Sips of Blood Part 35

Marie leaned down to whisper in Keith's ear. "In what color do you want to be laid out? Has Wil been through your closet yet to select an appropriate suit? He probably doesn't have the money to buy you a new one. But it doesn't matter, because it won't be Wil's problem. We'll leave you for the mailman to find. When the smell because overwhelming, I'm sure he'll either investigate or call in the police. I guess by then there won't be enough solid flesh to fit into a suit."

Marie kissed his cheek.

"Good bye, you old b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

She lowered her lips and rested on the carotid drumming in his neck. The thrumming aroused her. She sensed a slight smell of Wil, either left from his touch or due to the genes both men shared. Closing her eyes, she visualized Wil, the last time she had fed him, the ashen odor of his flesh drifting in and out of her memory. When she touched Keith's chest, she touched the hideous blisters that had percolated across Wil's flesh. Her scratching nails caught hold of Keith's chest hair, different from the crisp edges of Wil's wounded flesh, but still something to claw at while she prepared not to give of her own blood, but to take Keith's.

Her wet tongue slid along the pulsing beat of his heart. Another mournful gurgle. The brus.h.i.+ng of his fingers against the sheet sent a vibration reaching out to the knee that Marie rested on the bed.

"Wil," she uttered, and with force she bit down on inviting flesh.

Wil sat under the shade of an old willow tree. As a boy he would sit here and do his homework or dream. There weren't any dreams left in him. He stared vacantly before him, a mind blanked by pain and loss.

The flesh on his chest was healing miraculously fast. Hardly a splotch stained his chest. The pain had eased quickly after Marie had given him her blood. He bit down on his own tongue for a taste of blood. Lately he had been doing such things as licking a wound on his finger. When he nicked his father while shaving the old man, Wil had almost drunk of his father. The temptation had shaken Wil enough that he had left the house and had come out here near the stream and the tired old willows.

Blood leaked slowly into his mouth. The taste was metallic and sweeter than when he was a child. 'Gross out,' children would scream when one caught another sucking his own blood. 'Gross out.' Not anymore. Now he found pleasure in blood, pleasure in the taste, smell, texture, color.

His father needed him. The old man had stared up into his son's eyes after being nicked by the blade. Stared, attempting to communicate something, and all Wil could do was flee from the house. Unlock their eye contact and flee. He hadn't even seen to the nick on his father's face.

Wil pulled away from the trunk of the tree, sparking feathery sensations across his healing flesh. With some amount of pain he stood. His bare feet began striding through the gra.s.s, heading back to the house. Had his father fallen asleep? Perhaps he should allow his old man to grow a full bushy beard, become a Rip Van Winkle.

As he came around from the back of the house, he noticed Marie's car. His pace quickened. He picked the lightweight white cotton s.h.i.+rt off the porch's railing and put it on while exhaling a sigh. He b.u.t.toned merely two b.u.t.tons so that his father, if he could understand, would not see the healing burns.

Opening the door, Wil staggered under the spell of blood. His mouth watered, his skin came alive with pain and pleasure. The scent filled the room, but was not of the room.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" His legs stumbled toward his father's bedroom, reaching his hands out to push open the closed door.

Marie looked up at Wil from his father's bed, her mouth smeared with blood, her fingers streaked with the browning stain, her teeth s.h.i.+ning under the tinting. Giddy as if drunk on champagne, Marie giggled and beckoned to Wil.

His father lay still, the blue eyes staring up at the ceiling, the mouth agape.

"What the h.e.l.l have you done?"

Wil rushed to the bed, roughly took hold of Marie's shoulders, and pushed her to the floor.

He checked his father for a pulse. None. Hardly any blood leaked from the wound; she had almost drained his father dry. His stomach roiled at his own instincts. He wanted to taste his father. Taste the blood. Taste the salty sick flesh.

"d.a.m.n you," he yelled, turning away from his father to look for Marie.

She had managed to lift herself off the floor and was rounding the bed to leave, he had no doubt.

"b.i.t.c.h!"

He rushed her, swinging out his right fist to catch her right jaw in a powerful sweep.

Marie fell to the floor. Her head lay lopsided on her neck. Her attempts to move her head only showed how little control she had. Wil realized he must have broken her neck. He watched her arms and legs flounder, heard her whisper his name, saw the pleading in her eyes as he backed away from her and returned to his father.

Chapter 57.

Sade stiffened in pain. His innards were being ripped apart. His skin lay open, exposed to the mangling hands that twisted his intestines.

He dropped the man from whom he had been drinking to look down at his chest and abdomen. They were still whole. He saw only the matte black of his suit.

"Liliana," he whispered. "Liliana," he called. "Liliana!" he shouted. "Liliana!" he shouted again and his mouth twisted into a scream and he ran toward the old section of the cemetery.

He sensed her odor, her life.

"Ma pet.i.te cherie!"

"Mon enfant!"

Her life s.h.i.+mmered in the air, wavering in and out of existence.

A block of trees before him waved with the movement of beings scurrying, lapping, and teasing his sight.

"Mon enfant," he mumbled, falling to his knees at the edge of the cl.u.s.ter of trees. His sight had momentarily been blinded. Dead meat, rotted meat scented the air. Animal sounds screeched in his ears.

"Liliana," he whispered, smelling the air for her life.

Too weak to stand, he crawled forward, feeling the spongy, soggy moss beneath his hands. Twigs bruised his skin and leaves became glued to his hands.

"S'il te plait, Liliana."

He did not feel the life of the little girl who had grown into a beautiful woman. The one who had driven his sleepless nights, the one of whom he had dreamt while locked in the Bastille.

