Blood Relations - Chapter 22

December 18, 1997

Vicky walked into the kitchen, but stopped in the doorway. Her mouth stretched in a wide, warm smile at the scene playing out in front of her at the kitchen table. Claudia  nursed  her one-month-old son, Devin, while Amber sat beside her. In front of Amber was a bowl, and judging from the scent, the contents were a mixture of hamburger meat drowned in human blood.

Red blood dripped from the corner of Amber’s mouth, and blue blood trickled away from Claudia’s breast in runnels. Devin’s first fangs left dozens of holes around his mother’s nipples while he fed, and Claudia had switched him over to her other breast while she drank a glass of blood and waited for the damage to heal.

Both women wore serene expressions, a mother and an expectant mother sharing a quiet moment together.

With the crisis averted, everyone had abandoned their posts to return back to normal life, or as close to normal as halflings and magi ever got, anyway.

Marcus left, returning to his magic training with his family. He’d decided he couldn’t put up with watching Amber picking up all of Vicky’s “worst habits.”  Rather than being hurt, Amber took it as a compliment. Which made Marcus that much more upset, and Vicky suspected the two would never be getting back together. The knowledge pleased her, though she didn’t say so to Amber.

Ellen remained for another week, but she stayed to request a favor from Emil. He taught her to read and speak daemonic tongue. Ellen took her lessons directly from his mind, but it still took her the better part of four days to master speaking the hissing language without lisping an accent onto her words. She left without explaining her interest, only saying that the skill “might come in handy later.”

Vicky never did get a chance to talk to Alexander, but she suspected the distance he kept between them was only natural. He was not fond of her because she was constantly putting his partner at risk from one major threat or another. He said nothing directly, but his cool stare accused her every time he had to be in the same room as her. When Alexander left, Vicky was relieved.

The rash of murders in the city became a sad statistic that were lamented upon for two full weeks. But, true to human form, there were other, more heinous crimes to panic over soon enough. All of those crimes were committed by humans, a fact which gave Vicky some measure of comfort. No one would ever suspect the vampires for the unsolved crimes, because human monsters were always working hard to match the vampires for their brutality.

Amber pulled Vicky from her thoughts, asking, “Are you planning on painting a picture?”

Vicky smirked and nodded. “You never know. I just might.” She walked over to the table and leaned over to peck a kiss on her partner's bloody lips. She licked her lips, laughing before she said, “Oh, that tastes good. I’ll have what you’re having.”

Amber beamed a close-lipped smile, being self conscious about the raw meat stuck between her teeth. “I got the urge for something solid today, so I went to the store.”

Vicky frowned with instant disapproval in her expression. “Amber, it’s not a good idea for you to go outside. You’re getting close to your first feeding frenzy, and the city is still quaking in fear from your last misadventure.”

“I’m being careful,” Amber said. “I didn’t walk to the store.”

“Driving isn’t much better.”

Amber shook her head. “I used a shadow portal. The only temptations I had were in the store, and my common sense kept me focused on getting the meat and leaving.”

Vicky nodded and withheld her next comment while she started making her own breakfast. But she still worried, because Amber would find common sense was in short supply once she went into a feeding frenzy. Still, Vicky had larger concerns to worry about.

The nightmare blood was gone from Amber’s system, but Dimitri’s influence couldn’t be purged from her mind. The wyrm’s subliminal gift, a small collection of magic spells, had slowly unfolded in Amber’s memory.

The portals were one of four shadow spells she’d learned, not including the healing spell. The portals were the most useful, but also the most disconcerting. Amber’s scent was masked when she slipped into the inky shadows she cast, and once inside the shadow plane, she could direct the portal to move anywhere rapidly. Her first experiments panicked the entire house, who thought she’d been taken by Dimitri again. They were still edgy every time she “vanished,” but there was little they could do to convince Amber to stop experimenting.

The portal spell was what she played with most, while the next most frequently trained was the healing spell. Vicky didn’t care for Amber’s practice at all, because Amber wounded herself, often deeply.

Amber wanted to learn how to focus through her pain so that no matter how much she was suffering, she could still perform the spell. In the process, she was also upping her tolerance for pain, pushing her threshold higher with each injury.

She should have been covered in hideously long scabs, but every wound healed without traces of a scar. As with the portals, casting the healing spell became second nature.

Over the next few weeks, the other three spells unfolded in Amber’s mind. She could cast a circular scrying shadow, but she couldn’t find a use for it yet since it required knowing the location of her targets. It wasn’t possible to just think of a name and have the shadow pick up their grey-toned images. Instead, the view was a camera that Amber had to concentrate to move and direct.

After a few fly through viewings of the city, Amber settled on using the scrying shadow to spy on the neighbors just before bed, a dull soap opera sometimes made more interesting by their early morning sexual routines.

