Public Post! Let there be vampires!
Over two years ago (?!!) I started a project on Patreon for myself. I wanted to write a dystonia vampire bdsm noncon story. Something violent and probably not acceptable to Amazon’s guidelines. This is the kind of story I can’t sell, because the audience is so small it just wouldn’t ever be worth the time.
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Ashes to Ashes
Ashe scratched at the latest tattoo on his forearm. They’d inked him again a few days ago and now the scabs were driving him nuts. The letter O sat just below his elbow in big bold type. Counting down from there were six names. His cell mates only had one or two names marked on their skin. Rumor said there was a woman with four names two blocks down. Ashe was the only one he knew of with six.
”Stop scratching. You’re going to infect it,” Wes said softly from the bottom bunk.
Ashe had been born and bred for his blood. Type O negative. Universal donor. He was highly prized, but it didn’t gain him any privileges. He lived in a twenty-foot square cell with three other men–two type A’s and a type AB according to their tattoos. One cell in a thousand on this block, one block in a hundred in this town. All stuffed to the gills with what was left of humanity. He ate when they fed him. He worked out when they told him. He read the books they gave him. There was nothing else to do.
Ashe dropped his arms to the mattress and rolled to the edge. He peered over. ”How did you know I was scratching?”
”You were shaking the bunk.”
”I could have been jacking off.”
Wes rolled his eyes and turned a page in his book. ”You’ve never jacked off since I was assigned this cell a year ago.”
Ashe grunted and rolled onto his back.
Wes was the most recent addition to their little room. Rolffe and Glen, asleep in their own bunks, had come in on the same day, almost three years ago, replacing two men that had been called for feeding and never come back. That happened occasionally, people disappearing. Ashe was probably safer than most thanks to his blood type, but it was a relative thing. He took pains not to aggravate them. That wasn’t a gamble he was ever going to win.
Wes sighed loudly and turned another page in his book. Then he sighed again. He was scheduled for a feeding tonight and it was at least an hour past breakfast. They’d come for him any minute now. Ashe felt for him, waiting was always the hard part, but he wasn’t sympathetic enough to take his place. This was their life: feeding, recovery, feeding, recovery until they died under claws and fangs.
People died of old age in the past. Illness. Accidents. Not anymore. Not for a long time now. Ashe was going on thirty in another year and he was already past the average thanks to a self-preservation instinct more powerful than his ego. Wes was the same: submissive, polite to a fault, and non-combative. That was the only way to survive.
The sound of sliding metal at the end of the block, followed by a clank, prompted Wes to snap his book shut and shove it under his pillow. He stood up, pacing the length of their cell by the bars, ready to get it over with. Their entire block was silent except for the delicate click of polished shoes on the cement. Anxiety burrowed into Ashe’s gut even though he wasn’t the one being summoned. He knew that sound all too well and it never ended in anything enjoyable.
The clicking heels stopped precisely in front of their cell door. Wes huffed, pumping himself up for the main event. Flooding himself with adrenaline in the hopes that would be enough to sate their hungers. Ashe didn’t think it made a difference either way, but he wasn’t about to deny Wes his ritual if it left him with hope.
Their guard was also human, a slave of status among slaves. Jonathan kept the feedings running on time and without any incidents. In exchange, he didn’t have to donate his own blood to the cause. Throughout his life Ashe had occasionally lusted after such a position. To know without a doubt that he wasn’t on the menu was a temptation he couldn’t wrap his mind around. Yet the guards were as imprisoned as they were. At least Ashe got out every few days and saw more than this bare cell. Such as those sights were, fraught with violence and worse abuses.
Jonathan grunted at Wes. ”Not you, AB. They want the O.”
Ashe’s gut looped. This was a change in the pattern. Changes in the pattern were never good. They were sadistic in their rituals. He twisted on the bed and exchanged a wide-eyed look with Wes. His cellmate pressed his lips together and breathed hard. Had they changed their minds about Wes because he’d done something wrong? Or did they just have a craving for type O tonight? He’d just been summoned three days ago, he couldn’t give much. They knew that though. They kept strict records. He scratched his arm. They could probably smell how much blood he carried around inside him.
