To Spite Another God Pt. 09

Less...

Hmm...

No, it was that it was more selfish. Since she knew how much humans enjoyed the bite.

And I suppose I can have a little selfishness, as a treat, after drinking that awful concoction earlier, she thought as she sat up and thrust out her chest subtly, drawing her shift taut across her breasts. Jonathan's cheeks began to flush a darker gray, despite his forward fixation.

"You mean the fact you are sitting beside me, while I am in my night clothes, and neither of us have chaperons?"

"Ah, well..." Jonathan tugged at his collar. "We were to be wed, before..."

Mina nodded. "Yes...before."

"...I still want to, you know?" he asked, quietly. "Even after all of this."

Mina set her drink down. "I don't know if it'd be worth it," she muttered -- and blinked, shocked that it had escaped her...but then, with the first part out, the rest began to follow, streaming from her in a single long strand: "I have no idea what I'm doing, Jonathan! I...Lucy already got so hurt, and Dracula got hurt, and that is with Dracula in charge -- not me! Some...some...schoolmistress who died a virgin!" She blushed. "W-well, if you do not count...me...laying with Lucy, that is...and since, well, she didn't..." She trailed off.

Jonathan coughed, then adjusted his collar again. "I may not be...seductive or powerful. I...can't even become a wolf." He smiled, slightly. "In fact, my only skill is manage documents and facts and arguing before a court." He placed his hand upon her bare shoulder, then squeezed. "But I also know that...you...are the strongest woman that I know, Mina. And you don't need to know what you're doing because...no one does. We have generals. We have soldiers. But has...even if the Iron Duke rose from his grave to sally forth in England's name again, he's led humans. But has he ever led vampires?"

She smiled, shyly. "No."

"Has anyone ever led an army of vampires?"

Mina shook her head. "No."

"Then, yes, being a general would help, it'd give you some ideas to start with. But you'd also be so...stuffed with knowledge on how other armies work that you might miss openings." He smiled. "Besides, knowing you're unqualified is the first step to knowing when to listen to advice, or that's what I think at least." He blushed, then cupped her cheek, turning to face her. "And...even if everything I say is just...pablam and bunk...at least I'm here to be with you to the end."

Mina turned. She kissed his palm. Then she nibbled his skin, feeling the worries of the moment slipping away, inch by inch as she tasted his softness. He had the hand of a clerk -- and Mina realized, she rather liked it. She looked up past his arm at his flushed face and into his averted eyes. She licked her lips, and that confidence that she had felt earlier today, when she had confronted Verona, came roaring back. And this time, there was only eagerness to buffet it.

"Look at me."

His eyes flicked to her -- and he blushed even harder.

"Do you like what you see, Mr. Harker?"

He nodded, mutely.

"I...didn't hear that..." Mina murmured.

Jonathan gulped. Then, huskily, he whispered. "Y...Yes I do, Miss...Murray."

That was when she shoved him onto his back.

Jonathan's arms spread wide and his eyes widened as she settled herself right onto his lap, her rump grinding against his bulge. The battle, even if it had been hours before, had been a close kiss with death and now? Now that caused her lusts to flare to blazing life, her cunt growing hot and wet and needy as she looked down into Jonathan's eyes. She rocked her hips against him, and Jonathan panted, softly. "M-Mina..."

She grinned, then grabbed his wrists. Her hands guided his palms to her breasts and Jonathan gently, gently, squeezed her breasts through the thin film of her shift and his fingers found the hardness of her nipples. He held her as if she was made of cut glass, and Mina giggled, then laughed, then put her hands onto his hands and snarled, quietly. "Harder, Mr. Harker." His eyes half closed and he groaned and she felt him throbbing through his pants against her rump. His fingers played her, and he still was a tad less forceful than Lucy when she was feeling playful -- but even that increase was enough to coax a moan from her lips. Her fangs glittered as she threw her head back, trembling.

"Ah..." She murmured. "You like it when I give you orders, Mr. Harker?"

His cheeks burned and his fingers released her nipples. "W-Well, it...no, I-"

She pushed her hands down above his head, leaning forward -- so that his hands slipped from her breasts to her sides. She caught his bang in her finger, twirling it, looking down into his eyes. "Now now, Mr. Harker. Don't like to me..." She licked her lips, wondering how precisely Dracula had made his voice so commanding and seductive. She wondered if she...could...relax her eyes like so and...she felt a kind of power thrumming through her, and saw a willing relaxation of Jonathan's face. He sagged back into the bed, gently, and his voice was husky and soft.