Next, Amber picked up the ability to summon shadows. She could plunge a room into total blackness, even overpowering the electric light bulbs and blinding the vampires. But because they could pick her up by her scent, and because Dimitri wouldn’t be affected by the parlor trick, Amber found it the least useful of her talents.

The last ability was only a few days old, and Amber discovered it during a healing spell training session. She stabbed her outer thigh with a butcher knife and sliced the blade free instead of pulling it out. The result was a jagged tear that had spilled a great deal of blood on the floor.

Amber asked Vicky about who should lick it up when her pained smile fell, and then her eyes glazed over.

Vicky assumed she had gone into shock until Amber yawned widely, her lips rounding in a frightening O shape. The inside of her mouth was lost in inky shadow. But it wasn’t a shadow. It couldn’t be. The kitchen light was on, and a real shadow would have dissipated, even under the weaker light cast by the low watt bulb.

The thing in Amber’s mouth was more like an oily black fluid that she’d retched without leaning over. The slick tendril hung from her mouth in a seeming perpetual fountain while the bottom spilled onto the floor and spread out over the blood. It lingered an instant before it whirled back up into Amber’s mouth.

The floor was clean, and only the blood on Amber’s leg remained. Amber asked if Vicky wanted it, but for the first time in her life, Vicky didn’t have an appetite.

The memory of the latest spell was so disturbing that Vicky almost lost her appetite again. But she forced away the memory and settled herself at the table between Amber and Claudia.

Her attention moved to the door when she smelled Emil. He walked into the kitchen, and his mouth twisted in a lopsided grin. She asked, “First impression?”

“How very Norma Rockwell,” he remarked and rumbled a chortle. “Where did you get the hamburger?”

“I used a portal,” Amber said. “Oh, I already boiled a kettle for tea. Help your self if you want some of the water.”

Emil nodded, but his smile softened. He tried not to show his concern as he went to the freezer for a teapad, but the sentiment still flooded his eyes.

Magic casting made him nervous, even with his advanced age. His agitation was even more apparent while he dunked the gauze pad in his cup. He jerked the string so fast that he flicked bloody water all over the counter.

He stared at his tea, trying to sound casual as he asked, “Have you picked up any new spells?”

“No, not since the feeding spell came to me,” Amber said.

Vicky shuddered at Amber’s label for the spell. “Can’t you think of some other name for it?”

“I know it looks gross, but it’s really a clean way to feed.” Amber shrugged. “I don’t think I’d use it while drinking a bottle, but I admit it could be handy in cleaning up after myself, knowing what my dull fangs can do to repaint a room.”

Emil and Vicky exchanged another worried look. Vicky’s frown spread wider, and she began to glower at Amber. “You’re talking like you want to go on a hunt.”

Amber stared back with a thoughtful expression, her tongue playing with a piece of meat stuck between her teeth until she accidentally punctured the tip on her upper canine. Her fangs were admittedly sharper than the month before, though not much longer.

It was a minor pain, and her face barely twitched as she nodded. “Maybe I am, but why do you say it like it’s a bad thing?”

Vicky’s mouth opened, and her gaze rose up to Emil, who smiled and offered her a shrug. “I—I don’t think it’s a bad thing, in theory. But you’re close to your first frenzy, and it’s safer if you stay at home and feed from the stock.”

Amber sighed. “I know you want to protect me, but the syrup from the pets is just that. It’s got no flavor to it because they’re all too happy to bleed out for us. Somehow I doubt there’s a way to get terror bottled without sending away a pet for good.”

Claudia rocked back her head and laughed. “Spoken like a true vampire.”

“Yeah, but she isn’t a vampire, Claudia,” Vicky said. “After our child is born, Amber’s going to come back to her senses, and she’ll have to deal with everything she’s done.”

“What, you think I’ll go back to being my old self again?” Amber shook her head. “There is no going back to innocence, and there’s no way to take back my magic blessing. I’ve given that up to become more like you.” Amber leaned her head over, a look of confusion spreading across her pale face. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes,” Vicky agreed quickly. “Of course I want to share everything with you, but I’m also scared for what will come once you’re no longer a blood drinker.”

“Vicky, it’s a problem that’s still almost a year away,” Amber said, leaning over to take her partner’s hand. “If you want to share everything with me, then let’s go hunting tonight.” Amber smiled, her expression becoming mocking. “Or are you worried that with my new abilities, I can outvamp you?”

Vicky squirmed and made a weak smile. “Do you have any idea how much like a teenage whelp you sound right now?”

Emil chuckled. “I was just thinking that.”

Amber waited until he lifted his cup before she asked, “Why are you laughing? That would make you a child molester.”

Emil coughed on his tea, and for several seconds, he had trouble deciding whether he wanted to growl in anger or howl with laughter.

***

Amber sat on her haunches, perched on the ledge of a building while she watched four men take turns beating a homeless man. Her mouth was parted in a wide, cat-like grin, and her brown eyes were shining under the light of the half moon suspended above them.

