Preyblood

As Emily was swallowed up by the club, with all its riotous colors and dancing, pounding music, and sinuous writhing of bodies, she clutched the wooden stake tight in her hand. She hated hunting in places like this. It set all her old military instincts on edge. Watch your six, check the corners, keep line-of-sight to the exits - none of that made any sense in such a chaotic environment. She couldn't control what was going on around her. It made her feel defenseless.

Emily ran her fingers up and down the stake in her hand, taking a moment to feel the grain of the wood and remind herself of its heft. No, she told herself. She wasn't the defenseless one here.

She was the hunter. And the vampire nesting here was her prey.

It was a typical enough haunt for a bloodsucker. Dark, sensual, open all night, lots of potential, pliable victims. An ideal hunting ground. This one, in particular, was a lesbian club, and Emily had to grant the vampire a little grudging respect for that. It was the kind of place she might have enjoyed spending time herself if she wasn't on the hunt. Picking up a girl was a nice way to blow off steam, and what kind of lesbian wouldn't go for a tall, strong, athletic dyke in a leather jacket and combat boots? Just as long as they didn't mind that she was trans, anyway.

But that would have to wait for another night. Tonight, Emily could afford no distractions. She was an experienced hunter, but vampires were never easy to bring down. Emily kept her ears strained to hear over the loud music, and she kept scanning the room, searching for the slightest hint of reddened eyes or sharpened fangs. Nothing yet. In all likelihood, the creature was holed up in a private room out back or on the floors above. That was their usual way: a quiet little den, a place to sleep through the day and feed undisturbed at night. So, slowly and cautiously, Emily started making her way towards the back of the club, although she had to struggle to push her way through the tight crush of dancing bodies, made strange and hard to track by the dim, shifting, flickering, multi-colored club lights.

"Hello there, stranger," someone whispered in her ear. "Are you looking for a good time?"

Without warning, some girl - drunk, probably - was draped across Emily's shoulder. Emily did her best to brush her off, but the girl was clinging to her tight, entangling their limbs together.

"Hey," the girl drawled insistently. "There's no need to be so rude!"

"Not tonight," Emily grunted. "Busy. Out of my way."

The girl didn't budge. Wary of distractions, Emily kept scanning the club. The girl was pressed up to her side, and all Emily saw of her was a shock of long, curly, red hair. Still no sign of the bloodsucker.

"Come on now." The girl was purring right into her ear now. Her words sounded strange; it was as if she had a hint of some weird, old-timey accent. Maybe she was on something. "What's the hurry?"

"Looking for someone," Emily replied. She couldn't spare the energy to think of a lie.

"Aww!" The stranger made a pouty noise. Emily still couldn't seem to shake her off. She was surprisingly strong and clingy, for a party girl. "You're all taken already? I can't have you?"

"Not tonight."

"Who you looking for?" the girl whined.

Emily sighed. Maybe if she just answered, the girl would leave her alone.

"Letitia," she said. "Letitia Clarendon. Know her?"

"Oh!" the girl replied brightly. "In that case, I guess you're all mine after all!"

A single heartbeat after all the alarm bells sounded in Emily's head, she felt two sharp fangs plunge into her neck.

Emily didn't scream. She was far too much of a pro for that. All around her, people kept drinking, dancing, laughing - but the vampire hunter was keenly aware of the fact that she was in dire danger. Emily turned, thrashing, elbowing - but now the vampire was using all her unholy strength, and Emily could already feel the creature's soporific venom spreading through her body.

With each drop of blood Letitia Clarendon sucked from her veins, the vampire grew stronger, and Emily grew weaker.

"Get the fuck off me!" Emily roared. Mustering all her strength, she managed to wrench her body forward, out of the vampire's grasp. Emily had time to let out a single gasp of relief, before wheeling to face her foe, stake raised.

"I'm sorry, darling," Letitia sang. As lights flickered on, Emily saw pale skin, red lips, a wide smile, and blood. "I like it rough, see. And I think I'd like to keep you."

Emily was ready to strike. She was ready to defend. She wasn't ready for the vampire to surge forward and kiss her.

She felt the bloodsucker's lips against her own before she knew what was happening. The vampire was a formidable kisser, despite her grave-cold flesh; she teased Emily's lips apart effortlessly, and the vampire hunter found her mouth invaded by a tongue that was unnaturally long and impossibly nimble.

