Blood for the Vampiress

Out of the desert they leaned on weakened wooden frames, buildings with cracked and faded facades- forgotten memories of the past that was, relics and doorways leading back through time. All it took was the right person to come along and open them. The past waited. A man merely needed to step within and claim what had been left there.

Joseph Gray ("Joey" to his friends) peered across this landscape of the past and pulled a pack of Marlboros from his shirt pocket. He tapped one out into his palm before replacing the pack, then placed the cigarette between his lips and left it dangling. He rummaged through the right pocket of his faded jeans, found his lighter, pulled it out and flipped it open. Flame flickered to life. Joey lit the cigarette, replaced the lighter and inhaled.

So far, everything the old man had told him was true. If his luck continued, the following day might find Joseph Gray a very rich man. After all, the old man's tale could be summed up in a word: treasure.

Joey blew a smoky breath into the cooling night air. The last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon, and shadows unfurled from the ghost town like a dark welcome mat. Joey sighed, tugged at his pack. Time to get a move on.

The house at the end of town sat on a hill, overlooking the main street like a king on his throne. A full round moon hung behind the house's pointed peaks and cast a dull glow as light fled darkness. Broken windows peered down like shattered, lunatic eyes as Joey approached. Cracked stone steps led up towards the dusty porch. He grinned. This was the kind of place where Norman Bates would feel right at home.

Joey flicked the cigarette to the dirt and ground it into a gutted, twisted filter.

Someone had the foresight to board the place up before abandoning it. By now, the wood was rotting, and the nails were rusty and weak. Joey had no problem ripping the boards off the front door. The wood crumbled in his bare hands. Something about the moist, slimy feel about it disgusted him. He wiped his hands on his jeans. Joey tried the door, found it locked, and kicked it in.

Two things- a musky, foul odor and a sensation of being watched- assaulted him. The first he wrinkled his nose and waved at; the second felt like the tingling of little spiders crawling over his skin. Joey draped his pack over one shoulder, unzipped it and withdrew a heavy Maglite. He flicked it on and shot a bream over the foyer.

On the right, the foyer led to a larger common room. To the left, it ended in a curving archway and a large door. A sweeping stairway walked up into depths of darkness at the far end. Other than these basic architectural observations, Joey saw nothing but wood floors, cracked walls, and a whole lot of nothin'.

Joey took a step inside and listened. There was even less to hear than there was to see. He wrote off the feeling of being watched to paranoia. It wouldn't be the first time.

He swept the Maglite's beam up the stairway. Light stabbed the shadows. He could just make out the beginning of a hallway; he'd save the upstairs for last. First, he'd see what he could see on the first floor, then work his way up, and then finally, work his way down to the inevitable basement. He moved the light over the archway to the left and its barricading door. He could just make out the words carved into the frame:

"ABANDONE ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE."

Joey vaguely recalled the words from somewhere else, somewhere he'd heard them before, but he couldn't make the connection. The knowledge was there, blurry, and just out of reach. He shrugged it off and took a step deeper into the house.

-CRACK!-

Wood splintered under his right foot. Before he could move, it gave way. The Maglite fell from his hand, clattered to the floor and rolled out of reach. Joey felt pain shriek up his leg as the wood bit into his calf and then deeper as he sank. The Maglite stopped rolling and flooded its light into his eyes.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck," Joey echoed as he tried to claw his way from the splintered mouth sucking him into the recesses of the house. Wood creaked and groaned around him like old men cracking their dried up knuckles in unison. He blinked, blinded, and tried to find something to grasp, to get a hold on and pull him out of the hole.

Then the mouth opened wider, the floor gave way, and Joey fell into the dark.

***

"I hope this isn't out of line, but you look... absolutely stunning," Weston Gatlin said, his own stunning smile spreading apart his thick lips and revealing a set of perfect, sparkling white teeth.

Bridget Briswell, senior partner of the Briswell & Briswell Law Firm, cocked an eyebrow and playfully tapped a finger against her chin as if deep in thought.

"Out of line? Well, let's consider. First, I gathered this was to be a professional rather than personal meeting. You're a client, and a good lawyer always keeps clients on a strictly professional level. Second, how to take such a compliment from a married man?" she said. Despite her words, Bridget appraised the man seated across from her. Weston Gatlin was gray-haired, tall, and dashing with a dark complexion and a reputation for charm and flattery. He was also a multi-billionaire between his companies and investments in real estate, entertainment, and technology. These days, the name Gatlin was synonymous with success.

