Redeemers of the Fallen 3

Chapter 3: The Left Hand of Darkness

Mirela gasped as she jerked awake. The nightmare visions occupying her vivid dreams felt more real than waking and all of them were filled with the most grotesque, distasteful images. Mirela was certain that terrible deeds were committed at Sidexes last night, the kind of ghastly events that occurred during Mirela’s first ill-fated stay at that haunted castle four-hundred years before. The cycle of exploitation, violence and death kept repeating itself in an endless circle but Mirela intended to break its perpetuity for good.

Mirela heard footsteps from up above as crumbles of dust and sand filtered down from the ceiling where directly above her Mirela’s sister tread upon stones untouched for centuries. Mirela left behind the empty case to baffle future archaeologists with its anachronism and climbed the stairwell up to the sanctuary. The chapel had once again been plunged into the dark of night except for the scant flickering illumination from one of the candles Mirela used during last night’s ritual. Mirela used her powerful, probing mind to verify the integrity of the wards she placed around the perimeter of the church last evening. No soul, living or undead, had attempted entry during their day of slumber though Bianca ventured outside the grounds of the ancient church at least once.

Bianca had awoken with delirious screaming caused by the lingering torments of her nightmarish memory that filled her sleeping mind with horror. She thrashed and trembled on the floor for several minutes before recalling the events of the previous night. Mirela’s calm, loving presence and a comforting sense of safety had become concepts synonymous to Bianca. Feverish, sweating, and nearly hysterical, Bianca called her sister’s name in desperation but Mirela didn’t come no matter how loudly she cried. A sudden sickness overwhelmed Bianca before her terror could. A horrible wave of nausea twisted Bianca’s stomach into knots and had her retching and coughing up a thick, foul bile.

Bianca fled outdoors before she accidentally defiled the sanctity of this church with her revolting discharge of sickly humors. Her sight blinded by the dying orange light of day, Bianca covered her eyes as she fell forward onto the sand and vomited a thick black slime onto the arid desert floor. Bianca didn’t finish spewing until all the contents of her stomach were emptied.

Soon thereafter, the same dark substance spilled from Bianca’s other orifices and she had no choice but to squat indignantly over a shady patch of desert under the church’s shadow until every foul drop had been expelled from her system. The resulting mess was disgusting to view but once she’d emptied her stomach, bladder, and bowels of all emissions, Bianca couldn’t remember ever feeling so cleansed of impurities. Purging her insides made Bianca more refreshed than ever, like she had been transformed into an entirely new woman.

More aching and twisting in her gut worried Bianca that a second round of sickness was incoming. But after analyzing the growling and churning in her stomach Bianca realized with delight that she was starving for food. Real, human food. Suddenly ravenous, Bianca returned indoors and found some tinder to strike so the night’s encroaching darkness could be combated by candlelight. She rifled through her sister’s belongings in search for whatever sustenance Mirela had stashed away.

Bianca’s curiosity was piqued when she peered into Mirela’s travel pack and marveled at the strange, alien objects found within. She located Mirela’s smartphone though she had no clue what the object’s purpose was. When powered down the phone just looked like some dull rectangular object of materials unknown. A handheld GPS device chirped and illuminated to life when Bianca’s finger brushed against the power button and she yelped and tossed the object away in surprise.

Mirela smiled fondly as she watched Bianca from the top of the stairwell. Her brave sister immediately overcame her initial fear of electronics as she held the tablet up too close to her face and inspected its onscreen map with great interest. Mirela had almost forgotten there was still four centuries worth of technological advancements Bianca had to catch up on.

As Mirela drew nearer to Bianca’s dimmed, candlelit profile, she brought a hand up to her mouth to hide her shock. She was left stunned not only by the reminder of her younger sister’s remarkable beauty but also by the unbelievable transformation Bianca’s form underwent after only one day free from demonic possession.

The sharp, curled black horns atop Bianca’s scalp had either retracted back inside her skull or else had crumbled and fallen into forgotten piles of keratin. Bianca’s wicked spiked tail remained though its length had shriveled and the appendage hung limply between her legs like a dead limb. Her hair was restored to complete normality, those long platinum locks once again resembling those that Mirela once adored. Seeing Bianca’s yellow tresses falling in curls down her naked back made Mirela want to smell her hair for some reason, perhaps for no other cause than a simple excuse to have her face nearer to Bianca’s lovely body.

While Bianca’s eyes had returned to a more human shape and her corneas made ivory again, her brilliant blues were lamentably gone forever. The pupils and irises had melded together into dark pools that captured and obliterated any light drawn within them like twin black holes.

The carapace that once covered Bianca’s body had flaked away piece by piece during the day until it no longer layered her entire body like a thin suit but instead left tendrils of black, shell-like armor racing up and down portions of her body. The demonic skin still covered the entirety of Bianca’s abdomen, shoulders, forearms, and the inside of her thighs but the black tendrils merely outlined her breasts, buttocks, and crotch, leaving the skin of her private areas bare and human in appearance as if to highlight her most overtly sexual features. Mirela certainly noticed the discrepancy, her heart racing as she viewed a body she had indecently lusted for so long ago.

Bianca crouched ahead of Mirela completely unaware how prominently this position displayed her sexy backside. Her round bottom looked luscious and full even with her tail tucked demurely between her legs. Above healthily thick thighs, Bianca’s big, tight and toned arsecheeks were split down the middle by a deep, sensuous line. Mirela bit her lip when she imagined pulling back and up on that tail, peeling that crack open, and using her fingers and tongue to investigate the wonders secreted within that valley.

During the possession ritual that bound Bianca’s soul to the Beast’s, demonic runes had been permanently branded across Bianca’s chest while she laid tied to the altar in an unholy chapel and howled in burning pain. But now the rough, shelled layer that shielded the mounds of Bianca’s breasts had crumbled away to reveal that the scar tissue leftover from that terrible sequence of searing and sundering had been healed. However, those evil-looking runes would remain imprinted forever as dark ritualistic tattoos drawn across Bianca’s chest right where her scars had been. The written language of demons used a fell script with twisted, curved patterns that mesmerized as equally as they repulsed. Mirela regretted that no matter what she did Bianca would always be marked by the infernal.

Curiously enough, while three of Bianca’s four extremities no longer resembled her demonic form, her left hand remained a spiny, claw-like talon as if the extremity were not healing at all. This twisted limb made a stark contrast to the perfection of her right hand and her feet with all ten of their cute little pink toes.

Bianca used that disfigured hand to pull the last object from Mirela’s bag, this final discovery a 9mm handgun. Gunpowder was still a relatively new technological development in Europe when Bianca disappeared. Maybe the Beast had encountered modern firearms during the intervening years but since Bianca had no recollection of that time this compact weapon held in her demonic hand was unlike any she had seen before.

“Careful with that,” Mirela warned. “It’s loaded.”

Bianca dropped the gun and jumped back with a curse, irritated with herself that someone had so easily gotten the drop on her. She had become sloppy. Bianca wasn’t particularly surprised when she turned to see Mirela wearing nothing but her boots and underwear with her pale chest and pink nipples bared in full. Her sister had her hand resting on her hip and an amused look on her face.

Those legs, Bianca thought appreciatively. And those small beautiful breasts! It’s like she hasn’t changed at all!

But closer examination showed that was not quite true. Mirela had a pale, sickly pallor to her skin and her eyes looked dark, weary, and tortured. The years had certainly been hard on Mirela even if her beauty had only been magnified with age rather than diminished. Bianca noticed some white scarring on Mirela’s stomach, arms, and thighs from wounds she must have recovered from recently. Bianca wondered if she had been responsible for those damages.

“Mellie,” Bianca sighed with relief to see that it was her beloved sister standing before her. “Was I truly asleep for an entire day? The time seemed to pass in only a minute.”

“We both needed our rest,” Mirela said. “I saw no reason to wake you until you were fully recovered. But now we must make ready to leave this place. You appear much healthier today, by the way.”

“Thanks to you, I am,” Bianca replied gratefully. “I apologize for searching your personal items without your leave. I was trying to find some food. I doubt anyone has hungered as powerfully as I do right now.”

You have no idea, Mirela thought grimly.

Mirela had gone so long without needing solid food for sustenance that she nearly forgot to pack edible items in case she had to care for a newly rescued and restored Bianca. Mirela stuck her tongue out and to the side as she leaned forward and reached deep inside the side pocket of her pack. A moment later she handed her sister a pack of crackers, some sliced bread, a tin of mixed almonds, peanuts, and cashews, and a bag filled with dried meat. Plenty of protein and carbs for a quick supply of energy and nutrients.

“That’s all I have,” Mirela said. “Sorry.”

Bianca didn’t hear her because she was already tearing ravenously into the meat. She rent the dry jerky apart using only her teeth before chewing loudly and thoroughly on her gourmet dinner. Bianca waved away her sister’s concern and spoke through a mouth filled with meat.

“What about you?” Bianca mumbled with flecks of jerky stuck between her teeth. “Hungry?”

“I ate last night,” Mirela explained. “I’m not feeling very hungry right now. You can eat it all, don’t worry.”

“Suit yourself,” Bianca replied with a shrug while she stuffed crackers in her mouth. “What were those strange objects I found in your bag?”

“That weapon you were just inspecting is called a handgun,” Mirela said as she squatted down beside her sister. “Very dangerous. Best for you to leave that alone until you understand the operation of a firearm. The smaller object is a cellular phone. It allows you to communicate with other phones over great distances and also provides access to information and other resources through radio signals floating invisible through the air. The device can also be used to track your location which is the reason I left it off these last several days. The handheld GPS you turned on communicates with machines called satellites that orbit this planet far above the atmosphere. The GPS leverages satellite positioning and geo-location to triangulate your precise location so you can know exactly you are in the world.”

“Magic?” Bianca asked as her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Technology,” Mirela corrected her sister. “Of the most sophisticated kind. Indistinguishable from magic, really. In some ways more powerful.”

“Everything in this new world is so strange to me,” Bianca said quietly as she looked up at Mirela with tear-rimmed eyes. Mirela’s heart skipped a beat at seeing the confusion and vulnerability visible in the dark pools of Bianca’s eyes. She had never seen Bianca like this before, so helpless and reliant on another. “How long have I been gone for, Mellie?”

Here it comes, Mirela thought.

“It has been nearly four-hundred years since the day we first arrived at Sidexes, sister,” Mirela answered bluntly.

Bianca’s eyes widened in shock and her legendary confidence wavered before faltering completely. She lowered her face in grief. Everything she had ever known or loved was gone. Except Mirela.

“What of our sisters?” Bianca said after a time. “Loredana and Bela? They must be gone then?”

Mirele knew this question would be coming and she already had her lie prepared. Oftentimes deception proved the simplest and easiest path forward.

“They are dead,” Mirela said with a sigh of resignation. “Loredana and Bela never made it out of Sidexes alive.”

Bianca’s eyes widened and once her bewilderment dissipated her face reassumed its mask of grief as she buried her face in her hands. Mirela could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d seen her sister weep and that sum included her formative toddler years when Bianca was a rapscallion always getting into scrapes she barely managed to escape from. This emotional woman who wept constantly was unknown to Mirela but if there was any person who deserved a good cry it was Bianca.

Mirela knelt beside her sister and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Mirela’s flesh was soft and yielding against Bianca’s where her sister’s skin remained tough and chitinous. Bianca fell fitfully into her sister’s embrace and she sobbed against Mirela’s shoulder until the bare flesh became soaked with her tears. They held each other for several minutes while Mirela soaked in the warmth of Bianca next to her, her lovely yellow-haired darling who was more beautiful and sad than Mirela remembered. Mirela nestled herself into the hair she’d dreamed about for centuries and breathed in her truest love deeply with a happy, satisfied sigh. Bianca smelled the exact same as in Mirela’s memories, a scent Mirela could lose herself in for hours.

With her sister snug against her shoulder, Mirela’s face was nuzzled alongside Bianca’s neck. Excitement not unlike sexual desire flared within Mirela as she sensed the heated blood coursing through the veins in Bianca’s throat. So delicious, so near… No living creature in this world could possibly taste as wonderful as her Bianca.

How simple it would be to take a quick bite. Just a nip. The woman Mirela had loved for an eternity was right here for the taking. Bianca might not even notice what was happening until after she’d totally succumbed. Mirela could please Bianca so well that she wouldn’t even care about the life being stolen from her veins.

An eon ago, the sisters had been sexually attracted to each other. Mirela could use that vulnerability to her advantage and allow her sister to indulge in sinful incest like she never had before, all while Mirela fed deeply from her and made Bianca a sexual thrall enslaved by her own desires. The siblings had consummated their forbidden love once before, until the shame of that passionate coupling led Mirela to turn away from her sister’s love like a fool and leave them both broken-hearted. Then Bianca got married, Mirela didn’t, and that was that.

