Ravenous (Triskaidekaphilia Book 2) Read online

  Under the blindfold, tears fill your eyes. You know what’s coming. You don't want it. (Liar!) You want… You want…

  Please, go on.

  He removes the lens cap once more.

  The beams of sunlight on your back were torture, but in some way, they were a kind of… impersonal torture. Sure, he cared; he loved you. Absolutely. But your behind is an empty country: shoulders, back, buttocks, legs, arms. Nothing like your front. No, that is far more intimate: breasts, nipples, your legs spread wide to display your pussy. More nerves concentrated in one area, far higher sensitivity.

  The dim beam touches your face—your forehead and cheeks and chin. Slowly, your lips start to blister. They’re the most sensitive part of your face. More saliva runs down your chin. You moan and try to move as little as possible.

  The beam abandons your face and creeps down over your throat.

  Now, the throat—that is a very special part for the People. You grab your prey by the neck. You drink the blood from the jugular. You never, ever let anyone touch your throat. Never.

  Warmth cascades over your neck. A thousand pins rasp your flesh. A thousand little teeth puncture your skin.

  It is so evil.

  It is so good.

  Soooo good.

  Wetness trickles between your legs. You’re surely dripping? You must be!

  His hand kills the beam. For a moment, the sweet waves of suffocating pain echo through your body. You swing in their rhythm.

  He isn't finished with you. Not by a long shot.

  The intense, small point of light burns a trace between your bosoms. The stench of burning flesh fills your nose. The pain is fucking intense, but you don't dare to take a breath. One wrong move, and the ray will burn one of your breasts, which is a thousand times worse. You know from experience.

  Down and down it goes. Stomach, belly, like an intense laser, like a surgeon cutting open a corpse for autopsy.

  Don't move. Don't move.

  Belly button. Lower.

  He won't…? No, he won't!

  The beam doesn’t stop but slowly creeps farther.

  Desperately, you squeak. You try to remember all the times you have been impolite, inconsiderate, or bad.

  There are always transgressions. They can't be avoided. Is he punishing you for those?

  I’ll be good! you beg, unable to speak out. Please, please! I’ll be good!

  The pain is paralyzing, excruciating.

  Farther, farther.

  No, no, no! (Yes!)

  The beam ceases to be, impossibly close to your clit.

  Finally, you dare to relax.

  “Very good.”

  His words are like a cup full of water in your dry mouth. He seldom speaks during play. He is… He is… You love him so much.

  For five, ten, twenty seconds, nothing happens. You hang in your chains and breathe, your thoughts a maelstrom.

  The concentrated sunlight kisses your nipple.

  From the deepest part of your blackened soul, you cry out.

  He is still not finished yet.

  You hang in your chains, completely gone. Your mind floats; your body glows. Hunger and lust are gone; all is gone. This is Zen; this is Nirvana; this is the core of the universe. Quiet emptiness, peace.

  On some level, you hear him approach. He has put the cap on the lens. The evil light snake has been put to sleep. You are safe.

  You are always safe with him.

  He unlocks your feet cuffs first. With one arm around your waist for support, he unlocks one of your wrist cuffs. How strong he is! A warm protector, your savior.

  Click. The last cuff is unlocked and you’re free.

  Limp, you put your arms around his neck. Without any effort, he lifts and carries you off.

  You know this route well. Door, hall, another room. Gently he puts you down on the bed. He undresses and slides into the bed next to you. He is so warm.

  Very carefully, he removes the gag from your mouth. His fingers pull loose your fangs embedded deep in the rubber.

  Ow. You are able to move your jaw again. You forgot what a joy that could be. You know you have a silly smile on your face.

  The blindfold is the last to go. It’s dark in the room but you can see. You see his lovely face and suddenly, you cry. He is your love, your Master. He has given you so much. You are his.

  He has one last gift.

  He takes your head, looks you in the eyes.

  “You can drink now, sweet.” He offers his throat.

  You bow forwards, your fangs growing once more.

  You drink.

