Sips of Blood (31 page)

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 passions. 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
passion 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
protégée. She wondered whether he would suck dry the other man or
leave him for the mutants.

Dressed only in an oversized sweatshirt 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 sex, needing to feed all the hungers of
her body. Sade allowed her to explore. He obviously relished the
frantic exhibition. Liliana watched his eyes shimmer 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
sexual 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 breasts 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 cluster
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 shimmered 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 space
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
passed through the metal into her body.

God, 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 shirt. 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 sweatshirt 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

"Hello, 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 eyeballs 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."