Killer Queen: Those Wacky Nazis
A Dark Realms Universe Story
By Dr. Bender
In 1944, Corporal Lance Valantine returns home to Ravencrest a wounded hero after years of spying on the Nazis for the Military Intelligence Service. In 2011, a striking vampire college student calling herself Suzanne, Party Queen of the campus, is hell bent on making tonight a night to remember... or perhaps a night some would wish to forget forever.
What could they possibly have in common?
Killer Queen: Those Wacky Nazis
A Dark Realms Universe Story by Dr. Bender
2011
House parties are my favourite. A bunch of wild college kids packed into someone else’s house, loud dance music with a heavy beat, softcore drugs passed around with the spiked punch, the anonymity of a crowd, all things I loved.
Working my hips on the dance floor, I’m always the queen of the party. At 5’9” I’m tall enough for most without dominating the boys… unless they wanted me to. My well worn hipster skinny jeans hugged the curve of my butt as I worked it and managed to show off my legs without exposing them to view. Up top I wore a form hugging dark grey short tank top that squeezed out my b-cup breasts with the aid of a bra under an open, bright red, sheer blouse that was tied up just below the sternum to keep my waistline exposed, showing off my perfect pale skin and slender body. I wore my ash blonde locks long enough to tickle the top of my thighs and I was careful to use just enough makeup around my eyes to make them sizzle. Strappy dark brown high heeled sandals hugged my feet, ready to be discarded at whim should the mood take me.
As the party queen of campus, I played no favourites. I grinded against the boys and lovingly petted the girls. Everyone was friends with Suzanne and the party hadn’t really started until I made my entrance on the scene. There was just one guarantee if I decided to party: shit was about to get crazy. That’s why they loved me.
The house was rocking when I decided to make my tour, remembering the layout of the house from the last party I’d been to there many years ago. Since the last time, though, the bathrooms had been refurbished, the walls painted and someone had added a heated pool out the back where the kids were lounging in their speedos and bikinis. I said hi to people I recognized and introduced myself to those I didn’t know. A stroke of the cheek here, a brush of lips there and they were eating out of my hands.
She was so cute when I saw her that I almost died again. The uptight freshman girl radiated nervousness like a star on the verge of supernova, standing alone in the crowd. Her chestnut hair was worn in a flip over her right shoulder, accentuating the line of her neck provocatively. She only wore light make-up, preferring a look only a little better than au naturale with perfect lightly tanned skin. Her dress was white and blue floral print with a hemline that ended only a few inches above the knees and she wore a cropped red leather bolero over her shoulders. What made the outfit for me was the lime green sneakers, they were so quirkily perfect for her that I just had to introduce myself.
“Hi,” I said, approaching her directly to get her full attention, “you’re new, right? I’m Suzanne.”
She shook my offered hand trepidatiously. “Lydia Beaumont.”
I caught her gaze and her eyes turned slightly glassy as I invaded her mind. She took a short intake of breath as I stimulated her pleasure centres, giving her a new directive for the night. Leaning in, I nibbled her ear, restraining myself with some effort as my lips brushed the pulsing vein in her neck. “Pop that cherry of yours before you leave, Lydia. I promise you’ll never regret it.”
Leaving her to cope with her newfound lust as she willed, I continued my tour of the house. There were always so many people to play with and never enough hours in a night.
#
1944
As I stepped out of the bulky black Chevrolet, leaning on my walking cane for support, I savoured the relative quiet of my arrival at Ravencrest University as I gazed up the steps to the old manor that now served at the main administration building. The gothic structure had an air of menace about it, particularly with the ravens the area was named for perched on the eves.
My moment of peaceful reflecting was destroyed when a photographic flash went off in my face, blinding me for a moment. Next thing I knew, my hand was seized by a scholastic looking gentleman with a receding hairline. “Pleasure to meet you, Corporal Valentine,” he greeted warmly as another flash went off.
I tried to give him a friendly smile in return but his handshake made my skin crawl. “Pleasure’s all mine, Mr…”
“Dean Bankroft,” he introduced himself before laughing suddenly. “Oh! Wait, that could be confusing. I would be Mr. Bankroft, Dean of the college, so my title is ‘Dean’, not my first name.”
I never did learn his first name. He introduced me to several other worthies of the University who were also waiting on the steps. When that was over what seemed like hours later, the press bombarded me with questions about my experiences in France. I did my best to answer in plaitudes. One of them did manage to surprise me, however, when he asked the Dean a pointed question.
“Dean Bankroft, can you tell us anything about the body that was discovered on the grounds this morning?”
It took the Dean a moment to collect his wits enough to answer. “The police are still investigating, I’m afraid I can’t comment on the unfortunate incident at this time. Why don’t we move into the reception hall? It’s getting a little windy out here, thank you gentlemen!”
Inside we mingled, though the Dean stuck to me like glue. Hors d’oeuvres were provided along with wine, though I begged off any spirits and asked for a cup of tea which was provided promptly. “I got a taste for it working with the British,” I explained myself to the Dean out of politeness for the imposition.
“I hate to ask but what do you think our prospects are for the war?” Bankroft inquired.
“Failing any big surprises, I’d give us another two years to Berlin,” I answered, “though I have to stress that it’s purely my own conjecture.”
I missed his next question because I was distracted by a vision of beauty that descended the stairs from the upper landing. In the pocket of my uniform, I carried a picture of Venus Ramey, Miss America 1944. Her likeness had been painted on a B-17 Flying Fortress and was said to protect the soldiers inside, therefore I carried her picture on the theory that it would do the same for me. The woman descending the staircase was a redhead like Venus Ramey but she made Miss America look plain by comparison. She was dressed all in black, which I assumed correctly to indicate that she was a widower still in mourning, which accentuated the paleness of her perfect skin and the redness of her lipstick. Just the sight of her provoked an erection large enough to make me distinctly uncomfortable, so I concentrated on counting the flowers in the pattern on my teacup as she approached.
“Ah, Headmistress,” Bankroft greeted, “it is my honour to present to you Corporal Lance Valentine of the Third Army. Corporal Valentine, this is our Headmistress Ms. Carmilla DuLac formerly Mrs. Swindon.”
“My pleasure,” she said, offering her hand which I took and raised to my lips, noting the smell of sunscreen underlying her perfume.
“My condolences for your loss, was your husband on active duty?” I asked.
She shook her head. “My husband was in the National Guard, he perished in a tragic car accident.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up,” I apologized compassionately, reluctantly letting go of her hand. “Your maiden name is French isn’t it?”
“Indeed, which neatly dovetails into a question I’ve been dying to ask of you Corporal. I spent several years when I was young studying in Paris, I was wondering how my ancestral country has fared under Nazi rule.”
I sighed sadly. “The war has taken an unfortunate toll on country madam, though the spirit of the people remains unbowed. The Germans seem determined to break that spirit, even now that they are losing ground…”
“Pardon me,” one of the members of the press interrupted, holding up his camera, “would you mind if we got a picture of the three of you, sir?”
Carmilla gave him a scathing glare. “Yes we do mind, shoo!”
“But the publicity…”
I held my hand up in front of his lens. “The lady told you to scram, friend.”
The reporter rolled his eyes and sauntered off shaking his head.
“Thank you, Corporal,” Carmilla said, smiling at me, “those parasites annoy me no end. By tomorrow the gossip columns would have had us in a torrid affair after just one meeting.”
Her comment set back the progress I’d made on taming my erection to the point where I had to start all over again. “As I was saying, the intense fighting has caused heavy damage to most roads and townships. The Germans have been systematically stripping anything of value from the French people and punishing them for the actions of the various resistance groups. French collusion with the Allies has provoked the more fanatical members of the Waffen-SS to acts of genocide. It is, altogether, a tragic state of affairs.”
“If you would indulge me over dinner, Corporal, I’d be interested in a detailed account of your exploits.”
The Dean swallowed the wrong way and broke into a fit of coughing. Carmilla glared at him. “Properly chaperoned, of course,” she added with deadly emphasis.
“I’m… not sure you’d be interested in my account of the war, Headmistress,” I said hesitantly, “there are some memories that are best consigned to the history books.”
She laughed. “I assure you that I am not squeamish in the least, I’m compiling a text on Nazi war crimes in fact; an eyewitness account would be invaluable for the sake historical accuracy. Would 7pm suit you?”
Trapped, I gave in to her request before she took her leave then suffered through the rest of my welcoming ceremony with the image of her walking away periodically sneaking into my head and enlivening my erection. No woman had had such an effect on me since my teenage years, which I had to remind myself hadn’t been so long ago.
Once the tedious ceremony was over and the Dean and I had finished discussing my courses, I found myself limping back to the car alone with the driver waiting for me. Next to the Chevrolet, however, was a Ford with a suited gentleman leaning against it that I recognized. Stopping in my tracks, I shook my head. “Frank? What in blue blazes are you doing here?”
Frank smiled as he approached and shook my hand firmly. “Valentine,” he greeted. “How’s the parades and fanfare?”
“Boring,” I answered briskly. “I repeat, what are you doing here?”
“Took the train up from Washington this morning,” he explained. “Local precinct found something and called for an expert. I’m an expert, apparently.”
“Who’s coffee cup did you shit in?”
“How do you know I didn’t volunteer for a chance to say hello to you again? Don’t answer that. Lance, we’re looking for your help. You want me to whip out ‘Ol Glory and a bugle for you?”
I held up my walking cane for emphasis. “Discharged, remember? Unfit for active duty…”
“Doesn’t mean we don’t need people with your skills.”
Leaning close to him, I looked him in the eye. “My service record is a matter of national security…”
“God, Lance, I’m not threatening you! The FBI needs your help with a murder investigation. End of story. You’ll be paid and it doesn’t involve any movie star theatrics.”
I wanted to hit him but I held myself in check. “All I want is a little peace. Is that too much to ask?”
“No Lance,” he said, putting a cigarette in his mouth, “after everything you’ve seen, that’s not too much to ask.”
“It has to do with the murder on campus?” I asked, giving him a level glare.
“It just might,” he said noncommittally.
“I have a dinner date tonight,” I explained, “classes start in three weeks.”
“We can start in the morning,” he said, “and we’ll only need you for a week at most. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”
“You know where I live already?”
He gave me a flat look that told me everything I needed to know before we parted ways.
My father’s home was a dilapidated mess, thanks mostly to that fact that it had been years since he’d passed away while I was abroad. I’d visited his grave already the first day I’d arrived and spent the last few days cleaning what I could to make the place habitable. The luckiest part of my inheritance had been the proximity to the University only a few blocks away. It was a large house, though, and I’d barely scratched the surface of the repairs it needed.
Not feeling up to more work, however, I spent the afternoon in quiet contemplation and relaxation. At 5 o’clock, I cleaned myself up and dressed in more suitable formal dinner attire before calling a cab to take me back to the Headmistress’ office where we’d arranged to meet. On my arrival, I was amazed to be greeted by a gorgeous blonde beauty in a stunning blue silk dress.
“Josephine,” she introduced herself, letting me kiss her fingers in greeting. “I’m the Headmistress’ Personal Aide. Please follow me, Corporal; she’s awaiting us in the formal dining room.”
Blinking, I followed dumbly along behind her. “I wasn’t expecting a dinner at High Table.”
She laughed. “Nothing so formal tonight but don’t worry, it’ll just be the three of us.”
Carmilla was stunning. Though she remained dressed in black she’d changed into an evening gown that showed off a significant amount of her leg as she walked, the hem swishing around her ankles begging for attention. I kissed her hand again and let her lead me to my seat while some equally fascinating serving girls fussed over our settings. She wasn’t wearing sunscreen anymore and I had to wonder if she had some sort of skin condition that required its use in daylight hours.
“Not that I’m complaining but did someone put something in the water supply that makes Ravencrest girls so beautiful?” I asked in jest.
“Perhaps you haven’t been in feminine company for too long,” Carmilla reposted.
“Touché, madam,” I laughed, earning me a smile from both women.
One of the serving girls placed a cup of tea in front of me while others poured the two women what looked to be a rich red wine. “Now,” Carmilla said while we were served, “you promised to give me your account of your military service.”
I frowned, not expecting her to rush right to the point. “Where I can, madam, of course you must remember that much of my service is still a matter of national security and…”
She looked me in the eyes as she interrupted me. “You will tell me everything of relevance, omitting nothing of import. You trust me implicitly.”
Feeling fuzzy for a moment, I punched the bridge of my nose before replying. “Of course I trust you, I’m sorry I don’t know what came over me. My military service started out just like most, I enlisted and was sent to the front lines in France. Things took a strange turn a year later when I was shanghaied into giving a performance for our division as a female impersonator. I did such a good job that I was recruited as a spy for the Military Intelligence Service and sent behind enemy lines.”