But after their plunge into darkness, the oldest Pierocent sisters made love to each other countless times. After years of repressing the overbearing sexual energy existing between them, the newly corrupted vampire and demon attacked each other like rabid beasts. Every evening the dark souls spent their midnight hours biting, licking, grinding, and fucking like animals whenever they weren’t torturing hapless mortals with the rest of their sisters. But that creature wasn’t truly Bianca. Maybe that wasn’t truly Mirela either.

Mirela’s eyes turned red and her fangs elongated to fine bone-tipped points but she clenched and strained her jaw as she fought back against her own blood-lust. In desperation, Mirela bit down on her tongue until her own sweet blood spilled forth. If only her own vitality could nourish her undead greed without resorting to the thievery of blood and life from innocents. The familiar metallic flavor alone would have to sustain her, like drinking decaf coffee when only regular sufficed to invigorate the senses. Mirela’s fangs retracted as her unnatural desire fled but inevitably her unquenchable thirst would return again and after being deprived a meal her monstrous hunger would only worsen.

Mirela settled for kissing Bianca in the hollow of her neck right above the vein of her jugular. She moaned in her throat when her lips tasted the delightful flavor of her sister’s flesh for the first time in forever. Bianca cried and held Mirela tight enough to squeeze while Mirela kissed her way up the side of Bianca’s neck to her cheek and then further upward to her radiant golden hair. Bianca once claimed to be in love with Mirela and promised she would never leave her. Mirela feared that affirmation would be put sorely to the test over these next few days.

“But you’re still here, Mellie,” Bianca said as she pulled away. “You would never leave me.”

Bianca held Mirela by her cheeks and looked at her with such a deep, powerful longing that it made Mirela’s heart overflow with love right as Bianca pulled her into the most passionate, soulful kiss Mirela had ever shared with anyone. Their moist lips mashed together as they frantically tangled their arms around each other, each sister touching and stroking the hair, neck, and face of their long-lost sibling as if to confirm this wonderful reality. Their passion never ignited intensely enough for their soft lips to part but their mouths held together for an extended period while they reacquainted their estranged lips. Mirela wished this moment could last forever but after a few minutes of lips locking and hands roaming, Bianca reluctantly withdrew.

“How are you still here, Mellie?” Bianca asked desperately as she shook Mirela by her shoulders. “How is such a thing possible?”

“I found other ways to sustain myself over these long years,” Mirela explained. “I learned how to tap into certain powers and used that access to defend myself in this godforsaken world.”

“So you are a witch?” Bianca asked bluntly.

“Some might name me so,” Mirela answered diplomatically.

Bianca thought this information over for a moment before replying, “You must be a good and kind witch then. Only such one holds the power to banish a demon back to Hell.”

The mask of neutrality Mirela wore crumpled for an instant at Bianca’s bitter misunderstanding before Mirela’s expression reasserted its balance.

“It is as you said,” Mirela said quietly.

“I’m remembering more things,” Bianca whispered. “After Sidexes. Terrible, evil things. And in every one of those memories it was I perpetrating such unconscionable atrocities.”

“That wasn’t you, Bianca,” Mirela assured her. “I know that wasn’t you. I will not allow you to blame yourself for the way you’ve been used and abused.”

“Thank you for that, Mellie,” Bianca said as she clutched Mirela more snugly. “Have you been looking for me all this time?”

“I lost your trail for quite a long period,” Mirela admitted. “The centuries we were separate were agonizing. But I never stopped looking for you. I never gave up hope. I knew there had to be some way to bring my sister back.”

“Oh, Mellie!” Bianca sobbed again as she bear-hugged her older sister.

Mirela couldn’t possibly articulate the extent to which she cherished this embrace but nevertheless she counted the seconds exactly until five minutes had passed. Night had fallen upon this land and they had no time left to spare. They had to reach their destination with plenty of hours remaining before the break of dawn.

“We must travel by night,” Mirela finally said as she reluctantly disengaged from her sister’s embrace. “It is time now for us to leave. The rest of our lives await.”

Bianca nodded and rose to her feet, her tail still dangling between her legs though the appendage had become shriveled and the spikes were fleshy rather than being razor-sharp to the touch. Though of a smaller, slightly wider stature than Mirela, Bianca stood proud and tall beside her sister’s height. Bianca’s ample chest was bared outward without care or notice for her own nakedness, already back to her old self now that she had wept all the pain away. Bianca looked down with dismay at the tendril remains of the carapace lining her body and stared even longer at her black-and-red, taloned hand as she twisted the wrist of that alien limb back and forth. Her mouth turned with disgust.

“Will I always appear so monstrous?” Bianca wondered.

“I do not believe so,” Mirela answered. “Though it may be some time yet before you’re fully healed. The progress of your recovery thus far has been remarkable but I very much doubt you will be restored to your old self overnight. This is yet another logical reason for us to travel by cover of darkness lest your temporary appearance draw us unwanted attention.”

The sisters worked quickly together to pack Mirela’s few belongings. Bianca followed Mirela outside the church and shivered when the night air of the desert chilled her naked skin. The black carapace at least lent her the appearance of clothing though it didn’t truly cover anything and also left Bianca exposed to the elements.

Mirela didn’t bother dressing herself yet, preferring for now to remain clad only in her boots and underwear. Bianca couldn’t tear her eyes away from the softness of Mirela’s naked breasts or the way those small bulbs bounced ever so slightly as Mirela pranced haughtily about the sandy domain. Mirela stood atop a dune in a regal and strong pose, her hand resting upon her hip and her waist slightly tilted while she gazed up at the waxing gibbous moon shining brightly above the stark desert. The strip of black fabric comprising the rear of Mirela’s underwear barely covered her pale white cheeks and Mirela’s exaggerated pose offered Bianca the most tantalizing glimpse yet of Mirela’s perfectly tight little arse.

Good God, how badly I wanted to love and squeeze that scrumptious bottom when we were teenagers, Bianca recalled.

Unlike her other lost images, Bianca had remembered with perfect clarity tickling, stroking, and clenching Mirela’s supple bottom-cheeks over Mirela’s weak protestations while Mirela giggled, sighed, and moaned into Bianca’s ear trying not to awaken their parents. They kissed like madwomen, both of them trying to convince themselves they were only practicing for the boys but each knowing the indecent, wondrous truth behind the lustful words and motions each sister expressed to the other.

Oh, but to be eighteen and carefree again with a girl so marvelously beautiful and so deliciously curious lying next to me in bed, Bianca thought.

Those days were like dust now, the past as faded and unreliable as Bianca’s memory. But somewhere those two young women who were foolishly in love still existed, even after centuries of trauma and heartbreak. Bianca stared back at the moonlit profile of Mirela’s pale nudity and knew for certain she wanted this woman more than she’d wanted anything in her entire life.

Bianca wore a perplexed expression as she watched Mirela carry her bags over to a strange wheeled contraption parked behind the church and gingerly lift her luggage into the backseat. The vehicle resembled an odd sort of carriage but there were no reins to drive horses by the bit nor an elevated front-seat for the driver. A pane of glass separated the cab from the front of the vehicle but the ceiling was open-air with only two thick metal bars connecting the front and back of the carriage. When Mirela turned and spotted the bewildered look on Bianca’s face she couldn’t help from bursting out with laughter.

“I keep forgetting how much you’ve missed,” Mirela said once she’d recovered from her uncharacteristic bout of giggling. Bianca really was having an effect on her.

When was the last time I ever laughed without mirth or malice? thought Mirela.

“The most advanced form of land transportation you recall is probably a horse-driven carriage,” Mirela said. “Now we have machines to take us everywhere, whether by land, by sea, or by air.”

“By air?” Bianca asked with wonderment.

“Just you wait,” Mirela replied with a grin. “You’ll see.”

“Where are we anyway?” Bianca asked after throwing the cases she’d elected to carry atop the piled load in the backseat. The nearly full moon shining above them cast an otherworldly glow over the sand tides of the dark and eerily silent desert.

“The kingdom of Jordan,” Mirela answered. “Near the Holy Land. Jesus Christ was born not fifty leagues from where we stand.”

“And where is our destination?” Bianca said.

“One step at a time,” Mirela replied evasively. “For tonight, we are merely seeking accommodations through tomorrow evening. I already have rooms reserved for us.”

“At the nearest village inn?” Bianca wondered.

“Something like that,” Mirela said cryptically as her face broke into a smirk.

Before entering the vehicle, Mirela pulled two pieces of long dark cloth from a bag sitting atop the rest of the luggage. She handed one to Bianca and demonstrated to her sister how to wear it over her hair so the veil obscured her face while the rest of the cloth hung down over Bianca’s body to cover every spot of bare skin. Mirela also gave Bianca a comfortable pair of sandals to wear beneath the veiled shroud. Mirela wore a similar dress but kept her face visible.

“This kingdom isn’t as strict about regulating women’s clothing as other Muslim countries,” Mirela explained as she helped Bianca dress. “Still, none of the locals will look at us twice for wearing these. Rather regressive really and I pity the poor women who are forced to wear these by patriarchal, sanctimonious asses but for our purposes of concealment I must concede that these will provide a magnificent disguise.”

Once they were packed and ready to leave, Mirela climbed into the driver’s side seat and directed Bianca into the passenger seat. She even buckled the seat-belt for her sister, who flinched slightly at the abrasive clicking noise. Bianca watched with utter fascination as Mirela produced an odd-shaped key which she inserted into a slot located beside the wheel and other strange levers and dials directly in front of her. Bianca was no fool so Mirela explained with exact detail each action she performed throughout the ignition process.

Besides possessing a high intellect, Bianca was a quick learner. Unlike Mirela, whose greatest strengths lay in strategizing, planning, and logistical methods, Bianca was a woman of action. Mirela had every confidence her sister would easily acclimate to this strange, unknown world she had been dropped back into.

Bianca jumped with surprise when Mirela turned the key and the engine kicked on with a loud roar. Mirela laughed with such delight at her reaction that Bianca couldn’t help joining in with her. Bianca’s exuberance only grew as the vehicle reached high speeds and wind whipped across her face. Mirela shook her head and giggled as Bianca threw her hands in the air as if she were riding the Switchback Railway at Coney Island.

Mirela operated the vehicle with such assuredness that Bianca could scarcely keep up with her exacting instructions. She made turns, slowed, and accelerated effortlessly all without missing a beat during her impromptu driving lesson. Granted, this was not especially surprising considering Mirela was the most competent woman Bianca had ever known.

Bianca wondered for the hundredth time since last night’s exorcism whether her sister’s feelings for her were the same as before. Did Mirela still experience the burning passion that comprised both the truest, deepest sense of love for the greatest woman you’ve ever known as well as the most profound, uncontrollable lust for your own flesh and blood? Bianca’s feelings certainly hadn’t changed. If anything, they’d only grown stronger the more time she spent with Mirela. Did Bianca’s older sibling go to all the trouble of redeeming her simply because of their sisterly bond or was there something more? Bianca dispelled such indecent thoughts with a shake of her head and listened instead to the melodious sound of Mirela’s lovely voice even if she was only using it to pontificate on the functions and operations of pistons, gaskets, and other vehicular assemblies.

Mirela consulted her GPS device as she steered, skipping over sand dunes until she reached a paved highway. After another hour of driving, a dull glow in the distance slowly materialized. The brightness strengthened the closer the sisters neared to the source of the unexplained illumination which did not appear to be either lunar or solar in nature. The light pollution increased in intensity, blocking the very stars in the sky until after cresting a giant dune Bianca gasped at the sight of a huge city lying before them.

Mirela veered into the city and skillfully avoided the scant nighttime traffic until she found a place to park near to both the hotel and the nearest airport. Bianca grabbed as much luggage as she could carry from the backseat and followed Mirela warily through the alien streets. Though the city slept restfully with hardly a living soul walking, Bianca’s eyes were left dazed by the towering brightness of the immense, exotic buildings surrounding her.

Bianca once thought a town of one thousand was a densely populated settlement but this metropolis sprawled in every direction and disabused that erroneous notion. This Middle Eastern city offered sights, smells, and other myriad sensations that Bianca had never before experienced. Bianca became so distracted from looking up with wonder at every neon sign that she never noticed the dust cloud of crumbled black pellets trailing behind her after every step as she shed the last vestiges of her demonic skin.

A male voice shouted at them from behind and both women spun around to see a young brown-skinned man with a thin mustache and beard pointing his machine gun at them and shouting in a harsh foreign language. Mirela called back to him using the same strange language and after a moment the man approached cautiously with his gun still lifted in their direction. After speaking with Mirela, the nightwatchman seemed to accept that they were just two simple women with somewhere to be after curfew. Yet he kept his weapon drawn and looked at them with askance as if he expected some sort of bribe. Bianca’s concealed hand curled into a tense clawed fist when she guessed at what currency this policeman expected to extort from two women at this late hour.

