White Vampire Ch. 01

But the cat had only just begun her game of mouse and there was only so long she was willing to go on with the charade. Baring her fangs in a toothy, feral grin, Marchesa spun on a hind paw and blew him a kiss.

"It was fun playing with you, colt."

It happened too quickly - so quickly that he cursed himself in hindsight for not knowing and understanding that, of course, she'd been holding back the whole time, toying with him as beasts like her were want to do with their prey. He was losing his touch and that loss of who he was proved his undoing as she battered him down and down and down, her strikes perfectly time as her teeth grazed his shoulder, eyes glittering wickedly. Still, he could not succumb to her so readily and grasped his gun, firing into her stomach, guts her side - anywhere - over and over again as she screeched and forced it down into less vital organs for those of the vampiric persuasion.

But it was over before he knew it, the gun clattering over the stone and his paws too slow, far too slow, to reach his blades in time. Her paw closed on his throat, fangs flashing -

And then everything went black.

*

Jacob woke with a start, heart in his mouth and paw reaching for a blade that was not there. The fight! Marchesa! Where was the vampire? But there was no demon waiting there for him, just a bed of clean, white linen in a circular stone room that was oddly devoid of any other furniture. He was still in the same clothes that he'd worn before but his wounds were cleaned and dressed in a rough cloth suited to the task. He scrambled from the bed and groaned as every ache and pain in his body made itself known, blood from wounds that wept while he slept staining the cloth. The one on his neck - that must have been her claws - had not been bandaged and remained sticky with a glob of congealed blood, not quite dried. He shuddered. He was lucky to be alive. Yet what was alive when he did not know or understand a single shard of what was happening?

But where was he? Darting to the only feature in the room other than the bed, he sucked in a breath, staring down at the castle grounds with blood roaring in his ears. The room seemed to tip sickeningly, although that was not possible for he was in one of the towers, so very high above the grounds and very clearly still in the lair of the best.

His mouth too dry, he licked his lips over and over again, backing up with his tail clamped down over his buttocks. She was going to kill him, make a spectacle of him, torture him. That had to be her plan - it could not possibly be anything else!

Out. He had to get out.

Forcing himself to be calm, or at least as calm as it was possible for anyone to be in such a situation, he raced for the door and, shockingly, found it open. He could not pause or waste time in wondering just why it was left so and hurled himself down the winding, twisting stone staircase, only drawing his pace to something more akin to stealthy when he drew himself up short, realising just what a racket he was making. Did he want to be killed right then and there simply by announcing his attempt at escape to the whole castle at large?

And so, he crept around the final corner, coming to the ground floor in the darkened hallway. Dimly, he recalled that windows set into the tower sides, where the staircase ran, had allowed him to see, but it was hard to think about the details, the specifics of his environment which may or may not have saved him, when such a monster surely lay in wait.

Pushing open a wooden door, he entered the ground floor of the castle, the space between his nostrils wrinkled in trepidation. A royal red carpet lined the centre of the hallway, although how that was practical he would never know. Even if it meant he had to walk dead in the centre, however, it would do nicely to cushion the loud fall of his hooves.

But he hadn't even made it a few paces down the spacious hallway before he was accosted by what could only be a servant of the castle - a mouse dressed simply but presentably for any manner of business that one may find or undertake within the castle walls. Without thinking, Jacob reached for his weapons but, of course, there were none. He cursed. Stupid, so stupid! They wouldn't have left him there, let alone with the door unlocked, without any weapons left on his being!

The mouse hesitated, eyes roaming his body up and down, the light swell in the front of her shirt denoting her as a female, although her short stature meant that she barely came up to his chest. Jacob tensed. Mice were fast. Very fast, in fact. If she wanted to, she could race off and alert Marchesa to his whereabouts and that would be it - his candle snuffed out when already, miraculously, he'd been given a second chance.

"I'm warning you," he growled, paws clenched into fists. "Take one more step, alert that blood-sucker, and I will end you where you stand."

Far from being intimidated, the mouse tilted her head to the side and chuckled faintly, shaking her head.

