He watches them from the shadows afforded by a large, looming outcropping. There are three of them, scrawny, dirty bandits all pith and sinew. They huddle around a low, banked campfire, hunkered over cans of cold beans and canned meat clutched in grimy hands. They laugh and grunt and murmur amongst themselves about prospects for a successful raid against a merchant caravan bout for the remote outpost three miles north. Grim pickings, opines the one nearest him, an emaciated waif with sunken eyes and the phlegmatic rattle of the consumptive in his lungs. He coughs and spits frothy saliva onto the sand, and he can smell the diseased taint of it, plaque and bile and rancid fat.
Not that one, he thinks as the man wipes thick stringers of saliva from his lips with the back of his hand. Just a quick twist of the neck for him. I don't want to pass anything to Liese.
In truth, none of the three is an appealing target. They're filthy and teeming with lice, and he suspects they'll yield precious little blood for the work of killing them, but he's left the hunt too long, and his belly aches with hunger. The need to feed simmers and throbs in the marrow of his bones, a deep-tissue itch he can't quite reach, and his lips peel from his teeth in a reflexive snarl. He can smell it beneath the dirt and fetid odor of piss and shit and unwashed bodies, the heady aroma of blood. Not the good stuff, the unparalleled ambrosia of a priest or the nectar he'd lapped from Liese's obliging cunt a few hours ago as she'd sprawled on their bed with her legs parted and her cassock rucked above her hips in invitation, but it will do. His mouth waters in invitation.
Just a few hours, and I'll return to you, he thinks as he creeps forward in a predatory crouch, and in his mind's eye, he sees her as he had left her, curled happily on the couch in the parlor with a book from his library.
Be careful, sweetheart, she'd murmured against lips that still tasted of her. Come home to me.
Home. The word inspires a frisson of longing, and he clenches his fists against the temptation to turn and retreat to its embrace even as instinct drives him forward. Home. He wants to go home, to Liese and her smile and her slow, lazy kisses and her touch against his skin. He wants to brush the hair from her temple and press his forehead to hers as they sit on the couch in a Gordian tangle of limbs. He wants to hear her humming as she practices her sewing by the light of tapers and kerosene lanterns and listen to the familiar rattle around in the kitchen. He wants to read in bed while she cards her fingers through his hair and drops affectionate kisses to his bare shoulder. He wants to feel her hands in his hair as she kneels beside the tub and scrubs the grit from his scalp in a billow of scented soap. He wants to coax her into the too-small tub with him and delight in the slick slide of their bodies as he holds her against his chest and kisses her wet hair. He wants to feel the warmth of her hands on his as she pares his nails and tends his neglected cuticles and scrubs the dirt from the beds with meticulous care.
Home, from whence flows all the love he has ever known. Not just in the sinuous twine of their bodies, but in the touch of entangled fingers, no longer fleeting and clandestine, but lingering and languid and sweet as his first breath. In the first dry-mouthed kiss in the morning when the sun sinks low and the heat rises from the sand in a humid, beseeching breath, and in the last one at night when the sun rises in a bleary, yellow haze and all creatures great and small shy from its scorching caress. In the smile she flashes him over breakfast, adoring and so happy that it steals his breath and fills him with savage pride.
I did that. I gave her the peace that a lifetime of prayers and never could, he thinks as she reaches for his hand over a plate of eggs and sausage, and triumph tastes like coffee black as it comes.
A never-ending glut of it, and he would be there now if he could, curled against her in their bed(and it is their bed now, every fiber imbued with them to the bedsprings and the brass headboard smudged and smeared with their fingerprints) and massaging the tension from her back until the cramps released their vicious hold and let her sleep. Her blood had come hard and heavy two days ago, a startling, crimson freshet on the white sheets, and he'd panicked at first, sure that he'd done her some hurt in the frenzy of his lust, but she had only laughed and told him that it was her monthly bleeding and staggered from the room to clean herself up.
He'd sat in the bed, transfixed by the vivid smear of red. He had known that women bled, of course, had often seen his sisters slipping off into bathrooms and behind rocks with hanks of wadded cotton in their hands, but he hadn't expected it to be so much, or so bright. He could smell it, copper and iron and salt on the air, and his stomach had rumbled greedily. He'd known how it would taste, had already sampled it from her fingers as she'd ridden him in delirious offering, and he'd longed for more. He'd been tempted to lap it from the sheets and ease the relentless cramp of his hunger, but instead, he'd thrown back the covers and followed her into the bathroom, where he'd found her sitting in the tub, blood seeping between her thighs.
He'd sat on the edge of the tub and reached out to caress her cheek. Too pale, and her eyes had been tired despite the night's rest.
Are you all right? Worry had settled in his grumbling belly at the sight of more blood.
She'd turned into his caress. I'm fine, darling, I promise. It's just my cycle. It's always heavier when it's been suppressed for a while. I took something before the hunt, and now it's making up for lost time. She'd grimaced and sat up.
Does it hurt?
Considerably, she'd admitted. The worst of it will pass in a day or so. Until then, I'll just have to grin and bear it.
Does anything help? More blood oozed into the water.
A soft huff of laughter. Mariel used to brew a tea that helped. Cohosh, I think. Otherwise, it was ibuprofen. Warm water would help, too, but... She'd shrugged. As I said, it'll pass.
He'd lifted her from the tub over her squawk of surprise and carried her back to the bed, where he'd covered her with the sheet.
Johannes, the mess, she'd protested as the sheet had clung to her wet skin, but he'd paid her no mind as he'd stalked to the door, wrenched it open, and barked at the familiar to boil water to fill the tub, hot as it could.
