Chapter 11: "Haemoglobin"

Gillian was in Larten Crepsleys arms and was carried away by him with the supernatural speed of a vampire. The world blurred around her, but she had only eyes for the scarred face of the man who carried her.
It's like in my dream, Gillian thought dazed.
A slight tingle began to spread in her fingers and her toes.
Slowly the feeling came back into her body.
The vampire stopped to gather his forces. Sweat had formed on his forehead. It was very exhausting to flit with Gillian in the arms, but she could not hold on to his back herself. He looked down at the pale woman who hung powerless in his arms. The sight was frightening, she looked as if she got caught under the wheels of a truck.
Her throat was torn open, where the vampaneze had drawn her blood and her face was smeared with blood and dirt. But the gleam in her eyes was undiminished, and her lips seemed weakly to smile at him.
Larten Crepsley took a deep breath, tensing every muscle and gained enough power to travel the rest of the way with one single run.
Cirque du Freak was not far off.
He reached his tent and laid the battered body of his student gently on the carpet.
He smoothed her bloodsticky hair from her face and looked earnestly into her eyes. "I know, you endure pain more brave than every boy," he said huskily, "But now I must really hurt you. Hurt you more than you can stand. "
Gillian looked up at the familiar face of her vampire master. "I don`t feel my body ..."
"I know, your spine is broken. But the vampanezeblood inside you, is already healing you. You'll soon have feeling back in your body. And then, when the blood reaches your heart, it will transform you."
Larten stood up and walked with long steps through the tent. He wiped the curtain at the rear end aside, and came back with the cage of Madam Octa in the hand.
He put the cage on the floor next to Gillian.
Gillian's eyes widened.
"And that's what we must prevent." Larten opened the cage and Octa, the giant spider, crawled out and over his arm to his shoulder.
"Not Octa", Gillian gasped and began to move restlessly.
The vampire pressed her body down to the ground so that she could not move. "Octas poison will stun you. Your heart will come to a standstill, and the vampanezeblood can no longer spread in your body."
Octa was sitting on Crepsleys shoulder and stared from its numerous black eyes down on Gillian.
Gillian wailed.
She was disgusted by the spider, but greater was her fear of her bite.
Gillian had never been able to make friends with the spider, and had attended only reluctantly to her. As long as the animal was sitting in his cage, the halfvampiress had been able to stand with their presence, but every time when Crepsley took her out, she froze with fear. Which he did often, unfortunately. Gillian had repeatedly attempted to suppress her fear, but every time she reacted hysterically.
Therefore Larten had given up trying to make Gillian a part of his show act. It was just too dangerous if she freaked out and screamed on stage, the spider could become dangerous.
Fortunately never anything worse had happened, Octa had never bitten Gillian.
But Gillian had seen what the bite of this gruesome spider can cause, she herself had brought goats to the show and disposed them of afterwards.
That the spider might crawl on her and bite, belonged to her worst nightmare, and Larten had accepted that and never asked her again to touch the spider.
Now Madam Octa began very slowly and with gentle movements to crawl up on Larten Crepsleys arm.
Gillian felt she panicked.
"Not Octa. Please ... ". The tingly feeling had spread from her fingers and toes to the arms and legs, and Gillian began to wriggle desperately, while her gaze was fixed on the spider, which was coming closer.
Larten pressed her harder against the ground. "Hold still, Gillian!" he thundered. "It must be."
Gillian stopped frightened.
Larten tore the sweater in a half, which Gillian was still wearing, and began to open her dress as well, while the spider was crawling down on his arm.
As the vampire unclasped the corsage of the dress, and pushed aside the bloodstained midnight-blue fabric, he tried not to show his concern. Across her chest ran three deep cuts, that Murloughs claw had given her. The wounds had stopped bleeding, but had not yet begun to heal. And how they looked like, they would never be able to heal completely. Gillian would retain three scars, just as he himself has three scars over the face from the claws of a vampire.
He bent down and licked tenderly over the jagged wounds.
Gillian's body shuddered, even though she did not feel how the lips of the vampire touched her. Gillian saw the vampire bent down his face and touched her bare skin, and under other circumstances she would have been very excited.
But now she only thought of the spider, which had disappeared from her field of vision.
When the red hair came up again, Octa had disappeared from his shoulder.
The idea that the hairy spider was sitting on her naked chest, made her hyperventilate.
"Calm down", Larten said to her. He took up the flute.
Gillian's chest was pumping because she panicked.
"Gillian," growled the vampire. "You have to stay calm, you're pumping the blood too quickly to your heart."
When he saw that she was far from calming down, he leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead. He whispered: "Trust me."
Gillian's eyes were large and round, almost black, like they consisted only of dilated iris.
Her gaze fixed on Larten eyes, and she held her breath.
Larten nodded, raised his whistle to his lips and began to blow a few sad tones.
Madam Octa was sitting quietly on the chest of the halfvampiress and began to crawl on the bare skin forward until she was sitting directly over the heart.
At the quavering tone of the flute she lifted her legs, sat up and ... stung.
The spider bite just above the heart into the vein and injected its poison.
Immediately a shudder went through the body of the halfvampire and then she remained stock still.

The vampire changed the melody on the flute and stretched his hand out so that the spider could crawl on it.
Then he sat her back in her cage.
Gillian laid there paralyzed, and the gleam in her eyes had extinguished.
I hope I am doing the right thing, Larten thought, and pulled out two daggers.
He hesitated.
What he meant to do was able to kill the halfvampiress.
It was dangerous enough to send Octas poison in her body while she was hurt that much.
But what he was going to do now, was pure madness.
He meant to bleed out Gillian's body completely.
Because Octas venom prevented the transformation of Gillian not, it only slowed down the process.
And she has to be transformed, or she would die.
Her injuries were too severe that she would be able to live on as a halfhuman being.
Only vampire blood could heal her broken spine, and only vampire blood could turn her, so she continued to live after that.
But not the blood of Murlough.
Larten would do everything he can to prevent, that it was Murloughs blood that made Gillian into a vampire.
But could he risk, that she might die?
Be strong, Gillian, he prayed. Be strong for me, I don`t want to lose you.
Then he took the daggers and made several long, well-aimed deep cuts on her wrists, ankles and on her throat.
He watched as blood ran from the wounds, and when it was not going fast enough, he bent down and placed his lips on Gillian throat and closed the wound with his mouth, where she had been bitten by Murlough.
Then he began to suck out the blood from her.
It tasted foul. Like cold, bad blood. And yet something more, a nuance that he could not identify.
He spat out the blood and sucked more immediately.
Larten Crepsley could not explain why, but he felt as though her blood tasted like snake.
The vampire sucked and sucked the blood out from Gillian, who was still lying there and did not flinch at all.
But Crepsley knew she felt something.
The pain must be unbearable, and she was a prisoner in her own body, unable to move.
The thought choked him, and he cursed himself.
You egoistic old asshole, he scolded himself, she doesn`t need to suffer this pain.
He pushed the thought aside and hurried to finish what he had started.