#vampire story

[2kmps]

vampire x reader one-shot | 16.1k

story summary; you're a crime scene cleaner who happens across an advertisement for a mansion housekeeper in exchange for room and board. it's close to work, close to your university, and an easy job. the ultimate package. right away, you notice the owner's beauty as well as his eccentricities, but decide to commit to it. the spiral into depravity and debauchery begins when you're tasked with cleaning the site of a savage murder, solidifying you as a irreplaceable treasure.

story warnings; bloodplay, extreme dubcon, explicit noncon, cigarette burns, wounds inflicted on mc, implied masochism, extreme sexual sadism, hypnotism, graphic violence, gun violence, body gore, graphic details, heavy prose, unreliable narrator, religious themes, exploration of morality, obsessive + possessive behaviors, implied stalking, choking, murder, graphic depictions of crime scenes, manipulation/emotional manipulation, this entire oneshot is an allegory.

read the warnings! mdni under any circumstances! the events within this one-shot are not indicative of my personal viewpoints

thank you, @ceruleansol for the excellent proofreading.

this is a repost from my deleted blog, cardeneiv. please reblog/interact with this piece!

Another internet search bore fruit.

The image bouncing back at you from your phone had been hastily taken with a tremble in your hand, all the while launching a few too many cautious looks across your shoulder to either end of the dim, long hallway making up part of the second floor. There wasn't any particular rationale for your apprehension and busy eyes but the belief the mansion owner wouldn't be too pleased to see you taking pictures of his valuables rather than cleaning them.

That fear hadn't stopped you from reverse image searching a good couple of curiosities over the widening gap of time you had been living there.

Tonight was a Chalmette table vase displayed on a pedestal in the hall; brassy gold gilding cradled a somewhat drab white bloom that reached high and sprouted open to a hollow inside. Similar surviving articles went for thousands.

You totaled the prices of everything so far as enough to outright buy a house on the more modest side of town.

There was a daring thought that loomed in the back of your mind, an ugly little thing that told you one or two missing antiques wasn't any big deal. He wouldn't miss them, let alone even notice they were gone, because he was the strangest man you had ever met.

Four months ago, he had only ever introduced himself by the name Montague, letting an anticipatory stillness hang in the air while you waited for him to finish. He never did, handsome features lifting as his dark eyes thinned and smile inched higher. He had you in a tight handshake.

"I enjoyed reading the resume you sent in with your response to my advertisement." He had traces of an accent intact but had cleverly adapted to one more common to the area. "You're the first person I've come across wanting the room who's done that. It really stood out to me. A crime scene cleaner? Must be a difficult job."

"I know it was probably overkill, but I think this will be perfect for me." You were led to a suede armchair, his hand anchoring onto your shoulder to lower you into the seat. He sat across from you in something similar, one leg crossing. "I recently had to move out of my other place, and the university will be about an hour closer. My work won't be as far of a drive, either. I—I, uh, clean some gross stuff, so taking care of your house won't be anything."

Even after that spiel, Montague never let his smile slip. Rather, it seemed to widen as though delighted by your oversharing. He looked like a man basking in glee over a rare find, an offer he couldn't possibly turn away.

"All amenities in the house are yours." This was after he showed you to one of the rooms on the second floor: a capacious, well-dressed space behind a red door at the end of the hall. "As long as you listen to a few rules and keep things clean, we should have a very amicable... cohabitation."

You thought it was an odd choice of wording. "Okay. Well, what do I need to know?"

"No guests." It was immediate, his tone suddenly a touch edgy, razored, unyielding. "Not unless I give you explicit permission beforehand. I keep many important valuables; they're very dear to me. Also, do not invite anyone in unless I am there."

Again, odd, but it was his house.

"Sure," you said agreeably, having half the thought to write down these peculiarities of his. "What next?"

He was set on your shoulder, reaching out to pull a thin, frayed thread off of your jumper. "The downstairs—as in, the basement—is my personal space. If I need you down there, I will ask you for you to go down. You can go anywhere else in the house, on the property. None of it concerns me."

"Why the basement, though?" It felt damaging to press a question like that so early on, but you figured it was innocent enough. "This house is so big that we could be on the same floor and hardly see each other."

The muscles around his mouth twitched slightly, only once. You still noticed it. Noted: he didn't like to be questioned. "Sorry, I'm not trying to-"

"It's cold downstairs." he injected, shifting to look around the room as though taking in the newness of it as well. "I make sure it stays comfortable all year, all throughout the house, but the cold suits me best."

With how downright frosty his skin felt in that handshake earlier—on a mild day in mid-spring—you thought that explanation checked out. He must have only just come up to greet you at the front entrance.

You tried to forget the feeling. "Alright. Next?"

"Oh," he restrained an unseemly laugh, using one hand to crowd into a pocket on his dark blazer, "there is nothing else, at least nothing pertinent. It's my understanding that we're both quite busy, so this would be the current arrangement unless something changes."

What changes? You wanted to ask, thwarted to silence when he revealed some sort of silver thing pinched between his fingers with a thick handkerchief. It was a dainty-seeming contraption with chains linking several old skeleton keys at the end. The fabric he used to hold the clip concealed all of the elegant tracery that made up its shape.

"Traditionally, this is called a chatelaine. It’s something I’ve modified for you to get around the house. It’ll be easier to clean." Montague said, fast to force the mess of cold silver and chains into your palm, rubbing down his fingers with the handkerchief afterward. "The smallest key is to your room. The largest one opens the doors to go outside, so don't lose that. One of them is meant for doors in the basement—can't recall which."

He could see the wariness behind your eyes, a worrying crease forming in your brow. "This house has been around for a long time. I've just never gotten around to modernizing the locks."

Other questions came to you, but he hardly acted interested in entertaining them. You let him swivel on black soles, stopping him just as he reached the doorway.

"Why haven't other housekeepers worked out?"

Montague let his fingers rest on glazed woodwork framing the threshold, drumming out a soothing rhythm while considering an answer for all of two seconds. "In short? They couldn't follow the rules. Now, let me show you to the yard."

Afterward, the so-called cohabitation had become a seamless blend for you both. You had learned right away that Montague wasn't one for idle chatter and niceties without purpose. He had deviated from it once, on move-in day, to reassure you that the mysterious nature of your life schedule and odd hours you were called to a clean scene wouldn’t be a source of concern.

Shortly after settling your things around the house, the reason for his amenable attitude was a little more apparent. Several times a month, you would be pulled from your forensics projects to the landing at the end of the hall, piqued by fresh voices always indistinguishable at first, and folded your waist over the railing to see down.

The top of his head, hair short, impeccably styled, and ash-brown, was the first thing you noticed, followed by someone on his arm. Sometimes a woman, sometimes a man—always conventionally attractive, always utterly enraptured by him. It struck a nerve with you once or twice, finding your thoughts swimming bitterly: Of course a man who looked like him would go for types like that!

Why did he act so much differently with them than you?

He wasn't nearly as friendly and affable as he was making himself out to be.

You stopped peeking down on him after an instance where his eyes shot straight up, pinning you where you stood. He simpered at you before leading his companion away to the basement, and that was it. You never saw them leave and never bothered to ask.

Tonight was different, however, both in the way you nearly toppled the two-figure Chalmette vase off its pedestal with flighty fingers and a duster, and the echo of a scream piercing the hollow halls to you. It stayed in one spot on the first floor, luring you down the center staircase with your duster clutched to you like a sword. At that point, your heart bursting in your ears was louder than the agonized cries resonating around the corner.

You looked around, spine wrapped in dread as another scream, weak, garbled, and wet, came from the basement, and then nothing at all. It was soundless in the house. Distantly, one of the clocks mounted in the kitchen archway toned onward. You followed its beat with the shuffle of your feet.

Hello, hello? Those words clung tightly in your throat, yet you were too afraid to announce yourself like that. Still, nothing came as you slowly pulled at the basement doorknob, brass and freezing and unlocked. The stairway plunging down inside was filled with inky black, so dark you couldn't get your eyes to adjust to it.

Is everything okay down there? Hello? Hello? You ran the imaginary chatter through your mind, lips sealed but trembling during your slow descent, the path now illuminated by white glow from your phone. At the bottom, the stone stairs turned into seamless gray marble and red wetness crawling toward the soles of your slippers.

"What–" You gasped, taking a step back while flicking the flashlight higher, deeper into the basement. The vivid red puddle glistened in your light, widening around a motionless figure with pale skin—a blonde woman you didn't know. Her face pointed up at the ceiling, twisted in terror, black tracks of mascara curving along her cheeks.

She was naked on the floor, surrounded by her own blood, something you didn't have to look at twice. Your breaths grew harsh, taking in the sight of her neck, or lack thereof; there wasn't much left of it. Only a few stringy bits of sinew and muscle kept it from a full decapitation, and blood still pulsed out in spurts from mangled arteries and veins.

A motion nearby made your nape prickle. It was like feet padding across wet pavement after a fresh rain, except this smell carried the malodor of rust and something sour under your nose.

You settled a pillar of light on the source, capturing the view of Montague standing amid the bloodbath, sickly skin bare and saturated in rich crimson.

Something was wrong with him, came an instantaneous, instinctual reaction the moment his head spun toward you, catching pale eyeshine in the white light.

The bones in his jaw cracked as the length of it began to recede into the semblance of something more man to you, rows of jagged teeth retracting into the depths of his throat until only a pair of long incisors remained.

Montague skimmed the tip of his tongue along his lower lip, smiling at you affectedly, saying as though it were some trife thing, "She started screaming."

You were gone and out of the basement after that, clearing the woman's body and kicking away the slippers on your feet when they squelched with blood. Montague said something after you when shrieks ripped out of your lungs and reverberated through the house. You winced as the basement door let out a hollow rattle when he collided with it, heart matching the rhythm of the skin on your feet slapping against old marble, thoughts disarrayed, frantic the closer you got to the front door.

Almost there. Almost there. Almost there. Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! You were panting in unison with the vicious chants.

The doorknob was in your hand. The door was open—and it was thrown shut with the force of your body thrust against it, fingers wrenched off of the handle and enveloped in Montague's cold fingers as he pushed himself flush into you.

You felt his palm clamp around your mouth, whittling your screams into panicked whimpers, nostrils flaring with your ragged breaths.

"Ah, no, no." He had to stoop his neck to talk into your ears. "Shh, shh, shhh. Far too loud. I don't like screaming. Shh, shh, shhhh."

Tears seared red behind your eyes, making you think you could follow the warmth down your face as they filled the crevices in his hand. "It's really, truly a pity. She was a pretty one but far too smart. I'm usually decent at picking out the ones who wouldn't suspect anything or, at least, catching them before they try to scream.

"You'll have to forgive me. I swear to you I'm not ordinarily that messy. I prefer to keep everything tidy, especially so you don't have to go down there. After all, you're already so busy. You're already doing so much. I can't recall when I last saw you relax."

The weight of his palm softened, a wordless agreement that you honored with continued silence as he used that arm to lean against the door. His voice shifted around your head to your other ear. "That's it. Just wonderful. There's no need for screaming, is there? It's only the two of us."

"Are—are..." You couldn't get it out, lips and throat suddenly sucked dry. "Don't kill me, please. Please. Please."

His chest quaked while a subdued, eerily delighted laugh hissed through his lips. "Kill you? Oh, no, no, no. Never. How could I ever kill you when you're so remarkable? My home has never looked so beautiful and lived in. I'm enjoying how it looks with you in it."

You wilted away from his lips sinking to a spot below your ear, now taking far too much notice of his erection curving up along your lower back. It felt disgustingly wrong to wonder whether the violence and blood turned him on, or it was you and your fear. The man wasn't even human; that much was clear.

"What are you?" There was no shortage of daring questions in your arsenal. Montague was beginning to find the charm in them.

"That's quite difficult for me to answer." He let his chin lay on your shoulder. "I've been called many things over the centuries. I suppose the closest anyone has ever gotten is vampire, but even that's not quite right. You're free to guess as much as you'd like, though."

He was satisfied when you didn't, freeing the weight off of his arm to slide his hand under the hem of your shirt, fingertips still slick with that woman's blood as he explored your navel. You were too aware of the roundness of his fingernails stepping across your flesh, sometimes pressing deep, and other times a light touch you needed to scratch. His throat vibrated against your shoulder.

"What are you thinking? I'd love to hear it." He wanted to devour your fear in more ways than just feeling you wince. "Well? Tell me."

"I want to go." Go? Where could you possibly go that he couldn’t find you? If he ripped out the side of a woman's neck, he could track you down.

He leaned his cheek into your ear again, relishing the warmth that spread into him. "Where would you go? Who would you tell? Humor me, where is the first place you'd go?"

"The police," you said.

Montague let out a pleased hum. "Of course. It only makes sense to report a terrible scene such as that to them. Forensics and the police play together often, don't they?"

Your nod was weak.

"I know how hard you've been studying, how much stress you're under to commit to your degree, your work—to me." His hand crept along to your stomach, fingers splaying wide across the protective layer of skin and fat. "Let's say they were to find something I left behind. Who becomes a suspect in their eyes when they learn that I have someone who tidies up after me? Who knows the dirty insides of cleaning up anything and everything?"

You were starting to panic, fitfully struggling against his body. It's like he was made of stone. "They wouldn't accuse me of murdering anyone."

"Haven't you seen the news lately? Are you so sure?" he said derisively. "No, perhaps you're right. Maybe you'd be fortunate, and they wouldn't have your head for murder, but they would certainly try to peg you with something else. As an accomplice, maybe? And that's assuming that I don't disappear and let rip you apart.

"Can you imagine it? Can you feel your heart break at the very thought of losing it all? Your degree? Your job? Safety? The world is cruel, darling. You'd never have another moment of peace or anonymity. Anywhere you'd go, you'd be found, every alias sullied with your sins. All because you decided to speak up about it."

You knew he meant to send you downstairs to do something about the mess, spend hours scrubbing and mopping until what had once been there was a secret that thickened your tongue and made it hard to swallow.

No one would ever find out, but you would carry it in every waking thought until, one morning, the cute barista on Market Street had an eerie semblance to that dead woman, and the light roast in your hand suddenly looked so red.

"Thump. Thump. Thump." Montague mocked the heavy thrum of your heart behind your ribs, his cold fingers skimming your nipples before resting over your sternum. "You can go if you'd like, but I'll find you. I'll hear your little heart until it bursts and drag you right back here. You're mine."

The push of his body gradually faded away, giving your chest the room to expand, leaving you to gulp quivering, greedy breaths that didn't stop even as the pads of his feet grew distant.

He called back to you, "Give me ten minutes or so, and then come down."

You were already partway through the front door with your car keys to pop the trunk when, floating like a spectre's moans in still night air, his voice reached out once more, "You may want to clean up yourself first. You have blood all over your face."

༺ ♰ ༻

A damp towel came before your descent back into the basement. In tow on your shoulders were three bags of absorbent, the fancy stuff hospitals liked to use to throw on puke and piss and anything else they just lazily wanted to sweep around. It worked for blood in smaller quantities, blood that was still wet, anyway.

The woman hadn't been dead long enough for her body fluids to dry, so you didn't anticipate needing anything except the basics stowed in your car trunk.

You weren't sure what you expected to see down there, noticing the lights were turned on high, fully illuminating the gray marble, the furthest reaches of the blood puddle with your slippers saturated dark red and ruined. What came as a shock was the woman's dead eyes and shredded neck being nowhere in sight.

Montague had moved her body but to where?

For some reason, you were drawn to ridiculous spots like the walls, ceiling, and tiny cramped corners that he could have feasibly stuffed her in. There was no sickly trail of blood leading any which way, droplets only reaching as far as the stairs and first landing where you had been pursued—nothing else.

Where did he take her?

Part of you was ready to turn a blind eye to all of this because you knew you would have to in order to keep everything. If you kept your head low and groveled a little bit, maybe he'd get bored and leave you alone, biding you the time you needed to finish your degree. But, that'd be two years of this.

You weren't sure you could stomach it.

As you moved granules of absorbent through blood with coarse bristles from the kitchen broomstick—shifting the puddle more than the actual absorbent—you wondered if he could hear your heart now from wherever he was.

You thought about a lot of things while letting your eyes roam the space. It was enormous, taking up the entire underside of the house, outfitted impressively with mahogany accents, sprawling bookshelves, armchairs, and loveseats pulled tight in leather and velvet. Across the room was a disheveled bed, creamy sateen sheets in a luscious heap but otherwise undisturbed.

To the adjacent end of this expanse were two doors you didn't notice at first, one a little taller than yourself in height, about as wide as any normal arm span, and looked old, so old that everything else was too new. Even from where you stood, you knew it'd take a skeleton key. The other door was more coherent with the rest of the basement, cleaner but certainly still part of the house's original construction.

By the time Montague had returned, you already had much of the ordeal pitched into a biohazard bag with some trace remnants putting you on your knees to scrub away. You hadn't realized he was even there until the tips of his shoes—brown leather loafers with a scalloped tassel near the toes—appeared in your peripheral, sending you launching back onto your hocks.

"This work is spectacular. I knew I had a good feeling giving that room to you." he said with a beguiling smile. All of the blood was gone; he was clean in a dark dressing robe with black trousers, a look you hated that you saw as alluring. "Don't forget to clean the floors upstairs. We made quite a mess there as well."

"What happened to that woman?" You were asking your pesky questions again. Montague wasn't so sure he found them as charming now, but you were still a prize.

