The vampiress and the church.
"Wait a minute, where are you going?"
"To the church, sir."
"Now? Look at the time!"
"It's part of my work, you know this."
"For real?"
"I'm just delivering some results, that people have some rules to follow about going out and all that."
"Lab results for someone in the church? Don't tell me it's a pregnancy test—"
Delivery is one of the many things he never expected from his line of work, but the increased number in cases of a certain disease made him build a small business around it. A small business where privacy is provided, and the user is protected from the shame of approaching a laboratory.
Business is business, but today things are very different. Almost as particular and special as the mentioned location, because many things have been said about the church that was built above the research district of the city.
The white cobblestone, the wooden carriages, and that church are the proud symbols of a piece of humanity that thrives while the rest of the world has apparently moved forward in public relations. They've meant hope for many men and women, and they've taken tolls as well, but never in the way he's being taxed right now.
He's been working there for some time already, inside the holy building. Specifically, in the pathology department where his life is spent in front of a microscope looking at the tissues of unnatural beings as they keep on searching for more things that can separate them from man. All this, while the intricate society that dared to separate a fragment of humanity from the immortal through a rough deal… keeps a demon below it all.
There's a door in the basement of the church, it leads to hundreds of meters of tunnels that behave as storage of that which is really forbidden. And below it all, the only source of light is the fire the survives as the companion of a primordial sin… in the shape of a woman.
A countess of the old ages, a damsel of the dismal night, a vampiress named Ophelia.
She's a haunting sight wearing nothing but a long red scarf in the best way she can to keep her private parts hidden from any prying eyes. For more than sixty years she's been given nothing but water and bread, and there she is… as if not a single day had passed for her.
She spends the time looking at the small trace of fire near the entrance of her room while a blessed chain of silver keeps her right arm tied to the wall in front of her. Her stare is barely capable of getting above her shoulder while she simply waits for the buildings to fall, for the chain to rust.
One of the most important details the fire reveals as it flickers in the abyss is a line on the floor in front of her, like a crescent moon. It marks off the reach of her free hand, the point that caretakers respect when they give her food.
The line had been drawn during the first months of her confinement when she tried to reach them with the tip of her fingers, something that never happened.
But there're no prying guards tonight.
She had already closed her eyes when the daily dose of resignation settled, oblivious to the fact that all of them were taken to a different kind of prison through the rivers of wine made by the lower class of society, a river that was offered up to them by him.
Him, who dared to call her by name.
Him, who was the only man here that looked at her with sympathy after her castle was buried and her victims erased from the books of history, the only one that could make her turn around once more.
"Good evening, Ophelia."
The door is open, and the man stands in front of her. Until this point, the silent subtlety of her movement was something known only by saints.
"Cain… back so soon?"
"It's been a bizarre couple of days, what can I say?"
"The thing I like to hear the most, what else?"
"Heh… the day doesn't have the same meaning for your kind anymore, Lady Ophelia."
"It sounds even better than last time."
"You always say that."
He leaned back on the door as he closed it and stood there looking at the dark ceiling above their heads. The dungeon of hatred as some would call it, where one of the countesses is kept alive while the entire world thinks her dead.
"Mmm… there's something in that head of yours, it seems you are not going to hand me over the bottled carmine just like that."
"Yes, you're correct."
"And what is it?"
"I… I've been wronged, Ophelia. A certain someone that works in here has done something beyond belief and I've been caught in the crossfire."
"Oh, love…"
"It's bad business, really bad business and I just can't talk about it."
He shakes his head, a smile of disappointment sprouts in his face and Ophelia looks worried. Normally she would constantly switch her focus between him and the bag he carries with the bottled carmine, but not this time.
"Is your life on the line?" she asked, softly, delicate, and seemingly breakable. She leaned slightly on the back of her hand as she uses her long hair to keep her chest covered. Her cheek was graciously contributing to a drowsy expression as it was pressed on the skin.
"Yes, precisely. That's why I'm earlier this week, I want to release you and make sure you stay out of this."
"But there's a condition, isn't it?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Your heart beats at the rhythm of a deal, young man. It's the same kind of thing that I hear when you speak about business and gold."
"Can you… feel that?"
"Yearn is something that I can't forget, it's like waking up in the morning and wanting to be there for a little longer… you can't just take that feeling off, you can't forget it either."
"Are you interested in my proposal?"
"The guards are sleeping, aren't they?"
"That's correct."
"Go ahead, then."
The mere thought that crossed his mind was overwhelming, a sudden rush went from his neck to the deeper halls of doubt as the words take form in his mouth.
"Before you leave… I want you to turn me, I want to be one of your kind."
Her expression is filled with the awe of a little girl looking at fireworks for the first time, it was a mixture of innocence and oblivion that he didn't believe possible and immediately made him shake the pillars of his previous statement. Nonetheless, his inner reaction wasn't noticeable.
"Why would you want to do this?" she asked, stricken by confusion. Knowing well the meaning of a vampire running free among these humans and recognizing the underlying reality linked to what this could mean.
"It's my best option, besides… once you're out, there'll be nothing else for me to care after."
"And why would you want to let this beast hold your hand as you walk out of the road?"
Cain sighs, he approaches and bends the knee right on the line of her debilitated sanity. It was a proposal to the night made woman.
"I'm… I'm fallen from grace, Ophelia."
"And?"
"If I'm going to forfeit these people and their designs, I want to stray as far as I can from them. If I want to look at the gold and let it speak to me… I want it to be all I hear from now and forever, as stuck in damnation as I may be."