”Today, gentlemen.”
Ashe jerked toward the edge of the bed and dropped down. On his lower bunk, Rolffe squinted at him with concern. Even near-comatose with blood loss he understood there was something wrong when the schedule changed. But what was anyone going to do about it? With three quarters of the block always unconscious in recovery there was hardly fuel for a riot.
So Ashe shook hands with Wes firmly, exchanging a nod of courage, and forced himself to step up to the cell door where he offered his wrists for the shackles–and his life for whoever had called for him. Jonathan’s boots clicked on the cement as they walked, echoing in the eerie silence. Ashe prayed he’d come back whole.
–//–
Vote:
A vampire Ashe has never met before has summoned him for feeding. It’s clear this vamp is low on the status poll and has somehow gained a more powerful vamp’s favor in order to bring a type O up to his party. But things don’t go well and the vamp decides to kill Ashe!
What does he do?
A: Pit the vampires against each other and run for it while they’re fighting.
B: Appeal to the vampire’s ego to keep him around as a status symbol.
–//–
Just beyond the holding gate, the hallway bloomed into a public washroom. Several freestanding pillars in a line acted as showers and while the water was perpetually cold, Ashe relished the chance to be clean again. Jonathan propped himself up in one corner, eyeing Ashe out of duty more than interest. This was a well-established pattern and Ashe had no intention of deviating.
He stripped efficiently and hit the buttons of two opposing shower heads at the same time. They crossed over Ashe’s chest, tightening his lungs with the cold, but the water was clear and tasted so sweet. He drank his fill; it was the only fresh water he would get until the next time he was called. At the base of one of the pillars was a bottle of soap. The container had long ago lost its label, rubbed away by water and countless hands. The liquid inside smelled like mint. Ashe poured it over his head generously and washed himself from top to bottom. Yes, it was mandated, but Ashe was almost willing to volunteer his neck in exchange for this quick shower. Almost.
He rinsed himself clean roughly and took a final mouthful of water just as the showers clicked and shut down. The last spurts of liquid trickled down the towers, washing the soap bubbles into the drain. The whole production lasted two minutes, total, any longer and he’d be stuck with shampoo in his hair as the water shut off automatically.
Ashe grabbed the single towel folded on a bench against the wall. It was almost dry. Ashe had to be one of the first people called this evening. By the end of the night the towel was useless, soaked with the water of dozens of people. He rubbed himself down from head to toe, scrubbing the water out of his hair last. Being clean was important but dry… not so much. They wanted his blood, not his charming looks.
In fact, Ashe didn’t know if he was any more or less handsome than anyone else. Reflective surfaces were non-existent in the cells and he’d never seen enough water in one place to look back at himself. He occasionally caught glimpses in the glass panels in some estates, but there was never any time to linger over what he might see there. He knew his hair was getting longer because it tickled his ears and the back of his neck, and when he and Wes stood against each other, Ashe was the taller. Of the four of them in the cell plus Jonathan, Ashe had the darkest skin. But the color of his eyes? The angle of his jaw? Ashe didn’t know the details.
He pulled the towel down over his face and the stubble of his jaw scratched against the fabric. Ashe folded it and noticed a stack of pressed clothes on the bench. His outfit for the evening. ”Do they want me to shave?” he asked Jonathan. Ashe rubbed his knuckles against his jaw, testing the length of it by feel. He was still in the awkward prickly stage from the last time he shaved.
”It wasn’t mentioned,” Jonathan said.
Which could mean anything at all. He wouldn’t shave since it hadn’t been requested, but sometimes that was an oversight. They didn’t grow hair like people did. Not the same way. Sometimes they forgot that humans never stopped growing theirs. Luckily, it wasn’t Ashe who would be punished for the slip, but the Lord’s assistant or monster-in-waiting.
Ashe dressed. He’d been given soft underwear and an elegant pair of slacks. The silky shirt was bright white, the better to show off Ashe’s future bloodstains, and ruffled a bit down the front. It even had buttons at the wrists. His feet were left bare, no socks, shoes, or a pair of slippers. That would make the next part a little uncomfortable.