“As a performer?” Josephine asked incredulously.
“Actually I was smuggled into a French brothel that was servicing a forward command post of the German Army. MIS didn’t trust the Madam to provide accurate intelligence but weren’t willing to give a woman the job. As it turns out, officers can be partial to a certain type of high class prostitution service…”
Both women were staring at me. “So,” Josephine started, licking her lips as she leant forward in her chair, “you’re telling us that you were a cross-dressing dominatrix spy?”
I blushed hard. “They got me with the usual pitch: serve your country, save lives, be a hero. Honestly, while I was doing the show I just started getting into it and the boys loved me. It took me some time for the Madam to take me that step further and teach me the ins and outs of the trade but I lived as Mistress Suzanne for three years… sometimes I wish I was still there.”
“Why aren’t you?” Carmilla asked, fascinated.
“MIS got wind of a counterintelligence operation and pulled me out with the aid of the Resistance,” I answered. “I was smuggled halfway across France with some POWs before the Waffen-SS caught up with us… well, really, we were just in the wrong village at the wrong time. They massacred the village by luring everyone into the church and gunning them down with machine guns, aiming to wound and incapacitate. This included women and children. Then they set the church on fire while the villagers were still alive. I was forced to slit the throat of one of our own guides who thoughtlessly tried to take vengeance by himself against an entire division with tanks. On our way home, we were ambushed by the regular German army and a shot grazed my lower back. I’ve been in convalescence for the better part of the year and was finally given a bunch of medals, honourably discharged and sent home.”
They continued to stare at me. “If he wasn’t under my spell, I’d accuse him of lying,” Carmilla commented. Josephine just nodded, aghast. I didn’t know what they were talking about but I was very sure that it was nothing sinister and that the two of them only had my welfare as their first concern.
“So, when you say you were a dominatrix at a French brothel,” Carmilla probed, “were you specifically a cross dressing dominatrix or did you pretend to actually be female?”
“Oh, they never found me out,” I said with a note of pride, “my disguise was very through. It was clear that I didn’t do anything more than oral sex right from the start, since that would spoil my mystique. Most of the time they wanted to be trampled or have someone play doctor or get tied up and whipped. I swear some of them wouldn’t have minded me being a man.”
“You’ve actually performed oral sex on a man?” Josephine inquired.
“A few times,” I shrugged, “I left that part out of official reports, of course. Hard to argue against it when you’re surrounded by a score of female prostitutes that do it fifteen times a day in the off season. I became a whole different person; it took me months to readjust. I made my peace and left her behind me.”
Josephine was silent for a moment before she burst out laughing. Carmilla glared at her but had a slight quirk of a smile on the edge of her lips. “Josephine,” she chided.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped into her napkin. “I just don’t think I’m going to be able to look at a recruitment poster with a straight face ever again! Have you got what it takes? He knew the meaning of sacrifice? Let’s catch him… with his… panzers… down!”
“Loose lips sink ships,” Carmilla added, shaking her head.
“I prefer ‘victory waits on your fingers’ and ‘he’s watching you’,” I chuckled.
Josephine’s sides split.
Once everyone had calmed down, I was given food. Carmilla assured me that they weren’t eating but it was perfectly fine for me to partake without them, so I dug in.
“I should turn him now,” Carmilla commented to Josephine absently while I ate. “He’s very, very special. Maybe a little crazy but he has potential.”
Josephine was suddenly all business. “You’d risk war with Wisteria.”
“Which is the only reason we’re still talking about it, Wisteria will want him too.”
“I agree he’s unstable, which makes him unpredictable and dangerous, are you sure you want the problem?”
“Wisteria could break him but if she doesn’t, we’ll have lost a powerful ally.”
“If she’ll want him as much as you say, it will be war. Everyone loses.”
“What do you suggest then?”
“Patience,” Josephine advised, “claim precedence on him as a recruit before Wisteria takes a look for herself then try to sneak him through under the radar. If that fails… then we play the game.”
Carmilla sighed. “I hate being prudent but you’re right. Lance, look at me.”
I looked up from my food and stared right into Carmilla’s silver eyes.
“You had a wonderful night. Dinner was scrumptious, we all ate what you just ate and enjoyed it immensely. Conversation was generally light and you described some of you experiences without going into anything secret. You don’t remember what we said but you do remember us eagerly asking about France and the war but you won’t mention our conversation to others anyway and only volunteer information if asked, since respecting our privacy is only polite. You made up a few exploits to fill the gap in your service record and begged off of painful memories when we pressed too hard on delicate subjects. You feel that Josephine and I might become fast friends in the future and you had some lustful thoughts about the both of us but you comported yourself as a gentleman at all times. Now my driver will take you home and you will have a deep, restful, sleep in which you have erotic dreams about the two of us.”
Nodding, I got up, wiped my mouth and headed for the door.
“Was that last part really necessary?” Josephine whispered behind my back.
“What? He might as well get a head start.”
#
2011
Lydia was rubbing her body against a guy on the dance floor like a cat in heat. Her skirt was riding up so high that she flashed her cute little pink panties at everyone but she was too caught up in herself to care. The guy she’d latched onto had a hard on like a freight train and I assessed to my pleasure that her virtue was an endangered species.
A sudden shove in my back as one of the idiot frat boys pushed another into me raised my ire. “Dude, don’t be gay!” He protested, annoying me even more. Gracefully stepping between the two of them, I caught their attention by stroking my fingertips across their chests, catching their gazes each in turn. “Why not?” I asked before sashaying away, gliding into the kitchen.
There I found a poor lonely boy trying to look cool bobbing his head to the music with a plastic cup of punch in his hand. His thick glasses and baby blue polo shirt he was wearing weren’t the only thing that was spoiling him, he looked like a poser so the girls were running the other way. Striding up, I removed the cup from his hand and tossed it casually into the sink without a backwards glance, grabbing his hand as I gave him my third best sultry look. “Wanna make out with me?” I asked.
Awestruck, he nodded dumbly. I dragged him out of the kitchen, ordered some of the other party-goers to bunch over and practically hurled him into the chair. Draping myself over his legs, I removed the offending glasses and wrapped my arms around his neck before slipping my tongue into his mouth. He faltered at first but was a quick study and before I knew it, he had his hands all over me.
Just the way I like it.
#
1944
The next morning, I woke in a damp bed. I had to bathe, strip my bed and even scrub the mattress. My sleep had been satisfying in more ways than one, however, and I couldn’t get the magnificent Josephine and wonderful Carmilla out of my head. They’d been wonderful companionship the night before; I could hardly believe my luck in finding such boon companions so easily, particularly members of the opposite sex so charming and delightful. I was in a great mood polishing off my breakfast that even the knock on my front door and the prospect of seeing Frank again didn’t dampen my spirits.
That didn’t happen until I opened the door and he held up a large wooden box in greeting. “I think this is everything you need,” he said gracelessly.
I frowned as I took the plain box from him, wincing as my back twinged from the weight. “I didn’t know this was going to be an in costume affair.”
He came in, closed the door and still spoke in a whisper. “Sorry I wasn’t up front. I promised the guys at the station that I had a connection to a real female spy. They want to meet and brief you today. If they know… what you really are, well, you’ve gotta understand my position here. The J. Edgar Hoover jokes alone…”
“Intrepid G-men with G-spots,” I quipped.
“Don’t you start!”
I sighed. “All right, I guess I have to change, then. Just a word of warning, Frank, when I come out that door… do yourself a favour and don’t piss me off.”
He held up one hand and crossed his heart with a straight face. I went into my bathroom shaking my head as I closed the door behind me.
The box had all the same stuff as my disguise kit and I had to wonder how Frank had gotten hold of most of it without making a scene. Stockings, ladies undergarments, dresses, lipstick and a variety of make-up packs filled the box to the brim. Last but not least was the wig of long blonde hair the same colour as my own so it would blend with my skin.
I put all that aside and started with the shaving kit, paying particularly close attention to the day old stubble on my chin. Fortunately, I couldn’t grow a proper beard so the smoothness of my face was assured. Shaving my legs was harder, particularly on my back; I had to sit down to do a through job. Thankfully the hairs were relatively soft from the shower. I would have preferred waxing despite the pain but we didn’t have the time or the supplies.
Underwear went on first after I’d tucked my little soldier away and applied the rubber ‘shaping inserts’ to my hips with some glue. The false breasts went on in a similar way, small enough that the bra wasn’t necessary to keep them in place but I put it on anyway. Strangely, I found that the girdle seemed to help with the back pain a little as I strapped myself into it as tight as humanly possible, a feat I’d had plenty of practice at. False nails and nail polish went on after that, which took a while to dry so I spent it productively trying to get my voice back up several octaves and generally falling back into the role.
I shivered in anticipation as I slid the nylon stockings up over my legs, though I was used to lace and silk at the brothel. Susanne started to resurface as I pulled my hair back and secured it with a net before reaching for the boxes of cosmetics to fix my face. Slipping into the white day dress was like being reborn, the wig completing my transition as I affixed it over my scalp.
It was Suzanne that adjusted my dress, selected her jewellery for the day and slipped her feet into a gorgeous pair of silver high heels to compliment the outfit. One last check in the mirror and a quick touch up of my lipstick and I stepped out of the bathroom feeling like a new woman.
Frank stood up when I entered, jaw agape. I put my hands on my hips and posed a little, waiting on his first comment. Chuckling, he gave me a wolf whistle as he looked me over. “Christ, Lance, they weren’t kidding when they said you brushed up well.”
Smiling, I sashayed over to him, grabbed his ball sack through the crotch of his pants and twisted.
“JESUS!” He grimaced, caught between wanting to shove me away and not wanting to have his balls ripped off.
“Now that I have your attention,” I said in a calm, sultry, tone. “My name is Suzanne. Lance is a nice guy, I really wish I could meet him sometime, but I’m the cold-hearted bitch that can force you lick the jam from between my toes and make you like it. So shut the fuck up and go get the door for me like a gentleman.”
It took him a moment to gather himself but he did get the door for me. I thanked him and gave him my most winning smile on the way out, which disturbed him even more. I still had to make him open the car door for me but I resolved to let that one go. He gave me baleful glares as we drove along, only half paying attention to what he was doing.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” I chided as I fixed my hair.
He pursed his lips and looked straight ahead. “So… Suzanne… mind if I ask what happens to Lance while you’re in charge?”
“Nothing,” I shrugged. “I’m not mentally disturbed if that’s what you think; it’s just a matter of masks, Frank. When you get right down to it, everyone is just a mask. You, me, Lance… very few people get to be who they really are all the time. Being who I am is a very deep commitment but I don’t expect you to understand that. After all, you didn’t understand it enough to keep Jessie.”
“I’ve got half a mind to slug you,” he snapped.
“Actually, I blame Lance. If he’d let you talk to me, I might have been able to persuade you to pay more attention to your wife and less to your work.”
“Somehow, I doubt me being seen with a pretty blonde would have done a lot to save my marriage, thanks.”
“Thank you for the wonderful compliment,” I said, grinning.
He sighed and shook his head. “I… you… I mean… ok, we’re dropping this line of conversation. End of story.”
I opened my mouth to say something smart but he held his hand up. “End. Of. Story.”
Still grinning, I flipped my hair and settled into the seat feeling good about myself. After a while he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. Then he got curious and took a deep breath. “If you don’t mind me asking… what happened to your limp?”
“What are you talking about? Lance is the one with a limp, not me.”
Allowing him to boggle at that one was immensely satisfying.
He remembered to open the door for me when we got to the police station without being prompted and I appearance garnered the desired reaction from the predominantly masculine members of the force as we passed by. The secretary at the front desk gave me a scathing look. Satisfied that I still had it, I walked confidently into the room Frank led me to and quickly assessed those inside.
Three men, one with a badge on his shirt pocket that red ‘Det. Jack O’Connor’, sat around a small table looking over paperwork. The other gentleman that had the air of a detective was looking away from me so I couldn’t read his tag. The last appeared to be a scholar of some sort with a receding hairline and thick spectacles.
“Gentlemen, this is Suzanne,” Frank introduced me as he closed the door behind him. “Be polite or she’ll eat you alive.”
“You say the sweetest things, Frankie,” I teased.
The other detective turned around, revealing that his name was Benjamin Carver. He was the younger of the two detectives and the unmarried one unless he removed his ring while on the job. “Woooo,” he commented, pulling the chair next to him out from under the table, “why don’t you sit down right here next to me, sweety.”