Mirela posed provocatively for the policeman by lifting the hem of her shroud until her bare leg showed up to her knee. The policeman’s dark brown eyes widened and he nodded fervent agreeance with whatever Mirela told him next. He looked around the block quickly and once he confirmed there were no other streetwalkers he jerked his head and pointed at a dark alley between two buildings.

Bianca grabbed Mirela’s arm and hissed quietly, “Mellie, don’t!”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Mirela assured her sister with a sly wink. “This won’t be more than a minute.”

Joy swelled throughout Bianca’s being at hearing Mirela refer to her as ‘sweetheart’. No one had ever made her feel this warm and gooey inside, a sensation that was most uncomfortable for such a proud, emotionally guarded woman. Bianca simply had to accept that she was absolutely hopeless for this woman and still pining for a lost love that could never be. But then again in this future world Bianca by all accounts had been dead for four-hundred years. Who among the living could possibly be aware of she and Mirela’s family relation? Perhaps they were no more than two adult women with a very intimate relationship rather than just sisters, bound together by far more than just family blood.

Mirela led the policeman into the shadowed alley, walking along with placid obedience in front of him but making sure that even her burka couldn’t conceal the side-to-side wiggle of her hips and bottom. The inexperienced boy practically skipped along as he followed behind her. After they disappeared into the dark, plaster-cracked mouth between two buildings Bianca waited patiently to see if the time-frame Mirela estimated would indeed match her prediction. Sure enough, after just a few seconds Bianca heard a sharp male scream that cut off with a gurgle almost as soon as it sounded. A moment later, Mirela emerged from out of shadow with her head cover lifted while wiping something away from her lips.

“Don’t worry,” Mirela said as she approached Bianca. She kept smacking her lips loudly but otherwise seemed unfazed by her encounter with the watchman. “That one will trouble us no longer.”

“Nicely done, Mellie,” Bianca said with admiration at Mirela’s swift disabling of a potential danger. “You do your sister proud.”

“Let’s arrive at our accommodations first before offering such platitudes,” Mirela responded with a smile of pleasure and a gentle kiss upon Bianca’s cloth-covered cheek. “But thank you anyway.”

Mirela took Bianca by her disfigured hand and gripped its claw tightly while smiling at her sister. The silent communication between them told Bianca that no matter how hideous her appearance might be Mirela would always love and cherish her. Mirela made a point to hold Bianca’s monstrous limb while they walked and the kind gesture only made Bianca feel like crying again. Bianca hated how her emotions had ruled over her countenance ever since her revival but all the same she loved how vulnerable and open she allowed herself to be with Mirela. Bianca could never be like that with anyone else.

After only a few minutes walk down an ancient-looking boulevard the sisters arrived hand-in-hand at a bright, shining building taller and greater than any Bianca had seen before. Even Castle Sidexes, the largest structure Bianca previously visited, was dwarfed by comparison. Columned ramps circled round a giant fountain in the courtyard leading up to the large, golden main doors of the hotel lobby. A smiling, uniformed attendant standing in wait outside the lobby received their belongings and placed them on a rollercart after receiving a ticket and a wad of paper bills from Mirela’s pocket.

Mirela took Bianca by the arm and explained that it was the man’s job to receive guest’s luggage and deliver their personal effects to their hotel rooms. Bianca couldn’t imagine such a profession, just running up and down stairs all day and night carrying another person’s belongings like a common servant. At least they paid the help now. Bianca never liked how the servants at their old manor were beholden to their masters for all their needs and were allowed none of the freedoms or comforts enjoyed by their lord.

Once inside the hotel, Mirela grabbed the one bag she didn’t leave for the bellhop and excused herself for a moment to use the privy. Bianca waited outside feeling awkward and ridiculous beneath her body-length covering but also terrified that someone might see Bianca’s hideous true form concealed beneath this stupid costume. When Mirela returned a moment later with her hood pulled back to show her face and hair she grinned at Bianca mischievously before pulling her burka up over her head with a flourish and tossing the dress in a nearby bin.

Bianca’s eyes widened with shock at the expectation that Mirela was about to bare herself in public but Mirela’s striptease turned out to be merely a show for Bianca’s amusement. Underneath her burka, Mirela had changed into denim jeans and a tight black tank-top. The outfit caused Bianca’s eyebrow to lift when she noticed how well-defined the curves of Mirela’s chest became when the tight-fitting fabric stretched across Mirela’s bosom. Bianca’s fascination did not escape Mirela’s notice and Mirela purposely puffed her perky chest out as she breathed inward. Now both Bianca’s brows were raised.

“Ah, finally!” Mirela cried out as she threw her arms in the air and relished the cool air-conditioned relief from the arid desert heat. “Central air-conditioning: surely one of mankind’s greatest inventions!”

“You are too silly, sister of mine,” Bianca said teasingly. “But you make me smile.”

Mirela grinned back at Bianca then said gravely, “I’m afraid you must keep your covering enshrouded until we’ve reached the privacy of our rooms. I promise you it won’t be long.”

Bianca thought the entrance alcove was already the most lavish scene she’d encountered but she wasn’t prepared for the sight when she and Mirela entered the hotel lobby. Bianca lifted her head almost straight upward to gaze at tall stone columns reaching skyward to buttress a terribly high ceiling with vaulted arches and walkways on every level between the cyclopean pillars. Hotel room balconies overhung the lobby for so many stories that Bianca could hardly see where they ended. Such a magnificent construction seemed impossible to a woman who for all her gumption and self-assuredness had spent most of life in a rural manor located in a backwater voivodeship of Romania. Now Bianca began to understand why the city folk she’d met seemed so disdainful of country girls like her.

The sisters passed by fountains springing water from Hellenistic statuary and walked over wooden bridges and streams through flowering gardens in full, fragrant bloom. A bright, shimmering reflection from the pendalogues of a crystal chandelier hanging near the reception desk caught Bianca’s eye as she looked around in amazement at the well-lit, beautiful interior of the hotel. At this time of night no one was checking in and guests were obliged to obey the outdoor curfew enforced by the local government unless they had an official escort. For all the opulence of the hotel’s interior, the building felt ghostly in its emptiness. A single clerk standing behind the front desk was the only soul haunting the lobby at this late hour.

The female clerk working late tonight had dark tan skin, midnight-black hair, perfect rosebud lips artificially shaded a deep red hue and a prominent beauty mark on her right cheek. She looked very fit and attractive in her hotel uniform with a white blouse, a navy-blue suit jacket, and a knee-length maroon skirt. The woman smiled warmly as Mirela approached with Bianca trailing trepidatiously behind her. Bianca’s stomach twisted into knots from the anxiety of possibly interacting with a person besides Mirela. She didn’t think she was ready for that yet. The dress code in Western-style locales such as this one was far more liberal than outside these environs and the receptionist spared no more than a glance at either sister’s attire when they approached her.

“Ms. Pierocent,” the woman spoke in heavily accented English. “Another late return? How goes your expedition?”

“Very fruitful, Sefa,” Mirela answered with a sideways glance in Bianca’s direction. “I believe I have everything I need now. Tomorrow evening should be the last night of my stay though I may need to check out before dawn the next day.”

“We shall accommodate a preferred guest of your stature in any way we can,” Sefa replied with a polite bow of her head before turning to Bianca. “Have you found a friend?”

Mirela looked furtively toward Bianca who stood frozen to her spot in silent awkwardness to Sefa’s scrutinizing regard. Bianca thought Sefa and Mirela were speaking in English but she only knew a scattering of words and phrases from that language and anyway this modern dialect sounded completely foreign to her. French, German, Romanian, and some Dutch had been Bianca’s only lingual masteries during her noblewoman’s training to find a suitable and worthy foreign husband to pair with.

“My friend needs a safe place to stay tonight,” Mirela said to Sefa with her voice lowered conspiratorially. “You know how men can be. I promise she will not cause any trouble.”

“Of course,” Sefa replied courteously. “Just let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“You’ve been a great help these last few weeks, Sefa,” Mirela said as she laid on the charm thickly and stared deeply into Sefa’s almond-colored eyes. “I wish there was more I could do to show my appreciation for your efforts.”

Sefa blushed and suppressed a giggle as she replied, “You know I would do anything for our guests and a lovely young woman like you is no exception. Have a good evening, Ms. Pierocent.”

Mirela turned with a grin and shook her head in disbelief at Sefa’s successful attempt at deflecting Mirela’s flirtations. It was rare indeed to find a woman capable of resisting her advances.

Sefa watched with amused curiosity as Mirela walked out of the lobby with her covered friend in tow. She studied the veiled woman’s awkward motions and observed a hidden grace underlying her movements. Sefa was utterly convinced that a great beauty was secreted beneath the black shroud of Mirela’s companion. The clerk smiled guile-fully thinking it was no surprise that a formidable woman such as Mirela Pierocent would bring a veiled wonder back to her hotel room where she could discover what magnificent treasures lay buried beneath her friend’s restrictive clothing.

Mirela led Bianca through the expanse of the hotel until they reached their suite of rooms. She explained along the way the function and operation of an elevator lift and within minutes Bianca already knew more about levers and pulleys than she would ever need to know. One thing that remained unchanged after all this time was Mirela’s fierce, intimidating intellect and her insatiable thirst for knowledge.

Mirela scanned into their room while going off on a tangent about magnetism and electrical communications through conductive metal wiring that Bianca couldn’t even begin to follow. All Bianca understood successfully enough to bank in her memory was the notion that if you swiped the correctly configured card with its associated door reader it would unlock just the same as any traditional key turning its corresponding lock.

The two penthouse suites Mirela had booked adjoined each other with a locked door separating them in the middle. The rooms were so large and opulent that Bianca wondered how much wealth her sister truly possessed. An entrance-way, living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom lent the appearance more of an apartment or condominium than a hotel room. A few minutes after their arrival the bellhop delivered their luggage and Mirela spent some time unpacking.

“Here, you’re going to like this,” Mirela told Bianca as she assisted her in removing the burka.

Mirela gasped when she saw her sister’s naked body revealed. Even more of the demon skin had flaked away piece by piece until almost her entire form was returned to normal. The only portions of Bianca that still retained any lingering traces of her demonic possession were the pools of her black eyes, the evil runes tattooed over her chest, the shriveled prehensile tail hanging loosely between her legs, and Bianca’s grotesquely clawed left hand. Mirela suspected her eyes and tattoos would unfortunately be permanent fixtures but withheld judgment yet on whether Bianca’s other transfigurations would remain.

This was the first Mirela had seen of her sister’s naked body without red-and-black mottled demon skin concealing the full view of Bianca’s exquisite features. It took all Mirela’s will not to stare gape-mouthed at her sister’s nudity. Bianca had been preserved perfectly inside her demonic shell these last centuries, cocooned like a butterfly trapped in a cycle of hibernation without age or wear affecting the proud insect’s glory. She was just as beautiful as Mirela remembered, more perfect even than in Mirela’s most vivid dreams.

Bianca boasted a luscious, sensual body, curvier and more developed than Mirela’s slimmer frame with globular breasts, thick, shapely thighs, and a delicious bottom which despite its substantial size was kept tight and muscled through rigorous training and exercise. Her arms, shoulders, and legs were comprised of pure, intimidating muscle and her chiseled abdomen rippled with strength every time Bianca’s stomach flexed by accident. Mirela had never known a woman with power or beauty to match Bianca’s; the woman looked built for sex. Not the gentle kind either but hard, sweaty, strenuous, life-changing sex.

Completing Bianca’s image of an immaculate, earthbound goddess was a tuft of thin, wispy yellow hair surrounding the bashful folded petals of Bianca’s pink mound. Mirela imagined that rose-pink flower blossoming open for her and dripping Bianca’s nectar like thick honey. Her mouth started watering and Mirela had to swallow her saliva so she could focus on the task at hand.

Bianca flinched backward in surprise when Mirela turned a knob to start the shower and water hissed loudly through the pipes. Steam misted above the frosted glass lining the shower cutout as hot water sprayed effortlessly from the shower-head. Bianca held out her human hand and felt the hot spray slipping through the gaps between her fingers. She laughed with delight and jumped beneath the shower-head to enjoy the marvel of heated plumbing for the first time.

Mirela grinned at Bianca’s childlike joy and passed her sister a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo, taking care not to douse herself with any water during the hand-off. The compound wouldn’t harm Mirela like some of the more misunderstood vampiric myths supposed but for some reason water did have a discomforting effect on her. Her body collected filth and produced foul odors only after going too long without a feeding so daily cleanliness was far less of a concern for Mirela than obtaining sustenance.