Beside the corner where Jonathan had leaned was a single door. It had no knob or bar to open from this side, so even if someone escaped from their cell, there was nowhere to go but into another one. From the block to the showers and through this single door was the only way in or out. Jonathan banged his fist on it twice. An eye-sized slot was yanked open from the other side just long enough to assess that Jonathan was there. The slot snapped closed and two heavy bolts clanked. The door opened.
Artificial light streamed into the public shower, yellow and strange. Ashe stepped outside, leaving Jonathan behind and transferring himself into the care of an unknown human dressed in thick wools against the bitter cold. A corridor of dirt and bare rock stretched before them, huge chain link fences arcing far overhead. To either side, masses of people huddled together against the cold, dressed in the same plain shirt and pants that marked them as prisoners like Ashe. These groups of suffering humans were all A positive blood-typed. The most common, and most worthless. They weren’t given food and were forever exposed to the elements. Every winter, the snowstorms wiped most of the population out. People left here, outside the prison blocks, but unwelcome in the estates, were destined to die and not worth the effort to kill.
For avoiding this fate alone was Ashe thankful for his treasured O negative blood. It kept him warm, fed, and alive. When he was killed it would be at the merciless claws of a monster. A quick, if messy, end.
The cold air bit at Ashe’s nose and passed right through his ruffled white shirt. He hunched as he marched down the breezeway, trying to avoid the worst of the rocks. It was a quarter mile from the blocks to the transit station and he knew the length like he knew his own hands. Lingering wouldn’t do him any good. At least the bitter weather kept the A positives in their distant groups. In the warmer months they swarmed the fencing, begging, or just pissing on anyone who walked by. Ashe had lost his sympathy for them long ago. Their fate was not his own and there was nothing he could do about it.
His hands and feet throbbed with cold by the time he passed through the whisper-silent sliding doors of the transit station. In another two hours this room would be full of people waiting for their magcar to zip them around to their assignments. Ashe had traveled in a magcar once and found it to be a nauseating experience. Upwards of seven people crammed into such a small space was unnatural. The levtaxies were much more direct anyway, and after that first trip Ashe’s assignments had been to more distant, and more wealthy, estates than the magcars system was designed to support.
Ashe approached the one teller booth with a light on and nodded at the human man behind the plexiglass. ”O negative,” he reported, ”Ashe.”
”Gate three,” the man said without checking his computer. It was unlikely many O negatives were scheduled to come through here this evening.
Ashe found gate three. The sleek black machine on the other side of the bars, however, was not a levtaxi. Ashe hesitated with his palm over the scanner that would allow him through the gate. First they called him instead of Wes, now one of the monsters’ personal levcars was here to take him to his destination. He couldn’t imagine what was waiting for him at the other end of this ride.
With trepidation, Ashe pressed his hand to the scanner. A green light pierced his skin, so intense Ashe thought he could see his own bones. Then the light was gone and the bars unlocked. He stepped toward the dark levcar. Its side door lifted up and away automatically. There was no apparent driver or even a flight console. The door closed quietly behind him, forcing Ashe to shuffle into a seat or be pinched.
He sat. The levcar smoothly accelerated into the air.
Unlike every levtaxi he’d been in before, this elegant levcar had panel after panel of glass around the middle. Ashe pressed himself to the window in fascination. His view tilted as the levcar ascended and, for the first time, he saw the entire building in which he’d lived his entire life. Sickly yellow lights outlined the massive walls, casting creepy shadows along the bare dirt where clusters of A-types huddled for warmth. the entire complex was a huge cube, five, maybe six stories tall. Monolithic. High fencing surrounded the compound, far more space than there were A-types this late in the season, and four quarter-mile walkways extended from each of the sides. So Ashe’s exit wasn’t the only one after all.
The levcar banked away from the campus and the window went black. For a moment Ashe thought it wasn’t a window, but a display screen, then he spotted yellow lights in the distance. A sea of lights that floated in the darkness. Separated from the compound by miles of unlit ground was their city. It glittered with movement, lights blinking and chasing across the territory. As the levcar approached, the lights divided into lines and blocks and colors: maglev trains rushed below him, levtaxies flew in rivers, personal levcars dodged over entire buildings. Huge advertisements cast swaths of color across the streets. Every surface was painted in light.