  You are happy.

  About Jaap Boekestein

  Jaap Boekestein (1968) is an award-winning Dutch writer of science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and whatever takes his fancy. Five novels and over three hundred of his stories have been published. He has made his living as a bouncer, working for a detective agency, and as editor. He currently works for the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice. His English publications include stories in Cyäegha, Nonbianary Review, Strange Shifters, Lovecraft after Dark, Surreal Nightmares, Urban Temples of Cthulhu, Sirens Call, Mystery Weekly Magazine, and Double Feature Magazine. http://jaapboekestein.com/

  SARA DOBIE BAUER

  Forever Dead

  Zach Mede, brilliant detective and famed vampire hunter, had to know I could smell his blood from ten miles away, even if we hadn’t seen each other in two years. He was holed up in a shitty motel, the kind traveling detectives stayed in when on a case in a fancy city like New York.

  I broke in no problem and found him standing, broad shoulders curled over a cheap desk covered in papers and photos of blood-spackled corpses. He didn’t hear me come in, so I knew the case was big shit, his mind on autopilot. He didn’t even know I was there until I had my hand around his throat and my nose in his hair. Large muscles tensed in my embrace, and I saw him eye the big, fuck-you silver knife on the edge of his desk.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” I whispered.

  He hurled an elbow into the side of my ribs, but I recovered before he reached his weapon. I took hold of his hair and knocked his skull against the nearest wall. The only sound he made was a quick hiss of air. By then, I had his right arm curled behind his back, my whole body pressed against him.

  I bent his arm up higher until he choked on a groan.

  “Should I break it?” I asked. “Just snap it right in half?”

  “Fuck off, Dario.”

  “Is that how you speak to an old pal?” I smiled against his cheek and kept twisting until he yelled. God, I loved that sound. “Beg me to stop.”

  He didn’t speak, just tried to shove back against me, but I had him trapped.

  “Beg me not to break your arm. Detective.” I grabbed onto his hair and wrenched his head backward. His face twisted in pain and his eyes closed. I knew how much he hated to beg, but I was more than willing to wreck his obscenely stacked body until the sun came up.

  Five silent beats before, “Stop.”

  “I didn’t hear you, sweetheart.”

  “Please.”

  I let go, and without my grip on his arm, he wavered and slumped to one knee. Maybe I rattled his skull a little too hard. I stood above him and watched him clench and unclench his right fist.

  He rubbed at his shoulder. “Dick.”

  I snickered and took a seat in the only chair in the room, the one by the cluttered desk. “Didn’t know you were in town.”

  “Vice versa,” he muttered and stood with his fingers on the wall. He put his hand to his head, but he wasn’t bleeding. If he were, I would have been on him like flies on shit. Even with him unscathed, I had trouble keeping myself off his throat.

  I flipped through photos of corpses—obviously vampire attacks—but Zach shoved my hand away with his massive fist. I stood to remind him: No matter how tall you are, tough guy, I’ll always be the bigger man.

  “You think you can be in my time zone and not get nicked?”
I asked.

  He stared me down, eyes the color of a moonlit pond. “I don’t have time for this right now.”

  I popped open the top button of his dark blue button-down, half untucked due to our earlier altercation. “You always have time for this,” I said. I dragged him to me by the back of his neck, dug my fangs into the skin beneath his collarbone, and was rewarded with a knee-shaking moan.

  Zach rested on his stomach in the hotel bed, which gave me an opportunity to explore the muscles of his upper back with my always-curious fingers.

  “You’re bigger than last time.”

  “Mm.” He turned a page in the case file he had leaned against a pillow. Sweat soaked the black, black hair that hung in snaky tendrils down the back of his neck.

  “Don’t put on too much weight or you’ll look like a Neanderthal.”

  “I don’t have enough hair to be a Neanderthal.” He tensed when I sunk my teeth into the skin below his left shoulder—just a nibble. I ran my tongue over the open wounds, and he flipped another page.

