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Lucy felt herself dying. It made her cold and numb, made her fall into despair. But it lasted only a moment, for with the thick, cold blood she slurped from Grayson's wrist seeping down her throat, she felt awareness creep back in. Not life, for this was a different sensation to life. Life was warm and full and hopeful, whereas what grew now in Lucy was hunger, and pain, and a glimpse of clarity.
Then Grayson was gone, and Lucy was left with the overwhelming darkness he had injected into her body and encouraged into her mind. Anger and discontent boiled through her veins with uncomfortable, itchy heat. As her pulse slowed and her skin grew colder, the anger clouded her thoughts. It was all that remained now.
She had so many reasons to be angry, so many people to tear apart and lay to waste and leave to rot, and now she could not fathom why she never had before. Just the thoughts, colourful and quick and satisfying in her head calmed her, made her sink below the water and wash the blood from her pale skin.
There was a man she had kept herself from attacking for most of her short life. It was he who got to kiss the sweet lips of the woman she loved, it was he who could never see that woman for her true brilliance, and it was he who had joined with Lucy in their betrayal. If she was to die for her part in it, then Jonathan Harker's head deserved to be torn from his ignorant body and hung in Trafalgar Square.
He took too long to answer his door, and appeared with dark circles under his eyes and a near-empty bottle of amber liquid clutched in the hand that fell limply at his side. Upon recognising Lucy, his eyes sparked between disgust and arousal and bitter defeat. He turned and walked down the hall, leaving her to see herself inside. She could have jumped on him there, as soon as the door closed, but his stench of despair invigorated her; she could afford to bask in it for a few minutes more.
She followed him to his office and sat beside where he had fallen on the leather couch. He took a generous swig from the bottle.
'What are you doing here, Lucy?' he asked, wiping his lips carelessly with his free arm. 'Have you not caused me enough trouble?'
She let out a lifeless chuckle, leaning back into the arm of the lounge and crossing her arms over her chest. His eyes flicked down at her movement, only momentarily, but enough for her to doubt the need for conversation before satisfying her craving.
'You do not think I too have lost from our... misdeed?' she said, pulling her arms in tighter and tensing her jaw. 'You do not think that I might have thrown away the dearest friend I have in exchange for a moment of weakness?'
He seemed to ignore much of what she had said, instead focussing on something that Lucy considered entirely irrelevant. 'Was it a weakness that had threatened to break through for some time now? You have always been so harsh to me, so dismissive of... Well of my presence, really. Was it all an act to hide your attraction to me?'
Lucy laughed. She laughed loudly, and it felt like a release and a shot of euphoria directly to her frozen heart. 'You really are infuriatingly obtuse, Jonathan.' His eyes narrowed and he made to speak in defence, but she continued before he had the chance. 'My weakness was naught to do with you, you oaf. I despise you.'
She leant closer to him, unfolding her arms to clutch the back of the lounge with one hand and his knee with the other.
'I have never wanted to be closer than an arms-length to you, let alone have you clumsily flailing inside of me,' she spat, forcing the bile back down her throat at the memory. 'My weakness was not attraction, but vengeance, and you were just the whining, simpering pawn I so effortlessly used.'
She tightened her grip, nails digging into his leg, and moved closer to him so that he might feel her words rather than only hear them. His eyes were wide and filled with uncertainty that was so close to becoming fear. He would not have ever expected this from sweet little Lucy. It was delicious.
'You,' she continued, 'didn't lose a thing. You threw away your chance with a woman you never respected, never understood, never appreciated, no matter how much she loved you.' Her voice rose, almost to a yell now. 'If she had been mine I would have encouraged her! I would have listened to every single word about her work, every word, regardless of how little I understood! I would have loved her the way she deserved!'
The terror shone clearly now in Jonathan's eyes, but for a moment it made way for clarity. Finally, after so many years, he understood. 'It was all you wanted,' he said softly, almost in awe. 'She was all you wanted.'
'And she could never know, because I could never be an option.' Her voice was a low growl. 'Little Lucy with her fluffy dresses and her happy smile and the bounce in her step. She could never have the one person she always wanted. Do you know how painful it was to watch her with you?'
He dropped the now empty bottle onto the rug. 'What happened, Lucy?' His voice was fragile, afraid of inciting an unexpected reaction in her.
Her gaze had fallen to her lap, but with this her eyes snapped back up to bore into his. 'After she rejected me I wanted her to feel the hurt she had caused. It was silly and it was juvenile, but something fantastic came of it.'
