Alice Henderson - Voracious

Her hands clasped behind his neck, his dark locks framing their faces as they kissed. His bare skin there was deliciously hot-

A young archaeologist, laboring in the hot sun at the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur, looking up, startled, then terrified as claws and fangs rend him apart, tongue darting into the spurting throat and red cavities filled with warm, soft organs. Sweet knowledge of ancient times, intoxicating power.

Madeline’s eyes snapped open as she jerked her hands away violently. The very tongue she touched had tasted the flesh of that archaeologist. Stefan’s dark eyes watched her curiously.

“I can feel what you see,” he breathed, closing his eyes in ecstasy, bringing a hand up to her face. She knocked it away harshly. He remained close, still pressed against her.

She turned her head away, fighting with a fog that surrounded her senses, dulling some sensations and stoking others feverishly. Putting a hand on his chest, she tried to push him away, but he brought his hand up and closed it over hers. The warm olive skin was callused, and he stroked her hand.

The phenomenal scent swept over her, filling her head, singing to her mind and body. She tried to shake it away, but it engulfed her in a voluptuous cloud, like the smell of an incense-laden Buddhist temple. He bent his head closer, breathing her in. His arms wrapped around her back, one hand gripping the tree behind her.

Closing the distance between them, his lips brushed against her cheek, then her lips. His scent effused her very being, and she couldn’t concentrate on what she’d just seen, could barely remember it. The exquisite haze drifted around her, luring her until her fingertips ached to touch him, and she trembled with desire.

The red cotton shirt he wore buttoned down the front, and she slid her hand inside, feeling the muscles of his chest move as he held her.

In the vast white expanse of the Arctic, a French-Canadian explorer running desperately across jagged ice, slipping in smooth spots, sharp edges slashing through his boots. Behind him drips of blood trail across the pale surface of the ice. The creature, running close behind, licking blood from the ice, breath frosting in the frigid air, alive with the hunt, excited as it draws to a close. It leaps on the explorer’s back, ripping through the fur coat, the shrill cries of agony music to the predator’s ears. Biting deeply into hot, steaming flesh, tongue lapping up the coppery blood. Dragging the body off to enjoy, to digest, to ingest knowledge, the explorer’s memories of the far corners of the earth.

Madeline shoved the creature away. He lost footing on an exposed root, stumbled, and righted himself a few feet away. Drawing the back of his hand across his mouth, he looked at her with hungry eyes.

“What are you doing to me?” she asked, bringing a hand to her forehead.

Still, the dizzying mist swam around in her head, clouding her judgment. Chemical attractants. That’s why she found him so irresistible. He was a killer. A violent predator who devoured his victims. And through her visions, she’d seen him do it, felt him do it.

“You’re a murderer,” she said, feeling so light-headed she had to grab the tree to stay standing.

“Yes,” he said, straightening up. He walked back toward her.

“I’ve seen your victims.” She shook her head lightly, trying to dispel the cloud.

He closed the distance between them. The exquisite scent of him filled her senses again, called out for her to touch him.

“And that’s just it,” he said softly. “At first I desired your ability. Can you imagine the power? I would know where my victims would be next. Stalking them would be all the easier. I could know what they were thinking, when the best time for attack would be.” He brought a hand up, stroked her hair. She pushed him away, but war erupted within her, half of her repulsed and the other inexorably drawn. “But that night on the road, you amazed me. I had no idea how… fine-tuned your gift was. You saw things I had done, places I’d been and even I’d forgotten. I could feel you filling me, feel your thoughts, your visions, as forgotten memories ignited inside me. You drew those experiences out of me. The power of your mind was unequaled to anyone I’d tasted before.”

He kissed her feverishly, cradling her head in his hands. He tasted so good. It couldn’t just be chemical attractants, could it? Could they be this powerful? She wanted him. In the core of her being, she wanted him. Her body ached, throbbed at the thought of it.

He pulled away, eyes sinking into hers, peering into her. “I’ve been alive for a long time, Madeline. Traveling from country to country, century to century. Even I don’t remember all the places I’ve been or the people I’ve known. I’ve acquired so many memories that talking with people has grown painful for me. I’m so aware of how much younger they are. They’ll never know everything I know, never be on a par with my experiences. They don’t have a chance in hell of ever understanding or even knowing me. I’m so old that sometimes I feel insane, filled with the world and its wonders, its terrors and tragedies.

“And I have become one of those terrors, Madeline.”

He embraced her. Her face pressed into the warm crook of his neck, his long hair enveloping her. She felt sharp claws sprout, digging into her back. “I never feel more alive,” he said, “than when I’m tasting someone, devouring their being. I learn what life meant to them. What scared them, what made them love. Through their flesh I experience their childhood, their first love, marriage, and talents… oh, the talents. Those are the best part. Being able to play the violin like a virtuoso, or map any sea route you could want to take, to know the heavens as if you’ve spent a lifetime studying them as a Mayan astronomer, to understand the secrets of the universe as the Newtons and Einsteins of this world do.”

He pulled back, watching her again, his eyes no longer green but deep red and reflective, with no pupils in the scarlet pools. They flashed with an inner luminance and ancient power. “I know darker secrets, too, Madeline. Some secrets I’ve almost forgotten. And some secrets I’ll never forget for what they’ve done to my body.” He lifted his right hand, the fingers grown into sharp, black claws.

With his other hand he continued to hold her, breathing in her scent. “You could know me,” he said, eyes flashing again. His right hand became scaled, reptilian, skin there a multitude of greens and grays. Then the olive skin returned, the claws withdrew to long fingers. “I want you to know me.”

Intoxicated, she stayed there, next to him, filled with a passion that suffused her being.

But somewhere in the recesses of her mind, the murdered ranger swam into view, bleeding body hanging over the rafters. Noah followed that image. Noble Noah, who had hunted the creature tirelessly. Obsessed Noah. She thought of his sandy blond hair, kind green eyes. Of those last desperate hours before he’d completely lost it. He’d been trying to stop a killer. Her killer. What was she doing here then? What was she thinking? “Noah…” she whispered, wondering if he’d ever regain himself again, fight and crawl his way back to sanity and once more find purpose.

“Your thoughts are still with him? After all the terrible things he said to you?”

Madeline tried to find words. Couldn’t.

He grasped her hand. “You and I are closer than he ever will be to you. He could never understand your depth. He’s old, yes, but he’s single-minded. He has thought of nothing but revenge for the last two hundred years.”

She looked away to where the sun sparkled on the river.

“I can give you so much more. You’re already so powerful. I can add to that power.”