He'd returned to the bed. I'll take care of you. He'd stroked the wet ends of her hair.
You always do. She'd raised her head and kissed the inside of his wrist.
Is there anything you need to eat? Drink?
Just water and a lot of iron. Red meat, spinach, beans.
I'll get them all. His stomach had gurgled in sympathy, and his eyes had been drawn to the blood soaking into the sheets. It had been drying by then, and of no use to him, but his stomach had cried out for its sweet sustenance.
Are you all right? she'd asked, and cupped his cheek. You seem preoccupied.
He'd mustered a smile. I'm just worried about you, he'd said, and his gaze had drifted to the stained bedclothes again.
Hers had followed suit. Are you hungry? she'd asked softly, and drawn her thumb over the corner of his mouth.
He'd shifted on the bed, reluctant to admit his need. She knew he was different, knew he'd been tainted and forever altered by the Queen's gift, but she'd never seen its price, never seen him slathered in blood from nose to chin and sopping it out of the collar of his shirt or washing shirts stiff with gore in the washbucket in the lean-to. She'd never seen him washing a fine, red mist from his eyebrows. He'd been afraid that the truth would diminish the love she bore him, or perhaps strangle it altogether and leave him with nothing but a mouthful of blood and regret, bitter as wormwood on his tongue.
I need to feed, he'd confessed, and shame had burned in his belly and warmed his nape.
Then you should. I knew you were a vampire when I went with you and when I loved you. I can hardly complain now.
I don't want to leave you. Not when you're like this.
She'd laughed, soft as the wind dancing over the sand. It's my period, not a fatal hemorrhage. She'd rolled onto her back and reached up to muss his tousled hair. It's all right if you need to go. When he'd obdurately remained seated on the bed, she'd sighed. My poor, devoted love, she'd crooned. You're being ridiculous. Would it help if I- She'd trailed off and slowly raised the sheets to expose her cunt.
I can't, he'd managed even as his mouth had gone dry and his belly had cramped with ravenous want. I don't want to hurt you.
You won't. You're my husband, she'd answered, and parted her thighs in wordless invitation.
He'd been breathless and panting by the time he'd looked up. Liese had gazed down at him with glassy, heavy-lidded eyes, her expression inscrutable, and fear had coiled, cold proprietary fingers around his heart.
I disgust her, he'd thought miserably. Liese? He'd pressed a tentative kiss to her slick thigh. He'd longed for her hand to card through his hair, and he'd fought the childish impulse to press himself into her hands. I'm sorry. Please don't be angry with me, he'd thought wildly. I can't help it. When the hunger comes, it's the cold steel of a thousand scalpels in my flesh. You'll never have to see it again. Shame had welled in his heart, and he'd shrunk from her scrutiny and buried his face in her thigh.
What's this now? Surprise, and her hands had found him at last and stroked his hair. Sweetheart, it's all right. Everything is all right.
He'd groped for her hand and squeezed it. I'm sorry, he mumbled into her thigh even as his stomach reveled in the taste of her and warmth spread through his veins, poppy and mulled wine. I shouldn't have... You'll never... I won't... Keenly aware of the blood cooling on his chin and teeth.
Johannes... You've endured enough shame for three lifetimes. No more, do you hear me? Especially not for this. You've done nothing wrong.
He'd lifted his head from the shelter of her thigh. But this disgusts you. I disgust you.
No, she'd said firmly. You don't. You never did, and you never could. Come. Come here, love, she'd said, and opened her arms.
He'd scrambled into her embrace, careful to keep his bloody face away from hers.
As for this-, She'd waved a dismissive hand over her wet, blood-smeared thighs. -it is what it is. You're a vampire. You need to feed. It's not glamorous, but it gets the job done. It's what you need to survive, and if I can give that to you, then I will. Blood washes. Besides, she'd murmured, and craned to kiss his temple. It's not like I didn't enjoy it, or were you so focused on your infernal bloodlust that you didn't notice?
Oh, I noticed, he'd answered, and his scalp had smarted with the memory of her hands fisted in his hair. I just don't want you to think less of me.
Or stop loving me, he'd added silently.
No danger of that, sweetheart, she'd promised him. and mouthed the cross etched into his forehead. Wisdom has it that orgasms relieve cramps.
Did it?
A little, but they'll be back. Come take a bath with me?
He'd been only too happy to follow her into the bathroom, where a tub of steaming water had awaited. She'd winced as she'd stepped into the nigh-scalding water, but she'd moaned when the hot water had risen over the small of her back and belly. She'd leaned forward with an effort to let him climb in behind her, and then she'd sagged against him, head lolling. He'd promptly wrapped her in a protective embrace, arms around her middle and chin propped on her shoulder. She'd drowsed, slack and content, and he'd held vigil over her and watched the blood swirl in the water. Now and then, he'd hummed into her ear and sloshed water over her shoulders and idly cupped her breasts to soothe her. They'd stayed that way until they'd leached the last of the heat from the water, and then he'd washed the blood from his face and coaxed her out. He'd brushed his teeth while she dressed, and then he'd led her to the kitchen and fed her toast and jam and strong coffee and a bowl of oatmeal.
Two days. It had bought him two precious days to remain cocooned in domestic bliss and care for her through the worst of her bleeding. Two days in which to bundle her in blankets and ply her with hot compresses for her belly and back. Two days in which to scour his limited medical library for a hint as to the ingredients of Priestess Mariel's tea while she curled on the couch and dozed to escape the worst of her cramps. Two days to be a proper doting husband.