"Almost divorced man," Gatlin corrected with a tip of his wine glass. The wine corresponded with the pricey meal set before them as Gatlin had treated her to dinner in one of New York's most expensive restaurants under the guise of needing legal advice.

"Well, in that case, let's just see where the night takes us," Bridget said and tipped her own glass in response.

"I'll drink to that." Gatlin took a long sip of wine. Bridget tried not to think about how much Gatlin had spent on the bottle and followed suit. After all, her law firm was one of the biggest and best in the country, and she was no pushover when it came to pulling in six figures. Gatlin was just one of the elite who pulled in quite a bit more. She swallowed and felt the comfortable warmth of the wine pooling in the pit of her stomach.

"After all," Bridget added, "tonight I AM absolutely stunning, and I'm not that good of a lawyer."

Gatlin's eyes gleamed as they shared a laugh.

Naturally, the night (and perhaps the wine) led them to the top floor of the Gatlin building. Windows on all sides, the twinkling lights of the city blinked and glowed around them as Bridget let her silver dress slip from her shoulders, glide down her body and form a shimmering pool on the carpet around her ankles. Gatlin stifled a gasp at her perfect nakedness.

When Bridget, on her knees, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and pulled out his lengthening erection, Weston Gatlin said thoughtfully, "I love New York."

Bridget smiled as she took the esteemed Mr. Gatlin's little Gatlin into her mouth. She knew that as long as she had him in her mouth, this billionaire was at her complete mercy, completely under her power. It was this feeling, this control that turned Bridget on as she began work him with her tongue, her lips, her hand.

She slowly, expertly gained speed, stroking him harder and taking him deeper, flicking her tongue along the shaft, moaning in imagined ecstasy. Bridget knew what men liked, and she was good at pleasing them. This had not been the case a year ago. This had not been the case before she had met Melvin MacMuffin. It was funny how much could change in a year.

Gatlin's knees almost buckled, and Bridget slipped him out of her mouth. His bobbing erection was shiny and slick with her saliva. It gleamed from his crotch like a wet spear.

"Didn't plan on cumming this soon, did you?" she said with a wry smile. Gatlin chuckled.

"Hadn't planned on it," he said.

A moment later, Bridget found herself on top of pool table, Gatlin's head between her legs, his tongue flicking out and lapping her, tingles shooting up her body. She closed her eyes and let the sensations flood over her. Her hands gripped the sides of the table. Gatlin gripped her thighs. She moaned, and Gatlin moaned in response between her legs. Bridget felt a smile peel over her teeth. This is what it felt like to have a multi-billionaire go down on you. She giggled. Gatlin was worth every penny.

"What?" Gatlin said, looking up after the giggle. His lips were wet with her.

"Nothing," Bridget said. She wriggled on the pool table like live bait. "You should fuck me now."

Gatlin did with a clumsy thrust. Bridget gnashed her teeth at the sudden invasion, and a sharp pain stabbed her gut that she could feel all the way up to her shoulder blades. The pain subtly gave way to the pleasant sensation of Gatlin maneuvering his cock in and out of her, deep in her wet warmth.

She opened her eyes and looked out the windows and the twinkling lights of New York. Bridget wondered how many women gazed over the very same view as Weston Gatlin fucked them on his pool table. She wondered if it gave him a sense of power. Fuck that.

"Stop!" she barked at him, and Gatlin froze, half of his cock embedded inside her. She pushed him out and pulled him to the pool table.

"Your turn," Bridget said, pushing him back and climbing on top of him. Now she had complete control, and she felt better about it. She'd rather fuck the billionaire than have him fuck her. Semantics and technicalities, she knew, but Bridget was a lawyer. Something as simple as switched positions was enough to switch power and control. Besides, she liked to be on top.

Bridget bucked on top of Gatlin as if she was riding a full-fledged rodeo bronco. She consciously forced her eyes to stay open as orgasm approached, and when it hit her it was as if the lights of the city were fireworks exploding in her eyes. Then- explosions in her groin, in her stomach, in the tips of her fingers. Bridget gnashed her teeth, spittle flying from her lips as she let out a guttural grunt as she came violently on top of her bronco/billionaire.

"Oh, OH. JESUS," Gatlin muttered, and Bridget regained enough consciousness to pull up, slipping him out of her just as the first rope of jism exploded out of Gatlin's cock and splattered against her inner thigh. She felt his gooey warmth running down her leg, sticky and viscous.