You leaned away as he crouched in front of you, nearly risking the soles of his shoes in the blood and hydrogen peroxide. For the first time since meeting, you kept eye contact and saw that his reached a depth you didn't think could be possible for a human. He wasn't touching you, yet it felt like he had you caged, trapped in a vise that held you tight.

He did touch you then, grazing the side of your face with a thumb. Suddenly, he brought it to his lips and licked it as he rose to full height.

"You still had some blood just there on your cheek." There was an armchair a few feet away that he dropped into, withdrawing a gold compact from a chest pocket on his way down. "Don't worry. I wouldn't ask you to carry away the bodies. I'm not that Roman."

"That's not what I asked." you rejoined.

Montague tucked a cigarette between his lips, igniting it with a match he kept inside the compact. His first few puffs looked like they calmed him as he crossed a leg and settled deeper into the leather. "You shouldn’t expect answers to things you don’t need to know—or want to.”

But he humored you with a slight lean of his head towards the old door far away. "The original owner of this house was ingenious and built tunnels that were used to shuffle people in and out. Mistresses. Servants. More unsavory things—you must remember the era. At any rate, it stretches beyond the house and some ways off. I do not recommend ever going inside."

You understood now why you never saw any of the dates he brought home leave. And you believed every bit of his warning.

It inspired you to move away from the grim reality dwelling beyond that old door. You hovered over the same spot, drenching the floor with more of the disinfectant, grasping for a distraction. "I didn't know vampires could smoke. Isn't blood enough for you?”

Montague flicked his cigarette over an ashtray beside his chair. "Well, we all have our vices. Mine just happens to be five or six of these a day. Keeps enough of the edge off so you get to sleep at night."

Something about that comment made the entire stretch of the basement feel so confining—claustrophobic, even. Your back was wide open to it, to his ravening gaze and leather toe turning fluid circles as though to pace himself before lunging.

"I have class in six hours." You finished the job by tying off the bag. "I'd like to get the upstairs done and take a shower."

"Of course. Try to get some sleep, you've had quite a night." He didn't move to see you out. "Oh, and leave the bag. I'll dispose of it."

༺ ♰ ༻

Meredith Nimu died approximately twenty-three days ago after a stroke left her immobilized in her favorite armchair. Her body wasn't peeled away from the murky-green polyester until day twenty-four, following enough neighbor complaints about a bunch of rats dying in the vents.

Getting rid of the chair was half the battle in this case, something that Meredith's overzealous, recently divorced daughter spouted off as sacrilegious. She insisted that the carpet cleaner she used for her obese dogs with raw patches on their legs could do it all. Your supervisor had been inflectionless when telling her it didn't work like that.

One of your teammates, a middle-aged black man affectionately nicknamed “Hoss” had unceremoniously slammed the apartment door shut and flipped the lock so the daughter's rancorous eruptions were somewhat contained outside. The other half of the duo responsible for pitching the chair, T.J., a white man who could never tan, wheezed out a laugh as he labored a hard bristle brush through the gunk left behind from Meredith's decay.

"Boss ain't gonna be happy about that." T.J. couldn't commit to the act of a brownnoser even if he wanted to. A couple more chortles rattled through his respirator. They were infectious, ridiculous sounds that coaxed similar from Hoss when he rejoined the effort to get the job done and over with.

You could still hear the daughter on the other side of the door, never once allowing your supervisor a word in edgewise. A part of you wanted to pity her, perhaps conjure up a shred of empathy for someone so completely enmeshed in the throes of grief and anger. She was clearly spiraling, her entire life yanked out from under her—and she was free-falling with nothing to catch her, no thin wire she could snag in the bend of her fingers and watch as the velocity of that cruelly, cleanly severed white tendon and bone.

Where would she fall after that? You didn't know. You didn't care. She could regain control over her life even without fingers, but what about you? No one understood how disconcerting it was to know that your survival depended on a vampire's good mood.

An old woman was meant to expire, but you were young and had aspirations—yet that could be stolen from you just as quickly as a clot could kill the brain.

It wasn't fucking fair.

Hoss had called out to you repeatedly until the hard brushes stopped scratching the floor, and he and T.J. were settled back on their heels, staring at you. You were used to leveraging your commitments in life as a means to get them off your case, but even they could tell this was different.

"You've been real spacey lately." It was enough to gently reel you back to the moment, eyes unstuck from remnants of putrid matter hidden under a deluge of chemicals and soap. Now you were thinking that the landlord would probably have to replace this entire spot in the flooring. It would be an expensive fix.

"Everything okay at home?" Hoss tried again, emulating fatherly concern in his tone and sidelong stare. It was something he couldn't help since you were so similar in age to his adult kids. "I don't think I've seen you eat today. We oughta finish up here up and grab somethin' quick on the way back.”

"Sorry, yeah, it's just the usual things." They didn't know what that meant to you, but readily accepted with dour expressions masked by their respirators. "I think I saw a gyro truck down the street."

As many times as you had regurgitated the same thing when they pried into your well-being, you were surprised they still asked at all. That made it hard to wave after them as you pulled the lever to the trunk, waiting to be left alone once the job was done to stack half your weight in absorbent until the back bowed to it.

It was just past two in the morning when you were locking the front door of Montague's sprawling estate behind you. Every time you did, a part of you hesitated to seal it the whole way, as though if you did, your final traces of freedom would be stripped away entirely.

"Welcome home!" Montague came out from prowling somewhere in the shadows, seeming to materialize from the darkest parts your eyes couldn't adapt to. He was in a dressing robe again, this one forest green with gold embroidery and a burgundy handkerchief tucked away nicely in his breast pocket.

He already had a cigarette lit between his knuckles, fussing with the little stick as he went to an open window, sucked in, and expelled pungent gray smoke. "I apologize. There's a bit of a mess for you tonight. It's unlike me to be so untidy, but it shouldn't take you too long—oh, darling, don't make that face."

"Why can't you get blood from other sources, like a blood bank?" It's been on your mind for a while, but Montague had a habit of turning petulant if you asked him too much.

He was in good shape tonight, though, despite still puffing away antsily. "Where's the satisfaction in simply being given what I want? Blood banks are a finite supply, but out there"—he gestured through the open window—"there is an infinite supply from any walk of life that I so choose. Did you know that not all blood is equal?"

You sensed him at your back, awash with that same vulnerability as the night on your knees in the basement. He strolled along with you while you collected your things, examined his leftovers, which fortunately wasn't as sensational as before. It looked like a Rorschach inkblot almost, purple-red and pristine, obviously untouched for some time.

Just like that dead blonde woman, there was nothing left behind of the victim except what Montague was too careless to handle himself.

"The worst blood is what you find in hospitals or on the streets. It doesn't matter their type; it all tastes like shit." he continued, even while you worked. Just like before, he sat himself nearby and observed your process with gross fascination. "In a pinch, though, I do what I must. It doesn't matter if a man is homeless or a woman is looking for a night out. When I hear their hearts dance, that thump, thump, thump—oh, I have to have it. I can taste them through their skin, even before I sink my teeth in.

"The fear in their eyes. The ragged breaths I see in their chests, watching their bellies pulse. I like to think in those moments they know exactly what's going to happen, like little flies in a spider's web."

Montague let more smoke slither out from his lips in skinny, swirling wisps that dissipated once it touched the air. The haze of it remained, just traceable to your eye. "I always find it interesting that they all struggle, even as they're writhing in their own blood. Sometimes I'll count how long it takes for them to die."

These weren't confessions of a madman because that would imply he was human. He was treating you akin to the way an old man recounted the fondness of his flawed, flickering memories. There were sensations of joy and affection in the work he did, a true love and visceral desire for carnage and suffering that made it hard for you to stomach.

A few times throughout his soliloquy, you needed to bear your weight on the kitchen broom to keep yourself from toppling from nausea.

You shouldn't have been curious. "Has anyone ever survived?"

The surrounding space grew darker, not from loss of light but from the way his lower face sunk behind the hand wielding the cigarette. You saw his smile widen through sickly appendages and faint smoke.

His response pierced straight through you. "I'm looking right at it."

Suddenly, the urge to run rushed forefront in your mind, an instinctual reaction that you had trouble wrestling over with logic. The broomstick was easily pulled from your fingers and discarded onto the floor with a reverberating clatter that made your spine race with cold needles as Montague stepped into your proximity.

You shivered against the hands slowly climbing your neck to the underside of your jaw, cradling your face as he lifted it to meet his eyes. Something was so wrong with how black they were; you didn't see a pupil, nor did your reflection stare back at you in them. It's almost as though there was nothing there at all, the dark of them growing into an abysmal chasm that made your vision cross and blur, eyelids weighing like lead when you felt him kiss you.

His lips were the same kind of cold as the rest of him but full and unrelenting, never granting you the chance to mold the kiss in any other way. Surprisingly, the taste of stale smoke on his breath was just slight, a mediocre vexation you overlooked the moment his hands started groping you under your clothes.

And you didn't think much of it when your back settled into the clean linens on your bed, skin flushed with the crisp evening air and lips mapping their way south across your stomach and navel, delving lower to your core. It was too dark in your room to see down your body at the top of Montague's head, but you felt him with your fingers, coiling pieces of his ash-brown hair to your knuckles while he pushed your thighs wide open for him.

An anxious patter swelled in your chest, a vague understanding that something was horrible about this, but you were too wrapped up in a dreamy fog to think about it. More than the resounding boom of your heart, you heard your own breaths dissolve into lewd moans and slurred pleas for him to do more, more, more.

It didn't sound like you.

It didn't feel like you despite knowing that build-up in your abdomen better than most things in your body.

The hands in his hair, the back bending off of the mattress like an archway, the shaking limbs, and the cries begging for more were someone else entirely up until the very moment rapture fluttered behind your eyes in searing white, body deluged in hot release that left your scalp tingling and toes curling and spend on your sheets.

"Give me more." You tasted him again, his tongue pushing hard into your mouth where those salty notes of yourself lingered on your cheeks. His silhouette melded with the rest of the room, tangible only in the way he roamed every surface of you.

Montague had shucked the clothes from both your bodies earlier, preferring to lean into the flush of heat you radiated. Everything was only skin-deep away from him; he could feel your pulse throb on his lips when he teased himself against your carotid, your radial, trailing all the way to the powerful beat of your femoral nestled there in your groin.

His teeth came close many times to piercing you, allowing him a sliver of a taste like a parched king waiting for a drop of golden wine. But half the thrill of having you around was denying himself of you, knowing well that if he were to start, then he'd never be able to stop, and he'd fully hamper your dreams of escaping.

The air smelled like you now, heavy and like damp skin and your fluids soaking into the linens. He watched your face bunch and fall apart when he split you open with his cock, hips colliding, your skin sure to bruise as his thrusts turned savage. There wasn't much left in his heart anymore. Most of it had atrophied over the centuries, and yet the sound of yours spurred him on.

He could follow the path of your blood through your body, an extensive subject he had studied and dissected at length in his lifetime. The most vulnerable spots were gorged and worked the hardest, almost glowing red through your skin for him. When he thrust a little bit harder, a little bit faster, and felt your fingertips pushing against his chest, he heard your heart be the loudest it ever had been.

"That's it. That's it. That's it." His own breaths were ragged now. The sheer exhilaration of pushing his lips deeper, hot sweat leaving a slick layer on them, and that one big artery in your neck pounding out was doing everything for him.

Your frantic pants were a close second. He could feel you unraveling, tightening around his cock until you were soundlessly writhing on the mattress, clutching anything you could bunch together. The final few thrusts he made were purposeful; they were forceful and jolted your body, a show to make sure you wouldn't forget the feeling of him inside of you.

The clean linens were sodden with cum, some still dripping out of you while you lay there, legs splayed enough so you wouldn't feel it stick to your thighs. Whatever haze had been hanging over your eyes before lifted away, leaving you ruined and exhausted on the sheets but not alone.

"You've got class in a few hours, don't you?" Montague said from above, shoulders nestled in your headboard while one leg hung off the side of the bed. He was smoking again, acting the calmest you had witnessed him. "I don't really think you're in any shape for that. Why don't you stay home today?"

You were too spent to respond to him, somehow using the occasional breaths he blew out into the vast room to lull you into a dreamless sleep.

༺ ♰ ༻

Shin Nakamura had been a selfish man in life. Mid-fifties, thinning hair, and twice divorced from women who knew better—his tenants did not. He had built a reputation on the north side of town for hidden costs and faulty appliances that were never fixed. Once or twice in the past four years you had cleaned up scenes, they came out of Nakamura's buildings in the summertime, stuck to the floor and infested with maggots and flies in different orifices.

Everyone had asked at one point, yourself included, how he was able to get away with that level of blatant cruelty and disregard—and the answer was as simultaneously simple, complex, and terrible as poverty. The north end was an area notorious for local crime and violence, but more than that, it was forgotten in favor of gentrifying other areas of the city—pretty little boutiques that'd make a splash on social media and a couple of upscale dining spots, all of those meant to change the online scales deeming an area's walkability, and therefore, profitability.

The blind eye most city commissioners turned to the north end made it an easy life for Shin to do as he pleased without many consequences despite living in the area himself. Most of everyone found it an odd sort of justice when he was discovered in his office, unrecognizable from how badly the dozens of stab wounds had disfigured his face and body. One look was enough to know that it was personal, a tenant who had received their condemnation via a neon-pink eviction letter hastily taped to an off-white door.

Only, this time, Shin chose a person backed into a corner at their breaking point. There wasn't much left to lose, yet Shin had ultimately lost it all. Rumor had it that no one sold out the tenant who committed the crime, something even the more moralistic part of yourself could fathom.

These were the cases that painted a grim picture of your future in forensics and often speared to the front of your mind at the worst of times—could you really be part of the reason why a person shattered by the powers of society goes to jail?

Shin Nakamura was a terrible man, but were his crimes punishable by that sort of torture? What about the tenants who probably heard Shin screaming for help, crying in agony—were they any better than murderers themselves?

What did that mean for you? An accomplice who quietly scrubbed clean murders at a monster's behest, you allowed those people to be swallowed up by Montague under a guise of fear, or was it selfishness?

That discomfort lasted you your entire shift, like an incredibly nauseating pill with a bad smell that sat in your nose for hours. You couldn't wipe away the thoughts like you could dried blood on smoke-stained walls or lumps of serrated flesh and fat wedged between slabs of wood on the floor.

"Man, he coulda been cleaner about this." T.J. had his feet planted solidly on the middle step of a ladder, well at work with a long-handled brush pushed flat to the ceiling. The splatter had gone that far, earning a few awestruck coos from him and Hoss earlier. "It would've made our lives easier."

It was a normal joke.

You'd laughed at the exact same one many times before, even finessed your own commentary in there on occasion because the dead can't sue, and a murderer had no rights—but now, you thought it'd taste bad on your tongue.

The two hulking men noticed, far sharper than you gave them credit for. Or maybe you were just worse at hiding things than you thought. They didn't allude to anything until everyone was packed up in the van, dried from the sweaty protective suits and summer heat by the AC.

"Listen, it ain't my business, and I swear I've been trying my best not to ask." There was a furtive look linked between Hoss and T.J.; it was something they had talked about when you weren't around. "That guy you're living with. He isn't doing anything to you, right? You used to talk about him all the time in the beginning. Haven’t heard a peep about him in ages. God, you're not living in your car, are you?"

From the outside in, you weren't doing much to try to embellish fancy stories and reasons onto your drastic change over the months. You simply let it be and navigated every day with the hope you'd remember where you were going with your head down. It probably didn't look too good to a paternal man like Hoss, and to T.J., who had several younger siblings.

"No, it's not him—" But, of course, it really was and everything surrounding his cruelty, everything he made you do, and what you never refuted. "I'm just perpetually exhausted. I'm sure you've heard that from Sylvie and Deshaun while they've been in uni."

"All the damn time." Hoss beamed, chest perked a little higher with the mention of his children. It wasn't enough to diffuse the tension lingering in the van, however. "Just know, I'd do for you what I'd do for my babies—put the fear of God in that man. If he puts a finger on you, you let me know."

T.J. gave an agreeable hum, fingers sticking to the steering wheel as he moved them around, making a turn down some street. "We'll catch him by surprise and everything. I'll call in a couple favors, grab a few shovels and bags of cement from my dad's place. It's all good."

For some reason, their entire spiel only spiked your uneasiness, and suddenly you were far too aware of your bladder. It was enough initiative for T.J. to floor the gas and get back to headquarters, giving you the chance to break away and race the remnants of daylight all the way home.

༺ ♰ ༻

It had never happened before, but you managed to catch Montague by surprise when he walked through the front door to find you standing there in the foyer. The kitchen broom wrapped in your hands was a nasty ploy, along with the look you cast between him and a young man not any older than yourself.

Again, just like all the others, you didn't recognize him. Montague's victims were fast, fleeting fixations for him, none worthy of names or an identity in his eyes. You suspected this guy was much the same.

Montague's bewilderment was swept away by a smile and laxing posture. He had settled back into his element. "You're home early today. I didn't expect to see you until much later. Not much to the scene, I assume?"

"It was pretty bad." A certain stiffness trailed on the end of your words, letting them echo through the hall and hang in the cool evening air.

The young man was fast to perceive that tension: the tightness in your shoulders, fingers subtly wringing against the cracked wooden broom. Montague's anticipative smile climbed higher the longer he looked at you.

Would it be such a bad thing to turn around and pretend you had never seen him come home with that other man? You considered doing it, hiding upstairs and using your headphones until everything seeping through turned into an amalgamation of ambient noise that meant nothing to you, and you willed away the guilt like you'd always done.

