Before Sunrise

Time to finish this series. I found the writing bug again and I feel like I need to complete some overdue tasks. WARNING: There is a passage in this chapter that can be construed as a rape scene. I do not condone rape. This is a horror story, and I can't think of a worse horror than someone being forced to do something against their will. My apologies to those that may find that part disturbing. Once again, comments are always welcome as long as their constructive and polite. Abuse will be deleted without hesitation. Enjoy!

Ras took two steps to the side so he could keep both Solomon and Artemis in his line of sight. He might have been able to fend off one of his attackers but both at the same time, especially with Solomon's power, would have been futile at best. Ras looked at Solomon, the clan leader who now levitated so high that his head almost touched the vaulted ceiling in the parlor.

"You killed her?!!" Ras shouted at the soaring Solomon. "Why would you do that?! She was no threat to you!"

From his left, Ras heard the Southern drawl of his Civil-War era counterpart, Artemis, "I think you should worry about what's going to happen to you, Yankee, instead of what just happened to your little witch whore..."

With a low growl and a demon's speed, Ras was on Artemis and went for his exposed throat. Ras surprised Artemis and the southern creature was unable to block the aggressor's advance. Ras' nails extended to claws and sunk into the cold flesh of Artemis' neck, tearing his larynx in two and causing the one-time rebel to fall to his knees. As cold, dark blood began to spread on to the front of Artemis' white linen shirt, Ras took the opportunity to grab a chunk of the broken window frame that Dana had been thrown through and swiftly pierced the Confederate's dead heart.

Artemis did not speak as the wood made its way through his black organ. Only a slight howl escaped his lips before he fell to the marble floor of the parlor and dissipated into a flash of steam and dust. Ras shook his head in disgust at what he had just been forced to do then stood to face the other threat in the room.

"That was your last mistake. You have just sealed your fate, Rasmussen Delevan!" Solomon's voice boomed throughout the disheveled parlor. His levitating form dipped slightly in anticipation of a fight. Solomon began to lean forward to swoop at his opponent, then halted his descent when Elizabeth's voice rang through the room.

"No, Solomon!" the soulless platinum blonde screamed.

"Ne roby ts'oho! (Do not do this!)

Ras saw Elizabeth's feet begin to leave the floor as she rose to meet her husband.

"Bil'she niyakykh vbyvstv, moya lyubov (No more killing, my love),

she said as the undead couple's eyes met twenty feet off the ground. Ras was a powerful being, but he did not have the power to levitate more than a few inches off the floor. If the two decided to turn on him then he would be no match for the duo. Ras hadn't felt fear for his life since the day he took the fatal bullet at Gettysburg, but he felt the old emotion flow back into his body and he inwardly prepared himself for his fate.

Solomon moved closer to his wife and spoke softly, "I had to do it, Elizabeth. She was a threat to all of us. And now I have to destroy him as well," pointing to Ras on the marble floor below them. "

We

have to destroy him! Don't go against me, Elizabeth. This needs to be finished. For the good of the clan."

"For good of clan... Just like with Dana's husband?" Elizabeth said as she closed the narrow gap on her husband, and they came nose-to-nose. She whispered to him as their lips began to meet, "

YA lyublyu tebe, nayridnishyy (I love you, dearest one)."

Elizabeth kissed the lips of her mate, the creature she had been wed to for over two hundred sixty years. Solomon did not notice his wife reach behind her and pull the sharp wedge of wood from the back of her dress.

"Meni shkoda, moya lyubov (I'm sorry, my love),"

Elizabeth said shakily and with tears in her eyes as she plunged the stake deep into Solomon's chest, piercing the middle of his blackened heart.

A low loud howl ripped through the room as the couple, still intertwined, fell to the parlor floor. The two hit the marble hard, Solomon on top of Elizabeth when they landed. Ras, witness to the entire exchange, actually heard breath go out of Elizabeth as Solomon's weight hit her. Debris from Dana's body crashing through the wall and window stirred once again throughout the room.

Steam began to rise from Solomon's body. He did not expire as quickly as Artemis had. The sustaining force in his body was much older and had made Solomon immeasurably powerful, but that force would not save him. The stake still lodged in his chest, Solomon raised his head and looked at Ras standing over him. "You have won... but you still lose..." A smile crept on to Solomon's face as his eyes went black and his body began to dissipate. The last image Ras saw of Solomon was that smile before the ancient being vanished into dust that blew out of the broken window and into the Michigan night air.