“Certainly,” I agreed with perky enthusiasm, sliding gracefully into the offered chair and crossing my legs. Carver looked and appreciated, which was gratifying. O’Connor shook his head in disapproval. The scholastic gentleman looked perplexed and Frank looked like his eyes were about to bounce across the table. “So, what is it that you fine gentlemen need little me for?”
O’Connor took a deep breath. “I’m…”
“Detective Jack O’Connor,” I finished for him, “usually I’d say you’re on a homicide squad but Ravencrest PD isn’t a big enough department, so you do a little bit of everything along with the little boy playing policeman, Carver here. Usually murders around these parts are fairly open and shut but there’s something about the body you found yesterday morning that made you call the FBI. Frankie volunteers because he’s desperate for a chance to see me again now that his divorce came through which leaves this gentleman cross the table here which I guess from his age and dress would be a professor from the University.”
“Ouch,” Carver winced, shifting away from me a little, “go right for my balls why don’t you?”
“They’re easy to miss,” I quipped, sliding my dress up a little where only he could see to show off the hilt of the knife strapped to my thigh.
O’Connor laughed. “Ok, you’re the real deal lady. This is Dr. Walsh, Professor of Astrology…”
Walsh coughed. “Astronomy, Detective. They’re two different things. He discovered the body on the night before last… I’d show you pictures but…”
I held out my hand. “Detective, I’ve seen dead bodies in the flesh before. Photographs will not hurt my sensibilities.”
He shrugged and handed me the photographs. It was a grizzly scene, a young man with his throat torn out and some sort of rune carved into his forehead. I didn’t recognize his face, which was no surprise, and he was naked. It was obvious he’d been positioned with his hands at his sides and his legs straight. I didn’t recognize the rune in the close-up but the shot of the wound was more revealing. His neck had been mostly severed by a large, ragged, wound where his windpipe should have been, deep enough that I could see the vertebrae.
“The doc says he found gouge marks on the bone,” O’Connor commented. “He wasn’t too precise about what could have caused it but the official story is an animal attack; maybe a large dog, wolf or cougar.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A cougar this far east? You’re stretching. The body’s been posed and animals don’t carve figures into people’s foreheads.”
“Wow,” O’Connor said sarcastically, “you’re sharp, why didn’t we think of that?”
“I like to underestimate men, that way when they do something right it’s a pleasant surprise.”
He surprised me by laughing. “Yep, I’ll have to introduce you to my wife, you two would get along swimmingly. All right, enough small talk. The big reason you’re here is that we found something else on the body.”
Taking a small evidence bag from him, I peered through the clear plastic. It was a piece of small, gold, jewellery. It was a square with a symbol that resembled crossed swords in the background. In the foreground were the Greek letters for Delta Beta Zeta. There was a little blood on the back but not the front. “It’s a fraternity pin,” I observed.
“Close enough,” O’Connor admitted with a shrug. “Actually it’s a sorority pin. That’s where you come in. We need you to infiltrate the chapter house and look for anything untoward.”
My eyebrow flew up. “You think college girls are ripping out boys throats and carving them up?”
“I think at least one college girl with a big guard dog is playing some sort of sick game to try and divert our attention away from the usual suspects. The victim was sexually active by all accounts; a jilted lover would be my bet on this.”
“But there could be more to it,” Walsh insisted. “Delta Beta Zeta is a very unusual sorority. I even dare to say that their behaviour is often that of a cult rather than a sisterhood. During the daylight, they move from class to class with speed, barely communicating with anyone outside. But at night they are… I’m sorry but there’s no way to put this politely. They are loose women. One or two have even made advances towards me when their grades were low.”
“Did you accept?” I asked flippantly.
“My dear woman!”
I waved away his protest. “Yes, yes, you’d never do such a thing, you’re a beacon of integrity, blah, blah, blah. I’ll take your word that you’re angry at them for making advances to you and not because they make advances to other teachers and not you.”
The professor bristled. “Such things should not be done!”
I sighed. “Professor, most men use their muscles rather than their brains. Girls don’t have muscles so they use their looks if they don’t have the brains; it’s the law of the jungle. Frankly, I don’t know why I’m even talking with you now, as far as I can tell you’re utterly superfluous to this investigation.”
“Dr. Walsh is our inside man in Ravencrest,” O’Connor sighed. “Half the cops in this building know at least one of the Delta Beta Zetas, they always seem to be around when trouble starts but none of the shit ever sticks to them, if you’ll pardon the expression. When the good doctor here started to explain their behaviour, taking up with one man after another, we honestly weren’t surprised. Now, one or two sluts in a sorority is to be expected but a whole sorority that seems hell bent on ruining their lives? That raises flags. We’ve tried to find links between them and narcotics or spirits but came up blank. We just didn’t think we’d be running into some sort of murderous sex cult.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “So what you’re saying is that you can’t get a warrant to search the sorority house for witchcraft?”
“I’d settle for a big dog that they keep in the basement,” O’Connor said. “Honestly, I have no idea what you could find in there. The moment you see something weird, I want you out of there and on your way here, so I can go to a judge with a concrete link. Somehow their sorority has pull with the justice department, the chief gets wind of this and we’re all fired.”
I looked pointedly at Frank.
“I wouldn’t have called you in if I didn’t think there was something to it,” the FBI agent said. “Something is going on at this sorority house but nobody high up wants to know. The body was found in the woods just outside campus near Delta Beta Zeta. The pin would usually be enough to start inquiries at the very least but we don’t want to give them advance warning so they can go to ground. Get in, get out. Carver will take you there, pick you up and meet up with us at another location so we can debrief you. MIS rules.”
“Why not?” I asked, standing up. “Sorority girls can’t be any worse than Nazis.”
“Remember to open doors for the lady, Carver,” Frank warned.
He made a face at Frank as he got the door and called him a sissy as we left them behind. Once we were in the car, Carver was a lot more energetic, singing along with the radio seemingly oblivious to the amused look I was giving him.
“Say, Suzy,” he said, “you and Frank go back, huh?”
“We worked together for a little while in the MIS,” I informed him, “after I got back from deep cover, we met again in hospital. We were both discharged, he got a job at the FBI, I went on my merry way.”
“There’s gotta be more to it than that.”
“There is,” I laughed, “but it’s all classified.”
#
2011
“A little hot in here, girls?” I asked a group of girls as I approached from behind, slipping my arms around two waists.
The tall brunette undid her top button and fanned herself a little. “You can say that again.”
The objects of their attention were the two frat boys from before, practically fucking each other’s mouths with their tongues. They were shirtless in a quiet part of the garden where they thought nobody else could see them, sweat dripping down their backs as they caressed each other.
Catching one of the girl’s attention with a tap on the shoulder, I looked her in the eye. “There’s a nice, meaty, strap on in the cupboard under the bathroom sink upstairs,” I informed her, having placed it there earlier for just such an occasion, “why don’t you put it on and join them? I’m sure they’d love company.”
She nodded mutely and left to comply. Then I picked out the girl that was most turned on and skilfully guided her hand down her own panties before leaving the others to work it out for themselves. Lydia and her mate were no longer on the dance floor. I thought about checking in to see how she was doing but decided that there was more fun to be had elsewhere.
Out by the pool, I watched as one of the girls left her boyfriend by the bar to fix her face. Sidling into her spot, I caught her boyfriend’s eye. “Buy me a drink, honey?”
His common sense neatly overridden, he grinned enthusiastically. “Sure, what you having?”
I picked something brightly coloured at random and turned away as he tried to get the bartender’s attention. Spotting another guy in the crowd, I made eye contact and gave him a ‘come hither’ look, implanting the idea to offer me a drink.
“Hey,” he greeted just as the other guy turned back to us with my drink, pleasantly invading my personal space, “can I get you something?”
“Hey, bro,” the first guy protested, “I just got her something, thanks.”
Both of them turned to me for my reaction, allowing me to make eye contact with the two of them. “I didn’t do it,” I said cheekily.
“You heard the lady,” the second guy scowled at the first; pushing him, “shove off asshole.”
The first guy threw the drink in his face then fists started to fly. The crowd was chanting ‘fight’ as they watched the two go at each other in their unskilled post-adolescent fury when the first guy’s girlfriend returned.
“Harvy?!?” She shouted from the edge of the room but her cry was drowned out by the cheers. Slipping my arm over her shoulders, we made brief eye contact but it was more than enough.
“I don’t know about you,” I whispered into her ear, “but violence really does it for me.”
The next solid punch made the girl jump but not out of fright. As the fight wore on, she started to cling to me, weak-kneed and trembling. By the time the fight was winding down, she was almost done herself, meekly allowing me to drag her inside without protest.
#
1944
Entering the University again was a little strange. It was still light out but the place felt darker than it had the day before and everything seemed to take on a sinister aspect. Putting it down to nerves, I tried to focus on the task ahead.
“The girls will mostly be in class now,” I muttered.
“Should be, yeah,” he said. “Look, if things go sour, just scream. I’ll be right around the corner and backup won’t be far behind.”
Getting out of the car, I tried to pinpoint where the bad feeling in my gut was coming from. Approaching the sorority house, I couldn’t see anything amiss, it was a large two story building like every other on campus with the exception of the three Greek letters over the front door. There wasn’t anything sinister about except that it was on the edge of campus in the middle of nowhere, isolated from the rest of the campus…
Deciding I was being stupid, I stepped up to the front door and knocked, composing my pitch in my head. After a few minutes I knocked again. The third time, the door was opened by a pretty young girl that seemed familiar, though I couldn’t quite place her. Her hair was chestnut brown and she topped out at 5’6”, just slightly shorter than me.
“Hi,” I greeted cheerfully, “I’m Misty Taylor, it is a pleasure to meet you. I’m starting as an undergraduate in a few weeks and I just wanted to talk to the different sororities and see what was available, do you mind if I talk to your Pledge Mistress.”
The girl just stared at me, her mouth slightly open. Finally she blinked and snapped her mouth shut. “Usually we pledge by invitation only,” she informed me in a sweet voice like honey coated velvet, “but I think our Pledge Mistress might make an exception in your case. Come on in.”
She stepped aside and let me through, which I thanked her for in my chipper ‘brainless bimbo’ voice. Once I was inside, however, the sinister feeling hit me in the face. It was dark inside the sorority house, really dark. There didn’t seem to be enough windows and what windows there were had the blinds drawn across them and most of the light that did exist came from scattered candles rather than electric lights. There were also bars across every window, like a prison. I jumped when she shut the door behind me, making the dark house even darker.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” I said, turning back to her.
“Mary,” she said, still staring at me. “You said your name is Misty?”
“That’s me,” I answered, my chipper persona quailing a little. “I don’t know what came over my parents, seriously! Say, are you the only one here? It seems a little quiet.”
“We’re not a big sorority,” she explained, walking around me to check me out from all sides, her bare feet hardly making a sound on the floor. “We also like to keep a stable number of members. Lucky for you, we’re looking to fill some recent vacancies soon.”
“Mary?”
I jumped, spinning around to find another girl standing in the doorway to some back rooms. She was only wearing a night shift, her hair was auburn and she was also undeniably beautiful. “Oh, sorry,” I apologized, “you startled me.”
She looked me up and down, staring like Mary had. Then she sniffed, wrinkling her nose. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Manners, Lisa,” Mary scolded, stepping close behind me, her presence making me even more uncomfortable. “This is Misty, she came to talk to our Pledge Mistress.”
After a moment of astonishment, she cracked into a smile. “Seriously?”
“I understand that you usually don’t take applicants but Mary said I might be a special case,” I said evenly, even though I felt like my knees were shaking. I didn’t know what was so frightening, they were just two girls but it was what I couldn’t see that was scaring the bejeebus out of me. They were acting like they were in on a big joke that I wasn’t party to. “If you’re busy, maybe I should come back later…”
“No,” Mary stopped me, putting herself between me and the door. “Don’t be nervous, the Pledge Mistress will be so excited to meet you. I’m sure she’ll want to have a long chat.”
“I’ll go get Wisteria,” Lisa said, heading for the stairs to the upper floor.
“Be smart and get Carmilla,” Mary called after her. Lisa just snorted derisively in response.
“Headmistress Carmilla is here?” I asked incredulously.
“Oh yes,” Mary replied playfully. “Why, have you met her already?”
Then I recognized her. She was one of the girls serving food at Carmilla’s dinner table. The facts clicked together in my head as it hit me that I’d been made the moment the door opened. It was, however, the first time anyone had penetrated my disguise, so I was set aback for a moment. Reacting on pure instinct, I drew my knife and stabbed with a single, flawless, motion, piercing her chest between the third and fourth rib.
Mary stared at my dagger for a moment before putting her hands on her hips. “What the fuck are you doing, bitch? This blouse is cashmere!”
