Monster Mash | Gothic Horror
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xp_logsEmma and NamorVictor hunger for blood… and the pleasures of the flesh. Amanda is eager, Alex and Terry aren’t completely opposed… and Betsy would just like to slay the foul fiends, please.
She rose out of the darkness again. She had done this before, risen from a long sleep, had to remember who and what she was. She was… Emma. No. She shook her head. That wasn’t quite the right name. Emmeline. That was right. She had been sleeping for a long time and now she was awake again and she was…
Hungry.
She wanted… blood. Yes, that was right. Blood. She needed to find… living things. To drink their blood.
But that wasn’t the only thing she was hungry for. Emmeline glanced around her, but she was alone in the room.
Victor. She wanted Victor. Victor and blood.
He wouldn’t be far. He was never far from her side.
“Wictor?” Emmeline called, her voice weak from her long sleep. It strengthened as she called again, “Wictor? Wictor, are you here?”
There was no answer, so Emmeline decided she needed to try and find him.
She ghosted down a hallway or two, glancing into empty rooms, but the third room brought her to a halt. She stared at the two people inside it, swallowed as the scent of their blood reached her.
“You aren’t Wictor,” she said. “Have you seen Wictor?”
"Wictor?" Theresa asked, blinking up at the statuesque blonde woman who'd suddenly appeared in the doorway to... not her room, but. The room she was in? With... a man? Horrifically improper, that -- what on God's green Earth had she been thinking? Had she been thinking? "I -- no. Unless?"
Turning abruptly to face the strange man, Theresa asked, her voice full of accusation, "What do you know about Wictor?"
He put his hands up, stepping back a bit and saying, "Nothing! I don't know! What's a Wictor?" He was absolutely as baffled as she was.
“Wictor,” said Emmeline, “is my sun, my stars, my dearest heart, my passion, my love. Wictor is never far from my side. I will find my Wictor!” She stopped abruptly, suddenly focussed on the two people in front of her. “That is what a Wictor is. Whereas you two are,” she smiled, felt her fangs lengthen, their serrated edges showing above her full lower lip, “Delicious. Little. Snacks.”
Theresa froze for a moment before saying, half under her breath, "Oooooh... oh nooooo." Then she noticeably brightened and lied through her teeth. "I've been told I taste of soap and possibly dirt. Really, you should taste test him first," she said, waving her hand in the blond man's direction. "He probably tastes of um. Red meat. And wine. He seems the sort to over indulge."
"Me?!" Xandros half squeaked - extremely undignified but wholly reflective of his feelings at the moment. "No, really, I, uh.... weren't you looking for Wictor?"
"She was!" Terry exclaimed, feeling mildly guilty for trying to get him eaten first. "I don't know him personally, but we could help you look for him!" She cast wide eyes in the man's direction, then glanced to the side where she could see a partially open window.
"Yes!" Xandros added, eyes flicking to the window as well. "He uh... he sounds very important. He must be found."
“Yes,” purred Emmeline. “He must. But it is never hard for me to find my Wictor. He is always close. His body sings to mine. I can almost hear it,” she raised her head for a moment, as if listening to something very faint in the air, “humming. I think he will be with us shortly. And then,” she smiled, licked her lips, “Wictor and I shall dine.”
Meanwhile, in another room not so far away, a dark, sharp man with dark, sharp features stood waiting impatiently in front of an open floor to ceiling window. A wind teased open his loosely buttoned vest across his muscled torso, but he had no mind for the cold. His dark, sharp eyes only stared intently into the night. The remnants of his shirt and jacket lay strewn across an armchair, but the rest of what must be a library sat pristine. Untouched. Only a pair of gently billowing curtains contrasted this man against the night as a storm began to rumble in the distance. A storm like the yearning in his heart.
But soon he would not be alone. He could feel her.
She held the lamp high as she wandered the corridors, stopping now and then to test a door. All were heavy wood, black with age and locked against her hesitant attempts. What was she looking for? She couldn't exactly recall, only that it was important that she find it... or them. Then the cold metal of a handle moved under her pale slender fingers and she pushed the door open to reveal a large room filled with shelves reaching up into the dark shadows of the ceiling where her lamp did not reach, books lining the shelves, their gilt titles reflecting dimly in the light. A breeze blew her long golden hair back off her face, pressed her thin white nightgown against the curves of her body and her breath caught in her chest as she caught sight of the figure standing in the window. He could have been carved from marble, he was so pale, so still.
Was this who she was seeking? It had to be.
His stony features could have in fact been marble in how they held no emotion as he looked her over. Cold, distant... but entirely captivating. The man stepped closer, expression still locked on the new blonde like a wolf staring down prey. The flickering candlelight of the room revealed more of him from the shadow — in his hand he held an empty glass goblet, and his state of undress must have been deliberate, as he still wore most of what had been a formal tuxedo.
"What comes to Us in the night?" Victor drew out teasingly, lighting flashing outside the window in punctuation. He smiled then, predatory, and took another step forward. "And what a gift you are. I am the Lord Baron Victor of Atlantvaria, and you are welcome in my home."
She moved towards him, extending a hand like delicate porcelain. "My Lord," she murmured. "It seems... I know you. That I've known you all my life. I am Amandaline, and I am yours, should you wish it."
Victor took the offered hand in his own, raising it to his lips. His next words were soft, and his warm breath played over her fingers as he continued, "All children of Adam are my own, Amandaline. You are all so fleeting, so supple..."
He pulled her to him, then, extinguishing the distance between them with a kiss. Yet he didn't stop at merely the lips — his mouth trailed her jawline like a promise, stopping to toy with her ears as his fangs, glinting in the moonlight, extended. "... so willing to give yourself to the night."
Emmeline contemplated the two in front of her, the increasingly frantic glances between them. “Come, my kittens, my darlings, my snacks. Don’t fret. It doesn’t hurt you know.” She smiled, exposing the length of her fangs. “Well, maybe a little. At first.”
