Sips of Blood Part 34

"Listen, we have a responsibility to see to it that the box is safely buried."

Sade sighed. "But she will need the... coffin," Sade corrected.

"That's right. You're getting it now. Whoever's in that box will need it for eternity."

"Well, at least for the ride over to Europe, monsieur."

"We can't have n.o.body stealing bodies we're responsible for. We'd lose our jobs."

"Yeah," added Rob. "If you want to dig her up later when we're not around, we don't care. We just want to complete our job."

Sade lifted his hand off the coffin and tapped his index finger on his lips. They could serve a purpose. He had expected to present her with smaller prey, but...

Sade spun around toward the grave diggers and rushed at them with both arms outstretched.

"Holy s.h.i.+t!"

Sade couldn't tell which of them had spoken, but he did see both men take on a stance to down him before he grabbed each by the neck and tumbled both to the ground. He kicked one in the head and rapped the other man's head against a tombstone.

Sade checked their pulses. Neither man was dead, simply unconscious. He needed them alive and warm.

Sade flung the flowers onto the ground and drew up the lid of the coffin in a swift heave that broke the seal. Cecelia's head lay quiet and still on a lace and satin pillow. Her hair, spun in ringlets, lay spread out like a halo. Sade had suggested that the parents not allow her to be marked in any further way and recommended a sealed coffin with immediate burial. The family had agreed; otherwise, he would have been pulling out st.i.tches, barbed wire, and all sorts of paraphernalia used this modern day to preserve the beauty of the dead for the short duration of a wake.

Cecelia had on a frilly, lacy high-collared dress that her mother had insisted on, a dress supposedly that duplicated the child's First Communion dress. Had not the mother noticed that her daughter had grown into a woman? Sade wondered. Wrapped around Cecelia's fingers was a rosary, light blue crystal beads that glinted under the movement of the day's clouds. Her body appeared to be drowned in lacy fussy folds. Her feet were naked; even the dark red polish that her mother had hated had been removed from the toe nails.

Sade turned back to the two men lying on the ground, the smell of blood rousing his pa.s.sions. The one whose head he had knocked against the tombstone was bleeding. Sade drew near to the man and swept his fingers against the wound. The blood glistened and ran down Sade's fingers. Tempted to lap up the spillage, Sade immediately returned to the coffin and spread the blood across Cecelia's lips. He did this once more before he noticed the corpse pick up the scent. Her nose twitched, her tongue slipped across her lips, and gradually she came alive. Seeing Sade, she burst into laughter.

"Mon enfant, they did not get the chance to bury you. I stayed with you." He smiled and pushed her back down when she attempted to rise. "First you must feed."

Sade went back to the two men, lifted the bleeding man in his arms and carried the unconscious grave digger to Cecelia. When she saw the bleeding man, she swallowed hard.

"Move over, mon enfant." Awarkwardly Sade laid the man next to Cecelia. The thin, short man took up little room next to her. She reached out to touch his wound, but pulled back before her fingers made contact.

"Do not be afraid, Cecelia. Touch it," Sade encouraged.

Slowly she reached out her hand again. This time she did touch the blood, but withdrew her fingers immediately as if burned.

"Must not be queasy, mon enfant. This is your dinner." He watched her again take a hard swallow. "Smell him. Smell the blood. Do you not hunger?"

She nodded.

"Did you not drink of me?"

For a moment she thought. "But he isn't you. He's a stranger."

"So are the roast beef and chicken you've been eating for years."

Cecelia reached a hand up to Sade, begging him to share his blood with her.

"No, mon enfant. Occasionally in pa.s.sion we will take from each other, but true nutriment will come from those who are not driven to suck human blood."

Cecelia looked at the man.

"He may not be pretty, mon enfant, but he is rich in the blood that mars your dainty pillow."

She lifted herself slightly so that she could view the spreading stain. Sade allowed her to chew on the lace and satin for a few minutes. He knew that would enliven her hunger and force her to turn to the source. She began licking the gravedigger's wound, but Sade forced her head down until her lips touched the man's neck.

"Feel the pulse, enfant."

She nuzzled into the neck. When joy lighted her features, Sade knew she had located the carotid.

"Now, enfant, take what you need. Bite down and take what you need."

Cecelia bit down.

"No, fille! Gnash down upon his flesh with all the power you contain."

She bit harder, but still did not crack the skin.

"Grip his flesh in your fangs and tear, mon enfant."

Her chest heaved in desperation. Finally she screamed, grabbed the man's head between her palms, and furiously bit down.

The blood spurted onto her nose and mouth, and the man's head seemed to cave in on both sides.

"Does not matter. He will not be needing what little brains he had, mon enfant."

Chapter 55.

Liliana watched her uncle feed his new protegee. She wondered whether he would suck dry the other man or leave him for the mutants.

Dressed only in an oversized sweats.h.i.+rt and panties, Liliana hid behind a bulbous trunk that belonged to an old maple tree. She could hear the sopping sounds of lips worrying flesh, the noise made by a novice that unnecessarily rips and tears.