She moved in to whisper into his ear.
'I hurt you. And I must say, at this moment that is all I truly want.'
She dropped her face down to Jonathan's neck and sunk her new teeth through his skin. He clutched at her, begging, screaming, but she was deaf to any sound beyond the rushing of his hot, rich blood. She didn't need to stop, didn't want to stop, only wanted to drain him and taste every last drop until she was licking the remains of his life off of her lips.
Too soon it was over, and she dropped his limp body onto the cool leather. As she stalked out of the house, collecting a red drop from her chin with the pad of her thumb, a singularly dominating thought flooded her.
I need more.
Lucy could have gone directly to knock on the front door, could have been inside by now, could be closer to sating the hunger. But there was a window. This window was low enough to give her vantage into the room, but raised so she could hide herself from view, buried in the foliage and the shadows.
Jayne's dress was red today. A deep, sinful red that Lucy felt pull low in her stomach in more than just hunger. Blonde curls were pulled too tightly above a face stained too heavily with a rouge too dark, and while it was all too much, it was meant to affect men in the way Lucy could not deny it affected her.
And Jayne knew Lucy. She knew the stirring Lucy had never quite felt before, never in that way, never so carnally. She knew exactly what touch would halt her breath, what look would make her lean that inch closer. And she knew what words would make this young girl's heart sing with hope.
Now she felt buoyed, invincible in a way the Lucy of the past only imagined. Because now it was she who knew something Jayne did not. She knew that Jayne was no longer the one with the power.
And seeing the older woman, the woman she had so trusted with her darkest secret, standing with her back turned at a bookshelf across the room, there were so many things Lucy wanted. She wanted to pry the window open and leap through, wanted to stalk across the room before her prey noticed.
Now there was nothing to keep her away, and as she stood at Jayne's back she forced herself to quell the excitement that would have her rush her task.
'Good evening, Lady Jayne.'
Jayne started at the low words and made to turn to the intruder, but before she could move Lucy grasped her hips and pulled the other woman's body back into hers.
'Lucy?' Jayne gasped. She tried to pull away, but after the first attempt was smothered by the firm, soft body at her back, gave in and leaned into the embrace. Her head tipped back only the slightest, possibly without her knowing, Lucy thought, as Jayne strove for some kind of control.
She could feel the difference. Between them now was a crackling spark that refused to wane, and Lucy let it consume her, keeping Jayne close so that she too might submit.
Jayne found words, briefly. 'Why... why are you here?'
Lucy smirked, tipping her face into Jayne's neck and giving a tiny lick. 'I believe we have some business to attend to. I was ever so dissatisfied the last time we met.'
Her hands stretched over the taut abdomen, the left splaying wide and lifting to just below heaving breasts, pulling firm. Her right crawled lower, and lower, pushing through the heaving skirt to where she could imagine the wetness lied.
'You see, Lady Wetherby, you left me with so many questions. I admit, my night with Harker answered a few.' She lifted her head to breathe into Jayne's ear. 'You might have guessed.'
Jayne shuddered, a hand reaching up to weave into Lucy's hair, now dry but still hanging, untouched since her bath. Jayne's fingers clutched at the bookcase, as they had done since Lucy's entrance. She tilted her hips into the hand that had not moved, only pressing into her enough to tease but not enough to satisfy. Not nearly enough.
'You thought you'd reassured me, didn't you? Thought the little you'd done had been adequate.'
Her hands pulled tighter, her pelvis pushing against Jayne's backside.
'But you lied.'
Jayne froze. She tensed, but still her hips twitched, and Lucy continued, unhindered.
'You lied to me. You set me up for heartbreak, and then used me for your own ends, whatever they were. You gave me hope where there was none. But I am not a monster.' Lucy lowered her mouth again, licking in the same spot, over Jayne's frantic pulse. 'I will not make you live with it.'
She luxuriated in piercing the skin, breathing the sweet fragrance that Jonathan's body had lacked. She fed slowly, leisurely, pushing her fingers harder against Jayne while she emptied her veins. Killing Harker was a meal, a feed, but everything about this was different. It was different to hold a body against hers while she drained it, different to feel hands clutching her closer, different to hear the quietest noises, only panting and only occasionally pained. Lucy felt an exquisite pleasure that satisfied her craving in a way the blood alone could not.