In that moment, you thought about Meredith Nimu's apoplectic daughter, a woman so embittered by her own suffering that she was foul and relentless to anyone she crossed paths with. You thought about Shin Nakamura, a greedy, pitiless man who'd rather let coroners scrape up his tenant's remains rather than grant them mercy while they were alive and had been left in pieces because of it.

You thought of them and all their wickedness and edged your gaze towards the young man still standing in the doorway with his hand holding it ajar, clean fingernails picking at chipping paint, just steps from outside. "I think you should leave."

Run! Run! You'd better run away as fast as you can! Nothing would stop Montague from keeping his prey there, if that's what he chose to do.

He did the opposite of that, and that was, simply, nothing at all. No pretty blandishments, nor a mouthful of teeth. Rather, now, he was particularly piqued by what you were trying to do.

To the young man, he had meddled into something rather egregious, probably convinced it was extramarital. You battled a surge of pride blooming inside you, shifting your chest a little higher, anchoring your spine back into your body.

"Don't come back here." You didn't need to say anything else. He was gone after pinching out a look of disgust towards Montague, tutting at him with his upper teeth showing through a curled lip.

Nothing happened for a while, not until the front door was secured after his departure. You were left to that responsibility, triple-checking the lock, while Montague ambled deeper into the house, but not too far away as you could follow the leisurely path by his heel strike. There was a rhythm in how he moved. It was deliberate, as though mimicking something.

It took you five paces to figure out he was miming your heartbeat, and he only stopped once it quickened in your chest. He appeared from around the corner, still taking his time reaching you, toying with some trinkets displayed on shelves built into alcoves throughout the lower floor.

You couldn't explain what you were feeling at that moment. Of the thousands—maybe millions—of victims Montague had taken in the previous times, you had just deprived him of one. That man would continue living, and he would tell his friends tomorrow about the weird night he had, and he would never have to be grateful that you saved him from a hellish death.

Yes, oh yes. Even as Montague approached you, carried by his deft gait with both halves of his gold compact open in his palm, you couldn't help but be in complete awe of yourself.

A life continued outside of this mausoleum, and it was all because of you. You were entirely different from Meredith Nimu's daughter and Shin Nakamura, and, for once, your hands weren't sullied by bleach, blood, and body matter.

All that heaviness you had been carrying was suddenly so much lighter, and you felt like your chest could open up as wide as the room where you stood. The breaths you took were dry and cold in your throat, yet fresh as though you were walking outside in wintertime.

Montague must've seen something he didn't like on your face because he sucked down on his cigarette for a while, winding his wrist with it at his side once he was adequately calm.

"Did it feel good? I've only seen you this happy while I was fucking your brains out." It was jarring to hear him talk like that. He took another quick drag and let it out slowly as he rounded you. "Truthfully, darling, I didn't think you were the type to break the rules—on purpose, anyway. But I suppose we all get a little wound up every now and then, right? I've already forgiven you."

And then, you watched him drop the cigarette to the marble and snuff it underfoot until the weak ember was turned to soot. A black smear was left behind when he took his foot away. His stare into you was unwavering.

"Clean it up."

You figured this was how a frightened animal felt when it wanted something within reach of an observant predator because you were trying to think of all the ways to get close without getting too close. It was a pitiful, humorous sight to him, seeing your steps forward so light and on the verge of bolting. But he showed no intention of doing anything more.

Still with the broom in hand, your knuckles turned stark around the handle while sweeping the remains towards you. It would take more elbow grease to get up that smudge, and he knew that just as well.

He reached for the broom and snapped it to a halt, making you jump, jaw clenching. A noiseless gasp lurched in your throat, his fingers wound tight into the hair at your crown as he yanked your head back to show all the fleshiness of your neck.

"What will you do about it, darling?" His lips were already cold and flush to the artery dancing in the curvature built of skin, muscle, and tendon.

Your teeth chattered as the wetness of his tongue followed that intricate, breathtaking network inside of you as far as the neckline of your shirt would let him.

"A man has to eat. Have you ever seen it? A man near starvation and the sorts of things he'll do to survive? Why, I've heard stories of desperate, little men eating their own lovers—their children—themselves just to claw around for a little longer. It's inspiring, I think."

He dragged you away then, up the stairs and through the hallway on the second floor to your bedroom, fingers still nested your hair until the moment you were shoved down onto fresh linens. There wasn't anywhere for you to go once he joined you on the mattress, feeling it bend towards his weight.

"Don't be afraid." he said this with all the fond familiarity of a lover, blunt fingernails digging crescents into your thigh through your clothes. In the waning moonlight that filtered through the dusty window over your bed, his pale eyeshine snared you like roots bursting from somewhere within your busy sheets to keep you there—keep you tame. "That's right. Come to me. Come to me."

There was a new drowsiness behind your eyes, one you couldn't stave by blinking. Montague's face was closer now, and you were struck with just how beautiful he actually was. The longer your gaze lasted, tips of your fingers exploring every shape and edge of his exquisite features, the less you were convinced he was a threat to you—that he couldn't have possibly been all that you'd feared up until now.

"I want you." His lips inched up like he expected you to say it. He felt your hands rest on the sides of his face, guiding him down into a soft kiss that he returned, that he kept clean and let you command until he was bored with it. You chased after him, lower lip pulled between both of yours and eventually out of reach. "Don't you want me too?"

"I wish you could understand just how much I do." He rummaged his pocket for the gold compact, losing it somewhere in the sheets, and then busied himself with stripping himself and you of clothes.

Each piece discarded showed a greater expanse of your skin, a delight in his eyes because he could see that gorgeous webbing of arteries and veins throughout you, even in the darkness, through every defense your body created to protect you from every bacteria, virus, infection—from him.

He didn't need the breath, but he took one and held it anyway.

You withered against his touch, those freezing, lithe fingertips traveling down all the areas where he wished his teeth could be, clear down to your groin. His smile stretched, feeling you search eagerly for a fistful of his hair with his lips smoothing across your inner thigh and then going higher.

There was warmth between your legs, a colorless glisten that leaked out onto the thin sheets, darkening a spot on them that tempted his tongue out for a taste. He came close to entertaining the notion of giving you that glimpse of heaven, allured by your hips leaping off the mattress and against his face.

"You really do think this is all about you." Montague kept you still by pressing down into your abdomen as he rose onto his knees, erection fitting tight between your bodies in the moments before he guided himself lower and hitched up into you.

The sharp motion knocked a startled gasp out of your throat, where it quickly dissolved into a slew of filth and breathy panting. Your nails clawed into your palms, a sight he thought to make worse by digging himself deeper into you.

Montague had no issues biding his time this way, looming over the sprawl of your body beneath him, manipulating parts of you until he saw your face flinch and the first moans of discomfort shake all the way from your chest, up, and through your teeth. They matched the pace of his hard thrusts, smothered by sharp slaps of skin that carried in the inky air.

Indeed, I can wait. That thought of his unsatiated hunger melted in the back of his mind with the precedence of arranging the course of blood in your body. The drum of your heartbeat was deafening to him, but it wasn't enough.

It wasn't loud enough.

He wanted to be able to envision the arteries and veins bursting in his teeth, saturating the sheets and walls and both your bodies in hot red. He wanted it to paint his skin while he fucked you to absolution.

"It really, truly, is all about you in the end, isn't it?" He could still speak clearly, despite you being unable to utter noise beyond the air being forced out of your lungs. "You really are magnificent. How could I ever think to let you go? Not after everything you've done for me, how beautiful you look next to all of my things."

His hand shifted away from your abdomen at last, tracking across the soft span of your stomach and the muscles spasming there under his fingertips.

All he would have to do is dig through you a little bit, and he could bury himself in those twitching fibers and insides. But he continued on his path to your pert nipples that he rolled against his palm a few times, higher still to fold his fingers together against your sternum where he felt your heart thundering there against your ribs.

"Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump," came his mocking chant that cracked into raspy moans as he lingered there. It had been a long time since something had made him feel this good. He had forgotten what bliss was truly like.

He reached your neck before long, trapping the underside of your jaw against his knuckles, forcing you to see him as his weight bore down on your throat. You both heard the cartilage and muscle in your neck shift, a subtle crack that sent your limbs flailing. You were thrown out of the rhythm of his thrusts in an attempt to grab at him.

"You really are despicable, aren't you?" He let out a gleeful laugh, letting your fingers turn ashen while you wrung his wrist. You weren't able to do much with your legs except use them to plant your heels into the mattress, vaulting your hips in the air to try to wrench yourself free. His cock slipped out of you, but he was hardly bothered by that.

"Does it feel good that you chased off my guest? I could get him back, you know. You're aware of this. I know you are. But righteousness just feels so… rewarding, doesn't it? You couldn't resist. Desperation must've been eating you alive."

Strings of saliva glistened in your mouth, breaking apart the further your jaws spread. You were convinced, in that moment, that you would die like that in a silent scream. None of the words that Montague spoke truly reached you, not as your chest quivered and lungs burned as though swallowed in an inferno.

"Every misdeed in life vastly outweighs the good, you know? The scales have never been leaned in our favor—not I, and especially not for you. If that's the sort of thing you believe in. Isn't that what you're taught? Goodness for the sake of salvation at the end of a short life of inhibitions? How miserable." Montague took his hand off of you and let you breathe.

You sucked in crisp air, gasping from your side through wet coughs and the sourness of vomit spat out on the floor.

Your respite was brief, weight on the mattress shifting as the hair on your scalp was used to lever you to your knees, body suspended upright only by his fingers tangled at your roots.

"This is all I can see." Montague loosened his hand from your head, moving south along your spine to your ass. He kneaded the bruised parts of your hips for a while after, lips ghosting their way along your neck up to the ear. "All I can see is what's right in front of me. And how it tastes. All that matters is that I have my fill—and that I feel good."

He smeared slick into the heel of his palm, rolling the head of his cock in that mess as he instructed you with every bit of lewdness how he wanted you to bend against the headboard, how far apart for you to spread your legs for him.

Every bit of it was humiliating for you, while he wished he could memorialize that moment of sinking back inside of you as your breaths broke into stifled sobs, face warped by anguish.

"Does it hurt? Tell me, I have to know, what does it feel like?" He enjoyed the suspense of not receiving an answer, listening as your fingernails dug tracks into the wood headboard and the dark room filled with obscene wetness that grew louder as his thrusts turned wild.

"Mmm—" He hinged forward, bracing his weight on top of your hands with his own. You shied from the surge of coolness that came with his cheek pressing yours. "You and I aren't so different. It makes me wonder if you actually like this. Isn't there something so freeing about it?"

"Mer—mercy, please." It was a coarse whisper from your dry throat, so much of your time having been spent with your mouth agape. The idea of having you that way was as tantalizing as all the others he thought up. "Montague, please—mercy."

Oh, now you were begging.

This was more than what he deserved. He managed a few more thrusts, spilling over into you by the third with a moan that he felt no shame to leave ringing in your ear. "Every part of you, every single part—I'll burn myself into your skin and your bones. You'll feel me in your veins, your blood. I'll make for certain that I'm all you remember—forever."

The vastness of your bedroom had grown warmer, permeated with the thickness of sweat and salt that left your palms slick against the headboard. You let your body slump against it, skin sticking to the wood. It didn't offer you the relief you wanted at that moment: a glass of ice water, all the tenderness of a soft bed to lull you into a blank dream—you just wanted to rest.

Montague knew this just as well, fishing his compact out from a muddled heap of linens and clothes. He checked inside to grab one of the two cigarettes left, making a mental note he'd need to replenish again tomorrow before lighting it and savoring it. At this rate, he anticipated he'd be empty before the end of the night.

For a while, he sat there cushioned on his haunches, admiring the way the smoke coiled towards the ceiling in dainty wisps and mingled with the stench of sex.

"It's not enough." he said, barely eliciting more than a glance from you. His current cigarette was already burnt to the filter, forcing him to pull the last and light that one too. "This is my last one. Such a shame."

You smelled the smoke strongly now, just seconds passing before you were yanked across the bed onto your back, the soreness in your scalp near excruciating as you yelped. Montague made a place for himself between your thighs again, leering down the length of his nose at you.

If he wanted to, he could trace the dread etched in your features with a finger, feeling all along your hot skin, into all the cavernous lines he wished he could preserve—right there, just like that. There had never been a more gorgeous visage than the one you wore right now. Only your gleaming, glowing, pink insides were more beautiful.

He watched your lips twitch while he teased a fistful of his hard cock against your sorest spot. You were swollen and bruised, and he could only imagine what it felt like when he bottomed out in you again.

The curve of your spine arched off the mattress, fingers frantically raking the air at him, reaching for any part you could sink into to get him out. Even your body seemed determined for the same, wonderfully stimulating walls squeezing around him.

It made a shiver roll all along his spine to his tailbone, eyes rolling up towards the ceiling, with his first thrusts feeling positively divine. Especially when you jolted, an almost exaggerated response amplified by jagged cries and wet gasps you couldn't seem to swallow back down into your chest.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry—" You sputtered around the mucus piled in your throat. "Montague, I'm sorry. Please, stop."

He had burned away half of his last cigarette when he leaned over you, his body eclipsing what poor light had managed to illuminate the room for you. You could only follow the dainty mesmerizing glow that worked away from his mouth—his exhale barely masking a moan that he blew away with the smoke—and towards you.

"Keep doing it." His other hand was crawling up your neck, forcing you to suck in a hard breath. "Beg me again. Keep doing it."

All sound but the steady pulse of the headboard striking the wall had deadened, lasting well until the moment the cigarette touched your skin—and you screamed. Your throat vibrated, suddenly stopping when his palm closed around you again, silencing all your noise, his thrusts sloppy and rough while you thrashed under him.

This time, he kept you pinned by his chest, letting your feet dig for traction and slip and slide on the sheets. The bright smolder turned dark as he twisted it into your neck, taking all the remnants of restraint he had not to drill into you as far as it could go. He curled his tongue behind his jaws, keeping them tight.

Montague let go of your throat to allow you the grace of a stifled wail before that same hand sealed your lips. "Ah, ah. You know better than to scream. Shh, shhh, shhh. It's such an ugly sound."

He rubbed the cigarette into your skin until it crumpled, leaving him to lament for a moment once flicking it away to the floor. For him, it left behind a beautiful burn: raw, mad, red, and enticing. As his hand fell off of your mouth, daring you to do more than whimper and cry, his tongue was already flat against your wound.

"Oh, God," you wheezed, voice hoarse and jarring with the force of his hips knocking into you. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! Stop, stop, stop! I swear I'll never do it again! I swear. I swear!"

Montague caught the wrist you swung at his head, giving the taste of your seared flesh time to settle on his palate before turning towards the pulse in your thumb. He tried to match how he was fucking you out to how it throbbed on his lips.

"Oh, I'm well aware that you won't do it again. That much is a given." His strokes into you were suddenly languid and intentional, so achingly deep that your eyes rolled back. "I've already said that you're forgiven, haven't I?"

You could barely speak over the depth he reached. It didn't feel right. "Th-then, why?"

A smile flourished across his face, but your eyes couldn't pierce that dark veil to see it. You could feel the damp path he left on your wrist, how the muscle writhed all around the sprawl of your veins, going as far as to wind your fingertips before it receded back behind his lips.

"Because I'm enjoying myself." There was a weight of finality to those words before his mouth engulfed the side of your wrist, away from your fragile network of bluish-purplish channels. And when he bit into you, it was the incisors that sank through.

You didn't know what it was. A clamp seized you by the neck like his fist, steeling itself there and robbing you of a scream. The pain was unlike anything else—paralyzing and deep, like a pair of sharpened, narrow skewers made of molten fire piercing you with such an agonizing ache that you could do nothing but lay there.

But you still felt everything he was doing.

His thrusts had grown truly vicious, chasing a high that came as the warmth of your blood seeped from a pair of punctures he had created. The steady flow he fed from was something he lapped on at his leisure. Enough of it streaked the length of your arm and dripped onto your bedding, onto your naked, warm skin when he guided the fall over your neck and chest, south to your stomach and abdomen. He let it fill and pool the seams of his fingers while smearing it with the fluids between your bodies.

At last, breaking the trance to speak, feebly, in between intermittent pockets of pain and numbness rolling through you, you asked with some hopefulness, "Are you going to kill me?"

"You? Kill you?" Montague dropped your wrist. It felt like a limp, dead thing that didn't belong to you. He dove at your neck for those drops he teased himself with, nudging your chin high with his nose to reach it all. "Death would mean letting you go. You're all mine, darling. Whatever other existence waits beyond death will never have you."

His tongue wet a trail to your chin, collecting a watery essence of blood and spit that he pushed into your mouth. Your lips were sealed by his ravenous kiss, relenting to the thickness of his tongue swirling the taste into your cheeks and down your throat, a nauseating intermix of iron and stale smoke that lingered and made you pucker.

And then, you heard him back in your ear, craning his neck only as far as to aggravate the cigarette burn with his breath. It gave several angry throbs. The weight of his body was almost flush on you, spreading the blood around as though your skin together was a single canvas.

To his eyes, it bloomed breathtakingly, seeping into every crevice, pore, and scratch that made up your design, an impermanent stain that he could saturate you in again and again and again. The things he whispered in your ear were vile and wicked, all on unlabored breaths while his strokes turned sluggish and stayed seated deep inside you until the final hitch of his hips left you full of him.

"I don't think you should go to work today."

You were only scarcely coherent of him—or anything for that matter—eyes unmoving from the black void above and unfeeling of how he chose to manipulate your body, still, hours later. All you could think about was the flutter of your lashes weighing down heavily over your eyes and how this world only survived on suffering such as yours.