I stared. Usually when I stab people, they fall down. Generally there’s some gurgling and blood bubbles, sometimes frothing at the mouth. Occasionally they’ll scream a little. None of them just stand there complaining about ruined blouses.
“Who are you?” A sultry voice asked from the upstairs landing. When I looked up, I saw a lady descending the steps, tall with long black hair like midnight, wearing a gauzy nightgown. She was pointing right at me with fingers tipped by long nails and glaring at me with dark, penetrating eyes. My first instinct was to run but I didn’t even get an inch before Mary had my arms locked behind my back. A moment later, Lisa suddenly appeared at my side, locking my right arm. More girls stepped out onto the balcony above, looking down on the scene curiously while others flanked us from the wings on the ground floor. Even though I struggled, their grip was like nothing I’d ever felt before. They were strong, inhumanly strong.
“Answer me!” The dark-haired woman ordered. I felt her words like a palpable blow to the face.
“Misty,” I answered, looking away, without having to force tears, “my name is Misty Taylor. I just wanted to talk to the Pledge Mistress!”
“LIAR!” She snapped. “Why do you come into this house dressed as a woman?”
I blinked. “H-how did you? It’s not possible!”
She hissed at me and I saw her incisors elongate into fangs. The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. I stopped struggling, the will to fight leaving my limbs numb as the whole world shifted around me.
“Pardon my rudeness,” the dark-haired woman said, suddenly changing her tone as she stepped close. “I am Wisteria. Tell me your real name and what you are doing here.”
Suddenly I wished I’d paid more attention to monster movies as a kid. I wracked my brains for any way out of the situation and came up empty. Strong as the girls holding me were I had no chance of escape, how much more powerful was the creature standing before me?
“I can force the truth from your mind,” Wisteria whispered, stroking my cheek, “it would be a shame to ruin you over something so trivial, however. Your name…”
Overwhelmed by the power in her words, I broke. “Suzanne,” I barked, “my name is Suzanne. My… other name is Lance. Corporal Lance Valentine, former infantryman of the Third Army, former spy for the Military Intelligence Service, honourably discharged.”
“WISTERIA!”
I perked up a bit at the sound of a familiar voice. Carmilla stormed down the stairs apace, Josephine and half a dozen other girls behind her. “I’ve already laid a claim on him, he is mine.”
Wisteria pulled my hair out of my face and brushed it over my shoulder, carefully arranging me like a little girl arranging a doll. “You seem to have neglected to mention his innate power. Or perhaps you deliberately omitted that detail? Negotiations are back on the table in either case.”
“Don’t blame me for your lazy scouting methods!” Carmilla growled. “I laid claim first, you agreed, he’s mine. There is no negotiation.”
“Are you willing to start a war over this?”
“Maybe.”
“Well I certainly am,” Wisteria said coldly, still staring at me.
“Impasse,” Carmilla said, folding her arms.
Wisteria snorted. “Not from where I stand.”
“I could snap his neck before you turn him,” Carmilla suggested. “Impasse.”
There was a long silence from Wisteria. Every girl in the room held her breath as tensions rose in the air. “Agreed, Impasse.”
Everyone gave a collective sigh of relief except for the Headmistress and Wisteria who remained perfectly calm and collected throughout.
“One way or another, I will have her,” Wisteria delivered her ultimatum before stepping away from me and turning back to Carmilla, “give her to me or there will be war between us my child.”
“Neither of us wants that, mother,” Carmilla responded, stepping closer to her. “We need another way to settle this. I won’t give her up just because you threaten a childish temper tantrum.”
“Perhaps I should be the one to snap her neck then?” Wisteria asked slyly.
Carmilla stamped her foot in frustration. “All right, I guess we’re both bluffing on that score but we also know you’re bluffing about starting a war over an initiate. We need a tie breaker. Would you agree to abide by such a way of settling the dispute?”
Wisteria sniffed. “It would have to be completely fair and impartial. No trickery or bias. I would abide by such a result if you would agree to it as well but I doubt such a measure exists in this house.”
“Just flip a coin,” I muttered under my breath. Next thing I knew, everyone in the room was staring at me. “NO! Wait, I was being sarcastic!”
“Josephine,” Carmilla held out her hand. The blonde placed a quarter in her mistress’ hand. “Would you agree to the use of this coin, Wisteria?”
Wisteria plucked the coin from Carmilla’s grip and examined it closely. “It will suffice,” she declared, “but who should flip the coin? They must have no bias in the result.”
“The human flips the coin,” Josephine suggested.
Wisteria smiled. “You do your mother credit, Josephine. Such a delicious sense of irony! Why, I believe even if I lose with this method, I will be satisfied that it is the will of fate. Carmilla?”
“I swear,” Carmilla declared.
“As do I,” Wisteria intoned, holding the coin out to me.
Mary and Lisa let me go and I stumbled several steps toward her. My hand shook as I reached out for the coin…
#
2011
I stretched out on the bed, the naked girl sprawled next to me rendered unconscious by my attentions. Her skin glistened with sweat, hair matted to her back. I’d sampled every pleasure I could partake from her body and taken her to the peak of bliss in return. She was good stock with a nice, firm, ass. I resolved to find a way to repay her before I glanced over to the other bed.
Lydia was still bouncing up and down on her mate’s cock, back arched as she went at it like a rabbit. Even I was amazed at her stamina and I could literally fuck someone to death, not that it appealed to me.
There was a polite knock on the door before one of the guys poked his head into the room, pointedly ignoring the rutting freshman and our general state of undress. “Sorry, Suzanne,” he apologized, “but I think there’s a cop in the driveway.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I reassured him, hopping lithely out of bed and slipping into my jeans. I still had my top on so I stepped out once I was decent, leaving my sandals discarded by the bed.
The officer looked down on me with distain; I was fairly dishevelled after all. He was a bike cop, resplendent in that hot leather uniform with his mirror shades tucked into his top pocket. “Ma’am, are you the owner of this house?”
“It’s my party, yeah,” I answered. I actually had no idea who owned the house.
“We’ve had complaints about the noise,” he said with authority, “if you don’t turn the music down I’m gonna have to site you.”
Looking into his eyes, I smiled. “What do you mean, sir, you’re our stripper remember? You’re supposed to drive your bike ‘round back and ditch it in the pool before putting on a show for us.”
He blinked. “Of course, ma’am, I’ll get right on that,” he agreed enthusiastically, hopping onto his motorcycle and gunning the engine. I barely got back to the pool in time to change the music up to something more suitable for his strip tease. One thing I’ll say, the boy had talent.
#
1944
Carver jumped halfway out of the car seat when I unlatched the door on the passenger’s side. It was dark and he’d been looking out the other side towards the sorority house. “JESUS! Christ, Mary, Joeseph! Don’t do that to me!”
“Sorry,” I apologized, breathless. It was dark out and the shadows concealed my face as I slammed the door shut behind me, “we have to get out of here, now!”
He turned the key in the ignition but the car took a moment to roar to life. “Where the fuck were you? I’ve been waiting here for hours!” He shouted at me.
“I had to take the long way out, just get this car moving! They could be right behind us!”
Finally we powered off, screeching around the first corner as Carver overreacted to my panic. “What the hell was in there? What did you see?”
“You wouldn’t fucking well believe me if I told you!” I screeched, wringing my hands together.
He paused and took a deep breath. “Try me,” he said calmly, staring at the road.
Remembering myself, I put my seatbelt on, shaking all over. “No, you don’t want to know. Hell, I don’t want to know.”
“Did they do something to you?” Carver asked, his face lined with worry. “Come on, talk to me.”
“I’m… I’m all right,” I said, clutching my arms and breathing deeply, “I got away before they could…”
“It’s ok, I’m sorry,” he sighed, reaching out to stroke my hair. “Look, I’m really sorry we got you into this. It wasn’t right sending you in alone and I know that doesn’t make it better… look, there’s an old factory on the east side of town, do you know it?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, my granddad used to work there.”
“O’Conner, Frank and the Doc are waiting for us there, ok? We get there and you can blow this whole thing wide open and get some payback.”
Bowing my head, I let my hair fall in front of my face. “Pull over,” I demanded weakly, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Nodding, he eased on the brake and pulled onto the shoulder. The road we were on was dark with few street lamps to light the way. After a moment of silence, I hugged him, sobbing.
“Hey, hey,” he cooed softly, “it’s all right now, ok? It’s all right.”
“It’s not ok!” I wailed into his chest. “I’m shaking all over, it hurts, you’re so warm… and I’m so thirsty…”
He stiffened in my arms a moment before I struck, sinking my teeth into his neck in the blink of an eye. My fangs pierced the vein on the left side of his neck, over the heart. Sweet nectar sprayed into my mouth, his own heart pumping his life into my mouth and down my throat. I sucked and sucked and sucked, intent on leaving him as nothing but a dry, desiccated, sack of bones. Dragging him down onto the bench seat, I straddled his prone form as I continued to swallow.
The car door opened and I felt Wisteria’s fingers in my long, wavy, platinum hair. “That’s it, my child,” she whispered to me, “drink deep and grow strong.”
“I think that’s enough. You’re not going to let her kill him are you?” Carmilla growled from the other side of the car.
“Why not? They’re all just cattle, dear heart. We could throw the other three into a pit with her as well.”
“You know we can’t just kill two police officers and an FBI agent.”
“Why not?” Wisteria asked petulantly. “My little girl is so thirsty; it would be wicked to deprive her.”
“People will come looking. They’ll ask questions!”
“So, we just mesmerize a few witnesses to say the FBI agent left with Corporal Valentine on a westbound train and leave them chasing their own tails. The two detectives, a ditch and some fire solves that problem and the good professor works for you. Ravencrest is OUR town now, Carmilla.”
The redhead hit the roof of the car with enough force to dent it. “GOD DAMN IT, Wisteria, this isn’t a game!”
She laughed. “Just teasing, Carmilla dear, you take things so seriously these days. I swear, you need to relax a little.”
I felt Wisteria’s hand slide up my skirt and over my rounded butt a moment before it slipped between my legs. I squealed when she pinched my clitoris, removing my fangs from Carver’s neck.
“Be a good little girl and lick the wound closed, Suzanne,” Wisteria ordered sternly.
Nodding, I reluctantly complied, happy just for the taste of what was left on his neck even though I was sorely tempted to bite again.
Carmilla glared at her maker. “All right, what about the other three?”
“All yours, darling one,” Wisteria said, “I trust your brood to deal with them as you see fit, I better get our newest initiate back to the sorority house.”
I was enraptured by the feel of my own skin as my mother pulled me from the car, sucking at what remained of his blood on my lips and teeth in the desperate need to taste of a little bit more of my new ambrosia. “That hit the spot,” I whispered, leaning against Wisteria’s shoulder as she hugged me close.
“That’s my girl,” Wisteria encouraged, stroking my hair. “To quote that story the herd loves so well, I believe this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
#
2011
Finishing up taking pictures of the naked police officer getting oral from a busty blonde sorority girl with a digital camera I’d borrowed from one of the guests, the party was wilder than ever. Some of the students, boys and girls, were streaking in the front yard while they toilet papered everything in sight. The guy I’d made out with a few hours ago had each hand down the front of two girl’s string bikinis in the pool while he was still fully dressed. There was a police motorcycle at the bottom of said pool and a homosexual orgy going on around the side of the house. Lydia was no longer the only girl bumping ugly upstairs and the two guys who had beat each other senseless lay groaning in the back yard amidst the debris of broken garden gnomes and plant matter. The bar was almost dry and the music was swinging.
All in a night’s work for the queen of the party and mistress of ceremonies: Suzanne.
Carmilla managed to surprise me by sneaking up and slipping her arm around my waist. “You’re slipping, dollface,” she teased, “where are the scourges, whips and chains?” I still thought she looked better in an evening gown but she really knew how to dress the part of a hot student too.
Grinning, I leaned into her. “I try to save the Marquis De Sade shit for more appreciative clientele. So to what do I owe the honour of a visit from my big sister? How’s the new batch of pledges shaping up?”
“Josephine’s been busy playing with one of the newbies lately,” Carmilla whispered into my ear, “and Wisteria has her hands full trying to control her latest creation. I haven’t seen anyone fight her so hard since, well, you.”
I sighed. “Not hard enough.”
“Let it go,” she told me, “it wasn’t your fault. You should come home.”
“Exiled, in case you’ve forgotten,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes.
“Wisteria’s worse than ever,” she said. “We need you.”
“I’ll think about it,” I answered noncommittally.
“Well then,” the redhead whispered, making me shiver with a brush of her lips on my neck, “maybe I can give you something to think about.”