And the movement! Ashe had never seen so many things moving at once. It was amazing nothing crashed. His levcar swooped over a magtrain moving so fast the green lights on its roof were just a blur. Then the car banked around a huge building and Ashe rushed to the other window, breathless. Every rectangle of glass was lit from within, showing off room after room of plush carpet, green plants, and one of them at each desk. They moved from room to room, talking with each other and it all appeared so structured. Well of course it was organized and structured, they wouldn’t have it any other way. This had to be one of the offices he’d heard about. A tower of business where the lower castes worked for their meals.
Then the levcar banked away and Ashe was left with an overwhelming impression of life that didn’t jive with his understanding at all. The city was a bustle of activity. Hundreds. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands of them all living and working in close proximity. There had to be fights for dominance and social position constantly, but Ashe hadn’t seen any blood.
He fingered the ruffled white collar of his shirt with a frown. The ones who called on him for feeding seemed to take spraying blood as an art form. It didn’t usually matter whose. But then, he’d only interacted with the upper caste of rulers. Perhaps they were more inclined toward violence? They certainly seemed obsessed with it, and Ashe had witnessed at least two fights that had changed the hierarchy of those around him. If the lower caste of workers were more coöperative, they probably got a lot more done.
The levcar began to descend and Ashe realized he’d been taken beyond the edges of the city. The sea of lights dwindled to pockets of brilliance tucked between rolling hills. The individual estates of the upper caste. Entire clans contained in a single property, scrambling for influence within and among themselves. Each one of the creatures was overwhelmingly deadly, and according to stories entire clans had worked together to create the world as Ashe knew it now. He couldn’t imagine fighting off an individual, let alone a coalition of clans, so it was no surprise humanity had fallen.
The hum of the levcar wound down suddenly. It came to rest precisely between two identical others and the side door slid up and open automatically. Ashe climbed out and checked himself quickly. No wrinkles in his pants, enough fluff in his shirt. The details were critical when meeting a new one.
He’d been deposited in some sort of parking space thickly surrounded by trees, and by the number of other cars, there was an event happening. That explained why he had been called instead of Wes. Someone inside was trying to impress with Ashe’s O-type blood. Which meant he probably wasn’t going to die tonight. Bleed, yes. Oh yes. But he couldn’t be a prize to show off if his heart stopped. Ashe took a deep breath and marched toward the bright sliding doors that glowed just beyond the parking. There was a certain confidence he could place in their egos that unwound a thread of tension in Ashe’s gut. He was a valuable pawn in their never-ending quest for social status and one didn’t destroy something valuable on a whim.
The sliding doors made no sound. Not one Ashe could hear, anyway. But the party hushed and Ashe stilled in the doorway as a hundred red eyes turned in eerie unison to face him. Their bodies stilled. He would never get used to that. The silence was thick enough to choke on. Every single person seemed to hold their breath and their blood-red eyes were fixed like they’d been carved from stone. They took him in from head to toe, setting themselves apart from humanity in so many ways with their stillness. As if Ashe, or anyone else, needed a reminder. Ashe could never mistake them for anything other than what they were.
Vampires.
Ashe broke through the oppressive statue-garden of stillness to bow low and cast his eyes down to his bare feet. He stayed there for a slow count of five, then another, before the creatures’ attentions broke away from him in a wave of motion from the door to the back of the room. Conversations continued as if he’d never entered. Ashe took a deep breath and straightened. With the initial subservancy observed, he had a chance to sweep the great room and find the monster that had called for him. He’d never been to a gathering this large and none of the faces he spotted were familiar, making his task a bit of a guessing game. He didn’t have a name, either, and without any other means, Ashe took his first step into the party.