"That's million dollar sperm oozing all over me," Bridget said.

"BILLION dollar," Gatlin said, and they laughed, the eternal lights of the city around them.

***

Pain and darkness, this was the world to Joseph Gray when consciousness found him. His eyes fluttered open, but he only saw black. The black felt worse than the dreams he had left behind. His consciousness was a void. Memory flapped to life, and he remembered the house, the cracking floor, the hole that swallowed him.

The basement- he must be in the basement. He tried to move, and a scream of electric pain shot bolts through his right leg. Joey moved his hand down to the pain and felt something sticking through a tear in his jeans and with dawning horror, realized it was bone.

Something shifted in the darkness.

Chills spooked Joey's spine like the tickling fingers of a ghost. In the basement, the idea of ghosts did not seem so farfetched. Joey's hands scrambled along the gritty dirt around him, and then they happened upon his pack. He reached inside and sighed with relief as he pulled out his cell phone. His breath caught in his throat.

A noise- subtly closer than before.

He flipped open the cell phone and hit the first speed dial button.

***

Mozart drew Bridget out of sleep, and it took her eyes and her mind a moment to adjust to their surroundings and the sound of the symphony chirping from the confines of her purse. She staggered out of bed, away from the obnoxious snoring of Weston Gatlin, and pulled out her cell phone. She tried to force her mind to clarity through the cloudy haze of sleep and sex and wine and flipped open the phone.

"Hello?" she said as she pressed it to her ear.

"Bridget?"

"Who... JOEY?"

"I need help. I'm in Arizona... you need to call Melvin and get him out here. Something very bad... my leg's broke...'

"Whoa, whoa. Slow down. What's happening, Joey?"

"No time to explain, I think I fell into the basement. I... there's supposed to be this gold, and this old man told me about... wait... BRIDGET, THERE'S SOMETHING DOWN HERE..."

"Joey?"

"OH FUCK THERE'S SOMETHING DOWN HERE. JESUS GOD HELP ME, SOMETHING'S COMING... OH FUCK... IT'S GOT... OH... AAAAAHHHHH!"

The phone went dead.

*** Morgan's jet-black hair spread out under her head like a darkened halo on the pillow. Jagged bolts of white ran through it like unnatural lightening. Melvin gasped, pumping deep into her, feeling her trim, taut stomach slap his, her hands grasping his hips like handles.

His seed shot through him and into her, into his wife, the witch, and Melvin came with a sharp cry. For a moment the world went white, and Melvin was lost in the moment, nothing real but his love for the woman under him and the sensation of their two individual selves becoming one.

"Oh, babe," Morgan breathed, the words the first thing Melvin knew as the world came crashing around him. "That was so good." Her hands caressed the back of his head, her fingers running through his short brown hair.

"You weren't so bad, yourself," Melvin said, a sly grin on his face. He reached for his glasses on the nightstand. Then the door of their shop jangled, and they exchanged glances. Morgan frowned.

"Sounds like we have a customer or worse," she said.

When they were dressed and made their way to the front of Morgan's store, they found an old friend. Without so much as a word exchanged, Melvin threw his arms around Bridget Briswell and gave her a long, hard hug. At one point, Melvin knew they could have been more than friends. Of course, that had been before he'd recognized his feelings for Morgan, but despite those feelings, Melvin still felt a deep, inner connection with Bridget.

"Hey, Melvin," she said into his shoulder.

"Bridget," he said, relinquishing the hug and looking into her pale blue eyes. "It's been too long."

She wore her long tan trench coat, the one that reminded Melvin of old Humphrey Bogart movies. A light smattering of freckles dotted the bridge of her nose, and her shimmering blonde hair bobbed at her shoulders. Underneath the coat, she wore a sly silvery cocktail dress- had she been at a party? On a date? Melvin threw a look at the clock on the wall. The clock's skeletal fingers pointed toward two a.m.

"It might have been even longer," Bridget said with an apologetic tone. "But I think someone needs our help."

A few minutes later, they sat in a back room under a dusty yellow lamp, and Melvin and Morgan considered the phone call that Bridget had recounted for them. It sounded bad, very bad.