Killer Queen: Howl of the Demon Wolf
By Dr. Bender
In 1944, Suzanne finds herself newly turned and stuck with an unloving 'mother'. Ten years later, the serial killer that led her to a certain Sorority house has struck again...
Killer Queen: Howl of the Demon Wolf
By Dr. Bender
1954
I was bored out of my mind. Sitting on a stool at the bar, I nursed a stiff drink and a cigarette for show as the jukebox droned the slow, monotonous, melody of Earth Angel for the millionth time that night. The Guardian had a space cleared so that couples could slow dance, a fact taken full advantage of by both the Delta Beta Zeta girls along with the handful of servicemen about to be shipped off to Korea and the young men of Ravencrest University. Carmilla ensured that her bar was always prime hunting grounds and unfortunately that sometimes meant bowing to the more idiotic demands of popular culture.
While most of the girls went for the puffy shin-length dresses, garish pastels and headache-inducing patterns with their waists clinched so tight that their belts doubled as contraceptive aids, I stuck to a classy ankle-length black dress that hugged my every curve. In an effort to be more fashionable without cutting my hair, I wore it up in an elaborate style that was a fusion of a bun and a high ponytail. I much preferred leaving it loose to flow as it willed but if being both a vampire and a woman teaches anything it’s the value of keeping up appearances.
My boredom was only exacerbated when one of the young servicemen slid onto the vacant stool next to me. “Hey, doll,” he greeted, his breath overly minty due to the fresh stick of gum in his mouth. “Say, has anyone ever told you that you look just like Marilyn Monroe?”
The arch look I gave him would have warned off a large predator but the specimen in front of me was oblivious. “Why yes, you’re not the first liar to occupy that seat.”
He laughed insincerely as if I’d made a joke. “I dig it, baby. If you don’t mind me saying, you’re a real barn burner, dollface. Care to cut the rug?”
“Take a hike, bozo,” I answered squarely, not in the mood.
Apparently, his experience with girls had taught him that persistence works, so he stayed glued to the chair and lit his own cigarette. “Come on, toots, I’m a nice, friendly, guy. Ask any of my pals over there, they’ll tell you I’m a perfect gentleman. If you’re not happy here, we can blow this Popsicle stand and paint the town red.”
He seemed determined to personally shift my mood from bored to annoyed. “Great idea, you can start by slitting your wrists.”
“Ouch, baby, that really hurts,” he said, putting on the wounded puppy eyes. “You know my unit is shipping out tomorrow. Tonight could be my last night on American soil… is one last sweet memory of home too much to ask?”
Snorting, I turned to look him right in the eye. “Don’t worry, baby. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of Korean whores for you to fuck when you get there.”
“Christ,” he swore, finally picking his ass up out of the chair and backing off, “this chick’s no lady.”
Turning my back to show that I was ignoring him, I found the bartender waiting with the bottle held up over my glass. “Reload?” He asked, short and to the point. I liked that. Noting that my constant sips had reduced the alchohol to trace elements, I nodded and allowed him to pout. “I have to ask,” he prefaced his question hesitantly, “but if you hate it here so much, why come at all?”
The question surprised me and I was forced to take a few moments to consider my own reasoning. “It’s Friday,” I mumbled, shrugging, “I always drop in on Fridays, you know that.”
“I do know that,” he admitted, leaning against the bar nonchalantly, “but the question still remains.”
“All I know is that over the last decade, the pickup lines have gotten worse, the kids are more easily impressed and the Nuclear Family is crushing the spirit out of America,” I griped.
He grinned. “You’re just getting jaded, baby. The pickup lines were always bad, the kids have always been idiots and America sold its soul a long time ago. I’m just saying, maybe you need a change of scenery.”
I shrugged again. He was probably right but I was feeling petulant enough to not give him the satisfaction of admitting it to his face. I was feeding well but I was constantly horny thanks to an unstimulating and predictable sex life. Pick up guy at bar, drag to private place, suck and fuck, rinse, wash, repeat. To top it off, there is only so much that mesmerism can do to enhance a man’s attributes, so finding a man with natural talent was akin to winning the lottery.
Lesbian relations were proving more and more problematic as the decade wore on, what little freedom people had been allowed to express crushed under the weight of anti-communist paranoia and the upsurge of conservatism. Indeed, Carmilla had been forced to place a moratorium on several so-called ‘deviant’ behaviours because of the undue attention people were giving to each other’s private lives. On the other hand, it did make the younger DBZ girls a source of endless amusement as they were forced to seek relief in the arms of a man.
The lack of a spirit of adventure amongst the young men of Ravencrest also made casual sex spectacularly dull. The thought of yet another encounter in the missionary position made me want to tear someone’s throat out. I’d been a libertine in my masculine life, as an unbound vampire woman I’d discovered that variety was indeed the spice of unlife. The anniversary of my first decade of unlife was drawing closer, a milestone that apparently would mark a point where I could leave Ravencrest behind if I wanted to. I found myself considering a trip back to Paris, maybe even a visit to the old brothel if it still existed.
The question was, did I want to stay? My self-inflicted exile notwithstanding, I’d found myself caring for the girls of DBZ years ago. Even the power-hungry bitch Wisteria, perhaps due to some remaining sentimentality on my part since she was technically my mother, even if she didn’t act like it… or maybe because she didn’t act like it. I remembered a time when I’d thought that being a vampire meant leaving stupid human emotions behind. No such luck.
Draining the glass, I staggered a little as I minced into the ladies’ room on my high heels, acting for the sake of appearances. Playing human is tough work, you have to remember to do all the little things Vampires no longer feel the urge to do like periodic trips to the toilet; nevermind that your enhanced sense of smell makes public bathrooms more than a little disgusting, even in supposedly clean joints like The Guardian. The moment I opened the ladies room door my reverie was broken by another all-to familiar stench, though not the one that I was expecting.
Blood. Lots of blood. Old, dry, useless blood. One of the fun facts you learn as a Vampire is that women’s restrooms always have a little bit of that oh-so-sweet smell even if we aren’t using it to feed regularly. This wasn’t just a few used tampons in the dustbin or even spillage from a feeding. It was enough blood that whoever had lost it probably wasn’t breathing anymore.
One of the damnable things about having to act human is that sometimes you have to be patient and follow the ritual even when more pressing matters are urging you to act. A quick glance at the restroom was enough to show that there were no dead bodies bleeding all over the floor, so the scent was quickly narrowed down to the high barred window that led to the alley out back. Even so, I hopped into one of the stalls for a bit, washed my hands and powered my nose before going to talk to the bartender.
Carmilla doesn’t pick idiots to run The Guardian since they need to know a bit more about how things really work than is usually healthy for a human. He had a waitress take his place and was using the private phone out back the moment he heard the word ‘murder’ when I whispered it into his ear. While he called in the cavalry, I left out the back door.
The rotting trash in the alley couldn’t cover the smell of a human corpse, at least not to a vampire. In fact, the alley had served as a feeding ground for the girls of DBZ for so long that even the tiniest spots of blood left over from feeding had accumulated into its own peculiar bouquet. The darkness brought me confidence, however. After all, I was a daughter of the night, more at home in the shadows than anywhere else. Where a human would be almost blind, I could see more clearly than in daylight. Unfortunately, this was one time where being blind might be beneficial.
She was obscured by a group of trashcans but her blood led me straight to her. She was young and pretty, my first thought a lament of the waste of youth her body presented. Perfectly still, covered with dirt, her corpse stared up at the star-filled sky, as empty as the ravaged remains of her hollowed-out throat. Chills ran down my spine, however, when I saw the symbol carved into her forehead.
#
1944
“You first,” I heard Dominique whisper to her companion in the hallway through the door of my cell.
“Don’t be such a pussy,” her companion, whose voice I didn’t recognize, admonished. “She’s chained up tighter than the cunt of a minister’s daughter.”
“Colourful,” Dominique growled, “but I’ve known too many ministers’ daughters to find that comforting. You go first; I’m not taking the bullet this time.”
“Fine, fine,” the other complained as she unbolted the door and gently pushed it open. I swear I could hear the tension in their muscles as they tried to anticipate what would happen next. Their horrified gasps when the sight of my bonds lying empty on the floor was revealed almost made me giggle.
“Check the ceiling!” Dominique hissed, having learnt from our previous encounter.
“She’s not there,” the other one insisted, poking her head in and checking up as well as side to side. “Shit, can she turn invisible or something?”
“I don’t think so… even if she could, she wouldn’t be able to sneak past without us noticing.”
“You know her,” the other one prevaricated, fear obvious in her voice, “maybe you should go first.”
“I told you, I am NOT taking the bullet this time. Maybe you’d rather tell Wisteria you’re too chickenshit to handle a fledgling…”
“Fuck you,” she retorted before taking a few cautious steps into the room.
The problem with converting a room in a civilian house into a cell is that they’re not really designed for the task. Cell doors open out from the room so that prisoners can’t hide behind them out of sight of their jailors, so simply slapping a lock on the other side of the door isn’t a perfect solution.
I’d already discovered one of the benefits of being a vampire was that you could move very, very, fast if you really want to. In an eyeblink, I stepped out from behind the door and grabbed the new girl, pulling her into my embrace. Like all the DBZ girls, she was cute. Her already large brown eyes widened in fear as I ran my fingers through her wavy chestnut hair. “Hi,” I greeted, showing off my fangs for effect, “how does such a sweet looking girl like you get such a potty mouth?”
She shuddered as my power took effect. I’d heard one of my guards surmise that this ability was just the tip of the iceberg to what I could really do but I was pleased with what I had for the moment. It’s not so impressive compared to some of the other abilities I’d seen demonstrated, Dominique’s telekinetic powers were more impressive, but the ability to induce pleasure in anyone at a touch wasn’t something to be sneezed at. In moments, she was pressing herself against me, having forgotten her fear or even that the rest of the world even existed.
“Let her go!” Dominique demanded, her hand outstretched towards me and fangs bared. Despite being able to move objects with her mind at will, she still made gestures in moments of stress. I spared a quick glance at the chains behind me but it seemed that it was just a warning this time. Not that I was worried, I’d placed myself well out of reach this time.
“What’s your name?” I asked the cute vampire in my arms.
“Angelina,” she answered.
I had to chuckle. “Such a pretty name for a girl with such a foul mouth; Wisteria must have a sense of humour. Dominique, you know whatever you do to me with that power of yours, Angelina here isn’t going to get out of it unscathed.”
“I’m not going to let you drink her blood either,” Dominique stated with determination, “I have a nice, big, man for you to suck on out here if you want blood.”
Angelica did look delicious and her description of my usual faire made me lick my lips but I’d been trapped in my cell for so long I’d lost track of time. “Actually, I’d much rather you just step aside so I can have a chat with our mother,” I answered, “she has some explaining to do.”
Dominique blinked and lowered her hand. “You really don’t want to drink our blood?”
“Oh, I’ll admit, it’s tempting,” I answered, making Angelina squeal a little when I nuzzled her neck, “but I don’t need it… yet.”
“Maybe you’ve finally overcome the thirst then,” Dominique said with a sigh of relief. “If that’s the case, I can take you to see Wisteria and we can move you out of this cell.”
It was my turn to look shocked. “Wait, you’ve kept me chained up in here because of the bloodlust?”
Charissa huffed. “When a new vampire is turned, they undergo a period of intense, uncontrollable, blood thirst that pushes them into accepting their new condition. Not so convenient with a group like ours that needs to stay out of sight.”
“Shit,” I swore, transferring Angelica to my other arm, “I thought you were stopping me from going to the police.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, your friends have already been taken care of. Carmilla sent them home with a slight headache and no memory of any link between that murder and the sorority house other than circumstantial proximity. Hell, you were barking up the wrong tree anyway, we don’t kill people.”
“Vampires that don’t kill people,” I scoffed, remembering the depths of depravity I’d reached during the blood thirst, “you can’t be serious.”
“Serious as a funeral,” she said, shrugging. “Dead people attract attention that we don’t want. After the blood thirst passes we can resume a relatively normal life.”
Strangely, what she was saying made sense to me. Considering that in life I’d been a patriotic cross-dressing dominatrix spy, a socially conscious gender-switching vampire sorority wasn’t that big a leap of faith. Making a decision, I let Angelica go, leaving her dazed and blinking stupidly after me as I stepped out of the cell, noting that I was actually several inches taller than Dominique. “All right, if ‘mother’ has all the answers, let’s go see her.”
“Oh, she has answers,” Dominique grumbled as she led me down the hallway, “probably not the ones you want to hear, though.”
#
1954
Carmilla was pissed. “Almost ten years to the day, throat torn out with the same symbol carved into the forehead,” she summarized as we stood over the body along with her daughter, Josephine. “Fucking serial killers.”