The vampires ignored him. He was human, and therefore beneath them. If any of them were hungry he couldn’t see the signs. No glowing eyes, no descended fangs or fierce ridges of bone over their foreheads. The room had an odd lack of humans for feeding and Ashe didn’t like the idea that he was first to arrive. His stomach dropped a bit with a new idea: what if he was the only one who had been called? In a group this big there’d be a riot for his blood. Ashe repressed a shudder as he walked deeper into the room, surrounded now by monsters that only breathed in order to speak and only spoke in order to lie. His new tattoo itched and he scratched at it. It drew attention. A vampire dressed in draping red locked eyes with him. Ashe instantly dropped his gaze to the ground and spotted shiny black shoes under the layered garment. He pressed his hands to his sides, but it was no use. The vampire grabbed his arm and turned it upward, exposing the tattoos. O-negative. Universal donor. The creature’s fingers spasmed tighter, possessive, then with a jerk Ashe was released. He looked up, but the vampire had already turned away and rejoined their small group. None of them glanced his way. Ashe dropped his arm and tried not to scratch at the tattoo. The six names below his blood type had saved him, no doubt, but he needed to be more careful. Not all of these monsters were so easily kept in line.
Some trick of the light had Ashe going in circles around the greatroom. He squinted at a vampire in a flowing gold gown, convinced he’d seen them just a moment ago in another group. Their dress glinted with light and dazzled him. Ashe turned around, intent on finding the door to orient himself, but he was too deep into the room and there were socializing vampires from wall to wall.
”Lost, little one?” a vampire purred. Ashe dropped his eyes before he bowed to the voice. It belonged to the gold-draped vampire. The heavy fabric hugged their hips and pooled at their feet like liquid glitter. ”Who do you seek?”
Ashe closed his eyes tightly. He didn’t know, and that wasn’t a good answer. Unfortunately it was the only one he had. He straightened, ready to answer, and started when he found himself on the other side of the room. The gold vampire was gone, or rather, they were still several feet away, talking with a group, while Ashe was in a different place. Something was wrong. How had he moved here, and did the gold vampire have anything to do with it? They didn’t seem mad at him for not answering the question. In fact, they acted as though Ashe hadn’t ever been there.
This had to be some kind of vampire trick. He couldn’t explain it, but Ashe was just a human. O-negative, but human regardless. A toy, a meal, and little more. His heart raced and Ashe had to force himself to breathe evenly. He wiped his hands on his pants and closed his eyes again to start over. He needed to find the door to orient himself, then locate the vampire that had called him. Ashe opened his eyes.
He had been moved again.
The experience was so unsettling he jerked and released an involuntary yelp. A vampire chuckled. This time he stood facing a reclining creature in a grey suit. Their head was speckled with short, dark hair, and two of their four fangs had descended. They were smiling at Ashe. ”Humans are so entertaining to play with. So easily manipulated. Like clay.”
This had to be the vampire who had called him. Ashe recovered himself and bowed low, remaining there until he spotted a slight gesture from the suited creature to offer himself. Ashe went to his knees easily and lifted his tattooed arm for inspection.
The vampire slapped his hand away and rushed him. Ashe half expected it since their fangs had been down already, but he still fell back under the vampire’s weight and shook as the bite pierced his neck. Two spots of sharp pain spread into a throbbing mess of ache in the span of a breath. The vampire clutched him like he might be taken away by force, nails digging into Ashe’s arms possessively. Their breath was cold on Ashe’s neck and the creature’s dry skin made Ashe’s hair stand on end. They sucked at Ashe’s neck in pulses, growling between each one like a threatened tiger. Ashe’s blood flowed from his body, pushed with each heartbeat. His fingers were cold. Ashe’s breath shortened as he became lightheaded. How much blood was this creature going to take? He couldn’t donate much but they knew that. They were supposed to know that. They were supposed to care about things like that.
Ashe grunted as the vampire wrenched his fangs free, tearing flesh with them and leaving Ashe bleeding and near unconsciousness on the floor. He blinked up at the bright ceiling while the flowing clothes of the vampires around him seemed to circle in slow motion. His neck throbbed. Ashe couldn’t feel his fingers and he was pretty sure there was a chunk missing from his throat. He jerked involuntarily, bloodloss burning through his body from head to toe.
Like an angel, the vampire’s face hovered over him. They were surrounded by glowing lights and Will had always told him that’s how angels were depicted in all the stories. Sent from heaven, terrible and beautiful. That did describe the vampire, but Ashe was pretty sure angels were supposed to help their people. He’d have to ask Will again. He couldn’t remember the stories. The details were slipping away into the black edges of his vision.
