Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) (2 page)

Her long brown hair shifted as needles in the wind, exposing her supple veins. “This is what I want.” Her voice almost silent, clarion only to his ears. She panted, waiting, wishing for it. Her lips pale, flush with the idea of what was about to take place.

A streak of lightning set fire to the night, illuminating the privacy they had sought out so carefully. The shade of the oak held the only mystery as the sky gave away the secrets of all others around them. The area was euphoric, extending far. Just as it came, it was seen and gone. Everything went black in a hush that left a yearning.

Before he could answer, the demon within had spoken. His fingertips were not his own, stripping the fabric away from sight. Her flesh intoxicating, he grasped the back of her head with intention. His right hand cradled her slender exposed neck. The once gentle fingertips that used to caress, now drove into her, piercing the skin of this clearly willing girl. She tensed, letting the pain subside to her newfound pleasure. This was welcome to her, an essential feeling to getting what she wanted. His face caressed hers in an embrace, a passionate deep kiss led to his tongue drawing a line away and down to her throat. His lips susurrus to her ears. His fangs wet, sharp, he entered her in one motion.

Her breath was quick with her heart. Red flowed, soaking, flooding the once dry clothing that remained. Her bra the only intact article concealing her well endowed breasts. The warm liquid cascaded down her chest, her long black skirt absorbing the rest of the pain. Her inspiration heavy, she exhaled in ecstasy. Her arms wrapped his cold back, she loved this. With each mouthful he took, she told the experience to the empty shadows.

The demon spoke without words. She heard his voice in her blood. “You are the sacrifice that will culminate my rebirth. You are the gateway to my desires, your blood the road.” The phrase not meaning much to her completely focused and enthralled mind.

He smiled as he drank her life. She shifted her hips towards his, attempting to connect them further. He pulled her left leg up high, tight, close to his side. Her quiet moans filling his keen ears with music. He pinned her to the tree with force.

This was exactly what she had asked for. To be with someone that needed her as she was, as the inhuman monster she really was. This was ephemeral, but needed. She wanted something more than the normal vampire. A difference in power, to be influenced, to be controlled, a pressure that could be felt instead of told. A demon within the nightmare of the world.

He continued to devour her. She gasped, trying to ask him to stop. Her mouth dry, unable to speak, the words lost on her glazed mind. Her arms failed her, falling as the blood continued to flow. It was terrifying her. It was enticing. It felt eerily good. The intensity climbed, washing over her as he bore deeper. The sensation filled her being. She stared into his black eyes as she lost consciousness.

The storm descended as her eyes closed. It wet their bodies through the filter of the leaves. The blood spilled, mixing into the roots below. This was not unpleasant in her mind, only unexpected. It was a way out of her existence. She accepted that she was about to die.

He had consumed her. Her body stood soulless and broken against the tree. He eased back to reveal her torn neck, it flopped to her right in the damning weather. Her stained skin void of life, he held her in place. His eyes examined her up, then down. She was beautiful after all, his tastes were more than appeased, his palate quenched. This was the result to many nights of temptation in his eyes, under his tongue.

“Amber from the vein.” His voice dark and piercing.

Her blood painted the tree, a lucid red.

The night sky bled and obfuscated the loss. With a glass moon high in the heavens, he set her to rest, propped low against the tree where she lost her once virgin life. Turbulence shook the leaves from above, attempting a simple burial. Wind rustled the field, throwing her tattered clothing from her eviscerated body. She lay there, empty. The flesh now a shell of the person who once trusted him.

His eyes shined black in the solid midnight beneath the oak. The crack of the thunder marked his soul, the spark of the lightning his memory. There was a small, seemingly insignificant remnant, willing to accept the evil he had done. Convincing him the blood was a necessity, that she had to die, that she had wanted it. It was persuading him to eat, to feast and siege conquest on the world for more. Its insatiable will whispered softly to the dreamer inside, it influenced him with this vision of things to come. His voice echoed through his lips, staring at her with all his guilt. “This is what you are. The intriguing flavors you secretly salivate and intensely lust for.” He smiled, it was becoming a part of him. It tasted pure, coating his mouth. Silky, it quenched his thirst.