Josephine scowled. “The first one was dumped near the Sorority house, now this one. That’s not a coincidence.”
“You think it’s a message?” I asked, trying to stay focussed despite my general state of frustrated arousal. Oh, no, dead bodies aren’t enough to kill that.
“Maybe,” Carmilla sighed, “or it could be a challenge.”
“Ten years between victims,” Josephine noted. “So for whatever reason, the timing is important to the perp even if they’re trying to bait us.”
Carmilla chuckled at her. “Perp? You’re watching that ‘Dragnet’ show of yours too much.”
“Well, I have always been your girl Friday,” she quipped, “so Joe Friday isn’t too much of a stretch.”
“Could it be one of our own girls?” I asked, trying to pull the two older vampires back on track. It always shocked me a little when their nonchalance exposed my remaining vestiges of naivety.
Carmilla shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”
“Are you serious?” Josephine scoffed. “We teach our girls better than to leave a mess like this.”
“Suzanne here isn’t the only one of us that gets bored,” Carmilla mused.
“Wisteria?” I inquired.
“Never did anything like this,” Carmilla replied, divining my intent. “I doubt this is anything truly magical, more like the pseudo-mystical version of putting a horse’s head on someone’s pillow.”
“I don’t remember us pissing anyone off recently,” Josephine said, tapping her chin. “You don’t think it might be anything to do with the curse, do you?”
“I doubt it. This feels more like a child trying to play in the adult’s pool.”
I sighed, turning to walk away. “Oh, well, I’ll leave you guys to it then…”
Carmilla wrapped her arms around me from behind, stopping me in my tracks. “Actually, honey, I was hoping to tempt you into solving this little matter for us,” she whispered into my ear, her lips brushing against my skin.
Somehow, after all these years, she was still the only vampire that could push my buttons. Even Wisteria hadn’t been able to slip under my guard and she was my ‘mother’. Deep down, I considered the possibility that I let Carmilla manipulate me because I enjoyed her ministrations but my lust for her pushed all other thought aside. “What do I know about solving murders?” I breathed.
“What’s there to know? Ask the right questions and compel the truth, you’re better suited to that than anyone,” she complimented, kissing my neck. “Besides, your ability to affect female minds makes you best suited to talk to this girl’s friends.”
Feeling myself losing control made me shiver as much in delight as far. Carmilla could actually hurt me if she wanted to. What really frightened me was how much I wanted her to hurt me. I gave in. “OK! All right, I’ll figure it out.”
“Good girl,” she said, stroking my hair fondly before letting me go. “Come on, Josephine, let’s call the Inquisitor and get this body out of here.”
I watched them pack the body off for cremation. In a few days she’d be nothing more than a missing persons statistic in some forgotten file, what the vampires couldn’t arrange, the Coven’s Inquisitor would see to. In ten years as a vampire, I’d never killed. In fact, the deaths on my conscience had all occurred while I was alive but that had been war, not murder. Now I found myself responsible for bringing a small measure of justice to the friends and family who would never know what had happened to her. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.
The night air was cool against my face as I began the long walk home, wanting nothing more than to be alone with my thoughts.
#
1944
My first impression of my vampire mother was that she had a serious god complex. Her bivan was an ornately carved antique with red velvet lining that looked like it was a genuine relic from 17th century France. Several other pieces of immaculately preserved antique furniture were scattered about the room. She obviously preferred black, which lent a stark contrast to her pale skin. Her dark hair was loose but immaculately combed, though the style had been out of date for some time but her beauty made such concerns trivial. In all, she had the air of a decadent queen, sipping chilled blood from a golden goblet sculpted into the shape of an inverted Angel entwined by a snake.
“Well, if it isn’t my youngest daughter,” Wisteria greeted as we entered what Dominique called ‘the sitting room’, not bothering to rise. “I’ve heard much about your rather… difficult nature from your sisters.”
Despite what she’d done to me, something about her commanded my respect. “We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms ‘mother’,” I replied, “I thought I was a prisoner.”
“I care not,” she said, waving away the ire in my voice like a bothersome fly. “More importantly, you are here with us now and I’m gracious enough to give you a chance to prove yourself worthy of the gift I’ve given you.”
“Gee, thanks,” I sneered sarcastically.
“They tell me you can induce pleasure at a touch,” she continued, ignoring me, “tell me, have you tried other sensations?”
I frowned. “No.”
“Then try now,” she ordered, pointing at Dominique, “try to inflict pain on Dominique. Dear, hold out your arm.”
Gulping, Dominique grudgingly rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm meekly as ordered. Looking back and fourth between her and Wisteria, I couldn’t decide which was the crazy one. “Are you insane?” I asked, incredulous.
“You need to test the limits of your power,” Wisteria answered, her eyes narrow, “Dominique is close to hand. This is simply logical.”
“You’re asking me to torture her!” I protested. “Assuming I’m capable, I’m honestly not too excited to do that, thank you.”
Our eyes locked. I saw her irises flash eerily for a moment when she spoke in a low, dangerous, voice. “Try to inflict pain on her now.”
“Are you deaf? I said…”
Her hand over my mouth, claws digging into my cheeks, silenced me. She was so close I could feel the stillness of her body, the hollowed out shell no longer human. She was far faster and much stronger than I was, in that moment I knew she could tear me apart if she wanted to. Looking right into her pale eyes from inches away, she spoke again. “I order you to inflict pain on Dominique.”
“Fine,” I spat into her face, wrenching myself away, “but only under protest.”
When I turned to comply, however, she stopped me with an icy hand on my shoulder. “Wait,” she ordered again, “look into my eyes.”
Frustrated, I turned to face her. “Do you want me to do this or not?”
She said nothing, staring into my eyes intensely.
Putting my hands on my hips, I stared back and tapped my foot. “Well? Look, I know you’re stronger and faster than I am but seriously, if you think you can intimidate me with nothing but a stare…”
“She’s not,” Dominique interrupted me, her hands trembling, “she’s trying to command you but she can’t…”
Wisteria’s arm blurred into motion as she backhanded Dominique, sending her flying into the wall. A moment later, I was bent over a sideboard, arms wrenched behind my back. “HOW CAN YOU RESIST ME?!?” She demanded, fangs beared. Vampires can regenerate most wounds but we still feel pain. Wisteria proved that to me when she inserted her right index finger through my shoulderblade. “WAS IT CARMILLA? HOW IS SHE PROTECTING YOU?”
“I’m not, Mother,” Carmilla answered for me from the doorway when it was all I could do not to scream. “You can let her go.”
The old vampire discarded me like a rag doll and let me lie in a heap in the corner. “Such potential, SQUANDERED! I thought if it proved that she could simulate any sensation with a mere touch that her ability could be put to use but if she refuses to obey, even this is useless! If you’re blocking me somehow…”
Carmilla snorted. “You know I’m not your match in witchcraft, I’m as surprised as you are… though not as upset by the development. You have to admit, an inviolable mind is quite the power in and of itself. It just so happens that it only benefits her.”
“Bah!” Wisteria snapped. “If she can’t be tamed, she’s no use to either of us!”
Rolling her eyes, Carmilla sighed. “Really, I don’t remember you needing those mind tricks of yours before we arrived, I’m not sure what your fascination with them is now. I’m sure Suzanne can be taught to appreciate the benefits of our shared condition and find a place with us. Besides, she might have a hidden ability that hasn’t had the chance to manifest yet.”
“You want to waste your time, go right ahead,” Wisteria smirked viciously, “but I’m not handing her over to you. I won her fair and square…”
“Yes, all right,” Carmilla interrupted, “you came out on top that time. Is that want you want to hear?”
Wisteria considered that for a moment before stepping past her and striding out the door. “Maybe I’ll get bored of hearing that,” she said over her shoulder, “in a few decades.
#
1954
I started searching the university records on the morning after I’d discovered the body behind The Guardian, specifically the ones pertaining to sororities other than DBZ. Photographic records were usually a pain in the butt for us even though Carmilla used her influence to keep the DBZ girls out of the spotlight as much as possible. There was always the worry that someone would spot the same girl in two photographs several decades apart, which required a great deal of fiddling to mitigate.
I’d been substituted for by an actress in my own graduation photographs, for example, after hypnotizing everyone I knew into believing I was her. The actress had also been brain wiped of the whole affair, naturally. So it was that I had a doctorate of medicine but a clerical inability to prove it. Still, classes served a greater purpose of keeping me tied to DBZ in the vampire equivalent of a fish breeding farm: calm waters and a plentiful food supply.
I was surprised when my assumption paid off and I found the girl’s face amongst last year’s group photograph of the Lambda Omega Lambda chapter along with a name: Bethany Rawe. She was smiling in the picture, blissfully unaware of her future.
After packing the archives away, I was walking up the path towards the LOL chapter house minutes later. They were more central to the campus than the DBZ house, which we encouraged the students to forget about us. As such, LOL and the other sororities took the brunt of Fraternity pranks, which was perfect. The LOL house itself was a Greek column affair with liberal whitewash over the front. Luckily some of the girls were sitting on the front porch with piles of study papers in their laps so I didn’t have to go through the den mother.
“Hi,” I greeted enthusiastically, “I’m looking for Bethany Rawe, have any of you seen her around?”
A few of them shrugged, hardly paying me any mind, but one girl with strawberry blonde hair looked up at me. “Um, actually I don’t think I’ve seen her for a day or two. What was it about?”
“Oh, I just found something with her name on it and I knew she was a Lambda Omega Lambda, so I thought I’d save her the trouble having to pick it up from Administration.”
“Well ain’t you swell,” the brunette next to her muttered sarcastically.
The blonde rolled her eyes. “No need to be rude, Grace. Sorry, Beth isn’t exactly on everyone’s friendly list right now; she has an unfortunate habit of stealing other girl’s boyfriends.”
“Oh my,” I gasped, playing the innocent. “Well, uh, any idea where she might be?”
“I think she went with Gina to the party last night,” Grace commented, “I think she’s still sleeping it off.”
The blonde sighed, moving the papers onto the seat next to her and weighing them down with a heavy pencil case. “Come on,” she said, standing up and smoothing her dress, “I can escort you in.”
With the blonde leading the way, I got a good look at her from the back. She’s wasn’t in my league but she definitely had the ingénue look down pat in her knee-length powder blue dress that was tight enough above the waist to hint at the movement of the body beneath it. I pity the other DBZ girls sometimes, a constant diet of beefcake must be so monotonous. “Sorry, what was your name?”
“Amy,” she introduced herself with a sweet smile.
“Suzanne,” I replied with a wolfish grin.
Amy knocked on the door and got a tortured groan in response. Opening the door gently, she poked her head in. “Gina, are you decent? Someone here’s looking for Beth.”
“God, what did I drink last night?” Gina moaned. Peering over Amy’s head, I could see the girl almost tied up in her bedclothes with a water bottle pressed to her forehead. It might have been comical if her face wasn’t twisted in agony.
“Mind if we come in?” I asked while pushing Amy inside and closing the door behind me.
“Wha the heck do you want?” Gina asked blearily, squinting at us.
Turning to Amy, I quickly put her to sleep with a fleeting glance and lowered her into a chair before locking gazes with the girl in bed. “I know a great headache cure,” I whispered, sitting next to her on the bed, “want me to show you?”
She nodded dopily, fully under my spell. The tension melted from her body as I stimulated the pleasure centres of her brain. Modesty temporarily suspended, I was impressed when her hands began to caress her breast through her silk nightgown, breathing heavily.
I wasn’t ever able to induce anything but pleasure with my touch, unfortunately. It also doesn’t work on vampires if they’re ready for it, even Josephine can block it reflexively, against Carmilla it’s useless. By extrapolation, I wouldn’t even attempt it on Wisteria. On humans, however, it works just fine.
“Isn’t that better?” I asked in a low voice.
“It feels so good,” she sighed, smiling rapturously.
“Good. Now, Gina, I need you to tell me what you and Bethany did last night.”
She frowned a little but continued to rub herself. “Oh… Beth said she knew a club… J.J.’s Jazz Club downtown. She said if we got all dolled up the doorman would let us in. She was right, we got in without having to wait in line. The band was playing some new sound they called ‘Bee Bop’ and men kept buying me drinks…”
“What happened to Bethany?” I interrupted.
Her look went strangely blank as her hands paused. “I… I don’t remember. We were dancing and having fun and then… I can’t remember what happened. Someone brought me home; I thought Beth had gone with someone like she usually does.”
“Who did Beth dance with?”
Her jaw worked a bit before she finally shook her head. “It was a man but his features are all… blurry… I don’t know…”
“Shhh,” I calmed her, stroking her cheek. “Relax and let your worries just melt away. Sleep for a little while, when you wake up you’ll feel all better.”
