Sorry for the delay, everyone! I got sucked into another project that demanded it get done before I do this. But here's the next chapter! I hope you like it and thanks for reading!
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The blood squished and Detta fought back a gag. There wasn't a reason for it. It's not like she hadn't seen such gore before but the bodies of the years past were just that—nameless corpses on her take-out menu. Perhaps it was because the squish was her blood seeping into Marko's open chest that caused the retch. It was like she was filling up the stake wound the only way she knew how. But instead of the blood pooling in his wound, it seeped into his body, disappearing into the crackling crevices, leaving behind nothing but dust once again.
Detta could feel the blood rushing around in her body, migrating toward the scraped-open wound and out into another body. She picked the bloodied lure up with her damaged hand, blood soaking the lure even more. The pointed tip nicked open her tongue as she licked it clean before touching it to her clean wrist. The skin popped and tore as she dragged the time-dulled lure down her wrist, exposing yet another artery and giving her life another means of escape.
Little white spots began to burst and fade only to explode once again before her eyes. Her arms wavered over the death wound but the drops that didn't make it into his chest burrowed through his dry kin, disappearing beneath the surface. Through the oncoming unconsciousness Detta noticed a slight change in tone around the wound. No longer was the opening a rotting gray but speckles of pink were littered about, creeping around slowly to consume the decay. The blood was working. She was healing him.
But there was hardly any blood left in her. A look at her own blood-crusted skin revealed not the tan, youthful appearance she normally had but an aged, decrepit tone. Wrinkled and drying, only a few steps away from Marko's. She had to be careful. It would defeat the purpose if she were to die in the process of reviving her lover.
She couldn't tell if it was a near-death hallucination or her eyes were telling the truth but Marko's wound was now glistening at her. No longer brittle and arid, the flesh and muscle shone as if the hole had been freshly carved. If this was the last she saw before she died, she'd be happy enough. Her self-mutilation wasn't in vain.
A roar, different from the deafening pain of her own scream, broke through her semi-conscious haze and Detta jerked her arms back, frightened and caught off guard by the sudden thrust the corpse beneath her gave. The corpse thrusted. It moved! Marko's torso writhed jerkily, obviously uncomfortable (to say the least) under the weight of the now-fresh wound. Eyes wide in varying degrees of shock, she looked to Marko's face and saw his head moving in the same mechanical manner, stiff under his still-dying skin. His mouth was hinged wide open and an animalistic cry of pain rolled incessantly from his throat. His eyes saw nothing, the blues whited out in death and her blood not being plenty enough to restore his sight. Marko's arms lifted and fell, clawing at the dirt below them, at his own skin, chipping it away, and occasionally at her denim-covered leg, feeling nothing but pain. She heard a crackling, breaking noise that could just as easily been the creaks of a leather jacket if the noises weren't coming from Marko's own joints.
Tears continued to drip from her eyes as the elation swelled in her chest, threatening to suffocate her in such a joyous way that she would gladly welcome it. However, this was just the shell of the man she knew as Marko. She heard the beast rumbling in his chest as she threw herself at his side, forcing dirt into her open wounds as she crushed her arms beneath her. The cry that erupted steadily from the crackled mouth in front of her wasn't Marko's but that of a wounded, feral animal blinded by death that, despite its defiance, stood lingering right next to him. And he knew it was there.
Detta rested her head on his shoulder once again and lifted it just as quickly as the near-dead Marko howled at the pain she caused. In death there was no pain. There was hardly any pain in undeath. But in this half-life, the decay and deterioration that was so visible on his skin was very real . . . and very painful. Careful not to touch him again, she pulled herself up in the blood-mixed dirt, setting her head level with his as she propped herself up on her elbows, her lips gently brushing his flimsing ear.
"Shhhhhh," she hushed under the beastly howls. "Marko, it's me. Please stop."
Detta waited for a response but was only greeted with more cries and more pain. For the first time since he'd reanimated, Detta's taken notice of his presence within her once again. No wonder she didn't feel it before. It was faint, barely a pulse and barely recognizable as Marko. It mimicked the shell that lay before her—barely alive and as raw as life could be.
As she focused on the presence that was no longer absent, the felt another piece of a vampire beginning to fade away. She quickly perched up and looked into the blank white eyes and she could see the veins in them shifting, the cry still gurgling in his throat. Death wasn't teasing her with Marko. Another brother had died. She remained still for a moment, blocking out the cries that constantly rose and quelled in pitch, and felt her way around the remaining lives. Arrogance was the only youth that was left. That coupled with the rising animal in what she knew to be Laddie, it was safe to say that Dwayne had been the one to get killed. Piece by piece they were dying for a brother that lay beneath her that she may just be able to save.