And then her head turned, a swift glance to her left, her eyes unfocused but her body intent. “Wictor!” she said. “There is Wictor.” She looked back at them again. “Well, my sweet little canapés, my amuses-gueule, my demitasses of delight, you will have the pleasure of meeting my Wictor. It will be one of the highlights of your life.” She lifted a corner of her mouth in a smile. “Though it will probably be a brief meeting.”
She felt the power flow through her then, watched their eyes glaze over as she let her vampiric mesmerism run through her, run over them. She didn’t even look back as she turned and walked from the room, her imperious, “Come!” being followed by the sound of footsteps behind her.
Emmeline’s walk down the hallway was swift, and, if she’d been breathing, her breath would have caught in her throat at the sight of the open door. She swept through it, then stopped, her pale bosom heaving so rapidly with emotion that it threatened to spill out of her silken décolletage.
“Wictor,” she said, at the sight of her love, her dark, handsome, brooding love, his lips hovering over the throat of something pale and uninteresting. “Wictor!”
At the sound of her voice, a crack of lightning punctuated the night. The statuesque man, his fangs illuminated by brief light, stood frozen in that flash: a picture of a creature about to make a kill. That is, until she arrived.
“My dearest world, time only crawls between when I have the favor of your embrace.”
It was quick, but between that flash of the storm and the next living heartbeat Victor was across the room and before Emmeline. He stood poised before her, possessed by a longing that was markedly absent as he held Amandaline. “Ages have turned since we were last reunited. Empires have fallen.”
Behind him, a disgruntled and confused Amandaline tried to parse what had happened. One moment she’d been surrendering herself to the dark, wantonly seeking his cold embrace and the next… she was on her butt on the floor, having been dropped like so much rubbish, cast away in favour of that… that… HUSSY.
The fact they were both blond, both dressed in diaphanous silk and both had fair complexions did not even register with her. All she knew was she’d been supplanted by what must obviously be some low-class slattern. She opened her mouth to protest…
And was stopped by a hand over her mouth and a hurried shush! hissed in her ear as Xandaros dragged her away, catching the other woman's eye and jerking his head at the window. The message was clear - time to get out.
Theresa picked up her skirts and darted toward the window, unlatching it even as the blond man hauled the human blonde toward it.
"Wait, what... no! Let me go!" Amandaline struggled ineffectually in Alex's grasp. "You brigand! Unhand me at once! I must go back to my love!"
"Hush your ninny mouth," Theresa hissed at the struggling woman. "D'you want t'get eaten?" Shoving the window open, she looked down to see that, while they were several storeys up, they were at least positioned over a fairly large bush. "Honestly, y'great ruddy church bell."
"Please excuse me, Miss," Xandros said, stooping down and sweeping the woman into his arms, carrying her bridal-style. "I'm normally of the mind of ladies first, but I believe it would be best for me to go first in this case. I'll do my best to catch you!"
He jumped onto the window sill, balancing for a moment, before launching himself and the woman in his arms out the window.
Theresa smiled despite herself and the situation as a whole. That had been... remarkably thoughtful of the gentleman. She glanced over her shoulder, took in the... very distracted vampires, and then looked out over the window ledge to see if the blond man had landed safely.
Amandaline had let out a shriek as they'd gone out the window, but now at least she was silent - as they landed she'd swooned away and lay limply - if not picturesquely - in Xandros' arms.
Quite the damsel in distress, Xandros thought as he shifted to keep ahold of her and called, "Ready when you are!" in a hushed tone.
Theresa nodded firmly to herself, gathered her skirts once again, and stepped up onto the windowsill. A moment later she was airborne, clutching the fabric in her fingers as though it might save her from the bushes below.
The fabric may not have, but Xandros did, catching her with surprising grace and giving her a brilliant smile. "All right, m'lady?"
"Oof," Terry exhaled hard for a moment, eyes widening as she found herself pressed up against the blond man, her fingers curled against his chest. Then she smiled softly, despite what she could just imagine her mother saying, and murmured, "My hero.”
A flash of lightning sizzled outside the window, lit her beloved’s features, a marble Adonis brought to unlife. “Wictor, my darling,” purred Emmeline, letting her hand reach out, drift lightly over his cheekbone. “Any time away from your embrace is an eternity. And eternity is not time enough to spend with you, my heart, my love.” Somehow, despite the fact she wasn’t breathing, her bosom heaved again, just brushing against his muscled chest. “To wake near you, ah… but…” Emmeline smiled, fangily. “I have brought you some little snacks to sate our waking hunger, to slake our thirst, to make our blood run strong…” her hand left his cheek, drifted down over his chest, sliding down his spectacular abs, “and hot.” Emmeline snapped her teeth at her love and then looked around her, her expression growing bewildered.
Her surprise thickened her accent. “Vait? Vhere did everybody go?”
***
Her galoshes left a darkened trail across the frostbitten grass as Elizabeth walked towards the mansion looming before her. Shivering, she stopped to look at the device she held in her hand, barely readable in the argent moonlight that filtered through the black, leafless trees. There was no doubt about it; the fiends she had been charged with tracking down must be in close proximity. Suddenly she heard a loud thud, as of something large falling from some height, and then voices. Human voices. Undeterred by her senses advising her to leave this place and never to return, she took off in a sprint towards the sound, all the while shouting an alarm to any innocent that might have strayed to this desolate manor: “Hark! A great evil lurks inside the walls of this place! Flee while you still can!”
Theresa had leaned in and stood up on her tiptoes to give the blond man a chaste kiss when she heard someone yelling about great evil and fleeing. She dropped back on her heels, looked down at the blonde woman who'd swooned, and then over toward the figure running toward them. "Heavens above, you loon. We just got away from them -- let's hope you didn't draw their attention." She threw her hands up in the air, exasperated.
Sensing perhaps that she was no longer the centre of anyone's attention, Amandaline stirred from her swoon, saying faintly: "Where is my lord? Where is my cold love?" Then she realised she was lying on the cold, wet ground. "Ugh! Is there no chivalry? No coat you could spread on this filthy ground?"