”Your blood is always the most delicious,” said the vampire.
Ashe squinted a bit at their face. He hadn’t met this vampire before, right? How would the vampire know his blood?
”O-negative is a delicacy. It’s the only thing I drink anymore.”
Right, his blood type. Of course. Ashe nodded his understanding and let his eyes close. He was so tired and the cold was seeping up into his arms now. He felt heavy.
”Hey, hey, open your eyes.” The vampire patted Ashe’s face and he struggled to focus again. The vampire showed his fangs in a rough smile. ”You don’t get to sleep, I have to drink you dry first.”
Ashe grunted and the sound gurgled a bit as it passed up his throat. An ache started to bloom in his neck where the vampire had bitten him, spreading like a slow, dark bruise from his collarbone to his jaw. Ashe worked his mouth again, forcing something like words through the throbbing ache. ”Feed again… later?” The words scratched his throat like the vampire’s fangs, bleeding out and swallowed by the grinning teeth above him.
”How quaint,” the creature said. ”It thinks I’ll keep it around like a doll.”
Ashe’s gut twisted with fear, but the cold seeping into his limbs buffered it. He knew his hands were shaking but it was like a distant thing happening in another place or time. For some reason, this vampire had no interest in keeping Ashe alive, either as food or to show him off. Apparently killing an O-type was their way of flaunting status. Ashe wasn’t ready. He hadn’t been prepared for this strange vampire party, the mind trick, the feeding. Nothing about this was familiar or normal. Why had he been chosen?
In a last-ditch effort to save himself, Ashe offered his tattooed arm again. Lifting it felt like hauling an entire mountain up with one hand, but it was that or bleed quietly out on the floor like so many others. ”I’m… claimed.” Under his O-type ink was a list of vampire names, different creatures who had fed from him at one time or another. Ashe’s understanding of their culture was limited to the few minutes or hours he was called to feed them every few weeks, which left him with a broken lens to know them through. Regardless, he was pretty sure the names on his arm meant something.
”Yes…” The vampire grasped the underside of Ashe’s forearm delicately. Ashe let the mountain weight of it fall into their palm. ”Yes, you were claimed by once. I killed them.” Casually, the vampire flexed their free hand and a set of five, dark claws, hooked like an eagle, grew from each finger. They let one come to rest on Ashe’s arm, on the inked name of Yesoph, and carefully, as if Ashe were something delicate, that claw sliced into Ashe’s arm right through the name. ”Hmm,” the vampire said as they tapped their claw down the list. ”Heakta will be upset to lose you. Marsh is not worth my time. Illia–” The vampire’s hand spasmed tightly around Ashe’s arm. They threw the limb at Ashe where it bounced on his chest, stinging from the cut, but only oozing slightly since the majority of his blood had already been taken. That was a bit concerning.
The vampire spun away from Ashe and growled to another he couldn’t see. ”You didn’t tell me it was claimed by Illia! What is this?”
”He offered his arm to you. It’s hardly my fault you didn’t check.” The voice was deeper than the feeding vampire’s, more like velvet. In his fading, delirious state, Ashe thought it might be nice to feed that one. They sounded more sophisticated.
”You promised me a meal. This is hardly satisfying–” The vampire’s words choked off when a dark-skinned hand grabbed their throat and lifted them into Ashe’s vision. They scratched their claws into the beefy arm holding them aloft, and though the flesh split and yawned, no blood flowed. The strength in the arm never wavered.
”Our deal was for an O-type, nothing more. Disparage my word again and you won’t survive long enough to regret it” The suspended vampire choked and squirmed. Eventually the dark hand opened, dropping them back to the seat of the couch and out of Ashe’s vision once more. ”Now see to your food before it expires.”
Did blood have an expiration date? Ashe guessed that made sense, though it seemed to be a pretty short window. The lights whirling on the ceiling started to bloom together in shades of gold that briefly took the form of the gold-dressed vampire. The vision bled out into a wash of color before long. Darkness began creeping in at the edges, bringing a weighty exhaustion with it. Ashe sighed and leaned in, happy to finally have some rest.