༺ ♰ ༻

A small pile of things was arranged fussily in a duffle bag Hoss had given the day you returned to work after an impromptu leave of absence. It had only lasted three days, just enough time to acclimate to the pain that seemed to synchronize to every part of your body, throbbing everywhere, all at once, and at times with sharpness so great it toppled you to the ground. You could only lay there—wherever you dropped, on whatever cold slab of marble or concrete until it dissipated, unfurling from your limbs and organs to a rapturous wave of relief that melted the tension out of you.

It had only happened once while at work on a scene amidst a balmy summer night and came out of nowhere like an electric shock surging to your fingertips and toes, a hammer landing on your bones and leveling you on the sidewalk leading back to the company van. And that was all it took to incur a ruinous sort of anger in the two hulking men.

"You're going to take this bag, pack some shit, and you're leaving. Tonight." Hoss had to shake out the dust on the old duffle bag he pulled from somewhere in his car. "You ain't gonna tell me the reason, but I know he did something to you. T.J.'s calling in a favor."

"No. Don't—don't do anything. Don't try to come to the house—" There was a bandage around your wrist that you couldn't stop fiddling with. "I don't know what'll happen if you do. Just fucking don't."

"Nah, not us." T.J. slapped his phone back into the clip on his belt loop, eyeing the motions of your fingers on your wrist uneasily. "One of my old buddies—name's Roscoe—said he wants to handle it. Apparently, he and your guy have a history of some kind. He says to be ready to go by three."

The meaning behind what he said was left nebulous and concerning to you, even after you returned home with the duffle bag and started pulling things from your closet. Some ways across your room, high up on the wall and out of your reach was a clock. Its monotonous ticking brought your eyes over to it.

It was just after one-thirty, still enough time to change your mind if you wanted to. There was something so effortlessly easy about following along to the whims of other people. It felt safe, reassuring—their confidence was infallible. Not once in four years had T.J. or Hoss given you a reason to doubt their intentions, but right now, it boiled over in your mind.

But where will I go? What am I going to do? He'll find me. He'll find me. Montague would find you, but he wouldn't stop you from leaving. You could see it with clarity—him perched on the armrest of a chair, watching you walk through the door. He'd give you a headstart, a few days, maybe a few weeks.

You weren't sure you knew what to do without him. There was nowhere else in the world you could go, no one you could confide in that wouldn't be destroyed. He would keep your heart beating all the while breaking you apart until he had his fill, reminding you that this was how it was meant to be. This was how he showed you how you belonged.

And you—silly little you with your consciousness floating on the fringes of inscrutable ecstasy and some personal purgatory built on agony in your bones and blood—would believe him.

"Going on a trip?" His voice drifted to you from the doorway, far sweeter than it usually was. "I wish you would've told me. I can't imagine what it'll be like without you here in this house. You breathe life into it."

He was lured over by your silence, fitting his fingers between your shoulder blades to push along your spine, easing away the discomfort that had settled there. It was hard not to lean into that relief, a misstep that shattered any lasting hold of willpower when he stooped his neck to sweep you into a kiss.

"Why don't you stay instead?" He knew you wouldn't be coming back, not without dragging you back himself. "Stay with me instead. Right here. In this bed."

"Montague, stop—" He pressed down harder on your lips so those words withered into guttural frustration in your throat.

The duffle bag was flung far away, opening space on your bed for him to lay you out and begin to unravel the bandages around your wrist. Once he had access, his mouth was already full against the two puncture sites.

"Stay." He wasn't playing coy now. "I'll take care of you. It wasn't enough before. I can see that now. What can I do? It'd be too easy to break your legs. What if I chained you to this bed? What if I locked you up in this room? I wouldn't mind keeping you downstairs with me, but it would be too cold for you, I think."

"I want to leave." you said, mustering your composure through tight lips while he teased the infected purple holes with his flatter teeth. "Let me go."

He smiled derisively. "I don't think you know what you want."

"I—" You balked at him, reiterating with a stumble, "I—I just want to leave. Get off."

"How will you ever survive without me?" You didn't know if you'd be able to. "You'll be all alone, all alone in a world that's just ready to tear you open and spit you back out. I've told you before: Society doesn't reward virtue over vice—only those who play along. You won't last, not after you've known and tasted me."

You couldn't bring yourself to say anything, whereas he swelled like a man who had salvaged a victory, lying himself down to kiss you again—

And then, the doorbell rang with an immense melancholic echo that you could feel vibrate up your arms and legs. Nearly a year later, you were hearing it for the first time and grasping onto the lapels of his suit vest, keeping him still when you remembered T.J.'s promise.

"Ignore it." you said.

"We have a guest—" Something in his tone made your stomach clench. "It's not polite to leave them waiting, especially at this hour."

Montague had untangled himself from you and was gone before you could stop him. Another wave of pain put you on the floor when you moved. Drool piled from your mouth. An ache so unreal pounded in the wrist he had played with. The crawl to your duffle bag was far, arduous in that every inch felt like carrying stones on your back.

I'm going to die. I might as well already be dead. You didn't have any more time to wait, so you slung the strap over your shoulder and used the wall to guide you along the quiet hallway, bumping into every pedestal and display where Montague's most treasured things had stayed undisturbed.

You were one of them, something he could keep on the second floor with the rest of his stuff, but unlike brittle porcelain and fraying embroidery—he could break you as much as he wanted, again and again and again, and fit you back whole. He could do it forever while you wasted, longing for an end he would never give you.

But as you crept along the bleak wallpaper and all of his curios, you were so gentle with them, steadying any wobbling base or piece as you went. The central staircase was close, voices at the bottom of it faint and unintelligible, drifting alongside you as though part of the house—

The air exploded.

Just once.

A single gunshot brought back all the alertness to your body, neck and shoulders at full length, pain dulled to where you could shuffle faster and look off the bannister at the landing below.

Montague was staring back up at you from the floor, entirely still and soundless. His jaw was unhinged, askew, frozen in a position that should've been impossible. A black hole gaped between his eyes, but didn't bleed.

"If you're not ready, that's going to be bad news." Another man stood nearby sheathing a gun, unfamiliar and yet with sameness in the way his gaze felt hollow and reached through you. "I'm repaying my debts. I'd like to make good on this one."

You were slow descending the stairs, even slower while you rounded Montague's body and denied yourself the chance to stop. Something invisible wanted to pull you to him, plow your knees into hard marble and weep over his chest. However, your insides bending in disgust and twinges in your bones kept you onward.

This man, Roscoe, was just as sickly-seeming and gray as the other, every slot of space on his arms and neck filled with images of religious iconography and portraits of saints—Mary being the only one you recognized with just a glance. It was tempting to touch him, something he noticed and stepped out of your reach.

"Is there another way out of here?" He made a weak motion towards the front door just ajar, but his eyes were stuck on the wrist wounded and unusable to you now. "We need to go. Now."

You were racking your brain for an answer, turning half-circles in place before pointing to the archway with a clock. "There's a backdoor, but the yard is fenced in and there's nothing but forest for three miles. There's also—"

Roscoe waited expectantly, ushering you to continue when he went for the gun in its holster. "Start moving, we'll figure it out." He unloaded another round into Montague's head, a near indecipherable twitch in the fingers made the hair on your neck shoot straight out. "Silver only keeps him down. It won't kill him. Go!"

"Th—there's, there's the basement." You smacked your lips, trying to swallow around a bulge in your throat. "There's an old door. He said there are tunnels, but I don't know where they go. I don't know if he was telling the truth. I don't—"

He threw a hand into your back, thrusting you forward at least three feet. You almost didn't catch your footing. "Then that's where we're going."

"Not a friend of yours then, I assume, darling?" Montague's voice from the floor was as much of a relief as it was terrible. The silent gaps of air all around were disturbed by sharp snaps and cracking bones as his jaw moved back into place and he sat upright over his thighs. You were transfixed by the silver bullets being sucked into his skull, holes shrinking until they closed completely. "I'm not surprised you're still fraternizing with the wrong crowds, Roscoe. You and that entire Society have always been a fucking eyesore."

Roscoe readied his aim. "Parasite."

Montague laughed all the way to his feet, tugging at the edge of his vest to make it neat again. He opened his mouth just enough to let his tongue roll out, shards of silver bullets tinkling as they hit marble underfoot. "You can't take what's mine."

He looked to you, stepping closer every time Roscoe moved you back with his arm. "Come here. Come back to me, darling. This is where you belong. This is your home. You belong here with me, here with everything that you know."

"He doesn't mean that."

Another gunshot snapped you to attention, blinking out of a stupor you hadn't realized you were in.

The bullet landed in Montague's forehead, teetering his balance in such a way that his back curved towards the floor, arms hanging like useless instruments, yet he still somehow kept his soles planted. "Time to go. Get to the basement."

Roscoe didn't fail to reach you this time, running tight on your heels through the house to the basement floor. He stopped partway to the old door to help you scour the duffle bag for a key—one attached to the chatelaine Montague had given you the day you accepted to move in.

Your breaths were ragged, heart ablaze and beating against your ribs. In that moment, as you flipped through the assortment of keys with an unsteady, slippery grip, you wondered if Montague heard your blood racing in your veins, if he could follow the suffocating drumbeat your heart made in your ears.

Just above, fast approaching the locked basement door, came a thunderous roar so inhuman and reverberating that it scared the clip of keys out of your hands into a clattering heap on the floor. Time was up.

"Move!" Roscoe shoved you aside, illuminated by the hectic flare of your phone as he fit his fingers through a gap in the door and ripped the entire thing off its hinges. He pulled you by the scruff of your shirt and heaved you inside the tunnel. "Go! Go! Go!"

The first thing to hit you was a putrid smell intimately known but always through protective equipment and a respirator. And as you went deeper into the tunnel, led by a single route and the light off your phone, the dirt packed under your feet turned soft, sinking to the tops of your shoes.

And then, you saw bodies.

Numerous—countless corpses in varying stages of decay with twisted faces reflected your terror and pain right back at you. Most were intact with missing limbs or dark red chasms in their abdomens that had been scraped hollow and dry under the white light.

A few had been fully decapitated, briefly reminding you of the dead blonde woman from that night, but most of what lay stacked against the tunnel walls were emaciated figures with skin pulled so taut to their bones you could still make out their faces.

You were doubled over your knees, sucking in fetid mouthfuls of air and retching them back out on the ground. It burned in your throat, in your nostrils, and behind your eyes, but stifled your sobs as Roscoe dragged you alongside him.

"What did he do? What did he do?" You were crying, wheezing out those words on every shallow breath you took all the way to an end just ahead.

The more you thought about it, the more you smelled the rot, tasted the bitterness of your own vomit, the more came out. "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

Roscoe had to let you rest in the grass once you both surfaced. One of the exits turned out to be near the house, less than half a mile. But the tunnels kept going and so did the bodies. You suspected that there wouldn't be any reach of that underground labyrinth that didn't have some form of decay along it.

The thought brought the tears back, but now you could relish the sticky summer night humidity and touch dewy tendrils of grass under your hands.

"Can you drive?" Roscoe had a pair of keys hanging from his index finger, giving you a long moment to take them. He saw confusion in your watery stare. "I'll tell you where to go, just drive."

That's how it had been for hours at this point. You kept your hands locked around the steering wheel, one stronger than the other, gnawing the inside of your cheek while ruminating everything—tonight, the night Montague had bitten you, every other night before that, and your decision to have ever trusted him.

"How long ago did he bite you?" Roscoe had the seat reclined, arms over his eyes to shield them from oncoming headlights. "It doesn't look good."

You tested your grip on the steering wheel, but you couldn't do much without a sharp sting in your wrist. "I don't know—a couple weeks ago? I've tried everything short of going to the emergency room."

"That won't help," he said. "Modern medicine can fix a dog bite, antibiotics can kill an infection, a vaccine can protect you from a virus. Those aren't going to do any good."

Solemnly, you asked, "Am I going to die?"

Roscoe didn't sit up but had your wrist in his hands, turning it in little ways that didn't aggravate you. Besides the occasional glare from passing vehicles, there was no light in the car, and the holes in your skin were hardly distinguishable, though they had gotten darker. You weren't able to move it with any ease now.

"What you need to know right now is that he's never going to stop following you." He put your hand back on the steering wheel, careful as he enclosed your fingers around it. "It doesn't matter how long it takes, what you do, where you go—a parasite finds a host, and it latches on. And it doesn't let go."

You glanced between him and the road several times, tongue wetting the dry parts of your lips. "He's a vampire—you're a vampire. There's got to be something—"

Roscoe finally sat up in his seat, now cramped sideways with his shoulders flat to the window. The car veered a bit into the other lane. "You need to understand something. What you're saying would imply he ever had any humanity. Vampires are created." He paused for a beat, waiting for the realization to strike you. "Montague was never created."

"What—what the hell is he, then?" A horn abruptly blared by, prompting you to yank the car back onto the correct side. "He drinks blood. He has teeth. He—he hunts. He doesn't like silver. His eyes are the same as yours."

Roscoe lowered his gaze, but remained in that uncomfortable position. "There's a story I heard about him once. I don't remember the details except for one: ‘If the devil exists, they're one in the same.’"

You kept your eyes on the road, counting every car that flitted on past. They were probably going to work at this hour—green numbers on the dashboard showed it just after four—and they'd be able to have a place to return to at the end of the day. Now, you didn't belong anywhere, and twenty-four hours from now you still wouldn't.

The town where you had lived with Montague for a year was long behind you, backtracking would take hours, and you wouldn't know how to get back from the direction that Roscoe had told you to go. Dim streetlamps and cozy houses with spruced yards had morphed into an endless network of concrete, signs, and off-ramps to places you'd never heard of.

It was scary how everything could change in one night, and how it did. The only semblance of normalcy to you right now were the aches throughout your body, which had returned the moment you fully comprehended that you had escaped that house.

"Why…" Roscoe looked up at you, seeing your lips shake and eyes turn red. "Why do I want to go back to him?"

He fixed himself right in the seat, tousling a hand through his hair while looking out through the windshield. "You shouldn't do that. But you'll never be able to stop running."

You never saw Roscoe again once the car ride ended several thousands of miles later, mentioning something about how he repaid his debt to T.J. and had disappeared from a restaurant you both walked into. When that happened, you sat paralyzed at your little table for most of the day with a soul-crushing realization that you were truly alone with nobody in the world—

Just like Montague said you would be.

And, for the sake of others, you'd never be able to have anyone else in your world.

It stayed that way for close to two years. The hardest part hadn't been the homelessness or constant vigilance, not the door revolving each person to come into your life since, but the fact that you still yearned for what you once had. Everything so awful about what you experienced sometimes looked like heaven when you thought about it, like soft, cloudy nostalgia from a time where the throes of agony were all you had ever known.

You were capable of thinking soberly as well, and with that came the understanding that a part of you would always want that time back—want him back. He had left you with a permanent scar and neurological damage that could never be corrected. It was anticipated you'd lose that wrist at some point in the future, but for now, you could still hold a cup and brush your teeth with enough conscious effort.

The pain never went away either, but you refused to let it impede your work in the field. And your two roommates were a couple of engineering geniuses who'd managed to make the flat more accommodating to your needs. They'd been patient with you during every step of your transition into a new life, calling you an enigma because you had nothing to your name except a dusty duffle bag and a "strange-looking dog bite" on your wrist when you first met them.

Sometimes, especially on the weekends after clinking together enough shot glasses, they tried to probe your brain for some clue as to who you were, who you had been historically. You had decided it was better that they—that no one—knew about it or what actually existed out there in the world.

And when you returned home from the lab late that Saturday night, you were surprised to find the lights off and the flat immersed in the kind of soundlessness that made your ears feel clogged with cotton.

You were slow in lowering your backpack to the floor, keeping the front door slightly ajar so a slither of light from the residential corridor slipped inside. "Jordan? Felix?"

No answer. You didn't hear anything from their bedrooms upstairs either.

"Jordan?" The nearest light switch didn't work, neither did the one after that, or any others you hunted down with the diffused beam from your phone screen. "Jordan? Felix? Are you guys home?"

It was possible they had gone out somewhere for the night and just hadn't mentioned anything to you, as unsound as that logic actually was, considering it simply wasn't their personality. But as you wandered through different rooms checking the switches, you knew you were rationalizing to keep yourself in check.

The light from the hallway still piled inside like a narrow pillar, raising all the hairs on your neck and arms, knowing that it wasn't a building-wide outage. They had never left you in a situation like this before. Something was wrong.

"Jordan! Felix! Whe—" Your foot nearly shot out from under you when you slid through something slick on the laminate. After a moment to fix yourself, bracing the edge of the countertop with a clammy palm, you steadied the white glow of your phone at the floor.

There, glistening back at you, was the vast richness of blood in a tall puddle that spread like long winding tendrils through grout in the flooring. It looked almost black under your light at a certain angle, estimating it had been there for several hours—untouched.

You held in a breath and grit your jaws together as the more you moved, the more you saw. And when the top of a head came into view, silky hair shining like fine thread before clumping together at the base where the blood had pooled the most, it was everything you could to keep yourself from hitting the floor.

Both of them were there, perfectly out of sight of the front door and completely unrecognizable. Their bodies had been left in one piece, though where their faces had once been were cavernous holes with pale, pink ribbons of flesh and fat left behind. The roundness of their skulls let blood fill inside it like a vessel. What little pieces of brain matter remained had floated to the surface.