But the hunger is indomitable and cannot be slaked by so little blood, or by willpower. He'd tried once, when he'd first awakened to find himself transformed. He'd been confused and appalled by the alien, insatiable hunger for that which had once so repulsed him, and he'd stubbornly refused to feed, had huddled in the bowels of the hive and clutched his burning, spasming stomach and prayed for the Father to relieve his agony. But just as He'd ignored his pleas for mercy and salvation while his enemies had devoured him alive, there had come no respite from heaven, no angel with tender hands and a flagon of Leithe's waters to make him forget his pain. Only dampness and silence and darkness, and the incessant whisper of the Queen inside his throbbing head as she encouraged him to go forth and feed and end his needless suffering.
Two days were all he had lasted before he broke beneath the torment. He'd crawled out of the hive, too weak to stand, and promptly been blinded by the dazzling light of the moon and stars. He'd reeled at the sudden, stinging brightness. Everything had been too loud and too bright, and he'd clapped his hands to his ears to shut out the discordant thunder of a thousand unseen heartbeats and wept like a terrified child, starving and tired and desperate to return to the swaddling safety of the hive.
But the hunger had been relentless, and it had driven him to grub in the sand in search of beetles and burrowing snakes and spiders. He'd found them all and crammed them into his mouth, indifferent to the clitter and squirm of insectile legs against his tongue and the muted crunch of carapace and cartilage and bone between his teeth. Some he'd spat onto the sand once he'd extracted what blood he could, but most he'd swallowed. The snakes had provided the most, and he'd bitten off their heads and glutted himself on them as they'd thrashed and spurted in his hands. Each drop had been elixir, a sweet relief from the agony in his guts. Still, it hadn't been enough. He'd needed more, so much more.
He'd staggered unsteadily through the desert in the tatters of his robes and devoured whatever he could. Lizards. Rats. Gila monsters. His first substantial kill had been an emaciated coyote, old and mangy and battle-scarred. It had sunk its fangs into his forearm as he'd struggled to snap its neck, but the hunger had been stronger than the pain, and he'd crushed its throat with his hands and sunk his fangs into the filthy, matted fur. Dirt and sweat and God knew what else on his tongue, and over that, an impossible sweetness, ambrosia and honey as blood pulsed into his gullet with every fading beat of the creature's heart. He'd wept again, this time from relief, and when he had slurped the carcass dry, he'd dropped it to the sand and turned his face to the gentle caress of the moon. No more pain, no more gnawing hunger, only blissful contentment.
No human blood that night. That had come three days later, when he'd stumbled upon a gang of bandits. Much like these, actually. They'd mistaken him for an easy mark, a lost traveler dying alone in the desert, and tried to bludgeon him with cudgels and heavy irons. His flesh had bruised under the assault, and bones had cracked, but rage had anesthetized him to the blows. He'd howled as he'd fallen upon them, fangs bared and eyes blazing, and he'd reveled in their terror as he'd repaid their savagery in kind. High, animal screams as he'd wrenched arms from sockets and snapped legs like matchsticks, and to this day, he can still remember the soft, glottal gurgle when he'd reached out and thrust his fingers into the viscera of a man as he'd charged him with with iron upraised. The logy befuddlement in his eyes as he'd collapsed to his knees and emptied his entrails onto the sand. He'd looked almost sleepy as the strength had drained from him. Then his head had lolled on his pudgy neck, and he'd lunged for the weak flutter of his pulse.
It had been a revelation, and he'd moaned deliriously as it had washed over his tongue. His hips had rocked, cock straining inside his underwear, and he'd growled and bucked and sunk his fangs ever deeper. The body had twitched, and he'd whined and come in his pants, fingers piercing the flabby flesh at the back of the man's neck until they snagged tendon. Blood, so much more blood than he had ever imagined, and so far superior to any he had ever tasted. The ambrosia of priest's blood years unknown to him.
He'd feasted that night, drunk until his belly sloshed and groaned in protest, and it was then, as he'd crouched over the bodies with blood dripping from his chin, that he'd begun to grasp the untapped power within him. It had surged within him like an electrical current, and he'd thrown his head back and laughed, dizzy with the possibilities. He'd danced a merry jig amid the bodies and run as fast and as far as his legs could carry him, arms outstretched as though he were flying. Miles and miles, and he had never wearied, never grown winded. He'd climbed with ease, clambered over rocks and scaled cliff faces that would have shattered mortal men, and just before the sun had risen, he'd climbed the highest plateau he could find and gazed upon the landscape in awe.
And behold what the Lord hath made, he'd thought as he'd taken in the vast expanse of desert sand surrounded by buttes and plateaus as old as the earth, unspoiled save for a handful of ramshackle settlements that sprouted like invasive fungi from the earth. And in the distance, the leaden, grey smudge of the city he'd died to protect.
He'd thought to go to it then, to return to the barracks and reunite with his brothers and sisters and share his newfound knowledge with them. To find his Liese and offer her so much more. But in each loose settlement and outpost he'd visited, he'd found only hatred and fear. They'd recoiled from his golden eyes and his fangs and run from him when he'd tried to speak. Outstretched hands had been met with slaps and shoves and gobbets of saliva in his face. They'd kicked him and hurled rocks at him, and the men had scurried for their guns and hidden behind windows like cowards. Demon, they'd called him, abomination. He'd taken a round of buckshot in the side and crawled away, sure that he would die, but the wound had mended by sundown, the pellets pushed from his flesh like expelled splinters.
He'd returned in the night with the memory of his own blood in his mouth and slaughtered every man over the age of twelve.
