Chapter 3

Muted, blue-stained illumination filtered into the shelter, flickering across the coed’s pale face and arm. Two puncture wounds bled at her throat, crimson tracks trickling to her collarbone. Limply, her right arm rested on her denim-clad thigh, her eyes closed as if merely asleep. Blonde hair kissed her shoulders. Her breathing remained steady, but shallow; her heart bumped in a slow, regular rhythm. She seemed strangely peaceful.

Harsh, unyielding bench slats groped the hula hoop woman’s backside through the thin fabric of her mini. The woman’s fingers picked idly at a ragged gash in her fishnets, her pale skin cool to the touch underneath. High heels pinched her toes; she still hated stilettos, probably always would, but the shoes enhanced her calves and reminded her vaguely of another shadowy existence. She could hear the coed’s heart thumping, could smell the copper of her blood. Sated, the woman leaned back, her canines retracting, her head resting against indifferent panes of glass, her finger rising to her lips, tasting a final droplet of scarlet dessert. At this hour, the bus would only round the circuit every half-hour.

Closing her eyes against the flickering cobalt glare, the woman relived the earlier violent altercation. With that last bead of blood licked from her fingertip, the hunger rage finally evaporated, only leaving rue and remorse to fill the void. Her fingertip traced to a spot between her breasts, above her still heart. The skin tingled there, the target of those bright white orbs and the final crimson one. The agonizing spheres of light had somehow disquietingly freed the voice buried for so long within.

I’m so sorry. Please help me?

She missed that voice’s familiar timbre, although the sound had retreated firmly again into the depths of her mind.

She glanced to her left. The coed slumped tranquilly into the corner of the shelter, the bleeding at her throat already reducing to a safe trickle. College Girl would live, her heartbeat pulsing strongly in her jugular.

A heavy sigh filled the shelter. Earlier, had the witch not interrupted, the vampire would have easily drained the fool intent on raping her behind the club. This time, with the innocent coed, she had stopped well short of feeding too much. Regardless, with the rage dissipated, familiar regret brimmed in her emotions. She didn’t want this existence, didn’t want to drain rapists, didn’t want to abandon coeds in lonely bus shelters.

The buried voice reminded her of a time when hunger occurred but was more easily satisfied.

The witch had somehow freed the entombed voice for a fleeting moment with those annoying orbs.

I’m so sorry. Please help me?

Sweet, intoxicating, the witch smelled like none other. The memory of her burned white hot. Alive.

With the rage diminished, the woman bit thoughtfully at her lip. Sweet. Intoxicating. Alive.

In the distance, bright headlights approached cumbersomely. Wearily, the woman pushed herself to her high heels, smoothing her dress across her thighs. Her feet complained. Thoughtfully, she touched the coed’s slack shoulder, absorbing her warmth, then turned and walked from the shelter while the bus remained indistinct.

The witch’s scent beckoned undeniably to her.

It was not only the witch’s scent, but what the witch had unleashed.

The voice whispered somewhere deep inside, unheard, but insistent.

The voice sounded like hope.

The robin collapsed broken below the bay window. At the sudden, sharp bang, a melancholy child looked up from colouring.

Warily, the child dropped her crayon and pushed herself back from the formica-topped table, wandering to the window, peering out, shielding her eyes with her small hand. With a quiet cry, she ran to the front door, yanking it open and descending the steps without pulling on shoes or heeding to her own safety. Tears forming in her eyes, she fell to her knees, reaching for the tiny creature, gathering up the broken bird into her hands. Frightened, the bird gazed up at her, beak slightly agape.

She hadn’t many lessons; she hated lessons with a passion, resisted them at every turn.

Yet, she willed her tiny strength into her fingers, willing the healing aura to appear.

For a moment, her delicate hands glowed with a muted ivory illumination. The bird cradled in her hands trembled weakly, its tiny heart fluttering. It appeared marginally stronger as the light faded.

An old woman stood silhouetted in the doorframe, her hand resting on the jamb.

The little girl looked up, tears brimming in her eyes. She held the bird up towards the old woman.

“Grandma?” she said plaintively.

“Come, Child.” The old woman beckoned with one knobby finger.

The child stood, cradling the robin, and walked gingerly to her grandmother.

Sleep abandoned the child. Her thoughts returned insistently to the helpless robin.

Finally, she threw off the sheets, gathered them into her arms, and padded in her pyjamas to her door and beyond. Like a mouse, she crept down the stairs and opened the door leading to the garage.