You staggered back from them, phone loosening from your weak hand and returning them to the maw of darkness, while groping the wall behind you as far as your arm could reach. This wasn't a result of crude knife work or even bludgeoning; no, it was a slow kill, one meant to steep someone in torment so immense that you prayed to whatever was out there that they succumbed immediately.

"Help…" Your voice was trapped in your throat, barely registering as a whisper even to yourself as you sidled along the wall. "Someone—anyone, please help."

The patter of your heartbeat was torturous. Your every step back to the entrance was leaden with fear. You couldn't get your legs to move fast enough, and the light reaching in through the gap seemed to stretch on forever—further, further, and further still.

You thought back to that day you met Montague and shook his hand, noting how unnaturally cold it had been despite it being a nice day in spring. You remembered the dead blonde woman with mascara tears, and the bodies he used to decorate the tunnels, and the young man who was able to walk away that night believing it was all some shallow quarrel—never knowing he had sealed your fate.

You regretted all of it.

The door was in your reach now, and you could get out, call for help, and go back to running. This time, you wouldn't be tricked into false satiety or let anyone too close. You would see mountains and forests and oceans a thousand times over before you stopped again.

Two years hadn't been enough time for you to accumulate many things, you thought. It wouldn't be hard to leave most of it behind, just like you had before. You would unpack that old duffle bag from the back of your closet, fill it to the brink, and that would be enough.

You had your hand over smooth metal, but that cold reached greater depths in you as the door was pushed shut from behind, light shrinking away through the slot until you were swallowed whole in the dark.

"Hello, darling. I've missed you." He sounded the same against your ear. For a split second, you felt relieved. "Don't worry about cleaning up. We're not staying long."

He clamped damp fingers over your mouth before you could scream.

a/n; I hope this scratched some awful itch for you. onto the story notes:

on montague: what he is exactly is open to interpretation. tell me your theories! his character has been around in my arsenal for a very long time, but as a human cannibal in those days. he's been resurrected into something worse imo. he exists in my vampire universe more as a side-character, and, surprisingly, is not the central antagonist. he is meant to more or less be the embodiment of depravity and the consequence of a being without internal moral compass.

on mc: represents the fallacy of man and how unreliable the narrative of morality actually is, and how we as people have tendencies to twist and turn the meaning of it for our own benefit. mc in this story is not meant to be a good person, but did they deserve condemnation to a personal purgatory?

so, while this is a monster story, I wanted to parallel the treatment mc endures + mindset to the horrors of trying to escape abuse. I wanted to explore this through the lens of a monster story, though. if you suspect you are in an abusive relationship, please reach out to people to help get you out.

what's funny is that this story was originally supposed to be a dark comedy that moved towards something a little darker, and eventually turned into this. montague was initially going to just be a nuisance to mc by inserting himself into friend hangouts because "it's my house".

divider by; @/anlian-aishang

dc divider by; @/benkei-bear

if you read and enjoyed it, please share your thoughts and reblog!!

[vogelfreyh]

Wanted to draw a portrait of Mina, as I barely draw her alone and she gets no screentime haha. Poor woman 😂❤️ Gotta change that.

Here she is! The second Main character next to Vladi. In the beginning of the story she‘s still human, leading a rather unhappy life as a selfish doctor‘s assistent. But luckily her life changed pretty quickly…and drastically 🫢

Fun fact: She is the only person turned by Vladi. He is not allowed to turn people for a very special reason (concerning his own good, bit I won‘t tell exactly why yet). However, nothing could stop him from turning Mina 👀❤️

(Mina is my OC from my novel „A story of blighted souls“)

[erynies]

A New Friend

Found not only Dracula Daily, but also Re: Dracula, which is a podcast form of the daily emails.

I am thoroughly enjoying the audio version as an addition to the written words. Sometimes, having someone else start the imagination moving with their interpretation is a nice change for the tired brain I have. (=

If you are interested in having Dracula delivered to you in date-appropriate chunks for the next several months, thoroughly recommend.

Podcast/Audio via Re: Dracula Email/Substack via Daily Dracula

[gayvamp1r3s]

in some aspects vampires are comparable to cats

[whumpsoda]

Coming Back to Bite You Part 1 - Swept Up

Masterlist

Finally putting this out there, hopefully I continue it :) updates will probably be pretty slow and gradual!

cw: vampire whumper, kidnapping, hypnosis, alcohol use, mention of death

———————————————————————

He was going to throw up. 

Marshall gripped the can of beer in one calloused hand, taking an aggressive swig of the beverage, still cold droplets of liquid dribbling over his fingers. His throat bobbed with each continuing gulp, and his stomach churned in a boil of acidic bile. The bitter taste of alcohol coated his mouth, swishing off his tongue and dancing down his throat, until he realized he was going to choke. Marshall’s moist lips released the can with a weak gasp. 

He lazily dropped it to the concrete with a clang, the last sip of liquid slipping And seeping into the cracks of the concrete. With a groan he dug his trembling hands into the skin of his flushed face, bits of dried and cracked blood still crammed in rings underneath his crooked nails.

The sour smell of gore still tainted his runny nostrils, infecting the scent of his several tossed away and half finished drinks. Begrudged tears pricked at his eyes, leaving his vision glassy and wet as he desperately tried to wipe them gone.

He should’ve be used to it. Five plus years of vampire hunting experience should’ve prepared him, but it didn’t. It never did.

Marshall choked back a soft sob, brushing at his face roughly in an attempt to rid the tears stained with embarrassment. He didn’t know why he did it. Why he had for five years, and why he continued to. Why he still didn’t quit after seeing yet another young newbie die a gruesome death at the hand of a monstrous creature, with nothing to do to stop it.

How pathetic.

“Something wrong?”

His limbs froze rigid, the sharp, close words cutting through the nightly silence. He shifted, gaze meeting with that of a small woman seated neatly beside him. 

Her face was shadowed by the light shining upon her back, but he could still clearly see her soft grin and glittering eyes. 

“Um,” he sputtered, gears turning to catch his mind up with his mouth. “Leave, leave me alone.”

She grinned, eerily soft and sweet, tilting her head a smidge. The essence of a mother speaking to her child. “I’d love to help.”

Help? Puzzled anger bubbled bigger in his belly, only strengthened by her audaciousness. “I said,” he snarled, face twisting and seething, his crooked teeth bared in likeness to that of the creatures he was trained to kill. “Leave me alone.”

“Driving home?” 

Marshall groaned, sickly, taking a peek at his tattered old truck sitting in the empty lot. His vision shifted, rolling down to the can he’d placed beside his foot, previously filled with alcohol.

He gritted his teeth, grabbing the can once again and lifting it to his lips as the stranger watched. “Yeah? So what?” He spat, taking a petty sip. 

The woman sighed, her smug grin never so much as faltering. “Just thought I’d remind you.” She huffed, holding back a chuckle.

“Why don’t you just mind your own business?” Marshall grumbled, glaring sharply at the stranger. She simply giggled, dripping with condescension, waving him off. Was it so hard to get five minutes to himself?

“Oh, you are very funny, dear. A bit temperamental as well, I see.” She chuckled again.

What was her problem?

That was it. It was not the time. The stranger obviously didn’t have anything better to do than irritate someone crying in the middle of nowhere covered in grime and vampire blood, and seemed to be having a good time with it. Marshall, on the other hand, was no short of seething.

He pushed himself to his feet, wiping his cheeks of sweat and tears and adjusting his coat. Without another word he stepped to leave.

To his surprise, shocking strength wrapped around his wrist, holding him back and leaving him unable to walk off.

“Oh, please don’t go. I didn’t mean to upset you. Sit back down with me, won’t you?”

Marshall stared back in bewilderment at the woman firmly clutching his wrist. What? Confusion was boggling him, poking at his brain. Was she crazy? Who was she to think he would follow her request? After she’d been practically taunting him when he was obviously distressed?

Though-

He paused. He had meant to snap another insolent response, but nothing came out. Why did he-

His vision swiftly glazed over blurry, fogging up his eyes as they turned glassy and unfocused. Marshall wobbled in his spot, legs buckling and shivering with weakness. The ground spun under him, dizzying his head and coating his mind with wretched nausea. His fingers reached out for something to grab, something to stabilize him.

He needed to sit, he needed to sit, he needed to sit, he needed to sit, he needed to sit-

He lazily stumbled back, nearly tripping over his own feet, plopping right back into his seat. This time, he was a smidge closer to the woman. Marshall’s head lolled into his hand, catching himself from such dizzying disorientation.

Why was he… back on the bench? Was he not just about to leave? Was she touching him?

Lightly she rubbed in circles over his back, a motion he almost took no notice of. “Sorry about that, dear. It’s alright now.”

“I… what…?” Marshall slurred, his mind still a thick sludge that desperately gripped the walls of his, hopeful not to slip further into befuddlement.

He… he’d felt similar. Before. Marshall knew the sensation well, the sensation of his brain slipping through his fingers like water, liquified and stolen right out from his own control. Stomped to mush.

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no-

“Very pretty rings you have. Mind if I take a look?” She held his hand between both of her gloved ones, fingers trailing over silver that glimmered in the light.

“Um…”

Not waiting for an answer, the stranger swiftly slipped each ring off each finger, holding them oh so carefully. “Very nice. Very.” She inspected them for a moment, right before turning and tossing them in a garbage bin behind her.

With widened eyes he sputtered, lazily trying to claw for them a second too late. She swept right back into his personal space, forcing him to retreat back with distraction. “Hm. And what might that be?”

She pointed to his pocket.

To his wooden stake, a necessity for vampire hunters.

It couldn’t be-

“I- you, that’s-”

Before he could so much as react, she slipped it right from him with her impossibly quick and nimble hands. “A wooden stake? Silly, silly.” She tisked, ignoring his growing concern and tossing it to the floor. It rolled a few feet away, and with drowsy, draped eyes Marshall watched it crawl out of reach. “You won’t be needing that.”

Please, no-

“You! You- you’re-!” Voice rising with muddled heat, his brain’s realization was catching up with his mouth.

Oh, God-

“Relax. I’m just here to help you. Calm down, dear.”

“N-no… you’re-! Get off me!” He swiped at her outstretched hand, feebly slapping it away.

How could he have been so foolish? How could he have let a vampire so close? How? He’d been so distressed and out of it from that nights job he hadn’t even noticed. What a fool, what a fool, what a fool.

He recoiled, jumping right off the bench and running. With his brain already such a mangled mess he nearly fell over, only catching himself with one hand and pushing himself back up.

His steps were slow and drowsy, swaying arduously and dramatically on his weighted feet. Nonchalantly the stranger stood behind him, taking her sweet time to catch up.

“Go-! Go away! Go away!” he hollered, stumbling around in a growing daze toward his truck, slipping over nothing several times. Her follow persisted. “Go away!”

Her vampiric aura strengthened by the second, taking hold of his susceptible mind and pushing him back into a distant, fuzzy haze. His words were tumbling and quieting, his movements gradually decreasing.

“N- no… no… leave…! Go…”

Soon enough subtle fingers trailed swiftly down his spine, stopping him in place. “Shhh, shhh… relax, dear. Just allow your limbs to go all numb and sleepy.”

His shoulders buckled, jaw falling slack under the immense weight of hypnotic force. Even still, infected by disgusting pleasure, his stomach tensed with sour acid. “Nooo…”

She walked around him, meeting his gaze with sweet, mind melting eyes. “I know you must be scared, little one. My apologies for messing with you, I just couldn’t help it. I’ll be nice now, okay? So be a good boy and just sleep.”

Easy. She’d overpowered him, so easily. Five years of practice and he’d lost just like that. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. How could he not hate himself? How could he not detest the world for such a fate he never deserved? Five years of service and he was going to lose his life at the hands of a vampire?

He’d been so careful.

“Just calm, oh so calm. Your mind settles, all sleepy and exhausted. Just let go for now. I won’t hurt you.” She soothed, cupping his face in her palms.

“Nuh… no… go…”

He didn’t want to let go. He had to escape. He wanted to escape. He wanted…

He wanted…

“Let… go…”

She smiled, warmth spreading through his belly, a blissful, distracting sensation that scattered any coherent thoughts clawing to the edges of his mind. “Good, good. Let go, dear. Just for a bit. You’ll have a very nice nap, okay? It’s all dark out here, which means you must be very tired. And nighttime means you sleep, doesn’t it?”

Marshall yawned, head lolling and body melting. He’d like a nap. He’d been working so dreadfully hard, he deserved one, did he not? A nap would be just wonderful.

“Aw, how cute. You’re so drowsy. Just falling asleep right in my arms, huh? Lovely. An easy catch, weren’t you?” He hummed in agreement, her words flowing through one ear and out the other. He was swiftly floating into unconsciousness, head gradually falling forward into his chest. “Shh… so very relaxed, sleep just holding your putty like mind in it’s hands. Just let go to the call of sleep and exhaustion. I know you want to, dear.”

It was strange, how delightful it felt. He’d been enthralled before, but never so deeply and thoroughly. His brain never so overridden. Why had he ever fought it? Why had he ever rejected such heaven? Marshall couldn’t so much as think of an answer.

Or, think at all, really.

Placing the kind pressure of her hand on the back of his neck, she easily guided the exhausted Marshall’s slick with sweat forehead into the nape of her neck.

“Good boy, good boy. Just let all your worries go. I tried so hard to make this easy on you, I know how easily fussy you humans can get. But everything is fine and calm. Calm and sleepy. Sleepy and relaxed. The darkness of the night makes you oh so exhausted and ready for bed.”

He shivered from the sound of praise, as well as the vampire stroking down his arms and stirring more pleasant feel as he drifted, brain coming to a stop. It felt better than it ever had to fall asleep. He smiled, and so did she. Even in the middle of winter, he’d never felt so pleasantly warm.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head.” She whispered sweetly, rocking him gently like a small child into an entranced sleep. “I’ll take great care of you, dear.”

———————————————————————

Next

Taglist- @softvampirewhump

If anyone wants to be removed or added to the taglist, please let me know! :)

[mj-iza-writer]

"Whumpee please don't go that far away from me", Caretaker requested, "I can't go into the sunlight like you can."

"I'm sorry Caretaker", Whumpee jumped around in the new puddles a recent storm created.

"Thankyou", Caretaker watched them get closer, they adjusted their umbrella.

"Caretaker?", Whumpee stopped suddenly.

"Yes Whumpee", they smiled.

"How come you come outside with me even when you could get hurt?", Whumpee jumped closer, "and why can I be in the sun, but you can't."

"I come out to make sure you are safe, and have company", Caretaker sighed, "as for the sunlight, no one really remembers why we can't come out into the sun. We just know we get severally burnt from it."

"I get burnt from the sun to" Whumpee showed their arms.

"Yes, you're right. My burns are a little different though", Caretaker smiled, "humans have to have sunlight, it helps your body. That's why I rushed you out here after the storm, it's been a week since we've had sunlight here."

"Caretaker, if you're not human, what are you?", Whumpee stopped in front of Caretaker now, almost splashing them.

Whumpee gave a terrified look, "I-I'm sorry."

"No harm done, Whumpee", Caretaker smiled, "for right now, just know me as your Caretaker, I'm sure you will find out soon enough on what I am."

Whumpee looked down and nodded.

"You seem sadened by my answer. Do you not trust me?", Caretaker looked at Whumpee sadly.

"I'm sorry, it's just....", Whumpee thought for a second while staring at the ground, "secrets are hard Caretaker, I don't like them."

"I understand. For this one secret though, I need you to trust me. I will tell you as soon as I feel you're ready. We are still new to each other after all", Caretaker sighed, "I must ensure that I am safe with you, as I have to show you your safe with me."

Whumpee looked up at Caretaker sadly, "are you a vampire?"

Caretaker felt their heart sink, "no, what a thing to suggest", Caretaker tried to remain calm.

Whumpee looked at them for a second, then went back to splashing in the puddles. Out of the corner of their eye, they watched Caretaker breathe a sigh of relief.

Later, when the sun was down, Caretaker tucked Whumpee into bed.

"Remember stay in your room until I come get you in the morning, the castle can be a little scary at night", Caretaker smiled as they patted Whumpee's head.

Whumpee nodded, "okay, goodnight Caretaker."

"Goodnight Whumpee", Caretaker started to leave.

"Um Caretaker?", Whumpee sat up.

"Yes Whumpee", Caretaker turned and walked back to the bed.

"I'm sorry if I made you sad today", Whumpee said shyly, "I shouldn't have asked if you were a vampire."

"Whumpee, you didn't make me sad. You asked a question you were curious about", Caretaker gently brushed some loose hair from Whumpee's face, "I just don't know where that came from."

"Whumper was a vampire", Whumpee sighed as Caretaker helped them to lay down, "they never drank from me, but I was forced to watch while they drained all of the blood of their victims."

"Oh", Caretaker said sadly, "I-I'm sure that was scary to watch."

"Yes it was", Whumpee frowned as they thought back to those days.

Caretaker also thought back to the night they raided Whumper's mansion, then rescued Whumpee.

"Well their is no reason to worry about vampires any longer. Vampires will never hurt you", Caretaker smiled, "I promise."

Caretaker left the room. Once the door was locked, they recited a protection over the room and Whumpee to keep Caretaker and any vampires out.

Caretaker went to their chambers to hide until dawn. Their blood lust had become increasingly worse, but they couldn't bring themself to hurt a human, and animal blood was starting to not help.

Caretaker sighed as they tried to sit and ignore the stabbing pains in their stomach.

"You can handle this Caretaker. Once morning comes, the pain will subside", Caretaker sighed.