"But she already knows you're here, sir!" She chirped happily, whiskers vibrating as if her sheer joy could not be contained by a physical form. "Please! If you'll be so kind as to follow me."

She trotted off, a spring in her step, but Jacob remained quite firmly rooted where he was, ears flicking one way and then the other as if to catch sounds from further off, even if there were none at the moment detectable by his sensitive hearing. When she realised that he was not with her, she squeaked and darted back, waving her paws imploringly.

"Marchesa said you'd be down shortly," the mouse squeaked again, nose quivering as if she was oh so very eager to please and he simply hadn't heard her, a common, easy mistake to make indeed. "Please! Follow me!"

He could have followed his nose, the aroma of food floating through the castle as his stomach rumbled, although it seemed prudent to keep a wary distance all the same, lips pressed into a hard, thin line. He could only imagine - well, he did know, in fact - what a vampire would have crafted for their meals and it wasn't anything that a normal fur would ever have the passing thought of considering devouring.

"Fine." He turned his head away, knowing that his options were very much limited. "Take me to her."

Of course, that was exactly what the mouse intended to do and more than happily led him down a couple of hallways - not that far at all, really - to where the source of the delicious aromas emanated from. Jacob could not help but allow his mouth to water, swallowing hard as he realised just how hungry and thirsty he was. But it all must have been a ploy to torture and humiliate him further and the only way he would get out alive was by uncovering her conniving plot and...

...she was making breakfast. Just breakfast. It seemed so unnerving to find cured meat and eggs on a plate before a canine who had killed so many in her bloodlust, even if it was to feed the vampiric side of her, that he stopped short, nostrils flaring in a loud snort.

Her eyes snapped up, the canine at the wooden counter of a kitchen elaborately decked out with anything a servant may have ever wanted to prepare the best meal possible for his or her liege in a castle that would, most likely, be their home for life. Servitude, after all, was pretty much still slavery under a different name but the mouse looked up at the vampire adoringly with her eyes as wide as the saucer on which Marchesa had delicately placed her teacup.

"Jacob..." She said smoothly, her tone lacking any of the terror and horror of their previous encounter. "It is morning. You have slept a day and a half."

He baulked.

"Who took me to that room?" He demanded. "And what are you planning to do with me? Turn me into a vampire yourself?"

Something darkened in her eyes but, far from rising to the bait, she politely turned away, her muzzle angled off as if something altogether more interesting had caught her eye.

"Eat."

She pushed the plate of cured meat and eggs towards him, although made no effort to close the physical distance between them, almost as if she was as afraid of him as he was her, although it would, undoubtedly be for very different reasons. He stared at the plate of food as if it contained poison. It probably did.

"Why am I here?" He said instead, forcing the question past his lips. "You had me. Why have you now spared me?"

A shadow passed over her face but was swiftly cleared despite her lack of smile. The canine nodded at the plate and the mouse servant, perhaps helpfully, raced over to take it and darted all the way back to offer it to Jacob with her ever-present smile, making up for their stern expressions in part.

"Here you are, sir!"

Jacob scowled.

"I'm not eating that. Tell me why you haven't killed me. You're planning to torture me, aren't you? Is it information you want? I'm not a stallion who gets that kind of information so you may as well kill me right now if that's what you're after."

He should have known that there would be no answers forthcoming but he asked them anyway, words spilling from his lips like the water he so desperately craved, throat aching.

"You are hungry."

"Why have you made me food?"

She shrugged, the white robe that she was wearing rippling as it followed the flow down her body.

"It felt like the right thing to do."

There was nothing he could say to that in terms of a quick, witty response and Marchesa wasn't about to wait for him to think of something, moving along on her way. No doubt she had important business to be getting on with but Jacob still couldn't stop himself from calling out after her retreating back, those narrow shoulders held rigid as if against a heavy weight.

"When are you going to kill me?"

She didn't even break stride.

"Take a bath," she advised, slipping from the room as if a ghost. "You will feel better and the waters here will aid in your recovery."