Ras knelt beside Elizabeth, still dazed from the fall and landing on the stone floor. Ras noticed that her eyes were dilated as Solomon's were before he ceased to exist. "Elizabeth? Are you OK?" Ras asked the semi-conscious blonde. He then saw the pool of nearly black blood Elizabeth was laying in quickly spreading across the floor and the shard of wood that had ran through her back, the tip barely breaching the pale skin of her chest. Ras took her hand and held it to his chest. Tears began to flow from his eyes as the life drained out of his savior.

"Ras..." Elizabeth strained to speak, "Anna... She is here... she is in... what is word? Doonj... Doonjoon..."

"Dungeon?!" Ras corrected the Slavic creature's English.

"Yes," she weakly replied. "Solomon... he keep her there... say he need for leaf... leav..."

"Leverage against me?"

"Tak... (Yes...)"

Elizabeth replied in her language, forgoing her stilted English. "Go to her... This house... yours now... you lead clan... you... UNNGGGHHH!"

Ras saw Elizabeth's body convulse as the sustaining force crept out of her just as it had her husband's moments before. Ras held her hand as her body dissipated and he was left with nothing but dust in his palm.

"

Do pobachennya, kokhanyy... (Goodbye, beloved one...),"

Ras said softly as Elizabeth's dust fell from his upturned hand and joined that of her husband's drifting aimlessly in the night breeze. Ras stood and looked at Dana's lifeless form. He slowly shook his head.

So much death tonight.

He then walked out of the parlor, his parlor now, and searched for the stairs that led to the underbelly of the home. To the dungeon that supposedly held his love from his previous life. To his Anna.

Ras found the door that led to the basement and made his way down the stairs. He heard the stirring of the unfortunates that dwelled in the cavernous room. The undercreatures that were trotted out and cleaned up to serve for clan functions then swiftly deposited back to the depths to exist on rats and cockroaches. Human blood was reserved for the elites and the few servants that fell into favor with the ruling couple.

Ras spied Damien, the valet that had irked him the night he had met Dana, cowering in a dark corner. Ras thought of ending the poor creature's existence then decided to press on. He would decide what to do with the beings that lived in the lower levels later. He was on a mission to find Anna and try to save her from the underground hell where she had been living for who knew how long.

Ras noticed that the concrete flooring had turned to dirt as he walked the length of the large basement and then came to a barred-off section. Inside the cell were three creatures, once human, now filthy beyond recognition. A key hung on the hallway wall opposite the cage in plain sight of the cell's inhabitants; a sickening joke, Ras thought, to have one's mode of salvation just out of reach. None of the free servants living in the basement/dungeon dared to remove the key from the hook to release the prisoners, lest they face the wrath of the masters of the house. But Ras was now the master, and he took the keyring from the crude spike embedded in the block wall.

The key went into the lock mechanism on the cell door but would not turn the tumbler. Ras wiggled the key then removed it and banged his fist on the lock plate. A copious amount of grime and rust fell from the inside workings of the mechanism and Ras inserted the key once more. This time the key laboriously began to turn in the opening and the latch freed itself from its interminable housing.

The entrapped minions in the enclosure scrambled away from the iron-barred door creaking loudly on ancient hinges as it opened, fearful of the fate that awaited them outside their prison home. They had been entombed in the house's depths for so long that freedom, even a glimpse of release from the cell was both inconceivable and maddening. Ras saw the white in the inhabitants' enlarged eyes as he entered the cell and scanned the small enclosure.

"Anna?" Ras said softly as he focused on one of the soulless beings now huddled and cowering in the corners. Ras spied a small, barred window in the center of the cell that let tiny glimpses of the outside world into the cage. Another cruel twist to the prisoners' fate: Ras could see that all the creatures had scars on their arms, shoulders, and faces. Burns from the peeks of sunlight that touched their cold, pale skin- not enough to destroy them, but just enough to keep them in daily agonization if they did not keep constantly moving as the sun moved across the sky.

Ras repeated the name of his long-ago love and one of the dirt-covered creatures finally took notice. A slight form began to hitchingly crawl forward and stopped a few paces from where Ras stood in the doorway. Ras recognized his old love and knelt before her so that they were face-to-face. He moved his hand to cup her chin and the form jerked back, fearing physical punishment. She lurched forward slightly and took in the large creature staring at her. Her lips began to move and sounds that hadn't escaped her throat and mouth in decades tried to form words.