And that was coated in something that tasted of iron and sin.

A little of it had already trickled down Emily's throat before she figured out what it was. Blood. And not her own. Not human. No, there was something distinctly unnatural about the taste. The vampire must have pricked her tongue on her own fang as she moved in for the kiss.

She was feeding Emily vampire's blood. Vitae.

Emily recoiled violently at the sensation of that poison being poured down her throat. She tried to make herself choke it up, but the vitae was somehow sticky and slick in equal measure, and with the vampire's tongue prying her throat open, Emily couldn't keep it up. Letitia's kiss was equally as inescapable. She was wrapped around Emily like a serpent, coiling tight, clinging, somehow guiding Emily as the two of them stumbled and struggled.

"Come now." Letitia drew back, just barely, so she could hiss to Emily. Her voice was dripping with sour candy. "Let us get to know each other somewhere a little more private."

Before Emily could spit a reply, the vampire's tongue was back in her mouth, pumping even more of her poison past the hunter's lips. Emily was still trying to throw her off, but something about the blood she was unwillingly imbibing was robbing her of her strength. Her vision was blurring, and she was finding it hard to resist as Letitia dragged her through the club and out towards the back rooms.

To anyone else, they probably just looked like one more pair of drunk, horny, stumbling lesbians.

Once the vampire finally drew back and allowed Emily to take a breath, the two of them were in a large, private room, luxuriously decorated, illuminated by low, steady, yellow lamps. Emily bent double and heaved, trying to will her body to expel everything she'd just drunk. It didn't work.

"My, my," Letitia purred. "Aren't you a strapping thing?"

Emily looked up and, for the first time, got a real look at her prey.

Letitia Clarendon, vampire, was around a hundred years old, and came from an upper-class, old-money background. That was about all Emily's research had given her. The real thing certainly bore that out. Letitia was only medium-height, but she certainly carried herself like an aristocrat. She had long, red, rich, curly hair, high, arching cheekbones, and freckled, milk-pale skin, lit within by a slight, pink blush that Emily knew came only from the blood the vampire had just drunk. She had an aristocrat's figure, too; plump from indulgence, and all the more alluring for it.

For a moment, Emily was struck by the odd notion that, in another life, Letitia could have made for a perfect farmgirl. Soft, rosy, warm, sun-kissed. Instead, she was a pale, immortal predator from another age.

Letitia's attire - a floor-length dress, accented by no small amount of jeweled finery - was just as old-fashioned as her accent, but thanks to a few modern touches, probably let her pass herself off as some kind of devoted subculture fashionista. Anyone who looked too closely, though, would be sure to see that her apparent humanity was nothing more than a paper-thin veneer spread across undeniable monstrosity. Her eyes gleamed with a wicked, red light, she had a corpse's countenance, and two of her teeth were far, far too long to be natural. Still, there was an undeniable, elfen beauty to her undeath that stirred even Emily. She was having a hard time peeling her gaze away from the vampire's figure.

But more than anything else, Emily hated her. She simply hated her.

It didn't matter what they looked like. She hated every single one of those bloodsuckers. Emily had vowed to devote her life to hunting them down. Letitia Clarendon had already given her more trouble than any yet - but Emily was sure she could still put her down. A little exchanged blood didn't change a thing.

The stake in her hand was still sharp, and Emily still had the strength to lift it. That was all that counted.

"Darling," Letitia drawled, as Emily raised her weapon, "if you wanted to dance, you ought to have simply asked. You really are my type."

Emily's lips pulled back into a snarl. "Funny. Real funny."

"Oh, darling," Letitia tutted. "Who's joking? You're really quite the kisser, you know. Enthusiastic. I enjoyed it."

The vampire made a show of opening her mouth and letting her elongated drool out of her mouth, dripping some of her own black vitae onto the floor. As she lapped at her own fangs, polishing them clean, Emily was embarrassed to note a strange shiver race down her spine. She thought, unwillingly, about just how dexterous that organ was, and about how it had felt when it had forced its way into her mouth and down her throat.

Then she thought about how much of the vampire's blood she'd drunk. She'd heard stories, of course. Dependency. Thralldom. She didn't know exactly how much vitae that required, or exactly how much she'd drunk. Was it already doing something to her?