Vicky didn’t need to ask what Amber was thinking. The men below were perfect targets for Amber, since she would feel no guilt for their deaths later on. The justification might help her to alleviate her guilt once she was back in touch with her human side.

“The night is young,” Amber said. “You can pick up the next victims, but this whole set is mine.”

Vicky laughed, but there was a nervous edge to her voice. “Aren’t you taking on a little bit more than you can shoulder for your first kills?”

Amber shook her head. “My first kills were Jane and John, a lovely couple who Dimitri fed me to prove a point.” Amber hunched over, and laid her fingers on the brick wall.

The shadows under her fingers lengthened into black lances, and the four shadows merged into a long wavering serpent which slid silently down the wall toward her prey.

“Stay here, and I’ll show you something I know you’ve never seen before.”

Before Vicky could say anything, the shadows opened underneath Amber, and she slipped into the inky pool so fast she blurred.

The serpent grew as it descended to the ground, the front of the body peeling away from the wall to take on a bright glossy shine on every one of its scales. Hollow pits in the head swelled red, forming blood streaked eyes with veined black shadows completing the illusion of pupils.

Amber was literally draining herself to complete her illusion, but Vicky couldn’t be angry. She was too mesmerized by the surreal image of the giant anaconda growing out of the wall.

At the head of the alley, another shadow was forming, forming in a solid wall to block out most of the light in the alleyway.

It took Vicky another moment to realize no one driving past the alley would be able to see either. Amber was cloaking the area in shadow to make sure there were no witnesses.

The men looked up from their victim as the light from the streetlamps dimmed, and their voices raised in shouts of terror once they’d spotted the giant serpent. The men gaped with terrified, pale faces. They were unable to move until long after the lower body pulled away from the wall and spread to full thickness, coiling across the pavement to block the back end of the alley.

There was no way to escape, and the men shouted the same stupid confirmation to each other before someone pointed at the fire escape ladder near the serpent’s tail.

The man who pointed it out ran, and the serpent’s tail lashed out to knock him back into one of his buddies.

The serpent’s mouth yawned open, and Amber sat curled in a ball on the serpent’s tongue. The head was raised at just enough of an angle for Vicky to see her. Amber lifted her head, her gaze searching out Vicky before she winked.

Vicky smirked as she thought, Show off. 

Amber rose up slowly and stepped onto the pavement, her white lips pulling into a tiny doll-like pout while she splayed her hands and held her arms out to her sides. She looked like an oversized doll in her black dress, and only her body’s distorted proportions  and her thick platform boots spoiled the illusion. Her breasts were far too large for a child doll, and yet still too small for a Barbie. The size of her arms were too thick for either type of doll, and her stomach was swollen, though she was still not heavy enough that she’d developed a waddle to her walk.

But while Vicky didn’t fall for the poor impression, the four men were a rapt audience who didn’t notice the imperfections.

Amber walked with a stiff, mechanical stride, her head leaning until it almost touch her shoulder. Vicky shuddered involuntarily. Amber was imitating Annul’s jerking motions once he possessed a human. She had ventured into the darkest parts of herself, and there would be no returning to the good, sweet Amber of the past.

This horrified Vicky, and it delighted her too.

The men groaned, sick with misery. They were frozen in place, quivering like rabbits under the gaze of a python while Amber approached them.

Amber raised the pitch of her voice as she whined, “Will you play with me?”

She opened her mouth in a wide yawn, and from where she perched, Vicky couldn’t see the black ink of the feeding spell. But she shuddered again as her mind conjured a memory of the magical feeding appendage.

Amber retched, and the black slick ejected out and up to form a wide wall, a tidal wave that splashed over the entire alley.

When it retracted, all four men were gone. Nothing was left except for their crumpled clothes. Amber drew the feeding spell back into herself and raised her head to grin at Vicky. She pointed, and Vicky looked near the dumpster, uttering a soft laugh.

The victim of the men, a homeless man who had been knocking on death’s door, lay asleep on his side with a blissfully calm expression. He was completely healed from his injuries, and without a single bloodstain on his tattered clothes. Amber healed him in the same instant she’d cast the feeding spell, and she’d “cleaned” his clothing by absorbing the blood. She did all of this while holding up the illusory serpent and casting a shadow spell to dim the light. The amount of control she had over her spells was nothing short of incredible.

The snake dissolved as the bum woke up, and Amber went to him, kneeling down as she took his hand. The shadow wall at the head of the alley melted, and the sthe lights in the alley flicked back to their full brightness.

“Hi there,” Amber said.

The homeless man was silent for some time before he said, “I was just being attacked, wasn’t I?”

Amber shook her head. “I didn’t see anything. You look fine to me, so maybe you should go to the hospital and check yourself in for a hallucination?”

Vicky snorted and clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

When the man had been sent away and Amber returned to the roof with another less dramatic portal spell, Vicky nodded her agreement.

“Very good, Amber. You just outvamped me.”