even though we were in my
memento mori
’s backseat. I was too confused, too jumbled up by what had happened with the Wurlitzer in the real world to recall the ins and outs of vampiric metaphysics, but I wasn’t about to start explaining myself to an errant bit of S&M kink hanging about in my head, particularly one that hadn’t even bothered to shave her pits.
So I popped my fangs; the vague pain as they forced my other teeth to move aside paled in comparison to the constant tearing of my shoulders as her claws flexed inside, flaying themeat. A vampire’s pain receptors don’t work like the living’s. New pain hurts, but it’s fleeting. Once the damage is done, the pain fades, unless the wound keeps tearing, then the nerves wake up again. The chick on my tip (oh, good grief, now I sound like a rapper) . . . the vampire on top of me knew how to keep her claws moving, stoking the agony to new life over and over.
Unable to get at her throat, I sank my fangs into the tenderest flesh available and jerked my head back like a zombie tearing into a fresh corpse.
That’s not the worst bit.
Her breast came away, revealing rotted meat beneath. Decomposing flesh, the smell of it, filled my nostrils. Black blood seeped from the wound and I gagged . . . and came. That was the worst bit.
“Non! Vous êtes mauvais! Très très mauvais!”
Above me, she began to grow. A black tinge crept across her skin, the same color as my uber vamp’s.
“Oh,” I spit the hunk of rotten meat out of my mouth, “that’s not right. Who’re you supposed to be? My sire? What? Do I get to have an Oedipus complex now?”
Wings, long and leathery, sprang from her shoulders. I’d seen her before, or a representation of her. A stained-glass likeness of her fighting one of my ancestors could be found hanging in a hallway at the Highland Towers. My ancestor had been a knight. He’d been turned into a vampire. And he’d asked for forgiveness. It had been granted and he’d run away, had fled all the way to America, where I had no doubt that his ghost was embarrassed by the lot of us, right down to his great-great-whatever John Paul Courtney, and me in particular.
“You’ll pay for that, whelp!”
As the uber vamp, she still had hairy pits. I shook my head. “That just gets me. I know it’s probably chauvinistic or something, but . . . doesn’t that bother you?”
She was confused. So was I. This didn’t feel like a dream. Everything was too real.
“The pit hair,” I snarled. “Doesn’t”—my skin turned black and I started to grow—”it”—the wounds in my shoulder closed around her claws—”bother you”—my wings sprouted, pushing me away from the car seat, shifting us forward—close to standing—”to be”—purple light from my uber vamp eyes washed across her body—”so fucking hairy?”
I gain an extra three or so feet in stature, but my legs and torso aren’t the only parts of my body that get bigger. She grunted in acknowledgment. And, not to be icky, but so did I. We sagged against each other, momentarily overcome by the new sensation.
“It is true that I am your sire,” she said in my ear. “I do not understand how you managed such a thing, and for that reason alone you must be destroyed.”
I thrust in hard, bottomed out, and kept pushing. “How are you in my dreams?”
“Maybe you’re in mine,” she said, grinding against me.
“Shit.”
She licked my neck with a long gray tongue.
“Are we fucking or fighting?” I asked.
“Must there be a difference?” Her fangs pierced my skin, and it felt like ten-penny nails ripping through my neck. I struggled, but it was hard for me to get any leverage. I flapped my wings, pulling us skyward, but she was already letting go, smoke billowing from her mouth as she fell away from me.
“What,” she coughed, “have you been feeding on?”
“Mouser,” I said.
We hung in the air, held aloft by our wings, glaring at each other in the night. She tried
memento mori
’s backseat. I was too confused, too jumbled up by what had happened with the Wurlitzer in the real world to recall the ins and outs of vampiric metaphysics, but I wasn’t about to start explaining myself to an errant bit of S&M kink hanging about in my head, particularly one that hadn’t even bothered to shave her pits.
So I popped my fangs; the vague pain as they forced my other teeth to move aside paled in comparison to the constant tearing of my shoulders as her claws flexed inside, flaying themeat. A vampire’s pain receptors don’t work like the living’s. New pain hurts, but it’s fleeting. Once the damage is done, the pain fades, unless the wound keeps tearing, then the nerves wake up again. The chick on my tip (oh, good grief, now I sound like a rapper) . . . the vampire on top of me knew how to keep her claws moving, stoking the agony to new life over and over.
Unable to get at her throat, I sank my fangs into the tenderest flesh available and jerked my head back like a zombie tearing into a fresh corpse.
That’s not the worst bit.
Her breast came away, revealing rotted meat beneath. Decomposing flesh, the smell of it, filled my nostrils. Black blood seeped from the wound and I gagged . . . and came. That was the worst bit.
“Non! Vous êtes mauvais! Très très mauvais!”
Above me, she began to grow. A black tinge crept across her skin, the same color as my uber vamp’s.
“Oh,” I spit the hunk of rotten meat out of my mouth, “that’s not right. Who’re you supposed to be? My sire? What? Do I get to have an Oedipus complex now?”
Wings, long and leathery, sprang from her shoulders. I’d seen her before, or a representation of her. A stained-glass likeness of her fighting one of my ancestors could be found hanging in a hallway at the Highland Towers. My ancestor had been a knight. He’d been turned into a vampire. And he’d asked for forgiveness. It had been granted and he’d run away, had fled all the way to America, where I had no doubt that his ghost was embarrassed by the lot of us, right down to his great-great-whatever John Paul Courtney, and me in particular.
“You’ll pay for that, whelp!”
As the uber vamp, she still had hairy pits. I shook my head. “That just gets me. I know it’s probably chauvinistic or something, but . . . doesn’t that bother you?”
She was confused. So was I. This didn’t feel like a dream. Everything was too real.
“The pit hair,” I snarled. “Doesn’t”—my skin turned black and I started to grow—”it”—the wounds in my shoulder closed around her claws—”bother you”—my wings sprouted, pushing me away from the car seat, shifting us forward—close to standing—”to be”—purple light from my uber vamp eyes washed across her body—”so fucking hairy?”
I gain an extra three or so feet in stature, but my legs and torso aren’t the only parts of my body that get bigger. She grunted in acknowledgment. And, not to be icky, but so did I. We sagged against each other, momentarily overcome by the new sensation.
“It is true that I am your sire,” she said in my ear. “I do not understand how you managed such a thing, and for that reason alone you must be destroyed.”
I thrust in hard, bottomed out, and kept pushing. “How are you in my dreams?”
“Maybe you’re in mine,” she said, grinding against me.
“Shit.”
She licked my neck with a long gray tongue.
“Are we fucking or fighting?” I asked.
“Must there be a difference?” Her fangs pierced my skin, and it felt like ten-penny nails ripping through my neck. I struggled, but it was hard for me to get any leverage. I flapped my wings, pulling us skyward, but she was already letting go, smoke billowing from her mouth as she fell away from me.
“What,” she coughed, “have you been feeding on?”
“Mouser,” I said.
We hung in the air, held aloft by our wings, glaring at each other in the night. She tried
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