base. Something that growled in her breast like the beating of a new, dark heart.

Instinct.

Mina's nose flared and she scent...

Warm.

Blood.

And she didn't feel what she expected. Yes, there was the urge to find that blood, to taste it...but in her breast, she also felt a fierce kind of intense need to find the source of the blood, to...to...protect them. It was like seeing a bird with a broken wing -- effrontery that someone had harmed something so weak and precious. Which...she closed her eyes, trying to resist the urge to immediately rush off. How absurd -- whatever she smelled, it...might...must be human. She couldn't see man as something weak and precious, as if she was a paternalistic gardener, tending to his flowers.

Lucy, of course, was already off -- she had jumped with her dress, and looked ghostly and unreal in the moonlight, a red bolt heading around the bend. Mina followed after, and though she tried to restrain herself somewhat, she found it was nearly impossible to not move beyond human speeds. It was effortless to bound from rock to rock, to let the countryside flow past her as Dracula's castle grew more and more distant, the canyon walls growing lower and lower as the river drained away from the hilly forests and into a flatter, more clear part of the countryside. And it was here, where the canyon was least lethal, that it had slain a victim.

The brute was a brown horse, one that was easily large enough to be put to draft work. It had worn a saddle, but even before it had snapped its neck and died, the beast had clearly been driven to the edge of ruin -- bloody sores along the sides, froth that still glittered in the moonlight...Mina knew little of being an equestrian beyond the basics that she had picked up through osmosis, but even she could tell that the horse had been near death before this nighttime spill.

His rider was only little better. He was some poor youth in tattered blue uniform that made her think of the German Imperial Army -- but his features were not quite Germanic in his seeming. He was speaking quietly in a tongue she did not recognize: "Boże, pomóż mi ... Umieram ... matko!" And she saw why he was so distressed. His arm had been snapped, and his uniform was soaked through with blood -- even with the best doctors, it would likely need to be amputated, assuming he would not die from a sickness contracted by exposure to the wilds.

Lucy, having come to him first, knelt beside his head. She drew his head onto her lap, gently caressing his head. "Shh, shh, it's quite all right..." She murmured, softly, her fingers brushing through his short brown hair. Looking up to Mina, she said: "We must get him to Dracula's...castle..." Her tongue darted out, flicking along her fangs and then she looked down at the poor wounded boy. Her lips skinned backwards and Mina knelt down, whispering softly.

"We...should..." she murmured.

Lucy shook her head. "I...have the queerest urge to..." She paused. "Oh good heavens, no..."

"Wait...no..." Mina said, blinking as she swept her gaze along the poor boy -- and saw that, as he looked up, confused by this strange, red dressed woman who caressed his hair, that he had been wounded elsewhere. His entire left arm was one hideous burn -- and she saw, from the way it was turning green under her gaze...from the way it smelled...that the rot had gotten further than merely his arm. His face was a waxy pale and his breath was husky and she wondered for how long he had been upon that horse, driving it harder and harder, desperate...just...for some kind of escape from the agony and the suffering. How aware had he been of the world around him? He was clearly delirious -- and fading.

"What should we do, Mina?" Lucy asked, panting softly. "I want to...just...drink, but-"

"We must drink!" Mina said, immediately.

Lucy blinked at her. "B-But Vlade said to be responsible and-"

Mina moved forward, so that she was leaning down over the young boy. He couldn't be more than twenty, maybe even nineteen. Lucy's voice stilled as Mina opened her mouth and...again...instinct roared through her. She could see precisely where to bite, and she barely needed to think of how to do it. Merely one moment, her mouth loomed above this stranger's throat, her tongue buzzing with the radiative heat of his fever riddled body, the next...she was sinking her fangs into him. His flesh parted before her teeth and she felt the first hot rush of blood, pouring along her mouth. He tasted sour, sick, and she drank anyway, her eyes closing. It was not how she wanted her first feeding to be -- but she pushed herself to swallow once, twice, three times, before drawing her mouth back. She coughed, weakly, her tongue sweeping along his throat as the poor wounded soldier started to breathe even more shallowly.

His sick blood sat in her belly like a stone and Mina closed her eyes. She didn't know how or what she was doing -- beyond what little descriptions she had been given by Dracula, during her own transformation into a vampire. From what he had described, it had been a natural part of how vampires acted...

She tightened her eyes, focusing more upon that little warmth. And she felt the sickness inside of it...and she...thought of straining and tugging, pulling and twisting. It was like teasing a single thread form a ball of yarn, using something that was not quite a finger -- but rather, a tongue. Probing and prodding, pushing and...yes! She felt the sickness that weaved through the blood beginning to separate, so that there were two weights inside of her belly, one lower, one higher. The higher was even sourer, like she had eaten something that did not agree with her...and before she knew it, it was coming up her throat.

Mina turned, coughed once, retched, then spat out a yellowy glop of something foul. It tingled along her tongue and she made an unladylike sound of pure disgust, while Lucy cried out. "Mina! Mina, he's dying!" And she ignored the taste, instead, she focused upon the only warmth within her -- the blood that she had drank, streamed clean of sickness.