Viewing the once animate youth ravaged before him. It was done. His fists shut tight against himself. He knew this was wrong. He wished his closed lips would obey. He wanted to prove he was not the monster he had become. There was deception here. Deep inside the corners of his mind, he enjoyed the depravity. He sweetly craved it, aching for its presence. His mind torn to the solace of the finished sanguinary act.

His eyes closed. The red apparition somehow soothed and calmed him. It was speaking directly now. It was murder. He could hear it above the raging storm coursing through him. It forced upon him glimpses of her dead body, a sight of torment. “The vast ocean of power I can grant you. The encompassing absolution of being I offer, to walk without equal as an abomination among monsters. To be feared as no other.” The voice sighed inside him. It's breath warm on the back of his thoughts. “Am I truly so disgusting? Is this not what you asked for? Do I not tempt you? Offer you what you need? Do I not wet your tongue with my invitation?”

Fear swept him, his choices were not sovereign. His gut knotted in indecision. The hot blanket of seduction that had cloaked him was convincing. It was generously welcoming. He hesitated, not knowing the demon's destination or his own. He could feel his soul slipping, a grip once tight, now failing him.

“Let it happen, give yourself to me. All you ever have to do, is acknowledge me. Your soul will satisfy my desires, my requirements.” The voice was commanding. It spoke as a god dwelling in the recesses of his senses. It continued. “Rip, tear, rend, and swallow the blood like milk.” The demon inside beckoned with a sadistic suggestion.

He was unsure, the deal was tempting, even acceptable in a sick flight of fancy. The power was enthralling. His confliction was disturbing, he was not a murderer. He knew as much, as he doubted his own integrity. It was tempting, wet in his mouth, keen on his fingertips. Absolute strength on a level unrivaled. The knowledge that no other being would ever be able to contest him. It was a spectacular promise. It was seductive.

The voice posed its question a final time. Its confidence was unrelenting. “Is my simple price
so
steep,
so
dire, costly, that you would die a fool's death to deny me the path fate has allowed me to etch in the stars?”

* * * *

Sleeping silently in a single twin bed tucked tightly away in the far corner of a small room was a young boy that quickly roused from a bad dream. Sweat beaded off his forehead to his short black hair as his breath eased. He believed this nightmare was behind him. Opening his dark brown eyes to a white ceiling. He lay motionless for moment. Thinking about the dream he had. The seductive nightmare that he couldn't look away from. He felt each sensation, every caress, every bite. It was a visceral dream.

The young boy sat up. His sheets fell to the end of the bed. His clothing the only layer keeping him cool through the prior night. A black cotton t-shirt, dark blue cotton sleeping pants, and a pair of white socks clung to his thin, average physique. His five foot seven frame small for his age. He lived in a mostly normal room for a teenager. Complete with a black study desk, a silver low-cost nineteen inch television. Some video games placed on a few small white shelves. A brown clothing dresser in the corner, rounded out the room. A single closet next to the foot of the bed held his limited wardrobe. The room was painted a light sky blue with a white ceiling for contrast.

Three pictures were hanging up on the wall by his small bed. The first was framed in a dark cherry wood frame. It was of his parents when they were younger. A tall young man with brown hair and a small thin woman with short nearly pure white hair. The flash of the camera gleaming red in her eyes and not his. The second was framed in a newer, cheaper case. It was of him as a boy, riding a blue sport bicycle for his birthday. The kind you might find at a local garage sale. He was eight, as it proudly proclaimed at the top of the photograph in black crayon. The third was in the same type of frame as the first, an expensive cherry wood. This one was of him and his father in a large field of farm wheat. He was ten. They were running as the picture was taken at the length of his father's arm. He appeared to be very happy and content in the scene. The wheat went on for miles past the view of them in the foreground. It was surreal compared to the other two ornate decorations on the wall. It calmed him.

