Linda Robertson - Vicious Circle

“But you’re a vampire. It’s dead flesh. It seems ridiculous to apply healing cream to the wound of a dead man. Won’t that just fester during the daylight hours and make everything worse? It’ll stink and—” I realized that Menessos didn’t smell like the bottom of a leaf pile. “Why don’t you smell?”

“What?”

“Most vampires smell rotten. You don’t.”

“I am not like other vampires.”

“That’s pretty much what I just said. Why?”

He caressed my hand. “Perhaps, someday, I will tell you.” He paused. “Please tend my wound.”

I laid out the gauze, tape, and antibiotic cream atop the kitchen counter and focused my attention on the horrible gash. Taking clean dishcloths from the drawer, I dampened one under the sink faucet and gave him the other. “To wipe with,” I said. After adding a disinfectant from the kit to the wet cloth, I squeezed the solution over the gash. Menessos sucked air through his teeth as pink water ran down his chest. “It hurts?”

He wiped the rivulets from his abdomen. “Of course it hurts. Do you think I don’t feel?”

“I guess I did.” I made certain to not make a disgusted face as I dabbed at the flecks of dirt and mud clinging to the torn skin. If he could bear the physical pain of this, then I could bear looking at it. “There’s dirt in there, and some splinters that’ll have to come out.” Now I understood how the true stake could have destroyed him, leaving pieces like these behind.

I rinsed the wound again. After pouring disinfectant over the tweezers, I used them to pick out the dirt and wood. Blood welled up anew, and I rinsed a third and fourth time to be sure I’d gotten all of the pieces out. “The skin where the splinters were is all gray now.”

“It will rejuvenate.”

I blotted it dry, as much as I could, and picked up the antibiotic cream. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

“If I feel pain, then I cannot be entirely dead, can I?”

I squirted the cream into the gash, way more than I thought was necessary, and held the flap in place, securing the parted flesh with three bandage-sutures and then covering it with gauze and tape.

When I finished, Menessos gently lifted my chin until I met his dangerous gaze. He said:

“Only when the sun’s light has fled

is my life lived and my hungers fed,

but I will live on and on, forever

if you will but swear to leave me never.”

He leaned in and put his lips to mine.

The mouth of a vampire is a dangerous, deadly weapon. But when used for pleasure…that weapon transforms into a sensual tool. Deep within me, my core shivered and sighed, yet an undercurrent of exquisite pain razored the edges of my tattered soul. I clung to him, as if we could become one and make this bliss last forever.

The smell of cedar and sage drifted to my nostrils and I woke as if from a dream.

“Johnny.” He stood in the doorway from the garage, stake in hand.

His posture was a rictus of pain; his expression was agonized. It was more than the blood drying on his face or his blackened eye, which was now nearly swollen shut. He was hurt. Emotionally. It was killing him to see me in Menessos’s arms and enjoying it. I thrust myself away from Menessos, but as soon as our contact broke, all the ease and comfort evaporated.

Pain overwhelmed my every nerve, contracting every muscle. My body rebelled against living. Anguish swallowed me. I crumbled to the floor, writhing, unable to speak.

“Destroy it now!” Menessos commanded, pointing to the living room. “The hearth is already aflame.”

Johnny tossed the stake up in the air and caught it repeatedly. My pain continued, but the pinpoint of it rolled back and forth with the stake’s movement. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“It is a dangerous time for you to try to change this situation. There is but one outcome here: the destruction of the stake.”

“See, that’s what I’ve been thinking about. Maybe I shouldn’t destroy it after all,” Johnny said.

“Look at her! She will die if you do not act quickly!”

“Oh, I doubt that. Though if she did, it would spare her from the horrors of the…affection you’ll force on her.”

“You care for her so little? Her death would mean nothing to you? Not hers, or her grandmother’s and the child’s?”

Johnny paused to consider that. “To rid the world of you, it might be worth it.” He stepped forward. Menessos retreated. I screamed in wordless agony.

“You’re killing her!” Menessos shouted.

Johnny took another step, and another. “I’m killing her? I am?” With each step, my torture increased threefold. I was burning. I was freezing. My skin was being torn off. My brain was buzzing as every nerve in my body sent contradicting messages of the kinds of torment I could experience. Death would be a welcome release. I started praying to the Goddess, begging her to grant me that outcome.

“Why, I wonder, are you not the one writhing on the floor?” Johnny asked Menessos as he stopped beside me.

I managed to roll my head enough to see Menessos where he had retreated. “She is mortal yet,” he said. “That is why her pain is greater.”

“Really?” Johnny knelt beside me. He laid the stake on the floor only inches from me. I screamed and choked, and my eyes welled up and tears blurred everything.

“You are killing her!” Menessos shouted, each word emphasized.

“No,” Johnny shouted back. “You are!” Softer, to me, he said, “He’s using you, Red. And only you can stop it.”

Menessos stomped a trio of steps closer, but Johnny grabbed the stake and held it before him. “C’mon!” he shouted. “C’mon! Let’s see what happens. Let’s see which of us wins.”

I blinked away the tears. Johnny was on his knees, rigid and trembling, but not backing down from the vampire.

“He’s using you, Red. Using the mark. He’s transferring his pain onto you, to keep himself able to act. This pussy is putting twice the pain onto the mortal woman and taking but a small, unavoidable dose of it himself.” He cracked the stake on the floor beside me again. “You have the power now. Right now. Not him. You do. Use it, Red. Use it. Take the stake in your hand—”

“No! It will kill her!” Menessos insisted.

“No, Red. It will set you free. It will burn away the mark he put upon you.”

“That’s a lie! The whelp is lying, Persephone! He is willing to sacrifice you and those you care about! He said it already. And if you touch that stake, you will die.”

“He just doesn’t want to feel the pain, Red. He knows he’ll be overcome like you are overcome now. He knows he’ll be weak. He knows I’ll stake him through.”

“Do not listen to this nonsense, Persephone. He cares nothing for you! He has proven himself a devious plotter and a backstabber. Do not listen to him!”

“Take it,” Johnny whispered. “Take it.”

I moved my hand, only a little. It was like reaching blistered fingers into boiling water. A whine left my lips. “Hhhhhurts. I can’t!”

“Do it, Red. Just do it. It’ll all go away.”

Menessos shouted, “No! It is your life that will go away!”

I turned my back on Menessos and rolled to my side, coming inches closer to the stake. “Persephone, no!” the vampire wailed behind me. “No!”

I looked into those Wedjat eyes.

All I could think was that I had asked for a release and the Goddess had provided one. I sucked in all the air my lungs could hold and summoned all my strength, all my resolve. I seized the stake and, clutching it to my chest, I screamed my last breath.

Thirst.