"Why fight it, you've got a nice human upstairs", a voice mocked from a shadow in the room.

"Whumper", Caretaker jumped up.

Whumper walked out of the shadows with a grin, "you have something of mine, I want them back."

"Not going to happen", Caretaker bared their fangs, "they are safe from you."

"Don't bother. I know you're weak. I injured you when you raided my mansion, and I know without blood, your healing has been a very slow process", Whumper bared his fangs, "you don't stand a chance", Whumper jumped toward Caretaker and they started to fight.

Whumpee jumped when they heard a crash.

They ran to the door and remembered what Caretaker said, they held the door knob for a second. Another crash, and they found themselves opening the door.

This caused the room protection to be broken. Whumpee was the only one who could do that, they just had to open the door. The second protection over them could be removed by anyone as long as they knew the magic to do it.

Whumpee followed the sounds of struggle until they peaked into Caretaker's chamber.

Both Whumper and Caretaker instantly looked at Whumpee.

Whumper laughed as they threw Caretaker and ran toward Whumpee.

"No", Whumpee cried.

Whumper grabbed at Whumpee but pulled away in pain.

"So you have an enchantment on you, by Caretaker no doubt", Whumper turned to Caretaker, who was struggling to get back up, "if I kill you, it should remove that pesky protection."

"Run Whumpee don't look back", Caretaker yelled as they huffed to get up again.

Whumpee sobbed, "but you..."

"Don't worry about me", Caretaker groaned as Whumper attacked mercilessly, "just go, I'll hold them off as long as I can."

Whumpee cried as they watched Caretaker being attacked.

"Your weak", Whumper laughed as they continued to attack.

"Please", Whumpee yelled, "don't hurt them."

"Whumpee, I want you. They only stand in my way of that', Whumper stopped for a second, "once they die, it will be much easier for me."

Caretaker was thrown against the wall. Whumpee glanced over at a suit of armor, which held a spear.

Whumper stood over Caretaker. They were locked eyes. Whumper didn't pay any attention to the fact Whumpee was behind them until the spear was stabbed through them.

"Why you little", Whumper turned slowly with a wince, and they stumbled and fell to their knees, "you missed my heart, wait until I get my hands on you, you'll pay for that."

Whumpee quickly knelt beside Caretaker.

"You need to drink from me, that's not going to stop them for long", Whumpee pleaded watching Whumper work to remove the spear.

"I can't. I swore I'd never drink from you, no matter what. Vampires will never hurt you again remember", Caretaker groaned as they tried to stand again. They fell forward weakly.

"Please, they're coming", Whumpee cried.

"Desino (cease, stop)", Caretaker pointed at Whumper.

Whumper paused moving as though frozen in place.

"Whumpee listen to me, I want you to run. Get out and run, don't worry about me", Caretaker fell to their knees.

Whumpee whimpered and held Caretaker's face, tears streamed down their face.

"That spell won't last much longer", Caretaker groaned, "go."

"Caretaker you were the first person in my life to show kindness to me, please don't make me leave you to die when I know my blood will help you", Whumpee sobbed, "I'm scared if you get killed. I'm scared they'll find me again. I'm so scared. I don't want to lose you."

Caretaker looked deep into their eyes finally understanding. Caretaker nodded.

"Are you sure, Whumpee?", Caretaker finally sighed, realizing the spell on Whumper wasn't holding.

"Yes please, I don't want to be scared anymore. I don't want to be alone anymore", Whumpee knelt and showed their neck to Caretaker, "drink from me."

"Dimittis (release)", Caretaker waved their hand over Whumpee to remove their protection, then leaned in for the bite.

"No", Whumper cried out, still partially frozen.

Whumpee winced as the teeth went through, "I'm okay", they whispered.

Caretaker drank as they watched their spell weaken on Whumper.

"I can still destroy you", Whumper yelled as they yanked the rest of the spear out.

Caretaker smiled as they looked up at Whumper.

"Thankyou Whumpee", they stood, and gently leaned Whumpee against the wall, "that's all I need for now."

Whumpee slid weakly against the wall until they were lying against it. They hadn't realized how much blood was going to be drained and how that was going to feel.

Caretaker felt their power being restored as they were able to stand now.

You shouldn't have come here", Caretaker frowned, "Et non morieris (you will die)".

Whumpee's head felt heavy. They went in and out of consciousness. The last thing they saw was Caretaker delivering a deathly blow.

Caretaker grinned as Whumper fell to the ground, eternally silenced now.

Caretaker sighed, "and stay down", they stumbled sideways before catching themself.

"Oh Whumpee", Caretaker gently stroked Whumpee's face, "so brave, I am indebted to you."

Whumpee fluttered their eyes open, then jolted up in their bed.

"What happened?", they grabbed their neck, which had been bandaged, "oh right."

A small noise caught their attention. They were scared to look, not sure if their blood was enough to help Caretaker.

"I was starting to wonder if you'd ever wake up", a familiar voice called from where the noise was.

"Caretaker" Whumpee turned quickly, "ouch", they grabbed their neck.

"Oops yep, that will be a bit sore for a while", Caretaker came and sat on the edge of Whumpee's bed, "that was very brave of you, even in a scary situation you were able to help me."

"I didn't want you to leave me", Whumpee looked down, "isn't that selfish Caretaker?"

"No, not when it comes from so deep in your heart. You didn't want to be alone. You didn't want to lose someone important to you. You were afraid", Caretaker smiled, "you are not selfish at all my dear."

"So what happened to Whumper?", Whumpee looked up.

"Thanks to you I was able to finish him, he's gone forever."

"What language were you speaking, and, and, and I have so many questions", Whumpee's eyes grew wide in excitement.

"I was speaking in Latin", Caretaker smiled, "we have plenty of time for questions. For right now how about some dinner, then you need to rest. I took more blood then you were ready to lose, I'm sure."

Whumpee nodded, "but that's okay, and if you ever need anymore, don't be afraid to ask me. I don't want you to feel sick, and I know you need it."

"Thankyou Whumpee, I'll keep that in mind."

Taglist. As always please let me know if you want to be added or taken off of the list. It's not a problem at all. @villainsandheroes @the-beasts-have-arrived @sacredwrath @porschethemermaid @monarchthefirst @generic-whumperz @bloodyandfrightened @freefallingup13 @notpeppermint

[newera-interactiveif]

|NEW ERA|

BOOK ONE

Synopsis: You are a vampire who has been transformed a one year ago, still struggling to adjust to your new life, and now part of the supernatural community at city. Murders occur ,and they were not caused by humans, even worse that some who died were members of supernatural clas and the group of hunters ,so you and several other beings are accused and the group of hunters of the city are investigating and keep an eye on the supernaturals, and that included you.

With such keen senses, there is still some difficulty for you to control yourself and in the midst of this the problems of teenage life don’t give you a break and now with tensions on the brink of war, you and others are forced to find out who is causing these deaths before a mass slaughter occurs in the city of New Era.

__________________________________________

•Play as a novice vampire hiding among humans.

•Choose your gender, name and appearance.

•Fight against or meet hunters, vampires and other supernatural beings.

•Fall in love, hate, cause chaos or peace, you choose.

•Investigate, find out who or what is the real culprit while trying to stay hidden from hunters and find evidence to prevent supernatural clans and human groups from fighting each other.

•Control your bloodlust or let your instincts take over.

•Survive a city and the problems that can arise from being a teenager and a vampire.

Demo | Ko-Fi | Patreon | Discord

Chapters :2 : 131,000 Words ,Including the code.

Last update 14/march/24

Categories: romance, horror, young adult, mystery, drama, action, supernatural.

+18:Violence,Death And other mature themes

Playlist 👇

Romantic Options:

_______________________________

Taylor Roberts (she/he): A hunter and a high school student ,raised from an early age to hunt supernatural creatures like you. Quiet and reserved, focused on the mission, or so should be. It was part of your past, until you had to walk away for good because of your new life, or non-life.

_______________________________

Cassie Matthews (She): Flirtatious, sarcastic, and sassy. Cassie is one of the best in her class, in addition to being a member of the cheerleading squad and also a swimmer in the school's swim team. Someone who loves to party and tease, but also someone who is definitely not to be trifled with.

Note:New ro's or new ro's to be added...

[notquitedeadpod]

Not Quite Dead

a show about vampires

is nearing the end of its third season

if you are an enjoyer of:

relationships with strange boundaries

scary vampires

sexy vampires

monstrousness as an allegory for marginalisation, especially marginalisation of queer people

sharp teeth

relationship status: 'it's complicated'

Not Quite Dead may be the show for you

also, if you start listening to Not Quite Dead today (18th April 2024) or tomorrow and listen to one episode a day, you'll have totally caught up JUST before the release of the finale on 29th May 2024

[vampiresbloodbag]

Vampires are so hot, like hear me out for a second. Them holding ur waist while they drink ur blood pulling ur body closer to theirs, praising you for how well ur taking it.

[oddsconvert]

✂️ for august?

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

When August was a little baby vamp, he was deathly scared of humans - they were his biggest fear. His parents would spin tales about human hunters and mobs and tell August that the cruel, nasty humans would rip him limb from limb if given the chance. He believed that humans were vampires natural predator...not the other way around.

He lived in a big stately home growing up, and his family had MANY blood bags. August used to avoid them like the plague, wouldn't even make eye contact. But he did feel sorry for them. One day when he'd been 'naughty', his mother dragged him kicking and screaming and locked him in the cellar overnight, where their human blood bags were kept, to teach him a lesson. Poor August pounded his tiny fists on the door and was hiccupping/crying/screaming for his mother to come back and save him. He really thought he was going to die. That the humans could get their revenge for what his family has done to them.

He's never been that scared in his life to this day.

[inneffablysleepy]

[vogelfreyh]

Was inspired to do some ink work with my vampires Vladi and Mina based on the My Chemical Romance cover and the tarot version by @/r4tkINgz on twt and @/aleginger_art on insta! ❤️

I just love these two 🥺

(Vladi & Mina are my OCs)

[dragonqueenslayer6]

Vampire infants in my top 4 favorite vampire whump stories: (organized from least to most human-like)

MM/SS- https://www.tumblr.com/not-a-space-alien/745839687745339392/since-vampires-have-breasts-in-your-universe-do?source=share

Kane & Jim - https://www.tumblr.com/whumpsday/745803877318868992/do-vampires-have-breasts-in-your-universe-do?source=share

Shattered - https://www.tumblr.com/oddsconvert/745964896560218112/what-are-vampire-infants-like-in-shattered-do?source=share

Of Vampires and Men -https://www.tumblr.com/whumpy-writings/745875003511390208/do-vampire-infants-drink-milk-do-they-require?source=share

Thank you all for responding. I wanted to compare and contrast how vampires work in your different universes. I asked the question to all of you at the same time, because even though three of you have universes inspired by one another, I wanted to see if you would come up with different ideas.

If it is alright with all of you, I would like to do this again in the future. Focusing on aspects of vampiredom that aren't explored in any or most of your stories. Though, I will space them out, so I won't overload you.

If any of you want me to stop, I will stop. I could also add Cat & Mouse, since I believe it is in the same universe as Shattered, Kane & Jim, and MM/SS.

@whumpy-writings @whumpsday @oddsconvert @not-a-space-alien @t0rture-me

[momolady]

Vintage Misery: Part One

This has been a patreon exclusive for a year now, and I've been just dying to share it. This story takes place in the 90s, set in a southern college town that has secrets hidden to keep the genteel atmosphere. The kindly locals almost seem to smile too much, and anyone from outside is looked at with odd glances. (Features horror elements.)

----------------------------------

I’ve learned a few things from car salesmen, televangelists, and other hawkers - how to razzle-dazzle to sell something that many don’t believe exists. For most, what I sell is a form of entertainment - movie franchises, late-night television hosted by busty goths. But it's all too real for me, having inherited my family’s knowledge and a touch of my mother’s gifts.

Much like a traveling salesman, I try to hit up well-to-do neighborhoods. But college towns are also a boon for my business, especially when sororities and fraternities are involved. They usually reside in old houses, children of old money. Old money means new money for me. But it's the old houses that usually hook me - the older the better, and the more columns on the porch, the better. Especially in the south. I love taking business to the old south.

The houses are usually remnants of plantations, and there’s enough history to build off of to scare some idiot kids into making their parents pay for my expertise. Pretending to be a fortune teller and medium and performing for parties is how I started. After that, I would usually have repeat customers come asking for more. And then, bit by bit, the hauntings started.

One party I went to recently was supposed to be a bg break. One of the girls in the sorority was the daughter of a notoriously superstitious beauty tycoon, known to do business deals under the strict guidance of her horoscope and the placement of celestial bodies. She used crystals, tea readings, and all sorts of new-age bullshit to run her business and family. And her daughter was within my grasp.

I pretended to read the young woman as her sisters watched expectantly, with big eyes surrounded by too much eyeshadow. I sometimes think how I could have been one of them, had my parents not dragged me across the globe. But that was me being bitter. “And you, young lady,” I said to one of the girls, “you are currently dealing with unrequited love.”

The girl looked scared, and then near tears. “How did…”

I tilted my head as a cool breeze stirred my hair. “It’s for one of the professors.”

“I knew it,” another girl said as smugly as possible.

The lovestruck girl shook her head at me. “Can I make it work?”

I feel the cold breeze against my ear. “No. He’s your fucking professor, and he’s either gonna use you and lose you, or keep you on the side until he loses everything in the ensuing scandal. Get over it. Besides, there’s a boy in Delta house who has your picture in his wallet.”

The girl, through tears, sniffled and looked at me hopefully. “Who?”

The breeze went through my hair. “Something Buchanen.”

“Max?” The smug girl said.

I checked my wristwatch. “Oh, dear, look at the time ladies.” I tapped my watch face. “Time’s up for me.” I stood and blew out the candles, then turned on the lights.

Smug girl jumped up. “Wait! What did you say about Max having her picture?”

“It’s in your room,” I scoff. “Go and look for yourself if you don’t believe me. Now if you want me to stay longer, you’re going to have to pay more.” A chill ran down my spine. “And buy me some burritos for dinner.”

Smug girl ran to her room to search for the wallet. I left with my money, and descended the front stairs of the old place. It was dark already, and the streetlamps were casting shadows.

“You should have stayed!” The cold wind hit the back of my head.

“What for?” I snapped. “I can get you burritos, Neil. There was a Mexican joint down the block from here.”

“But that one girl had a stash!” The wind materialized beside me, looking like a wrung-out stoner.

“You’re dead. You can’t get high anymore.”

“But I can remember,” Niel whined. “Just by the smell, the smoke…”

I shook my head. “You died stoned. Of course you remember.” Neil was my best friend. I met him ages ago during one of my parents' many paranormal studies, the victim of a ritualistic sacrifice, lured into a trap with food, pot, and a promise for his poetry to be published. His ghost had haunted the site for ages looking for his promised gifts. I promised him everything except the publishing, which by then he had given up on.

“Whoa.” Neil grabbed my arm. “What is that?”

A troop of girls passed by us - beautiful, almost too beautiful, with creamy pale skin, impeccable clothes, radiant hair. As they walked by, another chill ran up my spine. Behind them trailed another girl on forearm crutches. She was just as beautiful as the rest, even more so with her wounded bird atmosphere.

“What on earth were those?” Neil whispered.

“They’re called women, Neil,” I scoffed and continued walking along. The chill from those girls wasn’t new. I was alway anxious around pretty people, but for some reason I couldn’t shake the feeling even as we walked away.

I took Neil to the Mexican place and ordered him the burrito of his dreams. As long as I supplied him with his favorite food, he stuck to our deal. I suppose I scared the waitress when I recited Neil’s order to her. The burrito he craved would have been monstrous even for the likes of bigfoot or a tyrannosaurus rex. When I first met Neil, I equated him with my favorite teddy bear - short, husky, hairy, and wearing a denim jacket. He was all too happy to leave the site of his death, and it was lucky for him I had a droplet of my mother’s abilities so I could free him.

The takeout order was extremely heavy, most of it from the weight from Neil’s burrito. As we went back to the motel I was staying at, we passed a phone booth. “Wait a second.” I told Neil. “I should call home.”

“Oh, come on! Can’t you call at the motel?” Neil whined.

I entered the phone booth, slid in the quarters and dialed. The phone rang four times before the answering machine kicked in, and I heard my dad’s voice before the beep. “Hey, it’s me. Just giving my weekly update that I’m alive,” I sighed. “Guess you’re still out, or at the museum. Anyways, it’s me. Your daughter. Alive.” I hung up the phone, and as I stepped out of the booth I saw giant globs of beans, beef, lettuce, sour cream spill out onto the sidewalk. “For the love of God, Neil!” I snapped.

He was holding the burrito, practically unhinging his jaw to bite into it even as it went right through him to splatter on the ground. “You’re just wasting it!” I snatched the bag from the ground, not realizing he’d taken it from the shelf in the phone booth while I wasn’t watching. “That was a fucking twenty-dollar burrito!”

The last bit of burrito hit the ground, sending sour cream and beef juice to splatter over my feet and ankles. I glared at Niel, and he just licked his fingers. I rolled my eyes and moved along. No sense in arguing about it now.

The motel smelled like cigarette smoke and bleach, but it wasn’t the worst one I had ever stayed in. The yellow walls, orange bedding and brown carpet made me feel like I was in a sepia-toned picture. “When should I go back?” Neil asked.

“In a couple of days,” I huffed. I sat down at the sticky little table by the window so I could eat my food. “Let them stew for a few days and get comfortable again. Then you can go back and do your business.”