As the girl gained strength, she rose to hover over her meal. She began shredding the man's clothes with her fingers in search of his s.e.x, needing to feed all the hungers of her body. Sade allowed her to explore. He obviously relished the frantic exhibition. Liliana watched his eyes s.h.i.+mmer with delight. Watched his own mouth work in unison with Cecelia's. Watched his hands fold into tight fists. Watched his body stiffen with his own s.e.xual arousal.

Liliana reached down between her legs and through the cotton she fingered herself, her blood hunger rising again at the sight and smell of the unconscious men.

But the man on the ground moved. So engrossed in watching his charge, Sade did not notice. In a squat position Liliana bounced up and down, ready to spring, ready to kill.

A moan came from the man. This Sade heard, and he turned to catch the eye of the doomed man. Moving in a flash, Sade grabbed hold of the man before the man could gain his footing. Partly kneeling, partly cowering, the man fussed as a baby in his father's arms. She knew Sade enjoyed the scramble, enjoyed finding fear in his prey's eyes, enjoyed the slow kill.

The man opened his mouth to scream, but Sade held him so tightly by the throat that he could not. Grinning, Sade hissed and brought his fangs down on the man's carotid. Blood poured from the wound, and Liliana could barely keep herself from running toward her uncle to share or, better, to steal the meal.

She looked back at the coffin, hoping to quell the terrible thirst. Cecelia sat atop her victim, her skirt raised up around her waist as she bounced herself on his body. Had he really died with a hard-on, or did Cecelia make do with simpler contact?

Liliana pulled herself to her feet and ran toward the old section of the cemetery, David's blood stains tightening her skin as she moved.

Once surrounded by the decrepit tombstones and crosses, she fell face forward into the dirt. Her hands clawed at the earth. This is where I belong. This should be my home. She rubbed her face into the dirt, cleansing herself of the complex world her uncle had taken her into.

An animal. Just like the other animals that dominated this section of the cemetery.

She turned over and stared at the sky. Dusk would be here soon. Their time of night, she thought. The mutants would scurry around the cemetery looking for dregs, the same as she herself did when she imbibed of the bodies she embalmed.

She no longer heard her uncle and Cecelia, but she did still smell the blood flowing down mouths, sliding down fingers, staining clothes. The breeze carried the scent across the cemetery, spinning and swirling through the air, a hint of the scent settling over the cemetery.

Feeling the stickiness of the dry blood on her legs, Liliana began clawing up clots of soil to rub across the stains. She kept rubbing until her own skin was abraded, the sting sharpening her senses. The sound of a wispy movement came from the right. She stopped rubbing her skin and sat silent for several moments, attention dedicated to her surroundings. Another soft sound confirmed what she knew. The mutants had come out early, awakened by the smell of blood. Slowly she rose to her feet. Looking around she caught sight of a moving body. Male? Female? She couldn't tell, not until she saw the pendulous b.r.e.a.s.t.s swing in movement with the mutant's gait.

"Sister," Liliana called and reached out her arms to embrace what she was.

"Sister," she called again, but the shadow slipped beyond sight.

Trees grew densely in the farther part of the cemetery. Liliana guessed that the movements of leafy limbs were not from any breeze. She envisioned the mutants shuffling up trees to have a bird's-eye view of the funerals. Not only could they smell the deceased, but could watch as the body was interred. Under cover of darkness, they would know exactly where to find the remains. Two of their finds tonight would be dry. After the scent in the air, how would they deal with dried husks?

Slowly Liliana walked toward the densely packed trees. Evolution reversed, she thought, searching for another clue to where the mutants hid.

When she had almost reached the trees, a frantic wave of movement shook the branches.

"Sister," she called once again and moved in among the trees.

She heard the tread of feet, the sliding caused by the fallen leaves, the hissing of frightened, mindless beings.

"I'm one of you." She spoke slowly and clearly. "I, like you, feed on blood. I belong here with you." Not among the living, she thought, a flash of David's mangled body forcing her to rub her closed eyelids, hoping to erase the reality. Taking her hands away from her face, she forced herself to focus on why she was here. "This is all I deserve. Not even this. Less. You steal from the dead. I have caused death. Children. Lovers. Strangers. And those whom I have judged."

Liliana looked around her and spied a frail mutant peering down at her from the branches of a close-by tree. The mutant's blue ice eyes remained fixed on Liliana as she moved closer.

"I want to join you. I want to make peace with you."

Liliana noted that the limbs of the mutant's tree spread out over the spiked fence of the cemetery, but the mutant did not seem to possess any fear of falling. Instead it jiggled the limb it knelt on like an excitable chimp. However, this mutant did not try to escape Liliana. Instead it watched and sniffed the air hovering over her. David's blood, she thought. Liliana picked up dead leaves and rubbed them over most of her body, hoping to at least lessen the odor with the smell of decay.