He'd known then that he could never go home, never return to the world he'd defended to the death, and soon, goodwill had curdled into bitterness and loathing. With each slap and rock that found its mark, with each epithet hurled at him from ungrateful lips, he'd regretted less and less the need to take a life to sustain his own. Soon, he'd come to enjoy it, to make a game of it. He'd sacrificed himself, lost his every hope in their name. He'd lost his chance for a life with Liese, and the ungrateful maggots dared to curse him in lieu of gratitude. He would not grieve for them, wouldn't weep for those who had no tears for him.
Well, you have your Liese now, his heart whispers with satisfaction. She's waiting for you at home.
Come home to me, sweetheart, she murmurs, and kisses him, her lips warm and pliant as he cradles her face in his hands.
I will, he vows as he creeps closer to his prey. Almost close enough to touch now, and his throat works as he smells the blood in their veins. Just going for dinner and a bit of shopping.
It's over in seconds, a flurry of feebly-struggling limbs and snapping bones and screams abruptly silenced. One manages to gash his arm with a bowie knife, and the pain flares, hot and vicious, but it's swiftly quelled by adrenaline and fury and his insatiable need to feed. He snarls and squeezes the offending wrist until the bones pulverize into powdery shards, and then his gaping mouth descends to the squirming man's throat. His shriek of anguish is swallowed by the tide of blood that gushes from the wound, and he croons as the first hot rush sluices over his teeth and down his throat. He grinds the ruined bones because he can and hums as the man thrashes and gargles in his grip. The gash in his arm throbs once, twice, and then begins to itch as the flesh knits together. Another wrench of the shattered wrist to prompt another spasm of agony and attendant surge of adrenaline, and the blood gouts into his mouth.
The merciless, wracking hunger eases with every swallow, and he closes his eyes as languid warmth replaces the pain. Heady as the slow burn of a good scotch in the center of his chest. The body twitches and goes slack, and the smell of shit hits his nostrils. He wrinkles his nose against the muddy, loamy stink of it, and sucks until he pulls nothing but air. Then he lets the body drop and steps over it, careful not to step in the filth, and stalks his next morsel, which lies a few feet away. He watches in amusement for a moment as the man drags himself toward a revolver holstered near the campfire. His spine is broken and bulges grotesquely against the fabric of his shirt, and his legs drag uselessly behind him.
"Aw," he says, and crouches beside the man as he scrabbles and writhes in the sand. "And he shall crawl upon his belly over the ground, and eat of the dust of the earth."
Terrified eyes roll toward him at the sound of his voice, and the man sobs and claws at the hard-packed sand in an effort to pull himself away.
He laughs and picks up a handful of sand. "Well?" he says. "Bon apetit." He seizes him by the hair and crams the sand into his mouth.
The man screams and twists pathetically in his grasp, but he only succeeds in tearing out a clump of hair. He tries to spit out the sand, but Johannes only grins and claps his hand over his mouth.
"Eat it," he orders, the low, deadly rumble of shifting earth. "Eat it just like I had to." He scoops up another handful and shoves it into the man's mouth.
The man gags and splutters and sobs, and gritty saliva dangles from his lips. "Please," he begs around the clot of sand in his mouth. "Please, mister."
"Swallow it." He releases his hold on the man's scalp and gives it a convivial pat.
"Please."
"Swallow it. You won't like it if I have to tell you again."
The man utters a strangled sob, and his throat spasms as he fights to swallow the suffocating, congealing mass.
"Tastes like hell, doesn't it?" He clucks in sympathy. "That'll happen when you're eating other people's feet and sweat and horse shit. I ate it for years. It got into everything-bread, jerky, soup, canned beans. This constant grit in the back of your throat and lodged between your teeth. My wife did, too. Of course, I always tried to pick it out of hers. Sometimes, I think I ate more sand than food. Comes out in your shit, too, but you won't live long enough for that to matter." He pats the man on the back.
Galvanized by terror, his hapless quarry lunges for the gun that lies just out reach, but without his legs to propel him, he only flails in the sand like a helpless crab.
Johannes smiles and ruffles his hair. "I almost admire your pep," he says, and then he stands and brings his booted foot down on the man's forearm.
It shatters with a wet, muffled snap, bone china dropped into an egg crate, and the man shrieks. His bladder looses with a wet hiss, and the jungly stink makes his eyes water.
"You bastard!" the man shrieks. "You fucking hellspawn! You're going to burn in hell!"
A humorless laugh. "I've already done my time," he tells him, and brings his foot down on the man's mangled arm and grinds it beneath his heel. "Your turn," he sings as the man wails and convulses and begs God to save him.
"That won't work," he says. "Believe me, I've tried." He raises his foot and stomps it into the back of the man's neck. There's another muffled snap, and the interminable caterwauling ceases abruptly.
Johannes returns to his crouch and gazes into the man's eyes. Still alive, but only just. A few seconds, and the brain will figure out that that all vital connections have been severed.
He reaches out to caress the man's cheek. "You asked for deliverance," he murmurs, and marvels at the delicate flutter of his eyelashes. "Well, looks like I'm it. What can I say? The Lord works in mysterious ways."
He watches until the light fades from the man's eyes, and then he rises and crosses to the third member of this fine little party, who lies in an ugly sprawl beside a battered, dusty speeder bike laden with grime-smudged bags. Loot from their previous victims, like as not. He makes a mental note to take inventory once the party's over. Perhaps there will be something of use, money or clothes or food. Medicine. Jewelry for his Liese.
"Well, well, I never would've picked you to get the farthest." He nudges the scrawny consumptive with the toe of his boot. "I guess appearances can be deceiving."
"Please," he pleads, grubby hands held up in supplication. "Please, don't kill me. I-I can be of use to you."