Xandros, ever so patient, gave the blonde a smile. "My deepest apologies, m'lady, but I appear to be lacking a coat." Actually, he's only wearing one shirt. He turned to the new woman, raising an eyebrow. "And how is it you know of the evil?”
Elizabeth studied the ragtag group, noting the blonde’s immodest night attire and the male's disheveled appearance. Not the monsters she sought, but their victims, or perhaps... hapless thralls? She directed her words at the redheaded woman, who seemed the least affected of the three. “This device - “ she lifted her hand to give them a better look “ - alerts me to the presence of an ancient malevolence on these grounds. A heinous aberration of nature, something that should be long dead and yet, still roams on God’s green Earth.” She lowered her voice dramatically. “Vampires.”
Theresa would have clutched pearls, had she been wearing any -- instead, she considered the fangs she'd seen and how she didn't remember getting from one room to the other. She had a blank spot in her memory that ended when she'd startled, finding herself with the others and realising she'd need to jump out of a window after all. "You're right. We... well, I was just going to go home, perhaps have an extra long confession with several more Hail Marys than I typically have to perform. But... I think... we should do something? Maybe?"
Xandros looked up at the window, then at the women around him. "I suppose... she seems quite eager to get back." He nodded to the blonde. Would it be using her as bait if she was willing?
Cocking her head to one side, Elizabeth considered the blonde woman. “She may be too far gone to ever truly be free of this creature’s infernal clutches, but this could be her one last chance of redemption. Be that as it may, the choice must be hers and hers alone. What do you say, fair lady? Will you act as our lure to draw out these dark monstrosities of the night?”
Amandaline stopped fussing with her clothes, trying to pull her nightgown up enough to cover the expanse of bosom, with a sudden longing. “Draw my dark lord to me? That is all I long to do, to feel his embrace, to revel in his kisses, to give my body to him…” Fortunately she was interrupted before she could continue any further.
Theresa used the motion of straightening her skirts to whack the blonde woman in the shoulder with the sodden cloth. Honestly, some people. "Sounds like she's interested," she said. "Mayhap we should -- well. I've never dealt with vampires before. How do you suppose we ought to work the trap?”
“Well, usually one cripples the bait and sets them free in the general vicinity of the fiends, but in this case I doubt that will be necessary. They are like wild beasts that cannot ignore their hunger for long periods; once they smell her life’s blood they are bound to seek it out.” Elizabeth glanced back at the blonde before clarifying: “Through the skin I mean. Their sense of smell is more highly developed than ours. You two should take these though.” She passed small bottles of clear liquid to the redhead and young man. “Holy water, drawn from a spring in Italy that for centuries has been a site of pilgrimage and blessed by the most devout of monks. I will take point with my equipment but if they stray in your direction that water will be to them a most frightful poison.”
She softened her voice as if speaking to a child and addressed the blonde woman directly, gesturing at the manor’s looming entrance. “Your lord lies beyond these doors. Do you seek his presence? Then go forth and follow the yearning which calls you to him."
“I will! Oh, yes, I shall find him!” Amandaline rushed forward towards the doors, pushing them open with some effort before disappearing into the darkness inside.
Xandros tilted his head as the woman ran in - had he remembered to ask for any of their names? - then looked at the woman with the strange device. She seemed to know what she was doing, so with a sweep of his arms he said, "Ladies first?"
*****
“Wictor, my lord, my prince of the undead, ruler of my heart,” Emmeline’s voice was husky with desire, her fingers drifting in the air, millimetres from Victor’s alabaster pectorals, “I long for you to hold me, to hold me as you did on the night you first took me, made me into your pale queen, stole away my breath in,” her fingers touched the pale curve of her bosom lightly, “every way. But much as I long for your embrace, I think we need to find our snacks, to feast on them. For without their blood, their heat, we will have to deal with,” her mouth curled down into the slightest of moues, “your little problem.”
It was a miniscule reaction in just a tightening of the eyes, but it was enough to change Victor's entire contenance from estranged Byronic lover to an unforgiving creature of stone and the night. "We do not speak of this, my darling. We long ago reached an understanding."
Still, his senses were up now, and there was the warm scent of human blood in the air. His lady desired satisfaction. "My moon behind the clouds, my every swell of consuming shadow, tell me of your pets. I look forward to knowing them both intimately. My own gift to you..."
There was a beat, and he smiled a fang-toothed grin. The hunt was on. "She cannot wait to fill our cups."
****
"My lord? Are you there?" Amandaline's breathless voice echoed throughout the darkened halls, awakening the rats and other creatures lurking in the rafters. Small squeaks and rustlings caused her to grasp her nightgown closer to her neck and hasten her steps. "Please, where are you?"
"You sweet, delectable child. We are everywhere."
Victor's voice came from nowhere. He could have been in any shadow, down any hallway. Amandaline was still alone, but there was no doubt. She was being hunted.
The lord's deep rasp was playful, eager to savor every part of this game. "My bride, tell me. Is your gift not finely wrapped?"
“Like the most delicious of bonbonniere, my dearest heart.” Emmeline’s voice whispered out of the darkness, echoing itself as it stalked Amandaline down the hallway, driving her forwards, backwards. “Let me unwrap her for you slowly, my dark Prince, feed her to you drop by drop. I want to feel her shiver underneath your mouth.”
There was another pleased chuckle from the dark. "You have always known exactly how to indulge my particular fetish for fear, my dark one. Bring her to me."
Something akin to dread had pierced the haze of suicidal wantonness that had seized her, and Amandaline paused, trying to pinpoint the whispers. “My lord?” she called, but there was doubt in her voice now. “Who is with you? Who is she?”
The hand around Amandaline’s neck was as pale as marble and as strong. “Who am I?” Emmeline’s lips whispered in the air millimetres from the thundering pulse in Amandaline’s neck. “I’m who you want to be,” she said. “I’m his. I’m Wictor’s white queen. You can never be to him what I am. But,” Emmeline’s voice turned playful, “you have something that I want. That he wants.” A diamond-sharp fingernail slipped beneath the bow that strained and bobbed on Amandaline’s bosom, her panicked breaths making it dance. “Shall I unwrap her for you now, my love?” Emmeline crooned into the darkness.