As she looked into the white orbs sat against the slate gray of his face, it was a sickly sight even for Detta to handle and she let out an audible sob, her chest heaving out the pain in her heart. Her tears dripped onto his cheeks, the parched skin greedily absorbing the moisture and she gently touched a finger to his protruding cheek bone, wanting to feel him and hoping he'd feel her. At her touch, his wailing lowered to a whimper as he lay motionless, allowing her to feel his painful skin. Her fingertip lifted and landed on his lip, brushing it lightly. She watched his bark-like tongue try to reach out and greet it but it couldn't pass his teeth. She brought her arm up and brushed her fingers through his still-soft curls, a stark contrast to the harsh body below.
His nostrils flared as her blood-soaked arm passed by his nose and a grunt issued from his throat. Detta looked to her arm and back to his face, his lips feebly attempting to curl, his head wanting to lift but remained weighted to the ground. She dipped a finger into the drying blood, making sure to cover the tip, and gently pressed it onto his tongue. Like the rest of his body, the moisture-starved skin inhaled the blood and for the briefest of moments, the tension left Marko's face before the pain resumed once again.
A rush of immediacy overcame her and if her heart worked as a human's did, it would have been pounding in her chest. The dread in her mind stated 'this is not permanent' and she looked down at the flesh-colored wound in Marko's chest. It was torture to keep him lingering in a mid-life like he was. She needed blood and she needed it now. Her face dropped to the ground below him, her nose pressing into the dirt as the rest of her pushed itself up.
"I'm going to get life," she whispered hoarsely in his ear. "I'm going to bring you back. I'll feed you. Don't worry. I'll feed you."
Detta thrust herself up as quickly as she could and fell butt first onto the ground with just as much speed. She needed blood just as much for herself as she did for Marko. The back shelter spun as she pulled herself up once again, steadying herself against the wall. Before she scaled the wall, she glanced back to Marko, shifting slowly on the ground, his mouth closing a fraction before opening back up into a scream that would fade away into a gurgle. His hands, as much as they wanted to lift, stayed firmly put, the fingers clawing to the best of their stiffened ability.
Her stare wasn't healing him. She turned back to the entrance over her head and started the short climb, brushing off the waves of unconsciousness that threatened to overtake her. She inched her way along the tunnel, her stomach sliding over ancient wood and rusting nails as her legs pushed her along. There was no strength to catch her as she fell out the entrance, crunching along the stone wall and shattering some trinkets below her. She could feel the plaster and paint embed itself in her skin, in the wounds that weren't healing but there was hardly any life to heal it.
Tried as she may to keep her eyes from crossing, the blackened lobby still blurred in her vampire's night vision and as she stumbled through the dark, knees slamming into the ground and elbows knocking into corners. She swore that the entrance was quickly creeping further and further away from her. The ocean air assaulted her dying senses as the spray prickled her skin. She could hardly walk. Would she even be able to fly?
She prepared her mind as she did every time she was about to take flight; imagined that she was weightless and just let her body do the work for her. The weight melted from her body and Detta began to steer herself towards Santa Carla's main beach. But another bout of inching unconsciousness nearly overcame her and her concentration was broken, leaving her body leaden and her brain addled. The frigid ocean water was a mind-clearing shock as she splashed into it and despite her dangerously low level of blood and the denim jeans that continued to get heavier, her eyes were fresh and wide and her purpose clear. She spat out the salty water and brushed her clinging hair from her face, briefly remembering how ragged her skin felt and cringing at what she probably looked like.
Pushing the momentary bout of vanity from her mind and refilling it with the near-corpse of Marko that lay waiting, helpless, in the cave, Detta forced herself from the water, bursting through the little waves that lapped at her head and soared, drenched and raining down upon unsuspecting heads, towards town. She cackled to herself, her throat raspy and parched when she saw she wouldn't have to go to the mecca after all.
Bridges Beach, a much quieter spit of sand a couple of miles north of the hub housed a small bonfire without a potential hearing ear in sight. Her feet touched down silently on the blackened sand, out of reach of the orange glow of the flames. New moon tonight, the darkest night could get. As she padded closer, she noticed four of them, all male. She wondered whether it'd be best to overfeed or bring a couple back. Quick calculating determined that yes, glutting herself felt like the best course of action. Carrying meals back just seemed like a needless waste of energy in such a precarious situation.
Detta imagined herself as looking like the walking dead; her skin sunken and gray from the lack of blood, parched beyond the help of any kind of mere moisturizer could offer. Her clothes, tattered and torn from her tumbles and slides in the cave, flew about in wisps around her body, exposing skin just as ragged and split. For all intents and purposes she should have been bleeding from those wounds but only the color of blood offered itself.
Pain and weakness weighted her body as she staggered towards the fire, building up her energy for the eminent attack. They must have been pretty wasted not to hear her thump into the sand on the couple of instances she fell. The oblivion didn't last long, though, as realization came to a set of eyes staring straight at her. At first they squinted. He was probably thinking he was seeing things but when Detta's outline solidified itself in his vision, and her corpse-like appearance became clear, his stoned eyeballs nearly burst from his skull as he clamored up from what looked like a rather comfy reclining position. The other guys proffered a look to humor their paranoid friend but the mass hysteria caught on quickly.