She nodded absently as I lowered her gently into bed and tucked her in. Feeling mischevious, I mesmerized Lisa into believing that my quest to return Beth’s pencil case had proven futile with Gina still fast asleep and while she was available, I had a quick bite. She was watching me wistfully as I walked away from the front porch feeling pleased with myself.
It surprised me that I hadn’t ever been to J.J.’s. Standing across from the low, darkly painted, windowless building it didn’t really stick out amongst the other buildings like most clubs generally try to do. Naturally the club was closed in the middle of the day, so I slipped around to the back and worked some practical magic on the back door with a couple of bobby pins.
The inside of the club was much ritzier than the outside. The stench of cigarettes still hung in the air of the poorly ventilated rooms which were dark with heavy red curtains draped over every wall. The main room was surprisingly small, taken up largely by the polished wooden dance floor, the bar and the stage. I picked my way through the scattered boxes and crates of booze backstage looking for the manager’s office but found something more curious first.
The sign on the door read ‘DO NOT ENTER’. That didn’t attract my eye as much as the five deadbolts keeping the door securely shut or the padlock that I guessed was there purely to deter the casually curious. Picking the padlock was appallingly easy and the door was soon thrown open to reveal a set of old stone stairs leading down into the basement. Curious, I began the descent.
#
1944
“It’s not just vampires either,” Carmilla explained as I sucked on the neck of a mesmerized fraternity boy that seemed to think he was attending a formal dinner party. “There are weres, witches and plenty of other things besides and Ravencrest is home to a great many of them.”
Having taken enough blood to satisfy myself, I withdrew my fangs and licked the wound closed. “You know what really disturbs me? None of this really disturbs me.”
“Part of our condition,” Carmilla shrugged, “as well as our selection procedures. We don’t pick inductees out of a hat, only the best are given this chance. You not only offered innate potential but a very unique set of skills. I’m just sorry your transformation got tangled up with the little spat Wisteria and I are having at the moment.”
“What’s that about?”
“Insecurity,” she sighed. “We came here because Wisteria was working on some sort of secret project of hers. Somehow we wound up cursed. She says she’s handling the matter but it’s been forty years, even my patience with her can only be worn so thin. Believe it or not, she’s usually reasonable to deal with but she’s obviously feeling the need to use you to prove a point.”
“You want me, she wants to score one on you to prove she’s still on top,” I muttered bitterly, “yeah, I get that part. What did you do with my friends, by the way?”
“Altered their memories and sent them on their way,” she answered honestly. “We don’t kill in Ravencrest, in case anyone hasn’t informed you yet.”
“Dominique gave me the memo,” I nodded, “anything else I should know?”
“Don’t make trouble at The Guardian, that’s our safe feeding ground away from campus. Respect the territory of others. Don’t get caught and don’t do anything else that might piss off me or Wisteria. Generally there is only one punishment; we’re not big on second chances. Also, we have two broods here at DBZ, Wisteria’s lineage and mine. Until I can get Wisteria to let you go, you’ll have to deal with your older sisters. I’ve placed you under my protection but even I can’t be everywhere.”
“So that’s it? I’ve got no choice but to kowtow to that bitch? You think you can just turn me into this… thing?”
“If you want to whine about how unfair the world is, I think there’s a primary school down the road,” she offered. “We both know that the world isn’t fair, Suzanne, but look at it this way. You’re going to live for a very, very long time. You have power and a body that will remain young and vibrant throughout your days. Over dinner you confessed to me that you sometimes wished you were back at the brothel in France… I would have given you all that in good time and allowed you to accept it on your own terms. Can you say honestly that you would have refused me?”
I had to consider that question for a long time. “No, I wouldn’t have refused if you’d asked,” I finally admitted. “I guess that’s why I helped you track down my old friends. At first I thought it was the old Suzanne’s choice, that I’d finally snapped under the strain. But the old Suzanne was just an excuse, a coping mechanism I put on whenever I got in that dress and played her part. The truth is that I was more myself when I was that old Suzanne than when I was Lance. When you turned me, I guess I just… fell into the old pattern. I took my orders and played my part, it was just like old times. That old Suzanne died along with Lance but the name still… fits, if that’s the right word. Am I making sense?”
She nodded. “Adapting to being a vampiress is a long process, some elements can take decades to come to terms with. My daughter Josephine refused to take a man to her bed for a very, very long time. Give it time; I wouldn’t have picked you if I didn’t think you had what it takes. There’s no rush, we have all the time in the world.”
#
1954
“Now you I wasn’t expecting,” I told the beast pacing in front of me.
The basement was much older than the building on top of it, several hundred years older by my calculations. There was a lot of dust and cobwebs like nobody has swept for that long, which meant the previous visitors had left plenty of tracks to show that the room was still used. The reason nobody swept the floor, or even used the room when they didn’t have to, was sitting in the middle of the room inside a magical circle that bathed the room in a baleful red luminescence.
It was near six foot tall at the shoulder lying down, I didn’t want to think about how tall it would be standing up. Peering at me with deep crimson eyes, the beast bared its fangs at me as the dark fur on the back of its neck rose. “Vampire,” it sniffed, the deep voice reverberating through the stonework, “I knew eventually one of your ilk would attempt to hunt down the cause of these slayings… but honestly, I didn’t expect you to arrive so soon after a fresh kill.”
Putting my hands on my hips, I considered the situation. “Well, if I remember my lore correctly, as long as you’re inside that circle and I’m on the outside this can remain civil.”
It snapped its jaws together once, making me jump. “Maybe I’m just feeling lazy today, let’s not ruin the moment by allowing either of us to get too comfortable.”
Scowling, I shook my head. “What’s your name, beast?”
“What will you give me for it?”
“Nothing,” I retorted, “don’t make out like it’s a big deal to give out your use name.”
It chuckled, nodding. “Can’t blame an old wolf for trying. My name is Garmr.”
I cocked my head to one side, curious. “Garmr. As in the guardian of the Norse underworld?”
“Niflheimr,” the beast expounded, “land of the inglorious dead, the realm of Hel. Not that it’s likely I’ve been missed in the last ten years, we don’t exactly get many visitors these days.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, hardly believing my ears.
“Well now, that’s entering the realms of privileged information,” it grinned, showing yellowed fangs.
“Whatever, all I have to do is call in my elders and dump this mess in their lap…”
“Wait,” he growled, stopping me from leaving, “maybe you and I can do a deal.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” I replied. “You obviously want something; it’d be in my best interests to hand you over, probably score big brownie points with my mother.”
“Why acquiesce the power that I represent to another?”
“Because I’m not particularly interested in power,” I snorted. “Heck, look at you. Big lord high muckety-muck trapped in a little circle.”
“What makes you think I don’t want to be here?”
“Because the décor is just to die for,” I quipped sarcastically, gesturing at the threadbare room. “Look at you, you’re not some domestic pet, you’re a hunter. Aside from that, if you wanted to be here that circle wouldn’t be necessary.”
“Well, since you seem to know so much, perhaps you can divine the rest of my situation as well.”
“And let you toy with me based on my bad assumptions? Nah, much easier for me to go fetch someone who knows what they’re doing…”
“GODS BLAST IT! All right, all right, I’ll tell you what you want to know,” Garmr sighed.
I found a relatively clean spot to sit on the floor while the demon wolf span his tale of greed, deception and murder.
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted a short way into the monologue, “musicians?”
“As much as it shames me, yes,” Garmr sighed again. “As I said, they were improvising during one of their ‘jam sessions’ and accidentally hit on the correct series of notes to summon me… music’s always been a weakness for most guardians, though my cousin Cerberus is maybe more famous for it. In any case, their music somehow tapped the latent potential of one of their members and I was dumped onto this miserable little mudball.”
He stretched a little before continuing. “So there I was ready to eat out their hearts and be on my way when their band manager leaps between us and offers me a deal. Amused by his foolhardiness, I indulged him, which was my core mistake. I quickly learned that humans have become quite a bit more sophisticated in the years since I last encountered them, or maybe I’ve lost my skill at riddle-lore. In either case, I’m shamed to admit that the perfidious jackass got the better of me.”
“What did they want from you?”
“The usual, wealth, fame, success and sex with beautiful women but I don’t have any direct influence over any of those things. What I could offer was skill at their craft, luck in attaining contracts and other things more in the nature of success in the hunt.”
“How did they trap you?”
Garmr growled. “This ‘manager’ of theirs used his foul human trickery known as ‘fine print’. I’m bound against harming them so long as they supply me with the sacrifice of a woman I could take as a bride in Niflheimr once every ten years. Of course, I haven’t been able to reap the benefits of the arrangement being stuck here.”
“So the girl’s souls or whatever are in Niflheimr?”
“Awaiting the return of their groom,” he preened. “Of course, if you wished to bargain for their return, you’d have to talk to my mistress.”
“Hel, the daughter of Loki? Yeah, I’ll pass on that, thanks. So, say it was in my best interests to see you returned home after exacting bloody revenge on your tormentors. If I was able to free you from your contract, do you think you could confine yourself to killing them in private before leaving so I can cover your tracks?”
It took a deep breath. “A fair trade, perhaps more than fair. Though I dislike entreating with anyone of this realm, it is done. So long as I get my vengeance, I can give you this small concession in return for your service in this matter.”
“I’m so glad we could see eye to eye,” I muttered.
#
1947
Friday night at The Guardian was the perfect time to hunt. The men were tired from a long work week, needing nothing more than to blow off some steam. Drinks flowed freely from the bar, lowering inhibitions and dulling minds, easy pickings for enterprising fledgling vampiresses. I wasn’t the only DBZ girl sitting at the bar, though, as the influx of new blood after Halloween had given me more sisters to deal with.
The post war years brought a lot of change to Ravencrest. Our men returned from war and the allied nations were busy dividing up the spoils from the axis powers. Riding high on the wave of relief, marriage and birth rates were sharply on the rise. After five years hiatus, living in fear for our brothers and fathers overseas, working in factories to prove their arms, young women had also found their own sense of independence that they’d never experienced before. Honestly, I was glad that I’d lived to see it.
After the first few influxes of new blood into DBZ, even if it were only a few new girls, I’d thought that no longer being the youngest would make my lot in unlife better. Wisteria, however, made it clear that I would rank as the lowest member of her coven until I manifested a talent she deemed useful. Fortunately, I had two things on my side: Carmilla’s support and my own relative experience. They could order me around but I made sure they’d regret it. That didn’t stop them from inflicting petty slights on me for no other reason than that they could.
This particular Friday night was slim pickings amongst the menfolk with at least two girls for every guy on the dance floor. To make matters worse, my compatriots from DBZ had already staked their claim on the prime cuts, leaving the rest of the girls to fight over the scraps. Being the lowest ranked member of the house, I was naturally left out in the cold. Frankly, I had a hard time working up the effort, even though I was several cuts above any human girl, so I sat at the bar and ordered a Bloody Mary just to be sociable. The barman was cute but off limits, so I stuck to simple conversation.
“Not too many of the boys around tonight,” I said, implying the question.
“Big game tomorrow,” he grunted, “coach said that he’d castrate any member of the team that went out drinking tonight.”
“Ouch, that’s a bit extreme,” I commented.
“Guess he really doesn’t want to lose this time. Hey, how long do you think it’d take for the girls in this place to tear a shark apart with their bare hands?”
“If it was male? 2.8 seconds,” I quipped, taking a sip of my drink. He laughed, which made me feel better.
I noticed the young woman that flopped onto the stool next to me before she even registered that I existed. The first thing that caught my eye was her curly auburn hair that barely brushed her shoulders, reminding me a little of the old picture of Venus Ramey that I’d left somewhere in my old house. The rest of her wasn’t as buxom but she was still gorgeous and she had a lovely face with high cheekbones along with a daring glint in her eye that attracted me immediately.
She took a cigarette out of her purse and I had my lighter out before she could even ask the bartender for one. Our eyes met and I felt my will slipping into those deep blue eyes. To my amazement, I knew that I could do anything I wished with her, just like I could with any man. “What’s your name?” I asked, lighting her cigarette.
“Millie,” she answered, staring at me, the cigarette totally forgotten, “Millie Werner.”
“Pretty name,” I complimented. “This joint’s pretty dead, isn’t it Millie? What’s say you and me find somewhere with more… pop.”
Her grin lit up the room. “Sounds like a scream. Come on, I’ve got a car.”
The back seat of a car isn’t the greatest feeding place but every pubic feeding ground has an element of danger to it. I had Millie drive to an isolated spot I knew about when a boy had driven me there intent on a little hanky-panky. He got a lot more than he bargained for that night. So did Millie.