Fighting the urge to avert her eyes from the debauchery taking place in front of her, Elizabeth held strong and strode forth, brandishing a gilded crucifix in the direction of this predator of the night readying to claim it’s victim. “Begone, foul beast. The light of Christ compels you!” In her other hand she held a small pistol crossbow, with a wooden stake taking the place of the traditional bolt. She spared a quick glance at her recently found companions, hoping they would be able to keep about their wits while affronted with this wanton display of perversion.
Theresa tried to pry her eyes off the tableau before her, but she found it alternately fascinating and horrifying. She held up the cross on its thin chain where it hung from her neck, previously hidden by her clothing, and blinked again at the women in the hallway before crying out, "Yes, the Power of Christ compels you!" She felt vaguely like a fraud, but also like this might be the most thrillingly dangerous thing to ever happen to her in the entirety of her life, however long she might live. If she lived. Maybe she ought not to have drawn attention to herself.
Xandros knew enough about vampires to know that wooden stakes were the weapon of choice, and he had armed himself accordingly - sort of. He had found a sizable branch and broken it over his knee so he could have a sharp end, and if all else failed, it would be a good blunt instrument. He'd positioned himself just slightly in front of Theresa, makeshift stake raised, ready to dart forward and grab the blonde woman - provided she live through this.
Elizabeth lifted her weapon, aimed carefully at the chest of the pale aberration and fired the stake, praying it would fly true and that the human blonde was not too far gone to stay out of the way of the wrath of the male vampire that was surely to follow now that she had directly attacked it’s mate.
Surely to follow was, perhaps, an understatement.
In a flurry of darkness, the chiselled feature of Victor appeared milliseconds before the modified bolt could strike true. He did not take the spike for his mate as a heroic sacrifice, but instead stood holding the makeshift arrow plucked from mid-air with a vicious snarl plastered across his features. He hissed, "The gall you have to attack my lady-love! Your impudence! I will peel you apart so thoroughly so that all the saints will not know where to start reassembling the idea of you!"
"Wictor, my darling, my dark saviour, your timing is as impeccable as always," purred Emmeline. "I had thought to offer you this one," her hand stroked over Amandaline's pale throat, "as an aperitif. But instead we have," she turned a toothy grin at the group in the hallway, "an entire buffet arrived. Though our meals are proving a little feisty." Emmeline's teeth snapped together then, a chilling sound. "We might have to warm them up a little. Less peeling. More undoing." Her voice dropped to a throaty contralto on the last words and her pale pink tongue appeared, a touch to her upper lip.
The sudden appearance of their other adversary made Elizabeth jump back with an undignified yelp. She struggled to keep her balance as an old injury reminded her of previous battles, but in the end it only served to fortify her resolve. “I have faced worse than you in my time,” she exclaimed, once again lifting the crucifix she still held and advancing yet closer to the devilish creatures.
"We are not your meals!" Xandros said bravely, stick raised a little higher. He had no intention of being anyone's snack tonight.
"You," and Victor's accent drew this out menacingly with a sharp v-sound, "Have faced no one like the two of us. Look at you. So intent on killing us, but do you not need to eat? Perhaps we hunt you for the cow's sake and nothing more. A mercy for the chickens." He smiled, toying with the idea. "Your resolve is to be applauded, but you are the wolves that have invaded Our house. You will leave here in coffins."
"They are frightened to die, my dearest Wictor," replied Emmeline. "Not everyone understands the pleasure of the unlife we lead. But with so many, we do not need to eat them all up for you to return to your full muscled… thrusting… magnificence, my love. We could just sip them, like fine wine. A little from each." She smiled at the blond man so valiantly waving his little stick at her. "Would you like to be my pet?" she crooned. "To sit at my knee, your head on my lap? I shall put a silken leash around your neck and feed you tidbits when you ask. In the night you can serve us and in the day," her voice dropped as if she was about to tell the greatest secret of all, "you have time to read all the books you want." She raised a pale eyebrow, smiled enticingly, if somewhat toothily. "All you need to offer is a little taste of you. Now and again."
Xandros slowly lowered his weapon, tilting his head. Admittedly, the idea of letting two gorgeous people use him like that is... appealing. "As long as we don't die..."
Amandaline was still suspicious of the other blond woman, but the idea of being with her lord was an appealing one. Plus, there were the others, that would mean she would not have to die. "Oh yes," she breathed. "It is not your fault you are the way you are, needing blood to survive. We could stay here, provide you with what you need, and no-one else would be hurt..."
Theresa was... unsure, to say the least. The vampires were very pretty, but she couldn't imagine her mother approving. Though... really, with one less daughter to worry about wedding off to whomever might make the best connections... well. She cleared her throat, knowing if she had to consider Lord Windermere as a husband, all ninety-two years of him and his previous three dead wives, she might throttle her mother, so. Really, it was almost like saving everyone the trouble, in the end, wasn't it?
"I... find myself... not... entirely opposed?" Theresa murmured, the hand clutching her cross dropping in increments. Vampires would be better than Lord Windermere. Still, she glanced toward the hunter, unsure of what the woman might say or do in this situation.
Elizabeth was dismayed by the foolishness of her companions. “Surely you cannot mean you will trust your lives in the hands of these fiends, these monsters of the night? They may be beautiful to look at, with their pale, statuesque forms gleaming in the moonlight -“ and she had to admit some of her glances had been less than chaste “- but to offer up your life’s blood…” Her words faded. It wouldn’t be their lifeblood, if the creatures kept their word. And if worst came to worst, well, her job would be much easier with talents such as the vampires had displayed before them. She tried again. “I mean, they are deviations from the Lord’s great plan…” They were very pretty though…
As our victims succumb to the pleasures of the night, the curse Satanna placed on the Necronomicon breaks, and the Necronomicon hurtles itself its next appearance in space and time.
