postcard amelie 07
Amelie stops in front of a stall, clutching her breast. The piece that has caught her eye is a simple but massive beach towel, back on white, depicting the branches and roots of the tree of life emerging from the abstract figure of a woman in the trunk. Celtic designs frame it, placing it squarely in the style of a third of the artifacts here.
The hippy market, one of many on the island, is a ranging, chaotic, overpriced and overcrowded procession of tat, souvenirs, clothing, wood and leather. You were both dragged out by your joined friend groups, merged by not only the liaison between you and Amelie but also Nathan and Carl, and there’s probably something happening between your Roxy and Amelie’s Erika and Olivia. It’s all very confusing but since Gemma’s ahem departure everyone’s getting along like a house on fire.
You almost bump into Amelie where she stands. You’re larger than you were when you landed and are still adjusting to your new personal space boundary. Honestly with your recent eating habits you’d rather the boundaries of your person were much larger, encompassing the literally thousands of souls wandering the narrow paths. The thought makes your knees a little weak and your stomach grumble dangerously. Lunch was a while ago.
Amelie beams at you, her expression beatific. “Your… tendrils are like roots?” She reaches up to adjust the sampaguita hair clip she shyly bought for you. It’s a shock of white in your black hair. She’s clearly enamored with the fact that you’re wearing her gift as she holds your hand or kisses your cheek whenever she sees it. She squeezes your hand now.
“Yes? In a very loose sense?”
“And you can make them invisible?”
You glance at the tree of life depiction. Where is she going with this?
“Not exactly. But I can make it so they’re easy not to notice, like shadows, for those who aren’t really seeing…”
“Like your fangs,” she says, and leans in for a kiss. Her lithe tongue flickers over your teeth, affirming that the blades are there. You playfully snap, and she narrowly avoids bleeding a few drops for you.
A couple jostles the two of you apart, pushed by the flow of the crowd. The woman apologises in Spanish with a German accent.
“Here’s a game. Feed on them, Raven. Just a scratch. And then on… Them.” She points out another couple browsing masks made of rubber reclaimed from truck tyres.
You raise an eyebrow. But your stomach did make a persuasive argument backing her up…
Amelie presses the point. “They were very rude and interrupted our kiss.”
“They deserve more than a scratch, then,” you agree, half playing along and half considering cornering them and draining them dry. “Come on, let’s follow them under the awnings there, where there’s more shade.”
Hunting them through the crowd, simultaneously conspicuous and anonymous, feels exciting. When close you flex your shoulders. Twin conduits slip free beneath your summer dress, tracing a path to the slit mid-thigh. Low down in the dappled shade and wreathed in shadow of their own they are tricks of the eyes, ignored by all.
Even almost ignored by Amelie, who was watching for them. You hear her squeal when she spots them climbing the backs of the German couple. Infinitely sensitive, they press beneath shirt and blouse. The biting edge of the bladed tips blur with a numbing effect, leechlike. They kiss the tender bellies of the unsuspecting couple and the kiss grows deeper, breaking skin and pooling blood, but not skewering.
You sip. Slow mouthfuls are wicked away by the tendrils themselves. The tendrils undulate as the precious substance is borne away from your prey and into your own body.
Amelie clasps her hands together. “That’s amazing, Raven. Now the other two. But at the same time? Split and seek out nourishment, like roots?”
Mid-feed, your senses are sharpened. Blood gurgles pleasantly into your stomach via some inhuman biology, bringing with it a buzz and an intensification of the desire to drink.
You can upon the organ near your heart, that uncharted incarnation of your vampiric nature. Prey, you tell it. There is more prey.
That part of you responds. A pulse ripples along one tendril but from your body, and the indistinct black creeper buds and splits. The new tip arcs upwards towards the awning, avoiding notice and also footfalls, on its way to the browsing couple. It falls and splits again, hydra-like, and their shoulders fail to warn them of your bite which begins to leech away their strength.
Amelie watches in awe. “How far could you go?”
Four people’s blood is now wending its way through your coils and into your tummy. You give a soft belch through your human mouth. “Not sure. Haven’t pushed it. Why?”
“Practice. Okay, now them.”
Amelie points out a new target, then another, then another. You bloom another blood-root, seeking out fertile soil. The prey you skewer unwittingly stay nearby, some instinct preventing them from pulling at the vines they are not consciously aware of and hurting themselves.
You are growing tight around the midsection when a clatter from near the German couple jars you out of your feeding trance. You open your eyes to see the man has passed out and the woman is leaning heavily on a stall table, grey in the face. You look around and observe the evidence of your feeding: a dozen and a half pale individuals, trapped beneath a skein of black vines that resemble nothing so much as a network of blood vessels. All converges on you. Even as you disengage from the kine their blood flows along the retracting tendrils, all winding up safe and sound inside you.
Your stomach is stretched painfully by the quantity and suddenness of your feed, but not all is in your stomach. Evidence of the German couple and the other earlier feeds scores a thick red line through the upper stages of your intestines. Blood that was only minutes ago animating a living person now filters through sucking villae and is stolen away as part of you. How quickly the people are digested!
Amelie is guiding you away by the hand. You feel a little drunk but also keen with adrenaline; powerful. “That was amazing, Raven,” she says, kissing your cheek. You consider eating her right now, giving her a blood bath in your bubbling guts, but fondness overrules the desire. “I’ve got such an idea. Just you wait till tonight.”
“What’s happening tonight?” you say, not bothering to make your fangs indistinct. A woman with bright purple hair who makes eye contact seems about to ask about them, but Amelie steers you away from her before things can get bitey and terminal.
“We’re going out.”