"Can you now? How do you figure that?"
"You're a bandit, right? I'm an excellent thief," he babbles. "I know all the best places to hide."
"No," he huffs in amusement. "I'm not a bandit." He bares his bloody fangs.
His new playmate quails. "Please! Please! I don't want to die. Take me as a familiar. I'll serve you faithfully."
"You've got nothing I want." One taste of you, and I'd be puking my guts for a week. "Besides, you're dying already. I can smell it on you." It was on his breath, the high, sweet stink of raging infection.
"Please! Please! Please, mister, I don't want to die!" He reaches for the toe of his boot.
"Please! Please! I don't want to die!" Johannes sneers, and kicks his hand away. "Well, guess what? Neither did I. I spent my life serving God and his Church, protecting you maggots so that you could go on killing and stealing and fucking and breeding like rats, and what did I ever get in return? Gratitude? Fellowship? A simple thank you from the people I saved? Did a single one of them ever offer to tend my wounds or let me sit by the warmth of their fires? No. They never so much as looked at me, and when I died, not a single one of them cared that I was gone. They just went on fucking and fighting and killing and left me to die alone in a hole."
"I'm sorry," the man blubbers. "I had nothing to do with it."
Sorry?" he snarls. "I lost her for two years because of you, because I believed humanity was worth saving. I almost lost everything!" He draws back his foot and kicks him in the ribs. "If the Queen hadn't been an angel of mercy, I would've died in there." Another kick, and bone splinters. The man screams. "It took days. Weeks."
He's lost to the memory. Fangs in his flesh and piss cooling on his thighs, and his throat so dry for want of water that he gladly would have drunk it. Gelid tongues lapping the blood from his feverish skin and probing greedily into his wounds and filthy claws harrowing fresh ones when those ran dry. Flies crawling over his eyes and his cracked lips and maggots squirming in the shit the vampires left on his twitching limbs.
He'd been so cold nearly the end that not even the thought of Liese loving him could inspire warmth, and the flies had crawled into his mouth with every shallow breath. Cold and dying and covered in maggot-infested shit and scarcely able to dream of the life he had wanted, and this puling, worthless, rancid morsel thought it could gain salvation from a sniveled apology?
He growls and stomps on his twisted leg, and splinters of bone push through the skin, maggots rising from putrescent flesh. "Where was your sympathy when I was broken and starving?" he demands over the pitiful vermin's piercing screams. "Where was it when I longed for a single sip of warm broth or a ragged blanket?" He stomps again, this time on the man's ankle, and it gives beneath his boot like rotten wood. "Where was it when the Church forbade me the touch and comfort of the woman I loved? Where was it when they robbed me of the chance for a family?" Maggots on his flesh, and he's cold, cold to the bone, and his foot comes down on the man's concave chest.
"You're sorry," he spits, and contempt drips from his fangs in a bloody froth. "You're only sorry because you think it will save you." He gazes down at this simpering creature in the dirt, broken and rotten and begging for its life with piss on his shattered legs and insincere apologies on his lips. His eyes bulge from cadaverous sockets, and he watches the tiny capillaries in them burst and turn his irises pink. He applies more pressure to his shattered sternum, and blood bubbles over his lips in a pink foam.
Flies on his lips and inside his nostrils. Grubs pulsating on his bloodied flesh like infected buboes. Cockroaches skittering over his legs.
That's what you are, he thinks as the man wheezes and splutters and coughs up diseased blood in a fine, red mist. Just a cockroach trying to escape.
"It won't," he says, and crushes his chest beneath his heel.
His foot rises and falls over and over again, until there's nothing left of the man's face and torso but a gelatinous paste of organ and bone. He stops only when his descending foot strikes sand, and then he scrapes his fouled boot against the side of the speeder bike with a moue of distaste. His quad thrums with the pleasant burn of exertion, and the anger that fed his frenzy recedes and leaves only a languid satisfaction at a job well done.
He hums as he reaches for a bag and rummages through the contents. Wallets and drawstring bags, mostly, though there are a few bits of jewelry and some silver hip flasks that might fetch a few dollars at a willing pawnbroker. He sets it aside and picks up another. Earrings and watches and fistfuls of crumpled bills. A gold tooth. A third bag holds a few cheap, silver plates and candlesticks, and he casts it aside. A fourth bag holds canned goods and a few bottles of pills. He pockets the latter for future inspection. He has no need of medicine, but Liese is still vulnerable to sickness and the world's cruel predations.
Only until she accepts the blood of the Queen. Then nothing can take her from you.
His heart soars at the thought, and he sings tunelessly as he dumps the canned good and candlesticks onto the sand and reorganizes the contents of the bags to make them easier to carry. Then he swings his leg over the bike and starts the engine. He revs the throttle to test the engine, and when it doesn't cough or sputter, he releases the kickstand and the brake and rockets over the sand. The wind caresses his face as he rides, and he leans into it. The last of his anger is gone. He's happy, content. The bike was an unexpected stroke of luck. It will cut down on his travel time and get him home to Liese that much sooner. She'd been fine when he'd left her on the couch with that lingering kiss and the company of a book, but experience has taught him how quickly the tide can change.
He rides until the lights of the ragtag outpost come into view, and then he kills the engine and glides to a stop. He doesn't want the noise attracting attention. It's late, and most decent folk should be long asleep in their beds, but outposts like this don't call to the dubious best and brightest of human society, and there's bound to be a rumpot or two lurching through the deserted streets, and even the worst of them would remember a stranger with yellow eyes.