She rose out of the darkness again. She had done this before, risen from a long sleep, had to remember who and what she was. She was… Emma. No. She shook her head. That wasn’t quite the right name. Emmeline. That was right. She had been sleeping for a long time and now she was awake again and she was…
Hungry.
She wanted… blood. Yes, that was right. Blood. She needed to find… living things. To drink their blood.
But that wasn’t the only thing she was hungry for. Emmeline glanced around her, but she was alone in the room.
Victor. She wanted Victor. Victor and blood.
He wouldn’t be far. He was never far from her side.
“Wictor?” Emmeline called, her voice weak from her long sleep. It strengthened as she called again, “Wictor? Wictor, are you here?”
There was no answer, so Emmeline decided she needed to try and find him.
She ghosted down a hallway or two, glancing into empty rooms, but the third room brought her to a halt. She stared at the two people inside it, swallowed as the scent of their blood reached her.
“You aren’t Wictor,” she said. “Have you seen Wictor?”
"Wictor?" Theresa asked, blinking up at the statuesque blonde woman who'd suddenly appeared in the doorway to... not her room, but. The room she was in? With... a man? Horrifically improper, that -- what on God's green Earth had she been thinking? Had she been thinking? "I -- no. Unless?"
Turning abruptly to face the strange man, Theresa asked, her voice full of accusation, "What do you know about Wictor?"
He put his hands up, stepping back a bit and saying, "Nothing! I don't know! What's a Wictor?" He was absolutely as baffled as she was.
“Wictor,” said Emmeline, “is my sun, my stars, my dearest heart, my passion, my love. Wictor is never far from my side. I will find my Wictor!” She stopped abruptly, suddenly focussed on the two people in front of her. “That is what a Wictor is. Whereas you two are,” she smiled, felt her fangs lengthen, their serrated edges showing above her full lower lip, “Delicious. Little. Snacks.”
Theresa froze for a moment before saying, half under her breath, "Oooooh... oh nooooo." Then she noticeably brightened and lied through her teeth. "I've been told I taste of soap and possibly dirt. Really, you should taste test him first," she said, waving her hand in the blond man's direction. "He probably tastes of um. Red meat. And wine. He seems the sort to over indulge."
"Me?!" Xandros half squeaked - extremely undignified but wholly reflective of his feelings at the moment. "No, really, I, uh.... weren't you looking for Wictor?"
"She was!" Terry exclaimed, feeling mildly guilty for trying to get him eaten first. "I don't know him personally, but we could help you look for him!" She cast wide eyes in the man's direction, then glanced to the side where she could see a partially open window.
"Yes!" Xandros added, eyes flicking to the window as well. "He uh... he sounds very important. He must be found."
“Yes,” purred Emmeline. “He must. But it is never hard for me to find my Wictor. He is always close. His body sings to mine. I can almost hear it,” she raised her head for a moment, as if listening to something very faint in the air, “humming. I think he will be with us shortly. And then,” she smiled, licked her lips, “Wictor and I shall dine.”
Meanwhile, in another room not so far away, a dark, sharp man with dark, sharp features stood waiting impatiently in front of an open floor to ceiling window. A wind teased open his loosely buttoned vest across his muscled torso, but he had no mind for the cold. His dark, sharp eyes only stared intently into the night. The remnants of his shirt and jacket lay strewn across an armchair, but the rest of what must be a library sat pristine. Untouched. Only a pair of gently billowing curtains contrasted this man against the night as a storm began to rumble in the distance. A storm like the yearning in his heart.
But soon he would not be alone. He could feel her.
She held the lamp high as she wandered the corridors, stopping now and then to test a door. All were heavy wood, black with age and locked against her hesitant attempts. What was she looking for? She couldn't exactly recall, only that it was important that she find it... or them. Then the cold metal of a handle moved under her pale slender fingers and she pushed the door open to reveal a large room filled with shelves reaching up into the dark shadows of the ceiling where her lamp did not reach, books lining the shelves, their gilt titles reflecting dimly in the light. A breeze blew her long golden hair back off her face, pressed her thin white nightgown against the curves of her body and her breath caught in her chest as she caught sight of the figure standing in the window. He could have been carved from marble, he was so pale, so still.
Was this who she was seeking? It had to be.
His stony features could have in fact been marble in how they held no emotion as he looked her over. Cold, distant... but entirely captivating. The man stepped closer, expression still locked on the new blonde like a wolf staring down prey. The flickering candlelight of the room revealed more of him from the shadow — in his hand he held an empty glass goblet, and his state of undress must have been deliberate, as he still wore most of what had been a formal tuxedo.
"What comes to Us in the night?" Victor drew out teasingly, lighting flashing outside the window in punctuation. He smiled then, predatory, and took another step forward. "And what a gift you are. I am the Lord Baron Victor of Atlantvaria, and you are welcome in my home."
She moved towards him, extending a hand like delicate porcelain. "My Lord," she murmured. "It seems... I know you. That I've known you all my life. I am Amandaline, and I am yours, should you wish it."
Victor took the offered hand in his own, raising it to his lips. His next words were soft, and his warm breath played over her fingers as he continued, "All children of Adam are my own, Amandaline. You are all so fleeting, so supple..."
He pulled her to him, then, extinguishing the distance between them with a kiss. Yet he didn't stop at merely the lips — his mouth trailed her jawline like a promise, stopping to toy with her ears as his fangs, glinting in the moonlight, extended. "... so willing to give yourself to the night."
Emmeline contemplated the two in front of her, the increasingly frantic glances between them. “Come, my kittens, my darlings, my snacks. Don’t fret. It doesn’t hurt you know.” She smiled, exposing the length of her fangs. “Well, maybe a little. At first.”