"Now boys," Detta croaked, her voice rattling in her throat. "Don't make me work too hard on this. I'm not . . . not feeling too well."
No. She wasn't some drugged up, drugged out heroin prostitute. The fangs and the lunging and bright yellow eyes in the old, dead face cleared that confusion right up. Too bad for the boys, who couldn't shake off the marijuana haze fast enough. She had to kill them all first otherwise she might lose one.
The first neck got her fangs and she drank greedily as she tore into another with her nails, not bothering to see what she was doing. Two bodies down, the other two running away in day-glo swim trunks. She didn't need to be a vampire to see that in the night. As she closed in, Detta thought about breaking their necks but, from this vantage point, knocking their heads together seemed like the most efficient move. An echoing crunch, followed by sand catching a couple of collapsing bodies, mingled with the breaking waves. Her fingertips caught wayward blood as it dribbled down her chin and returned it to its rightful home in her mouth. The other two were first since they were losing the most blood.
Blood-stained fangs tore at the tan throat as Detta drank everything that was left in the surfing body beneath her. Death by Nails was next as the blood slowly trickled from his wounds, pooling around his head. What a waste. She didn't get too much from him. The other two, though, not only had they lost very little, they were both still alive. Detta could feel her stomach filling as she gulped at the pot and coke-tainted life in the guy's veins. The fourth one even moaned a little, aware that he was dying but just not in a state to do anything about it.
Her back greeted the sand when she drank the last drop of blood she could, the vital life sloshing around in her swollen stomach. The crime scene needed to be cleaned, and her overfed body made it that much harder. Detta thought this was probably what it felt like for her on Thanksgiving. Stuffed.
With bloody sand buried and the bodies sinking a mile out into the Pacific, Detta headed back to the cave revitalized, rejuvenated and not looking like a brain-eating zombie. Her skin no longer pulled taut at her face and her hands were the golden tan they were when she was human. Her flight didn't falter and her determination was steadfast. Like an overstuffed bullet she tore through the cave opening, straight through the midnight lobby and, with precision, straight to the boys' sleeping quarters like she certainly couldn't have done an hour ago.
With only a slight frantic stumble, Detta touched down in the blackened room of death with Marko still writhing on the floor. His blind eyes looked in her general direction desperately trying to see the source of the crunching gravel. She could, however minutely, feel his fear rising, afraid that it wasn't Detta that'd returned but his killers. The rocks and dirt crunched beneath her knees as she knelt next to Marko, her hand lightly touching his arm, reassuring him that yes, it was her.
She looked to the hole in his chest and nothing had changed since she left. It was better than having it decay again. She felt his fingers touch lightly on her pant leg and it sent a surge of emotion coursing through her body. He was still there, still hanging on, but she needed to hurry. Please.
The crusted fish hook still lay next to Marko and Detta picked it up and reintroduced it to her skin, dragging it along the faint scar the last tear left behind. She bade the blood to come forward and out it poured from her wound and into Marko's dastardly one. The splishing and splashing of the blood hitting decrepit organs and bone made the bile rise in Detta's throat but it was easily swallowed back when she saw his fleshy tone return to the edges of the wound. This time it slowly began to spread outwards, creeping towards his stomach and collar bones.
A guttural mumble emitted from Marko's throat in a mixture of pain and rising health as the blood flowed into him and Detta could feel herself drain yet again. Blood splashed onto his jacket as Detta jumped, the breath catching in her throat as Marko's hand swiftly latched onto her wrist. The movement was unbecoming of his position but it showed his improvement. Detta smiled down at him as his still-weak arm pulled at her wrist, wanting to move it to his gaping mouth. The blue of his eyes had started to fade back in but only slightly. There was still no sight there.
Detta eased the energy Marko was expending on her as she moved her wrist to his mouth, touching her skin to his lips. It was a distorted kiss as his lips lingered momentarily against her skin. She couldn't tell what he was thinking if anything other than to bite. And that he did. She sighed heavily as his fangs punctured her already jagged skin. It was a mixture of pain and momentary past pleasure, a thought to better times to escape the destruction that surrounded her now. Her veins pulsed with his every suck, obeying his command for more blood. Her body gladly gave it. Detta shifted from her knees to her butt as she felt herself weaken more and watched as the skin on her arm started to crust and gray again. There was no stopping him, not now. She wouldn't allow it.
The cave spun once again as the blood drained from her head and into Marko's mouth. Her stomach churned at the ride the room had turned into, bending and waving and weaving all around her. It might as well been breathing with the way the walls swelled and deflated. She could no longer feel the fangs in her wrist anymore and wondered if he had taken his fill. She knew that was impossible, especially now, but looked anyway to verify.
Nothing but blackness greeted Detta although she swore her eyes were blinking. Funnily enough, she could still see the room spinning. Maybe lying down would be a good idea. Her shoulders lurched and her neck bent awkwardly, her head hitting something that caused her no pain. It was numb too. The ringing in her ears got louder as her body got number and only then was there sleep.
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