Vague forms hustled out of his way, but he ignored them.

"Liliana, mon enfant."

The forms began to disappear, except for a solitary shade who sat in a tree, writhing among the branches and leaves. Clawing and sucking at flesh, it did not seem to notice Sade.

"Donnez-moi ma fille!"

The shade trembled, allowing the meat to slide from its skeletal hands.

The lower part of an arm fell to the ground, brus.h.i.+ng the side of Sade's left cheek. The chill of blood wet his cheek. A single drop rolled down his quivering flesh. Dead weight falling on leaves. Dead weight indenting the earthen layer before him.

Sade looked down to see the lower portion of a slender feminine arm. The jagged flesh had been ripped at the elbow, the arm white, sticky waves of faded blood marring the freshness of the skin.

"Mon enfant."

Seconds spoiled the air about him, informing him slowly of her destruction.

"Liliana."

His stomach roiled.

"Ma pet.i.te cherie."

He threw himself back on his haunches and reached his hands out to touch the remains before him. Icy as his flesh, but an empty cold that does not preserve the flesh, instead allows the flesh to decay.

His niece, his child, his woman, his lover. Gone. A life taken by loveless husks intent on feeding their own appet.i.tes.

A s.h.i.+ver of leaves and twigs behind him. Sade turned in fury with Liliana's appendage raised high above his head as if to signal the casus belli. In a single leap he was on his feet and standing before Cecelia. Her eyes wide, she took the opportunity of his frozen tableau to take a step backward.

"Louis?"

His eyes focused on his newly born lover. Her clothes, rent and blood-stained, flapped in a breeze. Her mouth was smudged with shed life. He watched her lips form his name. How many times? He could not hear, for the rush inside his head sent waves of pain resounding through his thoughts.

His fingers intertwined with his niece's, her fingers becoming unyielding while he felt his own flesh turned into a lover's touch.

Sade turned his back on Cecelia and faced the wood. Falling to his knees, he wished he could pray to Liliana and beg her forgiveness, beg her to return once more to him.

Sade lowered her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. He turn the hand over and saw the ring he had given her. A marriage only briefly consummated. He slid the ring off her finger and laid the arm on a bed of leaves. Raising the ring skyward, he saw the quarter moon peaking between the limbs of the trees.

With whom could he share his love?

"Are you going to bay at the moon now?" Cecelia's question shattered the quietness of his thoughts.

Sade returned the ring to his own finger and stood, knowing that there was no longer any reason to tolerate La Maitresse.

"And the villain leaves peacefully! And divine lightning strikes him not!"

Justine.

by the Marquis de Sade.

Chapter 58.

"Who was she?"

Sade felt Cecelia's eyes staring at him.

"It was Liliana's arm, wasn't it?"

He knew this child reveled in her rival's death, but he could not fault her for the jealously. Now Cecelia and he belonged to each other. There existed no third party to dampen his pa.s.sion for his newest... He could not allow the word love to be spoken, even in his thoughts. His newest what? Pa.s.sion. Yes. His newest pa.s.sion.

"She's dead, isn't she?"

Sade drove faster, heading for La Maitresse's house. Headlights flashed on pa.s.sing objects. Occasionally he noticed a broken fence, a ramshackle barn, a signpost that simply blurred by.

"Are we going back to your house?"

The Jaguar held the road, taking turns with ease, turns that he had memorized late at night in fits of pa.s.sion when he decided to bring a victim to the dungeon. Innuendo had encouraged the drive, small talk had filled the air in the car, small talk and nervous hand movements covering the victim's antic.i.p.ation.

"You said we would leave for Europe right away."

Right after his visit to his mother-in-law.

A house came into view on the left side of the road. Sade glanced casually, taking in the tired porch, the old Cadillac parked to the side of the house, and Marie's car at the foot of the driveway.

Sade stomped the brakes, and the car spun several times. He heard a high-pitched scream sound from the pa.s.senger seat. He regained control of the car and parked it immediately behind his mother-in-law's car.

"Why are we stopping here, for Christ's sake?"

"Stay in the car, Cecelia. Wait for me. Don't leave the car. You don't want to be seen." Sade looked over at the girl and immediately swept her off the seat and onto the floor. "Stay out of sight."

If she protested, he didn't hear. Instead his mind reached out to the house, seeking the existence he meant to destroy. He slammed the car door behind him. Inside the house a weakened Marie waited in fear. He sensed the sickening odor of decaying flesh, wounded, fighting, scrambling about wanting escape, but trapped.

Sade laughed, allowing his presence to be announced in the vibrations of the air that separated him from Marie.

"I'm closing in," he whispered, knowing that night breathed his words inside her head.

"Stay still. What the h.e.l.l's wrong that you can't be still until I can check your condition?" Wil approached Marie and she struck out, ravis.h.i.+ng the air with her nails, missing Wil completely. "d.a.m.n, I'm not trying to hurt you anymore."

Marie rasped. Trying to speak? He could not tell for sure. Dragging her body in short spurts, Marie headed away from the entrance to the bedroom and closer to the farthest window.

"Marie, I want you dead, but not by my own hand."

The words seemed to strike terror in Marie's eyes. Without moving her head, her eyes searched the room. While attempting to stand, Marie crashed her head against the wooden leg of the bed.

Like an animal, he thought. Like an animal hit by a car on a lonely road. No understanding in the eyes, only fear.

The front door opened and closed. He always forgot to lock the door; this had often caused arguments between him and his father.

"s.h.i.+t," he cursed. How could he explain what had happened in this room? Would anyone believe him? "s.h.i.+t!"