She sat on the straw-covered floor in the corner of the foul-smelling cell, a tiny question mark of naked, quivering flesh. The cramped stone chamber had been her world for...weeks? Months? She'd lost track.
Tears coursed down Teresa Verdugo's soft cheeks. She was chained to the wall by a heavy iron collar, and her wrists and ankles were manacled together. She was a strikingly beautiful girl, slender and lithe, with huge dark eyes, dusky skin and thick masses of wavy blue-black hair. Indeed, it was her exotic beauty that had plunged her into this nightmare of horror.
Teresa had caught the eye of Anton Lederer, a successful and charming young Seattle businessman of European extraction - who also happened to be a vampire lord.
She had arrived from Caracas early last summer, a week after her twenty-first birthday, on an engineering scholarship to the University of Washington. Lederer had swept the naive young Venezuelan beauty off her feet at an evening cocktail party. Toward the end of the night she began to feel funny and passed out, thanks to the drugs Lederer had slipped into her drink. He made a joking comment about her being so petite she couldn't hold her liquor, and gallantly offered to take her home.
She never made it...
And she found herself imprisoned in a chamber of horrors in the bowels of Lederer's mansion.
Teresa shivered in the chill air, gooseflesh puckering on her bare skin. She hugged herself, crossing her manacled arms across her firm, full breasts. The dungeon level was several cellars below the main floor. Lederer visited her in the cell several times a week, savagely raped her and forced her to please him in every way imaginable.
He especially liked to sodomize her, torturing her tiny little asshole with his huge cock.
Before he left, he would plunge his razor sharp fangs into her soft neck and drink her blood - not enough to kill her, but enough to leave her weak.
Then he would let her rest for a couple of days while he "visited" the other girls, and then begin the obscene cycle all over again.
If she pleased her Master, he would chain her to the wall, where she could at least sit on the small stool, the only "furniture" in the cell. If he was not happy with her, however, he hung her up by her wrists from the ceiling and let her dangle, twisting back and forth - until he came for her again.
Four other stunning young female captives occupied the cells of the dungeon level. And Lederer raped them and fed on them all in turn.
Teresa shuddered.
They had bathed her this afternoon, cleansed away layers of filth and grime and semen and stench. She knew what that meant. She had seen it happen to three other girls since she'd been here.
Tonight she would die.
Depending on whether or not she pleased the Master, she would either be turned into a vampire herself - or killed outright.
The "chosen ones" were always taken to the dungeon tower, a circular stone edifice that ran all the way up through the roof of the castle-like estate, like a silo. Here the girls were either drained of blood and slain, and their dismembered corpses taken away, or they emerged as one of Lederer's vampire brides in a flowing white gown.
She wondered if death wouldn't be preferable...
The door at the far and of the dungeon chamber scraped open. Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Teresa's heart hammered in her temples.
Someone was coming!
The footsteps drew closer, echoing in the dank stone corridor of the dungeon keep like a death knell, and halted outside her cell door. A key rattled in the lock as Teresa's blood roared in her ears. The door swung open and ...
Willem, Lederer's valet, entered. He was carrying a package under his arm. He was a handsome young man, and had always seemed to be a sympathetic sort, but too fearful of Lederer to help her.
Until now...
Willem unlocked her collar and shackles. "It's almost sunset - we have some time to get you out of here."
He opened the bundle and took out some silken garments. It was a princess costume - Cinderella, complete with a bejeweled tiara and slip-on shoes.
Teresa sat rubbing circulation back into her wrists and ankles. She stared incredulously at the costume.
"Wh-what is that?" she croaked.
"It's Halloween tonight," Willem explained. "Once you're off the grounds you can melt into the crowds of trick-or-treaters and disappear. Then you must go to the police."
"Halloween..." Teresa's eyes welled up with tears. "Dios! I...I've been a captive in this hellhole for almost f-five months?"