He hides the bike and its booty behind a jumble of boulders and crouches to survey the settlement. It's a single wide avenue bracketed by two rows of wooden buildings. A saloon, dark and silent, and a small hotel and brothel. Lights wink from upstairs windows, and sinuous shadows dance on the filmy curtains. His lips twitch at the memory of joined bodies atop a coverlet in a whorehouse window. His first glimpse of the forbidden. He turns his attention to the other buildings. A blacksmith. A hostelry. A doctor. A general store fronted by a pair of hitching posts. And at the far end, shrouded in shadow, the clapboard church with its haughty steeple upthrust like a chastising finger.
It's the general store that interests him. According to the familiar and his loose network of spies, it offers a limited selection of fabric for the local housewives. Nothing exotic, just cotton and wool and gingham and muslin. There were occasional rumors of silk and satin. And as of yesterday, whispers of lace.
Every bride should have lace, he thinks as he surveils the store. It's as dark and silent as the saloon across the street. There's no movement from the darkened upstairs window; the proprietor and his brood are either gone or asleep.
Still, he waits. He's had his fill of killing for the night, and if he rouses the town, he'll have to move on and uproot Liese from the home they've just begun to establish. When an hour passes with no sign of activity or a night watchman, he rises and strides toward the quiet settlement.
There's no electricity here in the hinterlands; that is a luxury reserved for the cities, a gift the Church bestows upon the ragged, starving faithful. He glides through the enveloping darkness on noiseless feet, alert for the wobbling tread of unsteady feet or the muffled gasps of a prostitute plying her wares behind the blacksmith's, skirt hiked above her hips and ass polishing the soot-smeared anvil. But the drunks and whores have all burrowed in for what remains of the night. A muted scuttling to his left, but it's only a startled opossum, and he dips his head in greeting as it peers at him with baleful, luminescent eyes and bares its fangs at him.
He skirts the building to the rear in search of a tradesman's entrance and is relieved to find one. A test of the knob shows it to be locked, but it's old and cheap besides and disintegrates in his grip. He lets the crushed knob drop to the sand and opens the door with a faint squeak of untended hinges. He pauses, fingers curled around the door, but when there comes no cautious thump of slippered feet upon the stairs, he slips inside and closes the door behind him.
He finds himself with a small office to the left and a larger stockroom to the right. He steps into the latter and scans his surroundings. Boxes of canned and dry goods line the near wall, stacked five high and labeled in a brutish, untidy scrawl. More boxes on the opposite wall, but these contain sundries-toothpaste, soap, borax. Another stack holds crude medical supplies of alcohol, cotton batting, and castor oil. Bottles of aspirin. He stuffs a few of these last into the pockets of his duster and resolves to return for the rest once his intended errand is finished. The wall to his right hosts flimsy metal shelves stocked with batteries and cans of lantern oil and coils of rope. The bottommost shelf bears shovels and pickaxes and posthole diggers. A lone saddle sits in the corner, dusty and forlorn. Probably taken for payment of debt or in exchange for beans and corn and coarse flour that scoured the teeth. Of silks and lace, there is no sign.
He creeps from the room and into the store proper to find more shelves, these low and wooden and home to more canned and dry goods and cleaning agents and miscellaneous tools. There are also a handful of small, covered tables arrayed with pairs of shoes and gloves for workmen and ladies. He stops to examine the latter, but the material is stiff and too dry between his fingers, and anyway, he can't imagine his Liese with her lovely hands covered. He releases them and wipes his hand on his jeans and continues his perusal.
Belts and cheap tack adorn the walls like hides on display, and a handful of rifles hang from a slotted rack behind the counter. These are flanked on either side by shelves filled with tobacco pouches and boxes of ammunition. He peers behind the counter in a fit of idle curiosity to find more ammunition, boxes of thick cotton pads labeled Feminine Hygiene, and small boxes of transparent balloons. Intrigued, he plucks one from the shelf and studies it.
Lubricated condoms, proclaims the front. His brow furrows in confusion, and he flips it to the back. Coated with spermicidal liquid to prevent pregnancy. His expression clears. A fornication glove. At least that's what the ancient priest who'd presided over his catechism classes had called it. A means for the wicked to indulge in their basest, most sinful desires without fear of the natural consequence thereof. A means by which to thwart the will of the Almighty. He snorts and tosses it aside. The only thing in which he intends to sheath his cock is his wife's most willing cunt. He does, however, grab a package of the cotton pads and tuck it under one arm.
The chief objects of his desire he finds stuffed into wooden, crosstie racks behind a shelf full of shampoos and cans of wax. Fat bolts of fabric jut from half a dozen cubbies, and he reaches up to examine them. The gingham is a harsh nap against his fingertips, inviting as burlap, and he recoils with a grimace, but the cotton and wool are pleasing to the touch. Either would make fine wedding robes, and Liese could use them for summer and winter cassocks. He hums in satisfaction. The satin is glorious, cool and sensual beneath his fingers, and the silk is even better. He chuckles in delight and imagines them against Liese's delicate skin, the languid glide of them over her breasts and buttocks, the heady bunch of them in his palms as he smoothed them over the fabric in a worshipful caress. He sighs in anticipation and reluctantly moves to the lace.
This he handles with assiduous care. He'd thought it would be thick and heavy, the stuff of curtains and doilies yellowed with age and the dirt from widows' dry palms, but it's delicate, fragile as baby's breath in his hands. Sheer and light, and he can see it over Liese's face as they kneel at the altar and imagine it draped over her shoulders and back as she takes her oaths a second time and binds herself to him forever.
She already has, notes a voice inside his head. Very enthusiastically. In your bed.