With all her being, Emily rejected that. She summoned up all her hate for the unholy, predatory creature standing before her, and spat it in her face.

"Fuck you." Emily's voice came out alarmingly thick. "Go fuck yourself."

Joy danced in Letitia's eyes. "You'd enjoy watching that, I'm sure."

"Fuck. You."

"Even more than you enjoyed our kiss, perhaps."

"Bullshit! Fuck you!" Why was it suddenly so hard for Emily to find her fire?

"Oh, darling." Letitia licked her lips. Another treasonous shiver. "I can see for myself that you're not being truthful. Slut."

Her eyes flicked down pointedly as she spat out that last, pointed syllable. Emily couldn't help but look down too, following the vampire's gaze. Once she saw it, her cheeks started to burn.

Emily was hard.

Despite the folds in her loose combat pants, it was unmistakable. Emily was hard. Harder than she'd ever been, maybe. At once, her bravado was undercut by embarrassment. Suddenly, the nature of her distraction was so much clearer. Emily's overpowering attraction to the vampire standing before her was buzzing in the back of her brain.

Emily immediately started flailing for an explanation. She was a lesbian, yes, but this was more than that. Normally, she would never allow herself to feel such longing for an undead monster like Letitia.

"Who cares?" Emily spat, with a fierceness she was no longer sure she felt. "You're about to be dust."

Letitia let out a loud, shrill laugh. "My! You really are something." She licked her lips once more. "Yes. Yes, I really must make you mine."

Emily snarled furiously. She decided to end this before the vampire could confuse her any further. Drawing on all her strength, all her hate, Emily raised her stake and charged forward. Vampires could be inhumanly fast, but Emily's combat instincts were honed to a razor's sharpness. She crossed the short distance between them in no time at all. As the tip of Emily's stake scythed through the air, towards Letitia's chest, she rejoiced as she saw that the vampire hadn't even raised a hand to defend herself.

Typical bloodsucker. Too cocky, and too slow when it really counted. It was already over.

Then, Emily's arm froze.

It took her a long moment to realize what had happened. At first, Emily thought that she'd hit some kind of forcefield, or perhaps that time itself had ground to a halt. Eventually, though, she realized that her muscles had simply locked up. Her limbs felt like iron girders. They refused to obey her commands, and Emily was left standing there like a scarecrow, paralyzed, stake held mere inches from its target.

Letitia's lips curled up into a smirk.

"W-what did you do to me?" Emily whispered. For the first time ever, she felt powerless on a hunt.

"You're taking to it well," Letitia noted, pleased. "Yes. Yes, I think we're going to get along beautifully, darling hunter."

The savage confidence in Letitia's voice made Emily step backward. Discovering she could move again restored her confidence, but that drained away again just as quickly when she realized that she still couldn't strike at Letitia. Every time she tried, her body rebelled. Something inside her was fighting Emily's commands. It was like there was something black and wet wrapped around her spine, pulling her nerve endings like strings, formed of an inexplicable reluctance to hurt the monstrous creature bearing down on her.

The vitae. It had to be.

"What's the matter, hunter?" Letitia chided. She took one step forward; Emily, one back. "Where's that adorable confidence? Where's that strength now?"

Emily opened her mouth, but all that came out was a strangled grunt. She kept backing away, but Letitia kept coming, and all that came into Emily's head were useless, childish protestations at the unfairness of the vampire's power.

Those, and stray, unwelcome observations about her unnatural beauty.

"Come now," Letitia chided. "Don't run. Let me get a proper taste of you."

Emily felt her back hit the wall. Nowhere left to run. Some hunter.

"Don't worry." Letitia's smile made her fangs look sharper than ever. "You'll enjoy it."

Until the bitter end, Emily tried to make herself strike at Letitia, but it was useless. Once the vampire's fangs pierced her jugular, even that rebellious urge drained away. By the time Letitia started feeding Emily more of her vitae, the hunter was far too weak to do anything but lap it up.

Shamefully, despite the blood loss, she remained hard the entire time.

***

Without real energy or enthusiasm, Emily once again yanked at the sturdy, iron chain binding her to the wall. Sitting, slumped, she watched forlornly as, unsurprisingly, the bracket didn't even budge.

There was no escape. But then, Emily had already figured that out a long time ago.