Bianca scrubbed hard at her skin to scour away every last lingering trace of the demonic layer that once encased her. Mirela watched enraptured by Bianca’s urgent rubbing all over her body until nearly all her skin shown creamy, soft, and white rather than ridged and black with the chitinous shell that previously armored her. Yet no matter how hard Bianca scrubbed the soap against her palm, Bianca’s left hand remained entirely unchanged from that of her demonic form. Bianca stared at the sharp talons of her claw with distaste while she rinsed the ineffective soap from her black hand. After giving up on restoring her limb to normal, Bianca focused instead on thoroughly washing her hair until every trace of her former infernal nature was removed. The demon-tail hung loosely between the back of Bianca’s legs as water spilled down its slope and Mirela wondered whether the appendage would require surgery to remove.

Bianca shut the water off herself, then held her arms around her chest as she shiveringly exited the shower stall. Mirela diligently awaited her with warm towels that she dried Bianca with herself. If Bianca noticed that Mirela lingered longer upon her wet bottom and between her legs she gave no sign except to smile when Mirela leaned over to kiss her on the shoulder. Mirela found a complimentary bathrobe hanging in the bathroom closet which she wrapped around Bianca and tied closed while her sister basked in the warmth and comfort of the soft, fluffy material.

“No mirrors?” Bianca wondered as she sought out her own reflection.

“I removed them,” Mirela said as she concocted her next lie. “For your own good. To me you are breathtakingly beautiful but I figured you would want to progress further in your recovery before daring to look upon yourself.”

And I do not want you wondering why your sister casts no reflection, Mirela thought.

“You are so kind and thoughtful,” Bianca told Mirela with an innocent smile that made Mirela die a little more inside knowing she had deceived her love yet again.

Mirela clenched her fingers in Bianca’s and led her by hand to her bedroom. She sat behind her on the bed while she blow-dried Bianca’s hair and then brushed out its golden lengths just like when they were girls. Mirela introduced Bianca to the wonders of mass media and remote controlled television while she applied the customary one hundred strokes of her brush down the thick locks of Bianca’s hair until all her tangles and snarls were undone.

Mirela couldn’t help herself from leaning in closer to inhale her younger sister’s fragrance now that Bianca’s skin and hair had been made clean and sweet-smelling with the shampoos and soaps she used to wash herself. Was Bianca feeling this as well as she, this overwhelming, surging emotion that seemed impossible to ignore or control? Though rapidly depleting her life-sustaining fluids, Mirela’s heart felt full for the first time in her vampiric existence. She kept glancing nervously at the readout on the nightstand alarm clock, worried near fits over how quickly the night was slipping away despite the enjoyment she derived from her sister’s nearby presence.

It’s only two in the morning, Mirela kept telling herself. There is plenty of time remaining until daybreak.

Bianca had adjusted remarkably well to what must have felt like the instant invention of electricity and digital technologies. After an amusing half hour of watching Bianca flip between channels on the television while cursing at the remote, Mirela snatched the uncooperative control from Bianca and turned off the monitor. Bianca’s breath caught when Mirela kissed all over the back of her neck and reached around to untie the front of Bianca’s robe. She slid the white covering down off Bianca’s shoulders until her sister had been completely disrobed. Mirela wrapped her arms around Bianca’s upper chest and buried her face in her neck from behind while she cherished their nearness after being so long apart.

Mirela felt Bianca’s breath rising and falling against her, a sensation that was all she had ever wanted. She heard Bianca’s heart race faster at the touch of her dry lips on Bianca’s shoulder, neck, and back but rather than escalating this sweet moment, Mirela instead laid her sister down on the bed and covered them both up with several layers of soft blankets. She spooned Bianca’s naked body from behind while Bianca backed herself into Mirela to lay her large rear flush against Mirela’s denim-clad crotch. Mirela wished so badly to rub her mons against her sister’s beautifully plush bottom but she restrained herself.

“You must rest, my love,” Mirela advised. “So you may recover sooner. If you happen to awaken during the day, do not leave this room. I will be out attending to certain matters so you will not be able to find me until darkness falls. Please stay here where I know you will be safe.”

“Okay, Mellie,” Bianca said before exhaling a loud, long, jaw-gaping yawn. “If you say so.”

“Don’t worry,” Mirela assured Bianca. “I will let you off your leash soon.”

Mirela cringed at the sudden recollection of the old Countess Turenau dragging her new pet along with violent tugs at her leash. Bianca had been stuck halfway between her human and demon forms back then and she happily walked on all fours with a spiked collar around her neck. The hybrid allowed all manners of dark creatures to have their way with her, truly enjoying the ways her human host’s body was damaged and defiled. Mirela herself had employed Bianca’s services countless times before the infernal being’s escape, the demon’s tongue, claws, and tail filling every opening in Mirela’s undead body in an attempt to fill that empty, dead feeling within the newly turned vampire.

That thing wasn’t her, Mirela told herself for the millionth time. That wasn’t me either.

“I will abscond to my own room then,” Mirela said as she weakened her snuggling hold around Bianca and tried to roll away. Bianca cried out in alarm and grabbed Mirela’s arms so she could wrap them back around herself.

“Don’t leave me,” Bianca begged. “Please, never again. I need you here with me always, Mellie.”

“I’m afraid that would not be appropriate at this time,” Mirela rushed to say.

“Are you ashamed of me?” Bianca asked quietly as she turned to face her sister. “Have I failed you too often? I failed to control my lustful urges that shamed you and turned you away from me. I failed to protect our parents, our sisters, and even myself. I couldn’t even defeat the demon inside me without your aid.”

“Don’t say that!” Mirela cried as she rested her palms over Bianca’s cheeks and looked deep into the black pools of her eyes. “You could never fail me, Bianca. I love you more than life itself. I blame you for nothing. Nothing! If anything, I’m the one who has failed you all.”

“So what now then?” Bianca asked timidly. “I need you, Mellie. I’ve never stopped needing you. I never will. In fact, I feel this more strongly than ever before.”

Bianca’s hand groped for Mirela’s breast but the snatch of her wrist stopped her before Bianca’s palm could make contact with the front of Mirela’s shirt.

“Please,” Mirela begged as she took Bianca’s hand away. “There is no shame remaining in me that would prevent me from loving you. In fact, I don’t believe there was anything to be ashamed of in the first place. But you need to rest, sister. I cannot imagine the ordeal your body has been put through all these years and I worry that if I stay any longer the activities I would engage you in will be anything but leisurely.”

A fire ignited in Bianca’s eyes, their darkness still expressive despite the utter emptiness of her pupils. Bianca grabbed the back of Mirela’s neck and pulled her sister aggressively to her mouth. This time their lips parted easily and without hesitation as Bianca’s warm tongue explored Mirela’s open mouth and danced playfully with her agile tongue while the sisters swapped their saliva back and forth.

The inside of Mirela’s mouth held a familiar metallic flavor that Bianca couldn’t quite place but mostly she tasted just as Bianca remembered. For Mirela, the sweetest fruit or tastiest neck could not compare with the flavor of Bianca upon her lips and tongue as the siblings released centuries worth of repressed desire.

Though disappointed by Mirela’s reticence, Bianca ceded to her sister’s expressed wishes and allowed her hands to wander down no further than Mirela’s face, neck, back, and shoulders. Mirela seriously considered abandoning her plots and nearly gave in to this wondrous being who had curled the powerful arms and legs of her heated body around Mirela to warm her chilled soul. But there was a deeper hunger than just love or lust calling to Mirela and she did not want Bianca anywhere near when she surrendered herself to that sinister consumption. Mirela reluctantly parted from Bianca with a final flick of her tongue across Bianca’s lips. Both sisters gasped for breath as they recovered from their passionate outburst.

“I must leave now or else I will stay with you in this bed forever,” Mirela breathlessly declared, her modest chest heaving with excitement.

“Would that be such an unfortunate fate?” Bianca asked wryly.

“It would be most unfortunate for the schedule I’ve planned for the rest of the week,” Mirela disagreed as she sat up in bed. “Rest now, my darling. I promise to stay here with you until you’ve fallen into slumber.”

Bianca mumbled a disappointed ‘okay’ and rolled over to face the wall. The tension in her aroused body eventually calmed enough that her breathing slowed to a soft, plaintive sigh all while Mirela lovingly stroked her hair from behind. As Mirela suspected would happen, Bianca fell into a deep sleep only a moment later. Mirela kept petting Bianca’s platinum-blonde hair while considering whether to tranquilize her sister again so she wouldn’t awaken during the day. Ultimately Mirela decided it would be wrong to keep her sister constantly drugged for no reason other than for Mirela’s own convenience. She must hope that the exhaustion made inherent by Bianca’s exorcism and subsequent recovery would make her sleep through the entire day.

The bed creaked noisily when Mirela sat up despite her best efforts to extricate herself from Bianca’s bedroom silently. She tiptoed to the door adjoining their hotel rooms and used her key-card to unlock the barrier. Mirela hurriedly dressed herself in a flowing black gown she’d vacuum-sealed in plastic prior to embarking on this trip to prevent any sand particles from contaminating a dress that was more expensive than a brand-new car. With her tight-fitting corset and a hem lined with lace and jewels Mirela appeared ready to proclaim herself a debutante at the latest high-society ball.

The black corset laced across an open back so that Mirela’s skin was exposed from her neck and shoulders down to just above her waist while in the front her low-cut bodice emphasized what chest Mirela did possess. The silk fabric clung so tightly that every ridge and curve on her body was made transparently visible even though her flowing skirt revealed not a single inch of skin from her chest to her ankles. The Italian-made stiletto heels added inches to Mirela’s height and adjusted her posture so her bottom looked prominent and plumply pert.

With a natural ruby-red shading to her lips and tortured dark shadows rimming her eyes Mirela had no need for lipstick or mascara. She applied some foundation and blush to her cheeks to add a healthy glow to her pale skin but otherwise eschewed the use of makeup. It’s not like she could use a mirror to help apply the myriad paint and pastes that women use these days anyway.

One last check on Bianca showed the gorgeous blonde sprawled widely across her bed while tucked beneath the covers. She was dead asleep and snoring loudly. Mirela smiled upon hearing that familiar, comforting noise and her gaze wandered to the alarm clock a final time. There was still almost four hours left until sunrise but Mirela had no time to waste. She must hunt quickly.

That nightwatchman from earlier had been but a trifling snack. Mirela had to eliminate him quickly to avoid arousing the suspicion of Bianca or any other passersby and only had one spare moment to feed. Call it more of an appetizer than an entrée. Mirela needed to keep her strength up for what was to come; the ordeal of combat with Bianca’s demon and the ensuing exorcism left Mirela feeling weakened and drained. The blood supply she’d brought along helped but ultimately proved insufficient for aiding in Mirela’s full recuperation. She needed something fresh to feed upon.

Mirela wondered if she should proposition Sefa first and find out when her work shift ended. With Mirela’s luck it would be after the break of day. Sefa was a gorgeous, delicious-looking young woman and Mirela would love taking her but assaulting one of the hotel’s most attractive employees seemed too great a risk since she planned on residing here for one night longer. Mirela decided to try the 24-hour hotel lounge where an easy mark could always be found. Man or woman, Mirela didn’t care who they were as long as she ate. Mirela switched off the artificial light of the bedside lamp, leaving her sister to slumber in darkness while Mirela swiftly exited the room and swooped downstairs.

xxxxx

Rachael sat at the bar in the hotel lounge sipping from her mostly full glass of red wine and wearing a discontented frown. In order to save costs, the members of her expedition had been forced to share rooms with four or even five persons sharing one suite, both males and females together. Her temporary roommates spent most of this evening getting slowly drunk by passing around bottles of a locally-made spirit called arak. Rachael left the scene after their inebriated game of strip poker got too racy for her prudish tastes.

Rachael just wanted to sleep and rest her sore back and ass after a long, hard day spent beneath a mercilessly hot sun while she crouched over burning sand and sifted fruitlessly through ancient layers of dirt and dust. But apparently a good night’s sleep was asking far too much.

Rachael was a young American woman in her mid-twenties who wore her chestnut-brown hair curly and long and augmented her poor vision with large, thick-lensed eyeglasses. She normally wore contacts but had already taken the lenses out for the night before she fled her room. Rachael knew she wasn’t exactly unattractive but never considered herself much of a looker either. Her body was neither really slim or fat, just kind of stuck right in between those extremes. Rachael thought her face was too plain-looking and her nose much too large. She plucked the hairs on her upper lip every single day to prevent a thin black mustache from forming.

Rachael graduated at the top of her high school class in Maine and was later admitted to Harvard where she double-majored in cultural anthropology and archaeology. She was in the midst of earning her masters at Cambridge but took a leave of absence for a semester to join this British expedition which would be her first real archaeological dig. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was Rachael’s favorite movie and Harrison Ford holding a whip and wearing a fedora indeed the primary reason Rachael first became interested in archaeology.