"Yes." Willem couldn't meet her accusing gaze. "I'm sorry. I'm risking my life to do this. I couldn't bear to see you killed - I...I've grown quite fond of you. The Master intends to make you his bride tonight. I can't let that happen."
He helped her shrug into the dress. It was a size 3 and fit almost perfectly, and the shoes were a bit big, but close enough to be comfortable.
Willem smiled.
"You are as beautiful as a princess."
She smiled back uncertainly as he handed her a key.
"There's a door at the end of this corridor, left side, that opens onto a staircase to the outside," Willem explained. "When you come out, you'll be at ground level and only twenty five yards from the gate."
"Then how do I get through the gate?" Teresa asked.
"There's a brass plate on the right pillar," Willem answered. "Press the last 'r' on 'Lederer' and the gates will slide open."
"I don't know how to thank you," she whispered, touching his forearm.
He smiled. "I've watched you suck him...how he writhes in pleasure until he comes in your mouth..."
Wordlessly, Teresa knelt and unzipped his trousers. His cock was long and thick and clean, and she swallowed it whole without gagging.
She was very good at what she did. Willem moaned as she sucked and licked and nibbled. Finally she managed to work his entire cock and his balls into her mouth, and she began to hum...
Willem came in her mouth with a hoarse cry, and Teresa swallowed every drop. She stood up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Now - bash me over the head with this." Willem picked up the stool and twisted one of its heavy iron legs out of its threaded socket, and handed it to Teresa. "I came to have my way with you. I took off the collar and manacles, but I didn't know you had taken out the leg of the stool to knock me out, and you escaped. He may actually believe it."
"I...I don't know if I can," Teresa murmured.
"You must - or we'll both die!" Willem cried. He kissed her quickly on the lips. "Good luck."
"Good luck to you, too," she returned.
Then before Willem could blink, Teresa swung her makeshift club with all her might and smashed him across the forehead with a resounding 'crack.' Willem dropped like a stone to the floor, twitching and convulsing, blood pulsing from his deep head wound.
Teresa dropped her weapon and eased out into the corridor, locking the cell door behind her. She regretted hitting Willem so hard; she may have killed him.
But this was survival.
She wasn't sure she could completely trust him. After all, he had stood by and done nothing all those months while Lederer brutally, repeatedly raped her, had listened to her scream and cry and beg for mercy. How did she know this wasn't a little game the vampire was playing?
Teresa desperately tried to shut out the moaning and begging of the other girls hanging in their chains as she hurried toward the door. She gazed straight ahead so she wouldn't have to look at their gaunt, naked forms, bruised and brutalized by months of captitivity, and she breathed through her mouth to block out the foul stench of their unwashed bodies. She opened the door at the end of the hall and fled, leaving the horror behind.
Once she got outside, Teresa gratefully gulped down great draughts of fresh air. Even though it was rife with the dusty scent of dry leaves, which skittered and clattered along the ground like bones, the scent seemed like a sweet perfume to her. A light rain was falling, and sheets of vapor wafted into the air around the floodlights on the lawn. She hurried over to the brick pillar at the end of the driveway and pressed the final 'r' in the embossed word 'Lederer' on the brass name plate.
The gates rolled back, and she was free!
She hurried down the sidewalk until she caught up to a gaggle of trick-or-treaters, thanking her lucky stars that she was tiny enough to pass herself off as an older kid. She blended in, trying to relax, to slow down the triphammer beating of her heart.
'It will be all right,' she told herself. 'It will be all right.'
Teresa heard the clip-clopping of horses' hooves and smiled. A big black coach drawn by two midnight black stallions was slowly rolling along the street toward her. The children in the group she was following laughed and clapped delightedly.
As she drew even with the coach, a tall, black clad figure stepped out from behind a tree and grabbed her upper arm and throat in a viselike grip.
It was Anton Lederer, dressed as Dracula! His opera cloak swirled about him, and his eyes blazed.
"Make a sound and I'll break your neck!"