Making love to a woman again after so long was a breath of fresh air in my short unlife. Fumbling, hairy, young men are good, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes one needs the feel of soft, yielding, flesh and smooth skin as contrast. The blood is also different, I can only equate it to the difference between red and white wine to the human palette and I drank of her in more ways than one.
Next morning, I drover her home, carried her to bed and made breakfast for her and her roommates. Millie herself was barely 21; she and the other girls had pooled their money to pay the rent and rates on the place while attending the university. By the end of breakfast, I’d implanted a latent desire to see me again in the four other girls of the house, staking my claim on a rich feeding ground as well as the promise of some fun later. I left after I made sure Millie was feeling ok and wouldn’t talk about what we’d done the night before, even to her friends, feeling elated.
“Is that all?” Wisteria asked dismissively after I announced my big discovery.
“Is that all?” I repeated incredulously. “Even you can’t enchant a female mind! I thought you’d be thrilled! I can be useful to you now, mother!”
“Dominique can crush a man with nothing but a thought,” Wisteria explained, obviouslt bored. “Tina can control fire, one of the very banes of our existence. We have survived for decades without needing to influence women; your talent is nothing more than a curiosity, still useless. But then, I’ve come to expect no less from you, my most disappointing child.”
Carmilla stepped in before I said something that might have gotten me killed. “I can see plenty of merit in this talent personally. If you tire of her, I’d be happy to take her off your hands.”
Glaring at her first child, Wisteria scowled. “And leave your brood one up on mine until next Halloween? Not a chance, Carmilla.”
“Yet the way you talk, it would seem that you think your one vampire short anyway,” the redhead observed. “Besides, you know how this works. A favour for you means a little quid pro quo from me, it all evens out.”
“I do tire of Suzanne,” she admitted, sounding tempted, “but not of the consternation my acquisition of her is giving you, dear. With the overall quality of the rest of my daughters I can afford one runt in the litter. Besides, it seems that kicking her around has proven to be quite the bonding experience for her sisters, I wouldn’t want to deprive them of their toy.”
Carmilla raised an eyebrow at her mother. “Are you seriously doing this just to spite me?”
“Darling, I love you,” Wisteria said truthfully, “but I’m afraid that love may have blinded me to certain realities. Just because I love you, don’t think that I will fail to do what must be done. Suzanne here serves admirably as a reminder of that fact.”
“Permission to leave, mother,” I asked politely. I took her negligent wave as acceptance and stormed out of the sitting room. Carmilla caught up with me halfway down the hall.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Carmilla ordered. “I’m wearing her down. Don’t worry; she’ll tire of this spat with me eventually.”
“In how long? Another three years? Ten? Thirty? I’m sorry, Carmilla, but I also tire of being treated like dirt.”
“Rash action will only get you killed.”
“Whatever action I choose to take will be measured, I assure you,” I said coldly, leaving her behind as I turned several carefully woven plots over in my mind.
#
1954
“JESUS CHRIST!” Mr. Falton Weiner, band manager, exclaimed when he opened the door to his office, his name and title helpfully lettered on the glass.
I uncrossed and re-crossed my legs under his desk, giving myself enough time for a dramatic pause. “Sorry, you must be mistaking me for someone else,” I quipped.
He scowled for a moment but his mood changed when he saw my face. “Jeeze, doll, you scared the living daylights outta me. Did Peter put you up to this?”
“Actually, sport, I came to read you a bedtime story.”
Smiling, he closed the door and went over to his drinks cabinet, pulling out a bottle of burbon and a glass. “Never let it be said I failed to indulge a beautiful young lady.”
Inclining my head in thanks, I pulled a piece of paper from my purse, carefully unfolded it and read the contents out loud. “I, Falton Joseph Weiner, known henceforth in this contract as the party of the first part, do swear my oath to Garmr, known henceforth in this contract as the party of the second part…”
Falton’s glass slipped from his fingers, shattering on the floor. The burbon soaked into the cheap carpet as he stood there staring at me, pale as a sheet. “Where did you get that?”
“I have to admit, the last place I expected to find it was in your own safe deposit box,” I said, refolding the piece of paper and tucking it safely away. “Falton, you’ve been a very naughty boy. Binding forces beyond your understanding, sacrificing young girls for your own success and generally pissing off all the wrong people.”
He slumped into the seat opposite me. “You couldn’t… even if you had an in with the bank, you’d need my key to open the box.”
Leaning over, I opened the closet that concealed his safe before opening the safe as well. “Not the brightest idea keeping the keys there, though I suppose you were worried more about your boys getting their hands on this. As long as you keep this little piece of paper, you have them by the balls. After all and how on Earth are the police ever going to suspect this is all over a pact with a demonic wolf?”
“Look, I tried to do my best over a bad situation,” he explained guiltily, wringing his hands, “you’ve gotta believe me!”
“If I didn’t think that, I’d have had you shot,” I lied, standing up to walk around the table towards the door. “As it is, I’m prepared to do what I can to help you out of this mess.”
Handguns sound like firecrackers when they go off. I hardly felt the entry of the first shot in the small of my back. The second hit one of my ribs before bursting from my chest just below the collarbone. When I turned to face him, the revolver still smoking in his hand, I put my hands on my hips and tapped my foot impatiently. “Do you have ANY idea what this dress cost me?”
Obviously he didn’t, since he unloaded the other four bullets at me. One missed but the other two bullets ensured that the dress was beyond repair. Crossing the room in an eyeblink, I wrenched the gun from his grasp, bent him over the desk and pressed the hot barrel firmly against his ass cheek. His burning flesh reminded me of bacon.
“What the fuck are you?” He asked through clenched teeth after he’d finished screaming.
“Pissed off,” I answered. “Two dead girls, hunted like animals, Mr. Weiner. I’m going to make sure you know how they felt in their last moments, and your friends too. Now, look into my eyes.”
Getting him to call the band members to order them back in to work was easy. Programming him to lead them down into the basement once they’d arrived was child’s play. Locking the door behind them before I tore the contract in half was also relatively painless but listening to their screams, smelling their blood as it was spilled on the stairwell, was hard enough that I wished cigarettes still affected me the way they used to when I was alive.
When the noise stopped, I found myself leaning against the door, holding a breath I no longer needed. “Garmr?” I called out. “Garmr, our deal is done; you’re free to go back from whence you came. Garmr?”
Just as I placed my ear against the door to hear better, the barrier buckled sharply as the demon wolf hurled his whole body against it. Knocked back several feet onto my well rounded ass, I growled, baring my fangs. “We had a deal!”
The blows against the door paused for a moment before Garmr spoke. “Yes, I promised I would leave and so I shall but the blood of these pigs has excited me for other diversions. The girls waiting for me in Niflheimr are sheep and right now I’m in the mood something more… stimulating. I can smell your lust, little one; does the idea of my bloody maw excite you? Would you kiss my lips to drink of my kills? I know you would, vampire, you’re a hunter just like me. If you don’t mind if I mix your fairy tales, get ready Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf is about to huff and puff and blow your door in.”
Leaping to my feet, I hissed, baring claw and fang as Garmr burst through, breaking the door, locks and all, off its frame. Vampiric speed kicked in as I grabbed his gaping jaws, knocked onto my back as he pinned me to the ground with his front paws. It was all I could do to hold those great fangs at bay, gore dripping from his fur onto my face. The rumble of a growl deep in his throat reverberated through my bones as he glared down at me with those baleful red orbs.
Thrusting his head to one side, he wrenched free of my grip and sank his teeth into my shoulder. It wasn’t like being shot; I felt his saliva burn in my flesh, forcing a scream from my throat. He could have torn me to pieces but he had an altogether different intent, the lust in his eyes easy to read. As excited as the smell of blood was making me, I didn’t have the same compunctions about hurting Garmr.
I stabbed the claws of my right hand into his side, digging deep between his thick ribs. He let go of me and howled, his dark blood spurting over my face as he rolled off me. Pressing the advantage, I grabbed him around the neck and twisted with all my strength, though it availed me little. He bucked several times but I hung on, ironically, for dear life. Then, just as suddenly, he disappeared, evaporating into mist.
His sudden departure back to his home left me dangling in the air without support, so gravity asserted itself and pitched me onto the ground flat on my face. Taking account of myself, I was practically naked, what remained of my dress after being shot had been shredded by Garmr’s claws. My wounds healed but the bite still burned for a few days until it finally subsided.
Those few days were spent cleaning the mess left in the basement. A call to Carmilla had the club quietly purchased from Felton Weiner and signs were posted saying that the club was closed for renovations until it was reopened under new ownership. Landlords were told that Felton and the band had moved to Chicago to try to make their mark and the club, the band and the murders were quickly forgotten.
People kept telling me that I seemed different after that night. Millie mentioned it when I visited her and her roommates before I started what I could only describe as my victory orgy. Perhaps it was my first brush with the true death since becoming a vampire, maybe all that blood excited me more than I’ll admit, but since that night, I felt freer than I’d ever been. I found myself enjoying the hunt, craving it even.
But that’s not so strange for a vampire…
#
1948
Dominique had Mina pinned to the wall with seven steak knives before Angelica blindsided her with a right hook from behind. Tina was chained up in a corner with a bag over her head, struggling for all she was worth as she tried to bite her way through the cloth. Kelly had several other vampires held at bay using her pyrokinetic talent to turn a candle into a flamethrower. In short, the DBZ recreation room was a battleground and I was standing right in the middle of it.
“Oh, no, please don’t fight over me,” I begged with all the sincerity I could muster.
Everyone paused when Carmilla stormed into the room, her face like a thundercloud. “What is all this?!?” She demanded, plucking a makeshift wooden stake from Angelica’s hand.
Moments later, everyone was blaming everyone else except for me. The convoluted web of relationships I’d woven over the last year, the intricate plots and trouble I’d stirred up had finally come to a head and exploded rather spectacularly. I was too smart to gloat, however, so I kept my head bowed humbly and made myself small enough to escape notice.
When Wisteria barged in, however, she scanned the room once and knew just who to blame. Even so, I had to suppress a smile even when she picked me up by the neck and rammed me into the wall. “YOU! You’re responsible for this! I know! You’ve been undermining my authority for months! Haven’t you? HAVEN’T YOU!?!”
Actually, I’d been undermining her authority for nearly a year but I wasn’t about to tell her that. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I gasped.
“Mother,” Carmilla said gently, touching her arm, “we don’t know she had anything to do with this. We’re all cooped up in this house together; our children’s tempers were bound to flare like this eventually.”
“Then would you care to explain why only my children are fighting? Or why this one remains unscathed? I trust my instincts.”
“As do I,” the redhead soothed, “and I swear to you, if she is guilty then I will mete out an appropriate punishment. Can we please finally heal this rift between us?”
“Whenever we speak on this matter, I regret not teaching you humility,” Wisteria snapped, “no, you can’t have her. You will never have her for as long as I remain, she will be my abject lesson to you, never to doubt my determination! If you can’t have her and she refuses to behave, however… she dies.”
“I can’t let you kill her,” Carmilla stated firmly, “her ability to enchant females alone is worth too much to us as long as we remain trapped in Ravencrest. Wisteria, I love you, I know that you’ll break the curse. Don’t take your frustrations out on someone who has nothing to do with this.”
Wisteria was silent a long time before letting me go. “I won’t let you have her but I can’t keep her. She has cast her own dice, let her live with the consequences. Suzanne is hereby exiled from the Sorority house. I no longer claim her as a member of my lineage, may no-one who wishes to remain here allow her succour within these walls! I also deny her right to freedom and progeny. She can fend for herself alone here in Ravencrest. I want this room spotless by the time I choose to return.”
With that, she swept from the room, leaving Carmilla staring after her grinding her teeth. “Well, you heard her,” the redhead vampire shouted at the childer around her, “get to cleaning, lest she take it into her head to return post haste.”
The vampires were busy cleaning within moments, through plenty of furniture was going to have to be dumped and replaced. Carmilla helped me up from where I’d landed on the floor, scowling. “Well, I hope you’re happy.”
“Ecstatic,” I sighed, the prospect of being able to leave literally euphoric.
“I can’t let you take your things; they’ll be divided amongst the other girls.”
I snorted. “Nothing I want to keep anyway.”
“Where will you stay?”
“Last I checked, my old house is still there,” I shrugged, “according to records after all, I haven’t been reported dead or disappeared. I’ll get it transferred into my name; maybe I’ll pass myself off as my own long lost daughter or something.”
“Don’t think this means you’re free of me,” Carmilla admonished, handing me her card, “I expect you to be available morning, noon and night.”
“Carmilla,” I sighed, kissing her cheek, “for you, anything.”