Melvin thought about the last time he had seen Joey Gray and his wealth of bulging muscles, sometime shortly before Joey had decided to become a treasure hunter and disappeared to seek adventure and excitement. Before Joey had met the likes of Melvin and his unlikely companion, the mysterious and beautiful Morgan, he had been a lowly security guard; after Morgan had opened all of their eyes to the opportunities of the world around them, Joey shed off the skin of his old life and left to find a new one. Morgan had that kind of effect on people; Melvin understood this more than anyone.

"He said he was in Arizona?" Morgan asked. Her hair was pulled back in a hastily drawn up ponytail, and she wore a long, faded black t-shirt that clung to her curves. On the shirt, a red dragon blew a plume of oranges flames and looked suitably pissed. Still- for having just made passionate love and been forced out of bed, Morgan looked radiant.

"Yes, but that's it," Bridget said. "He didn't say where exactly in Arizona. Just that he was in Arizona." Her brow creased with worry, and she blew a heavy sigh. "It's a big state."

"Could be a problem," Melvin offered.

"Maybe not. Let me see that phone," Morgan said and held out her hand. Bridget handed her the cell phone, and Morgan flipped it open and set it in the middle of the table. Morgan got up and walked to the back of the room, pulled a few jars off shelves and put them on the table. She then found an old shoebox, popped open the top and pulled out what looked like a skeletal twig. Melvin would have guessed it was bone but for the small leaf that seemed to be growing out the top.

"What are you doing?" Melvin asked.

"She's a witch. You still bother asking questions like that?" Bridget said with a raised eyebrows and a thin smile. Melvin was glad to see that his old friend hadn't lost her wry sense of humor, and he responded by flipping up his middle finger.

"Watch and learn," Morgan said. She mixed the contents of one jar with another, shook it, and dropped in the twig. Morgan pulled a needle and thin wire out of the shoebox the twig had come from. She wrapped one end of the wire to the needle and dropped the other end into the jar of amber liquid and bone-twig. Finally, she inserted the needle into the battery outlet of the cell phone.

The liquid in the jar bubbled and fizzed. The bone-twig began dancing like a marionette.

"Ok, see that map on the far wall?" Morgan said and pointed. Bridget and Melvin followed Morgan's finger towards a large map of the United States held up by colorful smiley-faced tacks. At the top of the map in big bold words: "God Bless America!"

Morgan found Joey's number in the "Received Calls" section of the cell phone and hit redial. The bone twig responded, spinning like a top, stirring the now boiling liquid like a mini-maelstrom.

"Check it out!" Morgan said just as the bone-twig flew out of the jar, shot across the room and thrust into the map against the wall. It protruded like dart. The amber liquid settled to calm. A wisp of steam floated lazily above it.

"Bulls-eye," Morgan said with a wink. She pushed away from the table and made her way to the map. Melvin watched her for a moment, her shapely legs swaying, her supple bottom clenching under the long black t-shirt. Then he and Bridget exchanged uneasy glances and followed her.

Bridget squinted and examined the area where the bone-twig pierced the map. It seemed to be jutting from the center of the orange-ish Arizona section as if the state had popped an unexpected boner. Or maybe Melvin just had boners on the mind after his busy night with Morgan.

"There's nothing there," Bridget said.

"Nothing labeled," Melvin corrected. He smoothed the cowlick poking from his scalp.

"Well, that doesn't really help us. We need more information. Trust me, in my experience, you never act without information. And this," Bridget said as she flicked the bone-twig, "is a start, but we need more."

"She's right," Morgan replied, tapping a long finger against her chin. Bridget and Melvin turned towards her, expecting what Morgan said next.

"And I know someone who can help us."

***

Red eyes sparked to life in the dark and approached, floating through the black like flaming coals.

Joey's own fluttering eyes widened in panic; his heart raced, and his mind cried at him to move away, get away, escape! He then felt the unforgiving spine of the wooden post pressing against his back and realized his wrists and ankles were chained behind him, on the opposite side of the post. The rusty shackles clinked and bit his flesh as he struggled. His heart sunk as he understood that escape was not possible. A dull pain throbbed in his broken leg.

The flaming eyes loomed over him. A voice (husky, feminine and throaty) cut through the shadows and touched Joey's skin with a chill.

"Who... arrrrrre... yoooooou?" it whispered with hot, tepid breath. Joey thought he caught the scent of rotten meat hanging on the words. He gagged, shut his eyes, and turned from the voice. This could not be real. It was some kind of horrible, surreal nightmare. It had to be.