And then her head turned, a swift glance to her left, her eyes unfocused but her body intent. “Wictor!” she said. “There is Wictor.” She looked back at them again. “Well, my sweet little canapés, my amuses-gueule, my demitasses of delight, you will have the pleasure of meeting my Wictor. It will be one of the highlights of your life.” She lifted a corner of her mouth in a smile. “Though it will probably be a brief meeting.”
She felt the power flow through her then, watched their eyes glaze over as she let her vampiric mesmerism run through her, run over them. She didn’t even look back as she turned and walked from the room, her imperious, “Come!” being followed by the sound of footsteps behind her.
Emmeline’s walk down the hallway was swift, and, if she’d been breathing, her breath would have caught in her throat at the sight of the open door. She swept through it, then stopped, her pale bosom heaving so rapidly with emotion that it threatened to spill out of her silken décolletage.
“Wictor,” she said, at the sight of her love, her dark, handsome, brooding love, his lips hovering over the throat of something pale and uninteresting. “Wictor!”
At the sound of her voice, a crack of lightning punctuated the night. The statuesque man, his fangs illuminated by brief light, stood frozen in that flash: a picture of a creature about to make a kill. That is, until she arrived.
“My dearest world, time only crawls between when I have the favor of your embrace.”
It was quick, but between that flash of the storm and the next living heartbeat Victor was across the room and before Emmeline. He stood poised before her, possessed by a longing that was markedly absent as he held Amandaline. “Ages have turned since we were last reunited. Empires have fallen.”
Behind him, a disgruntled and confused Amandaline tried to parse what had happened. One moment she’d been surrendering herself to the dark, wantonly seeking his cold embrace and the next… she was on her butt on the floor, having been dropped like so much rubbish, cast away in favour of that… that… HUSSY.
The fact they were both blond, both dressed in diaphanous silk and both had fair complexions did not even register with her. All she knew was she’d been supplanted by what must obviously be some low-class slattern. She opened her mouth to protest…
And was stopped by a hand over her mouth and a hurried shush! hissed in her ear as Xandaros dragged her away, catching the other woman's eye and jerking his head at the window. The message was clear - time to get out.
Theresa picked up her skirts and darted toward the window, unlatching it even as the blond man hauled the human blonde toward it.
"Wait, what... no! Let me go!" Amandaline struggled ineffectually in Alex's grasp. "You brigand! Unhand me at once! I must go back to my love!"
"Hush your ninny mouth," Theresa hissed at the struggling woman. "D'you want t'get eaten?" Shoving the window open, she looked down to see that, while they were several storeys up, they were at least positioned over a fairly large bush. "Honestly, y'great ruddy church bell."
"Please excuse me, Miss," Xandros said, stooping down and sweeping the woman into his arms, carrying her bridal-style. "I'm normally of the mind of ladies first, but I believe it would be best for me to go first in this case. I'll do my best to catch you!"
He jumped onto the window sill, balancing for a moment, before launching himself and the woman in his arms out the window.
Theresa smiled despite herself and the situation as a whole. That had been... remarkably thoughtful of the gentleman. She glanced over her shoulder, took in the... very distracted vampires, and then looked out over the window ledge to see if the blond man had landed safely.
Amandaline had let out a shriek as they'd gone out the window, but now at least she was silent - as they landed she'd swooned away and lay limply - if not picturesquely - in Xandros' arms.
Quite the damsel in distress, Xandros thought as he shifted to keep ahold of her and called, "Ready when you are!" in a hushed tone.
Theresa nodded firmly to herself, gathered her skirts once again, and stepped up onto the windowsill. A moment later she was airborne, clutching the fabric in her fingers as though it might save her from the bushes below.
The fabric may not have, but Xandros did, catching her with surprising grace and giving her a brilliant smile. "All right, m'lady?"
"Oof," Terry exhaled hard for a moment, eyes widening as she found herself pressed up against the blond man, her fingers curled against his chest. Then she smiled softly, despite what she could just imagine her mother saying, and murmured, "My hero.”
A flash of lightning sizzled outside the window, lit her beloved’s features, a marble Adonis brought to unlife. “Wictor, my darling,” purred Emmeline, letting her hand reach out, drift lightly over his cheekbone. “Any time away from your embrace is an eternity. And eternity is not time enough to spend with you, my heart, my love.” Somehow, despite the fact she wasn’t breathing, her bosom heaved again, just brushing against his muscled chest. “To wake near you, ah… but…” Emmeline smiled, fangily. “I have brought you some little snacks to sate our waking hunger, to slake our thirst, to make our blood run strong…” her hand left his cheek, drifted down over his chest, sliding down his spectacular abs, “and hot.” Emmeline snapped her teeth at her love and then looked around her, her expression growing bewildered.
Her surprise thickened her accent. “Vait? Vhere did everybody go?”
***
Her galoshes left a darkened trail across the frostbitten grass as Elizabeth walked towards the mansion looming before her. Shivering, she stopped to look at the device she held in her hand, barely readable in the argent moonlight that filtered through the black, leafless trees. There was no doubt about it; the fiends she had been charged with tracking down must be in close proximity. Suddenly she heard a loud thud, as of something large falling from some height, and then voices. Human voices. Undeterred by her senses advising her to leave this place and never to return, she took off in a sprint towards the sound, all the while shouting an alarm to any innocent that might have strayed to this desolate manor: “Hark! A great evil lurks inside the walls of this place! Flee while you still can!”
Theresa had leaned in and stood up on her tiptoes to give the blond man a chaste kiss when she heard someone yelling about great evil and fleeing. She dropped back on her heels, looked down at the blonde woman who'd swooned, and then over toward the figure running toward them. "Heavens above, you loon. We just got away from them -- let's hope you didn't draw their attention." She threw her hands up in the air, exasperated.
Sensing perhaps that she was no longer the centre of anyone's attention, Amandaline stirred from her swoon, saying faintly: "Where is my lord? Where is my cold love?" Then she realised she was lying on the cold, wet ground. "Ugh! Is there no chivalry? No coat you could spread on this filthy ground?"