Unyielding cold concrete greeted the bare soles of her feet as she carefully arranged her sheets on the floor next to the ragged cardboard box filled with warm towels. She stroked the robin’s feathers, sensing its weak heartbeat. It didn’t seem as frightened anymore.

Satisfied, the child gathered her sheets about her, pulling them to her chin.

The concrete seeped cold into her hip and shoulder, far less comfortable than her warm mattress.

She didn’t care. Her bird chirped once quietly beside her.

Sleep finally claimed her.

Aurora reclined naked atop the king mattress, staring at the ceiling. All the lights in the bedroom shone brightly, dispelling any shadows. Her hair, damp from a quick shower, splayed across her pillows. A brief examination of her skin revealed a smattering of minor bruises, but beyond an insistent ache, she judged herself basically uninjured. The hot water from the shower helped.

Her thoughts relentlessly dwelt on the hula hoop girl, the sensual performance on the dais counterbalanced by the violent alley altercation. The woman’s pained eyes and her distraught words haunted Aurora: I’m so sorry. Please help me?

She had no idea what she’d witnessed; her mind continued to whirl and return to those last plaintive words.

Perhaps it was the sensual hula hoop. Perhaps it was the ensuing violence.

Somewhat ashamedly, Aurora’s body betrayed her, nipples achingly erect, and her sex throbbing. Twice, she consciously forced her fingers from her erogenous zones; now she determinedly pressed her hands against the comforter near her hips, staring forlornly at the ceiling, ignoring her arousal and considering her strange evening.

She didn’t know what time of the morning it was when the gentle knock against her front door echoed through the silent house.

The knock should have surprised Aurora. It didn’t.

The knock rang with an echo of inevitability.

Aurora inhaled deeply and allowed her breath to escape apprehensively between her lips. Gathering her courage, she pushed herself from the bed top, swinging her bare toes to the floor. She gathered a silky robe from its hook and draped it over her shoulders, knotting it loosely at her waist.

Silently, she padded down the hardwood stairs until she stood wavering, her bare feet cool against the harsh tile of the foyer. Taking another deep breath, she peered through the peephole.

Hula Hoop Girl stood awkwardly in the shadows of the front porch, illuminated only by a flickering street lamp. Almost as if she could sense Aurora’s shadow, the girl stared unwaveringly at the one-way lens embedded in the doorway. She still wore the short shimmering black dress, wispy fishnets and garish Louboutins. Her hands revealed long thin fingers tipped in scarlet polish, her former opera gloves no longer gracing her arms. Both the dress and the fishnets exposed minor tears in the fabric, very pale skin peeking through. The Louboutins appeared scuffed. Her long straight hair appeared unaffected by the earlier violence.

“Please? Can we talk?”

The girl’s voice breathed through the wood of the door as if it were only mist. Aurora was uncertain if the girl’s voice had passed through the door, or somehow injected directly into her mind. Aurora bit her lip, willing her heartbeat to calm, a futile effort.

After some time, the girl spoke again.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you sent me away. I’ll go if you tell me,” she continued. Gone was the husky, threatening timbre, her voice now completely devoid of the menace Aurora had experienced earlier in the alley. The girl resembled a lost child. “I’m truly sorry about earlier. I was so hungry, and she takes over when I’m hungry. And I was so angry he wanted to rape me. I should never have gone to The Portal. Bron says it is an evil place.”

Aurora continued to stare through the lens silently. Oddly, given the circumstances, her nipples ached below the silk. The soles of her feet tingled against the ceramic.

Aurora had no idea who Bron might be, but she understood being hungry and angry.

The girl waited for a few minutes, then sighed heavily.

“I know you’re there. I know you’re frightened. I can hear your heartbeat. I wish I had a heartbeat again. I don’t blame you for being frightened of me. I’ll leave you in peace.”

Resignedly, the girl turned her back and stepped towards the steps, her Louboutins sharp against the wooden planks of the porch. Aurora sensed that if the creature desired, no door would have prevented violent contact. The flimsy wood merely projected an illusion of safety.

Please help me?

Aurora swallowed thickly, twisted the deadbolt, and opened the door.

The women stood warily in the foyer, the girl in the torn black dress exuding sensuality, only taller than Aurora due to the high heels encasing her feet. Aurora shivered, feeling very underdressed, barefoot in the unsubstantial robe. She gathered the thin silk across her chest tightly. Her body screamed at her insistently, as if the girl’s pheromones had caressed her skin; Aurora struggled to control the sensations.