His body was jerked upright and something hot, too hot, was pressed into his mouth. It swirled over his tongue–a blaze of liquid fire–and choked him. He tried to cough but the thing pressed to his mouth was immobile and Ashe was forced to swallow. He snorted, forcing the burning liquid up and out his nose where it overwhelmed his remaining senses. Everything was fire and spice. It filled his lungs and his head and his bones, driving the cold from every limb like the hound relentlessly pursues the fox. His body seized.
He was dropped to the floor. Ashe curled onto his side, coughing, eyes tearing, throat and nose burning. He gasped for air, certain he was dying and suddenly, mortally, afraid of what would come next. His chest heaved. A deep, unnerving tingle began in his gut and spread across his skin. It seemed to focus at his throat. The sensation made him gag. Ashe rolled up to his hands and knees, dry heaving. Just as quickly, the sensation was gone and, with an abruptness that spoke of vampire tricks, Ashe was whole and hale.
He could breathe again. The fire was gone, so was the tingling. His throat didn’t ache and he had none of the symptoms of blood loss that he’d been cataloging before. No lightheadedness, chill, or exhaustion. He blinked at his hands on the marble floor, then brought one up to touch his neck. Just the fingertips, just a graze. But there was no pain. No ragged, open flesh. He stroked his fingers down his throat and found a twisted scar instead, healed. ”What?” His voice croaked, stretching an unused patch of scar tissue for the first time. Belatedly he spun around, seeking the vampire who had fed on him and the apparent dealer who had brought Ashe from his cell into this bizarre new world.
They were both staring at him, unblinking. Unbreathing. Undead.
The dark-skinned vampire was tall and whispy thin. Their eyes were so pale they almost had no color at all, only white with small dots for pupils. Their suit was equally pale, standing starkly against their skin, no doubt a deliberate effect. One sleeve was torn where the feeding vampire had clawed them raw. The dark flesh hung open, exposing the bone beneath, but didn’t bleed. It didn’t appear to bother the creature in the least.
”It’s alive,” the feeding vampire spat. ”Take it back to its cell.”
”I’m happy to provide a replacement–”
The feeding vampire snarled, ”I don’t want any more of your favors. Our business is concluded.”
”Very well.”
The dark creature didn’t bow when he stepped away, an insult the feeding vampire bared their four fangs at, but let go without a word. One dark hand, as human as anything, grasped Ashe around one arm and hauled him to his feet. The grip was tight, bruising, but Ashe was so grateful to feel it, to know he was alive, that he stumbled quickly after his escort lest they decide to release him. He needed to feel that grip and know this was real, because nothing else about this night made any sense. He had to know without a doubt that this wasn’t another trick of a vampire mind, toying with him.
The vampire marched him through the gathering and creatures parted before them like water, never looking but nonetheless knowing that they passed. With laughable ease they headed directly for the glowing glass doors, confirming again that Ashe couldn’t rely on his own senses to know his reality. It was cold outside. Ashe flinched at the first blast of chill, noticing the vampire’s hand on his arm cooled to match. Then he was being thrown into the black levcar, the same one that had brought him here. Ashe stumbled and collapsed against the far side of the car. He went quickly to his knees. His shoulder smarted where he’d crashed against the seat but it was a minor pain. Nothing compared to the burning fire they’d forced down his throat.
Ashe bent low over his knees. He wasn’t sure of the protocol when a human was handed over to a different creature in the same night. Did this vampire outrank the first one? Clearly some political move had been made. Ashe made himself small and reviewed the procedures he knew. The vampire seated themselves in the levcar, knees gently nudging Ashe into the corner, and a moment later they were airborne.
At a loss, Ashe offered his tattooed arm for inspection. It was custom for a human to be assessed before a feeding and while Ashe was unsure this vampire wanted to feed, he didn’t know what else to do. He turned his arm underside up and lifted it. As he did, Ashe saw the list of names under his O-type ink. The top name, just under the O, was illegible. A pale pink scar had obliterated the name and, no doubt, the claim that vampire once held. They were dead, Ashe remembered. Did that mean there was room for a new claim? Did this vampire want the spot?
