Crimson (5 page)
Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
The man in the long leather coat stepped forward, closing the distance. Anna lunged in. The man was brave but never stood a chance. Anna first broke his dominant arm at the shoulder with the table leg, then she broke both his legs at the knee. For sport, as he lay upon the floor still flailing around and shouting curses at her, she grabbed his remaining arm. Rolling him over with her bare foot she pulled his arm over his head and over his back as far as it would bend, then she kicked it and reveled in the sound of it snapping. He cried out in agony once more. Anna smiled, her elongated canine teeth the only proof that she was not wholly human.
Unexpected the woman in the leather skirt leapt upon Anna from behind and drove a splintered chair piece into her back. So well delivered was the blow, the shard of wood went clean through Anna’s back, up through her diaphragm, just missing a lung, and out at her bottom most rib, below her left breast. Anna was enraged. Turning like a wild animal Anna snarled as her head swung side to side. As the woman in leather retreated, Anna reached down. Grabbing the piece of wood protruding from her ribcage she pulled hard and twisted the object again and again until she managed to pull it in entirety through the hole in her body and out once again. The woman in leather began to tremble. She knew her assault had availed her nothing.
Anna attacked. The struggle was a meager one, and within seconds Anna had the woman on her back upon one of the remaining tables. To keep her still, Anna nailed the woman’s hands to the table with knives found upon the floor that guests had used earlier to eat with. To keep her legs still, Anna shoved a single finger into the woman’s lower spine, careful to slide between two of the bones. Once the wound was created, Anna wiggled her fingers about, testing to see what made the woman’s legs twitch. Finding what she wanted, Anna ripped out the bundle of nerves controlling the woman’s legs and laughed at her helplessness.
Wanting to feed upon both at the same time, Anna then dragged the man with all four of his limbs broken over to the table his lover was pinned to. Lifting him, she draped him over his lover’s thigh, and using no more than her finger nail, she slit his throat, letting his blood spill down the woman’s bare thigh below her skirt. Anna then bit deeply into that same thigh and drank deeply as the two bloods mixed in her mouth. Though she might never be sure of the fact, Anna could swear she tasted the couple’s love for one another in their mingled blood. The thought, added to the intense pleasure the influx of power brought her, caused her one last orgasm that night. Wanting to luxuriate in the feeling, after having climaxed, she let the man fall to the floor as she strode across the room. Leaping lightly, belaying gravity, Anna spun and landed in a seated position upon the surface of the bar. There she sprawled out like a feline and stretched her muscles before lying down to enjoy reliving the day within her mind. There she lay for a quarter of an hour before she again rose, deciding that perhaps it was time to leave Traiven and go explore the location of a larger flock from which to feed.
Anna flexed her taut muscles. Twisting her neck to an extreme angle, she smiled as the bones in her neck cracked several times. Spinning upon the bar, her nude body was an abomination, as if created by an insane person’s darkest thoughts. Pale white, milky flesh shone out between patches that were blood-stained. Her young body bore the traces of rivers of blood that had begun at her mouth and spilled from her chin like crimson waterfalls to fall upon her perky breasts before spattering upon her abdomen, thighs, and everywhere in between. Her fiery red locks hung in tangles, with dried blood and gore clinging like scabs between the strands. Her arms to the elbows were pure red as if dipped in blood, and her legs looked much the same up to her knees, as if she had spent hours stomping around in puddles of spent life.
Anna’s lips parted in a wicked smile. Something about it was unnatural, almost predatory. In that smile was a sign of the monster she had become. More than that, her eyes shone with a hue that was demonic and screamed that something evil had been spawned and now lived within the awkward body of the young woman none would suspect. Seeing something across the room Anna began to giggle, her small breasts bouncing slightly with the sound. Upon the floor a young man moaned in agony, trying in vain to roll himself over with broken limbs. Anna began to laugh harder.
Hopping down from the bar, she strode across the room like an agile, predatory beast. Her adolescent hips swung from side to side, slightly over-exaggerated, obviously accentuating the motion. She moved fluidly. Graceful to extremes, Anna walked among the dead and dying, each of them covered in gore, like a dancer upon a stage. So light she appeared, that had anyone witnessed the scene they would have imagined her floating among the dead, like a ghost come to mourn those lost.
Kneeling beside one of her favorite victims of the night, Anna began to undress the woman, peeling blood-soaked leather from the body. One by one she removed the shapely garments, and one by one she donned them herself. Only moments passed before Anna rose once again. Dressed now from head to toe in black and buckles, she strutted towards the door. She smiled again. Pulling the door to the tavern open upon its hinges, Anna watched as the last rays of the sun vanished from the sky. With naught but a wicked grin she stepped out into the night.
She was now a creature of singular purpose. Pleasure was her only want, her only need, and her only desire. Fortunately for Anna, she had learned well this day that pleasure could easily be found with a lover. But it could also be found feeding upon the blood of others. Anna could not help but to decide that Momma had been wrong; it was definitely better to play with one’s food.
Anna could not help but to look back into the tavern that had been like a second home to her these last years.
Blood and gore clung to everything in the room, dripping like melted wax from the walls. Bodies lay here and there like so many discarded dolls, each swimming in a pool of its own fluids. Steam still escaped them from time to time, the room being painfully cold in the evening of late fall. Tables and chairs lay overturned or broken and naught but a single candle still sputtered from a hanger upon one cobblestone wall. Here a wicked deed had been done: a deed born of evil, malice, and hunger. There had been peace and happiness here once, though from this day forward none would remember. Forever it would remain tainted, the air tasting of iron and smelling of decay.
Read the other books in the Blood and Brotherhood Saga Now
The Choosing (Book 1 of The Blood and Brotherhood Saga)
The Chosen (Book 2 of The Blood and Brotherhood Saga)
The Changing (Book 3 of The Blood and Brotherhood Saga)
The Contention (Book 4 of The Blood and Brotherhood Saga)
Or read the compelling collection of Jeremy Laszlo’s award winning poetry.
About the Author
Most of you have probably read this section in my other books, and for that I thank you. For the most part I am just another regular guy, and most of you would pass me on the street without a second glance. I work full time, and enjoy time with my family above all other past times. When I am inspired to write I generally do so very quickly by most writers’ standards.
Though I have been writing for the majority of my life, it really began when the first of you, my readers, reached out to connect with me. My writing comes from my personal inspirations, and to hear that I have inspired another person’s imagination it amongst the greatest feelings in the world. I love to hear your thoughts and opinions, good or bad, and for that reason I make myself easily accessible to my readers through a number of online venues listed below. Please stop by and say hello. Drop a few lines about how you found your way to one of my pages. If nothing more, stop in and join in on one of the many contests and promotions I usually run every single month. I am looking forward to hearing from you, as it is your voice that gives my writing a voice. Thank you!
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