"May I join you?"

The mutant scratched its head and scratched its crotch. But the blue ice eyes maintained their fascination with Liliana.

"Those eyes must have been beautiful when you were alive. They still hold some beauty." What was she doing here, trying to communicate with something that could no longer understand? She had to know these creatures before she could know herself. Hadn't she lost control? Hadn't she almost attacked her own uncle for blood? Were the mutants as mindless as they seemed? They obviously experienced fear and the need for self-preservation. Were they vampires who had given up the killing? Did they cl.u.s.ter and take on animal-like qualities as a penance? Had they been driven mad by the knowledge of their own brutality?

"I'm one of you," she softly said. Liliana scrambled up the tree in which the mutant knelt, stopping only once or twice to make sure the mutant hadn't moved. It sat and watched her, its head held at an angle, its body still.

Once she attained the same level as the mutant, she tried to slide closer to it. It didn't move. A bit closer, and it leaped to another limb. Liliana took its place on the narrow limb.

"I'm not here to harm you. I want to know if this is how it ends. Does this curse drive one eventually mad? Can you comprehend anything I'm saying?"

The mutant seemed to sigh, its body relaxed, and it reached out a stubby hand toward Liliana.

Smiling but not showing her teeth, she put her hand out to take the mutant's hand. A tongue slipped out between the lips of the mutant. The tip had been bitten off the rusty-brown tongue. No sheen of moisture s.h.i.+mmered on the tongue; instead a crust coated the surface.

Stretching to her limit, Liliana barely touched the thing's finger stubs.

"Teach me about myself," she pleaded.

The mutant leaned further out over the s.p.a.ce separating them. It made a lunge for her hand, throwing her off balance and out of the tree.

For a brief moment she saw the spikes, then they were in her, piercing her breast, penetrating her abdomen, catching her jaw from below, preventing her from turning her head. Any movement drove the spikes deeper. Her shock came out in a jumble of syllables that could no longer be formed into clear words.

When she tried to lift her head, her body sank deeper onto the spikes. She drew her arms in toward the spikes, hoping to use her hands to leverage herself. Vibrations pa.s.sed through the metal into her body.

G.o.d, no. She knew they were climbing, reaching up to feed on her. The first bony spidery hand touched her left thigh. A simple awkward cry from her throat drove the hand away. She glimpsed arms outstretched between the bars, attempting to attack her from the other side. A tug on her s.h.i.+rt. A claw-like hand gripping her upper left arm. Spindly fingers weaving in her hair, trying to press down on her right shoulder.

The pain ripped at her insides and flashed a bright light before her eyes. Blood clogged her throat and ran from her mouth.

The mutants tugged, and she felt the spike break through the skin of her back, tenting the sweats.h.i.+rt she still wore. The material ripped. Pain dove into the depths of her soul.

"'Tis but folly in our parents when they foretell the disasters of a libertine career; there are thorns everywhere, but along the path of vice roses bloom above them; Nature causes none to smile along virtue's muddy track."

Philosophy in the Bedroom.

by the Marquis de Sade.

Chapter 56.

"h.e.l.lo, Keith." Marie closed the bedroom door behind her. "You can hear and understand me, can't you?" She walked to the bed and took hold of Keith's chin, turning his head toward her. "Yes, I see the fear. Your quivery eyeb.a.l.l.s tell me lots. They tell me that you fear not only for yourself but also for your son. I'm here today to end the tension for you. Relieve you of any sense of responsibility for a son you didn't want."

Keith's hands shook against the sheet-covered mattress, the rapid movements causing a m.u.f.fled incessant shuffling noise. His eyes blinked, and she saw a tear run down his left cheek.

"Oh so touching. I wish I could feel for you. Unfortunately for you, that tear means nothing to me. You're just an old man who's in the way of my sweeping your son off to Paris with me." Marie's fingers tightened on Keith's jaw.

Keith issued a gurgle, and saliva began running out the side of his mouth, streaking down his chin to fall lightly on Marie's index finger.

"Hurt, does it?" Marie squeezed harder, and the pop of collapsing bone filled the room. Marie took her hand away, noting the prints of her fingers and the caving-in of flesh. "Tell me, Keith, what makes you hold on to life? Fear of oblivion? Fear of retribution? You are scared to die; I can see it in those misty old eyes. I can hear it when you take a breath. You scratch at the sheets, hoping to recapture the old freedoms you once had. Walking. Standing. Talking." She brushed back a few strands of gray hair from Keith's forehead. "I bet you were a handsome man once. But that had to be long ago. Long ago when your pretty wife wanted to make a baby with you." Marie swept back the blankets that covered Keith's body. "You been losing weight? The gut seems flatter. I bet these old muscles are turning to gristle," she said while kneading his arms.

Slowly Marie started to undo the b.u.t.tons on Keith's pajama top. The pajama was new, the sizing still stiffening the cotton material.

"White is not your color, Keith. You're way too pale for white."