"R-R-R.. Ra... Rasm... Rasmussen?" breathy creaky syllables finally escaped from between the creature's lips and the acknowledgement that Ras had been waiting for had finally been revealed.

"Yes, Anna" Ras stated a little louder than he wanted to, frightening the cell inhabitants once again. Ras lowered his tone and continued while reaching his hand out once again. "Anna, it's me. It's Rasmussen. I'm here. I've come to get you out of here..."

Anna looked at her once-betrothed's outstretched hand and, with all the strength left in her body, slapped it away from her face. "Y-y-you b-b-b-bastard... Y-you l-l-l-left me h-here to r-r-rot!" her voice became surprisingly loud with the last stuttered word.

"No, Anna," Ras countered. "I didn't know you were trapped here. Solomon... He kept you here to... to keep me subservient to him, just in case I decided to..."

"FUCK YOU!" Anna interjected, cutting off Ras' explanation. Her voice had come back in force and the stutter was all but gone. Ras was surprised by her cursing. He had never heard her use such language. "Do you remember w-what you did? What you d-did to me that n-night?! How you turned m-me into this... this th-thing?!"

Ras hadn't remembered for over one-hundred sixty years the circumstances of the night he killed his parents then sought out his fiancé, but the shock of seeing Anna and her harsh words jarred his repressed memory and scenes from long ago flooded his mind as the story of that night came back to him.

++++++++++

July 7, 1863, 3:02am, Gravel City, Michigan

The lithe crimson-haired woman laid in the goose-feather stuffed mattress; the heavy quilt folded down to the end of the bed. It had been an interminably hot and humid summer so far and this night was possibly the worst. Anna had the windows open hoping for the night breeze to cool the two-room house to an acceptable sleeping temperature. She had thought about removing her nightdress and sleeping nude, but with the curtains open she feared being seen by any nighttime passersby. She prayed for the wind to pick up and send some relief through the tiny cabin so that slumber would soon find her.

Anna prayed constantly. She prayed for a good harvest at her parent's farm. She prayed for old Mrs. Tisdale, the widow that paid her a dollar and fifty cents a week to help with her seamstress business. She prayed for an end to the bloody war that had killed her older brother and taken her Rasmussen so far away. She mostly prayed for Rasmussen to come home to her in one piece. She longed to see his handsome face and nuzzle her head into his muscular chest.

Anna glanced to the corner of the bedroom and spied the white gown that would be her wedding dress hanging on the crude wooden torso bust. She prayed that she would finish the garment before Rasmussen returned so that the couple could marry as soon as possible. She and Rasmussen had kissed many times since their engagement but had never given into their lust and want for each other. Anna's best friend, Rebecca had fornicated with a boy in a hotel room on a trip with her sister to Grand Rapids. Rebecca told Anna the sordid details of the tryst; how the boy had first removed Rebecca's dress then her undergarments. Then the boy took off his clothes and Rebecca could see his

thing!

His private parts and how it stood straight out like a tree branch. Anna was horrified as Rebecca told her what happened next.

The boy sat Rebecca on the bed then moved close to her so that his hard (

thing!)

was right in front of her face. The boy grabbed Rebecca's face and forced her mouth open and put his

(thing!)

in her mouth. The boy moved his hips back and forth in Rebecca's mouth and grabbed the back of her head and pushed his

(thing!)

so far into her mouth that it went into her throat and she almost wretched. Rebecca said the boy just laughed then stepped back. Anna could feel her stomach turn as Rebecca continued her unholy tale.

The boy laid Rebecca on the hotel bed then climbed on top of her, his

(thing!)

pointing at and touching her womanly folds. Then the boy shoved his hips forward and pushed his

(thing!)

into Rebecca's cleft. The boy began to rock back and forth in and out of Rebecca. Anna felt mortified at the thought of a boy doing that to her, but she also felt something else. Something strange beginning to radiate from her own private area.

She began to think of herself in Rebecca's place and the boy doing it to her. Her eyes squinted slightly as Rebecca continued telling her how the boy began to grunt then tensed up and stopped. Rebecca said she felt the boy's

(thing!)

swell then erupt what felt like hot honey inside her. The boy laid on top of her for a few seconds more then got up and put his clothes on quickly and left Rebecca naked in the room without even saying goodbye.