The album vitae, as Dracula had called it.

It filled her mouth and, for lack of a better means, Mina leaned forward and kissed the young soldier, her tongue pushing the warm, flowing liquid into his mouth. He drank instinctively, groaning as red bubbled around his lips, down his chin, dripping onto her own bared breasts. Mina drew her mouth back, coughing and gasping -- while the soldier panted and groaned, his head tossing from side to side -- while a loud crack came from his arm as his bone seemed to force itself back into shape. The burn along his arm started to fade before their very eyes. Lucy gaped -- and Mina explained, hurriedly: "A vampire...Dracula said that when a vampire drinks blood, they can take the blood and alter it, change it like a chemist, transforming it into the album vitae...it...restores health and youth to the human that drinks it." She smiled. "He said that it was symbiotic..."

Lucy nodded. "His arm is still not well..." She gently pushed the soldier upwards. Her fingers flew along his top, and soon, the blue jacket had slipped down, revealing his white undershirt, stained with blood and ash and sweat. She tugged that aside, revealing his shoulder, and bit down. Fangs sank in and her eyes rolled back into her head -- moaning wantonly as her hand dropped between his thighs, her eyes closing and Mina felt unreasonably jealous. From the expression upon her friend's face, she was tasting blood that was not so profusely tainted by the sickness that had suffused him.

Lucy drew her mouth back, panting -- and then her mouth pressed to his. They shared blood, dripping between his chin, even as tiny spurts of it came from his shoulders. "Lucy, dear...you utter slovenly..." Mina muttered, leaning in close, swinging her leg up and over his lap, so that she could settle upon his lip and kiss his shoulder. His blood tasted sweet and pure now -- and her eyes closed as she felt her cunt growing hot and wet, her nipples achingly hard as she tasted him. Her mouth sucked again and the boy let out a confused moan as Lucy broke the kiss, her breasts pressing to his back.

"Jestem w niebie?" he murmured.

Thanks to Lucy's overeager hand, his cock was out and hard and throbbing, grinding against Mina's pussy. She nearly impaled herself upon him without a single thought -- but fortunately, she was spared from making yet another indiscretion by a sudden, angry bark.

"What are you two doing!?"

Lucy and Mina both sprang to their feet, while the poor soldier collapsed onto his back, blinking, confused. Verona, Aleera and Marishka were once again striding towards them -- Verona leading them, glaring. "Who is this? Were you two feeding on him? Did you even ask!?" She grabbed at Mina, but Mina sprang backwards.

"No, I was-" she started. "I was helping!"

"Helping your lu..." Verona sniffed. She paused, then knelt down before the thick splat of yellow bile that Mina had spat up, then sniffed it again. "...gangrene..." She murmured. "Fevers..." She looked at the soldier, who was looking around in confusion, his brow furrowing. "His arm...there's...what made this hole?"

"His radius bone," Mina snapped, rather shortly.

Verona gaped at her. "And...you...you drank from him and separated the sickness and...how bad was the burn?"

"From here to here!" Lucy said, reaching down and propping the dazed, confused boy upright, gesturing from his shoulder to his fingertips. "And it had gone gangrenous!"

Verona glanced at Marishka. "Mari, check his bonds."

"He's-" Mina started, but the batlike wife crawled forward and stuck her nose directly into the man's chest, breathing in, fiercely. They sniffed once, twice, three times, while the boy, becoming aware of the utter inhumanity of this exotic creature, froze and whimpered quietly, his eyes wide, his voice husky as he whispered.

"Jezusie Nazareński!"

Marishka drew back. "A minor tie, to both of them."

Verona huffed, then smirked. "I was getting worried there for a moment..." she said, then looked at Mina. "It takes study and practice to purify blood and heal like that -- not every vampire picks it up as quickly as you." Then she bapped Mina upon the head with the flat of her palm. "But still! You've bonded this fellow to you! He's going to be in love with you for a month and a day now!"

"L-Love?" Mina stammered. "What!? Dracula said-"

"Dracula told you that album vitae heals and restores the youth of humans, yes. Did he also tell you that it took him years of study to refine it so that it had none of the downsides? That he put effort and struggle into it?" Verona huffed. "Did you think you could sidestep every part of your training?" She huffed again, her hair bristling up a bit. "Or did you not even care about them- "

"She didn't know!" Lucy said, stepping up beside Mina. "And you have been nothing but beastly to us since we were changed, Verona! You always assume the worst of Mina, and it's getting quite tiresome."

Verona looked aside, letting out a little 'tsch' sound. "I do not have the time or inclination to deal with a bumbling neonate's mistakes..." She said, but Mina, in a single moment of clarity, saw the concern upon her features -- and the fear, the fear that she sought to escape through anger. It was there for a flash -- then concealed. But that flash was all that Mina required to piece together the truth.

"You're afraid that Dracula will listen to me..." she said.

"What?" Aleera asked as Verona froze.

"You're afraid that Dracula will listen and go to war, aren't you?" Mina asked.

Verona glared at her. "Be silent," she said.

"Verona..." Mina said, slowly.