“You aren’t going to throw another of those white balls at me, are you?” the girl asked tentatively. She looked mildly concerned but not overly worried.

Aurora glanced down at her right hand. Currently, it gripped the robe between her breasts, her fingers white. It might have been wiser to hold her palm upright, in case. However, she sensed no immediate threat from the creature, and she had no idea how to summon the orb, even if there was an immediate threat.

Numbly, Aurora shook her head.

“You aren’t going to try and kill me again, are you?”

The girl chuckled softly. “No. I’m not as hungry anymore. She’s gone for now.”

Aurora wondered exactly what the girl meant. Hadn’t the man at the club satisfied the girl? If so, why attack Aurora?

“I’m Aurora,” Aurora introduced herself. She did not offer her hand. The girl didn’t appear to take any offence.

“I’m called Luna,” the girl offered. She said it as if Luna represented a familiar name, perhaps abbreviated from an unpronounceable name. Or maybe, Luna was a street name, her real name obscured.

“Well, Luna,” Aurora said cautiously. “Why are you here?”

Instead of answering, Luna regarded Aurora intently. It felt like the creature could read her mind.

“The dragon told you about me? Told you I was evil? That you should have nothing to do with me?”

Actually, Seren had only advised Aurora to watch her back, which seemed like excellent wisdom at the moment.

“She told me you were a Nosterafu,” Aurora replied truthfully. “She didn’t say you were evil. She told me you were likely young and if you’d been older, I probably wouldn’t be breathing.”

“Nosferatu,” Luna gently corrected. “If she had said I was evil, she wouldn’t be far from the truth. And she’s also right about my age. I was made in 1983.” She paused. “Duran Duran and Wham were on the radio,” she continued wistfully.

If the girl was twenty in 1983, she had orbited the sun at least sixty times. She didn’t appear sixty years old. Sixty did not seem young at all to Aurora, but she supposed: perspective. If vampires were indeed immortal, only sixty orbits of the sun might imply Luna’s youth.

“Why are you here in my foyer?” Aurora asked again.

Luna sighed. “I ... I don’t know. I found myself drawn here. What I said, she said, in that alleyway? You smelled divine. You smell like nothing I’ve ever scented before. I had to see you again.”

Aurora’s heartbeat accelerated again. She winced as she realised Luna probably could hear it.

“You want to taste my blood?” Fear rose again, unbidden.

Luna laughed ruefully. “I do, but I won’t. I promise.”

Aurora doubted if she could rely on the word of a vampire, but she truly had no frame of reference. For now, she would believe Luna, since the creature stood in her entranceway and the orb seemed to have fled.

Luna tilted her head and visibly swallowed. She stepped forward, her heels clicking, her eyes glowing in the dimness. In Aurora’s emphatic memory, Luna advanced on her in a dark misty alley; she fought her strong impulse to step backwards.

“And,” Luna continued breathily, “I really wanted to kiss you.”

Oh, Jesus.

But, of course, as Seren had previously noted, Jesus had little to do with it.

Aurora expected Luna’s lips to taste like copper and freeze like a block of ice. Instead, she tasted cinnamon and Luna’s lips yielded warm and soft against her own. Luna’s fingers wound into Aurora’s hair and forced her against the wall and onto her toes, moaning. Aurora’s nipples screamed. Her pelvic floor pulsed.

Despite her inherent fear, despite her certainty Luna represented a grave danger to her, despite her usual heterosexuality, Aurora lacked control over the sensations flooding her body. She wanted Luna unlike anyone else. She wanted all of her and she wanted her now.

Aurora prayed the orb remained hidden as she released her grip upon her robe, her fingers tracing Luna’s delicate jawline, down her windpipe, over the ridge of her dress, finding her breasts and squeezing. Luna moaned into Aurora’s mouth as Aurora’s fingers located Luna’s nipples and caressed them gently.

After what seemed forever, Luna broke the kiss, released her hair and allowed Aurora off her toes. Aurora’s scalp burned. The soles of her feet tingled. Aurora only wanted those lips back; instead, Luna trailed one digit lazily down from Aurora’s chin between her breasts, parting the robe as it descended until her finger rested above Aurora’s sex, tracing languid figure-eights there.

Oh, Jesus. Lower!

As if Luna had somehow heard the unspoken request, she allowed her finger to dip lower, parting Aurora’s sex, teasing her swollen clitoris. Aurora closed her eyes and groaned, fighting back the immediate climax threatening with the singular caress.