occultists part 02

Beside me your grin bares fangs made scarlet with my blood. “Which payment now finds itself due. Who’s first?”

It doesn’t matter. You’ve already chosen. Leanne looks up at you like a cornered gazelle looks at the lioness stalking towards it.

“Just a taste,” you say. Blood drains from her face as she takes in the sight of your body. You clearly do not struggle for prey. “You will be fine. Give me your wrist.”

She leans back against the table, cringing away as you close the distance. But she is obedient. Having no other choice, your body hemming her in, she manages to force forward a trembling arm.

Behind you, not that she’s paying attention, I’m trying to project calm and comfort. An endeavour not helped by my subtly moving to cover the door. Trixie alternates between glaring at me and staring at you. Joe only stares, unabashed.

“Good girl.” You take the proffered arm worth one hand on the forearm, one hand behind the elbow preventing her from withdrawing it. Leanne whimpers as you draw it to your upturned lips. “Look at me. Look at my eyes.” She does, wild and wide meeting calm and amused. “I won’t hurt you. You’re giving me a wonderful gift.”

She opens her mouth to speak but only a high-pitched warble comes out. You weren’t really interested in what she had to say so your teeth pierced her, puncturing the artery in her wrist in two places.

It never fails to amaze you, the emergence of blood from the deep, dark places of a living person. You have previously bled someone more to watch than to feed. Somehow, you know, Leanne’s body is fighting to compensate for the great, lazy mouthfuls you are gulping down. An artery constricts here, the skin pales there; blood pressure increases. You can see and feel her body adapt even as it bleeds for you.

Her blood is uncommonly thick, washing over your tongue like thin treacle. She must be a little dehydrated. It makes her satisfyingly rich.

When she has gone white as a sheet behind her makeup you take your final gulp and press your lips to the wound. Perhaps a pint and a half has gurgled its hot way down into your tummy. Nothing is of course visible beneath the swell of fat but she’s there. You can feel her, being rolled over and over by contractions in your stomach.

“Thank you, Leanne,” you say, earnestly gazing into her eyes. Sometimes it’s fun to play the role of Vampire, and she is natural prey if ever you saw it. “You tasted wonderful. Sit down, now.”

Blood returns to her cheeks. She complies, unable to meet your gaze.

One down. A sweet little snack. You turn to regard Trixie.

“How are you so big? How much blood do you drink?!”

Not having expected to leave the house again you’d elected to omit a bra, leaving your still-huge breasts to roll either side of your belly. The comfy jumper hugs each contour of your figure like a familiar lover, showing off curves and rolls that appear and disappear as you move.

You move now, walking to her. She backs away from you and send unwilling to turn her back on me, too. “Oh, this?” A palm impacts the upper slope of your gut, setting boobs and belly jiggling on your bones. “Who said it was just blood?”

Joe breaks in with a voice of wonder. “A thanatophage…” Unobserved I frown, mouth to myself the translation, “death-eater”. Every word Joe says seems to annoy me.

The idea backs Trixie into a wall, where she knocks a brief rain of thumbtacks off a noticeboard. She speaks quickly. “You just want blood now, right?!”

“No,” you say, wistfully. “I want everything.” You’re rather enjoying yourself, tormenting poor Trixie. “… But he’ll be annoyed if I swallowed you whole and alive, so blood will have to do.”

I cough. “It’ll be the first time you listened to me about that.”

“Hush now, sweetie,” you say, throwing me a look with a mock pout over your shoulder, effect offset by a blood-stain at the corner of your mouth. “We’d almost convinced them you were in control.”

“I’ll give blood,” says Trixie urgently. “Please. Like Leanne.”

“Not like Leanne. You didn’t stand still. So I’ll have to chase you.” Your tendrils emerge from your back, pushing slowly into the air like knives into flesh. They curl above your shoulders like a devil and a devil on your shoulders. “And I hate to chase.”

Trixie begins to cover her body with her arms and even one raised leg, but it’s nothing compared to the speed of your strike.. Two dull thuds curdle the air in the room. One tendril emerges from her abdomen, one her inner thigh. Neither shows a speck of silver, the blades buried deep in flesh.

Trixie daren’t even drop to her knees. She lets out a strangled cry and stands very still. Your blades are monstrously sharp, you know, so this is the gentlest evisceration she will ever experience.

One at the hepatic portal vein, one severing the femoral vein. Every drop freed—and there is a lot—is sipped into the slender black cords. Her blood isn’t yet swallowed, but allowed to pool in your tendrils, swelling then into bulbous, heavy sacs.