Neil sat down on the bed. “I feel so bad picking on girls, though. I much prefer scaring guys.”

I opened my takeout box. “Well, one of those girls can get us good connections with her very rich, very superstitious mother. We might be able to stop this nonsense and live the high life.” I stopped mid-bite when I grasped my own wording. “No, you won’t be able to get high.”

Neil pouted, then floated away through the wall. After I ate, I climbed into bed and lay staring at the ceiling. There was a huge water stain there. How long had it been there? Was it a sign of pipe damage? A shoddy roof? I thought about these things until I fell asleep, to keep other thoughts from invading my mind.

I woke to the sound of someone pounding on the door. I sat up and caught a glimpse of Niel’s ass before he pulled himself back through the door. “It’s the cops!”

I huffed and got up to answer the door. “What are you doing?” Neil snapped.

“What are you afraid of? We don’t have anything.” I opened the door, but kept the chain latched. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Ma’am, were you at Alpha Sigma Alpha house last night?” the cop outside asked me.

“Good morning to you, too,” I grumbled. “What is this pertaining to, officer?”

The officer was stone-faced, and obviously not in the mood for anything other than being obeyed. “Please answer the question, ma’am.”

“Yes, I was. Now what is this about?”

“Please step outside, ma’am.”

I looked back at Neil, who had hidden under the bed, and rolled my eyes. There went my chance for explaining myself with a haunting. “Not until you tell me why I should.”

“We need to take you in for questioning,” the officer replied, stony as ever.

I furrowed my brow. “Questioning? For what?”

“So we can get your testimony of last night’s events.”

A chill went down my spine. This wasn’t good. Either those sorority girls turned on each other, or I somehow passed by a murderer on the way to the restaurant and didn’t know it. “Can I get changed at least? Maybe a coffee?” I huffed.

“I’ll be waiting here.”

I closed the door and started getting dressed. “Come out, Neil. You have to go with me.”

“I ain’t going nowhere in no cop car.”

“You’re dead, Neil,” I snapped at him. “Besides, you owe me for wasting that burrito last night.”

“You can’t use that against me.”

I threw on my jacket and glared at him. “You know I will, so don’t fight it!” I opened the door and stepped outside. “Okay, I’m ready.”

The cop looked over my shoulder into the room. “Are you in there with someone? I thought I heard a male voice.”

“It’s next door.” I closed the door behind me. “The guy in there has been pacing and mumbling all night.” Crap, this cop might be sensitive. He heard Neil, but I didn’t think he could see him.

The cop looked me over. His badge read Mercy. “What’s your name?”

“I’ll tell you when I’m questioned, Officer Mercy.” I followed him to his car. It wasn’t my first ride in a cop car. I leaned close to the cage that separated the front from the back. “Am I allowed to request a coffee, Officer Mercy? You did wake me up rather rudely.”

“We have coffee at the station,” he said sternly.

“You play the part really well. Let me guess, it’s a family thing. Father a cop? Brother a cop?” I waited for Neil to climb into the front seat. “Your mother’s a cop, too. But she retired, right? To raise a house full of boys.”

Mercy twitched and looked at me in the rearview mirror. “What are you talking about?”

“She ran the house like a bootcamp, right? Is that why you have trouble with constipation? You’re still stressed about it?”

At the stop sign he braked hard and turned around in his seat to look at me. “What are you talking about?”

There was a bottle of constipation pills in the glove compartment, along with a note from a doctor suggesting he take time off for stress. There were also a lot of pictures in Officer Mercy’s wallet. Sentimental, despite the bitterness of his upbringing.

“Coffee first? Or do you not understand what your last name means, Mercy?”

Officer Mercy gave me the eye before turning back around in his seat. “You really are psychic,” he muttered.

“Oh, so you do get it?” I leaned back in the seat while Neil came back to join me. “What happened last night? Did someone die?”

Mercy was quiet, but in the mirror I saw his tense brow and the look of fear in his young eyes. I knew that look, unfortunately.

“How bad was it, Mercy?”

“Ma’am, I won’t talk about it here. You’re being brought in for questioning.”

“That bad, huh?” I murmured. “Was it your first time seeing…”

“Ma’am!” he snapped.

I stopped, knowing I might be making his stress-induced constipation worse. I sighed, crossing my arms against my chest. Once we arrived at the station, I was led to a room where I saw some of the girls from last night. They looked awful, frightened, and I felt for them, whatever they had to witness last night. I was taken to the back and made to sit in a very cold, dimly-lit box with a two-way mirror.

“How do you take your coffee?” Mercy asked.

“With enough cream to make it beige,” I answered.

Mercy furrowed his brow at me.

“It’s not the worst thing you’re going to deal with today, Officer,” I scoffed. “I’ll behave, promise.” He left and I sat, knowing I’d be kept waiting a while. I learned that from my parents, who’d done it before during their studies.

Another cop came in, bigger and more like a pitbull than baby-faced Mercy with his thin mustache coming in. “You are Alice Young, correct?” he said in a chain-smoker wheeze.

“I prefer Al, but yeah. Can you tell me why I’m here? Officer Mercy was chintzy on the details, as well as the coffee he promised me.” I leaned back in my chair, waiting for Neil to return.

Officer Pitbull tossed some pictures onto the table. I recognized them as Smug Girl and Hot-For-Teacher Girl. “Did you speak to these young ladies last night?”

“Yes. This one hired me.” I pointed to Hot-For-Teacher.

The officer placed his elbows on the table and one of his chins on his knuckles. “Can you explain why?”

I looked away from the picture, still waiting for Neil. I hoped I could hesitate long enough. “What were you told?”

Office Pitbull was obviously there to intimidate me, but I had seen much worse than him. “It doesn’t matter. I need to know what you were doing at that house last night.”

“I was hired for a job. The girls were having a party and I was brought in to perform as a medium for entertainment. I performed, then I left and got food at Habanero.” I met his gaze. “Why am I here, officer?”

The door opened and Mercy came in with my coffee. He looked white as a sheet, but he quietly placed my coffee before me on the table. I took a drink as Neil whispered to me, having followed Mercy in. “Thank you, Mercy. This is perfect.” I sat the cup down. “The girls were killed? I’m sorry.”

“You told her?” Pitbull snapped at Mercy.

I shook my head. “They were found in their beds, doors locked, windows open.” I looked directly into Pitbull’s eyes. “No blood, but…”

He slammed his palms down on the table. “You stop your voodoo priestess horseshit this instant! I won’t have it in my building!”

“It’s real…” Mercy started but quieted himself and went back to his uptight stony demeanor from before.

“They said you were hired as a psychic,” Pitbull spat.

I nodded. “I was.”

Pitbull thought he had me there. “And yet you couldn’t predict they were going to be murdered? Or did you not warn them?”

I glared at him. “What do you think?”

He slammed both palms down. “You could be an accessory!”

“I was there, yes, I admit it. But all I did was tell them things they already knew. I can only tell things about people when I’m near them. I can’t tell the future. My abilities lie elsewhere.”

“Yes, I saw your card.” The officer slid it out from the same folder he took the pictures from. “Exorcisms and ghost removal. What sort of bullshit are you trying to sell?”

“Is this about me, or are you going to do anything about those poor girls?” I pressed my finger into the picture. “I’m not at fault here, officer. I’ll tell you what I saw last night, but I had nothing to do with this. I was just in the house as a guest, a party act.”

Office Pitbull glared at me with his lip curled.

“I passed a group of young women as I walked down the street. One had forearm crutches. It was late and dark, and I didn’t really see many people out and about. Even the restaurant I went to was empty aside from a few drunks at the bar.”

“Those girls must be the Harvey sisters,” Mercy said.

Officer Pitbull glared at him. “You’ll have to give me a full statement of what happened last night. Everything from the moment you arrived to the time you left.”

This guy wasn’t going to let me off easy. He probably thought I committed the murders, just because I was a stranger claiming I had powers. He probably thought I was crazy, and for him that was enough to label anyone guilty. I gave my statement from top to bottom as best I could. Then I was allowed to leave, but since Officer Mercy brought me here I had to walk myself back to the hotel.

“This is bad, Al,” Neil shivered.

“We did nothing wrong. What’s bad about this?” I huffed.

“No,” he shook his head. “Those girls, how they died… It’s bad, Al. Really bad.”

I stopped to look him in the eye. “What happened? You only said the bare minimum in the police station.”

Neil’s eyes were bloodshot and dilated. That was usual for him, but there was something new to them, a fresh look of fear. “They were ripped apart.”

“But you said there was no blood,” I huffed.

“There wasn’t!” Neil shook his head wildly. “It was like they’d been… partially eaten.”

A stone sank heavily into my gut. “Oh.”

Neil looked distressed. “I’ve seen some things, but I ain’t ever seen anything like that, Al. Those pictures… those poor girls.”

“Well, there goes my big payday,” I scoffed.

“Is that all you care about?” Neil snapped.

“Look, we’re lucky this is all that this has to do with us. We’ll get out of here and that’ll be the end of it. I’m sorry you had to see that, but there was nothing we could have done. Nothing we can do now. These aren't ghosts, obviously.” I huffed and shoved my hands into my pockets, continuing the walk back to the motel.

Once there I began packing, which wasn’t hard. The bus wasn’t leaving until that evening, so I stayed in the motel the rest of the day. Then, just as I stepped out of the motel office, I saw the girl with forearm crutches outside. She was very petite and lovely. Her long hair was tied back into a sleek braid, and she was wearing a plaid skirt with a matching jacket. She reminded me of a doll. “I’m glad I caught you!” she said breathlessly. “You’re the psychic from the Alpha Sigma Alpha house, right?”

“Not anymore,” I huffed. This girl was so pretty it was almost criminal. My hands were getting sweaty just looking at her.

“Please, I need your help.” She came closer to me. “It’s about what happened last night at the house.”

I walked away from her. “I’m sorry, but I don’t…”

“I saw something last night, and no one will believe me! Please, you have to help. If anyone will believe me, it's you.”

I stopped in my tracks, but only because Neil had grabbed hold of me.

“My name is Beth,” the girl said softly. “I can pay you for your help.”

Neil forced me to turn around. “What did you see?”

“It climbed up through the window last night. I saw it when I was coming back from class,” she said. “It looked like a demon.”

“Last night?” I frowned. “You had classes that late?”

“There are night courses I have to take,” Beth replied. “I even drew what I saw.” She took a piece of paper from her jacket and handed it to me. I unfolded the paper and inside I saw a contorted, long-limbed figure. The mouth was opened, stretched wide and filled with jagged long teeth.

“It reminded me of that movie, the old one,” Beth said, breathless. “The tall man with the hunched shoulders, bald head and pointed ears and teeth.”

“Nosferatu,” I grimaced. “Vampires aren’t real.”

“But I saw it!” Beth argued. “Please, you have to believe me. You’re the only one who can possibly help us.”

I looked back at the picture. “This won’t be cheap.”

Beth shook her head. “I don’t care. I need you.”

I folded the picture and stuck it into my own pocket. “Let’s talk, then.”

--------------------

I just wanted to get out of this town. If Officer Pitbull had any say in the matter, I was the primary suspect in a double homicide, and this held the possibility of him unearthing a slurry of unsavory facts about my family. Facts he could use to connect me to the murder of these two girls, or at least provide character evidence indicating my likely guilt.

Beth took me to a twenty-four hour diner so we could talk. It was quiet, filled with exhausted university students, a few truck drivers, and the two waitresses on shift. I ordered coffee and waffles, but only because Beth was paying. My bus had already left, I would have to wait another day to leave.

“There’s not much on her I can read,” Neil sat beside Beth at the booth, going through her pockets and small bag. “Just some loose cash and a student ID.”

I was looking at my coffee while he spoke. Beth could see the creature going into the window last night, but not Neil. It seemed strange.

“I know who you are,” Beth finally said. Her songbird voice was warbly and timid. “I’ve read the books your parents have written.”

I swallowed hard, pressing my tongue against my teeth. “Is that why I’m here, then? You’re a fan of my parents?”

Beth shook her head. “No, I’m genuinely asking for your help. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this creature around campus. And you might know something about it. Your parents have been all over. The Wakefield house, the Seamstress murders…”

I set down the coffee mug a bit too hard on the table. “I know what my parents have done. That was them. Not me.”

Beth’s eyes widened. “But your card says you perform exorcisms and paranormal investigations, just like they do.”

“Go back to what you said before,” I said. “You’ve seen the creature around campus before? Why have you not told anyone?”

“I’ve tried, but my sisters call me crazy. But your parents’ books claim that all sorts of phenomena can occur. I suspect this could be some sort of demon, or even a poltergeist.”

I shake my head. “Demons aren’t so subtle, and poltergeists don’t let themselves get seen. Is this the only strange thing you’ve ever seen? Or has this happened to you before?”

Beth shook her head. “Not that I could recall. Have you seen anything like this?”

I was seven years old when I experienced my first real paranormal phenomenon. My parents were good about keeping me away from their work, and the museum they kept close to the house. My mom talked about a lockbox or something too, but I never knew what that was. Fed up with my parents’ constant reticence and absence, I snuck into their museum, where I was never allowed to go, a treasure trove of artifacts and trophies from their past jobs. I was clutching my teddy bear, the one that I would later equate Neil with. Next thing I knew my dad was dragging me out, my mom was screaming inside, and I didn’t see that teddy bear again until years later, when I discovered it locked into a glass box like a fire extinguisher. I didn’t remember what transpired in the museum, but afterwards it became apparent to my parents I had a gift - I was able to attract ghosts in a way they hadn’t seen before.

I sighed, pushing my plate aside as Neil looked at it hungrily. “I missed my bus for this. I need something more concrete to go off of. Your friends were murdered, and I know you’re shaken. But I don’t deal with murder in the present tense. I deal with the aftereffects, the residual anger so powerful it lingers for centuries. I’m not quite sure what you’re asking me to do, or even to look for.”

Beth stared at me, frustrated almost to tears. “But what about this creature?”

“Call animal control. Wrap yourselves in garlic, hang crosses over every opening in the house. Call a priest, but don’t call me.”

I tried to stand up, but Beth used one of her crutches to hit me in the leg. “Could you tell if something was there if you went to the house?” she asked.

“Maybe, but it’s a crime scene. And the top dog in charge already resents me. I don’t exactly want to give him ammo.” I had already been inside that house, and there was nothing there. I didn’t need to go back to know that.

“I can get you in. No one will be there tonight. There wasn’t even anyone there when I came to get you.” Beth sounded so hopeful. Perhaps if I gave in and went with her, I could convince her there was nothing and leave it at that. Whatever got to those girls wasn’t a ghost, because I’d never heard of a ghost rending flesh like that.

“Fine,” I sighed. “But this will cost you extra.”

Beth nodded, so determined to see this to the end. “That’s fine with me.”

She took me back to the campus, which had been partially closed down. The girls in the sorority house had all gone home by now, and the area around the sorority itself had been cordoned off with police tape. Leading the way on her crutches, Beth guided me to the back of the house. All the doors should have been locked, but the back door opened with relative ease. “I’ll stay here and keep watch,” Beth said. “Be safe, okay?”

I nodded and went inside. As Beth closed the door behind me, I waited for Neil to materialize. “There’s nothing,” he said.

“Nothing at all?” I asked. “Did you check their rooms?”

Neil shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare go in there.”

“You’re a ghost, Neil,” I scoffed. I stepped from the kitchen into the foyer. I had been here before, but everything felt so different. I took a deep breath, smelling the air for any sort of changes. I was starting up the stairs when Neil grabbed me and held me back. I huffed. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t think you should go up there. It could be dangerous.” Neil’s bloodshot eyes stared into me. “Please.”

“There are no ghosts here.” I yanked my arm back and continued to walk up. “So stop acting like a…” The stair under me opened up. I can’t say exactly how it happened, but it almost felt like it was pulled out from under my feet. I grabbed hold just before I plummeted, and dangled there in the darkness before my grip completely failed me. I plunged through the darkness before I fell into water.

“Al!” Neil screamed from above.

I panicked. Unable to find anything solid, I splashed and kicked wildly. I screamed for help, hoping Beth could hear me. My voice echoed off something, so there must have been walls nearby, at least. “Neil!” I cried out.

His hand clasped around mine, pulling me above water and guiding me to something solid. I heaved myself out of the water, gasping for breath and shuddering all over. I reached into my pocket, praying that my lighter still worked. “Are you okay?” Neil asked.

The lighter sparked and squeaked as I tried to get it to light. “No, I’m not fucking okay.” It sparked to life, and the tiny flame cast a small circle of light around me. I stood up on a patch of bare earth. “What the fuck is this?”

“The basement?” Neil chirped.

I shook my head. “There’s no way. A cistern under an old house? Does that make sense?”

“It’s cold down here,” Neil whispered.

“How would you…” A chill cut through my body, and I wished it was because I was soaking wet. I stretched out my arm, moving closer to the edge of the water. I could see things on the surface, floating near the bank. “Are those…” Something clung to the small patch of land that I was on. The water lapped against it, rocking it gently against the dirt. It looked like tattered clothes and rope.

“This isn’t good, Al,” Neil whimpered. “We need to find a way out.”

“Yeah, no shit.” I moved back again. “I need something to light. I can’t keep this lit forever.” I felt across the dirt. “You start looking for a way out.”

“Are you sure you want to be left alone?” Neil asked.

“What else do I have going for me? Just go.” I kept looking, hoping to find something to illuminate better than a solitary lighter. Eventually I found what looked like an old flashlight, and by some miracle it still worked. I turned it on, shining the light over the water. That’s when I saw it. I switched the light off and held my breath.

