Ravenous

It’s a wonder he hasn’t tried to kiss me yet, Larine thought as she gazed up at the black holes boring down upon her. In those dark bottomless wells that were her host’s eyes, she felt the whole of the world staring back at her, a look both derisive and flattering as it permeated her being. Like a knife, she felt his gaze jab at her repeatedly, holding the excruciating masked charge of storm clouds in the distance, sudden and striking. Even as she felt the pains claw their way up her abdomen, threatening to tear out her heart and to stain her chest as crimson as her dress, she sensed the way she leaned into his grasp, wrapped her naked hand around a metal rod and held it out to the stormy sky swirling in the gentleman’s face above her. 

He seemed all the more game for it. Even as the band finished the last of the waltz, the violins warbling their final notes, he kept on going, wrapping his hands around her waist and deftly guiding her through a series of steps as thoroughly unfamiliar to her as they were immensely beautiful to all those bearing witness. In those moments, Larine experienced the supreme delight that was the feeling of gently sinking through water, each movement slow yet graceful, her body an instrument played to the delight of all those around her by the well-practiced fingers of her sly partner. Her body hadn’t moved like that in years, swam through the air with such dignity and such grace. For as dense as they were and as ardently inflamed with her as they claimed to be, all the other suitors had always required a slatternly sway of the hips or meretricious dance of her fingers across their shoulders to fully reel them in. Never more did Larine feel the cold mud of her self-loathing than when she was accepting the love so blindly thrown at her by those men. It was like the half-rotten meat flung to the lions at the zoo who paced madly in their cages, dying for a taste of fresh blood as it flowed through their dying prey still. 

It wasn’t until he pulled her to his own chest at the end of their extended gavotte that she noticed how fast her heart had been beating, a gushing river that raged in tandem with the pulsing kettle drums buried deep in the young man’s chest beside her. 

I animate something in him, she smiled to herself as they at last separated. Just as someone once animated something in me…and for that reason must I always leave alone.

The gentleman took her gloved hand in his own lined with white silk, pressing an earnest kiss to it before looking up at her, half a grin still hanging from his face. “May I have the pleasure of your company in continuation for the rest of the evening, mademoiselle?”

She knew from the victorious look in his eyes that she was already blushing. 

“My, my, monsieur,” she began, carefully. “I don’t know about that.”

“Well, if I cannot have you for the rest of the evening, may I propose the rest of eternity?” His eyes trailed up the subtle definition of her forearms, tracing the smooth dark skin of her shoulders as he seemed to etch the moment in his mind.

If only you knew how long eternity truly is, monsieur, she sighed, perhaps you would find a better companion for enduring it than me.

With the flutter of lamentation streaking through her heart came the whispers of ghosts at her ears. The gentle gale of his lips tickled her ears as she felt his dark exhale on her neck. You know you can’t leave him alone like this, the voice said, carrying a gentle growl to it that remained as sonorous to her as it had been when there was still living breath behind it. A wild young man like that lacks a particular satisfaction. He could get into trouble. You know that as well as anyone. I would say it is high time you gave him the thrill of his life.

As she felt herself reaching back into the shadows of her mind, reaching, reaching for that sordid infection of her soul, she felt its invisible hands pulling her forward again toward the young man before her, smiling in the face of his own mortality. 

And so even in death does he dare tempt me to send others to hell with him.

With the thought fell back the mask of the ingenue, well-adjusted to her articulate features and yet rubbing at every inch of her soul still sore from its use. 

“Well, monsieur, I really should be getting back to my chaperone.” She tucked a raven curl back beneath her ear, pantonmining a glance back to the small group of chattering girls with whom she had arrived. “I am afraid it would be unseemly for both of us if we continued much further.”

At this, the young man gave a careless chuckle, waving to her friends unabashedly.

“How much further can I be degraded, madame, when you have me so thoroughly bound mind, body, and soul in the fiery depravity of young and foolish thoughts?” 