It was the last days of May, spring had loosened its grasp on the season. Summer had come and begun to set in. It had been four days since the middle school he attended had let out. The temperature had risen, breaking into the high nineties on an average northern Florida day. The light had fled from the sky, though it influenced this boy's room little without a window present. He had been asleep through most of the day. The near absolute black providing a wonderful environment for rest.

The solitary boy that lay in the bed was Zack Giver. In the past weeks, he'd felt different from his callow history. At fourteen, there was a longing in Zack that needed to be filled. Something that he had to do, unknown to him that was pulling at his mind. There was no pressure, no consequence to his life choices. Zack required a calamity to challenge him. He wanted to get out of his own world and pursue a goal, a hobby, a person. Zack didn't want his life to become atrophied.

Zack had been going through a sudden change, a cultural shock of sorts. He had grown very little during the previous summer. His two best friends moved away. They had grown faster than Zack, nearly a foot taller. He was due for some catching up. Zack was developing a stigma against the idea of entering high school. He would be picked on because of his height, his frail nature, and his silver rimmed glasses. It was gnawing at him.

Zack sat up on the edge of his bed. He tried to remember the dream he had. Knowing that it was important, only Zack didn't know why. He was feeling restless, unable to stay in one place for too long. Zack thought he needed to be somewhere, to be doing something.

The alarm clock on Zack's old mp3 player kicked in with an agenda. It blasted a fast paced song that he had loaded into it a week ago. It was by Buckethead, it was not a song you could easily ignore. Zack leaped to hit the snooze button on the music station. His concentration was lost. The moment of remembering the dream was gone. Zack felt he had something greater to do than sleep all night or wait for school when autumn came around again.

There was a knock at the door. It was Zack's father, John.

John Giver, was a pool designer that learned to be a landscape architect. With the decline of pools in the greater Gainesville area, he found it hard to pay the rent as of late. John was good at his job, too good in fact to not get any repeat business. His pools didn't wear down, they didn't need maintenance. All of his work was done so perfectly that when John finished, he never needed to come back. Florida already had all the pools built it would ever really need.

Forever optimistic, John trudged onward. His new career in landscaping paid well, however sporadically. Living each month with newfound opportunities in mind, John recently turned to Zack to help with a part-time job for the last few weeks of summer. He had told Zack that it will build character. Not to mention keep them from being evicted if business didn't pick up.

Zack squinted his eyes and sighed. “Coming. I just got up.” Zack drug his hands over his face, attempting to claw himself awake.

Zack wasn’t opposed to the idea of a part time job. He just had reservations about working a day job. He had no clue what type of occupation he wanted to pursue, or even what was available in town. Zack didn’t own a car, he couldn't even drive it if he did. Zack didn't own a bike, since it was stolen from him on the last day of school. He didn't have a way to get around town at all. Zack wanted to help contribute to rent, thinking it might help his father relax when it came to each bill that arrived in the mail. It was a problem. Zack worried what it meant for their future. He wondered if his dad would need him to work this side job permanently. Zack didn't want to hold a job into high school. He didn't need that level of responsibility. Zack was hoping he could quit at the end of summer. He had a lot on his mind. So many thoughts about what could be and what might be soon.

Zack took a deep breath, then laid back down in his small bed.

Three weeks earlier, Zack was pulled into the counselor's office. He was asked the simple question of what he wanted to be when he grew up. Zack didn't answer. He thought of everything he was interested in, but nothing came to mind. Zack recalled every grueling moment as the counselor disapproved, stood up, and told him to think about it over summer. Zack liked art, he was good with a pen. The career of an artist wasn't something that appealed to him. Zack was accomplished with a little poetry, he just didn't think he was good enough to sustain himself as a writer. Thinking it would be a good job to write poems for a living, he still researched it. Zack decided it wasn't for him when he found out it didn't pay well for even the most talented. That the best he could get would probably be at a greeting card company. He loved the guitar, but didn't like playing in front of people. Zack had no clue of what he would be happy with. In the back of his mind, he wanted to do something with his mind, but he couldn't figure out what. It was beginning to stress him more as the summer had already come.