Jacob blinked and gaped at her retreat, but the mouse was still there, holding up the plate of food for him.

"Eat!"

And so he did, sitting down in the kitchen of a vampire to eat a plate of eggs and meat by her paws.

And it was delicious.

*

The mouse servant, whose name was revealed to be Elsa, was overly chatty as she led him to the baths after a very satisfying breakfast. It was not usual for all prey animals to eat meat but their digestive systems had evolved to compensate for it, which was just as well for their long-term survival and the betterment of predator and prey relations. It had not stopped those of an illicit ilk, however, from beating them down at every opportunity: the ghouls and ghosts and demons and, of course, the vampires. They were a scourge - were they not? Did they not take lives needlessly, all to feed themselves when they could, surely, find some other way?

Jacob could not answer the questions for himself but he could slip into the hot water of a bath set at the level of the floor - more like a pool than anything else. He could not have swum in it but he could immerse himself completely, allowing the sweetness of scented oils and finery to wash away his troubles for hour upon hour. There seemed to be no sense in getting out anytime soon if he was only going to come face to face with Marchesa or even that devoted little servant of hers. If he was going to die, at least he was going to die clean and smelling of roses.

Of course, clean clothes weren't on the agenda when he rose from the water, having taken the braids out of his mane and letting it flow wetly down the arch of his neck. All he could do was wrap a drying robe around his lower half and dry off his upper body the best he could, body littered with scars, as sculpted as it otherwise was from his line of work. He was a sight to behold and no one could deny that - least of all the canine watching from the shadows.

"You're beautiful, do you know that?"

He leapt and snorted, nostrils flaring as he set himself to fight, every muscle in his body tensing once more even after the sweetness of his bath. His breath came in short, sharp pants and he tried to swallow, yet found that he could not.

Marchesa stepped into full view, a small smile playing across her lips that did not reach her eyes. Jacob lifted his head high, acutely aware of his state of undress and lack of weapons, though it was not as if he was completely helpless against her when he still had his body to fight for him, as battered and broken as it was.

Something in her seemed to break and she faltered as she stepped closer, although Jacob only took a step back, keeping the same amount of distance between them.

"Don't be afraid."

The horse snorted.

"Kind of hard not to, if you'll forgive me, ma'am."

Her brow furrowed.

"Am I truly that terrifying?"

"With those fangs, yes. Yes, you are."

She sighed, seeming to crumple in on herself as she perched on the changing bench in the large washroom, eyes downcast and legs bent with her bare hind paws flat on the floor. They were surprisingly delicate without the garb of her boots and she reached down slowly to rub and massage them, working her fingers between the toes.

"I never liked those boots all that much," she said quietly. "And the delicate ware. I only have them still because visiting a marketplace isn't within the scope of my ability anymore and my cobbler is no longer with us."

Jacob could not saying anything to that, eyes brimming over with distrust, and she sighed again, standing and brushing off her skirts, a plainer wear than what he'd met her in that was nonetheless high quality.

"Come with me."

What option did he have but to go with her? He may well have been walking to his doom, the hangman's fanged noose, but the equine kept a way back as she led him silently from the bathing chamber to the hallway, illuminated with lanterns set into the walls that must have been lit in advance. There was no carpet as they delved deeper into the castle, the path sloping gently downwards beneath their paws, until they arrived at a set of stairs behind a creaky oaken door that was completely free of dust. Although it was not the prettiest of locations, it was clearly a walkway well-used on a daily basis.

Down and down the steps they went, Jacob's trepidation growing in acute perverseness with the dropping temperature. Taking a lantern from the wall, Marchesa lit the way from them with a bobbing globe of light that was barely enough for either of them to see where they were stepping but they reached the bottom safely to the standard fare of a wine cellar. Great barrels of wine lined the basement and Jacob shivered, reeling back into the darkness. Could he strike her while her back was turned? But everyone knew that vampires had excellent vision in the dark, which only meant that the lantern was for him and him alone. He was the vulnerable one - not her.

"Come."

