That Which Haunts You

This is chapter seven of an ongoing story.

Hello readers and thank you for showing up! This is the penultimate chapter! And the final chapter is already written so technically the story is drafted! I'm looking into self publishing options and looking for cover art. I plan to keep it up here as well because I like Literotica and want to support the last few algorithm -less creative spaces. After 8 is posted I will edit the document as a whole. Goals are to develop Rhea more, tighten up the story, and deepen character and dialogue overall.

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that writing takes forever and your growth depends on honest feedback. I have amazing beta readers: Berry, a hilarious, talented, and so incredible at story structure. I say this every chapter but he made the story coherent. Ash is so insightful and added so many beautiful and romantic touches. And James, who whipped the whole thing into shape and offers a great perspective! Thanks all!

Rhea took long, deep breaths as her body leveled. There was a towel hanging on the headboard. Lucy grabbed it and wiped her face. She laid next to Rhea, who curled into her. Rhea ran her fingers across Lucy's ribcage and down her belly.

"We need to be careful with that," said Lucy.

"With what?" asked Rhea.

"All this biting," said Lucy. "You like it too much." The vampire smiled to herself, eyes closed. She stretched her long body. Rhea rolled on top of her.

"So what?" asked Rhea. She ran her hands over Lucy's breasts and squeezed the soft pink skin of Lucy's nipples between her thumb and forefinger. The vampire arched up.

"Small amounts of blood over a short amount of time," Lucy's voice faltered, lost in the sensation, "Human system can't take it. You saw Drew; it drives you mad and makes you obedient. Keep at it and the human will change." Her lips parted as the pleasure played across the fine bones of her face.

"Into a vampire?" asked Rhea.

Lucy placed her pale hands over Rhea's to halt them. She nodded. "The magick is strong but the effects are slow and painful," said Lucy. "And not just for my victim-- those times I'm not myself. The Gift may refuse to yield and there's a chance I'll never come back. We have to be careful."

'Victim' rang in Rhea's ears. "Do you like drinking my blood?' she asked.

Lucy covered her face with her hands. "Christ," she whispered. Rhea brought her lips to Lucy's breast and teased the nipple with her tongue. It drew a small gasp from the vampire and her body relaxed beneath Rhea.

"That's the problem" answered Lucy.

Rhea's tongue circled softly as her hand caressed the other breast. Even in repose, Lucy's body belied wild strength. Her smallest movements had smooth cohesion, precise as a dancer. Rhea could sense the magick of the Curse. It was a cold current that ran within Lucy that felt separate from her blood-warmed skin. It made Rhea acutely aware of her own fragile, aching body.

"What does my blood taste like?" asked Rhea. She rolled her hips a little, astride the vampire, chasing sweet friction as the small muscles deep within her still shuddered from climax.

"Like blood, what else?" responded Lucy. "But the taste of blood, for me, means peace. For a little while." Words drifted from the vampire, now all half-whispered sighs and shudders. Her nipples

were

sensitive, thought Rhea. The witch's curious fingers touched them first gently. Alight with pleasure, the vampire's body slid and moved across the soft sheets. Rhea squeezed the tender pink flesh between her fingers, and Lucy groaned.

Rhea liked seeing how Lucy responded. This moment didn't feel quite real. Rhea wanted to pretend she had all the time in the world for this moment. To take Lucy apart and let their sex be a hazy mirage of reprieve that swallowed her up. She licked a senstized peak and suckled it a bit. The talk of taste filled her thoughts and she wanted so badly to bring pleasure to Lucy's body.

Rhea kissed the flesh of Lucy's lower belly and bit down. "Look at you," whispered Lucy. "Still eager in the face of death." Rhea glanced up, wondering what she knew. Rhea then licked the skin and bit it, with the hope it would leave a mark. Lucy made a gasping laugh and Rhea settled between her legs.

Lucy was ready for her. The scent of the vampire's sex thickened as Rhea ran her finger through the reddish hair that grew sparsely across the tender field of skin. In looking, Rhea felt a wordless surge of desire. Hunger; the damned thought would taunt her forever. But the pull was merciful in its way as it displaced all else.

Rhea brought her mouth to Lucy's sex and sought the vampire's pleasure with her tongue. For a brief moment the initial shock of tasting her, sharp like vinegar, made Rhea worried she had gone too long between lovers. But Lucy was warm and she was wet and Rhea loved seeing her this way so much it hurt. Lucy looked down her body and met Rhea's eyes.