"I do, mistress..."

Mina's fangs glittered as she grinned. "Do you like what I'm doing to you now?"

"Yes..." he murmured, his eyes growing more and more out of focus.

Mina flicked her tongue along her fangs. Her thighs spread, her sex dripping with eager arousal. "What do you want me to do to you, Mr. Harker?"

"Fuck me..." Jonathan whispered, softly, his hands sliding down to his sides. "P-Please..."

Mina reached down with one hand. She caressed his bulge, gently. "Bigger." She crooned. His cock swelled against her palm -- straining against his leggings. He was now as big as Dracula had been. "Mm...bigger." She ordered him -- noticing how effortless his shapeshifting seemed to be, now that he was under her sway. It was not skill holding him back, was it? It was pure confidence -- and with his confidence replaced by her order, his body was his own in a way it had never been before. His pants popped open, the button coming free and his immense gray cock slapped against her palm, filling her grip. Her fingers could not even reach the far side of him as she gripped him and ground the tip of his dick against her wanting cunt.

"Want me to take off my top?" she crooned.

"Yesssss..." Jonathan sounded almost desperate.

"Then make me..." she growled.

Jonathan snarled. And there, underneath meekness, underneath proper English gentility, there was a kindred spirit, one that Mina had felt, even before this. His fingers grew claws and those claws grabbed at her top and it came away in tatters. Thin red lines were traced along her flesh, the cuts opening and shutting almost at the same time as his claws dug through cloth and into her. Blood flowed along fingers that grew furred as Jonathan's face shifted, growing longer and longer and more and more bestial. His ears grew longer and batlike and his tongue was long and stabbed into her mouth as he cradled the back of her neck with a paw that came to those sharp, sharp claws. His broad nose bumped against hers, and his wings spread behind him as his cock turned blood red.

He was the night, now -- dark furred and muscular and animalistic, and his wings closed around her, enfolding her...and Mina controlled that night. Her eyes closed to slivers, still looking into his.

His tongue slipped back and Jonathan growled. "Mistress..."

Her palms caressed along his muscular chest and she licked her lips. "Very good, Mr. Harker..." her fingers drew back and she broke her eye contact -- and the instant he did, Jonathan blinked and jerked backwards. The difference in him before and after was as stark as...well...night and day. And while he remained a fusion of man and bat and beast, muscular and radiating with strength, sleek with black fur...he was once more merely an English solicitor and clerk. He drew away, yelping as he looked at his hands, his wings flapping behind him.

"What on Earth-"

Mina giggled. "Jonathan," she said, her voice bubbling over with mirth...and it was not cutting. Not cutting at all. Mirth, joy in another's absurdity, was just as vital as lust and teeth and claws. She grinned at him, then turned around and salaciously lifted her pale rump upwards, shoving it into the air as if she was some kind of wanton, eager whore in a back alley. She crooned into the bedsheets. "Mr. Harker, I do believe you have work to do with that marvelous tongue of yours..."

"M-Mina!" he stammered. "How did...you were looking into my eyes and-"

She began to sway her hips, gently.

"-and then it was all hazy, and now I'm...I'm..." He slowly trailed off. Even with her eyes closed, she could tell he was looking down now, straight at her rump. At her cunt. At her neediness. Jonathan whispered. "Oh good heavens..."

"You have the body of a beast. Use it." She purred, quietly.

"I...y-yes..." he paused, then she felt those paws of his sliding along her rump. His claws caressed her with gentleness, where before, he had cut her...and she found, she loved both equally. Her eyes closed and she tensed...and then cried out softly as his tongue swept into her -- cool and needy and so very flexible. He knew nothing about what he was doing -- that much was obvious after riding Lucy's face more than once, and being in bed with Dracula. But, to Mina's shock, she found that eagerness and attentiveness made for an equally pleasant time. Less...pointedly...but still enjoyable. It helped, too, that he learned fast.

Just like all vampires.