“Al, I think I found something!”

“Show me.” My voice cracked.

“It’s over this way.” Neil touched me. “Did you find a flashlight?”

“Neil,” I swallowed hard. “It’s bad. It’s really bad.”

“Well, sure. That’s a given.”

I shook my head. “No. It’s worse than that.” I closed my eyes, turned on the flashlight, and shone it out over the lake. Neil screamed, and I turned it off again. I didn’t need to open my eyes to see the skeletons, the bodies, draped over the patches of earth against the stone walls.

“What the fuck is that? What the fuck? What is…” Niel was beginning to panic. After all, this looked vaguely similar to the mass grave he was left in.

I grabbed him. “The exit, Neil! We need to get out!”

“It’s a murder house! What is happening?” Neil was still babbling as he tried to come to grips with what he saw.

“That’s why we need to go!” I yanked Niel hard, hopefully snapping him back into his senses. He ran, pulling me along behind him. I had to move through the water, stepping on things that felt like bones, but we eventually made it to a door. There was a grate covering it, but the grate buckled easily when force was applied. I stepped out onto the marshy wetlands behind the campus, under an overpass where I could hear cars driving by.

I took deep breaths as I looked around, shaking all over. “Okay.” I breathed. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Neil snapped. “What was that in there?”

“I don’t know.” I started walking around with my fists clenched. “But we’re leaving, that’s for damn sure. I don’t care if Beth begs me to stay. I’m not going back.”

“Are you not going to tell anyone?” Neil quickly ran up beside me.

“No, of course not! I’m not telling anybody about a mass grave! Not until I’m a thousand miles away and can leave an anonymous tip at some phone booth in New York.” I trudged through the sludge until we reached dry land, and it took me a moment to realize we’d wound up in someone’s backyard. “I just want to get out of here.” I started walking across the lawn, hoping it was too late in the evening for anyone to notice me. “Get my fucking things and go.”

The back door of the nearby house opened. Light flooded my vision, and the sound of a gun cocking deafened me. “Don’t move!”

I stood still, quickly throwing my arms up into the air.

“Ms. Young?”

I squinted through the light until I could focus. There was a young man on the porch wearing a shirt and boxer shorts. “Mercy?”

He lowered his gun and stared at me in confusion. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“That’s my question.”

“You’re soaked.” He lowered his gun to his side and waved at me. “Come in.”

I shook my head. “No. I really should go. I need to go.” I turned to continue making my getaway when I tripped over a hose hidden in the grass and fell face-first into a rock.

Needless to say, I was pulled inside by Officer Mercy, who gave me ice for my black eye and even offered me dry clothes. Then he sat down at the table across from me. “I’m sorry about what happened at the station today. I didn’t think Gradings would go off like that on you.”

Seeing him like this, he didn't seem like a police officer, just some baby-faced guy. “I’m sure he’s perfectly nice when coeds haven’t been brutally murdered.”

Mercy shook his head. “No.”

I sighed. “I see.”

“Tell him,” Neil hissed.

I shooed him away like I was swatting a fly. “Is this the first murder around here?” I asked. “I mean, like… gruesome as it is.”

“We’ve dealt with a lot of missing persons reports,” Mercy said. “But nothing like this.” His eyes drifted away into nothing as he rubbed his hand over his jaw and mouth.

I furrowed my brow. “Missing persons?”

“It’s a college town. Kids run away, join cults, bands, lovers, you name it. Most of them turn up, or we’re told they got home.” He shrugged. “I mean, I heard stories that before the college was built here, there were some shady businesses around. But that’s just rumors.”

I lifted the ice bag away from my face. “What kind of shady business?”

“Oh man, that looks bad.” Mercy stood up and approached me. “You’ll probably have a shiner in the morning. I’ll get you some aspirin.”

I scowled. “I’m not going to stay. I really should be going.”

Mercy made me hold the ice back over my eye. “Look, the buses don't run again until the morning, so you might as well stay the night. Whatever you were doing out there, it can wait too, can’t it?”

“Some cop,” I huffed.

“I don’t think you’re guilty. I felt bad even waking you up this morning, but Gradings was dead-set on it. Especially when he found your card on one of the… the girls.” He couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘corpses’.

“You’ve probably had a bad day too,” I muttered. “You saw right?”

Mercy’s skin grew pale and clammy.

“Look, take it from an old hat, there was nothing you could have done. But you can work hard to see that it doesn’t happen again.” I took the ice away from my eye again. “I’ll sleep on your couch.”

“Why don’t you tell him?” Neil snapped at me.

Mercy gave me a curious look. “Old hat?”

I stood up from the kitchen table. “I deal with ghosts, remember? I see death in a different way, but it’s still death.”

That seemed to be enough for Mercy. “Oh, right.” He led me into the living room. “If you need another blanket, just ask.”

I saw an open book on the recliner, along with half a beer. “Can’t sleep?”

Mercy avoided the question by pretending he didn’t hear me. He turned off the light then the one in the kitchen. “You need to tell him,” Neil snapped at me.

“How the fuck do I tell him?” I scoffed. “I told you, I’ll give an anonymous tip once I’m out of here. There’s no sense in putting myself into this drama.”

“You were literally dumped into the middle of it, Al!” Neil hissed. “Something is going on! Those poor girls could be part of it. You could have been, too! The stair didn’t just give way for no reason.”

I put an old throw pillow over my face to try and drown Niel out. “This has nothing to do with ghosts!” I snapped.

Neil threw the pillow across the room. “You’re an idiot,” he snarled into my ear.

I lay there, staring out into the shadows. Everytime I closed my eyes, I saw the bodies in the flashlight beam. I had to stay awake to keep that image out of my head.

I got up as soon as there was light out, and when I did I noticed Mercy sitting in his kitchen, already in uniform and with my dry clothes laid out on the table. “You’re awake.” he said simply.

“So are you.” I took my clothes. “I’ll go change and get out of your hair.”

“How’s your eye?” he asked.

I touched my face. “Sore. How does it look?”

A slight smile appeared on Mercy’s lips, and he looked almost handsome. “Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Did you use my phone last night?”

I clenched my fist around my clothes. Mercy had done this at the hotel, too. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Because I thought I heard you talking to someone last night.” He shrugged. “Sorry. Must have been a figment of my imagination.”

“Yeah, there wasn’t any talking.” I went and changed, folding up the things I’d slept in and laying them aside. I looked back into the mirror and saw Neil standing behind me. “You really almost got me in trouble.”

“I did?” He laughed. “You and I must remember yesterday very differently.”

“Shut up,” I hissed. I left the bathroom quickly, exited the house, crossed the street and kept going. I could see signs for the campus in the distance. Once I got there, I’d be able to find my way back to the bus station, but that Beth girl had my stuff. I needed to find her first.

I turned back around to see Mercy getting into his patrol car, and I went back across the street and leaned over into his window. “Those Harvey girls,” I started. “Do you know where they are?”

“The Harvey girls?��� Mercy asked, taking off his sunglasses. “I think they said they were staying somewhere off campus. But they’ve probably left with everyone else.”

“Just tell me where they are, please.”

Mercy motioned to the car door, a slight smile on his face. “Get in and I can take you there.”

I sighed and hopped in. He drove in silence for a while, seeming to want to say something. “How did you know…” Mercy hesitated.

“About your… medical condition?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just did.”

Neil scoffed from the back seat.

“It’s pretty amazing. Being able to see things like that about people.” Mercy said. “I wish I knew stuff like that sometimes, without having to speak.” I noticed the way he was rubbing his fingers along the steering wheel, like he was trying to comfort himself.

“It’s not amazing,” I sighed. “It’s a problem.”

He nodded. “I see.” He started slowing down. “This should be it.”

The house was old, and looked like it should have been part of the campus. I stepped out of the car and looked up at the windows, which were all closed and shuttered.

“Do you want me to wait for you?” Mercy asked.

Then I saw my bag, sitting on a chair on the porch. I went up and grabbed it, putting it over my shoulder, then noticed there was a note and a key under the bag. “I don’t know what happened to you last night. But if you come inside you can wait until your bus has to leave. I can take you to the station and pay you for the trouble. - Beth”.

I wanted to leave and wait at the station. But I felt I owed an explanation to Beth, or at least to let her know I was alive. I shook my head at Mercy. “No, just go. Get to work.”

I used the key to open the front door, finding the house  dark and quiet. “At least it’s not a death lake,” Neil whispered.

“Shut up. Everyone must still be asleep.” I walked inside, hearing the click-clack of the grandfather clock by the stairs.  There was a sitting room just to the right of the entrance, and I sank into a chair, feeling drowsy.

“Should I go and look around?” Neil asked.

“No. Just stay put,” I grumbled. I went through my bag to make sure everything was there. Luckily, it all was. I stood up just to look outside and make sure Officer Mercy had driven off.

“Oh, good, you’re here.” I turned around, and there was Beth standing there.

I stepped away from the windows. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“I was actually just making my way to bed,” she chuckled. “I was up a bit too late doing schoolwork, and then I thought I heard you come in.”

“Go to sleep,” I said. “I can rest here on the sofa.”

Beth then tilted her head. “You look awful. What happened to you last night?” She approached me and stood very close, and one hand left her crutch and took hold of mine.

“I was…” My voice cracked. “It’s hard to explain. I was trying to find your creature, and I got a bit sidetracked.”

“Liar,” Neil grumbled.

She smiled at me. “Why don’t you take a shower, and then you can get some rest before you have to go. I’ll even get a bed made up for you.”

I felt drowsier than before, and I let her lead me away. As I walked down the hallway, I saw one of the other girls through an open door. She was standing by her bed, but when I walked by her head turned. It seemed to twist much farther than it should be able, and her eyes looked red. But I was exhausted. I probably wasn’t thinking right.

[whumpsoda]

creeps in what if Nevan feels ugly and Adrastus personally takes him aside and thralls the behavior into blissful oblivion—it’s the only time they’ve stepped in on giving Nevan an actual permanent order/influence rather than just temporary stuff

WOHEO Masterlist

cw: hypnosis, conditioning, self degradation, intimate whumper

———————————————————————

“And what might you be doing?”

Nevan jumped, turning to find his second vampire owner heading down the hall in his direction, a joyous smile strung across their lips. Their tone was playful, yet didn’t fail to hitch his nerves.

“I… I, um…” he stumbled, catching himself staring as they sauntered up, and shifting his gaze to the floor. He did his best to compose his scattered thoughts, gesturing to the wall beside him. “Just… just looking. At myself.”

“Aw, at your pretty little face?” Adrastus cooed, gazing alongside him into the reflection of a mirror, sweetly pinching his cheek.

Nevan smiled back, expression forced and failing to meet his eyes. “I… I guess…”

“You guess?”

“Well, um…” What was he doing? He shouldn’t have even stopped, taking time away from his household work, and then daring to annoy them with his meager problems. Stupid, stupid, stupid. “I’m, I’m sorry Master, I’ll continue my chores, my apologies for… for getting distracted.”

Before he could scamper off, they caught him with a hand to his shoulder. “Hey.” They turned him back their way, pressing another palm to the other arm, keeping him from fleeing. “Darling, remember what I told you?”

“Remember…” his words became tainted with that of a hazy quality as he attempted to recall the memory, mind dazing by even the subtlest of their pleasant touch.

Of course, Adrastus already knew he was far too dumb to remember on his own. “You tell Master what’s on your mind or if anything is the matter, alright? Understand?”

“Tell… Master…” he mumbled, brain liquifying as he so easily slipped back into the trance they had previously held him in.

“Yes, dear.”

But he couldn’t tell them. What if they thought it was dumb, or they got upset for him worrying them with something so meaningless? Nevan couldn’t bear to get them upset. “Um… I suppose… I just…”

“Take your time, baby. I will gladly wait.” They assured, shining that heart warming, sweet grin of theirs that pulsed bliss through his brain.

“It’s just… my master always says how pretty I look… an’ how nice my features are… Malak, uh, Malak even said… so…” Why was it so hard to say? The words refused to leave his lips, his cheeks flushing with embarrassed heat. “But…”

“Go on.” The pressed.

One more time, he took a glance into the mirror. Staring into his own eyes, taking note of every feature and blemish.

Nevan bit his lip. “He tells me all that… but I don’t feel very pretty.”

Then, their face dropped.

He couldn’t look. He’d definitely upset them, they were probably so angry. “I’m, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He cried, the beat of his heart picking up pace and jumping inside his chest.

He’d disagreed with his master, and they were going to hurt him, he just knew it.

After a beat of silence and no response, no violence, he peeked a look at the vampire.

Their face was contorted into that of a genuine pout, eyes welling up. Almost as if they were going to cry. “Oh, love… how dreadful.”

“I’m, I’m sorry.” He stuttered, tears pricking at his own eyes as well. “I’m so sorry, Master. I don’t mean to be so bad.”

Adrastus shook their head. “Oh no, baby. Don’t you apologize for that, there is absolutely nothing for you to be sorry for.” The grip of their hands only hardened, clutching to his arms. The touch felt good.

“I’m sorry that you would ever feel such a way.” They whispered.

After a minute of deep quiet, Adrastus took a long and thick breath, returning their composure and wiping the moisture from their eyes.

“Just calm, okay? Relax. Everything’s just fine. No reason to get so worked up.” They soothed, almost as if more so to themself than Nevan. Taking the chance to pacify the thrall themself, Adrastus hit him with a singular magical wash of bliss that fizzled out any distress in one sigh of air.

As his vision turned glassy, he meet their caring gaze that fluttered saccharine in his belly. “Now, Nevan. Listen to me.”

“Mmm… hmmm…?” He hummed, brain liquifying to ooze as they churned sensations of pleasure throughout him.

“Sweet, you are utterly beautiful inside and out. Absolutely and completely gorgeous.” Their tone was kind and mellow, mollifying to his ears. Easy for him to digest. “Repeat that for me, okay?”

“Nevan… ‘s beau… beautifulll…” he slurred, recognizing at least a bit of the speech as his lips faintly upturned. “Gorgeousss…”

“You think so too, don’t you? You do, Nevan.” The words flipped through his mind, soaked up like a sponge and plastered to the walls of his head. They said so, so he thought so.

“Think… too…”

“Only bad, naughty boys think such terrible thoughts. You want to be a good boy. Good boys think nice, happy thoughts about themselves. Nevan thinks pleasantly about himself.”

They were right. Adrastus was always right. Nevan wanted to be a good boy. And if good boys thought good things… then he would too. Simple as that. “Nice… thoughts…”

They patted him to the cheek, and as the contact lingered he nuzzled into their fingers. “Good, good boy. Such an alluring, ravishing boy. Simply fetching.”

Nevan couldn’t help but giggle, his usual, dopey smile returning. “Fetch… fetching…”

“Yes, darling. Don’t you ever forget it, alright?”

Nevan nodded along, eagerly. “Yes… no… forget…”

“If you ever begin to forget, come right to master, okay? But always know that you are no short of bewitching, love. Do not allow anyone to tell you otherwise.”

Before they finished, Adrastus leaned in for a moment, voice softening, hushed and low. “Not even Master Darius.”

“Oh… ‘kay…”

Fingers washed down his frame until they lingered at his knuckles, the vampire brushing in circular motions over his skin with soft thumbs. “Now look back at that charming face in the mirror. Magnificent, isn’t he?”

This time, as Nevan met with himself, he only beamed brighter. “Mhm… yeah…”

They filled his mind with glee as they gave him a similar look of satisfaction. Oh, how he loved them.

“I am so very glad you agree.”

———————————————————————

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[lizzyk137]

Full Masterlist

Guide: (S)=smut, (A)=angst, (F)=fluff, (SM)=sensitive material, (SB)=slow burn

TV Shows:

Criminal Minds:

-Spencer Reid

Series:

-You Were My Happily Ever After (Part One) -You Were My Happily Ever After (Part Two) -You Were My Happily Ever After (Part Three) -I'll Be There For You (Part One) (SB, A) -I'll Be There For You (Part Two) (SM, A, F) -Genius Vs. Genius (Part One) (A, F, SM) -Figuring Out Parenthood (Part One) (F) -The Technical Analyst and the Boy Genius (Part One) (A, F, SM)

One Shots:

-Picture Perfect (F,A)

-Aaron Hotchner

-Just The Three of Us (F)

NCIS:

-Leroy Jethro Gibbs

Series:

-Baby's First UnderCover Op (Part One) (SM, A, S) -Baby's Secret (Part Two) (SM, A) -We're Having A Baby! (Part One) (F, A) -We're Finally Having Our Baby! (Part Two) (F, A)

One Shots:

-Annoyance (F, A) -The Wrong ID (F, A) -Drunken Calls (F, A) -Flirting With the Boss's Wife (F) -A Night of Brownies and Wine (F,A)

Doctor Who:

-Coming Soon!

Books:

Percy Jackson:

-Claiming You (A, F, SB)

KPOP:

SF9:

-Inseong

-Inseong Admits His Feelings For You (F, A, SB)

-Youngbin

-Youngbin Comforts You After You Lose Zuho (F)

-Jaeyoon

-Helping Jaeyoon Get To Sleep After A Tiring Day (F, SB)

-Dawon

Nothing Yet

-Zuho

-A New Form of Payment (S, F)

-Taeyang

-Nothing Yet

-Hwiyoung

-Hwiyoung's Secret (S, A, F)

-Chani

-I'm All Yours (SB, A, F)

Series:

My Roommate is a Vampire

-Part One (F)