"Don't stop," begged the vampire.

Rhea did not. The witch groaned as she stretched and dragged her tongue across the slick pink skin then slipped it inside the vampire until she could strain its base no further. "Yes," groaned Lucy. Rhea fucked the vampire with her tongue until she felt a satisfying ache through her jaw. Lucy said it again when Rhea took her clit into her mouth. Her body squirmed and Rhea gripped Lucy's hips so her mouth would not wander. Then just sounds and more half-whispers, over and over again. Rhea was immersed, drowning in her until Lucy's body convulsed in climax.

Rhea pulled away and sat on her knees. She watched Lucy, her legs still splayed open as she made wheezing shudders.

"Are you ok?" asked Lucy and Rhea started in realization. She had zoned out. "I"m fine." She rubbed Lucy's calf. "Just worried. About everything he said."

The vampire opened her arms and Rhea lay next to her. Lucy was uncharacteristically quiet as she traced her fingertips along the skin of Rhea's bicep. Rhea regretted alluding to Braga, but it was too late. The sheen of the afterglow dulled as soon as Rhea's thoughts began to churn. He would move soon. And they would need to be ready.

"Has Braga lost control? With bloodlust?" asked Rhea. It might change things if he was mad, though for better or worse she wasn't sure. Lucy lifted her head in confusion. "This is strange pillow talk. Are we getting right to business?"

"You saw him-- through the link?" asked Rhea.

Lucy rubbed her eyebrow, "The vampire you saw? That's him. I walked beside him for decades. He's grandiose and never satiated. Even when victims were piled at our feet, my last still bleeding out because I could drink no more. Why?"

Rhea rested her cheek on the vampire's shoulder. "He's coming. Soon," said Rhea. Her lips moved against Lucy's bare skin.

"What?" asked Lucy. She lifted her torso in alarm and Rhea grudgingly sat up with her.

"Think about it. Why would he show me how he killed them?" answered Rhea. "Just to threaten you? That doesn't make sense. But that public display was intentional." Lucy's phone buzzed from where she left it on the kitchen island across the room. The vampire ignored it.

"He has a penchant for drama, I'll give him that," agreed Lucy. "But he won't kill me because I'm not worth the headache. To murder another vampire without cause would make him vulnerable, and he's not untouchable."

"He's not after you, Lucy," said Rhea. "The threat was a distraction.The party was supposed to be a trap. They were counting on that thing still being inside me, undiscovered." She shuddered as she thought of the pustulous sac she coughed up on the mountain."I would be under her control. And then they would do to me what they did to Janice."

Lucy sat on her side-hip. Her hair spilled forward across her shoulder like a wild landscape. Rhea continued, "But it didn't work. So they went to Plan B and let me go. To give me enough time to tell all the others back on the island what I've seen. And then the next they hear of me, I've been murdered. He thinks the other witches on the island will fold to his demands and give him what he wants out of fear."

Lucy stared hard. Rhea did not feel worried or distraught, although that could be a concern in itself. It was a relief to string the jumble of inevitables into coherence.

"What if we fled?" said Lucy. "Together. We could hide. I'd find a connection to get me some serum, or you could make it."

For one reckless, shining moment, Rhea let herself imagine it. She and Lucy in a city where no one spoke her language, holed up somewhere. But Rhea couldn't make the serum. Even if she had half equipment she would need, she had no idea how to use it. Lucy couldn't be too far from vampire clusters. And Braga would find them. If she survived, she would go on to live a witch's long life and the shame of abandoning the coven would be too great to bear. Rhea reached out to Lucy, who leaned in and pressed a kiss to Rhea's lips. Rhea ran her hand down Lucy's bare back. Lucy shifted. Rhea thought it was strange that a vampire could be ticklish.

"If the worst happens, find a way to end the spell," said Rhea. "Don't let them keep me there. In the cyclone."

"Darling, please," said Lucy, pained.

It was late at night.

Because sunlight sickened vampires and drained their power. Could even kill them. She needed to hurry. The work needed to be finished before sunrise, or it would all be for nothing. They didn't have a choice.

That's when Marcella knew she was dreaming.

Marcella had strange, unhappy dreams these days. Every morning Greta grilled her for details, scouring for anything that might help Rhea. There was little to share. She dreamt of smothering darkness, disembodied voices, and flashes of white.