Rachael was so certain she would love this experience but quickly found the realities of archaeology didn’t quite match up to what she had read in her books and certainly didn’t resemble anything from movies. Her teammates annoyed the hell out of her, the professor leading the expedition was an old creep who kept hitting on girls forty years younger than him, and all these trillions of insufferable sand particles were really pissing her off with how they got in everywhere. She’d probably still be cleaning the fine grains out of her cooch weeks after she returned to England.

Rachael wasn’t much of a drinker but she needed something to do after leaving behind the book she’d been reading in her hotel room. She had just arrived at a really good part in her trashy romance novel but there was no way in hell she was going back for it now. Eve, Cathrynn, and Jonas had been engaged in a three-way make-out session when she left and Rachael had no desire to find out how their tryst had progressed from there. Her rude classmates had completely forgotten she was in the same room. Rachael stormed out on them still wearing her nightclothes (black leggings and a long white t-shirt) and slammed the door behind her dramatically as she went. Rachael spent an hour nursing her one drink before deciding she would head back up there and tell everyone to fuck off so she could sleep. She didn’t give a damn what kind of shenanigans they were up to.

Rachael fumed for a while longer until she drank her last sip of wine. She was just about to pay her tab and lurch her way upstairs and that’s when she saw her. Rachael’s heart stopped for a few beats before racing excitedly as a dark-haired, exquisitely-dressed woman strutted into the lounge with an air of confidence and authority that Rachael could never project herself. The newcomer scanned the lounge taking in the few alcoholics and insomniacs still remaining until her gaze settled upon Rachael.

Rachael nearly ducked behind her chair when the woman approached her. She was so pale and beautiful, Rachael had never seen anyone who could compare. Rachael had never been much for fashion but the bejeweled corset and gown the mystery woman wore was quite obviously of outrageous expense. The woman’s breasts weren’t large but the opening made through her lacy bodice showed a lot of cleavage. A lot of cleavage. Rachael couldn’t stop staring at the deep cleft between those two yummy-looking bulges.

Did I just use the word ‘yummy’ to describe another woman’s tits? Rachael thought. What the hell is wrong with me?

This beauty should have turned every head in the lounge but strangely only Rachael seemed to notice her. Rachael felt butterflies fluttering in her stomach along with a steady drum pounding in her chest as the woman sat on the stool next to Rachael and ordered a martini.

After relaxing back in her chair and growing bored waiting for her drink to be made, the pale woman turned to regard Rachael who timidly looked away from the woman’s penetrating gaze. Rachael guessed this woman couldn’t be more than five or ten years older than her but those deep brown eyes looked ancient and knowing as if they belonged to a far older woman. Rachael had never been attracted to her fellow ladies except in the most basic and unexplored bi-curious sense but this impossibly gorgeous woman had Rachael rethinking not just her sexuality but her entire worldview.

“Greetings, I am Mirela,” the woman introduced herself as she extended her hand.

Rachael nervously took the soft, delicate hand in hers and was surprised by how cold this Mirela’s fingers and palm felt. The older woman spoke with a slight accent that Rachael couldn’t quite place, as if the inflection had once been more pronounced but years of extensive travel and speaking different languages had dulled the foreign cadence of her speech.

“Rachael,” she replied before looking down with surprise that their hands were still clasped together long after their introductions had concluded. In fact, Mirela’s thumb was stroking the back of Rachael’s hand and making the schoolgirl’s skin tingle wherever she touched.

“Ah, thank you,” Mirela said to the bartender after finally breaking her grasp on Rachael’s hand so she could pass the server a bill. She sipped from her cocktail before speaking again. “What are you doing here so late at night, Rachael? An American in Amman, no less.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Rachael managed to exhale after having her breath stolen away. “Roommates are assholes.”

Ah, feeling particularly articulate tonight, eh Rach? Rachael thought with embarrassment as she cursed herself in the British fashion.Bloody idiot.

“Most unfortunate,” Mirela agreed. “That is why I always prefer traveling alone. Are you here on business, Rachael? Or pleasure?”

Rachael realized it was an innocent question but Mirela’s mesmerizing eyes lit up brightly at the mention of pleasure. Rachael closed her legs together instinctively as a thrilling sensation raced from her chest down through her stomach and then most regrettably continued lower to spark within her loins.

“I’m here on an archaeological expedition sponsored by my university,” Rachael explained. “Uhhh, so, after years of extended droughts and erosion in this region, ancient structures that were buried beneath the sand a super long time ago have started to be uncovered. The burials helped preserve the interior of these buildings immaculately so I’m helping my professor dig them up to find out what’s inside them.”

“What a coincidence!” Mirela said with a merry, chiming laugh that made Rachael’s heart swell. “I just visited one of the sites that has recently been unearthed. I am a purveyor of all things ancient and valuable and I make it a point to be nearby whenever incredible finds of this nature are discovered.

“So you’re like a treasure hunter or something?” Rachael asked excitedly, the image of Mirela wearing a hat and whip with nothing else suddenly prominent in her mind.

“Nothing so grand or adventurous, I assure you,” Mirela said with an amused shake of her head.

Mirela took the metal cocktail stick out of her drink and slowly curled her tongue around the impaled olive. She sucked the small fruit into her mouth and took another sip of her martini with a pleasurable sigh accompanying the indulgence of her libation. Rachael thought she might die on the spot.

“I’m more of a glorified art dealer than anything,” Mirela continued. “However, I was indeed the first one in almost two-thousand years to step inside the sanctuary of one of the first Christian churches ever built. There’s not many who can make such a claim.”

“Wow!” Rachael marveled. Feeling history like that, really feeling it, was the exact thing that made her so fascinated with this field of study in the first place. “I wish I could have seen it.”

“I took some pictures,” Mirela said as she retrieved a phone from her pocket. “Would you like to see?”

“Oh yes, please!” Rachael begged.

Mirela ignored dozens of text messages from someone named Eduard asking her location and pulled up her photo album instead. Rachael ooh-ed and ahh-ed over striking imagery taken within a Christian church nearly as old as that religion’s namesake. She only wished the pictures hadn’t all been taken at night when the light from the camera’s flash still wasn’t bright enough to reveal the finer details adorning the artifice of the church.

As Mirela scrolled through her photo archive, her finger “slipped” and she accidentally pulled up a picture of Loredana lying in bed without any clothes on. Curiously, the images of vampires could be captured on camera unlike in a mirror’s reflection though their forms appeared faded and ghostly through a camera’s lens. Rachael’s eyes grew wide when she beheld the dissolved vision of a naked, pale redhead who had freckles dotting her entire body. Despite her faded features, the woman appeared beautiful laid on her back with her round, very full and firm breasts proudly bared. Purple silken sheets covered her lower half enough that only one of her legs was visible from pelvis to toe and her crotch centimeters away from a full unveiling. The redheaded woman wore a devious, almost sinister smile while looking straight into the camera with her hypnotizing green eyes.

“Oh my, you weren’t supposed to see that,” Mirela said as she snatched the phone away from Rachael and hurriedly placed it back in her pocket. “I’m dreadfully embarrassed.”

“Don’t be,” Rachael insisted. The truth was Rachael thought the redhead in Mirela’s photo was equally as attractive as the beautiful dark-haired acquaintance sitting next to her. The implication that these gorgeous, sexy women were lovers made Rachael feel uncomfortable in ways having nothing to do with homophobia. Quite the opposite in fact. “She is very pretty. Is she a close friend of yours?”

“A former lover,” Mirela replied tactfully. “We’re not on speaking terms any more, I’m afraid. Are you sure I didn’t freak you out? I’ve been meaning to delete those photos but haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Oh, not at all!” Rachael replied a bit too eagerly. “She’s very beautiful. I’m sorry things didn’t work out with your girlfriend. Well, not that sorry.”

Mirela smiled winningly and told her new acquaintance, “You’re adorable, Rachael, and very beautiful yourself if I may be so bold. So intelligent and accomplished for your age too. That means far more to me than an attractive face and figure, both of which you already possess. I’ve only just met you but I like you very much, Rachael.”

Rachael wondered if her face looked as red as it felt. No one, male or female, had ever complimented her so sweetly or flirted with her so brazenly. Rachael lost her virginity to her English boyfriend a year before but they only made love a few unsatisfactory times before splitting up. She’d never experienced an orgasm that wasn’t self-induced. Rachael never seriously considered dating a woman until this black-clad queen wandered into the bar and turned Rachael’s world upside down. But right now, Rachael wasn’t thinking of dating, or holding hands, or kissing beneath the moonlight or any of that romantic crap. Her urgent, building need demanded the kind of sexual fulfillment that only a woman of Mirela’s stature could provide.

“I like you too, Mirela,” Rachael admitted quietly.

“How do you really feel?” Mirela asked as she stared deep into Rachael’s eyes, hypnotizing the young woman with her beauty while she caressed Rachael’s cheek, neck, hair, and shoulder with all the familiarity of old lovers reunited at last. Rachael loved the way Mirela’s graceful fingers danced and twirled around her curls.

Rachael gulped her nerves down to her stomach where they belonged then said truthfully, “Mirela, you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met and frankly the competition isn’t even close.”

The smile Mirela returned was so dazzling that Rachael nearly fell out of her chair once exposed to its radiance. Mirela placed her hand on Rachael’s thigh and caressed her leg through her pajama pants while she asked, “Would you like to come upstairs with me, Rachael?”

“Yes,” Rachael squeaked. “My room is occupied though.”

“We can use mine,” Mirela assured Rachael. “We must be very quiet though, my sister is quite weary after recovering from an illness. She is sleeping in the room next to mine.”

“Okay,” Rachael whispered in assent.

“Finish your wine then come with me,” Mirela commanded, knowing full well that this girl had fallen deep within her spell. However, Mirela hadn’t cast any enchantment besides the full leveraging of her pale beauty and her alluring charms. Throughout the ages, mortals and immortals alike had been drawn irresistibly to the Queen of Darkness.

Rachael looked down at the nearly full glass of red wine still resting on the wooden coaster in front of her. She couldn’t remember ordering the drink so Mirela must have bought it for her when Rachael wasn’t paying attention. Rachael pinched the stem between her fingers and raised the wine to her mouth, licking her lips moist before chugging down the entire glass in a single gulp. Mirela grinned toothily at Rachael’s eagerness, showing off the gleaming sharpness of her unnaturally pronounced canines before finishing the last sip of her martini.

“Come,” Mirela said simply as she took Rachael by the hand and led her upstairs.

Electricity surged through every nerve in Rachael’s body at Mirela’s touch. She moaned quietly when Mirela twined her fingers in between Rachael’s and held her hand in a tight grip. Mirela’s chilled palm felt warmer the longer she leached away and absorbed the temperature from Rachael’s body heat.

No other had ever aroused the young woman’s feelings in such a profound way. The only thing managing to slow the rapid pounding in Rachael’s chest was the heartstopping beauty displayed whenever Mirela fixed her cool, ancient gaze directly upon her. Rachael experienced a desperate, overwhelming need to please her new friend in every perverse way Mirela desired. Rachael had only known Mirela for less than an hour but was already certain she would love this woman for the rest of her life.

Mirela led Rachael to an empty elevator and as soon as the door slid closed she was upon her. Her mouth seized control of Rachael’s lips as she grabbed Rachael’s curls and held Rachael’s face firmly against hers. Mirela wrapped her arm around the young girl’s waist and yanked their bodies close as Rachael squealed with surprise. Rachael has been staring at those two wonderful bulges all evening and now they were pressed up against her chest, Rachael’s own breasts sagging and molding over Mirela’s bodice since there was no encumbrance supporting them. The body contact made Rachael’s cunny feel hot and runny between her thighs and she realized with embarrassment that her cotton pajama pants would show a prominent wet stain right in the region of her crotch if anyone inspected them closely.

Rachael whimpered pathetically before pressing her mouth back against Mirela’s furious assault. She parted her lips begging for Mirela to intrude on her privacy like no other had ever dared. Rachael never really understood the appeal of French kissing with wet tongues wagging around wildly like stupid dogs while they flicked saliva everywhere but now Rachael got it. The passions Mirela could not express in words were translated through her lips and tongue directly into Rachael’s entirely rapt mouth.

Mirela’s mouth tasted flowery and slightly decayed, like a wet and overripe garden. Rachael felt emboldened enough to wrap her arms around Mirela’s sleek back and mold her larger chest more tightly against Mirela’s while they kissed open-mouthed. When the elevator sounded its rude noise indicating their arrival at the top floor of the hotel, Mirela pulled away immediately and left Rachael panting and definitely feeling very hot and very bothered. For Rachael, the kiss had been like a religious experience. She would never be the same. Mirela nonchalantly wiped Rachael’s leftover saliva from her mouth as if this kind of thing happens to her regularly. Who knows, maybe it does.