The levcar tilted, humming slightly beneath Ashe’s knees and hand. The vampire ignored his proffered arm, if they even saw it. Ashe risked a glance up. The vampire wasn’t breathing or blinking again, as though the pretense of humanity had been for the benefit of the party and nothing more. A small light glowed amber on the side of their head, right above their ear.
Projected imaging skittered across the vampire’s pale eyes; orange, blue, and green. Details too small for Ashe to make out. Ashe lifted his head a bit more, fascinated despite himself. What technology was this?
The vampire glanced at Ashe, all the detailed lights blinking off in the gesture so that he was fixed to the floor by white eyes. Ashe dropped his gaze instantly, inching his tattooed arm up another hair in offering. There was a moment of tension between them where Ashe feared he would be punished. He’d looked up without permission and this vampire, like all others Ashe had met, had no reason to withhold the violence that quietly churned inside. Ashe was nothing worth saving.
Except… Except apparently for the vampire named Illia. That tattoo had saved his life, tonight. Whatever power Illia held, the feeding vampire feared it.
At length, the white stare flicked back to its forward position and Ashe was released from the tension of threat. He wouldn’t die just yet. It was probably appropriate to thank someone’s goddess for their mercy. Ashe made a note to ask Wes about deities as well as angels.
For the rest of the trip, Ashe kept his arm up in offering, locking the muscles in his shoulder when the joint began to ache and protest. This was the smallest of pains he’d collected tonight. It was nothing to ignore it. The vampire was so still as to be a statue. Utterly immobile. Deadlike. The only sound in the levcar was Ashe’s uneven breathing, exposing his confusion and lack of confidence. The levcar came to rest at the transit station with a soft hiss as it docked. The door behind Ashe lifted upward. Familiar filtered air rushed into the car. For several additional heartbeats, Ashe remained in position, waiting for the vampire to dismiss him. Or do anything else, really. He wasn’t about to fuck up right at the end of the night.
Eventually their velvet voice said, ”Leave.”
Ashe scrambled out of the car and through the station, only breathing full again when he ran for the guarded and locked outer door of the cell block. He was allowed inside. The heavy clunk of the lock was far more reassuring than Ashe had ever felt before. He collapsed onto the shower room’s bench, hands shaking, breath ragged. He stared at the scar deforming his forearm, then ran his hand over his neck, still in disbelief. He’d been dead, or near enough, and something had brought him back. Something so hot it scalded him and smelled like a spice he didn’t know. That something had healed him. Completely. It frightened him.
”Looks like they had fun with you tonight.”
Ashe jumped on the bench. He stared wide-eyed at Johnathan. How did the guard know what had happened? Was there some sign that his mind had been played with?
”You’re covered in blood, get in the shower.”
Ashe looked down at the slightly ruffled white shirt. It was red from his neck to his pants, bright with his own blood. Tacky. There had been vastly more important issues tonight than a soaked shirt but all of a sudden it represented everything. Ashe tore it from his body, popping buttons and seams as he did so. He couldn’t get it off fast enough. The pants followed. Then he stumbled into the showers and spent his full two minutes soaping himself from head to toe over and over and over. Until the water ran clear, then ran pink again when he scrubbed himself raw. He couldn’t wash the scars away, nor the memory of the mind games that had turned him around in the great room. He couldn’t scrape off the visceral sense-memory of fire sliding down his throat nor the unnatural, eerie tingle that followed. Ashe shuddered in the water and hugged himself. He let it pound against his back, his chest, his face, gasping for air and shaking hard enough to slide on the tiles.
He jerked when the water shut off with a click.
Jonathan had his clothes on the bench. Ashe dried off as best he could with the damp towel, changed, and followed the guard without a word. He scratched at the tattoo on his arm, shuddering when his nails ran over the new scar. Something had changed tonight. Something Ashe didn’t understand. Something that scared him. He didn’t want to see that dark vampire in the light suit ever again.
He climbed up to his bunk as soon as Jonathan opened the cell. Wes tried to talk to him, asked him too many questions, but Ashe just shook his head. He wanted to sleep. He wanted all of this to be an extended mind game. When he woke up tomorrow night his neck wouldn’t be scarred, and that pale-eyed vampire would just be a bad dream.
Join the treehouse to see what happens next!