And when she finished, feeling full and sedate, she lowered Jayne's body to the floor, laying her on her back and smoothing down her dress.
It matched the red stains smeared across her neck.
Lucy felt strong. While the anger still pricked between her shoulder blades, she felt aware and centred, and as though she had never quite seen the world this way before.
She would rather have saved this last visit for another night, but the necessity to complete her vengeance drove her to the maddeningly large house with the false American inside.
It was after midnight now. The night was appropriately still, and she had not seen a pedestrian or a passed out drunkard or so much as a rabbit on her wanderings. She supposed it was for the best; she did not want to be tempted on this night.
As she treaded quickly through the cool dark she dove into her memories. She needed it all back, needed to lose herself in the anger and the hunger and even the fear she'd had in that hot bath. She pictured Grayson's sad, pleading eyes and imagined how pretty they would look ripped from their sockets and hung around his neck.
When she knocked on his door it was an unnamed serving boy who answered, not yet out of his teens and thin as a willow branch. For a moment Lucy wondered after Renfield. But only for a moment. She expected more questions, expected even to have been turned away at this late hour, but the boy looked unable to insist anyone's retreat, and certainly unwilling to upset a pretty girl. She smiled at him. He bumbled out of the room, bowing oddly and haphazardly throwing an arm towards the ballroom.
She felt a sprig of amusement, reveling in it for a second before frowning. It was new. Rather, not new, but old. From before. It took residence firmly between compassion and love. It irked her, having this humanity reappear, but maybe she would retain amusement, if only for a while.
It faded immediately, wisping away as if never there at all when she entered the ballroom.
In the centre of the room was Grayson, lying on his back on the lacquered floor with his ankles together and his arms crossed over his chest. Only one light was on, to the side of the room, barely enough to light the space. It was suddenly a sobering moment for Lucy. The others had been easy, had been irritations who deserved her ire. But this man was her kin, now. And he was the only one she knew.
She padded quietly across the room and laid down beside him, hands resting on her stomach and legs crossed at the ankles. Her hair splayed out around her as if she had met with lightening, but she found little care.
He did not open his eyes, did not twitch a hand or tilt his head, only spoke. 'It is nice to see you, Lucy.'
She stared into the shadows of the high ceiling. 'I did not come here to talk, Alexander.'
'I imagine you did not.' He had let his American accent fall away, and with it the illusion of happiness and grandeur. 'And yet here we lay in peace.'
She turned her head, wanting to look into his eyes, but they remained closed. 'I know, better than anyone could know, that what I did was monstrous. But was it deserving of this?'
He was silent for nearly a minute before speaking. 'I've spent so much of my time here watching Mina,' he said, eyes finally opening but not meeting Lucy's. 'I watch her, and I watch her family, and I watch her fiance, and I watch her friends. At first I watched to learn. And when I thought I had learned enough, I watched for weakness. In Mina, so I could offer protection, and in others to know what to exploit. Because I am selfish, Lucy.'
He finally looked at her, and she was immediately aware of how close they were to each other.
'I am not a man, let alone a good man. You might be discovering already, and will only grow to further understand that our kind is ruled by desire. We are creatures who survive to satisfy ourselves, and not worry about the cost to the remainder of the world.'
His intense, reddened eyes made her uncomfortable after too long, so she shifted her gaze back to the ceiling. But still he watched her.
'All I want is to spend the rest of eternity with the woman I love. A simple desire, yet it spurns so many complications. Because I cannot love her enough to have her live without me. I could disappear and, yes, she may mourn, but she would continue to live, would not let her life be ruled by her interest in one man. Because she is not selfish.'
He stood, a smooth motion that she barely noticed until he hovered above her.
'I searched Mina's life for anyone who would betray her, who could do her the most harm, and it did not take long to arrive at you. But it took me longer to realise that the pain between the two of you was birthed from something else. And now I know that I am not the one who loves Mina more than any other.'
He walked away, and she had to strain to hear his final words.
'I am sorry, Lucy.'
Lucy knocked on a different door, the last one for that night. It opened to messy brown hair and tired eyes and a wrinkled white nightgown, and Lucy finally felt calm.
'Lucy, what are you doing here? Do you know what time it is?' Mina asked, wiping the nighttime confusion out of her eyes. When she could focus, she saw Lucy's knotted hair and bloodstained clothes and immediately reached out to pull her inside.
The night would be difficult; everything would be difficult, but at least for now Lucy needn't think about that.