“You are so sweet, Rachael,” Mirela said with a smile before kissing Rachael ominously on the side of her neck. “I’m really going to enjoy this.”

“I can’t believe this is happening!” Rachael gasped when Mirela took her once again by the hand and practically skipped and ran with her to Mirela’s room. They giggled together like schoolgirls as they raced down the hallway. “You are incredible, Mirela!”

“You have no idea,” Mirela said with a wicked, gleeful expression as she unlocked the door to her room.

Mirela turned on the lamp sitting atop the nightstand next to her bed but otherwise left the room plunged in darkness just how she liked it. Rachael shuffled her feet nervously, unsure how next to proceed.

“Are you nervous?” Mirela wondered. “Oh sweetheart, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“It’s just-,” Rachael hesitated before continuing. “I’ve never been with a girl before. I’ve only been with one boy who thought I was rubbish at sex and dumped me because of it. I don’t know why you’re bothering with me. I mean, look at you! You could have anyone you wanted.”

“I only want you,” Mirela assured the girl as the palms of her hands cupped Rachael’s cute, dimpled cheeks. “Only you can fulfill this burning need, this implacable hunger inside me, Rachael. You don’t need a sex drive, girl. You already have one. You just need a competent teacher who can show you how to ignite all those wonderfully wild passions within you. I would be honored to be the one who first instructed you.”

“What do we do now?” Rachael asked, frightened and exhilarated in equal measure by how badly she wanted this.

“Now we take off each other’s clothing and see how the situation progresses from there,” Mirela said. “If at any time you would like to stop, you have only to say so.”

“Okay,” Rachael agreed. “But I wouldn’t worry about stopping. I want this. I really really really want this.”

Mirela laughed and shushed Rachael with a brush of her fingertips over the girl’s lips. When Rachael kissed her back, the Vampire Queen pressed her mouth wetly against the spot her fingers just marked. Rachael wagged her tongue between Mirela’s lips, eager to resume the passion of their tongue-twined kissing from earlier. Mirela tugged Rachael’s T-shirt out of her pants and ran her soft, cool palms along the girl’s warm torso and belly. Rachael shivered as Mirela’s fingers darted tantalizingly close to stroking Rachael’s breasts but only reached within teasing distance. Mirela took hold of Rachael’s hands and lifted them to her own chest where she directed Rachael on how to undo the laces tightening the black corset to Mirela’s slim frame.

Mirela broke their kiss long enough to rip Rachael’s shirt up over her head. Rachael stuck her arms straight up in the air to aid in the removal of her garment. Next Mirela slowly peeled Rachael’s soiled pants down to the mattress to reveal the thick, full bush of curly dark pubic hair nestled between Rachael’s thick thighs. The overgrown follicles glistened damply with moisture in the dim lamplight.

Rachael looked down at herself stunned at the sudden realization that she was butt-naked in front of another full-grown woman for the first time. She resisted the instinctive urge to cover herself and instead placed her arms down at her sides and bared her chest proudly. Rachael always had breasts too large for her body frame which was probably the only reason boys ever paid any attention to her.

Once their lips rejoined, Rachael moaned deliriously into Mirela’s mouth as her lover – yes, her lover – cupped both Rachael’s breasts in her palms and gently squeezed their soft, malleable weight. Mirela kneaded Rachael’s mammary fat and rubbed her thumbs across the wide surface area of Rachael’s sensitive aureola before flicking her large, succulent nipples up and down. Rachael became so lost in their kiss that she practically drooled into Mirela’s mouth but fortunately neither woman seemed to mind swapping the silky froth of her spit between them.

“You feel so good touching me,” Rachael gasped in recovery, her mouth left wet and wanting by Mirela’s unbridled passion.

“You are a stunner, Rachael,” Mirela said as she pinched Rachael’s left nipple between her fingers hard enough to make the girl squirm. “You should act more like it. I think I will remake you into something new tonight. Would you like that, my sweet?”

“Oh yes, please! Make me into whatever you want!”

Rachael set about the task of unclothing her first lesbian lover but first she had to navigate through the many catches, clasps, and ties holding Mirela’s dress together. She struggled tugging the tight, clinging fabric down Mirela’s shoulders and off her body but once the outfit had been fully removed Rachael discovered with giddy delight that Mirela wore no underwear beneath her dress. This insanely beautiful goddess had apparently ventured down to the hotel lounge with only one thing on her mind. Rachael never stood a chance.

Mirela’s bust was modest but exquisitely formed. Stiff, aroused nipples extended from the flesh-pink aureola of her two picturesque bulbs like thimbles. Her sleek, long legs stretched out wide as they spread apart for Rachael’s viewing pleasure. Between Mirela’s shapely thighs Rachael discovered an entirely hairless mound with a center pinker and prettier than Rachael could have ever imagined of a woman’s sex. The soft petals of Mirela’s swollen labia nestled demurely together to obscure the crassness of her vaginal opening though a spring of dew slickened through her shy folds and hinted of a deeper well to draw from.

Rachael already thought Mirela looked beautiful and perfect while fully clothed but nothing could have prepared her for this magnificent vision lying before her. Mirela’s entrancing eyes burned for Rachael as she oriented herself in a sexy, inviting pose with a clear implication that all of herself was open and available to her lover. Her bottom lips peeled apart damply and for the first time Rachael viewed the tunnel of darkness hidden between Mirela’s legs. Rachael imagined Mirela looked just as perfect from the back as she did from the front and maybe if she was lucky she would get to find out.

Rachael looked down at her own figure and found it totally unremarkable by comparison. “Mirela, do you really think I’m pretty?” she asked.

“You are a treat,” Mirela assured her. “I’ve never seen one tastier. To be honest, I love how naive and innocent you still remain. You are like a virgin reborn, an inexperienced youth ripe for the picking. You are simply adorable, Rachael. I’m so looking forward to this.”

A tear escaped from the bottom of Rachael’s eyelid as Mirela spoke such kind words. How could it be that a woman she’d only known an hour already meant so very much to her? Rachael despaired at the thought that this might be the only night she ever spent with this absolute wonder who was splayed out naked before her in bed. In any case, Rachael resolved to enjoy herself to the fullest in case this opportunity should never present itself again.

“Mirela, you are doing things to me I never thought could be possible,” Rachael whispered.

Rachael gasped with surprise as Mirela pulled her down by her neck and flipped her over onto her back before taking her lips again. Mirela joined her fingers and palms with Rachael’s and rose them above her head to pin her to the mattress while moisture sprang freely from Rachael’s loins merely at the promises hinted by Mirela’s words and actions.

“Hush now, my child,” Mirela said as she loomed above her timid bed-mate. “You must lie back comfortably and allow me to love you. I want to show you how one woman loves another.”

Mirela laid Rachael’s naked body across the soft silken bedsheets and made her cry out, “Oh my God!” when Mirela rested her comfortable weight atop her. Her smooth, creamy skin felt incredible touching Rachael’s body and the girl adjusted herself so her chest would press and molded against Mirela’s front while their erect nipples poked each other playfully. The pale beauty surely felt Rachael’s hairy cunny leaking over her body but Mirela was probably the last woman in the world to mind the impropriety. Rachael was too wet to tell for sure but she thought she detected Mirela’s own moisture becoming smeared across Rachael’s sodden pubes.

The vampire’s lips took all they craved from Rachael until they both started chuckling uncontrollably at the way Mirela kept bumping into Rachael’s glasses. The girl’s lenses had fogged over from their heavy breathing and Mirela finally just took them off, carefully folding the frame and setting the glasses on a nearby nightstand. Though Rachael’s vision was blurred Mirela loomed above her with perfect clarity, the profile of her terrifying beauty exactly defined. Rachael wouldn’t dare look away.

Rachael whimpered as Mirela crawled backward down her body until Rachael’s pillowy breasts were parallel with Mirela’s mouth. Mirela loved Rachael’s nipples in ways the innocent girl had never experienced before. Despite the heightened sensitivity and responsivity of her fat, perky buddings, Rachael’s ex-boyfriend never paid her breasts any attention other than applying an occasional discomforting squeeze. But Mirela understood true beauty when she saw it and she would never allow that same neglect to reoccur. She lathed Rachael’s nips with slow, slimy laps of her tongue and left soft, languishing bites to sting the stiff, wrinkled protrusions. Mirela took turns suckling from each of Rachael’s teats while the girl cried and whined deliriously beneath her. She traversed lower and lower down Rachael’s flat torso and stomach, leaving behind a trail of wet kisses to mark her downward path.

Mirela looked up at Rachael from her place between the girl’s thighs and asked, “Still doing okay?”

Rachael nodded fervently and begged, “Please don’t stop now.”

Mirela smiled victoriously as she pushed Rachael’s thighs wide enough apart that the overpowering aroma of an aroused woman permeated her nostrils and stimulated her olfactory senses. She breathed deeply of her lover’s wafting scent and gazed at the interior tunnel of Rachael’s lovely pink sex from up close. The wrinkled, brownish mound of flesh surrounding Rachael’s pink blossom was ringed by an oval of thick dark hair that Mirela enjoyed scratching her fingers through. Mirela teased Rachael with wet, sucking kisses upon the ample flesh of her thighs while she slowly worked her way to Rachael’s center.

“That feels sooooo good,” Rachael murmured. “Do you realize what you’re doing to me?”

“If you think that’s good, just you wait,” Mirela said mischievously before running her tongue up Rachael’s hairy pubic mound just above her clitoris. The area surrounding Rachael’s genitals was already soaking wet with vaginal discharge.

Rachael’s entire body flexed and stretched in rapturous agony, her toes and fingers curling as Mirela’s tongue played so near to her dripping cunny. Mirela kissed Rachael’s labia sweetly, treating the sensitive flesh like it was any regular part of Rachael’s body that she enjoyed having kissed. Rachael’s cunny radiated so warmly next to Mirela’s cold lips that the heat felt like it could burn Mirela’s mouth. Mirela’s probing tongue located the source of Rachael’s syrupy essence and she darted her agile tongue inside the furrow which fed the wider tunnel leading into Rachael’s deepest cavity.

“That is so good, Mirela,” Rachael moaned and squirmed uncontrollably beneath Mirela’s expert tongue. “Christ, your tongue is so long and amazing!”

Rachael whimpered pathetically as Mirela lapped slowly at her cunny like it was a saucer of milk and sliced the edges of her tongue along the fleshy ovular rim of Rachael’s melting gash. The girl tasted pure and deliciously unsullied, her freshly ripened flavor untainted still by the mixtures of other person’s sexual fluids. Mirela’s tongue felt impossibly long as it slowly intruded within Rachael’s twitching body, her slimy prehensile creeping deeper inch by rapturous inch until she kissed Rachael upon her sex while Mirela’s entire tongue had extended inside her. Rachael’s hands were busy squeezing and massaging her own breasts and tweaking her sensitive nipples but wishing to feel closer to the first lover she’d ever had who was worth a damn, Rachael reached down to lovingly stroke and pet Mirela’s dark hair.

When Rachael finally opened eyes she’d scrunched closed from ecstasy and glanced down to meet Mirela’s gaze she expected to see tenderness and lust reflected there. Instead her lover’s eyes had turned red and furious and the only lust visible in them was a wild thirst for Rachael’s precious internal fluids. Though the exact details were obscured by Rachael’s poor vision and by Mirela’s face pressed into her vagina, Rachael felt everything when Mirela’s teeth sharpened and lengthened into razor-like incisors. Rachael screamed and thrashed in agony as Mirela clenched her teeth down on the flesh inside Rachael’s cunny and tore her vulnerable tissue asunder. Rachael’s cries were loud enough that Mirela had to reach up and clasp her mouth shut to silence her.

The most terrible anguish Rachael had ever experienced lasted only a few seconds before the euphoria of the vampire’s kiss took hold. Rachael’s body relaxed and she fell slack against the mattress with her arms and legs splayed out wide and unresisting. Mirela sucked and slurped at the mixture of fluids flowing rapidly from Rachael’s cunny, both the love-sustaining essence produced by the stimulation of her sex and the life-sustaining essence pumping through her veins. Warm blood smeared Mirela’s mouth, cheeks, and chin as she drank greedily from the slit she opened inside Rachael’s slit.

Mirela grabbed Rachael behind her knees and pushed the girl’s legs up to her chest where she opened Rachael’s thighs and spread her wide apart. A spurt of blood squeezed out of Rachael’s cunny when Mirela shoved the girl’s legs aside and the vampire dove in desperately to lick the errant trickle from Rachael’s cunny before it went to waste. From this compromised position Mirela devoured Rachael’s cunny from the inside, drawing out her plasma as easily as she coaxed multiple screaming, writhing orgasms from Rachael’s entirely willing body.