Yes, and he savors every moment, every breath of it, but this will be a celebration, a covenant wrought in defiance of the Church. She will be the beautiful bride he had always meant for her to be before that fatal raid. No rice in her hair, no warm summer sunshine, no love beneath an oak with dew upon the grass, but he can give her bridal lace and silver moonlight in her hair. He can worship her as she deserves, hold her up as the goddess she is, and when the vows have been cast to the wind and sand like fine drops of holy water, he will feel this lace beneath his hands as he sinks into her.
He's jolted from his reverie by a ponderous creak upon the stair. He swallows an obscenity and melts into the shadows that ooze from the corners like pitch, and a few moments later, the proprietor appears, rifle in hand. He's an enormous, rotund man clad in flannel pajamas and tatty slippers, and he and the floor wheeze in concert as he shuffles into the center of the room.
"Is anyone here?" he calls. He takes a cautious step and scans the room. "Come out if you're in here. I heard you shuffling."
Johannes considers his options. If he holds his tongue, the shopkeep might chalk it up to the nocturnal revelry of rats and go back to bed, but there's no guarantee he won't be back the minute he moves. If he runs, he risks a round in the back, and while that would ordinarily be but a temporary inconvenience, the gunfire would likely draw the rest of the town, which would no doubt delight in torturing him to death. Hell, they'd probably make a festival of it and encourage their children to kick him as he lay dying and poke candy-sticky fingers into his wounds. He could negotiate, but the odds of success are slim, and if the negotiations conclude in gunfire, that, too, will draw the town.
He slips behind the man as he clutches his rifle in a pudgy hand and blinks stupidly at the front door, and wraps his arm around the man's wattled throat. One abrupt squeeze, and the man's throat collapses like a crushed paper cup. He lowers him to the floor to minimize noise, and then he stands over him as he strangles. Spittle dribbles from his mouth, and his face is a deep, bruised puce. Bulging eyes roll in their sockets, and he sees the realization in his face, the horrified recognition as the man sees his eyes.
"Howdy, neighbor," he says, and touches the brim of his hat. "It's a fine store you've got here."
Fat, grasping fingers scrape the toes of his boot, pale and soft as mealworms, and he shakes them of with a grimace.
"You know, it would be a shame to let so much meat on the hoof go to waste." He drops to his haunches and slaps the shopkeep on the belly, and then he shoots forward and battens his fangs onto the side of the man's neck.
He's too full from his earlier meal to do more than sample, but it's a far sweeter vintage, a good dessert wine. It's a shame he can't save him, bundle him up and take him back to the cabin as a little pick-me-up, but he'd never be able to fit him and his acquisitions onto the bike, and it would take too much time to smuggle him out of town. Too much risk of being seen or heard as he hauled his ponderous bulk out of the store.
He drinks until his stomach gurgles ominously, and then he sits back on his heels and fishes a rag from the pouch cinched at his waist. "Much obliged to you," he says, and wipes his mouth.
The man says nothing. He can't. His ruined throat has swollen shut and cut off the last of his oxygen. It won't be long now. His face is a mottled purple, and his tongue protrudes obscenely from his lips. His grasping fingers claw spasmodically at the wooden floor and harrow fine scratches into the finish.
"Well," he says, and springs to his feet. "I'd love to chat, but I'd best be on my way." He steps around the man and heads for the stairs.
The man lows, a steer barreling down the kill chute. Impending death has not yet numbed his mind, and he knows where he is going.
"Nnnngh! Nggggh!" he grunts, and he can hear the unmistakable plea in it. Please. Please
"I wish I could," he says ruefully. "I truly do. But I've learned what happens to the merciful, and I can't take that chance." He turns and ascends the stairs, his boots light upon the wooden tread.
"Harold?" calls a sleep-muddled voice from upstairs. "'Zat you?"
It's over in less than a minute. She dies before she can scream, her head twisted at a terrible angle. He smooths the covers over her and leaves her to her eternal dream, and then he closes the door behind him and checks the other rooms. Two small bodies, deeply asleep, unaware of the monster in their midst. He watches them for a while, torn between the urge to eliminate every possible witness and a faint vestige of the merciful priest he'd once been. In the end, there is only one choice he can make, and he makes it swiftly.
By the time he descends the stairs, the shopkeep is dead. He moves through the shop unmolested, gathering packages of cotton pads and bottles of aspirin. He measures and cuts yard after yard of fabric-muslin and cotton and wool, silk and satin. The lace he leaves whole. He packs everything into bags and boxes. The bolt of lace he slings over his shoulder. He leaves the way he came, humming under his breath and basking in the comfort of a full stomach. A light wind dances over his skin as he leaves the settlement, and there's a decided spring is his step as he returns to his bike. He's alive and in love and doing his duty as a good and faithful husband.
He leaves the bike several miles before the hive and walks the rest of the way. It might be a day, maybe two, before the bodies are discovered, but they will be found, and he's determined to leave them no clues. The cabin is his home now, the place he intends to raise his children, and he won't have its fragile roots torn out by vengeful humans with guns and pitchforks. He won't see Liese punished for his necessary sins.
The sky has begun to lighten by the time he sets foot in the small yard. Dim lantern light glows in the parlor window, cozy and reassuring, and he smiles as he sets his packages on the porch. A furtive rustling from behind the door, and then it opens to reveal the familiar.
"Good evening, Master," it simpers, and wrings its fishbelly hands.
"Where is Liese?"
Its smooth head bobs. "Asleep in the parlor."
"Take these inside," he grunts. "Don't let her see them." He nods at the boxes and the bolt of lace. "The rest you can put where you like."