Anna had seen dogs and pigs rutting before and knew what sex was, but the thought of her best friend doing it with a boy made her body tingle. She knew it was a sin to have relations before marriage, but she also knew the thought excited her and that night she crept out of her parents' house and snuck into the barn. Anna laid in the soft hay and touched her moist slit until the tingle grew to a swell and erupted through her body. She bit her lip to stifle the scream that threatened to escape her mouth while her orgasm wreaked havoc on her slight frame.

But tonight, Anna was much too warm to think of pleasing herself like she did in the barn that night after Rebecca had told her terrible tale. The beads of moisture on her skin from the night's swelter dampened her nightdress and she thought once more about removing the saturated garment. Anna reached for the hem to pull the long sleepwear over her slickened body then halted as she heard a rustle outside of the cabin. She sat bolt upright in the bed and her heart began to race at the thought of what might be on the other side of the bedroom wall.

Another loud thump on the outside wall sent Anna into a panic and when she heard the creak of the door opening, she felt a trickle of urine escape from between her legs. Terrified, she screamed, "Who's there?!" Her father had given her a shotgun that she kept loaded and propped near the nightstand and she blindly groped for it in the darkness that encompassed the room. Feeling the cold steel of the barrel, Anna set the wooden butt of the firearm against her shoulder, cocked the hammer, and aimed the gun at the open doorway that led to her room.

"Who is it?!" she screamed once more then saw a shadowy figure emerge from the front room and stand in the doorway. Anna could not detect who the person invading her home was, but she could tell it was a man. He was shirtless and dirty, covered in grime, soot and a sticky-looking fluid that looked like molasses in the faint moonlight peering through the tiny bedroom window. His head was a messy nest of dark hair and the two-week growth on his face hid much of his identifying features.

Anna's eyes finally adjusted to the dimly lit enclosure and the figure in the doorway became much clearer. "Rasmussen? Is that you?" she said softly as she lowered the long gun slightly. It looked like Ras but there was something in his eyes, a reddish glow, that made her question herself. She attempted to repeat herself, "Rasmussen, is that..." but she was interrupted by a low growl from the large apparition in her doorway. The man took steps forward and Anna confirmed that it was, indeed, her long-awaited fiancé.

"Rasmussen, it is you!" Anna cried, her paralyzing fear subsiding at the recognition of her betrothed. She started out of the bed to embrace her love but stopped as Ras continued toward her. She saw the fluid covering his powerful chest was not, in fact, molasses, but blood. It covered him front from his chin to the waistband of his tattered pants. "Rasmussen, what happened?!" Anna asked, concerned for his well-being. "Are you hurt?! Were you injured in the battle?"

Ras said nothing, only continued toward the bed where she sat analyzing him and his outward appearance. He stood before her and peered into her eyes; the whites prominent in the darkness. Anna began to feel the fear welling up in her again. This was her Rasmussen, but it wasn't. He grabbed her by the shoulders and Anna felt his grip, cold as a central Michigan winter's night, and she shivered despite the July heat. Another growl escaped Ras' lips and he tore at Anna's night clothes. She tried to protest and push her aggressor away but did not possess the strength to fight him off. Ras grabbed the front of her gown with his left hand then pushed the smaller woman back with his right, hard enough that the nightdress ripped from her body, and she slammed back-first into the bed's log headboard.

Anna felt the pain explode in her lower back and she had to shake her head twice to keep from losing consciousness. Her senses came back to her, and she realized that she was naked before her fierce fiancé. She had never let another man see her undressed, not even Rasmussen, and she frantically tried to cover herself with her bare arms. With a devil's speed, Rasmussen was on the bed and on top of her before she knew what was happening.

"Rasmussen, we can't! We're not..." Anna tried to plead with her attacker, but Ras put a hand over her mouth to silence her pleas. Anna could smell the dirt and blood on his body and was repulsed by the scent. Her wide eyes scanned lower and realized that Ras was now completely nude also. She could see his

(thing!)

hard and prominent poised to enter her womanhood. Her fear turned to sheer terror as Ras entered her. White hot pain radiated through her middle as the monster that was once her true love stole her virginity in a single stroke. He began his rhythm and Anna screamed through Ras' fingers over her mouth and bit at his palm so that he might remove his hand. Ras felt no pain as Anna's teeth sunk into his flesh over her maw, but he did take his hand from her mouth and slid his fingers down her chin to find her supple throat.