Rachael wailed loudly throughout her repeated squishing climaxes into Mirela’s mouth. The naive girl didn’t believe it possible for women to discharge in such high volumes but whatever Mirela was doing to her cunny felt unreal. Something about this whole experience was totally unlike any sexual feeling Rachael had ever encountered. She wished she could give all of herself to Mirela, could allow the older woman to take whatever she wanted from her. Even if the dark, mysterious woman who had so completely captivated Rachael sucked all the life-force out of her Rachael wouldn’t lift a finger to stop her.

When Mirela finally looked up from her meal after several minutes of feeding, fresh warm blood and vaginal fluids stained the lower half of her face. Her irises were a deep-red hue and her teeth had become sharp enough to chew through metal as easily as she consumed human flesh. Mirela spared a glance at the alarm clock and was relieved to see the time was not even half past two. Plenty of time still remaining this evening. After weeks of being deprived a hot, fresh meal Mirela promised herself she would indulge to the fullest and she did so with slow enjoyment by draining Rachael’s life away drop by precious drop.

“My turn,” Mirela growled menacingly as she held Rachael down and quickly scooted forward until she’d straddled Rachael’s head.

Mirela lowered her hips and pelvis until her cunny dropped onto Rachael’s face with the girl’s inexperienced mouth firmly mounted by her shaved pussy. She ordered Rachael to lick and an instant later Mirela groaned and squeezed her overstimulated breasts as a hot tongue slithered over her cunny until its tip located the entrance to Mirela’s inner tunnel. Mirela felt alive as stolen vitality coursed through her and the sensations she’d robbed from Rachael became magnified even further by her restored constitution.

Mirela gripped Rachael firmly by her skull as she rocked back and forth against Rachael’s wagging tongue and smeared her gathering fluids all over Rachael’s face. Blood diluted by the copious emission of vaginal fluids continued seeping from Rachael in quantities sufficient enough to stain the white bedding a pinkish hue. Rachael squealed madly against Mirela’s cunny while she licked the vampire’s genitals with abandon, her body still trapped in the throes of an orgasm that had lasted continuously ever since Mirela’s very first bite. Her climax strengthened and wavered in intensity but never ceased stimulating the pleasure receptors in neural mind for even a second.

With a fresh infusion of sustaining, rejuvenating, gloriously delicious human blood pumping through her veins and surging through her internal organs, the cycles of Mirela’s undead body jump-started. She produced an evil fluid, a corrupt black mixture of blood, ejaculate, and concentrated evil that she squeezed out of her wet cunny straight into Rachael’s oblivious mouth. The unsuspecting human lapped hungrily from Mirela’s copious emissions and sipped heavily from the dark potion that would seal her to Mirela forever and leave the girl a pathetic, wretched sex fiend if granted the mercy of survivng this feeding.

“There you go, Rachael,” Mirela breathed heavily as she writhed atop Rachael’s mouth and pumped her decayed fluids down the girl’s gulping throat and into her stomach. “Oh yes, that’s the spot right fucking there. Lick and suck on my juicy quim as hard as you can, you little rug-munching slut. Be my good girl and drink all the sweet corruption I have to offer. Mmm yes, just like that. Oh, you fool. You poor, poor fool. You’re mine forever now, Rachael.”

xxxxx

Bianca awoke to a quiet, disturbing stillness that permeated every corner of her air-conditioned hotel room. She fearfully clutched the bedsheets to her naked chest as a marked chill sent shivers up and down her spine. Bianca couldn’t articulate how exactly she had perceived it but she sensed a dark presence lingering inside Mirela’s room. Now that she considered things more plainly, Bianca had detected this same exact evil stalking she and Mirela ever since her exorcism. Bianca had been too blinded and bewildered by her miraculous restoration to realize the constant presence of evil that crept along with every footstep of their journey.

Bianca jumped out of bed and stomped naked to the door adjoining hers and Mirela’s rooms. She passed through Mirela’s suite to the outside of her locked bedroom where Bianca waited with her fist raised and ready to knock. Before she could rap upon the wooden door Bianca heard a soft moan from the other side before a sad voice whimpered, “Please.” With no time to waste Bianca threw herself forward, the wood around the lock splintering as her shoulder sent the door flying open.

Bianca dashed into Mirela’s bedroom where only a solitary lamp illuminated the perverse scene being played out before her. Mirela sat on her bed entirely nude, her knees spread apart with another naked girl between them. The young stranger knelt directly in front of Mirela with her back pressed against Mirela tightly enough to flatten her small breasts. Mirela’s mouth was at the girl’s throat where she made obscene sucking and slurping noises while crimson blood poured freely down the girl’s glistening bare skin from her neck past her collarbone and on further to her breasts and stomach. Mirela groped and squeezed the brunette girl’s fat breasts with one hand while the other hand took crude possession of the girl’s squelching cunny. Mirela’s palm was clasped over the girl’s hairy mound and Bianca could see her sister’s wrist rotating around furiously as she stroked and massaged the girl’s cunny.

The girl’s eyes had rolled back to show only the whites of her cornea while her mouth hung wide open, her lips drooling senselessly as she wallowed in purest ecstasy. She moaned with pitiful high-pitched whining noises while Mirela shoved three of her fingers all the way up the innocent’s cunny then curled her digits hard against the sensitive vaginal tissue therein. Bianca heard the squish of Mirela’s fingers moving inside the girl from all the way across the room.

Fluids dripped and splattered from the girl’s cunny in a fashion resembling the wringing of a soaked washrag. Her juices splashed over Mirela’s urgently attentive hand and fell in large droplets down Mirela’s bloody wrist to contribute to the growing red puddle staining the bedsheets. The girl’s flow ceased momentarily while her gurgling seepage bubbled loudly outside her cunny, her body unable to stop coming even with her fluids drained. Mirela’s bite deepened and she sucked on the girl harder until with a sharp gasp and a calamitous squishing noise the girl’s flow strengthened rapidly as her ejaculations regained their intensity. Mirela chuckled when the girl lost control of her bladder and began spilling her warm piss down Mirela’s arm; the vampire seemed to love the steamy hot fluid dousing her upper body.

The girl’s eyes closed shut as her body jerked and shuddered against Mirela’s fingers, her hips and pelvis rotating around the intruding digits and sucking them back inside her in an attempt to prolong the endless orgasm that had driven her insane. While not totally oblivious to the toothy assault on her neck she never registered the consequent theft of her lifeforce.

Please touch me some more, Mirela,” the girl gurgled as a bead of red trickled down the side of her mouth. “Oh, I love how you kiss my neck like that! It feels soooooo good. I love you so much!”

As Bianca watched the sordid scene unfold, flashes of repressed trauma filled the holes that had marred her memory. She now recalled the time directly after Sidexes when Bianca and her sisters returned home to Pierocent manor where they terrorized the villagers who once scorned the destitute sisters when they were at their lowest state. Mirela was at the center of it all, exacting a terrible vengeance upon the neighbors who turned their backs on the Pierocent family.

Bianca now recalled the countless times she watched and did nothing to stop Mirela as she preyed upon innocents, stealing their life away to grant the Vampyr a temporary reprieve from the grave she deserved. In her demonic form Bianca assisted Mirela and Loredana in satisfying their appetites, holding non-compliant victims fast while her sisters fed simultaneously from them like gluttons before letting the Beast have her fun with whatever was left remaining of their victim. She fucked Mirela so many times back then too, the demon inside Bianca abusing her thoughts and memories to deceive Mirela into thinking the Beast was her in truth.

After Mirela destroyed Countess Turenau, the beautiful and powerful vampire-witch who had first summoned the Beast and facilitated Bianca’s possession, Bianca nearly eviscerated Mirela during her escape. Terribly weakened by the witches’ duel, Mirela could do very little to stop the Beast from freeing herself and spread its terrifying and endless evil throughout the world. That deadly encounter was the last time the vampire and demon saw each other for nearly four-hundred years.

Like a lovesick fool, Bianca ignored the obvious signs but now that the illusion of her sister’s innocence and piety had been peeled away Bianca saw the truth. She recognized that pale, corpse-like pallor and those red, hungry eyes. The two rows of sharpened teeth and razor-like incisors were a dead giveaway as was the complete disregard for human life as Mirela robbed an innocent of their vitality drip by drip. Bianca’s sister was a monster.

“Oh, Mellie!” Bianca wailed. “What have you done?”

Mirela was so intent on her feeding that she hadn’t noticed Bianca’s entry. At the sound of Bianca’s mournful cry, Mirela detached her fangs from Rachael’s neck and threw the bloodstained girl to the mattress. Red, frothy saliva dripped from Mirela’s mouth in thick splatters as she bared the knives of her blood-soaked teeth at Bianca. Mirela hissed like a snake and snarled with a deep, inhuman growl at the intruder who dared interrupt her meal. Mirela curled the tendons of her hands inward until her fingernails made predatory, birdlike talons and she drew nearer to Bianca menacingly. Bianca prepared to defend herself against her own sister as the vampire advanced upon her with murder in her eyes and bloodlust in her heart.

But during her approach, Mirela regained control over herself and slumped backward as her eyes restored to their regular hazelnut color and her teeth blunted their edges. Mirela looked down at Rachael dying with ragged breaths upon her bed then turned back to face the sole witness to her unspeakable atrocity. Mirela buried her face in her hands.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Mirela cried into her palms over and over. “You weren’t supposed to see me like this, Bianca. Oh please, for the love of God no! Tell me this isn’t happening!”

“Who is she?” Bianca demanded as she cautiously circled the room, her defensive stance implicitly treating Mirela as a dangerous opponent who could strike at any moment.

“Rachael is her name,” Mirela told her sister. “Just a random stranger who had the misfortune of crossing her path with mine.”

“So the dark presence I sensed following us this entire time was you,” Bianca spat venomously. “You’re one of them.”

“Please, Bianca,” Mirela pleaded. “I can explain.”

“So this is how you’ve sustained yourself for all these years,” Bianca remarked incisively. “By stealing the blood and life of innocents just to buy yourself more time on this Earth. Like a selfish, evil little bitch. How many thousands have you murdered to sate your unholy appetites?”

“Tens of thousands!” Mirela savagely corrected now that she’d recovered from the devastation of Bianca learning her deepest, darkest secret.

Mirela drew herself up haughtily until she assumed a regal bearing, her beauty dark and terrible when her luscious nudity was splattered all over with the blood of an innocent girl. This woman was nothing like the plain, kind Mirela that Bianca loved and remembered so well. This woman was evil.

“I’ve lied, manipulated, deceived, abused, and murdered for centuries,” Mirela brutally admitted. “But don’t you dare confuse me for any mere Vampyr. For I am Mirela Turenau, the Dark Queen of the Damned! Evil creatures the world over bow before me and pay me homage!”

“You are a monster,” Bianca accused her sister. “The very sight of you disgusts me and turns my stomach. My Mirela is gone forever.”

“But it’s still me!” Mirela cried loudly in anguish, the deep, bestial rumble of her voice betraying the proof of her unnatural existence. “You more than anyone should understand what it is like being trapped so long inside a monster you have no ability to control.”

“What will you do with her?” Bianca asked wearily as she indicated the deathly pale, barely breathing form of Rachael staining the bedsheets. “Whether you intended to hurt her or not, the girl doesn’t deserve to suffer.”

Mirela easily lifted up Rachael’s limp body and propped her on her knees back against Mirela’s breast just as she’d been positioned before. Mirela shamelessly lapped at the blood pouring down Rachael’s neck without actually sucking at her wound, her mouth making almost orgasmic sounds of satisfaction as she slurped from the ruin she’d made of this girl. But the sad way Mirela closed her eyes to block out the sight of Bianca watching her with intent disapproval suggested that Mirela retained the capacity for feeling shame. Mirela finally couldn’t help herself from reaching up to molest one of Rachael’s pendulous hanging breasts while her opposite hand rested itself more demure upon the younger woman’s wide, bony hip.

“Mirela…” Rachael murmured sleepily as Mirela teased a nipple between her fingers. “Oh, please touch me again… Never stop touching me… I love you so much… Mirela, promise me you love me too…”

“There are three options before us to question,” Mirela explained between languishing laps of her tongue over Rachael’s bloody neck that sexually thrilled both the vampire and her compliant victim. Bianca noticed with distaste that Rachael’s cunny was leaking onto the bed again.

“Option one is that I fully drain the girl until the point of near-death then force her to feed from my fouled blood. It would not take much to convince her, believe you me. Rachael will then become as I am, an unholy creature of the night who must steal the life from others in order to survive. As my youngest child, Rachael and I will caress each other’s bodies and make love bathed in the blood of our shared victims until she learns to hunt on her own.

Or I can stop this now and your second option would be to rush Rachael to the nearest clinic where hopefully they can perform a blood transfusion quickly enough to save the young woman’s life. I believe her blood type is A-positive if my taste buds have not failed me in my old age.