Despite such lascivious boldness, Larine could hear the sudden quickening of his heart as the words left his lips, sensed the gentle, vibrant shaking of his hand as he extended it to her once again. She would have forsaken the world just to have a shred of his courage left in her, innocent though lustful as it was. She longed to feel his hands on her again as the music stirred, to feel the current of his unflinching audacity pulse through her again, electrocuted by the beauty of his short, limited life. In his hands, everything had felt worth it. Existence seemed not an endless hallway of blinding white but a small, soft canvas to fill with all the color imaginable before the lights flickered out. His existence was doable, livable, enjoyable.

Larine wondered if it was only the generosity stroked eagerly by the flames of his loins that provoked him to share these precious few moments of it with her.

If my life were only as limited as yours, mortal, this would be a fair trade. But, all the time I am to give you now means nothing. For all my wealth, I can only give you dirt.

From deep within her, the ancient hunger growled and she knew she could delay no longer.

Once more condemned to the misery of centuries locked in this horrible dance, she resumed her attack.

“Well, monsieur, if you insist, I suppose it could be alright,” she whispered close to his ear, dreading the smile that carved itself across his face with her reply. “Do you have a place for us to go?”

“Of course, my dear, of course,” he murmured back, looking across the ballroom and out the French doors to the star-studded indigo sky draped delicately over the lantern-lit balcony. With a picturesque view of the bay shining like onyx in the moonlight below, it would be the perfect place for the transformation that was to take place tonight, the conversion of this lovely ingenue into a flaming coquette.

Taking her arm, he began leading her through the crowd, ignorant of every disapproving glare cast upon them by the rest of the soiree’s attendees. Though she knew their lives were but mere microseconds of her own, Larine still felt their shame branded onto her, a shame that deepened as she remembered her own days of debauchery beneath the tavern lights, leading another young man to yet another epic clash of fate struck under the light of the blood moon. 

And now he is with me always. Her hand snaked up to her neck, touching the spot that only became tender when exposed to the burning tides of accursedly precise recollection. Will this one remember me too once I am through with him? Will my voice always echo in his ear and will my lips always sear his neck? 

The questions stretched throughout the caverns of her mind, each syllable another tick mark on the length of eternity that promised her no respite from the inconsequential atrocity always at the edge of her fingertips.

Crossing the threshold into the cool dark midnight air, she found herself suddenly thrust up and against the wall of the manor, the young man’s eyes completing their final appraisal before his scalding lips locked onto hers. Pushing her back beneath the stormy waters, the tingling purrs emanating from his throat only encouraged her as she dug her fingers into his strong arms, daring to feel every ounce of his humanity wash back over her as she felt all of his excitement and splendor, at the chance for conquest that had steered his every action tonight. Swimming deeper through the murky waters of his mind, Larine let the wave of his memories crash over her, embroiled in the whirlpool of his anxiety and awe as she saw herself through his eyes for the first time that night, admired her own beauty, and stalked herself throughout the evening before finally mustering up the courage to ask herself for a dance. As her fingers collided with those of her past self through his hands in the memory, she relished in the sinking feeling of security that came, knowing she had herself fully in her own grasp now, a dazzling young belle all too happy to have the life pumped back in her as her every mark of pulchritude was strummed to perfection in a passionate waltz of intrigue and desire. She could even feel her own seeming innocence pulsing back to her as she remembered through him the way her back had come to the young man’s chest, counting every beat of her racing heart both as the young man and as herself. 

It is in memory that it becomes hardest to remember yourself and your new purpose, the one before had said as he held her quivering body close all those centuries ago, wiping the blood seeping down her collarbone. But you must remember, my little lamb, you must remember who you are now and pull away lest you return to the small, shaking prey you were before. The only reason I have spared you so is because I see that starving lion masked in that timid wool. I say to you now, roaring little lion, it is time to feast well on the spoils of the world that has never known true fear until this moment. Now, go hunt!