It had been weeks. At least, Emily thought so. All she had to count by were the glimmers of sunlight that passed through the cracks in the paint on the blacked-out windows, but she was starting to lose track of exactly how many nights it had been. At first, things like that had seemed important - counting the days, figuring out where she was and how to get away. Emily had the sense that she was somewhere high up, perhaps in the disused rooms a few floors up from Letitia's club. But over time, fear and boredom had given way to a kind of haze in which nothing mattered at all. She'd even abandoned the exercise regimen she'd planned to keep herself in fighting form for when the vampire came.

But when she came, there was never any question of fighting.

Letitia's irregular appearances were the only times anything at all seemed to matter. They were the only times Emily felt alive. Every time her ears pricked up at the sound of footsteps, Emily's breast swelled with a sick kind of anticipation, knowing that as soon as that strange, aristocratic creature appeared, Emily's heart would begin to pound again with a heady, uncomfortable mixture of hate and admiration.

It was the only thing she seemed to feel at all, anymore. There was nothing else. Letitia Clarendon's twisted gift had seen to that. Her unholy blood. Emily could feel the inky, black substance inside her, gnawing at her, hollowing her out. It was the stuff of her worst nightmares.

Emily didn't know how to fight it. All she knew was that she had to hold on to what she was sure of: her purpose as a hunter, and her violent hatred for the bloodsucker keeping her captive.

How long? That was the question she kept asking herself. How long until someone came for her? How long until she was rescued? Only, over time, as hope had grown fainter and fainter, that question had started to change. To mutate.

How long until Letitia comes to see her again?

A footstep. At once, Emily's pulse quickened. She was sure that a creature like Letitia could move silently, if she chose, but she couldn't help but be grateful that Letitia allowed Emily to prepare for her coming. To savor the anticipation. Emily drew herself upright, back resting against the wall, and listened to the steps getting closer.

In the last moment before the door opened, Emily found herself grinning.

Letitia Clarendon swept into the room like the night. She was dressed, as usual, in a huge, sweeping, Victorian dress, and adorned in other, equally-archaic finery. Her fashion, it seemed, had never quite kept up with the times. She was sharp, though. Emily knew that much. Letitia knew exactly how she looked, and how best to turn it to her advantage.

There was a gleeful spring in the vampire's step, like coming to see Emily was the highlight of her night. Emily couldn't help but feel a little appreciative of that. By the same token, being in the same room as Letitia made Emily feel sharper. On edge. Alive. It was a chance for her to spit her fire at the bloodsucker holding her captive. To assert herself. To hear her own voice spoken out loud without talking to herself like a crazy person.

And a chance to look. Letitia Clarendon really was astonishingly beautiful. More and more, as nights passed, Emily found herself dwelling on it. She'd given up pretending she wasn't stirred by the vampire's appearance. By her sensual presence. The evidence was all too pressing.

Emily kept insisting to herself that it was just because she was a lesbian, and just because she didn't have anything else to think about. That was why couldn't help gratifying herself to the thought of Letitia between visits.

"Good evening, Emily," Letitia greeted her, smiling. Showing teeth. "How is my hunter this fine evening?"

As she spoke, Emily noticed a fleck of crimson on the tip of one of her fangs. It made bile and choler rise in her throat.

"Not bad," Emily spat defiantly. She was still grinning. "Strong. How about you let me out of these chains and we can find out?"

Letitia let out a merry laugh. "Good, good! I'm glad to hear it. I wouldn't want you to lose that fine spirit of yours."

It was incredible how everything came into focus when Letitia was around. Suddenly, Emily's tongue cracked like a whip. She could feel sparks in her belly. It was so much better than all that numbness. Emily had to remind herself, forcefully, that the vampire's presence was no kindness. It was deceptively easy to forget that. Letitia Clarendon was coated with candy. Her words were thick with an overbearing sweetness that belied the malice beneath.

Emily knew better than to be fooled by such a transparently two-faced demeanor. But with Letitia, there was something slippery about it. Her presence was so undeniably pleasant and it was somehow a constant temptation to slip beneath the vampire's flow; to take her pretty face and easy smile at face value. To treat her like a friend or a lover, instead of a captor.

To forget what she was.

Again and again, Emily had to remind herself she was dealing with a monstrous predator. Why was it so easy to lose sight of that?

Probably because of her beauty.

"Of course not," Emily growled. "Why? What are you keeping me here for?"