"Yes, Master." It hurries forward and gathers the assorted boxes in its black-nailed hands.
"If you damage that lace, I'll kill you," he growls. "A single snag, and I'll unzip you."
"Of course, Master," it answers, and sidles to and fro. Its hands twist and twist, peristaltic and nauseating.
He spins away from it and stalks to the rusty hand pump, where he sheds his duster and shirt and scrubs his face and torso with frigid water that puckers his skin with gooseflesh and stiffens his nipples. He scrubs and scrapes until he's sure there is no trace of blood, and then he dries himself with his shirt and brushes his teeth twice with a sachet of sage and cardamom. When he's sure he's clean, he turns and goes into the cabin.
Liese is curled up on the sofa where he'd left her, head propped on the arm and a book drooping in her slack grip. The lantern flickers on the table beside her. He smiles at the tranquility on her face and crosses to the sofa. He snuffs the lantern with a twist of the knob and eases the book from her grasp. She snuffles and shifts but doesn't wake. He sets the book beside the lantern and reaches out to stroke her face.
She opens her eyes with a reluctant effort. "Nggh?" Her expression clears as recognition comes. "You're home," she murmurs sleepily, and offers him a dreamy smile.
"I am," he agrees, and presses a kiss to sleep-dry lips. "Now let's get you to bed."
He eases her upright, and she winces at the protest from stiff muscles. "What time is it?" She scrubs her sleep-puffy face.
"Almost dawn." He smooths his thumb over her cheek to erase the impression of the sofa's upholstery from her skin.
"You've been gone so long. I thought it was only a few hours."
"I know. It took longer than I expected." He holds out his hand. "But I got you some things. Some aspirin for your pains and some packaged cotton pads."
"Bless you, my love," she says, and takes his hand. She rises from the sofa with a groan. Then she stops. "Where is your shirt?"
"Dirty work. I didn't want to track it into the house."
She purses her lips at that, but she says nothing. Instead, she embraces him. "Oh, honey, you're freezing," she exclaims, and begins rubbing his chest and arms.
"No hot water in the pump, either," he says mildly, but he basks in her attentions.
"Next time have the familiar heat water for a bath," she chides. "You'll catch your death."
"Catch it? I've already met it."
Her solicitous hands slow. "Don't say that," she says softly, and presses a tremulous kiss to his clavicle.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs, and strokes her hair. "I only meant that no disease can take me from you now."
"It just makes me think of-" She huffs. "Days. Weeks."
"Hush," he soothes. "It's done. Long done. All that matters is now. And now I'm alive and in the arms of my wife. Who I'm sure will warm me up."
A muffled chuckle against his chest. "I'll do my best," she says, and the words vibrate against his flesh.
"Let's get you to bed."
She follows him down the hall. "Where are these cotton pads? I should put one on before I sleep."
"If the familiar has any sense, they'll be in the bathroom."
She shuffles stiffly into the bathroom. The package is on the back of the sink, wedged clumsily between the taps and smothering their toothbrushes. "Nice," she mutters.
He follows her inside and uses the toilet, and when he's done, she takes his place, hitching the hem of her cassock above her waist like a society woman arranging the voluminous folds of her gown. She pulls down her plain, cotton underwear and sits, knees spread.
"Hand me one?" she asks, and nods at the package.
He picks it up and reads the slogan printed on the front. "Have a happy period."
She snorts. "There's a delusion."
He tears open the top and fishes out a square wrapped in wax paper. She plucks it from his curious fingers, tears it open, and unfolds it. Then she reaches into her underwear with her free hand and withdraws a wad of bloody fabric. She tosses it into the nearby wastebasket and replaces it with the thick strip of cotton. Once her bladder empties, she rises and pulls up her underpants.
"Better than Church-issue," she declares, and moves to the sink to wash her hands. "Those were either cardboard or sandpaper."
He moves to stand behind her and wraps his arms around her waist as she scrubs her hands. "You endure this every month?" He rests his chin on her shoulder.
"The curse of Eve. I guess the penance wasn't enough. The Priestesses say it only stops when seed takes root or when a woman grows too old to bear children." She turns off the tap and shakes her hands dry.
"Mmmm." He sweeps the hair from her neck and nuzzles the soft, sleep-warm flesh. "I'll put seed in your belly soon enough," he promises.
Her hand come up to cradle his nape. "I know you will. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the attempt." She pats his nape and slides out of his embrace and ambles to the bedroom. Much more relaxed now, and she yawns as she strips her cassock and crawls into bed.
He sheds his clothes and climbs in behind her. He burrows against her and entangles their limbs and curses the intrusion of her underpants.
"What?" she asks with dozy fondness.
"Nothing. I've just gotten used to having nothing between us."
Laughter little more than a breath. "It'll be done in a day or two." She takes his hand and slips it into her underpants to rest against warm flesh and coarse hair.
He's tempted to extend his fingers and stir them over her until she grows slick and hot with need, but she's so tired, so he simply slips his other hand between their bodies to knead the hard knot in her lower back.
She moans softly, and her drooping eyelids flutter.
The sound ignites his arousal, but he ignores it. She needs his hands more than she needs his urgently-pounding cock, and so he massages and strokes until hard flesh is smooth and pliant. "Sleep," he whispers into her ear. "Rest now, my Liese." He pets the coarse hair of her cunt as his kneading hand does its patient work, and soon, she surrenders to slumber, limp and untroubled in his arms.
He slips his hands from her back and underpants and curls around her in a protective coil, cock tucked snugly against the swell of her ass. It's familiar, comforting despite the sweet torment, and he takes solace in the fact that with the sunset will come another chance to sow his seed.