Soon, his tongue was grinding against her center of pleasure and his bat-like ears had swiveled around to pick up her ever moan and gasp and whimper, while her fingers dug into the bedsheets, tearing it slightly as she groaned and panted and bucked her hips. She did not try and keep herself from climaxing too soon -- instead, she allowed the pleasure to rock through her and her juices to squirt onto his tongue. Jonathan drank...and then the door opened and Lucy stood there, pale and beautiful and entirely restored by her slumber in her coffin. She grinned.

"Ahh, I see you have George in here..." She purred. "Or is that Dr. Elphinstone? Or...maybe Sharon? Did she finally surrender her fang's virginity?"

Jonathan froze -- and Mina giggled, then murmured. "Yes, this is George," she said, her voice playful as she pushed her hips back against his muzzle. "Jonathan doesn't know, so...do keep it a secret." She grinned at Lucy -- while thinking to her: Jonathan is such a dear, I believe that we shall have to both tend to him tonight.

Lucy oohed. "Mm...I admit...he did cheat on you with Marishka, it seems only fair you enjoy your wandering days." She strode forward, her body beautiful nude as it was clothed. She caressed Jonathan's hair, and crooned. "I bet it'll feel good to have you in my cunt, won't it, George?" She murmured, leaning down as she purred in his ear. "Though, not as good as it will knowing you're fucking Mina Murray behind her fiancee's back, doesn't it?"

As she spoke, Jonathan's tongue slid from Mina's cunt -- and then he began to kiss and lick at her sex, tasting her juices, his tongue flicking against her clitty, before he murmured, quietly. "It does..." he murmured. "The pathetic little weasel doesn't know a fine body when he gets it..." His voice was a soft growl and he sounded more and more confident by the moment. Mina did not fully understand the mental alchemy that made pretending to cheat on himself that made Jonathan more eager...but she did not care.

The scenario was...hot.

And with a maelstrom outside and nightmares in the future...that was all that they needed.

Jonathan shoved her down with his paws on her shoulders and slid into her sex with a hiss, his knot bumping against her. His hot drool dripped onto her shoulders and her neck as he loomed above her, growing even lager, panting as he began to fuck her. His hips drove into her and his free hand reached around to grab her throat, squeezing her to stifle her moan. "Shhh...don't want to tip him off..." he growled and Mina came from that alone, her toes curling, her back arching as she choked out nearly silent pleasure. Lucy watched from her sidelines, her fingers sliding along her sex as Jonathan slammed her, faster, harder, groaning as his knot slid into her. "Ah...he'd be an idiot to let you away from him, an idiot..." He whispered in her ear as Mina's eyes slid shut and another climax rocked through her as her sex tightened on him.

She hissed out.

"D-Don't...tell him!" She whispered. "I love him so much...the idea...of him thinking less of me...ah...of thinking I'm a whore for you, for your mighty, powerful cock..." She shuddered and Jonathan snarled and started to jackhammer his cock into her, his hands grabbing her shoulders, pushing her down, his nose nuzzling against her pointed ear. He sucked on that point, his breath cool against her as he fucked and then slammed home, and then howled in pleasure, throwing his head back as he began to pump his cum into her -- cool, thick, intensely masculine vampiric cum, which sent Mina's mind whirling with purest bliss.

Jonathan slid from her. Or...more accurately...he was guided from her.

Mina lifted her head, turned back, and saw that Jonathan had been gently placed on his rump, and his cock was now buried to the knot in Lucy's eager throat. Her eyes were closed to happy slits, and Jonathan looked completely shocked -- his ears flattened back against his head.

"L-Lucy!" he exclaimed.

Mina giggled, quietly, then sprawled there, and watched with delight as Lucy drew her mouth back, panted, then pushed Jonathan onto his back and began to ride him -- and felt...

An idea.

Born of those bat wings and those bat ears and the knowledge of clerks and numbers.

***

"Three million men." Mina's finger plunged down onto Germany. "One million men." Her finger touched France. "Two million men." Her finger tapped Russia, finishing her loop around the large map of Europe that Dracula had left her. "These are the sizes of the armies of these lands, if mustered to war. We've all read the newspapers, the books, the projections. Their infrastructure is smashed, the armies did not fully mobilize, and they cannot muster without the flying machines of the Martians destroying them utterly. But those men do not merely evaporate. Martians can kill many men at once, they they cannot kill millions in half a year -- not with only thirty flying machines and two dozen Tripods." She nodded. "They have instead worked entirely by frightening us and being faster than us."