His solemnity made her sigh and look away, as if this hell had windows on the walls with beautiful landscapes behind. He looked at the floor instead, drowning himself in a kind of shame that couldn't be more oppressive.
Until… she touched his face with the tip of her index and raised his stare.
"And I am, who I am."
"Yes… precisely," infatuated, as if she had started to sign on paper.
"My freedom lies beyond the touch of your skin, doesn't it?"
"It does," their shadows become one as he's lifted by the simple motion of her hand, thrilling and subtle.
"Is there something else for me?" she asked, leaning her head with a façade of curiosity and ingenuity.
"I brought you a dress," he said, whispering and touching her hand. Reaching her fingers as if they were the strings to the heart of the woman behind one of many sins.
"And… pure carmine?"
"Yes, pure carmine."
"Where's the glass?"
"I'm the glass, Ophelia."
He slowly touches the neck of his jacket, proceeds to take it off step by step and drops it on the floor, revealing his flesh while her eyes glitter in the constant stutter of silhouettes and broken pride.
She steps back while keeping her arm extended towards him and staying short of reach on purpose, way behind the limit marked by the crescent moon on the floor. Cain knows that the line she's done around her can only be crossed by him alone.
So, he stepped in and turned around as he focused on the closed door. He unbuttons his shirt as the cold of her whole hand and every one of her fingers slides across his back to take it off, it was the first step to make his human side lose the way back home. It was like stepping into a blizzard of acceptance and surrender, a subtle tempest of renounce that reaches his shoulders and goes over them as she softly locks him with her arms and presses her breasts on his back.
The cold breeze and the freezing night of her body snuffs out the candlelight of his individuality, he can already feel her breathing dancing with his own.
Ophelia approaches even more and kisses his cheek as she slides her hands again, downwards this time, in search of his ribs. They climb up gently on the front and hold tightly as she brings him down once more in an instant where he saw the red scarf and her hair make a little jump in the air.
They sat down on the floor, she said something that couldn't be heard by anyone else and kissed his neck twice. After that, she kept her face clear of any braid or lock with one single move of the first two fingers that belong in his chained hand.
The holy silver couldn't prevent one more life of being taken.
What happened at first couldn't even be described as a kiss, it was a simple meeting between the edges of their lips and nothing more. But her hand touches his face, it goes down from there and reaches his neck with tenderness. It ends right where the echo of his heart could be felt and sparked the complicated mechanisms of longing.
He felt the entirety of her body on him when their lips met again, and this time… they danced as the space between them was reduced to less than nothing. The amount of strength he had to muster just to stand still was a surprising twist to the delicacy she always showed off. The tension of his muscles overcomes the softness of his skin as she makes him lie down with that very same sign of affection taken to the verge of violence.
It was like having the whole church pushing down on his body, on the deep abyss, on the torn pieces of her own humanity.
He simply couldn't resist to touch her firm shoulders and the dancer's back, the relief of her bones under her flesh are the piano keys that lead to the generous crescendo of her hips and thighs. Which he caressed and held as much as she held him, it was like velvet and cotton, like breeze and rain in the heart of the earth.
Her sighs whisper, a little whimper comes out of her as his welcoming prey embraces her. He holds her right thigh and pulls from it, her leg trembles slightly while the thrill of the hunt runs anew in her veins and germinates in the form of her tight grip on him.
His skin burns, her reach goes beyond the interstice of pleasure as she dwells closely to the audacity of his muscles when a moment of clarity led Ophelia to retrieve her bloodied hands from the journey on his back.
In that moment of disarray, it happened.
Red rivers have been given life in his torso and imitate the bars of another prison; it was an intoxicating sight that made them look at each other in silence while their breathing goes into the spotlight. One above the other… they fall in the deepest of all seas. The holy silver and the blood are the only witnesses of their heartbeat counting fractions of seconds while the concept of space loses its meaning.
Their essence has been reduced to shapes in that unmaterial body of water, they push against each other, they feel each other while the abrasion of their bodies takes them to utter abandon in their essence as they're reduced to mere silhouettes for the fire.
The shadows hide the jittery impulse of her muscles as pleasure heightens, the sensation rises from the lower part of her abdomen and the rush makes her find the right place as both reach rock bottom in that instant.
Ophelia bites her own lip with taste and desire, she makes herself bleed and the last sight his mortal eyes witness is her delicate face above him… flickering between human and inhuman beauty.
He closes his eyes, and the bite takes place with utmost delicacy surrounded by the darkness that thrives beneath the church. Her blood slips away from his mouth, it travels across his cheek and reaches the back of his neck while their bodies intertwine, like the horizon of a world that only exists in memories.
And even then, his right hand reaches the back of her head and presses even more her lips into his neck. The hair slides along the scarf and touches the floor when the weight of the world entire slips from their backs.
Ophelia was the one who took him there, and she was the only one who could rescue him from eternal vacuousness as she talked once more.
And the last thing he heard coming from her that night was…
"This dress… is beautiful."
Author's notes:
Hi, good people! I hope you're doing great. This may be a little rude, for which I apologize beforehand.
What you've gone through is the prologue of a novel that I have just officially published after some time of rewiring and much more (It has some illustrations!). I want to share it with you and the entire website in the best way I can:
It'll be available at no cost for the next three days on Amazon Kindle Store.
This may be just a little little thing, but I deeply respect this place as a part of that old internet which we're portably never going to experience again. It feels really nice to give something back.
The name of the novel is "Liadora's kiss", it has a painting of a white deer shedding its horns on the cover.
It can only hope you enjoy the story, and if possible, share it with your friends!
Have a good day and take care!