Except last night. The flashes coalesced and Marcella found herself looking at the nude corpse of a dead woman through the eyes of a stranger. Marcella watched as the stranger reached a white-sleeved arm out and caressed the belly of the corpse. A cold chain hung heavy from her neck.

Then Marcella recognized the body-- it was the dead witch, murdered that first night!

The shock of it sent her right back into her body, and she woke up with a start. Kivan assured her it was normal, that she could have more control in time.

Now she was back in the body of that same stranger. It was a woman who wore an apron over her white dress; the heavy chain around her neck was gone. Her deft fingers were busy at a table, chopping. The woman's joints ached. Marcella noticed a wandering sensation erupted throughout her body. It was painful, like stinging nettles that tried to break through her skin from the inside. The pain died back after a few moments, but the sensation never stilled. It roved her body to erupt again elsewhere.

It was as if a great force was trapped inside the stranger's body, restless like a stolen tiger that paced in its too-small cage. The pain was so sharp, Marcella didn't know how the woman in white managed to stay standing. But the woman didn't seem to notice and thought only about the rising sun.

The woman paused to smooth an errant strand of hair in a nearby mirror. Lustrous and very dark, it hung in long waves that reached mid-bicep. Marcella watched the woman gather it into a severe style at the top of her head. Her pale face was beautiful like a vampire but Marcella sensed she was a witch. She never winced at the pain of the restless entity within her. She was elegant and radiated sophistication. Her brows looked like fine brushstrokes of ink on her porcelain face that adorned wide, round eyes, the color of green olives.

The woman now thought of a vampire called Braga as she clicked on the electric coil burner that rested on the table. He was dissatisfied because she hadn't yet delivered on a promise. She'd come to pity him. His wealth had dwindled over the centuries. His castle was under siege by a world he didn't understand. His brides had left and he could barely maintain control of the humans he'd enthralled to serve them. He was a sorry creature who cowered in the face of time.

The fool hadn't even known the potion could kill vampires.

She knew she terrified him.

For Marcella, being the woman in white was exhilarating. When the woman whispered over the chopped plants as she crushed them with a mortar and pestle, her flesh, blood, and bone were flushed with power. It was touching a sparking livewire and a chorus of one thousand at maximum volume. But still nothing that would help Rhea.

The woman dipped a small metallic scoop into an urn. She dumped a handful of sullen gray pebbles into her palm. Marcella's heart leapt-- human ashes. She could speak to ash and bone; all necromancers could. Rhea herself had taught Marcella to revere ash both as conduits to the beyond and a gift for those left behind.

As the woman held the ashes. Marcella held them too.

Marcella felt every cell in her body come alive as they beckoned to her. Yet the woman in white seemed not to notice their radiant power as she was unfazed by the pain. Marcella wondered why the woman would even use ash, a basic tool of death magick, if she couldn't hear its voice?

But because Marcella heard, she saw something the woman in white did not.

Memories stored within the ashes came like a vision to Marcella. They were the remains of a young girl who died at 12 years old. The first memory was the girl's mother. They shared the same round face and deep blue eyes. The mother called the girl Lyse and one day sent her to confession.

"Abhorrent!" spat the priest.

Lyse's memory jumped to the confession booth. "Abhorrent!" said the priest again through the latticed wood. His voice had a sharp, wincing affect. Lyse sat frozen; she felt his vitriol through the shadow. She told the priest she hadn't confessed for over a week. She had just started her monthly cycles and the pain kept her sick in bed.

"Have you any idea what you've done?" he seethed.

He spoke with outrage. She could scarcely breathe as the close, dark walls squeezed inward. She heard the priest stand and the door of his cabinet creak open. Then footsteps and the creak of her own door. Sunlight that streamed through the stained glass window now poured into the dark compartment, color flitted like hummingbirds through blinding white.

There stood the priest. His long black robe sloped up his torso toward a band of white around his neck. His large head sat on his shoulders. His skin was dry and pasty white. Webs of delicate red veins grew in patches on his cheeks and nose. A fine sheen of sweat lined his upper lip. He reached out his hand and told her to atone, she needed to follow him.