He had nowhere to go and yet he took a step forward, watching as she took a clean, crystal goblet and filled it from the nearest vat, the handle of which was black and free of dust. But, to his shock, it was not wine that flowed from the spigot but deep, ruby blood, which splashed joyously into the goblet as she lifted it high, showing him clearly what it contained. Sucking in a breath, Jacob stepped back shakily, blood roaring in his ears.

Was his blood going to be the next lot to fill a barrel? He breathed shortly and shallowly, rolling his eyes as the whites of them showed too clearly, although Marchesa held up a paw, eyes narrowing with something that he could not determine.

"I..."

But his tongue stuck crudely to the roof of his mouth, betraying him in the moment that he needed it most. If she lunged for him, he knew he was gone, done, the end. There was no way he could be successful at fighting back in his condition, although he wearily and instinctively shifted his weight back on his hooves, preparing for the worst. There was nothing else, of course, that he could do but fight to the very bitter last breath.

Yet the vampire held up a paw to quiet him, his chest rising and falling so rapidly that it was a wonder that he hadn't passed out, for surely there was no possible way that he was able to get all of the air he needed into his lungs at such a shallow rate. Trying to growl in the back of his throat, the stallion seemed to grumble, ears flicking one way and then another as if expecting a monster to leap from the shadows or simple the one before him to make her move: there truly was no way to tell.

"I filled these on a hunt nigh on forty years ago," she said quietly, her eyes misted over in the dwell of memory. "I know I must have blood to survive and, trust me, no being wants to die - not even the rabbit before the fox. But...I could not stand to take a single life more. This supply will last me decades more and then..."

She took a deep, shuddering breath as Jacob's jaw dropped. Wait, she couldn't possibly mean... But Marchesa had more to say and was merely steadying her nerve to continue, forcing herself on as the words came thick and slow from her lips.

"And then, I will have to find another way... I know that and I loathe the thought of it. But I will deal with that when the time comes. For now, this is how I feed and sustain myself and I pray every day for the lives lost and taken so long ago."

Licking her lips, the glass in her paw trembled, ripples spreading across the surface of the liquid contained within.

"I thought...maybe you should know. Maybe you're one who can understand."

Jacob gulped and shook his head. Sure, he was capable of understanding but no one was able to take in that much information in one hit! There was so much, too much, and he rubbed the back of his head, stance relaxing somewhat as he tried to grind his mind over what had been said, working through the words, one by one. It was the only way to start.

"Wait, so... The deaths..."

And she was already shaking her head as he spoke, cutting across as if she needed to make her side heard, perhaps for the very first time; there was no way to ultimately tell without hearing it from her very own lips.

"If there are any deaths in these parts, they are not caused by me," Marchesa murmured with bated breath, hardly moving her lips at all as she spoke as if she was afraid of what they may unleash. "But no one cares for a vampire now, do they? I'm an easy target for blame and the best manner of scapegoat they have at their disposal. That's why they send furs like you into my home, invading what has been in my family for generations and trying to send me into the abyss itself."

The words struck him like a slap across the face and Jacob licked his lips, although his mouth was too dry, sandpaper rasping against the roof of his mouth. He should have had the words to make things make sense again, yet nothing came to mind as he rubbed his throat and looked anywhere but at Marchesa. His lack of weapons, oddly, no longer seemed to matter, though he'd never felt quite so naked before another fur - and his dignity, of course, was still covered.

"N-no..." He coughed, cleared his throat and tried again. "No... Marchesa... This cellar..."

But she wasn't looking for an explanation of what she already knew. The canine's eyes hardened after many years of misunderstanding, control and abuse by the general population, cast aside by those she had loved, many years ago, and rendered an outcast to live under the canopy of hatred.

"Do you now understand?" She barked, ears pinned. "There's too much, so much that no one has understood because it's easier not to! No one wants to know what a vampire really does and no one cares if one survives an attack accidentally. They would all have been much happier if I'd died back when they broke into our home! But no! I was left here and the rest of my family - dead! But I'm the one to be hunted!"