  Pissed off at being ignored, I reached around him and threw the damned case file on the ugly hotel carpet. Before he could reach for it, I covered his body with mine and licked up the side of his neck. I pinned his wrists to the bed above his head and continued to kiss until he finally ground up against me.

  “That’s my boy. Always ready for more.” I sucked hard where neck met shoulder. My chest shivered when he made a deep humming noise. Oh, the things that human could do to me. I loved when he was beneath me, helpless like that. I loved controlling him because no one else could.

  “Do you ever think about how we met?”

  He grumbled what could have been a yes. Then, he said, “You were about to kill me.”

  I first saw Zach Mede when he worked SWAT. His team tumbled into this blood club in Miami. Word was vampires were killing humans in the club bathrooms, a serious no-no in the so-called modern world where vamps and walking blood bags were supposed to live in unity. Instead of going along peacefully, a gang of male vampires, myself included, fought back at the injustice of the bust.

  As fate would have it, I got matched up in hand to hand with Zach. I was so impressed with his strength and speed, I let the kid beat the shit out of me. He didn’t move like other humans. He moved too fast, and I suspected he’d been trained by one of my own. Oh, yeah, and he smelled good, looked good. Something about that black hair; those angry, dark eyes; and the immensity of his shoulders—I just let him whack away at me until I decided to play dead. I snuck out before they could cuff me and then tailed him home.

  I politely let myself into his apartment.

  He wasn’t even out of his shoes when I threw my first punch. I lifted him about ten feet off the ground and dropped his dead weight on the kitchen table. I pinned him down and let him know, “I was just playing earlier. Now, I’m gonna kill you.”

  He didn’t even yell when I tore at his throat. He barely struggled. Guess he figured when your time’s up, your time’s up. But then his hands were in my hair. He made a pleased “ung” noise, and I felt him, hard against my thigh. Before I knew what the hell I was doing, my mouth covered his parted lips. I shoved my tongue against his teeth, setting up imaginary flags that said Mine, mine, mine. My hands slid over his chiseled stomach, down the front of his pants until his hips rolled and he groaned some more.

  I distinctly remember the sound of clothes tearing as I sought bare skin. That first time was and always will be a ménage of images, sounds, and smells: Zach’s tan chest, his pleasure-pain moans, and the blood that pooled down the side of his neck.

  I took him right there on the table, where I quickly learned the young cop was a pain slut. He wanted me—all of me—hard and fast until I was calling to God and Satan and anyone who’d listen and we ended up on our sides on his living room floor. I drank from him until he passed out, a mess of sweat, blood, and semen.

  I called an ambulance, because I would not be responsible for the death of something so fucking precious. That was ten years ago.

  Zach didn’t cuddle. He never cuddled. After I had him again in the hotel room—rough, the way he liked it—he headed to the bathroom for a shower. I stayed in bed and, curious, reached for the case file I so inelegantly tossed a half hour before. As expected, a string of human murders, purportedly by vampires. That was Zach’s specialty. He was known far and wide as a human to be feared. He had a vampire vendetta, you could say, which I found funny since he was more than happy to be fucked by one whenever our paths crossed—a secret for several reasons.

  One: An infamous vampire hunter lost a lot of credibility if he was sleeping with the enemy. Two: A vampire rights advocate (me) lost a lot of credibility by sleeping with an infamous vampire hunter. Three: We both had a lot of enemies—human and immortal alike—who were just looking for a soft spot.

  For me, Zach was more than a soft spot. He was a gaping hole in my chest. Not that I’d ever tell him that.

  The water turned off in the bathroom, and a moment later, he walked out, fully nude. He was a six-foot-five plane of muscle. When we first met, he was without blemish. Now, his body was a map of violence. He had several scars on his torso and upper legs, but only one I recognized, a bullet wound that almost stole him from me forever.

  When he noticed me with the file in my lap, his jaw clenched.