Xandros, ever so patient, gave the blonde a smile. "My deepest apologies, m'lady, but I appear to be lacking a coat." Actually, he's only wearing one shirt. He turned to the new woman, raising an eyebrow. "And how is it you know of the evil?”
Elizabeth studied the ragtag group, noting the blonde’s immodest night attire and the male's disheveled appearance. Not the monsters she sought, but their victims, or perhaps... hapless thralls? She directed her words at the redheaded woman, who seemed the least affected of the three. “This device - “ she lifted her hand to give them a better look “ - alerts me to the presence of an ancient malevolence on these grounds. A heinous aberration of nature, something that should be long dead and yet, still roams on God’s green Earth.” She lowered her voice dramatically. “Vampires.”
Theresa would have clutched pearls, had she been wearing any -- instead, she considered the fangs she'd seen and how she didn't remember getting from one room to the other. She had a blank spot in her memory that ended when she'd startled, finding herself with the others and realising she'd need to jump out of a window after all. "You're right. We... well, I was just going to go home, perhaps have an extra long confession with several more Hail Marys than I typically have to perform. But... I think... we should do something? Maybe?"
Xandros looked up at the window, then at the women around him. "I suppose... she seems quite eager to get back." He nodded to the blonde. Would it be using her as bait if she was willing?
Cocking her head to one side, Elizabeth considered the blonde woman. “She may be too far gone to ever truly be free of this creature’s infernal clutches, but this could be her one last chance of redemption. Be that as it may, the choice must be hers and hers alone. What do you say, fair lady? Will you act as our lure to draw out these dark monstrosities of the night?”
Amandaline stopped fussing with her clothes, trying to pull her nightgown up enough to cover the expanse of bosom, with a sudden longing. “Draw my dark lord to me? That is all I long to do, to feel his embrace, to revel in his kisses, to give my body to him…” Fortunately she was interrupted before she could continue any further.
Theresa used the motion of straightening her skirts to whack the blonde woman in the shoulder with the sodden cloth. Honestly, some people. "Sounds like she's interested," she said. "Mayhap we should -- well. I've never dealt with vampires before. How do you suppose we ought to work the trap?”
“Well, usually one cripples the bait and sets them free in the general vicinity of the fiends, but in this case I doubt that will be necessary. They are like wild beasts that cannot ignore their hunger for long periods; once they smell her life’s blood they are bound to seek it out.” Elizabeth glanced back at the blonde before clarifying: “Through the skin I mean. Their sense of smell is more highly developed than ours. You two should take these though.” She passed small bottles of clear liquid to the redhead and young man. “Holy water, drawn from a spring in Italy that for centuries has been a site of pilgrimage and blessed by the most devout of monks. I will take point with my equipment but if they stray in your direction that water will be to them a most frightful poison.”
She softened her voice as if speaking to a child and addressed the blonde woman directly, gesturing at the manor’s looming entrance. “Your lord lies beyond these doors. Do you seek his presence? Then go forth and follow the yearning which calls you to him."
“I will! Oh, yes, I shall find him!” Amandaline rushed forward towards the doors, pushing them open with some effort before disappearing into the darkness inside.
Xandros tilted his head as the woman ran in - had he remembered to ask for any of their names? - then looked at the woman with the strange device. She seemed to know what she was doing, so with a sweep of his arms he said, "Ladies first?"
*****
“Wictor, my lord, my prince of the undead, ruler of my heart,” Emmeline’s voice was husky with desire, her fingers drifting in the air, millimetres from Victor’s alabaster pectorals, “I long for you to hold me, to hold me as you did on the night you first took me, made me into your pale queen, stole away my breath in,” her fingers touched the pale curve of her bosom lightly, “every way. But much as I long for your embrace, I think we need to find our snacks, to feast on them. For without their blood, their heat, we will have to deal with,” her mouth curled down into the slightest of moues, “your little problem.”
It was a miniscule reaction in just a tightening of the eyes, but it was enough to change Victor's entire contenance from estranged Byronic lover to an unforgiving creature of stone and the night. "We do not speak of this, my darling. We long ago reached an understanding."
Still, his senses were up now, and there was the warm scent of human blood in the air. His lady desired satisfaction. "My moon behind the clouds, my every swell of consuming shadow, tell me of your pets. I look forward to knowing them both intimately. My own gift to you..."
There was a beat, and he smiled a fang-toothed grin. The hunt was on. "She cannot wait to fill our cups."
****
"My lord? Are you there?" Amandaline's breathless voice echoed throughout the darkened halls, awakening the rats and other creatures lurking in the rafters. Small squeaks and rustlings caused her to grasp her nightgown closer to her neck and hasten her steps. "Please, where are you?"
"You sweet, delectable child. We are everywhere."
Victor's voice came from nowhere. He could have been in any shadow, down any hallway. Amandaline was still alone, but there was no doubt. She was being hunted.
The lord's deep rasp was playful, eager to savor every part of this game. "My bride, tell me. Is your gift not finely wrapped?"
“Like the most delicious of bonbonniere, my dearest heart.” Emmeline’s voice whispered out of the darkness, echoing itself as it stalked Amandaline down the hallway, driving her forwards, backwards. “Let me unwrap her for you slowly, my dark Prince, feed her to you drop by drop. I want to feel her shiver underneath your mouth.”
There was another pleased chuckle from the dark. "You have always known exactly how to indulge my particular fetish for fear, my dark one. Bring her to me."
Something akin to dread had pierced the haze of suicidal wantonness that had seized her, and Amandaline paused, trying to pinpoint the whispers. “My lord?” she called, but there was doubt in her voice now. “Who is with you? Who is she?”
The hand around Amandaline’s neck was as pale as marble and as strong. “Who am I?” Emmeline’s lips whispered in the air millimetres from the thundering pulse in Amandaline’s neck. “I’m who you want to be,” she said. “I’m his. I’m Wictor’s white queen. You can never be to him what I am. But,” Emmeline’s voice turned playful, “you have something that I want. That he wants.” A diamond-sharp fingernail slipped beneath the bow that strained and bobbed on Amandaline’s bosom, her panicked breaths making it dance. “Shall I unwrap her for you now, my love?” Emmeline crooned into the darkness.