But I must warn you before undertaking this path. If the girl survives this night she will never be the same. Rachael drank too deeply of my corruption and her sexual fluids comingled with mine. She would become a pathetic wretch warped by the only sexual encounter that’s ever given her life meaning. Her behavior will grow increasingly hedonistic in an effort to recreate this sexual encounter which will only lead her down darker, more dangerous paths. Rachael will accept every risk, endure any humiliation or degradation to achieve a sexual high that she will eventually find out is impossible to fully recreate without me. The hardest drugs and the most painful sodomy will not be enough to make her feel things again. Only my kiss can make her feel whole. Soon afterward she will begin drinking the blood of insects and small animals to mimic the behavior of her beloved Mistress.

If Rachael pleases me enough perhaps I will make her my new familiar. I could always use another mortal servant who will do my bidding during the day. Then at night she will become my sexual slave who will lap at my cunny for hours and will mindlessly offer me her lovely neck so she can feel that wondrous high again. That’s whenever she isn’t bringing me new victims that we can play with together, of course. Eventually Rachael will come to love raping and abusing others in my name and she will cry and beg me on her knees to turn her.”

As Mirela spoke to Bianca with disarming honesty and specificity she kept pressing her lips against the weeping holes on Rachael’s neck while she kneaded and massaged the younger girl’s breasts with both her cupped hands. Rachael moaned and whined at the combined sensations of Mirela’s mouth sucking gently upon her neck while the vampire’s expert fingers stimulated the fatty tissue of Rachael’s responsive breasts and her sensitive, tingling nipples. Rachael gasped and cried as she squirted again with an embarrassingly audible squish. After the initial dump of ejaculate, Rachael’s body writhed uncomfortably and she flexed her soft abdomen and groin until she squeezed out a lingering thread of clear fluid that slowly descended from her cunny down to the soaked mattress. Mirela loudly gulped down another mouthful of Rachael’s life and exhaled a deep, satisfied sigh before continuing her monologue.

“Or I can spare Rachael from either of these fates by killing her now and then feeding from her still-warm corpse after she’s gone,” Mirela concluded with a mocking tone. “If you would consider that an act of mercy. I leave the decision to you, sister. Since you understand things so plainly. ”

Bianca stared with muted shock at her vampire sister reaching down to grope poor Rachael by her sodden cunny again. Rachael laughed and moaned gratefully when Mirela touched her from the inside again. All three of Mirela’s offered choices were awful in their own sadistic ways.

“There is no other way?” Bianca asked with a resigned sigh.

Mirela shook her head and flicked her tongue over Rachael’s bleeding neck before urgently reminding, “You must decide quickly. I cannot control my bloodlust for very much longer.”

Mirela nuzzled more cozily against Rachael’s neck, her body twitching uncontrollably as she battled internally with the sick urges masterminded by her own unfathomable appetites. A solitary tear ran down Bianca’s cheek as she observed what had become of her dearest sister.

“Finish her,” Bianca decided sadly. “No one should be forced to live the way you do. I’d rather she die than become like you are.”

Mirela glared angrily at her sister for a moment before agreeing, “As you wish, then.”

Mirela breathed heavily against Rachael as she kissed the unfortunate soul on her scalp, eyebrow, cheek, and lips before whispering, “I’m sorry, Rachael. You truly didn’t deserve this.”

Mirela pulled back on Rachael’s hair until she looked straight up at the ceiling then she dragged the sharp talon of her right index finger across the girl’s throat, easily slicing the flesh open with her nail until a thin, gaping wound had been gashed through her neck. Rachael cried out in shock and pain until her voice gurgled with the blood filling her throat that hadn’t yet spilled down to her chest. Mirela held Rachael close and stroked her hair until the girl’s soul departed, singing a soft lullaby into Rachael’s ear until she drew her last breath. Mirela wished she could weep for the girl but she knew from experience how unlikely tears would be now that blood-lust had taken a hold of her senses.

Bianca did enough weeping for the two of them anyways. Mirela patiently waited to satisfy her hunger until Rachael was verifiably gone, even checking the pulse of Rachael’s heartbeat at her wrist to ensure this terrible mercy had been enacted before she proceeded with her feast. Bianca grieved silently with salty tears racing unimpeded down her cheeks as she beheld Mirela snarling gutturally like a beast before she snapped her teeth down violently around human flesh and took her fill from Rachael’s slit neck.

Bianca wished to leave so many times during the several loud, bloody minutes that Mirela feasted gluttonously but to turn away from the sight of such an atrocity felt like such a betrayal to Rachael. She wanted to cement the horrifying image of this ghoul feeding upon the blood and flesh of an innocent girl in her memory so the undead creature using Mirela’s beautiful likeness could never deceive Bianca again.

Thick smears painted Mirela’s face crimson and most of her naked form was covered in deep, dusky red fluids after she finished her meal. Rachael laid on the bed unmoving, her face deathly pale and her nude body splattered over every inch with her own blood. Never again would her soft chest rise and fall, nor would her brown eyes ever perceive, or her heart ever love.

Mirela sat up and looked about in a blood-drunk daze until she noticed with surprise that Bianca still remained. She had ignored Bianca’s presence entirely during the consumption of her main course assuming her sister already fled in disgust. But then again Bianca had always been made of tougher stuff than Mirela; if anyone could handle observing such disturbing gore and violence it would be her.

“So now you know my darkest secret,” Mirela finally said after she finished lapping up all the blood still clinging to her lips and the outside of her mouth. “There is nothing left for me to hide.”

“What else have you been keeping from me, you deceitful witch?” Bianca spat.

“What do you wish to know?” Mirela offered.

“Are my sisters truly dead?” Bianca wondered. “Bela and Loredana?”

“Bela has been dead for many years,” Mirela said. “She betrayed us, you know. She conspired with Şarpe and the Turenaus to have Mama and Papa murdered and then helped arrange our family’s fateful journey to Sidexes. That plain, unassuming, timid, chubby little girl turned out to be one of the evilest creatures I’ve ever known. I used her as my familiar for a time but once she became old and worthless, I slew her with my own hand in retribution for what she’d done to us.”

“I don’t believe you,” Bianca disagreed vehemently. “No, not our sweet Bela. All you do is lie.”

“Believe whatever you wish,” Mirela said with a shrug. “My heart is bared openly and honestly to you. I will never lie to you again.”

“We’ll see about that,” Bianca sneered. “How can you have an honest heart when it doesn’t exist in the first place?”

“It pains me to hear you say that.”

“Good. Now what of Loredana?”

“Loredana lives,” Mirela admitted. “If you call her existence living. She is of the Vampyr as I am and even in death she still lusts after Eduard Şarpe. If you believe me to be evil, just wait until you see the terrible creature Loredana has become. Our sister was already a nymphomaniac when she was alive but since her conversion Loredana’s sick appetites have only grown more perverse and insane. I do awful things out of necessity, simply as a survival mechanism. But Loredana… Loredana actually enjoys hurting people.”

“Unfortunately, I believe you there,” Bianca confessed with a shudder. “But what of my sister Mirela, then? Is she dead as well?”

“Mirela is alive but is changed from what she was,” said Mirela. “She has become a deeply unhappy person and so very weary too. Weary of her sick excuse for a life. Weary of everything.”

Mirela thought she saw Bianca’s cold resolve break for an instant and a glimpse of her old affection resurfaced briefly before Bianca’s expression resumed its imperious look of fury.

“Şarpe,” Bianca hissed. “So that snake still lives.”

“You must help me, Bianca,” Mirela pleaded as she moved to take hold of her sister’s arms. It pained her terribly when Bianca flinched from her touch and backed away to create more space between them. “I require the use of your powers to aid me in finishing off Şarpe and Loredana for good so I can break the terrible hold Sidexes has over this world. You’re my only hope on Earth, Bianca.”

“What powers do you speak of? I am but a simple woman. I have no talent for evil witchcraft or butchery like you do.”

Mirela ignored the insult but hesitated a moment before speaking again.

“The whole truth, then?” Mirela wondered aloud. “Very well. While I exorcised the demon in possession of your body I did not banish the Beast from your soul. The creature remains, chained to your will just as you were once chained to it for so long. But you are in control now. With your soul demon-aspected, I can draw upon the powerful infernal energies residing within you. Aside from the celestial powers of Heaven, infernal are the only magics that can combat other demon-aspected enchantments such as the one that first created the Vampyr. You feel those energies don’t you, Bianca? Churning just below the surface? Waiting to be unleashed? Haven’t you wondered why your hand has yet to heal?”

Bianca looked down with shock at her claw-like left hand, the corrupted limb so unlike the rest of her restored body. She twisted her wrist around and gazed with horror at her demonic paw from every angle, its red carapace and clawed black talons betraying the truth of the monster that still resided within her. The monster that Mirela had purposely kept within her.

“So I am using you, Bianca,” Mirela admitted. “This was never just about freeing you. Your inherent magical energies will grant me the strength to utterly destroy the Turenaus and leave Sidexes a pile of burning rubble crumbling down a mountaintop.”

“I won’t do it,” Bianca wept as she turned away from her sister just as Mirela had turned from her in shame so many years before.

“W-w-what?” Mirela sputtered before demanding angrily, “What do you mean, you won’t do it?”

“I won’t do it!” Bianca turned and screamed. “I will not aid you in murdering another one of my sisters, no matter what crimes she’s committed.”

“But the things she’s done,” Mirela protested as her voice dropped to a whisper. “You don’t understand, sister. To children, Bianca. Children. Her crimes against humanity are revolting.”

Bianca pointed her finger defiantly at Mirela and said with accusation, “Look me in the eye, Mirela. Look at me and tell me that you’ve never once abused a child while pursuing the satisfaction of your unholy appetites.”

Mirela stared back with equal defiance but she had no reply.

“That’s what I thought,” Bianca finally said. “My beloved Mirela died four centuries ago. You’re nothing more than an evil, pathetic creature who happens to wear her face. I’m leaving, Mirela. I’m through with you for good this time.

“But where will you go?” Mirela asked in distress. “What will you do? You know nothing of this world.”

“I will make my own way, as I have so many times before. Farewell, Mirela Turenau.”

Mirela flinched back as if she’d been slapped. Just as Bianca turned to leave, Mirela saw daylight shimmering dangerously through the curtained window. Daybreak. A line of terrifying sunlight raced across the floor near enough to Mirela’s spot that she hopped backwards in fear. She must hide and quickly too.

As an experiment, Mirela once allowed the rising sun to touch her shoulder for an instant. The scarring from that burn wound still remained and no amount of feeding had ever reduced the mark of daylight’s searing on her flesh.

“Bianca, please help me!” Mirela shouted frantically. “We must hide Rachael’s body before sunrise! There is not much time!”

“We?” Bianca asked. “Who is this ‘we’? I’m not helping dispose of murdered corpses for you. Do your own dirty work.”

Bianca threw the curtains partway open, making Mirela hiss and turn away from the light shining through the penthouse bedroom.

“Oh my! You’d best hurry, Mirela. You’ll cook in this sun.”

Bianca returned to her room, smiling and laughing she was so pleased with her own petty cruelty. Mirela raced to wrap all the bloodstained bedding around Rachael’s body and with inhuman strength amplified by an infusion of freshly stolen blood, Mirela easily lifted Rachael’s blanket-wrapped corpse over her shoulder and carried her to the bathroom just as daylight filled the interior of the bedroom. On her way, Mirela conjured an illusion of a ‘Do Not Disturb’ tag that hung from the doorknob outside both her and Bianca’s hotel rooms.

Mirela breathed heavily with terrified exertion as she rushed into the bathroom and deposited Rachael’s wrapped corpse in the bathtub. That had been far too close, the danger a result of clumsiness and carelessness on Mirela’s part. Mirela hadn’t felt the fear of death for decades, possibly even centuries. What a rush! Her shriveled black heart still hadn’t stopped its incessant pounding.

Fortunately no windows in this dark restroom would trouble Mirela while she slept. Mirela barely saw any light peeking through the crack beneath the bathroom door, nowhere near enough ultraviolet radiation to do her harm regardless of what angle the sun tilted on its axis during orbit. She would perform spell-work later to clean up and then dispose of Rachael’s blood that had been left splattered all over the bedroom. That task could wait for tonight however.

Mirela needed to rest. Yes. So weary. She could barely keep her eyes open. All the pain and heartbreak she’d experienced this evening would fade away to nothingness for a short time. Mirela curled into a corner near the stool. She couldn’t bring herself to look in the tub at the result produced by her dark hunger’s tyrannical reign.

Mirela sobbed and called out weakly, “Bianca, I’m sorry!” before falling into a deep slumber.

THE END OF CHAPTER THREE