  “Jesus, don’t worry. I won’t spill anything on it.” I tossed the file on the table by the bed and watched him step into an impossibly tight pair of black boxer briefs. My teeth marks were everywhere: upper chest, lower chest, shoulder, and inside thigh—places you’d only see if Zach was in the buff. I liked to think he wore my marks like secret trophies. There was even a mouth-shaped bruise where I’d sucked his neck hours before.

  God, I was hard again.

  He sat on the edge of the bed with his back to me.

  “What’s up with the case?” I asked.

  “What are you doing in New York, Dario? You hate the cold,” he said.

  “I get bored. You know that.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck like his muscles might be sore. They probably were after the acrobatics we just pulled. “A vampire is murdering people.”

  “It happens. Why are you so obsessed?”

  He looked back at me. “Who says I’m obsessed?”

  I chuckled.

  “She’s jumping cities.”

  I leaned forward. “You think it’s a she?”

  “Yeah. Witnesses say the victims leave bars with some chick, but she never looks the same. Redhead. Blonde. Brunette. Long hair. Short hair.” He buried his head in his hands. “Fuckin’ chameleon.”

  “How do you know the murders are connected?”

  Zach seemed hesitant to say. He fell onto his back next to me and stared at the ceiling.

  “What?” I asked.

  “She’s leaving me notes.”

  Something twisted inside me, something bad, like a tiny gremlin chewed my diaphragm. “You personally?”

  “Yeah, me personally.”

  “Show me.”

  “No. You’ll get pissed.”

  “I’m already pissed. Show me the fucking notes.”

  He reached for his phone on the bedside stand. I watched the glowing screen light the sharp edges of his face. Absently, I brushed hair off his forehead, which made him shoot me a glare. He didn’t like when I got cute.

  “Here.” He handed me the phone.

  I scrolled through photos taken of hand-written notes, each splotched on the edges with blood. The script was small, feminine, and easy to read. She addressed each note to “Detective Mede.” The notes had nothing to do with murder. The notes read like love letters. You’re stunning in that grey suit… What’s your blood type?… I wonder what talented things your lovely mouth could do… All signed XOXO.

  I wasn’t exactly pissed. More terrified. This woman, this killer, reminded me an awful lot of myself.

  After I almost killed him ten years ago, I watch
ed Zach for weeks. He spent the first couple days in the hospital, recovering from blood loss and what the doctor termed “rape,” which Zach kept carefully under wraps because he knew it wasn’t true. Our first time was consensual, albeit sudden and rough, but what can I say? I didn’t think to carry lube with me everywhere. When I closed my eyes, I still heard the sound of him panting yes. I learned his name by looking at his hospital chart one night. Yeah, I was that careless, that hungry to be close to him.

  I watched him whenever I could. He was a model cop at work, where the investigation into his attack went cold due to, I suspected, some illegal evidence tampering by my “victim.” Zach was hard-hitting, rude, really an asshole at the precinct. At home, he was always alert. Maybe the kid knew I was watching; maybe he was waiting for me.

  I knew it couldn’t go on like that forever. I couldn’t keep watching him through glass. I needed to be in the room with him again, needed to feel his skin and see him this time, every movement of muscle below flesh, every crinkle of his face. The first time had been in the dark. I made a promise I would never have him in the dark again.

  The night I snuck back into his apartment, he was in full health, watching TV. He stood when he saw me, gun in hand but hanging useless at his side. Cops knew guns didn’t stop vamps, just slowed us down. It was a comfort thing for them, like a grown-up teddy bear.

  Back then, we’d only been “out” for about five years, following a long-in-the-making, highly organized media blitz. Back then, humans had yet to harness silver: hadn’t put the stuff in syringes to keep us under control; hadn’t made hundred-percent silver bullets, knives, or chains—things that could kill us, along with the sun.

  “What do you want?”

  I gave him credit. His voice didn’t shake. I could hear his heart like a staccato drum beat in his chest, but his voice was a flat line.

  I put my hands in my pockets and leaned back on my heels. The only thing creepier would have been if I’d whistled the Mister Rogers theme song. “I had originally planned to kill you.”