Trixie slides down the wall, watching her life’s blood be sucked out by two supernatural leeches. She looks up to see them framing you standing there with your slight smile.

Five pints is seriously pushing it but that’s what you take. She looks tall. Sweat beads at her brow by the time you withdraw from her flesh, repairing as they go. The bloated tendrils rear up like two snakes. Then there is a slight shrug and the swelling moves down, chased by a tightening in the tendril.

When the first of her blood slides into you, you make a sound I know well. The first time either of us touches your womanhood you sometimes make this sound. You sense my heartrate spiking.

“Which leaves us,” you say, voice a little husky from the pressure of feeling rich, coppery blood further swelling your middle, “with you, Joe.”

You round on him, tendrils still weaving little figures of eight above you. He’s already drawn himself up to his full height, crooked head at last upright.

“You came here for a reason,” he says, voice shaking with emotion. “The other two were afraid of your gift, but not me. I embrace it! I embrace you!” He throws his arms wide in his self-absorbed passion, eyes shining. “Take me into the darkness with you! Make me like you!”

Until the last line you were rather enjoying his little plea. But the echo of Amelie’s prayer—“make me like you”—causes a ripple of revulsion to roll down your whole body.

Irrational rage boils up inside you, swamping the gentle buzz of gently digesting blood. Something of your black mood must have communicated itself to him as his arms fall uncertainly and he glances at me by the door. He finds even my posture tense, ready.

“Take you into the darkness…”

Your tendrils strike, tying him up between them. More and more black flesh pours out of you. You feel sensitive metres of yourself brushing his skin and clothes as you wrap and wrap him up, from head to arms by his side to hips to legs. The only scrap of his body that is not cocooned is at the throat.

With a tw useitch of your will you hoist him into the air. He can make no sound against the binding cords of darkness but Leanne screams, and Trixie would too if she had the energy. His black sarcophagus rotates and hovers right in front of you.

When you bite he makes no sound, can make no movement. Like anyone, his heart forces blood down your wide-open throat. It’s not enough. With a sound like creaking leather your tendrils snake around his legs, squeezing tighter and tighter with inhuman strength until the bone audibly splinters. Whether from fear or from squeezing him like a tube of toothpaste, more of him flows really into your mouth.

It’s still not enough. His thighs and hips are crushed next. You wring him dry, sucking down pint after pint of his blood until there is no him left, just a desiccated bundle of snapped twigs in a waistcoat. His relinquished soul cannot pass your tendrils but at the gap where your mouth stands open. His essence is pulled though that fanged and vengeful portal and sucked down into your depths to drown and burn and nourish you.

But you don’t take the body.

The spasm of anger passed, you toss away the once-human. Two pairs of horrified eyes follow it where it lands crumpled in a corner, but not mine. I’m right there with you, my arms enfolding you. You lean into the warmth and realise you’re sobbing. Tears and blood vie for space on your face.

“Shh, it’s okay, Rey. What’s the matter, love?”

“I just want it to be over. Start again.”

“You will, love. You will.”

I hold you a long while as you calm down, stroking your hair and telling you everything will be alright.

When you’re composed we look up. Leanne has Trixie on her feet but is struggling to manoeuvre her towards the door. I cast them a wan smile.

“Bet you got more than you bargained for.”

“Let us go and we’ll not tell anyone,” says Leanne. I nod. Next to me you hiccup. Your stomach feels like a cannonball beneath your fat. Your distract yourself by poking and rubbing it.

“I know you won’t.” I then pronounce four addresses, two local and two elsewhere in the country. Leanne goes pale; Trixie is already there. “Keep the secret. And we’ll see you next week.”

Leanne gasps. Even Trixie manages to shake her head. “You can’t be—”

“We had a deal. This time you learned two things: vampires exist; and you should show respect. You two did, so you survived.” I glare at the two, putting all my authority into it. “Next time you will learn more, and profit by it. You will come to no harm.” When I turn to look at you my voice is warm and gentle. “Raven is no monster. Perhaps you’ll learn that, too.”

“I want to go home.”

“As soon as we get this girl some help.”

“Oki.”

You clean yourself up and I support Trixie to somewhere she and Leanne will be able to attract help. Leanne keeps a wide distance from you but you’re slightly bashful and hiccupy. Kind of hard to remain too scared.

It’s not long before we’re home. We wrap ourselves up in bed and watch videos on your phone. I stroke your back fondly. Your stomach gurgles constantly, fighting and winning against its liquid contents. The sound is soothing to us.

“I kept to the diet,” you say, with a tiny smile.

I kiss you.