Then Lyse was in the woods with the priest. They stopped in a clearing circled by trees. The sun was low and soon it would be twilight. There was a heavy boulder, partially buried. The portion of rock that came up from the earth had been sanded smooth and flat like a table. A long blade sat between two red candles, flames flickering in the wind.

The priest told her the altar was for the Blessed Virgin. The girl would need a sacrifice.

She had nothing.

The priest was incensed. How could she come with no sacrifice? The girl begged-- let her return to her family. They will help.

There was no time, said the priest. But there was another way.

He stretched out his arms and cried out words she could not understand. His nasal voice carried through the clearing. There was a tremor. Marcella, through the doomed girl's eyes, watched as the surface of the earth split apart. A long, jagged crack crawled through the soft grass and yellow dandelions if the world itself was a fragile frozen lake. As it ruptured, cleaving layers of earth and stone, the gap glowed red and gold. The priest told the girl to kneel down and breathe the vapors from the earth. She obeyed. The vapor burned her lungs. When she tried to pull away the priest grabbed her hair and pushed her head forward. She screamed.

Soon there was nothing left but ash.

Marcella's vision faded. She looked at the ash that sat in the palm of the woman in white and wondered how much the woman knew of Lyse. If anything at all. But the woman maintained her placid pace and poured the ash into the mortar with the green pulp of the mascercated plants. The pestle laid beside it.

"Lara," someone whispered. When she turned, Marcella saw a vampire hovering in the doorway.

"Braga," the woman said. Marcella felt Lara smile, pleased the vampire barely dared to whisper her name. She reached out a hand. Then Marcella's sight was swallowed by darkness.

Lucy wriggled away Rhea's soft touch.

"If Braga is coming for you, we need to move."

Rhea rolled on her side. Her belly hung with the motion.

"That's exactly what they want," explained Rhea. "Braga and that woman in the white dress. They think our first move will be to get as far away as possible."

Lucy's face contorted as the unhappy logic settled in her mind. "What do you know about the witch who was with him?" asked the vampire.

"Not much," Rhea said, "But she's the one who did the spell. So whatever power Braga has, he's still not capable of it on his own. She gives it to him."

"Shit," said Lucy. She stood and began to pace. "Together we could manage one but..." Lucy's pale body glowed in the lamplight. It was strange to see the vampire so vulnerable. Braga and the woman in white were counting on them falling to despair. Rhea resolved she wouldn't.

"We need," Lucy's voice stuttered. "We need reinforcements. I'm calling my brother." A few moments later she groaned in frustration. "Voicemail," she said. Her fingers flew across the glass face of the phone.

Rhea didn't quite hear her. "That guy at the party--the woman in white siphoned his life force. That must be what they are doing to Janice." But they didn't seem to care about his body at all.

Lucy's phone buzzed in her hands. "Patrick's calling, darling, hold on." It didn't sound like a bad idea to have extra strength handy. Braga and the woman would come for her before sunrise.

They needed a witch. The bodies of witches were somehow different.

Marcella floated in a peaceful dark.

When her vision returned, Marcella thought Lara was again staring at her own reflection. Until the image began moving on its own. Marcella realized she now watched the world through Braga's eyes, the vampire who lingered at the threshold. He walked towards the woman, conscious of appearing determined.

"Alfonso," said Lara and scratched his whiskers with her dagger-red nails. In one graceful movement she gripped his wrist and held it down on the counter. She was strong and Braga tried to hide his shock. Marcella saw the woman's face swell with glee at her own strength.

The vampire struggled but she held him firm.

With her free hand she selected a nearby knife. She lifted his wrist and said "Open your palm."

He obeyed.

"Tonight," she said. Her soft voice had a whispery, eager quality. "It will all be yours." After waiting for centuries, the dawn of his return to glory was at hand. And he will have taken one of the most hated witches among his kind. Her power would soon be the terror that ravaged her hidden world.

Lara drew the blade across the skin of his palm and guided his hand above the mortar's bowl. A few drops of blood leaked and splattered onto the ashes that lay waiting. The mixture began to bubble. Lara whispered in a language Marcella did not know but, nonetheless, the girl recognized the words. The priest in Lyse's memory said them in the clearing. Now Marcella understood them.

Ashes and blood

Do shred the veil

Braga watched Lara, her back to him now. She pressed the bloody slurry through a strainer and into a small dish. She slowly added boiling water, drop by drop to smooth the mixture. She turned back to the vampire and sliced her own palm with blade.