"He's my husband! He has been my husband for four centuries," Verona snapped, glaring at Mina as she strode forward, seeming to grow taller, the darkness and shadows of the forested riverside grew deeper and deeper. "I have been with him longer than you can even imagine -- your mayfly life does not understand love that can survive the fall of kings and the turning of an age. I've seen gunpowder sweep across your Europe, and I've seen the transformation of knights to bandits and bandits into kings, and through it all, I have loved Dracula." She grabbed onto Mina's arm, tugging her close. "And you wish...t...to send him against the things you have described?" Her hand was shaking, and Mina could feel it.

"They're going to come whether he goes or not..." Mina whispered.

Verona snapped her head to the side, as if she had been struck.

Then...

She was as mist -- shimmering, fading, spreading -- and the mist then was a flurry, a storm of lithe, squeaking bodies. The wave of bats that swept outwards flew off, in a column, towards the castle. In the silence that came afterwards, Lucy gulped and stammered: "I...m-may I trouble someone for an explination of what she meant by...love for a month and a day?"

"If a mortal human drinks of our blood, without certain impurities removed," Aleera said, softly. "Then they will be bound to the vampire who granted it for a month and a day. A second drink makes it a year and a day. But the third will make it last until Judgment Day. The bond is...hard to distinguish from love, but it comes from the blood, not from the heart. Sometimes, when it goes, the love remains...but..." He shrugged, spreading his hands. "What matters is that neither of you have done anything too unfortunate. Come. Let us get this young Russian to the castle."

***

"My name Gunner Antoni Oczko, 34^th Artillery, under Samsonov," the young Pole said as he laid upon his bed, dressed in fresh clothes, while sunlight streamed through the window. He was looking at Mina and Lucy out of the corner of his eye, while focused upon Dracula, who had emerged from his seclusion to speak to the new visitor. "Where am I?"

"Romania," Dracula said, gravely. "You are quite a ways from Poland, young sir."

"Yes...the Second Army...we were being sent, to fight the men from Mars," he said, nodding. "The Serbians had been attacked by them -- I do not know how -- and thus, Russia was drawn into the war." He made a face. "And thus, I was sent."

"You're Polish, are you not?" Mina asked, her brow furrowing.

Antoni looked at her and his cheeks flushed. He looked away again -- and Mina gulped, feeling a guilty lurch in her belly. The sunlight that laid along her shoulder did not burn, nor did it ache, nor did it make her feel anything the like weakness. She felt utterly normal...but she had experimented with her strength, subtly testing her might against a small pewter spoon that she had spirited off the young Pole's breakfast plate. She had not managed so much as a crease in the metal, while last night, she had effortlessly lifted two tons of cast steel. So, it was true, sunlight did reduce them to merely human faculties...

Still.

It was pleasing to know she could still enjoy a sunny morning.

"Yes," he said, huskily.

"And you serve the Tzar?"

"Poland was partitioned..." his voice grew tight. "I...being in the artillery is quite an honor." He said honor with more bitterness than Mina thought should be possible for such a young man.

"What was your role?" Dracula asked. "And what happened to the Second Army?"

"I..." Antoni gulped. Lucy, instinctively, reached out to him and took his hand, and this seemed to comfort the young Pole. He sagged back into the bed. "We were marching from where we had mustered, near Warsaw. The goal, I believe, was to join up with the Germans and the Serbians and strike at the city of Dresden. We rode along a railroad, and came to the border -- but the Germans were already falling back...the Serbs, they joined us then, and we fell back to...Hungary..." He paused. "The Germans, they had these...engineers who knew how to help us, they burned material, it produced a great deal of smoke, and it meant when the...the flying machines came, they did not know where exactly to shoot us when were on the march. At night, we hid under coverings, like animals, and it was not how we thought war would be..."

Dracula nodded, frowning. "Flying machine...how many did you see?"

"Ten, sir," Antoni said, quietly. "They had different markings, we tracked them with telescopes, I was actually put on that duty, my...I normally limbered and unlimbered guns, and...well, we were never setting them up to fire them, sir."

"Did they ever fly in groups or..."

"Solitary, sir!" Antoni said, nodding. "...they were mostly keeping an eye upon us. We found a place where we could fortify -- with water nearby that the Germans said would be of use to keep our ammunition stores protected, so the men from Mars couldn't set them off with their heat rays. We dug in -- we thought we had a few days to prepare. Refugees were moving away from Germany...and...then...the fighting machines came." He paused. "But they did not come from the horizon, like we expected. They came...by ship."

"In the middle of Hungary?" Dracula asked. "Down the river?"

"No, sir. From the sky. The...flying machines..." He connected his pinkie to his pinkie, then thrust out his thumbs, creating two thirds of a triangle with his two hands. "Connected like so -- three to a side, ah, imagine a third one here-" he waggled his thumbs. "Between them, they carried the fighting machines. They soared high above us, far above our guns. We tried to elevate them, we did, but there was no time! The machines dropped them...r-right among us. And..." his face grew haunted. He dropped his hands back to the bed and Lucy gripped his right hand with both of her hands now, her face full of concern. "They wiped us out."