The other vampires and human leaders of the...of her army...now...nodded.

Mina nodded. "We cannot turn every man into a vampire. And we shouldn't." She gestured to Dr. Elphinstone -- having talked to him before. The newly rejuvenated doctor brushed his hand through his hair. Even becoming a vampire had not made his hair return from its silvery color, but with his wrinkles faded away and smoothed down to mere middle age, it made him appear more dignified than decrepit. He sat up.

"I...have examined the heat ray that we have recovered from the flying machines and, well, there are more than the one destroyed by our estimable Miss Murray." He nodded to her. "As you may know, I am a doctor of the natural sciences, specifically, a physician, like our good friend, Mr Wells." He nodded to George, who smiled and waved a bit from the sideline. Mina frowned at Dr. Elphinstone, who realized that he was meandering. He coughed. "A-And, well, ah, that is, before I became a medical doctor, I did attend various technical schools, and there, I did learn some basics in the mechanical sciences. While I dare not attest to a complete knowledge of the function of the heat ray, I can say this: It appears to be a pair of parabolic mirrors that are contained within a kind of friction-less chamber, with a focusing lens that appears to be made of a kind of hollow glass that contains something else within -- a kind of gas or fluid that boils away when released into the air. The first mirror is perfectly reflective, while the other is merely partial -- and that amount of reflectiveness is controlled by the means of a pair of wires that can be adjusted via knob or dial." He coughed. "Though some unknown means, the lens with the material transforms the unfocused light being put into it by the Martians into a kind of coherent beam of light -- allowing the energy normally spread outwards by that light to be instead focused into a killing heat. The heat that we, even now, know to fear."

He nodded, happily. "Not bad for a general practitioner, eh?"

Mina smiled -- and wondered, faintly, if it was that 'child mind' that helped her to learn languages so quickly at work. Intuitive leaps, being made more obvious and easily grasped by his vampiric status...

"And the others?" she prompted.

"Ah, yes, the ones that we recovered from the flying machines, such as..." he paused, and his eyes flicked to Verona, Aleera and Marishka, who were all sitting and listening. They looked grim, but they were no longer entirely wracked with grief. Despite that, every vampire sitting near them had a hand there, a palm grasped here, with some gentle hair stroking -- so that each of Dracula's wives subtly enfolded in a kind of warm, comforting embrace while still maintaining some measure of remove and dignity.

"Such as the one that killed Dracula," Mina said, her voice soft.

"Yes," Dr. Elphinstone said, coughing. "It is a combination of a different kind of material for the focusing lens and a different kind of material for the secondary mirror! However!" He smiled. "I have read the papers by Mr. Heinrich Hertz, released a few years ago -- that postulates that light is in fact a small range of possible radiations, and some are released by the sun...there are Röntgen rays and..." He trailed off. "W-Well, anyway, to cut a long story short, I believe that this is a heat ray that has been modified to create a form of light released by the sun and not found elsewhere."

Verona sat up. "It's a sun ray?"

"I believe so, yes," Dr. Elphinstone said.

"And that-" Mina said, cutting in. "That is why we cannot make every soldier a vampire, even if we could feed them. Vampires cannot win this war alone. These sun-rays mean that our greatest strength, our immunity to mortal weapons, can be stripped away at any time and the Martians could overwhelm us, even at night, even when we have every advantage."

"But how?!" Sharon asked. "Most people in the Empire didn't even know the weaknesses of vampires. It's not as if there were books about it. And we lived near you!"

"The Martians may have found Hunters," Aleera said, his voice soft. "Maybe even Van Helsing."

Mina nodded. "That is my guess -- Jonathan said that he and Dr. Van Helsing traveled together, and that both were captured."

"I do think he escaped!" Jonathan said.

"Yes, but we can't be sure," Mina said, slapping her hand against her palm. "We have to operate on the assumption that Mars knows every one of our weaknesses and is working hard to prepare themselves to defend against it. We need human soldiers, not merely human allies. And Europe is awash in them." She nodded. "We have to find them and bring them to where we can keep the Flying Machines off their backs."

"But how will we keep them alive the instant a battle begins?" George asked. "I was there in England, I saw what happened to our boys in khaki. They didn't stand a bloody chance."

"I have...some ideas on that," Mina said, smiling. "But we have to get them first. So. Who feels up to seducing the German General Staff?"