With a hearty yell, she buried her fangs into his neck, invigorated by the sudden flood of air pressed from his mouth as he emitted his own half-strangled cry. The blood flowed into her mouth like a rich wine, overwhelming her senses in a ceaseless sea of copper that drowned out the hunger pangs that had been stabbing her stomach all evening. The true meaning of relief became apparent as she drank ravenously, summoning her true strength as she spun and pinned him against the wall, never pausing between gulps of his blood. Pulling back at last, she sank into the slight chill of the breeze blowing on the warm blood staining her lips, just as she had the first time. 

It was a fact scarcely admitted to those of her breed that the true perdition of their condition was not in the longevity of their life but in their unending desire to contribute to it by indulging in the sole ingredient required for their immortality

It wasn’t until she felt the handle of the knife reciprocally buried in her stomach and heard his chilling laughter that she knew it was at last all over. Pushing her off of him before setting her gently against the wall this time, the young man leaned in close, flashing porcelain-white teeth that seemed to stretch in the starlight.

“And I heard you creatures were supposed to be smart,” he chuckled, swifty pulling out the knife, admiring the scarlet smudges decorating its blade. “I’ve killed werewolves less easily duped.”

“I heard you hunters were supposed to be better looking,” Larine croaked, her throat burning as black spots danced in her periphery. When she pressed her hand to her side, her palm came away gleaming in a scarlet sheen. “And not so stupid as to let their targets kill them first.”

“Oh, is that what you have done, mademoiselle, if that is even what filthy vermin like you are to be called,” he sneered. “You have killed me?”

“Your neck…” The hourglass had been turned and the grains of consciousness now slipped from her ever more quickly. 

“You bit me only because I let you, foolish thing,” the hunter held up the knife dripping with her blood, licking both sides of the blade contentedly. “You didn’t think I’d let just any vampire lay their hands on me, did you? You were chosen by him, the father of all your kind. His noble, eternal blood flows through your veins and now through mine too. We are the same, sister. Can’t you feel it?” He beat his arms back through the air like great wings, looking up into the blood moon that baptized him in its ruby rays. “Already, I feel his glorious immortality flooding through me, supreme enlightenment, it is!”

Seeing her head drop, he extended one dexterous hand to lift her gaze up to his, rejoicing in the way the sparks of his new flame outshone her dying light at last. 

“I thought hunters wanted to extinguish our kind, not steal our power,” she spit, defiant even as her final breath crept up her hoarse throat. 

“In theory, sure,” he snickered, letting her head drop painfully back against her chest. “But what good is it to depose a tyrant if you’re unwilling to seize an empty throne? Of course, it must be unfamiliar to the likes of you who have tormented the earth for centuries, mocking the rest of us with your perpetuity as we shrivel and die. No longer will I be condemned to the travesty of such a fate. I am free, sister, free at last to carry out the machinations of my endless desire and set loose on the world the scourge of my will. And as for you,” he turned from his place at the railing of the balcony, “you alone have helped me achieve it. Let that be some bittersweet consolation as you finally pay the dues you owe.”

For a moment, his grin deepened as he imagined he heard her crying, sniffling out a last few, meaningless tears. But neither the pavement nor her gown became wet for these were not the shrieks of sorrow but rather the undulations of sheer, effervescent euphoria. 

“It is you, brother, who is the fool,” she smiled one last time before she succumbed to the dark tides of slumber washing over her. “Let us see how long you can stand to walk this endless road before it eats you alive.”

As the last of the light in her glimmering green eyes went out, the hunter shivered as he felt a wind like no other whip around him, whispering his name a thousand times as invisible hands crawled up his back and shoulders. And then the hunger pangs began to hit, one stabbing pain after another as his mind imploded with shockwaves of agony. Looking up, he no longer saw the life teaming with ineffable possibility before him; he saw only a ballroom full of live prey.