Fighting the urge to avert her eyes from the debauchery taking place in front of her, Elizabeth held strong and strode forth, brandishing a gilded crucifix in the direction of this predator of the night readying to claim it’s victim. “Begone, foul beast. The light of Christ compels you!” In her other hand she held a small pistol crossbow, with a wooden stake taking the place of the traditional bolt. She spared a quick glance at her recently found companions, hoping they would be able to keep about their wits while affronted with this wanton display of perversion.
Theresa tried to pry her eyes off the tableau before her, but she found it alternately fascinating and horrifying. She held up the cross on its thin chain where it hung from her neck, previously hidden by her clothing, and blinked again at the women in the hallway before crying out, "Yes, the Power of Christ compels you!" She felt vaguely like a fraud, but also like this might be the most thrillingly dangerous thing to ever happen to her in the entirety of her life, however long she might live. If she lived. Maybe she ought not to have drawn attention to herself.
Xandros knew enough about vampires to know that wooden stakes were the weapon of choice, and he had armed himself accordingly - sort of. He had found a sizable branch and broken it over his knee so he could have a sharp end, and if all else failed, it would be a good blunt instrument. He'd positioned himself just slightly in front of Theresa, makeshift stake raised, ready to dart forward and grab the blonde woman - provided she live through this.
Elizabeth lifted her weapon, aimed carefully at the chest of the pale aberration and fired the stake, praying it would fly true and that the human blonde was not too far gone to stay out of the way of the wrath of the male vampire that was surely to follow now that she had directly attacked it’s mate.
Surely to follow was, perhaps, an understatement.
In a flurry of darkness, the chiselled feature of Victor appeared milliseconds before the modified bolt could strike true. He did not take the spike for his mate as a heroic sacrifice, but instead stood holding the makeshift arrow plucked from mid-air with a vicious snarl plastered across his features. He hissed, "The gall you have to attack my lady-love! Your impudence! I will peel you apart so thoroughly so that all the saints will not know where to start reassembling the idea of you!"
"Wictor, my darling, my dark saviour, your timing is as impeccable as always," purred Emmeline. "I had thought to offer you this one," her hand stroked over Amandaline's pale throat, "as an aperitif. But instead we have," she turned a toothy grin at the group in the hallway, "an entire buffet arrived. Though our meals are proving a little feisty." Emmeline's teeth snapped together then, a chilling sound. "We might have to warm them up a little. Less peeling. More undoing." Her voice dropped to a throaty contralto on the last words and her pale pink tongue appeared, a touch to her upper lip.
The sudden appearance of their other adversary made Elizabeth jump back with an undignified yelp. She struggled to keep her balance as an old injury reminded her of previous battles, but in the end it only served to fortify her resolve. “I have faced worse than you in my time,” she exclaimed, once again lifting the crucifix she still held and advancing yet closer to the devilish creatures.
"We are not your meals!" Xandros said bravely, stick raised a little higher. He had no intention of being anyone's snack tonight.
"You," and Victor's accent drew this out menacingly with a sharp v-sound, "Have faced no one like the two of us. Look at you. So intent on killing us, but do you not need to eat? Perhaps we hunt you for the cow's sake and nothing more. A mercy for the chickens." He smiled, toying with the idea. "Your resolve is to be applauded, but you are the wolves that have invaded Our house. You will leave here in coffins."
"They are frightened to die, my dearest Wictor," replied Emmeline. "Not everyone understands the pleasure of the unlife we lead. But with so many, we do not need to eat them all up for you to return to your full muscled… thrusting… magnificence, my love. We could just sip them, like fine wine. A little from each." She smiled at the blond man so valiantly waving his little stick at her. "Would you like to be my pet?" she crooned. "To sit at my knee, your head on my lap? I shall put a silken leash around your neck and feed you tidbits when you ask. In the night you can serve us and in the day," her voice dropped as if she was about to tell the greatest secret of all, "you have time to read all the books you want." She raised a pale eyebrow, smiled enticingly, if somewhat toothily. "All you need to offer is a little taste of you. Now and again."
Xandros slowly lowered his weapon, tilting his head. Admittedly, the idea of letting two gorgeous people use him like that is... appealing. "As long as we don't die..."
Amandaline was still suspicious of the other blond woman, but the idea of being with her lord was an appealing one. Plus, there were the others, that would mean she would not have to die. "Oh yes," she breathed. "It is not your fault you are the way you are, needing blood to survive. We could stay here, provide you with what you need, and no-one else would be hurt..."
Theresa was... unsure, to say the least. The vampires were very pretty, but she couldn't imagine her mother approving. Though... really, with one less daughter to worry about wedding off to whomever might make the best connections... well. She cleared her throat, knowing if she had to consider Lord Windermere as a husband, all ninety-two years of him and his previous three dead wives, she might throttle her mother, so. Really, it was almost like saving everyone the trouble, in the end, wasn't it?
"I... find myself... not... entirely opposed?" Theresa murmured, the hand clutching her cross dropping in increments. Vampires would be better than Lord Windermere. Still, she glanced toward the hunter, unsure of what the woman might say or do in this situation.
Elizabeth was dismayed by the foolishness of her companions. “Surely you cannot mean you will trust your lives in the hands of these fiends, these monsters of the night? They may be beautiful to look at, with their pale, statuesque forms gleaming in the moonlight -“ and she had to admit some of her glances had been less than chaste “- but to offer up your life’s blood…” Her words faded. It wouldn’t be their lifeblood, if the creatures kept their word. And if worst came to worst, well, her job would be much easier with talents such as the vampires had displayed before them. She tried again. “I mean, they are deviations from the Lord’s great plan…” They were very pretty though…
As our victims succumb to the pleasures of the night, the curse Satanna placed on the Necronomicon breaks, and the Necronomicon hurtles itself its next appearance in space and time.
